Case study #1:
Players are playing with a new DM, and find a scroll of wish. One player wishes for a million gold. The DM shrugs and says “Okay.” The campaign becomes unbalanced, and subsequently falls apart.
In order to prevent this, some DMs try to uphold the balance by following the wish to the letter, usually ignoring the intent in the process. An example of this is in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Where a player wishing to become henceforth immune to all damage is eradicated from the multiverse, thus insuring that he will never be damaged again. Some DMs, however, take this style of adjudicating too far.
Case Study #2:
A player is hungry, and wishes that he had a sandwich. The DM rules that on another plane, a powerful outsider is making a sandwich, and it disappears from him and appears in the player’s hands. The outsider gets angry, and it results in a Total Party Kill.
Clearly, this is just as insane, if not more so, than the first. If a player wants to burn his XP on a sandwich, let him have the darn thing! But then where is the dividing line? When do you go with what the player wants, and when do you give the wishes a little twist?
The answer lies in the spell description. If the spell can do it, it should do it.
From the SRD:
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not from a school prohibited to the character.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not from a school prohibited to the character.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s from a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s from a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells.
Create a valuable item, even a magic item, of up to 15,000 gp in value.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects must be cured of the same type of affliction. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the feat takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place these creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate and SR.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a re-roll of any roll made within the last round (including the character's last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. The re-roll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate and SR.
If the wish falls within these guidelines, let the player have it. It will not be unbalancing, as the wish falls under the game designer’s intent. If the player wishes for something more than this, then you have to twist it slightly. You should do this by duplicating a spell that would fulfill the wish. For example, a player can wish for a powerful and obedient companion. Wish cannot make a new person from scratch, much less a powerful one, so you must twist it slightly. Instead, the wish can duplicate a summon monster 8 spell, creating a powerful and obedient companion. It fulfills the terms of the wish, but doesn’t exceed the power of the spell. If he wishes for a permanent powerful companion, you can give him a figurine of wondrous power that costs less than 15000 gold, creating a magic item of less than 15000 Gold, which is allowed by the spell.
If he wishes for a flaming sword, (8300 gp) let him have it, no strings attached. If he wants a holy sword, (18300) feel free to have the wish planar bind an unamused archon that happens to have a holy sword on him.
If he wishes for experience, have the spell duplicate a summon monster spell, only that the monster is hostile to the caster. The player will defeat it, and then you can award him the experience.
There are exceptions, however. If the player words the wish so badly that you can’t figure out what he means, than feel free to tell him that the spell didn’t get it either, and give him whatever you think he wanted. Or, if the player is a blatant power gamer min-maxing munchkin, feel free to eradicate him from the multiverse when he wishes to be immune to all damage forever.
I bow to you!
Miracle is totally different. A miracle asks a deity, so the gods personality affects it greatly. If you are Thorn, level 19 ascetic cleric of Kord and wish for a str bonus your good. If you are Vakurash level 19 cleric of Vecna and cast miracle for Kas to be resurrected, don't be surprised when he does it tells Kas he is forgiven if he kills you and then after Kas does kills of Kas and gives his sword to a party member. Stupid wishes and miracles WILL be punished.
One hand of the argument is summed up well by what you said.
The other is summed up by the sentence posted elsewhere on the boards, but I forget where:
"Okay, so your character wants to tumble down the stairs? Okay. There are some stairs in my house, let's see you tumble down them!"
There is a fine line between player knowledge and character knowledge. You might have a very smart player using a intelligence 5 barbarian giving an near irrefutable wish from a ring of three wishes, and you might have a 18 intelligence wizard messing up and leaving a wish full of loopholes.
If in your game, wishes must be made exact to avoid alteration, I would recommend giving the players a chance to roll the dice, perhaps on an intelligence check, or a knowledge (arcana) check. This provides a way for players who don't trust themselves to work a wish out right to gain benefit from the spell. It also allows players paranoid of you (which there may or may not be, of course ;) ) to wish in a way that they feel is safe.
Miracles are a whole other story, though. However, they are not covered in this thread. Maybe sometime later I will edit my first post and add a section on them.
Wish is an arcane spell; arcane magic is an exacting science that requires study and concentration. If a wizard is casting a wish spell, I follow it to the letter. With sorcerers I would be a bit more lenient, sorcerers are different from wizards. A wizard is the pinnacle of human intelligence, a sorcerers is a gifted being binding the cosmos to his will through sheer force of will, I'm a bit more lenient to them
Au contraire!
Wizards study for years and years, to learn to cast minor cantrips. They adventure, they learn, they study, and after years of toil, they have reached the height of their power, and can cast Wish. In the morning, they prepare, and memorize, and make sure it will work. When the time comes, a miasma of arcane energy surrounds them, and this great event happens, this one thing they have been working towards their entire life.
Now, another arcane spellcaster. A sorcerer, who was born with the innate talent, and only casts these spells because he can. After years of adventure and toil, he has unlocked the power within himself to cast Wish. When the time comes, a miasma of arcane energy surrounds him, and this great event happens, this one thing that he just did out of impulse.
So, Wizards study the intricacies upon intricacies upon this spell, so naturally to me, they have much more leniency. They now it to a syllable, to every single twitch of their finger. Sorcerers can randomly cast it, simply because their own personality lets them. They know nothing more than that they can cast it. I give them much less leniency.
About Miracle, however, I completely agree. If you worship the goddess of happiness, love, and peaches, and your Miracle asks her to smite your enemies, it ain't happening. The opposite is also true. I have considered having a character actually go into freeze frame and roleplaying the "conversation" with their deity, to see if they can get the Miracle to work. Hmmm...
I'm a little disappointed because I'm a complete failure in spontaneously perverting player's wishes. I'm just too nice! How do I DO this 
Any tips welcome!As for the rulings, I love it. Wish, Miracle, and Nature's Blessing (Druid's version, same as Miracle but no XP and must do a small DM-ruled thing to have it) can become quite balanced, I am going to print these off and bring them to my game.
Gold--give fairy goldcoins worth the 15k. Or a million from a ascended gold (or red) greatwyrm’s hoard. :D Alternatively, 100 million coppercoins, or 10 billion clay10ths (from athas).
Magic items, either on an encounter or as a quest (you know where it is) or even with a curse ;)
Companion, a very nice pitfiend who will do everything you ask for a ten days, in the most perverted way ;) Probably ending up as a alignment shift.
Or why not a fiend with the corrupter and possessor PRCs? First thing it does is to enter you.
Or if you are already into fiends, some celestial paladin hellbent to show the errors of your ways preaching all the time.
Invunerability: Hideheart with a fasthealing 3. Bad deal is that this needs a focus, and when that one is shattered you are screwed.
Lets say that Pelor is the patron deity of the party Cleric. The party Rogue just got his hands on a Ring of Three Wishes, and it's got one charge left. The Rogue promptly Wishes for something that, basically, would go quite a bit against the ethos of Pelor. You, as the DM, can B.S. your way into making that Wish a part of Pelor’s plans. Now replace the major names in there, and we have ourselves a long-term answer to Wishes.
But wait, this doesn't work for the Rogue that wishes to be a perfect thief? Pervert the Wish in a good way that the player won't expect. In the above case, the Rogue would meet with a powerful Proxy of Oli-D. The Proxy would then help guide the Wishing Rogue through the steps of Clerichood, and eventually you'd have yourself a Divine Agent or other such nifty little prestige class that worked with Oli-D. And most of all, everyone SHOULD be happy.
A lot of the how turns into a situational issue however. I, personally, throw my players three things before they hit level 20 in my campaigns. They get a Wish (normally around 15th level), they get a Draw from the Deck of Past and Future Possibilities (I'll edit in a link for it. Not as evil as the Deck of Many Things, but still fun.), and they get a large sum of money to spend at one time. So I am more than just used to playing freestyle as a DM.
In fact, should a person have an issue about a Wish-Situation, I wouldn't mind giving some advice on it as well as ways for you to talk to the DM about it and plan with him the things that will happen in a Wish. Afterall, why should a Wish become something that only the DM has control of? Why shouldn't it be like the Character Creation Process, where BOTH parties discuss it until a conclusion is reached?
Prior to 3E wishes were more open ended than they are now. There were no clear-cut limitations on what is acceptable as a wish. In fact there are some cases where the rules now prohibit what people used to take for granted as not overpowering in 1E and 2E days.
Twisting wishes came about because of two elements. The first was the open-ended nature of the spell. The second was the general nature that wishes were cast by elementals (like a gene) that really weren’t interested in the general intent of the person making the wish. Such wishes are the crux of many a fantasy story and the general wisher beware is standard fare in most literature.
But under 3E there are easy guidelines that the DM can and should follow for casters casting the spell or for players using items that can cast the spell. These guidelines are:
Limited Wish
- Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
- Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
- Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 5th level or lower, even if it’s of a prohibited school.
- Duplicate any other spell of 4th level or lower, even if it’s of a prohibited school.
- Undo the harmful effects of many spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
- Produce any other effect whose power level is in line with the above effects, such as a single creature automatically hitting on its next attack or taking a –7 penalty on its next saving throw.
Miracle
- Duplicate any cleric spell of 8th level or lower (including spells to which you have access because of your domains).
- Duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower.
- Undo the harmful effects of certain spells, such as feeblemind or insanity.
- Have any effect whose power level is in line with the above effects.
- Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting.
- Moving you and your allies, with all your and their gear, from one plane to another through planar barriers to a specific locale with no chance of error.
- Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, or other major natural disaster.
Wish
- Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
- Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
- Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
- Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
- Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
- Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
- Create a magic item, or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
- Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
- Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
- Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
- Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
- Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
First of all, in order to determine a wish, look at the tables above. If you can accomplish the wish through one of the above methods then you should do it. Being the nice DM that I am, if the method requires an expenditure of experience then I would require the caster to approve the expenditure of the experience. Limited Wishes should never exceed the listed values, Miracles should only exceed the listed values if the sponsoring deity is really into making the effort, and in general Wishes should be limited to the levels suggested by the spell, with Oorcam’s razor being used to limit wish abuse.
Let’s look at the wish for a million gold coins. Limited wish? No way. Miracle? Doubtful. Unless you can convince a deity that a million gold coins won’t ruin your life. Wish? Well technically you can’t wish for a non magical item greater than 25K, but there is no clause for magic item creation. Unfortunately you can only create one item through a wish. You might be able to create an Intelligent Holy Avenger, allowing it to case true resurrection on the wielder once a month, but such a weapon would be no where near one million and would have a significant experience penalty, which is doubled due to the nature of the wish spell. In short, wishing for a million gold should not be possible even with a wish.
But basically, you're saying perversion of wishes should come as per the power of the wish. If they aim too high (and they are familiar with the spell, as they should be somewhat), then pervert the wish. Suddenly, if a good character wishes for a holy sword, they've accidentally angered an archon.
A perversion of intent, a following of rules, and a caveat to the player not to do that again. Very nice.
Character wishes for an item with a market value higher than 15,000gp.
Follow the above suggestion in the 1st post. Take the item from a dragon's horde, but let the dragon KNOW who has it & where they are. Allow the character to have the item, but only for a number of rounds equal to level of the caster of the wish. Teleport/plane shift character to the item; an effreti's lair. Give him a cursed item similar to the asked for item. Give him an illusionary item.
Character wants to change time.
If the request is outside the ability of an existing spell, then have all the fun you want. Erase the character from existence. He is still there, but nobody remembers him. Transport him to an alternate prime material that didnt experience the event he wants changed. This can be significantly different.
Sometimes the characters want something from a wish that is within the power of the spell, but states it sooooo poorly that you JUST cant resist. They ask to be as strong as another character in the party? Make him a clone of the character.
Consider is the source of the wish.
Magic items & PC casters shouldn’t pose a problem, other than those noted. Certain other sources will though. If you are forcing an effreeti to use a wish for you, I would be extremely careful on the wording. He may pervert it for his own gain. Simple wishes he will follow the standard guidelines, but if they ask for something that is a straight forward type wish, watch out. If the request is to create a magic item, that’s fine. What if the say "I want a *****."? Then that gives the effreeti all the leeway in the world on how to fulfill that request. He may know the location of said item and just take it, later telling who it belonged to the exact location of the "stolen" item. He may bring the item to you with the present owner still holding it.
There are no set rules for this, mainly because some areas will be abstract. Just remember to not screw the PCs over just because you can. But if they are foolish, then go ahead & have some fun with them. They may get what they want, but find out that they have to work really hard to keep it.
Though you have to admit, someone who wishes "Make me the most beautiful sex slave in the world" is just asking for trouble. Hee hee!
Originally posted by Toptomcat
Therefore, the "I wish for 1,000,000 gold" wish would be modified into a pile of a million tiny gold pieces worth 15,000 gp.
I would say, "Ok, your instantly teleported on top of a pile of approximately a million gold pieces, in a great black wurm's layer. Roll initiative."
If the Wish spell was titled Greater Creation or Reality Manipulation, most DMs would not even consider twisting or warping it and would simply adjudicate it's effects as written. Regardless of the title of the spell, DMs should do just this.
The situation is quite different when the Wish is not a spell but is rather a granted effect from a sentient source. Such Wishes often are, and indeed should be, more powerful than a bog-standard Wish spell, and much more care needs to be taken as the entity granting the Wish may be malicious, evil, or just plain nasty.
Originally posted by SubZippo
I would say, "Ok, your instantly teleported on top of a pile of approximately a million gold pieces, in a great black wurm's layer. Roll initiative."
I'd only do that if the party was evil.
If the party was good, I'd teleport them to a gold dragon's lair, devoid of treasure, in the middle of the desert, too far from civilization to make it back and survive, and the gold dragon would instantly shatter into a million pieces, causing the group to fall out of favor with their deities. The only way to prove that they are worthy is to make it back to civilization alive, which is impossible. Especially if the deities giving them spells take those spells away, along with the means to cast them.
Or I'd give them a million pieces of wood, all painted gold, and the size of cats, creating a roadblock the PC's have to remove. That is, I wouldn't allow the gold pieces to appear above the PC's, because that would be abusable. They’d be able to summon the gold pieces on top of a large monster, and teleport away as the monster died.
Originally posted by lordyuri24
SANDWICH! I am going to try that on my DM and see what he says. If anyone ever pulled that on me and I think I would give them permanent hero's feast or something. 5,000XP: I want a sandwich. That's just prime.
Sadly enough, it's based on a true story. Someone on the boards in a "____ ways to annoy your PCs" gave it as an example, and had that "This actually happened."
This is why everyone should print out Talonos's article and tape it next to the Wish spell.
Heck, they should include it in there! ;)
If the player asks for too much, I just let the wish fail.
My players know this. They know to ask along the lines of what the player's handbook description of the spell says, and use their wish accordingly.
Furthermore, if they wished for a magic item, as long as it was not of artifact or minor artifact status, they would get it (After spending the 5,000 + 2x the exp cost to make the item in the first place, of course!)
I prefer a by the rules gaming style. I want my players to use wish and not be scared I'm going to do something smacktardish to them.
However, if they wished for something foolish, I would give it to them.
"I wish for a million GP"
"The wish fails"
"Alright, I want the party be moved to where I can get a million GP"
"Alright, you asked for it."
Perverted wishes should not go beyond the bounds of a non-perverted wish!
Use the guidelines of a wish spell to come up with a suitable wish, but do not exceed them.
They ask to be as strong as another character in the party? Make him a clone of the character.
I am not aware of any spell that turns a character into a clone of another character. The closest I can come to is polymorph, but that just changes appearance, and doesn't give class, levels, or anything like that. A DM doing this simply switches out one impossible effect for another.
Look at it this way, if a character wishes to be a clone of a level 20 fighter, would you let him?
And if a character cannot wish for that, then why should a perverted wish be able to do it? They both draw on the same power.
A character wishing to be as strong as another character should get a bull's strength or something. If you are a really mean DM, perhaps a polymorph, as that gives you physical scores. But a cloned character is just as rulebreaking as if a player did it.
Lets say that Pelor is the patron deity of the party Cleric. The party Rogue just got his hands on a Ring of Three Wishes, and it's got one charge left.
Umm... I think you're confusing wish with miracle. Wishes have nothing to do with deities. Miracles have everything to do with deities. Wish is a wizards spell, and shouldn't be determined by any deity.
Unless you consider the DM a diety. That's happened before...
Basically, I treat wish as a fancy spell, 9th level in power but like the rest it has limits. Overstep the limits (which I'd recommend advising the player in advance) and it doesn't work. If there are any complaints you can point out that there are epic spells, or if you don't use that book you can promote a suitable source of power that needs to be researched, located and braved to grant the truly powerful "wishes".
This approach does dim the supposed potential of the wish spell, it is not a blank cheque, but it does make wish more reliable and usable.
That's it. And I don't think that this is rare. Given the rarity, I told the players that I wouldn't twist it around just to be obnoxious, and I didn't. How often do wishes come up in your campaigns?
Originally posted by Talonos
...
Unless you consider the DM a diety. That's happened before...
Yes, in the IUDC, I believe. I personally feel that if the DM has to turn wish into a "screw the players" spell, he's a pathetic waste of human flesh. I can screw over a party of 8th level players with a handful of goblins, each a level 1 rogue. That doesn't take a wish spell. I can also think of about a billion things to torture players to death, one of my favorites involving a carrion crawler and a swarm of rats.
Originally posted by Toptomcat
Therefore, the "I wish for 1,000,000 gold" wish would be modified into a pile of a million tiny gold pieces worth 15,000 gp.
PC: I wish for 1,000,000 gold.
DM: Okay.
PC: So....
(DM rolls dice behind screen, shuffles a few things around)
DM (to PC): Give me a listen check.
PC rolls a 16.
PC: Uh... 16. Do I hear it?
DM (to rest of party): Give me spot checks, please.
Party rolls 15, 2, 21 and 19.
DM hands PC a blank character sheet.
DM: You hear (PC's name) cry in exultation, followed by agony as, falling from the sky, a giant golden nugget worth approximately as much as the nearest small nation impacts upon him. The resulting shockwave knocks all of you... (DM rolls behind screen) 50 feet backwards. Take... (DM rolls behind screen) 21 points of damage each.
Party: So...can we take the nugget out?
DM: Well, let's see what exactly the weight of this nugget would be...(DM sees that 50 coins = 1 pound, putting 1,000,000 coins at)... 20,000 pounds. Do any of you have a 37 strength? or four of you with 27 strength? Then you could probably push it out... if it wasn't lodged about 300 feet below ground at the moment.
Party: Oh.
DM: Next wish?
If the wish is being executed by an object, a ring of wishing for instance, then the wish is literally executed with the least amount of change. If the wish does not have the power to do so, it does something to the extent of its power.
If the wish is being granted by an efreet or some other creature, it has the option of twisting it however it feels like. If it's evil, it probably will twist it. This kind of vicious twisting goes beyond a literal reading of the wish and the creature can creatively interpret anything the character wishes for.
Originally posted by Kingrames
If the party was good, I'd teleport them to a gold dragon's lair, devoid of treasure, in the middle of the desert, too far from civilization to make it back and survive, and the gold dragon would instantly shatter into a million pieces, causing the group to fall out of favor with their deities. The only way to prove that they are worthy is to make it back to civilization alive, which is impossible. Especially if the deities giving them spells take those spells away, along with the means to cast them.
You would pervert the wish so horribly that the player's next wish would probably to have never been born? And you've determined ahead of time that anything they try will fail?
Doesn't necessarily have to be bent against the PCs all the time.
Do any of you have a 37 strength? or four of you with 27 strength? Then you could probably push it out... if it wasn't lodged about 300 feet below ground at the moment.
No, no no! You don't get it! (rips out hair)
Let's say a player wished for that to happen. Would you let him? If a player wished that there would be a huge gold nugget worth 1000000 gp that would fall from the sky and instantly kill a creature with no save, would you let that wish work? If a wish doesn't work in that case, then why should that work as a perverted wish? It's the same spell!
Players spend a ton of experience for wish. If they wish for a million gold, then are you going to punish them with instant death for taking a wish?
Wishes shouldn't be game unbalancing. What is balanced? It says in the bleeping player's handbook! What happens if a wish is unbalanced? You change it so it is. You don't squish the player under your heel. You change the wish for one million GP to give him one hundred randomly shaped bits of gold that in total make 25,000! It's balanced, fulfills the wish, and isn't unbalancing. You make a huge nugget fall on a player’s head, and the next character he plays will undertake a mining operation on the nugget, just to show he will get his million. You try and stop him somehow? He'll try to get by somehow. It will spiral downward and downward into the pits of player vs. DM, until you both hate each other's metagaming guts.
This isn't how it's supposed to be! How would you feel if your 18th level wizard is instant death-ed by an overzealous DM with no warning? Perverted wishes should not be used to punish players, they should be used to maintain balance in a non-threatening way.
Unless they come from an efreeti. Then have fun! ;)
But still, remember an efreeti's wish is still simply the efreeti casting wish, so an instant death gold nugget kill would still be as out as if a wizard tries to instant death gold nugget kill a dragon with a wish.
Only later, it's revealed that the nugget is, in fact, rock, with gold plating, worth about 25,000 gold effectively. Telekinesis used correctly could possibly duplicate such an effect, or wish itself creating the gold plated asteroid in the atmosphere, setting it on course to strike the wizard, though I think a reflex save would probably be justifiable. Sad part is, it maxes out on damage like a delayed blast fireball.
--
The Roaming Gnome
Remember.... wishes generally fulfill themselves in the EASIEST ways possible...
"I wish for a million gold" ... it's easier to teleport something than it is to create something from nothing.... dragon's hordes (or several dragon hordes), king's treasurys, etc. are good places to draw from. Tainted (UA) gold from abandoned evil ruins is also a valid choice. Ouch!
"I wish to be stronger"... hmm... whales are stronger... elephants may be stronger... hill giants... fiends... etc. are all stronger. Easier to change the character. Or even inflict them with lycanthropcy... that would make them stronger. Giving them a fiendish bloodline might work too... of course, daddy will want to get to know his son... =)
"I wish I have a sword +10"... I'm sure there's an epic level NPC out there with a sword +10. And I'm just as sure they would want to find out who stole it... Failing that... there's nothing like a +10 intelligent sword with high stats to get the player to see things the DMs way.
"I want to be the most powerful person in the word".... so now you look and have the same stats as the other person.... I'm sure they'll be REAL interested in the imperonater.... or a mind switch. Of course, they won't have any of the real persons memories or launguage abilities. That should be REAL fun.
So little time... so many perversions...
Make no mistake that the dragons and the rulers would quite literally spend MORE than they lost to hunt down the thieves... just as a matter of principle.
Originally posted by DragonsArt
"I wish I have a sword +10"... I'm sure there's an epic level NPC out there with a sword +10. And I'm just as sure they would want to find out who stole it... Failing that... there's nothing like a +10 intelligent sword with high stats to get the player to see things the DMs way.
3.5 Wish can create a magic item of any value, but it costs double the XP required to craft it, along with the 5,000 XP.
So this wish probably couldn't be fulfilled due to the large amounts of XP it would require.
What this means to me is: The spell sucks! There is almost no way to play the results of this spell in a good way. Could it be that being able to wish for something other than an enhancement bonus to an attribute (and I'm sure that there are DMs out there who will find a way to make the character pay) does not result in good role-playing?
The effects of a spell such as wish are just too tremendous and uncontrollable for the most part that it should probably be banned, IMHO. For role-play, I consider it a useless and rather silly spell.
I therefore agree with the poster (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) who said that a wish spell should only be a tool for the DM, not the player. Why? Because it could make a campaign plot better if the DM uses it to promote the story-arc of the campaign.
Otherwise, role-playing wise it is a useless and silly spell. IMO, role-playing wise a oh so mighty wizard can do without.
Originally posted by Snot-Elemental
What this means to me is: The spell sucks!
The spell doesn't suck, the DMs do. No good DM tries to screw their players over when casting other spells or taking other actions, so why do so when casting a wish?
Wish is just another spell with limits set out in the spell description. The only time a GM should ever try to pervert the wish is when it is being granted by an external entity or force - such as a malicious Genie - that has both the means and the desire to pervert the wish.
A wizard casting a wish spell, regardless of what exact words he uses, knows what he is trying to accomplish with it. The DM's only duty is to adjudicate, within the parameters of the spell as written, how closely to that intent can be realized.
Any DM who actively seeks to harm his party, particularly by choosing to ignore the rules and spell descriptions, is IMO a very poor DM indeed and one with whom I would certainly never wish to game.
DM: You sure?
Player: Yeah!
DM: Ya know I can't be held accountable for what's gonna happen, extreme cosmic power is dangerous. You DO know that?
Player: Hurry up and gimme my gold!
DM: Ooookay. Make a Spot check. Nope failed, should have looked up! Now Reflex save, nope too high a DC, yeah try dodge a million gold coins falling out of the sky! Save against massive damage. Now try put that in your wizard-brain-smeared loot bag!
A Wish could be a well-educated and planned gamble, or it could be a "Hurry up and gimme my gold!" case, like Bluntpencil2001 demonstrated above. If it's the latter case and the player is serious, I would really wonder why I ever started playing with this person and would probably cease to do so quite soon. If the person was honestly in character and still acted like that, I as DM must have really screwed up somewhere myself and should not punish the player for that too much. I should have never let that player get hold of a Wish!
The first case would be really interesting, to the point that I would say today's session ends, or at least call for a toilet brake or an in-game delay effect to figure out a way to take full advantage of this new plot hook (but I really should have seen it coming in advance, or even planned it with the player).
I would say that if granted by and Efreet, it'll certainly go for the bad interpretation if "greater wishes" come into play. I shouldn't hose the players if they go for any of the "standard" effects though. Now why the Efreet granted the Wish in the first place should be a story all by itself...
I should NEVER screw any player because of lack of game knowledge or initially bad wording. That is metagaming and makes me feel bad!
Case 1a:
Wizard: "I cast Magic Missle and try to hit the Orc in the face so he's blinded."
DM: "Ok, the missles zip past the Orc, turn around and hit you full in the face. You're blinded for 3 rounds. Roll for damage dealt to yourself."
Wizard:
Case 1b:
Wizard: "I cast Magic Missle and try to hit the Orc in the face so he's blinded."
DM: "You can't do that, MMs just hit their target. No specific locations. Just roll for damage."
Wizard: Oh. Damn. Ok. Whoo, 5 force damage!
DM: "Well, that Orc looks pretty messed up now, but manages to keep his bearings."
Case 2a:
Druid: "I cast SNA II and summon the most powerful monster I can think of."
DM: "Ok, a Dracolich appears in front of you and attacks you."
Druid:
Case 2b:
Druid: "I cast SNA II and summon the most powerful monster I can think of."
DM: Considering the SNA table, I guess that would be either a Black Bear or a Croc. A bear? Ok, a Black Bear appears where you designate."
Druid: "Now we're talking!"
Case 3a:
Wizard: "I cast Wish. I wish for two +5 Vorpal Scimitars!"
DM: "Right. A Drow wielding said weapons appears in front of you. He looks rather displeased and lops your head off."
Wizard:
Case 3b:
Wizard: "I cast Wish. I wish for two +5 Vorpal Scimitars!"
DM: "Err, that's a rather big effect. You could wish for one safely but that would still cost you quite some XP."
Wizard: "Huh?"
DM: *shows spell description* "Hm, just this time I'll rule it's fine if you wished you never had cast the wish, so the spell reappears in your slot and you regain the XP."
Wizard: "Naw, I guess I better go for an Intelligence boost instead, guess I need that."
DM: "You say it. Whoops, you suddenly realize how stupid you have been up until now. +1 inherent Int for you."
Wizard: (silly voice) "We're not brainless anymore!" :D
While all three cases are quite different, they're actually also quite the same: the DM either screwing or assisting a player casting a spell. Wouldn't you agree version 'b' is the best in all cases?
(Ok, players should know what they are doing, but we're all Human and don't have all the time of the world. If someone really doesn't learn, don't become mean in game, suggest he go play something else or somesuch.)