Part of the fun back in AD&D was tryig to get a wish spell or effect. Ideally you would get it off a Djinni or something but eventually you might consider hard casting it. There was really no limit to what a wish spell could not do (DMs discretion) . Some guidelines did get put in various splat books however. Greedy wishes were encouraged to screw the PCs over.
Generally a wish could remove, restore or alter reality away any negative effect in the game excpept for the actions of a deity. You could also alter reality in the last 24 hours so a TPK could be avoided by a wish spell just wishing the event never took place (perhaps by a PCs loved ones), There was no limiton what type of gold or magic you could wish for (BUT) be careful.
Wishing for the Sword of Kas could give it to you- still attached to Kas, Vecna or both.
Also note that casting wish in AD&D had several effects which tended to limit the power of wizard in 1E/2E, these limitations went bye bye in 3E.
Casting a wish spell aged you 5 years. 10 wish spells aged you 50 years. This was errated to 25 years for races like elves. Magical aging in AD&D caused a system shock rooll which was basically a con save failure resulting in death.Magic like raise dead did not always work and in any event you lost a constitution point permantly. Get raidsed 4 times lose 4 con points and if you failed a resurrection roll (a con save basically) you were dead forever 4d6 roll a new PC. Getting hasted could kill you along with casting limited wish and wish.
Also the DM had a huge amount of latitude in how to deal with magic. Some players like to sneer at this calling it "Mother may I" type DMing which was the whole point of the rules in the 1st place.
Consider this.
"I wish for a castle".
Not a super greedy wish in my game you might get a small castle or you might even teleport to a castle ruin that is now yours. Other DMs might pervert the wish or be generous.
DM 1. Sure a magnificent castle appears where you want it saving you several years and several million gp in expenses.
DM2. Sure you can a moderate sized castle that looks remarkably like this castle from Keep on the Borderlands appears on a nearby hill top.
DM3. It turns out a long lost relation of yours has a deed with your name on it and Castle XYZ is now yours in location ABC. Other DMs might even transport you there.
DM 4. Sure a castle appears in front of you 20' off the ground. It falls and hits the ground collapsing into ruin.
DM5. Sure a castle appears 20' in the air above you. It falls on you. Save vs death failure= instant death, success = 20d6 damage. An annoyed Death Knigth also appears in the castle and his name is Lord Soth..........
DM 6. You get a chess piece.
The best one I heard of was a PC prisoner in 1E on death row who had an unidentified ring of wishes on, He wished for a hot meal and the DM gave it to him- all 3000 degrees of it on his lap save vs instant death success= melted legs. A little harsh but that group was maybe 15 or 16 years old in the late 80's and that DM ran our 1st taste of 1E for us in the 90's 2/6 survived I was one of them, Druidic shapeshift/wildshape for the win- pit trap into lava 200' down (20d6 falling damage, 20d6 damage per round in the lava+ red dragon noms noms noms).
Wishing for a 10' pole could also be very very painful Vlad style. Don't trust Efreeti.
That spell never existed in my campaigns.
I prefer for Literal Genies to be literally Genies – Djinn, Efreet, Marids, or Dao. That is to say, the maliciousness comes from the Genie, not from the Wish spell itself.
I like how 5th edition has presented the spell. If you use it to replicate any other spell of 8th level or lower, it works, and for free. Furthermore, the examples gives are really practical usages of the Wish spell. At the same time, the spell's description does include your literal genie possibilities. I much prefer the huge-stressor penalty to the "aging" penalty, as well. It gives you insentive to save the spell's non-basic usage for ending a conflict and not trying to cast more spells after it, and it gives a real risk of never being able to cast it again, and puts you out for the count for a while, without wrecking your whole character.
It's basically a more user-friendly version of the spell that's less likely to break the game. And as a DM, as I said above, I'd prefer to give the players what they want when they use the Wish spell personally – the cost of using their 9th-level slot, not to mention the penalties of casting Wish for anything other than spell-replication, is high enough. If they're asking for a Wish to be granted from a Genie, then I'd go all-out Literal or even Jerkass Genie on them. They had it coming. But the universe isn't inherently perverse or malicious in my world. It's people (or Gen) that pervert our wishes.
No, I don't miss that kind of ridiculous slapstick nonsense, constant plot derails, and jerk DMing one bit.
The spell still has text about wishing for more than the spell specifies is possible, as well as the DM's attendant privilege to twist such a wish. What's nice about the current version is that it actually sets up some expectations that allow and encourage you to use the spell without making it suicidal or twisting the entire game to be about the wishes and their consequences. By contrast, I imagine most players would actually be pretty annoyed, rather than entertained, if they wished for a cheap object from the basic equipment list and you interpeted that as 'you die of impalement.' That's not clever, it's just mean, and it basically makes the spell pointless if even the simplest use will kill you.
As for the 33% vs aging/system shock, they're both just statistical limitations on the practical number of times you can cast the spell. The new one just avoids turning something that's normally character flavor into a hidden system resource, with all the attendant metagaming (why play an old wizard when a young one gets MOAR WISHES?).
Good riddens. Never allow wishes in your campaign. Just don't do it. It's a recipe for trouble.
I miss my ring of three wishes. Because anyone can use a ring --not everyone's an archmage 
. Exhibit PC: a dumb as a rock half-orc named Balor. He'd still be alive today but no, he held on to that final wish a little too long. He was sure to make that save against dragonfire -- --sure.
● Wish: As written in the spell description. It will work exactly like that. This is the wish spell that your PCs can learn. You will never find this as treasure. The only way you'll get it is by reaching whatever lv you get 9th lv spells at & choosing it.
● WISH: This is the one you find as treasure, draw from the Deck of Many Things, receive from genies, go on epic quests for, etc. It has no limits, but caution IS advised. Afterall, you are holding a sliver of reality.....Note: I LIKE magic of this sort. So I'm not into screwing you over if you get a WISH of this sort in my game. I've intentionally put it into the game to see what you'll do with it. And just by sitting there at the table listening to you talk in & out of character I'll have a real good idea of what effect your wishing for.
That said, some of these wishes still do go askew. Why? 1) Because complications add to the game. So occasionally if I have an idea I think will add to the fun of the game & doesn't violate your wish i might tack it on. 2) Gross player error. Even though I don't go out of my way to screw with wishes I give out, sometimes players really do make god-awefull choices. OK, you asked for it..... 3) Legalize. If youre playing in one of my games, ive already discussed how i handle wishes. I've already told you trying to lawyer a wish won't work. So if you still spend all kinds of time drafting an elaborately worded document to keep from being wish-screwed? I guarantee you it won't work. The imps that are in charge of grinding out reality don't have the attention span to read/listen to it. Nor the intelligence to parse it. The best that'll happen is that your WISH fizzles & nothing happens. The worst....
I don't miss the prior edition versions of wish at all. I much prefer the current version with its clear effects, clear limits, and clear consequences that don't include random chance of death no matter what you wish for.
The less we know about how a Wish works, the more magical it is. They should be the stuff of wonder, excitement, and awe, legends and dreams. The suffering peasant dreams of finding the magical fish that will grant him one wish for taking pity and releasing the fish, knowing that the peasant who instead greedily ate the fish suffered mishap. When we turn Wish into a laundry list, the wonder fades a bit. So I simply justify the "list" as the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of memos and notes made by those who uttered a Wish and lived about what can safely be sought and what is otherwise an unknown. I won't ask players to "speak" the wish if it's on a list. We'll assume that research has been done. I also won't tolerate "lawyering" to circumvent disaster. A wish is still granted by some outerplanar entity, so there's discretion in how it's applied.
The original Wish didn't encourage DMs to screw players over, that's just the nature of some gamers. But if a player accepts a Wish from a nefarious source such as a demon, they're going to get what they want, and then some.
No
Wish should be restored, certainly. I think genies should at most be able to grant limited wishes, though.
That spell never existed as a player choice in my campaigns. However, it is still a great option as a plot device.
Touc wrote:
I think wishes work for for story elements and not game-busting elements like magic items.
Wishing used to age you in 1e. I think this can be a surpisingly good limiter as long as it isn't super easy to reduce that effect (i.e. no restoration spells work; potions of longevity work but with a % chance to fail and age you insterad; or elixir of life which works but is incredibly rare). I will be keeping that in my campaign but I'll most likely scale it so1d4 years for humans 1d6 for halflings, 2d4 for dwarves, 2d6 for gnomes, and 3d6 for elves or something like that - I haven't really looked at the 5e age differentials. They keep changing them.
At our table we have clearly defined the difference between arcane and divine magic. Arcane magic is severly limited by the laws of magic. Divine magic on the other hand, being that it comes from deities and pseudo deities can break the laws of magic if the being in question desires to. An arcane caster will never be able to cast a wish. A divine caster if faithful enough and showing extreme piety might be granted one if his or her prayer is received.
Lawful deities loath to grant wishes, chaotic ones often enjoy the trouble that might arise. A wish from a lawful being will be strictly interpreted as worded by the wisher. From a chaotic being it may be twisted in any way.
pauln6 wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
edwin_su wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Well the new wish is not to bad but it has some abuses (simulacrum) and there is a limitation on it as you can lose it and never be able to cast is again.
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
I'm confused.
What, exactly, can the old AD&D Wish spell do that the 5e one can't?
FarBeyondC wrote:
If I had ever stopped running it, I'd miss the way I ran the AD&D Wish spell.
I liked the way 3E codified it, but that was basically how I always ran it. If you wish for something reasonable, you get it, nothing bad happens. (I personally ran Wish that it aged you with no system shock roll, so you had to pay the price, but you didn't randomly die.)
If you wish for something crazy, well, at that point you're putting your life in the hands of Fate, played by the DM. You might get what you want! You might not. You might get side effects. It all depends on the wish and the situation.
FarBeyondC wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
For most of 2E we missed the systemshock roll for the aging thing.
Zardnaar wrote:
I still run it that way; and, no, I don't recall requiring the system shock roll (but, it's been years since I had to adjudicate one).
Some examples from our games of how wishes turned out.
For those who have been to London, imagine being in the D&D equivalent of Regent's Park in your Sunday best. You wish for a ring that would grant you 100% immunity to all forms of fire to appear at your feet. The ring does appear, still being worn by the ice devil who owns it. You instantly have to fight said devil and after barely surviving and barely making a dex check to remove the ring from the devil's finger before the fiend vanished back to hell, you then have to explain to the irate city guard just exactly what you were doing and where the devil came from.
You wish that your twin sister never died. You're character is now your twin sister, new class, new attributes, etc etc etc ....
You wish that your significant other who just died in battle was still alive, your significant other is resurrected in perfect health as a child.
You wish for your weapon of slaying evil to also slay dragons and if you're fighting an evil dragon both slay properties are multiplied together. An evil dragon you decided to go hunt learned of this mighty weapon and took measures to destroy it. Imagine your surprise when your prized weapon shatters to bits from the crystalbrittle spell the dragon had cast on itself just for you.
You wish for the strongest fastest warhorse. You get a herd of horses to breed your perfect steed from.
You wish for a lost sunken treasure ship. The ship appears in the street and you're mobbed by every urchin and beggar who grab everything they can.
FarBeyondC wrote:
There are some limits, 1 stat point per wish up to 16 I think then it's 1/10 per wish....so yeah you could wish for,higher stats but it get silly hard to make it happen.
danyc wrote:
For the groups I played in, it was always the wording. The spell didn't understand intent, so you had to state the wish in explicit terms or something may go awry as the spell takes the literal meaning of the wish that was invoked. Usually the group got together before the casting to iron out the details and phrasing. 
Orethalion wrote:
draegn wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I guess I just don't like the list of "suggestions" in the %th Edition Wish spell; I think it might create/encourage less creativity/ingenuity from the spell's usage. All in all, though, I have to agree that there aren't any more limitations to the 5th Edition version; quite the opposite in fact, which is a good thing, in retrospect.
The 2e version of wish fit that game I think, where according to RAW (which nobody ever follows, I know ), the standard classes were cleric, fighter, thief, mage (the 'common ground' classes). All the rest (druid, paladin, ranger, bard, illusionist) were optional. "Your DM may decide that one or more of the optional classes are not appropriate to his campaign. Check with your DM before selecting an optional character class." That's heavy but that's kinda how 2e was (at least in my XP). Written one way, played another .
3e was a bit different. Lots of things were codified that hadn't been before. I seem to recall a selling point to be that there were rules for how many creatures (PCs ) would fit inside a particular monsters belly. That sorta thing. "Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you." This version of wish was written very specifically, to be as *balanced* as possible, with as little DM adjucation as needed. OTOH the 2e version gives a few guidelines and then says "This discretionary power of the DM is necessary in order to maintain game balance." Guidelines vs. rules.
In 5e, wish seems a lot like it's 3e counterpart. Still, the game itself is different. "Rulings, not rules" seems to be the mantra this time around.
Different games, each with their own way of doing things. I'm not too interested in bringing 2e wish into our 5e games. It's written for a different kinda game in mind. I don't miss it all that much .
Orethalion wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
danyc wrote:
It's interesting to see how varied the opinions are on the Wish spell. To me the mere fact that it has negative consequences for unreasonable requests, is an indication that this is one of those spells that is just guaranteed to screw over a DM, unless a few nasty bullet points are added. Either way it is not a constructive element for any campaign, in my opinion. Which is why I've always resented it, and never allowed it in any of my campaigns. It's probably at the top of my list of big no-noes:
-No wishes
-No Kender
-No screwing over your own party
evil_warlock wrote:
By the way, small side note: A friend of mine designed an entire 3.5 campaign around a realm in which everyone could make wishes, yet wishing was outlawed. Horrible wish-related disasters happened almost every day. Being the king was not a very pleasant job, since you'd probably be the first victim for any vengeful wish. Logically, no king lived for very long. Guards were constantly keeping taps on people, making sure that no one secretly made a wish. And the most horrible accidents would happen because people poorly phrased a wish.
People would wish for a castle, and it would pop up out of nowhere, and often kill them or others on the spot. People would wish for a fortune, and bankrupt the entire realm in an instant. Many rulers had probably been turned into statues or animals as well. Fortunately the wishes had a limited range, so only that region was ever affected. But the harsh reality of a realm terrorised by wishes was something that he completely fleshed out for his players. The biggest danger was not evil people making wishes, but stupid people making them.
Orethalion wrote:
CCS wrote:
The DM I plauyed with who told me the wish for a 5cp meal that kills you was telling me a story about a DM they had years ago (this was in 1996). The jerk DM would have been in the late 80s or early 90's as they were my mates older brother who was around 5 years older than us and these were stories about when they were our age (15-18 in 1996). I was a bit more lenient about using wish spells if you wished for 40k gp you would probably get it wish for a million gold pieces and well lets see what mood I am in.
The 2 guys that ran 1E for my group (bein a 2E group) were not jerk DMs as such but they did run things like the consequences were on us so if we caught a disease in a dungeon or rot grubs or something it was tough luck. They didn't like 2E at the time but had most of the 1E books and allowed PHB+UA into the game. We ran through a few 1E adventures such as the Temple of Elemental Evil and some Dungeon magazines from 1E.
Orethalion wrote:
Minor question about "Category A"; if you copied the effects of a scaling spell, would the spell effect be treated as a 9th level scaled spell?
Nesian42Ryukaiel wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
They should just do away with the WIsh spell and use it as a powerful ability for special critters. Then rename what the currently call the WIsh spell something like "Anyspell" or "Alter Reality".
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
I admit my error, clicked the wrong setting on my probability calculator. My point about how you are wrong about 3 castings being all you'll ever get still stands.
As for you choosing the 5% over the 33%, that's fine. Not everyone would make the same choice (specifically none of my players would). Would you also choose a 25% (10 con, much more common than the 16 that gets the 5%) over that 33%?
Edited because this post looked like garbage because I originally made it from my phone, and to add some clarity.
draegn wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
evil_warlock wrote:
evil_warlock wrote:
draegn wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Also, the Genie from Disney's Aladdin can't grant your "wish for more wishes," "wish for someone to fall in love with you," nor your "wish to bring someone back from the dead."
These are limitations I might actually give to Genies who cast wish for you, but I'd actually allow them within the scope of category C – wishes that trigger the 33% chance of never getting another wish, and also have all those other negative drawbacks, and also might be twisted against you.
draegn wrote:
evil_warlock wrote:
draegn wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
draegn wrote:
draegn wrote:
draegn wrote:
I've never understood wish. If you don't like what a wish can do to your campaign, and feel that you need to twist the wish to punish the players... why allow wishes at all? Why not simply disallow it, and avoid the inevitable disaster? It sounds like a concept that is innately toxic to the game. It has a high degree of chance that it could derail your campaign, cause inter player conflict, or slay your players instantly. All are outcomes I would want to avoid.
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
I totally disagree. If you have a crucial plot reveal that you are saving for the right moment, and yet the players immediately wish to know it, that ruins any build up. What if my players wished the main villain in my campaign dead, and he failed his save?
Take for example the current situation in my campaign. The party wants to build a base on an island, but they first have to rid the island of cannibals. They haven't found the cannibal village yet, so they'll need to explore the island first.
-They could wish the cannibals are all removed from the island
This would instantly remove all the exciting exploration, and the exciting battle that I have planned for them at the cannibal village. Plus there's a pretty important plot point reveal supposed to happen when they find the village. All of that would be gone with a wish.
-They could wish for the best fully armed warship
This ruins progression, and instantly turns them from a moderate threat, into the biggest threat on the high seas. I want them to work for their upgrades. Buying a new ship is a big investment that I want them to slowly work towards. This gives them things to look forward to. If I instantly gave it to them on a silver platter, I would need to throw much stronger adversaries at them, and it would turn into an all out war. This would skip the part of the campaign that should be in between, where enemies slowly become more tough.
-They could wish the entire base in existence
This would remove the need for them to spend gold on building a base. The whole purpose of base building, is to be a gold sink for players who are raking in a lot of money. They are playing pirates, so by raiding ships they can quickly earn a lot of gold. The idea is that they gradually expand on this base, so that they feel rewarded. If they instantly got it, much like with the warship, this would ruin any such sense of reward.
-They could wish to know where the cannibal village is
This would skip the need to explore the island entirely. Not as much of a problem as all the others, but still a shame. Exploration is an important part of my campaign. Its part of that sense of adventure.
-They could wish to know who is leading the cannibals
This would ruin a crucial plot twist. It's like wishing to know who Jon Snow's parents are on Game of Thrones.
-They could wish that all the cannibals worship them now
This would give them a huge cannibal army, and unbalance the game too much in their favor.
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
See, but the problem is, I don't like any of the outcomes. I love giving my players freedom to do what ever they like.. within reason. I can plan ahead, because I know that travel in my campaign takes a while. This allows me to come up with a story that has exciting twists, which I can reveal at the right narrative moment. The whole concept of a wish spell would have so many undesirable outcomes, that I can't even fathom why any DM would even allow it.
Even with all the freedom that my players have in my campaign (and they have A LOT of freedom), I want to maintain some amount of control. And while I could of course say NO to any wish that I don't like, that kind of defeats the point of allowing wishing in the first place, doesn't it? It just seems like a massive gamebreaking + storybreaking machine to me.
Imaculata wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
CCS wrote: