If you actually want to beat it, you could wish for a "Dragon Slaying" weapon. I don't know what Wish's limits are these days but in 3.X you can replicate spells (such as creation spells).
Another option is to wish for the Blue Dragon to be reduced in age to a juvenile (reasonable) or hatchling (extreme) or even egg (full retard).
A last ditch effort is to not use the wishes. Does your DM play "gotcha" with those, you know, like Jafar the evil genie? Does he turn your wishes against you?
2) I wish the dragon was my best friend.
Together, you fight crime. Or...
1) I wish I was [some place far away] instead of here fighting this dragon.
2) Whatever you want.
Maybe it wants to "hire" (or rather: draft, impress, indenture...) you to get something (a stolen egg?) from a nearby town while the dragon distracts the militia, and then you have to decide whether to help the dragon or warn the town early so that they are ready when the dragon shows up?
A "wish" represents narrative control. That's all it is. It means you, the player, decide something happens rather than the DM who has a ring of infinite wishes at his disposal since the game grants him the same narrative control by default.
So go find out if your DM is going to twist the intent of your wishes. If he is, don't bother. Make a deal with the blue dragon to be his lackey if you feel you can't defeat him. Appeal to his greed, offer him your services in obtaining the Jewel of Fate (or whatever). Turning a potential loss in combat into an adventure should be a big draw for the DM.
If he's not going to twist the intent of your wish and will actually work with you on it, have a direct conversation to brainstorm some ideas you're both excited about. Settle on one, and go with that. Again, it should lead to more adventure.
Thanks for all of the advice guys, I will have to mull it over a bit. My DM isn't necessarily going to twist my wish but he said that if I am not specific enough, or I leave anything open ended it could have consequences.
In other words, he's going to do what DMs have been doing since the 70s - offer the players narrative control via wish and then twist it into something they think is oh-so clever but that the player didn't ultimately want. That's lame. Ask if you can just tell him your intent and then he can write the legalese himself to make it happen. Otherwise, expect that no matter how perfectly you word the wish, he's going to subvert your intent. There's just no point to it.
Frankly, if it were me, I'd chuck that ring of wishes into the sea and save myself the trouble. Unless you're okay with your intent being subverted, in which case, carry on.
It took me years to realize that just because a particular encounter was rolled up, doesn't mean the characters have to handle it in a particular way. I realize now that rolling that rare "green dragon" or "cockatrice" result didn't mean that a pointlessly lethal combat had to take place. I mean, you've been given some great ideas, but who says you have to engage the dragon at all? Why not avoid it entirely?
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
Okay. Only you can say what's "accurate" roleplaying for your character, but I would suggest that there's never just one way to play a character.
As a PC, if I am given a ring of wishes... Lets just say the last one, I went to town, found a "mean, dirty merchant" and gave it to him free which angered that DM (because that merchant was a story villain). Throwing them into the sea is good but I really like selling them for a single piece of copper, trading it for a wooden fork or something else that lays out a clear symbol; this object is USELESS to me no matter what the book says its worth so I will treat it like garbage.
Edit:
Come to think of it, many of the DMG's from multiple editions actually advise in the text of the Wish spell and DMG Handling Wishes to make them backfire which is some of the worst advice in any of the core books. Maybe this is in part responsible, and I myself used to do this crap with wishes, which I regret. I realized long ago that nobody would cast Fireball if it meant taking the same damage everyone else takes and making Wish work that way sucks and isn't fun.
These days, I just tell players to define their motive and what they want to achieve out of the wish and work with them to actualize what they want in a non-breaking way. This allows the player to have freedom, allows Wish to be useful, and most importantly it gives the player a sense of reliability. Reliability is related to Credibility in a non-separable manner and if you are lacking either you also lack the other.
I have less fear of Wish hurting my game than I have of it hurting my game to screw my players.
First of all, how in the Nine Hells does a 6th level character have access to a Deck of Many Things?
Second, is it just you fighting this dragon, or your entire party? And what's the party composition? The right terrain and good tactics can let a low-level party take down something of much higher level as long as they have even a minor chance to hit it.
Third, just because there's unintended consequences of making a wish doesn't mean that those consequences are necessarily going to screw over the player...
Assuming it becomes necessary to fight the dragon, if you're going to use the Wish then you should wish for another dragon to fight on your behalf - Bronze if at all possible, but definitely a Good one. At most, go for one that's the same size or not much bigger than the one you're fighting. Specifically, bronze dragons are immune to electricity and they also inhabit vaguely similar environments to blue dragons, so it's plausible that there might be one available in the campaign area to show up.
Bringing a Good dragon into the picture tends to limit the possibilities for negative consequences, as ending up indebted to a Good dragon (or at the extreme, polymorphed into one either permanently or temporarily) isn't going to get you into any trouble you shouldn't be able to reasonably handle and also makes for a great campaign hook... Asking for one that's roughly the same size as the one you're fighting rather than a giant monster would keep things reasonable - the bigger the Wish, the bigger the unintended consequences if not worded properly.
If you don't think you can get away with summoning a dragon, Wish has a specific list of things it can do without having any consequences, such as casting a spell of up to 8th level (so casting a high-level summoning spell to summon another creature that flies and may be immune to electricity is definitely a good idea), and it can also create a magic item, so there are several choices you could wish for. If you have an archer with a decent chance to hit you can use your wishes for arrows of greater dragonslaying or for an oathbow, while for melee there's the dragonbane.
It is possible we don't have all the facts here, but telling a player, "Oh, by the way, I rolled a blue Dragon encounter for you next week so you will probably die..." is not very fair and it isn't good DMing. Then again, the character has a two wishes so this isn't your standard 6th level game either.
Some of the above posters' advice is very good, especially the idea that an encounter with the dragon need not be a combat one.
Still, I don't get why the DM is locked into a random encounter roll as he can pick another encounter that is more fair.
As far as wishes go, I tend to be with Iserith and Thadian on this. If I hand out wishes I let the player have what they want with no twisting, and should the player ask for "too much" I will simply ask them to modify the wish so it works for both of us. The only time I twist wishes is if it comes from a malevolent source, like from an angry genie, and the players will know this before making the wish.
A little footnote of gaming history: the twisting of wishes idea comes from Basic through 2e where the PHB and DMG told DMs to twist them. In those editions, twisting wishes was playing by the rules. Of course, even back then, only bad DMs would be a total jerk about it.
First of all, how in the Nine Hells does a 6th level character have access to a Deck of Many Things?
Second, is it just you fighting this dragon, or your entire party? And what's the party composition? The right terrain and good tactics can let a low-level party take down something of much higher level as long as they have even a minor chance to hit it.
Third, just because there's unintended consequences of making a wish doesn't mean that those consequences are necessarily going to screw over the player...
Assuming it becomes necessary to fight the dragon, if you're going to use the Wish then you should wish for another dragon to fight on your behalf - Bronze if at all possible, but definitely a Good one. At most, go for one that's the same size or not much bigger than the one you're fighting. Specifically, bronze dragons are immune to electricity and they also inhabit vaguely similar environments to blue dragons, so it's plausible that there might be one available in the campaign area to show up.
Bringing a Good dragon into the picture tends to limit the possibilities for negative consequences, as ending up indebted to a Good dragon (or at the extreme, polymorphed into one either permanently or temporarily) isn't going to get you into any trouble you shouldn't be able to reasonably handle and also makes for a great campaign hook... Asking for one that's roughly the same size as the one you're fighting rather than a giant monster would keep things reasonable - the bigger the Wish, the bigger the unintended consequences if not worded properly.
If you don't think you can get away with summoning a dragon, Wish has a specific list of things it can do without having any consequences, such as casting a spell of up to 8th level (so casting a high-level summoning spell to summon another creature that flies and may be immune to electricity is definitely a good idea), and it can also create a magic item, so there are several choices you could wish for. If you have an archer with a decent chance to hit you can use your wishes for arrows of greater dragonslaying or for an oathbow, while for melee there's the dragonbane.
Thanks for the advice, as for the deck of many things I didnt gain possession of it. Their is an npc wizard in our campaigns who gambles with it typically goading an enemy into playing war with him and then "wishing away" his own misfortunes. After hearing about the area I was about to go through I asked him to play a game in hopes of getting something helpful, lucky me my first draw was the 1d4 wishes :D The DM also offered to reroll the encounter but I don't like the idea of takesy backseys.
It took me years to realize that just because a particular encounter was rolled up, doesn't mean the characters have to handle it in a particular way. I realize now that rolling that rare "green dragon" or "cockatrice" result didn't mean that a pointlessly lethal combat had to take place. I mean, you've been given some great ideas, but who says you have to engage the dragon at all? Why not avoid it entirely?
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
Perhaps this is the first time your character faces their fear, the first time the desire to flee overcomes their force of will to fight. That would be much more fun to play with, exploring how your character overcomes this esteem shattering event.
Rather than, dragon coughs... you get incinerated.
Perhaps this is the first time your character faces their fear, the first time the desire to flee overcomes their force of will to fight. That would be much more fun to play with, exploring how your character overcomes this esteem shattering event.
Rather than, dragon coughs... you get incinerated.
Big +1. Character development and drama are about change, not proving you can stick to "what my character would do" at the cost of your character.
OP: Check out the link in my sig, "11 Ways to Be a Better Roleplayer," especially the part about taking FULL CONTROL of your own character. Check the link next to it, too.
It took me years to realize that just because a particular encounter was rolled up, doesn't mean the characters have to handle it in a particular way. I realize now that rolling that rare "green dragon" or "cockatrice" result didn't mean that a pointlessly lethal combat had to take place. I mean, you've been given some great ideas, but who says you have to engage the dragon at all? Why not avoid it entirely?
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
Perhaps this is the first time your character faces their fear, the first time the desire to flee overcomes their force of will to fight. That would be much more fun to play with, exploring how your character overcomes this esteem shattering event.
Rather than, dragon coughs... you get incinerated.
Thanks, I will definitely think about using that before the encounter this weekend.
It took me years to realize that just because a particular encounter was rolled up, doesn't mean the characters have to handle it in a particular way. I realize now that rolling that rare "green dragon" or "cockatrice" result didn't mean that a pointlessly lethal combat had to take place. I mean, you've been given some great ideas, but who says you have to engage the dragon at all? Why not avoid it entirely?
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
The character is cocky. So, be cocky. Step up to the dragon and announce you have travelled far to see if there truly was such a magnificent and beautiful beast as the stories told. Tell the dragon you would be honoured to lay down a pouch of treasure for the pleasure of seeing such a creature as he.
Thats just a cocky as fighting it. Perhaps moreso.
I believe the intent(although not well expressed in the rules) was a trigger to generate story lines and adventure, more than to have the characters end up like some disfigured science experiment because of a poorly phrased wish.
I have always, as a DM, prefered the idea of the classic story genie. A genie that is capable of great feats such as changing the flow of a river or transporting you somewhere far away( by picking you up and flying there).
Ask one of these genies to give you a dragon slaying arrow, and he would gladly get one for you. Do you happen to know where there is such an arrow?
OR ask the genie to make you look like a troll, and he would scratch his head and shrug his shoulders, and ask how would you like me to make that happen.
It took me years to realize that just because a particular encounter was rolled up, doesn't mean the characters have to handle it in a particular way. I realize now that rolling that rare "green dragon" or "cockatrice" result didn't mean that a pointlessly lethal combat had to take place. I mean, you've been given some great ideas, but who says you have to engage the dragon at all? Why not avoid it entirely?
Yea with any other character I normally would avoid it but my characters backstory and general attitude is cocky and would rather risk her life than be a coward. I dont believe I have ever used the hide skill. I know it isnt in the best interests of the character but I like to roleplay as accurately as possible.
The character is cocky. So, be cocky. Step up to the dragon and announce you have travelled far to see if there truly was such a magnificent and beautiful beast as the stories told. Tell the dragon you would be honoured to lay down a pouch of treasure for the pleasure of seeing such a creature as he.
Thats just a cocky as fighting it. Perhaps moreso.
To paraphrase an old Saturday Night Live routine: "Why does everyone say I ran away like a frightened rabbit? Maybe I was running like an angry rabbit toward another fight in the opposite direction."
Wish that you were completely undetectable (invisible, unsmellable, unhearable) by all dragons that are not good aligned.
And then hope that you don't get accidentally stepped on since they can't hear you yelling, "Hey, watch where you're walking!"...
