| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 01:19:00
This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find a thread on it so here we go.
DMs and storytellers, how do you deal with Wish in your campaigns?
We're all aware that there are plenty of archmages throughout the Realms, that theoretically have the ability to cast Wish. And it kind of seems like there have been plenty of situations over the years where they could have used it.
Why don't they? Or have they? Are there any prominent examples of Wishes being used in the Realms?
The consequences of Wish scares the bejeezes out of me for high-level campaigns, and I wonder why such a spell doesn't affect the Realms more frequently. I've considered telling my players that the multitude of high-level wizards in the Realms just don't know the spell, but that seems a bit like cheating considering its in the Player's Handbook.
Thoughts? How do you explain Wishes in the Realms? |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| nblanton |
Posted - 16 Mar 2018 : 02:50:05
The best use of a wish was in the older editions.
You had to cast it on a incapacitated tarrasque to actually kill the thing. That requirement was removed in 5e. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 16 Mar 2018 : 02:26:02
Don't forget the downside of casting wish in 1E/2E ... the caster ages 5 years. Or more for longer-lived races (35 years for an elf).
To be sure, there are longevity magics of many sorts. But they invariably have some sort of limitation or are exceedingly rare and precious finds. So access to extended years is something the DM can control. And "ageless" spellcasters (like liches) can be fearsomely powerful.
And to be sure, there are methods of using others in your place when suffering permanent aging or stat reductions. Evil methods. Or, if not Evil then certainly not easily obtained - few NPCs would trade away 5 years of their life cheaply. So access to countervailed years is again something the DM can control.
Remember that taken for what they were in their intended contexts, the 1E/2E wish rules were not really broken. They are only broken in the context of prevailing attitudes towards magic in 3E onwards. |
| nblanton |
Posted - 15 Mar 2018 : 16:45:33
Yeah, using M:tG as an example, the wish spell would be effectively a token that you start with that says:
quote:
Cast any known spell. No mana is used to cast the spell. Use this anytime you can use a Sorcery
It isn't an automatic win button, but pretty dang close. Add in the other effects that you can do with the associated stresses and potential loss of wish forever and you can get a really good idea of the amount of power that is available. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 15 Mar 2018 : 15:10:36
Pretty much. The best use of wish is to access spells not on your class spell list. |
| nblanton |
Posted - 15 Mar 2018 : 13:53:47
3e really fixed the wish spell, by delineated its uses and gave concrete examples of the functions and powers a wish is able to provide. Most of the changes that The Silver Sage pointed out were put into the 3e Player's Handbook.
Honestly, this whole discussion shows the problems with the older 1/2e wish spells. As a DM and an academic exercise solely, I suppose its fun to try to thwart the game-breaking nature of such spells, artifacts, and items. In reality, at the gaming table when you realize that your players are about to derail the entire campaign and you are stuck trying to salvage the situation it is amazingly frustrating. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 15 Mar 2018 : 11:30:15
Hmmm, hadn't really read the 5e version of wish. I'll give it to them, they've made it definitely something where I'd have to be in a very very very serious situation before I'd use a wish in any non-standard way (which I've only done once anyway, but I've heard the stories from people). Honestly, my take for wish is that "the act of wishing or thoroughly dreaming some fact or action into reality" should be some kind of component within a higher type of spellcasting. Now, there may be multiple different "methodologies" of this higher type of casting, and it may be something that gets periodically rediscovered by single or small groups of archmages. Some call it Epic Magic. Others call it High Magic. Others call it Great Dream Magic. Some call it TrueName Magic. Some might call it Great Rune Magic. But essentially the concept of each "wish" (in the classic form that we hear of in fairy tales) should be the culmination of research into creating a specific effect.... and those beings who can "grant" wishes on a whim do so by trying a shortcut to said magic that is "encouraged" to twist or literally interpret the wording of things in the easiest way possible for it to make things come into effect. |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 15 Mar 2018 : 01:03:25
Which now suddenly makes rings of wishes understandable.
-- George Krashos |
| The Silver Sage |
Posted - 14 Mar 2018 : 13:56:27
quote:
Originally posted by KanzenAU
I've considered telling my players that the multitude of high-level wizards in the Realms just don't know the spell, but that seems a bit like cheating considering its in the Player's Handbook.
Don't forget that in 5e, each time someone casts the wish spell to non-duplicate a spell, they have a 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again.
Look at it this way: if you were a powerful long-lived arch-mage you're bound to fail that roll eventually. I've encountered it has a High level PC. Every time the party runs into a problem they can't solve, they think "it's ok, we can just solve this problem with a wish." And that works... for a while. But eventually, the wizard fails his roll and now he's stuck casting timestop the rest of his career. So it's hardly a stretch to say NPC mages can't cast wish anymore. |
| Balmar Foghaven |
Posted - 13 Mar 2018 : 18:43:13
Though if someone in my own game made such a wish, as DM I personally would fudge the rolls slightly "whelp, looks like you have lost the ability to make such outrageous wishes ever again. Also enjoy your strength score of 3 for the next few days." |
| Balmar Foghaven |
Posted - 13 Mar 2018 : 18:08:15
There would still be a certain upper limit on what the spell should be able to accomplish, of course. If one could simply Wish to become a god, then Karsus would never have needed to research his epic spell. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 13 Mar 2018 : 05:14:41
Wish should honestly depend on the caster's own power. Arcane casters are essentially twisting reality to their whims, so the more powerful you are, the greater the effect, with less chances of backfiring.
It's not like it makes much of a difference, since casters already snap reality over their knees.
|
| Starshade |
Posted - 11 Mar 2018 : 23:41:26
quote:
Originally posted by KanzenAU
wishing that pants had never been invented, and other such crazy doings.
And from now on, Wilard the Wizard walks around without pants, oblivious to the odd looks he get. He gets that wizard robes makes others more at ease around him, but not quite why..
Tbh, nothing is that powerfull, I'd assume wishing for no pants would make the caster unable to grasp what pants are. I'd roll a d20 and make it fizzle spectacularly, with natural 20 and 1 disasterously dangerous fail and a natural 20 a minor result. Maybe the fail turns all pants within 20 miles into mimics. A win makes the locals wear togas. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 11 Mar 2018 : 02:57:34
quote:
The power has to come from somewhere.
In AD&D 1E, wish is conjuration/summoning. In (early) AD&D 2E, wish is conjuring/summoning and invocation/evocation (which incidentally makes it unavailable to both specialist invokers and specialist conjurers).
Conjuring spells create something from nothing.
Summoning spells instead bring it forth from somewhere else.
Evocation spells manifest or manipulate "background" magical energy (which is "everywhere" in a magic-rich world).
Invocation spells invoke the name of some magically-potent entity (so this entity can provide, manifest, or manipulate the magical energy as the caster requests/demands).
Also worth noting is AD&D 1E alter reality, the illusionist's almost-as-powerful counterpart of wish. An illusion spell, a false reality so powerful that it actually entirely replaces or displaces "actual" reality. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 10 Mar 2018 : 15:38:11
I've never figured out what to do with him, but I thought up an NPC that wished for perpetual youth... And is now permanently 10 years old. |
| Balmar Foghaven |
Posted - 10 Mar 2018 : 09:33:36
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, Wish can be suitable as a support spell or last-minute reaction to an unforseen threat - provided the caster sticks to the basic effects of duplicating an existing spell, granting a resistance, etc. It's when the player gets greedy and pushes for the other, more powerful effects that things get wonky. That's when it really depends on who is running the game as DM, and how lenient/nasty they want to be. I can think of several examples where even a seemingly "perfectly" worded wish can still be skewed by DM tom-foolerly.
For example: "I wish to never die of age, without succumbing to the infirmities of age or the effects of undeath, and that no harm comes to me by this casting." They can still be encased in amber and held in stasis on the astral plane for all eternity. |
| My Initials Are DM |
Posted - 10 Mar 2018 : 01:30:00
In response to the OP, here's how I deal with Wish in my campaign. Bear in mind that I don't use the canon FR pantheon - mine is a mishmash of FR gods, the Dawn War pantheon, and some nods to Dragonlance. Also, magic isn't as common in my campaign as it is in the canon FR. Wizards are infrequent and rather reclusive, and most don't cast spells higher than 3rd-level. Spells that are 6th-level and above are very hard to come by, and 8th- and 9th-level spells can only be learned from legendary or mythical beings, or by extraordinary circumstances. Case in point; the party's bard was able to learn the Prismatic Spray spell by making friends with a rainbow in the Feywild. The prismatic spray that comes out is literally the bard summoning the rainbow that she helped. She has to either sing or play "Rainbow Connection" or "Over the Rainbow" at the table whenever she casts it.
Anyways, about the Wish spell. Here goes.
As far as anyone knows, Wish doesn't exist anymore. It was lost a long time ago.
There used to be three gods of magic; Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari. Each of them made a Word of Power (PW:Heal, PW:Stun, PW:Kill), but the three of them together made a secret Word of Power, the mightiest possible. Yep, it's Wish.
Then came the Dragonfall war. Bahamut and Tiamat waged a war across the entire world that nearly destroyed it. During this war, Tiamat went to the three gods of magic and demanded that they give her their secret word of power. They refused, so she ate them.
Fast forward to today. There are currently nine Master Scrolls of Magic that were left behind by the three gods of magic. Three scrolls of white magic (abjuration, divination, and evocation), three scrolls of grey magic (alteration, enchantment, and illusion), two scrolls of black magic (conjuration and necromancy), and a single scroll of universal magic.
When the three scrolls of white magic are put together, they reveal the spell Power Word: Heal. When the three grey scrolls are put together, they reveal the spell Power Word: Stun. When the two black scrolls are put together, they reveal the spell Power Word: Kill. The single universal scroll is essentially a unifying agent, revealing the nature of the Weave itself. When all nine scrolls are put together, they reveal the Wish.
In my world, the Wish spell doesn't screw people over if they aren't nuanced about how they phrase their wish. Instead, it's ability to affect reality is proportional to the intrinsic power of the individual making the Wish. A lowly peasant can only affect a tiny portion of the world around them (like Wishing for their beloved dog to come back to life, happy and healthy), while a god could create an entirely new plane of existence.
In terms of the story of my campaign, Tiamat has always wanted the Wish, but even she believes that it is lost forever. Little does she know that our intrepid heroes have found two of the nine Master Scrolls of Magic. If she finds out that the scrolls are real, she'll stop at nothing to find them. Why is this a big deal, you ask? Because in my version of the Forgotten Realms, Tiamat is the biggest, baddest god on the block - even despite being imprisoned in Avernus - and she has but one equal. If she ever gets free, she could conquer the entire Prime Material plane. But because she's the goddess of greed, the Prime Material won't be enough. Over many millennia, she'll go on to conquer all the planes. But even that won't be enough, so she'd start consuming the planes, metaphorically and physically. She'll consume everything until there is nothing left but her. And then she'll consume herself. Then, finally, she will have been the last to have everything, and it will all be hers, forever and ever. And there will be nothing left, not even nothing. If she had the Wish spell, she could make that happen in an instant.
My players have a very good reason to keep Tiamat from knowing about these scrolls. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 23 Dec 2017 : 08:38:26
Well, I did say I was applying the rules (as I saw them) from Hunter X Hunter to D&D, but that was more of a mental exercise, once again. I wouldn't do that, personally, even though I greatly dislike players playing evil characters (IMO, that isn't what D&D is all about - its about people becoming HEROES). However, I also believe people should do whatever works for their group. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 23 Dec 2017 : 04:29:05
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Also, the 'backlash' should be equivalent to the power-level of the wish.
I just finished Hunter X Hunter (anime), and in the final arc they had a character who had the 'unlimited wish' power. I think they handled it pretty well - it had a BUNCH of rules to go with it, and if you wished for really simple stuff (like a cut on your finger to heal), there was almost no backlash. Also - and interestingly - the evilness of the wish also applied. So if you wished for something positive ("I would like a flower to give to that sick girl over there"), the backlash would be practically non-existent, but if you wished for someone to die, the backlash would be VERY severe, and if you wanted them to die horribly, the backlash would increase exponentially. Any wish based upon 'sin' (greed, etc.) would get the very bad backlash, even if it wasn't all that potent (wishing for thousand dollars, as opposed to wishing for a million). Wishing for something to help another would hardly cause a ripple.
As a D&D gamer, if I were to apply rules to all of that, I think I would say it requires some 'soul' to empower the wish, and people with good intentions have very strong souls (power level 1000! LOL), whereas someone evil would have a very weak soul. If the wish drains some of your soul away, and lets say it costs '10 points', someone with a soul-value of a thousand isn't going to bat an eye, but someone with a soul-value of just twenty just lost 1/2 the remainder of their soul. Thus, good people with good intentions can get away with making wishes (they become more like 'prayers'). There's still a limit, though.
That seems unnecessarily antagonistic to evil characters. Tying wishes to character level is one thing, but an arbitrary "good pwns evil" really screws over evil player characters, or even neutral ones. Hell, it seems more like a miracle spell, which is dependent on a god, while a wish spell would be the reliant on the power of the caster alone.
It's also funny, because the one time the celestials invaded the Lower Planes, the three great fiendish races banded together and nearly slaughtered them all. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 21:24:45
I like #1, and 3 & 4 sound similar to what I would do, but #2 isn't for me. I like the idea the wish 'steals' from elsewhere - it literally follows the simplest method of achieving its goals.
Also, you never really know what else the wish effected. Suppose you made a wish (RW) to become 'rich & famous", and you get discovered on some talent show and become a huge success. Someone else was supposed to get that spot, but you 'stole it' from them. You stole their future. That's how I see it working. So a wish that doesn't seem to have harmed anyone may have caused immense harm in the long run (that person may have become the worlds most prominent philanthropist, ushering in a new 'golden age' of human caring). You... you're just sitting on your solid gold coach, drinking thousand-dollar a bottle champaign and doing lines with Charlie Sheen. Shame on you.  |
| Dalor Darden |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 20:53:06
Depends on which game you are playing; but I have some basic rules I always apply to wishes:
1- The power has to come from somewhere. Whether a God becomes interested because the wish is relevant to their sphere(s) of interest or a fiend/genie catches a whiff of it as it is cast...the power behind "granting" the wish has a great deal to do with what ALSO happens besides the wisher's will.
2- Anything "created" by a wish simply comes from the positive/negative material planes or the elemental planes. If you wish for 10,000 Gold Pieces...you get 10,000 with blank faces...but they are gold and nobody lost them from anywhere. Such a wish is likely granted by an Elemental Earth being (to adhere to rule 1) and is likely granted simply because it introduces more elemental earth into the Prime Material...thus increasing the power of Elemental Earth into the Prime. I just ask "What could a being already in existence in the game do to imitate this wish?"
3- Wishes that have to do with "Self Only" rarely has a negative side effect. If they wish to be stronger, they are (as laid out by the wish by whichever edition).
4- Wishes that have to do with "Others" is the only time it becomes tricky. Wishing someone something that isn't harmful is usually handled by me as if it were Rule 3 in effect. If it is a harmful wish, then this is the only time that it gets complicated.
4.1- If the wish is for something that simply imitates another spell, I simply use the rules for that spell. Anything from "I wish that Giant was Dead!" to "I wish that Giant was paralyzed!" can be handled simply this way. Because it is a Wish, I look for the most powerful spell first that gets as close to their wish as possible...and try to find one that doesn't allow a saving throw. Power Word: Kill and so on. If I can't find one that has no saving throw, I then go to spells that allow a saving throw. If the player complains saying "it is a wish! They shouldn't get a saving throw!" then I remind them that the powers that grant wishes can be fickle...or that the being they are wishing against is rather powerful and has innate resistance to being screwed with by Wish magic simply because of the nature of their being what they are.
4.2 If the wish is "outside of mechanics" such as "I wish that Giant would be castrated and all of his children killed" then I have to start making judgement calls. There ARE spells that allow numerous foes to be killed simultaneously...but when a Wish starts hitting multiple targets I simply explain to the player that the power of the Wish will get watered down the more they wish AGAINST. Wishes are highly adaptable to desire; but they aren't infinitely any more powerful than other 9th level spells.
That's pretty much the extent of how I handle a Wish spell. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 20:20:34
Also, the 'backlash' should be equivalent to the power-level of the wish.
I just finished Hunter X Hunter (anime), and in the final arc they had a character who had the 'unlimited wish' power. I think they handled it pretty well - it had a BUNCH of rules to go with it, and if you wished for really simple stuff (like a cut on your finger to heal), there was almost no backlash. Also - and interestingly - the evilness of the wish also applied. So if you wished for something positive ("I would like a flower to give to that sick girl over there"), the backlash would be practically non-existent, but if you wished for someone to die, the backlash would be VERY severe, and if you wanted them to die horribly, the backlash would increase exponentially. Any wish based upon 'sin' (greed, etc.) would get the very bad backlash, even if it wasn't all that potent (wishing for thousand dollars, as opposed to wishing for a million). Wishing for something to help another would hardly cause a ripple.
As a D&D gamer, if I were to apply rules to all of that, I think I would say it requires some 'soul' to empower the wish, and people with good intentions have very strong souls (power level 1000! LOL), whereas someone evil would have a very weak soul. If the wish drains some of your soul away, and lets say it costs '10 points', someone with a soul-value of a thousand isn't going to bat an eye, but someone with a soul-value of just twenty just lost 1/2 the remainder of their soul. Thus, good people with good intentions can get away with making wishes (they become more like 'prayers'). There's still a limit, though. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 17:04:57
quote:
Originally posted by The Masked Mage
That's too easy Wooly... "I want a permanent version of the fly spell." Pop, a scroll appears with the spell requested. Once cast, the naughty little mage is permanently polymorphed into a fly. :P
Again, I spent some time on it. The wish was specifically to receive the effects of the fly spell and for those effects to be permanent. |
| The Masked Mage |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 16:17:38
That's too easy Wooly... "I want a permanent version of the fly spell." Pop, a scroll appears with the spell requested. Once cast, the naughty little mage is permanently polymorphed into a fly. :P |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 13:13:45
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
Failing that, you don't even need to cast the wish yourself. Gate in a solar or a pit fiend (which you can control, since gate allows you to control 2x your caster level in HD), get it to cast the wish for you, profit.
I'd expect that to be the scenario where the exact wording of the wish could be most readily used against the recipient.
I once had a character get a wish. I gave the wording of his request much consideration, and looked for any potential loopholes -- and since I can be a sneaky git, I think that I would have found any that were there. Then, because it was in keeping with how I played that character, I made an Intelligence check for him to make sure he'd be able to cover all the same angles.
Of course, all he wanted was a permanent version of the fly spell... And that particular group stopped gaming shortly after that, so he never got to take advantage of it. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 12:04:48
I think that wish spells are overhyped. With the stipulations presented here, you may as well not bother even preparing a wish spell. It's not like wish spells are going to make spellcasters even more broken than they are.
Break the economy? There are spells for that.
Start an apocalypse? Create a wraith, send it into a village, rinse and repeat.
Immortality? Magic jar, clone, lichdom...
Failing that, you don't even need to cast the wish yourself. Gate in a solar or a pit fiend (which you can control, since gate allows you to control 2x your caster level in HD), get it to cast the wish for you, profit. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 08:37:03
The 'Law of Equivalent Exchange' comes into play. Or, for you sciency-types, the law of the conservation of energy.
You cast a wish, and something, somewhere just got changed so that your thing could happen. Wish for a million dollars, and some bank-vault just got emptied. Wish for rain for your crops, and a severe drought happens on the other side of the continent. Wishes are bad news because you have no idea at all whats going to change in order to make your wish come true. Its not just a nuclear bomb - its a nuclear bomb with a five second fuse and no remote activation.
There's a dude up in Realmspace who made some very bad wishes - wanted his lands to be 'protected forever', so now he's in his castle (with the lands still around it) floating in Realmspace. Thats canon, BTW (technically SJ canon, but still). |
| Gareth |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 07:28:26
I imagine that wish spells are like Thermonuclear War. Wizards don't toss a Wish spell around beyond very minor or self only effects because they know that another wizard will then cast a wish to counter it (or already has cast a wish to prevent it), and then a third wizard will cast a wish to amend, and then a fourth.
Essentially, you don't use it for crazy stuff, because other folks also have Wish. |
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 06:14:40
I'm not talking about combat at all, I'm talking about making yourself King of the world, erasing monsters from the world, wishing that pants had never been invented, and other such crazy doings.
But I'm pretty happy with the reputation for disastrous unintended side effects angle.
Edit: But then... wizards be crazy... |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 06:00:00
Wish spells are the last thing you should be worrying about when fighting archmages.
|
| KanzenAU |
Posted - 22 Dec 2017 : 05:40:31
Interesting thoughts all, thanks.
Maybe I'm worrying too much, and archmages just only use them as an absolute last resort - as Wishes have a reputation for disastrous unintended side effects. |
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