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This came up on our Slumbering Tsar campaign. Here's the lowdown.
During a fight in a large barrow mound three characters got affected by insanity. One of the three characters fell into a deep chasm immediately after being affected and is dead and unrecoverable by the party. The two that survived are being restrained by the others as they seek a cure. Problem is, insanity is rather hard to cure. No one has the ability to cure them.
So they discover there is a being that dwells at the crossroads of Tsar that grants wishes, but has a tendency to twist them to the detriment of the wisher. So they visit this being and make the following wish to heal their friends and get their lost companion back.
"We wish for the full restoration and return to us of our companions X, Y, and Z with all of their possessions and gear with them, completely healed and restored to their normal minds and spirits unfettered by curse, magic, or wound."
As you can see, they tried to be pretty thorough. How would you twist this wish?
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Unfettered by magic.... Hmmmm....
Are any of the characters spellcasters? They now find themselves completely unfettered from magic, and unable to cast any spells. Those that aren't now find they can never be affected by magic again, or at the very least have insane SR that can't be lowered.
They didn't mention possession (demon or ghost).
I'm sorry, but all I can come up with is also in the category of "don't do this:"
Reduce them back to 1st level, before they became insane adventurers. "Normal mind and spirit," and all.
{EtA: You didn't mention the charge for granting wishes. There's got to be a real good one for three wishes -- three companions -- packed into one.}
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This is easy: transfer whatever curses, magic or wounds from the three inflicted people to those who are requesting the curse, and transfer their gear to the prior location of where the curse took effect.
It is asking for their normal minds and spirits, but it doesn't say anything about what bodies those minds and spirits are in.
If I wanted to be a little bit of jerk (which I probably would, since 3 true resurrections plus gear retrieval is beyond the normal scope of a wish spell) I would probably mix up the 3 bodies with the 3 minds.
If I wanted to be more of a jerk, I would combine each of their minds with their most significant magical item, making them into an intelligent magical item, thus restoring companion and gear with a normal mind/spirit and unfettered by curse, magic or wound.
"Normal Minds" So many ways to view that
"Companions X, Y, Z" know anyone with those names?
"Possessions and gear" Gears are objects. Possessions could be interpreted as magical objects related to the possession spell
"Full restoration" Similarly restoration is a spell
"Their possessions" could exclude anything and everything that was not legally acquired. This could range from thievery to anything they have ever taken from a body(or purchased using any funds whatsoever gained from such means)
I do like the everything owned. Could include property. How far down do they own beneath property they own?
Spirit unfettered by magic? Spell resistance 1 or 9001 on commonly buffed targets. Unable to ever be resurrected.
Unfettered by wound? Ok his body is naturally shaped like that now
Play with the placement of "and" and ",". If verbally spoken you have room to place them where you want. If written abuse oxford commas. Note "or" placement. Can also can mean one or the other. IE unfettered by curse, magic, OR wound
*use all of these at your own risk. Asmodeus inc does not take responsibility for the results of any means, ideas, or inspiration generated by its work(TM)
This is easy: transfer whatever curses, magic or wounds from the three inflicted people to those who are requesting the curse, and transfer their gear to the prior location of where the curse took effect.
I think this is the good direction, but won't solve the problem as 1/2 of the party will still be unable to act.
It would be better to redirect the negative conditions (dead/insane etc ...) on NPCs close to the PCs that made the wish (lovers, friends, family etc ...)
Nobody said anything about the condition of the gear. The one who fell into the chasm? They find themselves covered in leather tatters, corroded metal, and the remains of whatever their magic items are. They're there, but they sure don't work.
Nobody said anything about where their companions would end up. How about 100 feet up in the air? Or buried under the ground.
Nobody said anything about them or their gear staying there. All of their gear appears in a big sack, which the Tsar can then pick up and walk or teleport off with.
Similar to the 'home' idea above, what about a twist on 'posessions' that includes everything that character has ever owned. Pets, homes, trash, and so on.
This is easy: transfer whatever curses, magic or wounds from the three inflicted people to those who are requesting the curse, and transfer their gear to the prior location of where the curse took effect.
I think this is the good direction, but won't solve the problem as 1/2 of the party will still be unable to act.
It would be better to redirect the negative conditions (dead/insane etc ...) on NPCs close to the PCs that made the wish (lovers, friends, family etc ...)
Not necessarily, that all depends on the insanity/curses/wounds.
"We wish for the full restoration and return to us of our companions X, Y, and Z with all of their possessions and gear with them, completely healed and restored to their normal minds and spirits unfettered by curse, magic, or wound."
As you can see, they tried to be pretty thorough. How would you twist this wish?
Pizza Lord, I bow to you! I don't see anything here about "normal bodies." Reincarnation, it is!
The one that died could easily come back as a dhampir. Hard to heal that way, but...
And the insane ones? Goblins are fairly insane. While being of "normal minds and spirits," I mean.
I suppose you could just go with the "Returned to somewhere horrible" route. As long they are all together it would be valid.
You could even make an adventure of it! They wind up in the belly of a multi-dimensional whale or something and need to get out without killing the poor thing or else reality shenanigans ensue.
1. Do reincarnate instead of true resurrection, they didn't specify same body
2. All of their magic items no longer function (i.e. become mundane items). Gear condition was not specified, after all.
That should probably be enough to make them not ragequit but make the price of the wish equal with what was wished for
Depending the circumstances, you could have them suddenly shifted to an alternate reality where they're all whole and back together, but everything else has gone horribly wrong. Mirror Mirror sort of deal.
Meh, I'd say just use reincarnate and a 24-hour "no magic" curse that functions as though they were in an antimagic field. That should serve make things interesting for the next few encounters.
You don't want to get too crazy/permanent with it, lest they just stop bothering to play their characters anymore.
"Unfettered" by curse, magic, or wound? Or "unaffected" by? Even a liberal reading of "unfettered" leaves open a ton of options to screw with them. Also, does this entity tend to twist wishes generally, or only, as per OP, to the detriment of the wisher? Most of the ideas that spring immediately to mind impact the "wishees" as it were.
The entity is a Dweller at the Crossroads is originally from the Sword & Sorcery Creature Collection. It has been converted to Pathfinder in the Frog God Games mega-adventure The Slumbering Tsar Saga.
It is a neutral evil being that grants wishes and there is always a price. This price is in proportion to the wish granted.
Oh. Oooooooooooooooooooh. Well if the price is always proportional there need to be severe consequences for cramming half a dozen or more wishes into a single thing.
You could have the wish create psycho-ranger versions of the characters for example, beefed up evil clones with existential crises, psychosis, and a grudge.
Oh boy. Price is way different from twist. And proportion????
Wow.
"So, you've got your companions back. Do you want to keep them?" You've got your next adventure hook! Or three!
Like the cost of this uber wish would need to be staggering. We're talking undoing major maladies, raising the dead, teleportation, safeguards.
Also I noticed they did not say anything about disease so I guess you could start a world ending plague that follows them, but also doesn't directly affect them.
Lots of good ideas have been thrown around here and I want to thank you guys.
From "all of their possessions" I'm open to the idea of them coming back possessed. And the phrase "normal minds and spirits" makes no mention of body. So I'm leaning towards different bodies via reincarnate for the two who were just insane. Maybe even making a quest to find their bodies and get them back.
The actual dead guy was the party cleric and his death came as quite a loss. I'm thinking he will come back as a tormented ghost or other incorporeal that can't be put to rest.
The Dweller is basically an extra-dimensional jerk who grants wishes to desperate people and makes them turn out for the worse. So keep those awesome and horrible suggestions coming!
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Oh, a Monkey's Paw?
Well, all those 'unfettered by magic' might find it impossible to keep their magic items on their body, and they keep falling off no matter how hard they try.
Oh, and make sure they're all united in an incredibly hazardous area- a mile above the ground, the bottom of the ocean, or the Plane of Fire are all possibilities.
And their gear comes with them... but the Dweller takes all of it for himself, thanking them for their donation.
Another potential "small" thin; return their gear to them melted/broken down and formed into a hostile golem. Never said the gear had to be in any sort of condition.
The wish doesn't specify WHEN to restore and return their companions to them. Perhaps you could leave them dangling for now, then arrange an extremely inopportune time for them to appear. In the middle of delicate negotiations or a stealth mission, perhaps, or while in an airship that can't support all that weight.
Oh, and they only said their minds and spirits are unaffected by curses (or just their spirits if this was a written request and omitted the Oxford comma). You could make all or just some of their magic items cursed.
Give them all a geas/quest to do some horribly evil thing in payment (maybe a series of sacrifices that ultimately summon a large evil into the world or something else that would slowly shift party alignment towards evil unless they choose to fight against it as much as possible).
This thread is why I'm glad I'm highly intelligent.
Wish 1: I wish this wish and every wish I make afterwards from my perspective turns out 100 percent exactly how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail.
Wish 2: I wish your helpful powers were transfered to me.
Wish 3: Oh wait, I don't have to make wishes anymore, because I have wish as a spell-like ability, with no material cost. I'm effectively a god now.
This is why unlimited wishes should never happen.
For a day, with the ability to grant/make wishes already used. ;)
Then that wouldn't follow wish 1 "turn out 100 percent how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail".For a day, with the ability to grant/make wishes already used. ;)This thread is why I'm glad I'm highly intelligent.
Wish 1: I wish this wish and every wish I make afterwards from my perspective turns out 100 percent exactly how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail.
Wish 2: I wish your helpful powers were transfered to me.
Wish 3: Oh wait, I don't have to make wishes anymore, because I have wish as a spell-like ability, with no material cost. I'm effectively a god now.
This is why unlimited wishes should never happen.
Which is completely out of line for a wish, let alone a miracle. Since a wish is granted by a particular entity, the ability to discern "from my perspective" in a literal interpretation is subject to that of the grantor, not the grantee. Attempting to abuse a wish or series of wishes in this manner is a bad idea. For further mayhem on the topic, review the subject in the Legacy of Fire AP which discusses the ramifications of rampant 'wishcraft' abuse.
Edit: the 3rd wish made you a god. Of what, where, who knows, who cares. What's your new character?
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Let me start out by saying that my belief is that twisting wishes into pretzels (or, as seems to be the case with some of these suggestions, Klein bottles) is one of the most effective ways known to end a campaign.
Now, having said that, the players are certainly being greedy. They are trying to jam at least three wishes worth of effect into one Wish. My breakdown is:
1) Removal of the Insanity effect from all three players. This can be done with one Wish, assuming that the event that gave them the condition was a singular thing (unspecified by the OP, and I'm not familiar with the scenario).
2) Recovery of the lost companion. As stated in the Wish spell description, revival of a companion whose body is inaccessible requires two Wishes. In this case, it sounds like Reincarnate would only take one.
3) Recovery of the lost companion's gear. This would take a separate Wish from recovering the body, but only one, as nothing the OP said seemed to indicate that any gear was lost from the other two companions.
Now, I would not have a problem with a being such as the one described accepting the request, and then detailing the number of Wishes it will take, and demanding payment for them. And not allowing them to modify what they asked for after the fact.
@Reksew_Trebla: Your wish number 2 is so far beyond the stated limitations of the Wish spell that it should either expend the Wish with no effect, or cause the creation of a small demiplane where the effect would take place, but nowhere outside of it. Or, of course, call down the direct, undivided attention of the chief God(ess) of Fate, Magic, or whatever would be appropriate for the campaign. And do you know what the worst thing about having the undivided attention of a Deity is? You have the undivided attention of a Deity!
Let me start out by saying that my belief is that twisting wishes into pretzels (or, as seems to be the case with some of these suggestions, Klein bottles) is one of the most effective ways known to end a campaign.
Now, having said that, the players are certainly being greedy. They are trying to jam at least three wishes worth of effect into one Wish. My breakdown is:
1) Removal of the Insanity effect from all three players. This can be done with one Wish, assuming that the event that gave them the condition was a singular thing (unspecified by the OP, and I'm not familiar with the scenario).
2) Recovery of the lost companion. As stated in the Wish spell description, revival of a companion whose body is inaccessible requires two Wishes. In this case, it sounds like Reincarnate would only take one.
3) Recovery of the lost companion's gear. This would take a separate Wish from recovering the body, but only one, as nothing the OP said seemed to indicate that any gear was lost from the other two companions.
Now, I would not have a problem with a being such as the one described accepting the request, and then detailing the number of Wishes it will take, and demanding payment for them. And not allowing them to modify what they asked for after the fact.
@Reksew_Trebla: Your wish number 2 is so far beyond the stated limitations of the Wish spell that it should either expend the Wish with no effect, or cause the creation of a small demiplane where the effect would take place, but nowhere outside of it. Or, of course, call down the direct, undivided attention of the chief God(ess) of Fate, Magic, or whatever would be appropriate for the campaign. And do you know what the worst thing about having the undivided attention of a Deity is? You have the undivided attention of a Deity!
Hey man, Klein bottles are cool, I and tried to make my planar domain one once. Nobody noticed the difference from just having the ends stitched together in a normal plane.
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I like the idea of Reincarnation, but I'd also throw in a bit of other things to help balance it out and make it so the party doesn't feel too screwed.
My ideas would be to make it so they reincarnate, roll randomly or GM choice doesn't matter, and have the items temporarily without magic. The Wish Granter than states that should the companions want their bodies back to being their normal form, you have to do one job for each companion and he will return you to your normal body. Then with the Magic Items, have it so he will only have the magic work while doing his jobs, and at any point they try to cheat him, do something against him, or don't do what he has asked, the items stop working. And once they complete all the jobs (Should be Number of Companions + 1 or 2) the items are returned back to normal for the party.
These jobs should be dangerous, hard, but should also tie in with the story. Gives a plot hook without being too detrimental to the party, and still punishes them for their reckless wishes.
You could play with the wording of "normal" as well. Did they have backstories before they became adventurers? Generally I find adventures are short term things relatively, So this is very dependent on your campaign, but if I had a character who was say human and mid 20's, maybe only a year or two has actually passed in your campaign. So "normal" for them could be reverting back to their backstory selves.
Like maybe the cleric is now a level 1 apprentice in his local church, Someone could be a farmer etc...
This could also kick off an adventure where they know something is wrong and need to find each other living their day to day normal lives as merchants/inn keeps/labourers and get their memories (IE class levels back). It could also present an interesting challenge since they would have to do it with none of their usual abilities.
I wish I'd said what you said, when I suggested knocking them back to first level. This is classy!
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Then that wouldn't follow wish 1 "turn out 100 percent how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail".For a day, with the ability to grant/make wishes already used. ;)This thread is why I'm glad I'm highly intelligent.
Wish 1: I wish this wish and every wish I make afterwards from my perspective turns out 100 percent exactly how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail.
Wish 2: I wish your helpful powers were transfered to me.
Wish 3: Oh wait, I don't have to make wishes anymore, because I have wish as a spell-like ability, with no material cost. I'm effectively a god now.
This is why unlimited wishes should never happen.
Here's how it would go:
1: Sure, whatever. It's your Wish.
2: No. And you can't make me. And
3: even if you could, I'm not omnipotent. And if I was, you really couldn't make me. *slay living*
Then that wouldn't follow wish 1 "turn out 100 percent how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail".For a day, with the ability to grant/make wishes already used. ;)This thread is why I'm glad I'm highly intelligent.
Wish 1: I wish this wish and every wish I make afterwards from my perspective turns out 100 percent exactly how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail.
Wish 2: I wish your helpful powers were transfered to me.
Wish 3: Oh wait, I don't have to make wishes anymore, because I have wish as a spell-like ability, with no material cost. I'm effectively a god now.
This is why unlimited wishes should never happen.
Here's how it would go:
1: Sure, whatever. It's your Wish.
2: No. And you can't make me. And
3: even if you could, I'm not omnipotent. And if I was, you really couldn't make me. *slay living*
^____^ Nice!
1st i must say that the following idea isn't mine. i have seen it on this massageboard a long time ago. this guys suggeseted the following:
when using a wish, outside the normal scope of what is put under the wish spell consider any "and" & the like (such as adding a "," to add something else in the wish) as a seperate new wish that must be paid for in full on it's own.
wish to be young AND rich is actuly 2 wishs. a wish to be young and a wish to be rich.
young,rich and powerfull = 3 wishs etc.
that is before going into detail of what the wish is doing.
"We wish for the full restoration and return to us of our companions X',' Y, and Z with all of their possessions and gear with them',' completely healed and restored to their normal minds and spirits (should be an ',' here) unfettered by curse',' magic', or' wound."
so fast count down of number of wishes used:
1: full restoration of x2: return of x
3: return of x's possesions
4: return of x's gear
5: heal X
6: restore x's mind
7: restore x's spirit
8: removal of any curse fettering x
9: removal of any magic fettering x
10: removal of any wound fetering x
and the same for y (10 more) and the same for Z (10 more) for a tottal of 30 wishs (although i would argue that some of the wishs might repeat themselvs ,heal = removal of fettering wounds, but it's their fualt for asking the same thing twice).
so 1st thing i would do is have the wish giver ask for 30 worth of wishes as payment (wish's aint cheap are they?)
as for how to screw this over...id say they never said how far back they consider it normal phase for the restoration to be. so having them all brought back as babies is fair game. and since they didn't had any gear when they were babies..well diaprs maybe...
he can claim that humanoid education is corruption of the mind, and they asked to cure ALL of it...
not the wish giver problem they didn't take time into acount, as when is this normal phase was. and when in time are you talking about their possesions.
or if they argue that they want all possesions, you can allways dump them with reverything they ever owned. indlucing what they usely leave in the rrestroom...
on the same note looking at :
This thread is why I'm glad I'm highly intelligent.Wish 1: I wish this wish and every wish I make afterwards from my perspective turns out 100 percent exactly how I want them to turn out, even if I do not specify every detail.
Wish 2: I wish your helpful powers were transfered to me.
Wish 3: Oh wait, I don't have to make wishes anymore, because I have wish as a spell-like ability, with no material cost. I'm effectively a god now.
This is why unlimited wishes should never happen.
wish one : "this wish AND" every wish i make afterwords = need 2nd wish from using and, and it will work on itself and you need a new wish to work on the next etc. so you basicly need a wish to wish for it to work on the previus wish. you just done owned an infinite amount of wishs...how much cash you said you had?
..."turn out , even if..." is that more wishes bound to EACH wish you make later on? that is just double the infinite number of wishs you just ordered.wish 2: first finish paying for your double infinite wishes from the 1st step then well talk about giving you more.. i just like doing things in order.
-you wouldn't want me to grant you this wish BEFORE granting you your previus one(s) would you?!?
This came up on our Slumbering Tsar campaign. Here's the lowdown.
During a fight in a large barrow mound three characters got affected by insanity. One of the three characters fell into a deep chasm immediately after being affected and is dead and unrecoverable by the party. The two that survived are being restrained by the others as they seek a cure. Problem is, insanity is rather hard to cure. No one has the ability to cure them.
So they discover there is a being that dwells at the crossroads of Tsar that grants wishes, but has a tendency to twist them to the detriment of the wisher. So they visit this being and make the following wish to heal their friends and get their lost companion back.
"We wish for the full restoration and return to us of our companions X, Y, and Z with all of their possessions and gear with them, completely healed and restored to their normal minds and spirits unfettered by curse, magic, or wound."
As you can see, they tried to be pretty thorough. How would you twist this wish?
Rewind time back to just before the characters were hit with insanity. Maybe they will be lucky this time, then again, maybe not...
I'm also a big fan of rewinding time.
For a twist, you could have them personally put back in time, but everything else has still progressed, so essentially their past versions are drawn forward in time suddenly.
I see nothing about gender or race, or any language implying they are covered. Roll on the reincarnate chart for each, disallowing their original race. :)Also, if you're going to do this, use one of the creative online reincarnation charts that have dozens of possible race options rather than the chart in the CRB.
Why? Provided they are humanoid, what's wrong with the core table?
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They're asking for a lot, far more than a Wish should grant. But give it to them anyway. Just make it so that in the future, when anything bad happens to X,Y or Z that the wish fixed or would have fixed if the problem had existed, it happens to all 3 of them. They were 'fixed' with a single wish, so they're now forever connected under the power of that single wish.
For example, they ask for all items to be restored. Sure, but whenever one of them is disarmed, they all drop their weapons. One of them fails a save against a Confusions spell? All 3 of them are confused.
Make them feel the connection when these things happen. And have them have a sensation of the wish-granting being's amusement over the misfortune.
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Do the players have enough system mastery that they ought to be roughly familiar with the parameters of wish, or at least know it has some that they could look up / could have looked up?
Were they led to believe this is one of those "it can do anything if you word it right" wishes from myth, legend, and fiction, instead of a game mechanic of set power?
If "no" and "yes" respectively then you shouldn't punish them for asking for so much. Frankly I think the wording of their wish shows they put in an appropriate amount of thought and don't deserve to have it twisted significantly---though they should still be stuck paying The Price, of course.
The Reincarnate list has 14 options, plus a GM's choice. There are currently at least 57 races with rules for character generation in Pathfinder.
How many of those 57 playable races are humanoids though? Betcha it cuts it down by quite a bit.
And that "GM's choice?" That was likely put there to account for the extra rare races-to-be-published. The existing table works just fine if the reincarnated subject is a humanoid.
Only if they had a differing creature type would I turn elsewhere.
Avoid screwing with things not mentioned in the spell. There are literally an infinite number of things not mentioned in any given wish. It is far more interesting, both as a player and a gm, to play with different interpretations of the original wish than to mess with stuff never even brought up