The wish spell is one of the most interesting spells out there. Not just because it is powerful, but there is often a great deal of ambiguity as far as how the spell effect will occur. Has anyone had any interesting or fun things happen when they use their wish spells?
|
A friend of mine (who's a player in another group) told me once that after he formulated his wish kinda like this:
"I wish, that I can use an additional attack every time our group fights an opponent!"
The DM granted his wish, but after the first fight against a group of enemies, he told the player, that his wish will only come to work, if the group fights a SINGLE opponent, not a group of them.
My friend was pi**ed as you can imagine.
This brings me to another, related question - How hard would you judge a wish?
I had a friend of mine who, the first game session after his wizard learned to cast wish, reached into his bag and pulled out this exacting, three page transcription of exactly what he wanted to wish for, handed it to the the DM and said "I wish for this". The DM replied "Okay, a few pieces of paper exactly the same as the ones in your hand appear in the hands of your character". Pow, there went 5000 xp down the drain. So then my friend, not one to be discouraged, says "no, my character's wish is what I've written down". Then the DM tells him "sorry, you've got to read it aloud". My friend goes "Oh, F*&% it", the DM replies "Okay, a Succubus appears. You do know you have summoning spells for this sort of thing?". We all start looking at the DM strangely and he says "What? Would you have preferred a Nymph?" ^_^
It depends on what they wish for and the intent, plus how interesting (and possibly humorous or fun, and fun could be in a lethal way) I can twist it. I would set a Wisdom or Intelligence check DC and have the players roll it. If they make it, nothing bad happens (it might not be what they wanted, but it won't be bad); if they fail, something bad happens (and it's probably going to be pretty bad).
On a quasi-related note, my party (I was a player at the time) had great fun with a Deck of Many Things once. We had to go fight a red dragon, and we expected death, but walked in and found the dragon dead, and before him, a pile of cards. It wasn't hard to figure it out. We all had a ton of fun trying to decide how many cards to draw and hoping for this and dreading that. One of us refused to even touch the thing. It was a fun day. I actually can't remember anything that happened other than someone got a 4th level human fighter servant, and I think someone else got Imprisoned.
How hard wishes are really depends on two factors:
1.If the players aren't casting the wish and the person who is isn't their ally (like a monster bound to follow their commands i.e. an efreet) then the monster is obviously going to misinterprit the wish a musch as possible.
2.What the player is actually asking for, cause a +10 Flaming Blast Greatsword is kinda gamebreaking at 17th level.
This brings me to another, related question - How hard would you judge a wish?
Personally, it depends on how the characters are behaving. I like the idea that you have to careful with powerful magic as it can back fire if you are not. The wish spell is a great example of this. If you don't word your wish well, things might not go exactly as planned. Generally, I'm not the kind of GM who "tries" to kill the players, this just tends to frustrate people. I would usually answer the wish in the most simple and straight foreward way, however there are some things that I consider.
1. What works for the story. If fulfilling a wish in a specific way will add to the drama/humor/excitement/whatever of the story, then I'll answer the wish thusly.
2. Have the players grown complacen?. Wishes are powerful magic and shouldn't be used lightly or carelessly. If the players are getting careless, than it may be time for a wakeup call >:)
Here would be my litumus test:
Can the wish spell do what is asked for by any means available in the description of effects Wish is capable of mimicing. I consider these to be relatively safe uses for the spell and the spell will not often work its capricious misdeeds so long as the effect can be done within these parameters.
If the power of the wish goes beyond these limits, then the intent of the wish may be distorted, or the fulfillment of the spell may be incomplete. Seldom do I have this be malicious, merely random in ways that are as likely to be perplexing or harmful as they are to help.
For example, the guy who wants an extra attack would probably get a ring of haste (using the ability wish has to create magic items). The three pager would likely get a very limited or corrupted version of the wish--not for lack of specificity but likely just because that much specificity is likely to overwhelm the capacity of the spell to emulate it. Asking for the service of an Iffreet would likely get you a gate spell. Like that...