Alright, I remembered a questioned that's bugged me for a long time now. Specifically since the night my players freed a genie and in return each got one wish. The one that was a real problem was that one of the players wished for a bag of money that would never run out. I told him no, but then he wished for a million gold. And that had me stumped, which is the question: If you use a wish for gold, how much would you give? Should it even be allowed?
Director of Narrative
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Using the spell as written these days I'd say that gold fits under the "Create any non-magical item worth 25,000 and under". Maybe a bit more just for feeling sporting.
And to be a real bastard DM I'd tweak the wordking of the wish stated to give the player a huge bag of gold containing 25,000 gp that no single character could concievably carry on their own and then have the bag's opening be terribly difficult to open and distribute its contents where it would inevitably always have at least one coin inside of it.
Or a small pouch or coinpurse that created one GP per day.
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I'd have given him a bag that produced a gold piece every day (or maybe a copper piece every minute) after the first wish. While it may often be empty, it never runs out.
For the second wish, I'd probably have given him a map to the local king's treasure room. But then I'm kind of a hard case when it comes to wishes that I think are abusive.
Or a bag that creates one gold piece a day, but the gold remains there until removed. :)
Just giving them the massive bag would work. When they come back with horses to pull it away, the thing ruptures and the gold spills everywhere. Depending on where they are, this will have varying consequences, but will generally be negative if just for the fact of the adding struggle in moving the bulk.
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Or a bag that creates one gold piece a day, but the gold remains there until removed. :)
This is kind of like the Everfull Purse (found in Epic Level Handbook). Considered a minor artifact, so probably not something that you would give out in this case, but kind of FYI in case you want to look the item up...
I'd give them a bag of of two deeply sympathizing gold pieces with the ability to talk.
"There there. We promise, we will NEVER run out on you. We're your buddies and we're not going anywhere. Okay?"
What if when they asked for a million gold pieces, you just gave it to them and ended the campaign. "Why bother adventuring now? Riches are what you wanted and they're what you got. Buy yourself a nice obdurite plated castle and drink the brandied blood of demigods. Enjoy. Later."
Or a bag that creates one gold piece a day, but the gold remains there until removed. :)This is the best idea by far, in my opinion. The wishes wording, after all, was not clear.
Thoth-Amon
Agreed. Very sensible. Was that how the original everfull purse worked in 1st edition? It kind of rings a bell.
Or you could give them radionuclide 198 Au, which has a 2 day halflife and decays into 100% stable mercury...
(Wikipedia...)
I tried that but it caused a shift to pure science in the game world and all the wizards were forced to take work researching and archiving for... well, for wikipedia. That's who invented it actually. You are but a figment in my game world and I, well I am but a fig. When I get old I'll be a prune and be fed back to you in juice form that you might eliminate with greater efficiency. Sad how my game world will render me but a flask worth of poop juice. And all because of some dern radionuclide. If only I could go back in time...
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Was that how the original everfull purse worked in 1st edition? It kind of rings a bell.
If memory serves me right there used to be a number of different kinds. Each one had a number of "items" that were in it to begin with -- One might have had 1 electrum, 1 gold, 1 copper -- Another might have a 10gp gem, 1 gold. Either way, if you left one of each item in the bag for 24 hours, the number of items would double (or triple or something similar). You could then take out the new gems or coins and as long as you left one of each item in, it would do it again. If you ever took out all of one item that item would never again duplicate -- even if you put a new one back in. I may have some of the specifics a little off, but that was pretty much how it used to work. (And it wasn't considered an artifact in 1st or 2nd edition.)
If memory serves me right there used to be a number of different kinds. Each one had a number of "items" that were in it to begin with -- One might have had 1 electrum, 1 gold, 1 copper -- Another might have a 10gp gem, 1 gold. Either way, if you left one of each item in the bag for 24 hours, the number of items would double (or triple or something similar). You could then take out the new gems or coins and as long as you left one of each item in, it would do it again. If you ever took out all of one item that item would never again duplicate -- even if you put a new one back in. I may have some of the specifics a little off, but that was pretty much how it used to work. (And it wasn't considered an artifact in 1st or 2nd edition.)
That's the one. Thanks!
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I got home, got out the 1ed. DMG,
There's 3 purses:
one has 26 s.p., 26 e.p, and 26 g.p.
one has c.p, e.p., and p.p.
one has c.p, e.p., and gems.
you have to leave 1 coin of each type in the bag, and it recharges up 25 of each the next morning, but if you don't leave 1 of each in for a time period of a few minutes, the magic is lost.
Now I gotta go to my other job.
I think there was an Everfull Purse featured in Into the Wormcrawl Fissure, too. It hardly seemed "Epic" to me.
Alright, I remembered a questioned that's bugged me for a long time now. Specifically since the night my players freed a genie and in return each got one wish. The one that was a real problem was that one of the players wished for a bag of money that would never run out. I told him no, but then he wished for a million gold. And that had me stumped, which is the question: If you use a wish for gold, how much would you give? Should it even be allowed?
hehe you should have given him a bag of gold that never ran out; bucknards everfull purse or somehting like that; or just a very small bag that every day at sunrise it gets 3 gold pieces; since it get them every day it never runs out. Creativity with wishes is the heart of gming; hehe if one of my bretheren Efreetis got to fulfull that wish; well lets just say hehe greed can be very fun. The big thing here is that Genies do want to fulfill wishes faithfully without screwing the wisher; but ,that said; there are good guys and bad guys in the world; and surely your pc is a good guy that wants to rid the world of a bad guy; so give him a bag of gold the unbeknownst to him; takes gold from some evil npc that gets his coffers filled illicitely and find out stuff is missing and discovers stuff dissppearing; hires guys to find out why and how; finds out the pc has a bag stealing his treasure; hehe; so the pcs now have to kill this bad guy or payback or give up the bag or something; if they kill this pc; welll... hehe the bag just attaches itself to another bad guy treasure; all for the name of good; heeh ;have fun with wishes.