Changes to Wish & the tomes

[Loren Pechtel]

There's what looks like a conversion oops here:

Wish can now only raise a stat by lowering another, yet the tomes that grant stat boosts are unchanged. The tomes are still priced as wishes + a bit extra, this doesn't make sense.

[The Wraith]

Yes, actually LOWER than casting Wish... a Wish spell costs 25000 gp to cast; a Manual of (insert bonus name here) costs (about) HALF that amount (the cost to create a Manual +1 is only 13750 gp).
This is obviously an errata, but for this we would have to wait for the 'Magic Items' weeks playtest (2 Feb-15 Feb).

[Loren Pechtel]

What's going on there is they goofed the cost to create. *MOST* of the time it's half the final price but that is not the case when you are dealing with expensive material components. That's a simple math error, easy to fix.

Why does this have to wait for the playtest time for magic items? This isn't a balance issue, it's an oops.

[Roman]

There were several threads about the change to Wish and how it requires lowering one attribute to raise another. The change was universally hated and reviled. I generally have to agree with that - I would like to see Wish reverted back to the way it was before the change.

[see]

This has been brought up before. If it were just a simple "oops", presumably it would have been addressed one of the previous times it was brought up. Accordingly, the logical conclusion is that the designers consider there to be a balance issue involved, and are going to leave it on the shelf until the designated time.

[Dennis da Ogre]

Roman wrote:

There were several threads about the change to Wish and how it requires lowering one attribute to raise another. The change was universally hated and reviled. I generally have to agree with that - I would like to see Wish reverted back to the way it was before the change.

I would love to see it go back to the classic way where it is extremely hard to increase stats past 18 (or 20 now since 20 is the new 18)

[Roman]

Dennis da Ogre wrote:

Roman wrote:

There were several threads about the change to Wish and how it requires lowering one attribute to raise another. The change was universally hated and reviled. I generally have to agree with that - I would like to see Wish reverted back to the way it was before the change.

I would love to see it go back to the classic way where it is extremely hard to increase stats past 18 (or 20 now since 20 is the new 18)

I have an idea. Perhaps we could make each casting of Wish equivalent to giving a point in point buy. So to increase a stat from 17 to 18 would require casting 4 wishes in a row and so on. For stats above 18, the number of casting would increase by 1 for every two points in a stat, thus extending the point buy progression indefinitely.

[Dennis da Ogre]

Roman wrote:

Dennis da Ogre wrote:

Roman wrote:

There were several threads about the change to Wish and how it requires lowering one attribute to raise another. The change was universally hated and reviled. I generally have to agree with that - I would like to see Wish reverted back to the way it was before the change.

I would love to see it go back to the classic way where it is extremely hard to increase stats past 18 (or 20 now since 20 is the new 18)

I have an idea. Perhaps we could make each casting of Wish equivalent to giving a point in point buy. So to increase a stat from 17 to 18 would require casting 4 wishes in a row and so on. For stats above 18, the number of casting would increase by 1 for every two points in a stat, thus extending the point buy progression indefinitely.

I like it :)

It seems pretty unlikely though.

[Roman]

Yeah, it does seem unlikely.

[Loren Pechtel]

see wrote:

This has been brought up before. If it were just a simple "oops", presumably it would have been addressed one of the previous times it was brought up. Accordingly, the logical conclusion is that the designers consider there to be a balance issue involved, and are going to leave it on the shelf until the designated time.

The problem I am calling an oops is that the spell is very different in effect than the item based on the spell. That's an oops to me.

I do like the suggestion later in the thread to make it function like point buy.

[Atel]

Wish having a loss for a gain is a serious loss in power for the spell however it is offset by the material component change to cold hard cash. I do not like the change but I will have to wait a few levels before I can make any comments. The tomes and such not following the same mechanic as wish is great in my opinion but the cost should increase due to the obvious increase in power above the spell it is based on. Material components do not increase the cost of items created as the spell is not actually cast during creation, the prepared slot is spent and not available.

[Straybow]

Back in 1e/2e when there was no mechanism for routinely increasing a stat a Wish would do it. Now that a character gets to increase a stat every 4th level a Wish can't do the same?

To get around the Pathfinder rule, you use the Wish to create a Tome/Manual +1. Why stop at +1? The SRD is not worded to limit the creation of magical items, although I suppose adding the cost of the item to the cost of the spell would be logical. Then one with sufficient cash could Wish for a Tome/Manual +5.

I can see that a Limited Wish could only raise one stat at the expense of another.

[Kalyth]

Atel wrote:

Wish having a loss for a gain is a serious loss in power for the spell however it is offset by the material component change to cold hard cash. I do not like the change but I will have to wait a few levels before I can make any comments. The tomes and such not following the same mechanic as wish is great in my opinion but the cost should increase due to the obvious increase in power above the spell it is based on. Material components do not increase the cost of items created as the spell is not actually cast during creation, the prepared slot is spent and not available.

I was under the belief that you had to cast the spell when creating a magic item or atleast have the spell cast (via scroll or another caster assisting) when the item was created there for any material components needed for the spell used were also required in making the item.

Checked the SRD and it stats that spells with costly material components will increase the cost of creating a magic item by the components cost.

From SRD. (my paste-fu is horrible)

"In addition, some items cast or replicate spells with costly material components or with XP components. For these items, the market price equals the base price plus an extra price for the spell component costs. Each XP in the component costs adds 5 gp to the market price. The cost to create these items is the magic supplies cost and the base XP cost (both determined by the base price) plus the costs for the components. Descriptions of these items include an entry that gives the total cost of creating the item."

I would take this to mean you would need to slap 25,000 gp on top of the cost listed for making one of those tomes. Add on to that that you do have to take the feat to be able to make the books and I dont have to much of a problem with the magic book being able to exceed the effects of the spell. The book costs more, requires a feat to create, and can only be use to replicate one function of the wish spell (lacking the rest of the spells versatility).

I dont really have an issue with Wish being limited on its ability to increase attributes. As it stands right now basically once a wizard gets 20th level he (and his party) suddenly all get +5 to all stats. He has 4 9th level spells per day and lets assume 1 bonsu spell for High int. So basically thats +5 to one stat per day. Scrapping up the cash at that level is really not a factor.

[Atel]

Sorry I should have been more specific in my statement of material components not changing the price of magic items. Wondrous items do not follow the rules for potions, scrolls or wands.

From the Pathfinder beta page 77:

“Extra Costs: Any potion, scroll, or wand that stores a spell with a costly material component also carries a commensurate cost. For potions and scrolls, the creator must expend the material component cost when creating the item. For a wand, the creator must expend 50 copies of the Material component. Some magic items similarly incur extra costs in material components, as noted in their descriptions.”

As there is no listing of the material component in the description there should be no added cost.

From what I hope is still a valid 3.5 SRD in the section on creating wondrous items:

“If spells are involved in the prerequisites for making the item, the creator must have prepared the spells to be cast (or must know the spells, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) but need not provide any material components or focuses the spells require, nor are any XP costs inherent in a prerequisite spell incurred in the creation of the item. The act of working on the item triggers the prepared spells, making them unavailable for casting during each day of the item’s creation. (That is, those spell slots are expended from his currently prepared spells, just as if they had been cast.) “

Something that I find odd about the tomes is that it is basically a scroll with wish on it a number of times equal to the bonus it grants usable by any class but still cheaper than the scroll. I realize that it is only one specific use of the spell but isn’t each ability of a wish supposed to be similar in power?

The item price or the spell price needs to change and after reading wish again I think that the spell cost is the high one. It is a tough call because so much of the power that is in wish is in the hands of your DM but the basic descriptions are more like an old school limited wish but that is another topic.

The +5 to all ability scores for one character using item creation will set you back a mere 412,500 gold and take over 2 years to complete or 750,000 gold and 6 days. The later option will not work with the new wish.

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'd love to see the oddball inherent bonuses go the way of the dodo.

TS