I believe that if the character is using the Wish spell for something beyond the list of things the spell can do without fail and they are wishing selfishly, the fates may try and twist the wording.... but if the character is using the wish for something noble and unselfish, the wish goes off as intended. That's how -I- would GM it, anyway.So the "neutral magic" of a wish rewards you for being "noble and unselfish." Interesting.
No offense SKR but where are you getting that the magic of a wish is neutral? If I genuinely missed something let me know, but I'm left assuming that the "neutrality" of the wish is a personal opinion.
I personally don't believe that magic itself is inherently powerful enough to grant what the wish can be capable of, so I play it that the gods/fates/whatever you want to call them are the ones using their power to make the wish happen and they reward unselfish requests and punish selfish ones. That was the way we did things in 1st and 2nd ed (there was even a KOtDT strip that talked about it) and until the books specify that's the way I like to play it. YMMV but that's my opinion.
But what is the difference with miracle, then ? And why would the gods/fates/whatever care about altruism and egoism among individual mortals ?
But what is the difference with miracle, then ? And why would the gods/fates/whatever care about altruism and egoism among individual mortals ?
They wouldn't with most mortals.... but with mortals powerful enough to cast a 9th level spell, you better believe they'd take notice.
As for Miracle... the difference is that one is cast by a Cleric and the other is cast by a Wizard or Sorcerer. Mechanically they pretty much do the same thing.
Trying to rerail the thread...
This may be not so simple of a question but here it is.Is there ANY way of lowering a monsters DR? My friend plays an arcane archer and asked me today. Its a high level campaign and he is mostly bard with 10 levels AA and a splash of rogue i beleive. We also have 16th lvl sorc and lots of fighters and 1 cleric in the group. So any way we can lower a monsters DR for the whole party to dmg him?
This is going to depend on the type of damage reduction. If the DR is specific to a material then you would need that material. You should have the character's make some Knowledge checks to help out with that. The bard may even be able to make a Bardic Knowledge check.
If the DR is just a flat number X/-, then you have some options.
1) You can just deal more damage
2) Change the creature using polymorph
3) Wish/Limited Wish/Miracle, all should be able to remove the creature's DR. It wouldn't be a difficult one to word in a reasonable DM's game. Note the power of those spells. Miracle can actually save a city from a natural disaster. There should be no reason why it can't remove DR from a creature.
4) If the DR is supernatural in ability, a form of anti-magic can easily turn the tide for the party especially if you can have it only affect the opponent somehow.
5) You can use effects that don't worry about DR. Most magic, poisons, etc will bypass the DR.
I'm sure you can come up with more options. You need to think out of the box sometimes. Get creative. Note that DR doesn't stop a creature from being grappled, suffocating, etc. I remember in a 2nd edition game, we drowned a werewolf because we didn't have any silver to fight it.
Back to the Wish issue that has derailed the thread:
1) Wish can easily transport the party anywhere. The spell very clearly states A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
2) Wishes should not be perverted unless the wish is being granted by an evil source. Since the spell doesn't have an alignment descriptor, it is safe to assume that the spell is Neutral. This means that it just grants the wish as desired unless the desire is beyond the power of the wish. I don't think it would be bad to have the wish take the path of least resistance, but it shouldn't screw the characters over.
3) The Wish can duplicate any spell of 8th level or lower. Look through the spells and see what would suit your needs. Can you polymorph the creature into a frog? What about turning it into a twig? What if the whole party changed size gaining bonuses in damage that go along with that?
Well, in my game, wish and miracle are two very different things.
True. You ask for a Miracle, whereas you decide the terms of the Wish.
The characters are way more likely to use a miracle than a wish, since they know it is in the nature of wishes to twist the words of the invoker...
I disagree that it's about twisting the words of the Wish, that is the DM being a jerk. Like Themy said, it's the literal wording of the Wish.
I might be a hard-nosed DM, but what's hard about saying "I Wish to duplicate the effects of the Greater Teleport spell, targeting my party, to the destination of Magnimar?"
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No offense SKR but where are you getting that the magic of a wish is neutral? If I genuinely missed something let me know, but I'm left assuming that the "neutrality" of the wish is a personal opinion.
Why is a wish spell, prepared and cast by a wizard, any less "neutral" than an illusion, teleport, scrying, or invisibility spell (all of which may have variable effects subject to GM interpretation) cast by that same wizard?
Player: I use silent image to create an illusion of an orc between me and the goblins.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify you wanted it to be a LIVE orc illusion! Your illusion is of a dead orc lying on the ground. The goblins laugh!
Player: I use teleport to transport us to Magnimar.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted to arrive on the ground! You appear a mile above the ground! SPLAT!
Player: I use scrying to spy on Adril Hestram.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted the Adril Hestram who's a venture-captain in the Pathfinder Society! You are now scrying Adril Hestram, turnip farmer in Cheliax!
Player: I cast cure light wounds on the enemy goblin king to make him believe the bard is sincerely wanting peace.
GM: Har har, that ends the invisibility the sorcerer cast on you earlier. Even though it's a helpful spell, it counts as an "attack" because you're deliberately targeting an enemy creature!
Player: I cast wish to teleport us out of the dragon's lair before it can attack.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify who "we" is, the dragon comes with you!!!
All of the above are jerk-oriented, non-neutral interpretations of the cast spells. Why twist a wish, especially when PFRPG explicitly tells you what effects you can duplicate without risking a perversion of your intent? Why twist a wish and not the above spells?
No offense SKR but where are you getting that the magic of a wish is neutral? If I genuinely missed something let me know, but I'm left assuming that the "neutrality" of the wish is a personal opinion.Why is a wish spell, prepared and cast by a wizard, any less "neutral" than an illusion, teleport, scrying, or invisibility spell (all of which may have variable effects subject to GM interpretation) cast by that same wizard?
Player: I use silent image to create an illusion of an orc between me and the goblins.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify you wanted it to be a LIVE orc illusion! Your illusion is of a dead orc lying on the ground. The goblins laugh!Player: I use teleport to transport us to Magnimar.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted to arrive on the ground! You appear a mile above the ground! SPLAT!Player: I use scrying to spy on Adril Hestram.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted the Adril Hestram who's a venture-captain in the Pathfinder Society! You are now scrying Adril Hestram, turnip farmer in Cheliax!Player: I cast cure light wounds on the enemy goblin king to make him believe the bard is sincerely wanting peace.
GM: Har har, that ends the invisibility the sorcerer cast on you earlier. Even though it's a helpful spell, it counts as an "attack" because you're deliberately targeting an enemy creature!Player: I cast wish to teleport us out of the dragon's lair before it can attack.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify who "we" is, the dragon comes with you!!!All of the above are jerk-oriented, non-neutral interpretations of the cast spells. Why twist a wish, especially when PFRPG explicitly tells you what effects you can duplicate without risking a perversion of your intent? Why twist a wish and not the above spells?
I do see what you're saying, and with any use of the Wish spell that isn't "above and beyond the scope of what it can normally achieve" I agree, but when Wish is used for really planet breaking effects I feel it's gone beyond a 9th level spell and is now in the bounds of the gods' influence... and the gods are fickle.
They wouldn't with most mortals.... but with mortals powerful enough to cast a 9th level spell, you better believe they'd take notice.
What about a 1st-level kobold paladin asking pazuzu to gate a sarrukh ?
No, seriously, that doesn't make sense. If the gods are intervening to pervert the wish, why would they choose to do so on the grounds of selfishness ? Most do not care about this, and even those that do have more pressing interests, and would first care about the effect of the wish instead of the intent of the caster. But if they do, they don't need to intervene, they just would cast their own wishes instead of searching for a loophole in other's that would allow them to advance their interests.
Admitting that they have nothing better to do than judge the egoism of a mortal caster, why would they, as a whole, favor altruism over egoism ? There's lots of evil gods around. If only one god intervenes, could a caster choose which one, or is it left to the fastest one ?
If it's the fates, as in the three women of mythology, they're always described as uncaring except for crimes against sacred stuff, and for attempts to escape fate. If they would pervert a wish, it's to make it useless to change the outcome of the story.
If it's fate itself, it's the same but without punishing incest and parricide.
And actually and seriously, how do things like glabrezus get their wishes ?
I don't try and overthink it. Twisting wishes is a time honored tradition dating back to 1st ed, so I understand why it's still used. Don't you shake your logic stick at me! :-p
I don't try and overthink it. Twisting wishes is a time honored tradition dating back to 1st ed, so I understand why it's still used. Don't you shake your logic stick at me! :-p
Yeah, that's the problem. I still remember getting a wish back in second ed. No one in the party wanted to use it.
If every wish gets twisted no matter what, then you might as well make it a level 0 spell, because that is about how useful it is.
Huhu.
Well, I'm okay with twisting wishes, I just think it would be best to do it in a (seemingly) absurd manner.
I like to explain arcane magic (and I think it's a common way to explain it, but I can't remember a particular source) as a way to describe something happening, through the use of symbolic gestures, words, thoughts and objects. Describing is enough to make it happen, the universe conforms to its representation. That's, among other things, why faith is necessary to the gods existence.
Spells are just words the universe understand, with symbols as the letters. There's a limited number of them, and like any lexicon, there's limits to what it can describe and to its precision. That explains why Time Warp isn't a spell.
Wish, as an arcane spell, is an attempt to communicate with the universe using a mortal language. That's bound to cause misunderstandings, except for a few tried and true sentences. But the consequences of such a mistake are completely unpredictable, and mostly unrelated to the wording of the wish or the situation of the party (moral or otherwise), meaning that the GM does as he pleases to make his story more interesting and the adventure more entertaining.
As a spell-like ability, it's an innate use of universal words, truespeak, darkspeech, words of creation, things like that. There's less misunderstandings and a greater control on what happens, so that efreet, pit fiends and glabrezus can pervert a wish themselves (playing on the wording is mostly a lawful thing, though, a demon would just translate it wrong).
Hm... maybe I do overthink it.
I look at the wish spell like this. It's an arcane spell. Somewhere in the annals of prehistory, a wizard (maybe a sorcerer) reached the point of being able to cast 9th level spells. But it wasn't enough. He saw there were so many things his spells couldn't do. Maybe he saw a high priest save a town from a volcano by asking his god for help. Whatever his reason, the wizard wanted to have more power. So he devised wish. He's an arcane spellcaster, not a divine one. He uses the power within himself and around himself to make his magic work. So he doesn't need--and likely doesn't want--to interact with divine powers to get what he wants. So his spell works according to what he wills. But it's too much power for even one archmage to consistently control. So wishes do go awry. Also note though that this guy's been around the block (he's at least 17th level, after all) and not an idiot (19 Intelligence, likely a passable Wisdom score to have lived this long). So his spell is something he wants to be able to use on the fly, in case of an emergency. He doesn't want a spell that requires him to fill out a phone book's worth of papers to use. So it responds to what he says. He's smart; he knows he can come up with effects quickly. But his spell has to take what he says at face value. So literal translation of the words uttered is necessary. And since we still have the wish spell, the guy survived long enough to pass it along to others.
To me the 'screw the PC' wish is kinda silly. I mean, if wishes always screwed the PCs, the spell would never be learned or used, so why would anyone have it? Stories of wishes would become part of common culture, to the point where any idiot would know better than to use one. Also, why screw with them until you go overboard? The game's about fun for everyone. If the PCs get screwed but the GM's amused by his twisting of the wish spell wording, that means only one person is having fun, which isn't good in a social game.
Why is a wish spell, prepared and cast by a wizard, any less "neutral" than an illusion, teleport, scrying, or invisibility spell (all of which may have variable effects subject to GM interpretation) cast by that same wizard?Player: I use silent image to create an illusion of an orc between me and the goblins.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify you wanted it to be a LIVE orc illusion! Your illusion is of a dead orc lying on the ground. The goblins laugh!Player: I use teleport to transport us to Magnimar.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted to arrive on the ground! You appear a mile above the ground! SPLAT!Player: I use scrying to spy on Adril Hestram.
GM: Har har, you didn't specify that you wanted the Adril Hestram who's a venture-captain in the Pathfinder Society! You are now scrying Adril Hestram, turnip farmer in Cheliax!…
All of the above are jerk-oriented, non-neutral interpretations of the cast spells. Why twist a wish, especially when PFRPG explicitly tells you what effects you can duplicate without risking a perversion of your intent? Why twist a wish and not the above spells?
It describes when you might want to right in the spell description:
You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfullment, at the GM's discretion.)
I agree with you that twisting a wish when used to do one of its described effects is bad form on the GM's part, but that's not all that the spell can do. GMs aren't the only ones with potential to be jerk-oriented.
In other words, if you use wish for one of its described effects, you should be safe. But if you push the wish beyond this (as indeed you can), you better know what you're wishing for.
In other words, if you use wish for one of its described effects, you should be safe. But if you push the wish beyond this (as indeed you can), you better know what you're wishing for.
Yet there is at least one person in this thread suggesting that it's fair game to twist one of the safe, described effects in the spell.
In other words, if you use wish for one of its described effects, you should be safe. But if you push the wish beyond this (as indeed you can), you better know what you're wishing for.Yet there is at least one person in this thread suggesting that it's fair game to twist one of the safe, described effects in the spell.
It's not me then, because I've been saying that the twisting is only ok for the "above and beyond" part of the spell.
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I'm 100% behind SKR on the wish. It's a reasonably well defined, very flexible, expensive to cast, high level spell. Asking to deal with the DR of a foe doesn't seem like a particularly difficult task. The first spell that comes to mind is Bless Weapon ( 1st level paladin spell / 2nd level cleric spell) While there are some restrictions on that spell and it doesn't do everything you want, removing a creature's (non-epic) DR for 1 round/caster level does not seem to reach world bending levels or seem unreasonable for the spell levels wish or even limited wish have access to.
Yet there is at least one person in this thread suggesting that it's fair game to twist one of the safe, described effects in the spell.
Throughout my years of gaming I have always found it weird that Wish, a 9th level spell, arguably the single most powerful and usefull Arcane magic in exsistence, is so NON useful in some campaigns do to 'wish griefing' (and the fact that there is even a term for the pratice boggles me).
Frankly, if a spell of that magnitude was so susceptible to common failure why would anye even use it in the world? I mean how often does your Meteor Swarm detonate prematurely? How often does your gate not form? So why should Wish fail so often?
Wish has limits yes but us should not be an invitation for the ref to be a 5 year old at the expense of the players.
Unless your ref IS a 5 year old of course.
Yet there is at least one person in this thread suggesting that it's fair game to twist one of the safe, described effects in the spell.
Frankly, if a spell of that magnitude was so susceptible to common failure why would anye even use it in the world? I mean how often does your Meteor Swarm detonate prematurely? How often does your gate not form? So why should Wish fail so often?
emphasis mine.
Because players get greedy and overreach the limits of the spell with poorly worded Wishes.
If what they wish for is reasonable, then i agree, the DM shouldn't twist their words. But that doesn't mean that it's license to Wish for anything.
@SKR - I love your work and the fact that you guys even participate in these discussions brings much respect, but didn't quote the part of the spell that we're talking about:
"You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the GM’s discretion.) emphasis mine.
This is what i was trying to say.