Chaining wishes for inherent bonuses to intelligence is probably the safest method of stat boosting. 2 Genies means you could get a +5 inherent relatively safely. However it's 5 wishes out of your daily limit of 6.
Learning about a demiplane basically requires a simulation of the Vision spell. Since it's a wish level effect it might have the umph necessary to penetrate whatever sort of scrying defense is in place on that demiplane.
Keep in mind that many DMs will enforce a strict negotiating cost of 25k per wish though. Otherwise efreeti can seriously break the magic-item power level economy even without their 3.x money generation antics.
I think going for higher power wishes can be worthwhile in extremis but for the most part it's a real excuse for DM sabotage.
Chaining wishes for inherent bonuses to intelligence is probably the safest method of stat boosting. 2 Genies means you could get a +5 inherent relatively safely. However it's 5 wishes out of your daily limit of 6.
Learning about a demiplane basically requires a simulation of the Vision spell. Since it's a wish level effect it might have the umph necessary to penetrate whatever sort of scrying defense is in place on that demiplane.
Keep in mind that many DMs will enforce a strict negotiating cost of 25k per wish though. Otherwise efreeti can seriously break the magic-item power level economy even without their 3.x money generation antics.
I think going for higher power wishes can be worthwhile in extremis but for the most part it's a real excuse for DM sabotage.
I was under the impression that spell like abilities did not require a material component.
Furthermore, if you are using a planar binding, there would be no negociation...you make them your slave. I don't have access to my book at the moment, so I am unsure.
I am in a campaign where we are about to go on a very difficult mission and have a few days of down time. I am currently playing a 16th level wizard (for the sake of ease assume I have access to all wizard spells). As our situation is dire and my GM likes to through very difficult fights at us I am considering using planar binding to get two efreeti to serve me. Assuming I succeed and that the two have to grant me all of their wishes for two days (12 wishes in total) I was hoping for some advice on how to request two things.
The first is I wish to raise the intelligence of my wizard. The second I would like to gain some information (safely, and quickly) about the demi-plane we are about to attack.
...<snip>
First off, DO NOT BE A WISH LAWYER!
The more paragraphs, clauses and stipulations you add to the wish, the greater chance it will fail. Keep the wish to one sentence without being a run on sentance with lots of commas.
Forcing Efreeti to do something is playing with fire, afterwards they will probably hunt you down and kill you.
If your GM is cunning enough, then the Efreet should say something like: "Yes, Master I will grant your wishes, but if your first wish is not to for you to be my personal love toy, I'll remove your hands"
You better be very clever because one Efreet is bad enough, two would be a self imposed death sentence. Efreeti are immortal and they never forget who wronged them.
First off, DO NOT BE A WISH LAWYER!The more paragraphs, clauses and stipulations you add to the wish, the greater chance it will fail. Keep the wish to one sentence without being a run on sentance with lots of commas.
Forcing Efreeti to do something is playing with fire, afterwards they will probably hunt you down and kill you.
If your GM is cunning enough, then the Efreet should say something like: "Yes, Master I will grant your wishes, but if your first wish is not to for you to be my personal love toy, I'll remove your hands"
You better be very clever because one Efreet is bad enough, two would be a self imposed death sentence. Efreeti are immortal and they never forget who wronged them.
+1
Talk to your GM first and see what he thinks about using planar binding to gain wishes. At 16th level, you are certianly powerful enough to bind an efreeti. I've confirmed that spell-like abilities carry no material component cost.
Planar Binding:
"Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range. The called creature is held in the trap until it agrees to perform one service in return for its freedom.
The target creature is allowed a Will saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the creature resists the spell. If the saving throw fails, the creature is immediately drawn to the trap (spell resistance does not keep it from being called). The creature can escape from the trap by successfully pitting its spell resistance against your caster level check, by dimensional travel, or with a successful Charisma check (DC 15 + 1/2 your caster level + your Charisma modifier). It can try each method once per day.
If the creature does not break free of the trap, you can keep it bound for as long as you dare. You can attempt to compel the creature to perform a service by describing the service and perhaps offering some sort of reward. You make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service. New offers, bribes, and the like can be made or the old ones reoffered every 24 hours. This process can be repeated until the creature promises to serve, until it breaks free, or until you decide to get rid of it by means of some other spell. Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to. If you ever roll a natural 1 on the Charisma check, the creature breaks free of the spell’s effect and can escape or attack you."
To freely grant you 3 wishes, I'd give the creature a +6 bonus on the check, and I'd make it in secret. If you beat the creature, you get the wishes as you like them and may have to suffer retribution. If you don't beat the efreeti, he refuses outright or you may still get your wishes, only in a way that you don't want.
"Once the requested service is completed, the creature need
only to inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came."
"I have completed your service master, enjoy" the creature puffs out of existance. Now you are stuck with whatever horrible thing your GM has the efreeti do.
'I wish to be significantly more intelligent than I am currently, with no harmful or unwanted changes to my mind or person'
Those "changes to your mind" are going to be "unwanted" by someone, so if you want to get smarter without changing immediately... you get a book.
Reading makes you smarter, you know?I have to think dumber efreeti would be less effective at distorting my wishes.
Probably less effective at actually understanding your wishes too, I would imagine.
Why not be nice to your wish-granter instead? Some wine, nice music, a diplomacy roll...
Oi, I've hated wishes since 2nd edition (and before) when DM's thought "wishes" meant "destroy characters who couldn't form sentences to make the devil squirm". Come on guys- your wizard is far smarter than you ever hoped to be. This shouldn't be a PLAYER check it should be a CHARACTER check.
If your DM is the type to make YOU write out or word your wishes such that you have to bind the devil himself, then forgo the whole thing and forget about it. You can't win.
If he's a reasonable sort then I'd say stick to what the Wish spell *states* it can grant you. Inherent ability scores for you and your friends, maybe. Remember- +5 is alot for you but a +2 all around will actually be far more beneficial to the group. (+2 around to them all, not +2 to all of your ability scores). A +2 to everyone's "prime stat" will work far better than the +4 to one of your own.
Otherwise- what you are thinking sounds good to me. Advanced warning about where you are going and what you are facing is always a grand idea.
-S
Heh. Maybe I will break out a nice bottle of wine for the efreeti. So I would normally avoid the whole binding a creature against its will thing, but my character really feels that this is a situation that could destroy everything he holds dear, and because of that is willing to go to some extremes.
Kalrik is correct. I was planning on not paying the efreeti anything, and simply forcing them to use their spell like ability for wish, which has not component cost.
I honestly do feel kind of selfish using the wishes to raise my intelligence, but dire straights. The idea came up when it was pretty much set that we needed to go into a demi plane and I couldn't scry it.
Type2Demon. I also agree. I hate having long winded wishes. I want to keep it simple and to the point, but with enough effort to at least try and protect myself. On the issue of making an eternal foe out of the efreeti, I am fine with that. The whole situation has put me in a situation where I am desperate, so if we live long enough to have a grudge match years from now that is fine by me both in and out of character.
Talk to you GM. He is going to be the ultimate power when it comes to how your wishing will come out.
Now, as a wizard you could give a complete arcane description of the way Wish works (knowledge Arcana). This demonstrates to the Efreeti that you understand his special power and, hopefully, makes it easier to get what you want.
Payment for work is a great concept, but you could alwasys demand that the efreeti serve you in a very dangerous way. You are only asking him or her to use special abilities that it cannot use for itself with no risk. This could possibily give you a bonus on your check and show the efreeti that you have no desire to harm it. I'm always more willing to help someone if there is no risk to me.(there is the veiled threat that you could get it killed)
*Alternatly, you could bind the efreeti, ask nicely, and if it refuses cast your Dimensional Lock spell. Then threaten to release the binding and kill the efteeti. I doubt your paladin friend will approve.
What I would do:
Bind the Efreeti. Offer refreshments of good quality and a small token of appriciation and apology for interrupting the efreeti's life. Ask it to use it's wishes for you in a benevolent way. If it says no then negociate using the fact that you are a 16th level wizard and a good allie to have. If that fails, appeal to the lawful nature and attempt a simple "for your wishes, I owe you" contract. (be sure the I owe you is something that is appealing but won't get you killed). If all else fails, attempt to force via spell mechanic or threats.
You also have the option of waiting a level and picking up dominate monster. Bind, Dominate, Profit.
Why not offer to give the genie one of his own wishes? say "hey if I can use two of them and I am pleased with the results I'll wish for whatever you want for the third" this can be a bluff or not. probably a pretty big bonus of getting what you want due to the high reward.
There is nothing saying the Efreeti has to allow you to use a spell against it, and even if so that might make it immediately hostile. Even if it is not immediately hostile they are extremely wealthy from what I understand, and are smart enough to use that to act against you. Most likely it will be a move against you at a bad time, such as the final boss fight. I would not suggest trying to take advantage of an Efreeti.
One thing to remember: Never, ever, wish to be "a giant among men". It may sound quite poetic, but it's no fun when you've grown to 80 feet and have no real way of reversing it ;)
In my pure and innocent youth I was granted a wish by en Efreet and - having no experience with wishes - I got poetic... and some 74 feet taller... x)
I'm not sure I'd view granting wishes to be a "reasonable request" for a creature you've summoned and bound against its will.
I have always had major problems with granting wishes though... all the way back to 2e.
One of my rangers once received a wish from a deck of many things, wished for the ability to fly, and the DM turned him into some weird creature with a glowing blue body and a vulnerability to the color yellow.
But he could fly.
I still "wtf" about that one....
One of my rangers once received a wish from a deck of many things, wished for the ability to fly, and the DM turned him into some weird creature with a glowing blue body and a vulnerability to the color yellow.
But he could fly.
I still "wtf" about that one....
That's more of a problem with the DM than Wish itself.
I agree. It is better to just tell a player no. Sometime players are greedy, but sometimes the limit of the spell is really not known. Either being a adversarial does not help.
My rule of thumb with wishes, particularly ones granted by hostile beings, is "Don't be greedy". Minor little benefits, stuff expressly written in the text of the spell, fine. Get too outlandish or impose upon the efreet's patience too much and I'm looking to twist it.
My rule of thumb with wishes, particularly ones granted by hostile beings, is "Don't be greedy". Minor little benefits, stuff expressly written in the text of the spell, fine. Get too outlandish or impose upon the efreet's patience too much and I'm looking to twist it.
I agree if it is hostile beings.
Planar Binding Efreeti is a door to trouble. Not for the player, but for the DM. There is very little a DM can do within the rules and gameworld logic to stop a high level wizard from chainbinding wish-granters without any cost involved whatsoever.
Efreeti are dangerous, yes. They will not plot revenge once they are dead, and their relatives will be hard pressed finding out anything about the killer if said killer is an archwizard running around with Mind Blank - assuming they even care.
And said archwizard kann kill Efreeti. Note the plural. I also dare say that granting wishes, of which he has three per day, is reasonable if the alternative is death.
Any attempt to foil the plan falls even further apart if the wizard stacks the odds in his favour up front - debuff the Efreetis will save and cha checks into oblivion, outright charm monster, or, at level 17, just dominate the damn thing.
It becomes an absolute pain for the DM to keep things like that from breaking the game without the solution feeling constructed. To the point where I, as a DM, would say "Just don't do it."
Solution? Talk to your DM before you do anything, and work out whats possible and what not up front. Anything else can just lead to argument and disaster.
Once the bound creature performs their service they are free to return home. If the bound creature disappears as soon as the last wish is cast the wizard has no time to kill it. I am sure there are Effreti with class levels, and even the DM does not want to stat any out promising wishes to whoever they think can kill the wizard can net them a powerful ally.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.
Ooo, this is some excellent plot fodder in addition to being a method to crackdown on anyone being a little too game-breaking.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.Ooo, this is some excellent plot fodder in addition to being a method to crackdown on anyone being a little too game-breaking.
1. Said wizard casts his quickened energy resistance resistance, casts time stop, kills the efreeti, and gates home.
2. Contingency kicks in. My favorite is a resilient sphere targeted on myself. That way, I have at least a round to planeshift home. If I'm binding extraplanar beings and making them perform tasks for me, I had better have a planeshift ready.
If you are high enough level to abuse planar binding, you are high enough level to escape if nescessary. However, opening a gate and haveing 20 leveled efreeti march onto the material plane and hunt the wizard is a completly different story.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.Ooo, this is some excellent plot fodder in addition to being a method to crackdown on anyone being a little too game-breaking.1. Said wizard casts his quickened energy resistance resistance, casts time stop, kills the efreeti, and gates home.
2. Contingency kicks in. My favorite is a resilient sphere targeted on myself. That way, I have at least a round to planeshift home. If I'm binding extraplanar beings and making them perform tasks for me, I had better have a planeshift ready.
If you are high enough level to abuse planar binding, you are high enough level to escape if nescessary. However, opening a gate and haveing 20 leveled efreeti march onto the material plane and hunt the wizard is a completly different story.
The contingency / readied actions run both ways. A pack with readied spells can make short work of anyone since the if they're readied to "when that guy appears" he'll still be flat-footed.
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For my Legacy of Fire campaign I codified seven laws that govern the binding of genies and their granting of wishes.
1. Law of Binding: A mortal shall immediately become a genie's master upon any of these conditions occuring: if the mortal gains possession of an object that the genie is bound to; if the genie swears an oath of service; if the genie incurs a debt to the mortal, which he cannot otherwise repay; or if the mortal releases the genie from captivity.
2. Law of Service: No genie may serve more than one master at a time; nor may the genie swear service, nor be bound into service, until all previous bonds are struck and debts are satisfied.
3. Law of Wishes: A genie may only grant wishes to his master; a genie who grants his master three wishes is instantly released from all bonds and debts.
4. Law of Protection: A genie must defend his master, and his master's family and property, from threatened harm.
5. Law of Obedience: A genie must obey a command by his master, so long as that command does not require the genie to do harm to himself, or harm to any other living creature; or to yield his body or soul unwillingly; or to attempt a task beyond his power; or to break any of these laws.
6. Law of Retribution: A genie may pursue no retribution against a former master.
7. Law of Destiny: A genie may not use wishes to change the destiny of any mortal without their consent; nor may they use wishes to change the past or future.
Once the bound creature performs their service they are free to return home. If the bound creature disappears as soon as the last wish is cast the wizard has no time to kill it. I am sure there are Effreti with class levels, and even the DM does not want to stat any out promising wishes to whoever they think can kill the wizard can net them a powerful ally.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.Who says the service is "grant me your three wishes" ? How about "Serve me unquestioningly for CL/days" ? That is the true strength of planar binding - not single tasks, but ANY TASK YOU CAN CONCEIVE within CL/days. And before service is over, kill the thing, and raise it as a zombie just for the heck of it. Never underestimate outsider zombies/skeletons!
Or better yet: if Dominate is indeed involved, it hasn't performed any service, so it doesn't get to return while its in that dimensional lock of yours.
Not to mention that I would define Efreeti with 17 class levels (to cast gate) as VERY constructed if their sole purpose is to avenge one annoyed standard Efreet.
Far more likely would be for an efreet to go to the next guy looking for wishes, and strike a tidy deal for a wish or two being formulated against the first wizard. Or, say, work with the BBEG. Grant him three wishes a day. Fun fun.Stopping careless players from doing this is easy. Those that actually plan this in detail and take great care in preparing for possible backfires are near impossible to stop, especially when you aren't prepared to do so.
As for the wizard efferti that only comes in if the chain wish tactic comes into affect. Of course I think the better option is to pay someone else to handle the problem. The player can probably pull it off once. My post was against trying it more than once.
Efferti nobles start disappearing, and I am sure questions start to get asked. Most campaign worlds only have so many casters capable of pulling such things off. Mind Blank does not protect anyone from mundane detective work. Mind Blank does not stop divination from finding out where the missing noble went to.
All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.Ooo, this is some excellent plot fodder in addition to being a method to crackdown on anyone being a little too game-breaking.1. Said wizard casts his quickened energy resistance resistance, casts time stop, kills the efreeti, and gates home.
2. Contingency kicks in. My favorite is a resilient sphere targeted on myself. That way, I have at least a round to planeshift home. If I'm binding extraplanar beings and making them perform tasks for me, I had better have a planeshift ready.
If you are high enough level to abuse planar binding, you are high enough level to escape if nescessary. However, opening a gate and haveing 20 leveled efreeti march onto the material plane and hunt the wizard is a completly different story.
1.You are making the mistake of assuming those spells are prepped, and he is even awake. I would monitor the caster to try to get his sleep times down if possible. If I can't figure out his sleep times then there is still no guarantee he has those spells ready or that he wins initiative. You are also assuming a one on one encounter.
2. Resilient sphere only stops 5th level spells. If someone just cast gate I think that 5th level spells are low on the totem pole of things you have to worry about. Most people never conceive of the notion that people can be gated so they won't have a defense for it.
3.I think bring the wizard/sorcerer over is better. That way the wizard is not on his own turf. Most people don't prepare planar traveling spells unless they think they will need them. If I gate someone over it probably be into an area that block any type of planar traveling. It would be frustrating for the wizard to look around, wave bye, and just leave with a big smirk on his face.
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For the first the best I have come up with so far is 'I wish to be significantly more intelligent than I am currently, with no harmful or unwanted changes to my mind or person'
One very important thing to remember about wishes being granted by creatures or entities, as opposed to using the spell yourself, is that the terms of the wish are subject to that creature's interpretation. It is highly unlikely that the efreet will define "harmful and unwanted" the same way you do. He may change you into a creature with a higher intelligence and with at least equal Con and HP, but which may require a specific environment to move about (such as an aquatic creature), just by example. And "unwanted" will be defined according to what the efreet wants, not what you want. Then correcting the situation will cost you another wish. And they'll negotiate a heavy price, the more in line with your desires the spell ends up, the more it's going to cost you. Remember, efreet don't have to grant your wishes. It's their choice. And with planar binding spells, you can only compel one service (i.e. one wish).
1.You are making the mistake of assuming those spells are prepped, and he is even awake. I would monitor the caster to try to get his sleep times down if possible. If I can't figure out his sleep times then there is still no guarantee he has those spells ready or that he wins initiative. You are also assuming a one on one encounter.All they have to do is Gate the wizard into where they live. A wizard is a specific human, but he is not a unique being just because he has class levels.Ooo, this is some excellent plot fodder in addition to being a method to crackdown on anyone being a little too game-breaking.1. Said wizard casts his quickened energy resistance resistance, casts time stop, kills the efreeti, and gates home.
2. Contingency kicks in. My favorite is a resilient sphere targeted on myself. That way, I have at least a round to planeshift home. If I'm binding extraplanar beings and making them perform tasks for me, I had better have a planeshift ready.
If you are high enough level to abuse planar binding, you are high enough level to escape if nescessary. However, opening a gate and haveing 20 leveled efreeti march onto the material plane and hunt the wizard is a completly different story.
If you want to just gang up on him, you probably only need to catch him when he's asleep once. Now it would be fairly reasonable that the gate would only use minimal force necessary to bring the victim through, so it might be read to not even wake up the victim.
I can't wait anymore. I'll read the rest later.
"Your character feels weird. Somehow, you have forgotten your past, but you remember everything that is yet to come. Your skin is red. You are shorter. You look in a mirror and realize you are a Nilbog."
A Nilbog is a Goblin who is somehow living backward through time. Their attacks heal damage and only they of all creatures can heal crit. They must learn common backwards as a second language if they wish to communicate without magical assistance. They look like a goblin with the green reversed to red. It takes them a month to relearn how to walk(backwards to them). It would help if the one changed was very old because he or she is now getting younger.
The entire line of thought that "suddenly, efreeti nobles are disappearing" alone is already assuming far too much considering infinite planes of existence, especially when these disappearances aren't necessarily linked to each other. Not to mention that they are a bunch of lawful evil bastards that are regularily at odds with other planar creatures.
Yes, if they find out WHO did it, they might do something about it. Them, or the Inevitables. The problem is finding out. And if they DO find out, then your wizard hasn't done his job right, and by that point, have already broken the game.
Is "infinite planes of existance" RAW? I'm not sure, but I can't remember ever reading that in the PF materials. I always assumed they were limited in number, since so many of them are named. You may be right though.
Even if so, that doesn't equal to an infinite number of noble efreeti in the multiverse. Exactly how many exists is purely up to the DM - it can range from one to infinity. In my game worlds, if I even played to high enough levels where this might be an issue, there surely wouldn't be more than a few thousand in the world, and they'd probably have PRETTY good check on where they are.If there's a murder in my country, or a disappearance, people get to know about it. And we're 9 million here, and don't have magical aid, and the average citizen doesn't have 12 Int, 14 Wis.
The number of people in the world even able to do this probably isn't very high. If noble efreeti started disappearing on a regular basis, of course other noble efreeti would investigate - that's normal behaviour, especially in a lawful society. Now, the 3.5 guidelines obviously doesn't work for PFRPG straight off, but since we're just discussing campaign worlds they might make a good point for what could be considered a normal level spread. IIRC, for every character of a certain level, there were twice as many one level lower in a given population. So, for every 15th level wizard capable of doing this, there's 32000 wizards that are too low level. And that's just counting the very specific wizard class, which is assumed to be pretty rare compared to all commoners, adepts, warriors, aristocrats and experts in the world.
Yes, you might say that a 15th level wizard lives in secret, but he had to get there - and if you're pretending not to exist from level 8 and upwards, where planar entities might start to check up on you and keep track of what you're doing, well, good for you, but there's not much D&D-playing left. Congratz, you broke the game by not playing it as intended.
It's not something that the usual 15th level wizard can do with ease, simply because there's already a bunch of gods, demigods and powerful planar entities staring down on such a powerful individual.
EDIT: And saying attempts by the DM to stop it is "railroading the player", that's just bullshit. If the player is trying to break the game and thereby damaging the experience for the other players, that player has to stop. If it can be done in-game, it should be done in-game and when a 15th level character makes a habit out of ripping out powerful planar entities to serve him, people out of his league will get upset. You know, Asmodeus-guys and the like. If it can't be done in-game and the other players are disturbed by this guy running around wasting their time to play accountant, it has to be done out of the game, and I WOULD kick a player out of the group if he wouldn't stop. It's a bit like a player who's character has died and he still tries to play it because "death" doesn't stop actions from being performed RAW (IIRC) (though now that I think of it, I could probably allow a character to continue as some kind of weird semi-undead that uses teleportation effects without components to move around).
If the other players enjoyed it, I'd say "well, good for you - you can continue to play on your own, I'm going to DM for a group that actually want to do quests and slay dragons and save princesses and the like while you count your inherent bonuses to stats".
I personally think the main problem is that genies are far too wimpy as basic creatures to be granting wishes. It is dumb. A CR 8 enemy should not be capable of that.
I personally think the main problem is that classes go to high in level, in an effort to make "any kind of play possible", and that spellcasting is far too easy and on-demand, in an effort to make "any kind of spellcaster possible". A quick solution might be to require specific material components for certain spells such as Planar Binding and it's siblings, stuff like "a physical part of the creature to be bound" as a basic requirement of summoning. That way, it's in the DM's hand without limiting the PC's. 'Cause buying stuff like that on the open market is riiiisky...
Genies fit very well as creatures that can grant wishes in say, an E6 game.
EDIT:
"And you are very quickly getting to the point where any attempt by the DM to stop it comes very close to the situation you have when desperately trying to railroad a wizard player, and failing. The rules allow it." - Darkheyr
I just have to comment on this too. In ANY situation where you do something that the DM would even WANT to attempt to stop something, you ARE doing it wrong. I'm not much for forcing playstyles upon people, but when you try to do stuff that the DM (not the NPC's he portrays) will find bad for the campaign, YOU WILL FAIL. There's no "desperately trying to railroad a wizard player, and failing". You know why? He's the dungeon master. There's HORDES of things he can do to stop you without trying to railroad you.
Without using metagaming techniques or special DM powers:
- Divine intervention.
- Wishes against you. (Seriously, you're messing with a whole race of lawful evil creatures that can cast wish on a regular basis... what are you THINKING?)
- Destroying your spellbook (if you don't have the Spell Mastery feat for the spell).
For an easy example of what the genies could do to you:
Even a 1rd level noble genie wizard (should be plenty of those in a world where there's 15th level human wizards) would have an intelligence of "enough to come up with a plan like this". He might be a local ruler of a genie town and several of his people has started disappearing mysteriously lately. He forces a few of his non-genie slaves to Wish knowledge on the kidnapper, but can't get anything good (due to mind blank), so he makes them Wish back some of the kidnapped genies that tell him what little they know.
He sends out a decree for most of his people to constantly ready actions to ask their slave to wish themselves to the location of anyone who disappears. Being lawful beings they follow the orders - since they probably have a lifespan in thousands of years and don't need to eat or sleep, waiting around doing nothing for a month or so shouldn't be a problem.
They might also use Wish for different divine divination spells to determine the likelyhood of who and when someone is going to disappear.
So the wizard binds a genie - just to see fifteen more arrive to the scene.
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Oh and - why would a charmed or dominated Efreeti even TRY to mess up your wish?
An efreeti captured by Planar Binding is neither charmed nor dominated. It's merely captured, and everything else is a negotiation. Corrupting wishes in the very nature of efreet. You should read the article on wishcraft in the Legacy of Fire: The Final Wish, which goes on at length and efreet and wishes. If they're not in a hurry, they can simply bide their time until they can escape, which they will eventually manage to do. And I stand by one task, one wish, as a likely interpretation on the part of the efreeti, given that they're not required to use any of them.
Except Genie aren't designed with an E6 in mind. And of course a CR 8 creature isn't going to be as easily kidnapped by a party that only gets up to lvl 6.I personally think the main problem is that genies are far too wimpy as basic creatures to be granting wishes. It is dumb. A CR 8 enemy should not be capable of that.I personally think the main problem is that classes go to high in level, in an effort to make "any kind of play possible", and that spellcasting is far too easy, in an effort to make "any kind of spellcaster possible".
Genies fit very well as creatures that can grant wishes in say, an E6 game.
I agree that they aren't, but they fit well. For E8 or E10 too, really. It's only at high levels they start to look wimpy, but at those levels, you slay grown up dragons in the dozens.
And of course they aren't as easily kidnapped - that's part of why they fit so well :)
I wasn't really trying to argue against you, just wanted to point out that at lower levels, they are very well-constructed creatures. Handing out a single wish to a 5th level character isn't going to break the game anyways, unless it's some magical item that breaks the WBL.
Faerun has, IIRC, quite active gods. My experience with faerun is limited to a bunch of different-quality-novels including part of war of the spider queen or whatever it's called and the drizz't series, but to me it seems the gods take an active interest in the happenings of mortals - especially those of high enough level to threaten their own planes (and a character at 15th level that has access to Wish definately is seen as that kind of threat).
EDIT: And why do you bother to kill the genie? His friends will just wish him back (or rather, ask their non-genie slaves to wish it from them) so it won't make a difference in any case.
And finally, if he doesn't agree and just waits his time (assuming you DIDNT charm or dominate him, and he miraculously made his check or for reasons of DM fiat considers the servitude unreasonable), you just kill him, and make it abundantly clear that you do so if he refuses. And you can. Effortlessly. And then show the smoking remains to his friend you summon a few minutes later to make your point.
Frankly, I think an extraplanar creature who is otherwise immortal may be more afraid of his own padishas and sultans who would have the power to torture him for eternity than a wizard who can simply kill him.
Why would you think their psychology would be like normal humans?
If you give the Efretti a choice, either come with you into the blind trap, or grant you 3 more intelligence, then let him or her recommend the next Effretti to do this too, you might get away with it.
I think Effretti like brandy. It's strong, flammable, and sophisticated. As for revenge, see if they can have someone hit you with ceramic pots at random times causing you to be forever threatened and thus always able to ready actions. :)
I'm going to look at the FAQ to see if they ever made a ruling.
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Oh and - why would a charmed or dominated Efreeti even TRY to mess up your wish?An efreeti captured by Planar Binding is neither charmed nor dominated. It's merely captured, and everything else is a negotiation. If they're not in a hurry, they can simply bide their time until they can escape, which they will eventually manage to do. And I stand by one task, one wish, as a likely interpretation on the part of the efreeti, given that they're not required to use any of them.You missed me mentioning the use of Charm or Dominate Monster earlier. Its a very simple way of ensuring compliance when Planar Binding.
You also missed the part where you ask for CL/days of servitude, no "grant me wishes and go home" nonsense.
You also missed where negotiating is a simple opposed cha check, which the efreet is going to loose when you bother stacking buffs and debuffs beforehand.
And finally, if he doesn't agree and just waits his time (assuming you DIDNT charm or dominate him, and he miraculously made his check or for reasons of DM fiat considers the servitude unreasonable), you just kill him, and make it abundantly clear that you do so if he refuses. And you can. Effortlessly. And then show the smoking remains to his friend you summon a few minutes later to make your point.
I didn't miss anything. I was responding to the original post, not to all your add-ons. Your scenario requires a whole lot of things to go exactly right in a very short span of time and that the creature is basic, generic and hasn't been advanced to provide an appropriate level of challenge for a 16th level caster (i.e. a lazy DM). For that matter, in your scenario, the efreeti is probably gone before you even try the dominate or charm, since you didn't think to include Dimensional Anchor. If you do remember Dimensional Anchor, make sure you've got all your fire protections maxed, because if you actually manage to beat his initiative, he's going to be blasting you with quickened scorching rays to disrupt your spell, while he uses his regular action to Plane Shift (if he's a noble efreet, he might use quickened fireball, even better). If you're not specifying a specific individual, then you've got as good a chance of pulling a generic, bare-bones efreet through as you do of pulling a Noble Efreet Sorceror. And any good DM worth his weight is going to make that negotiation anything but automatic, especially if you're going for greedy wishes. You can buff, so can they.
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How's your Charisma? Because that's what you need to get a bound planar creature to cooperate.
I like it when people write their wishes out or word them carefully. It makes the player think before they just start wishing for crazy stuff. They are more likely to be reasonable. The more reasonable the wish, the more likely you are to get it. Also, the wish spell has guidelines now, so you may want to check out the spell description.
Also, your character would be facing that/those efreeti/s soon if I was GMing.
Good luck.
*sigh*
Guys.
Seriously.
Stop assuming stupid wizards. If the wizard, all by his lonesome, calls Efreeti to serve him for x days, gets his wishes, kills the Efreeti, and never tells anyone, then no amount of detective work will find out anything, and between mind blank and eliminating the body it would be outright DM fiat to have Efreeti find out and invest massive resources in finding some of their disappeared kin. The entire line of thought that "suddenly, efreeti nobles are disappearing" alone is already assuming far too much considering infinite planes of existence, especially when these disappearances aren't necessarily linked to each other. Not to mention that they are a bunch of lawful evil bastards that are regularily at odds with other planar creatures.
Yes, if they find out WHO did it, they might do something about it. Them, or the Inevitables. The problem is finding out. And if they DO find out, then your wizard hasn't done his job right, and by that point, have already broken the game.
So please... Stop talking about how one service is one wish only (the SLA is 3 wishes once per day, not wish 3/day), or even something else equally singular - you ask for unconditional servitude for CL/days if you are doing something like this. You are also going to disguise yourself, give him a false name, mind blank, and if you can, do it away from home, where nobody bothers to look. Preferably in an almost or entirely inaccessible place. And then you are going to collect wishes, kill the Efreeti, raise him as a zombie, burn and disintegrate him and spread the ashes across the planes one fingerhat at a time.
Oh and - why would a charmed or dominated Efreeti even TRY to mess up your wish?
Chainbinding Efreeti is dangerous, but it can be done if you do your homework. And you are very quickly getting to the point where any attempt by the DM to stop it comes very close to the situation you have when desperately trying to railroad a wizard player, and failing. The rules allow it. Even without...
Stop Assuming better than average players are controlling the wizards. You might be harder to catch, but I played with enough different people to know that greed overrules logic.
You are wrong with the detective work. All it takes is divination spells, and if he is chain binding then it is not a matter of if, but when. Commune alone can do the job, not to mention legend lore and other spells. I am not saying the truth will be discovered over night, but it will be known.I do agree that one service is not one wish if you make the request open ended though.
You are correct with the gate situation, but there are work arounds for that. As for the resilient sphere what else is it going to do? It is an easy enough spell to get rid of by a high level ______ if they have done their homework.