And to repeat it for the nth time, Wish itself can revive creatures by emulating a resurrection spell, which in turn doesn't work on outsiders. Its contradictory.
I myself would rule wish to work (as I said before), but its not as perfectly clear as everyone here claims it to be.
As far as Soul Bind goes... Whether its level 15 or 17 really makes no difference to me. I'm not that tied to specific levels. Considering its entirely dependent on that specific interpretation, and STILL doesn't leave any useful information behind even if the Efreeti survives... Eh.
EDIT: Wish might very well be able to strip a wizard's magical protection, nothing prevents that. It's a very open-ended spell.So I wish for a scroll of soul bind. Thats far less powerful than auto-dispel.
And again, Efreets suffer from wish perversion LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Not even necessarily less than others, because while they might have experience, the wizard with INT30 and +42 Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft is probably far more knowledgeable about the spell and magic in general.
I am going to help you out here:
PRD:
It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life.
True ResurrectionSchool conjuration (healing); Level cleric 9
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Components V, S, M, DF (diamond worth 25,000 gp)
This spell functions like raise dead, except that you can resurrect a creature that has been dead for as long as 10 years per caster level. This spell can even bring back creatures whose bodies have been destroyed, provided that you unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion (reciting the deceased's time and place of birth or death is the most common method).
Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no negative levels (or Constitution points) and all of the prepared spells possessed by the creature when it died.
You can revive someone killed by a death effect or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed. This spell can also resurrect elementals or outsiders, but it can't resurrect constructs or undead creatures.
Even true resurrection can't restore to life a creature who has died of old age.
And to repeat it for the nth time, Wish itself can revive creatures by emulating a resurrection spell, which in turn doesn't work on outsiders. Its contradictory.No, it is 100% clear. The very line that says that outsiders can't be res'd gives the list of exceptions that will allow an outsider to be res'd. Not that hard.
For future reference it is easier when debating to cite both sources. :)
That way you don't have to worry about whether or not the other person will do it.
I'm not sure on the "efreeti suffer from wish perversion" either, since it's the efreeti themselves that grant the wishes.
"1/day—grant up to 3 wishes (to nongenies only)"
Note that it's not:
"3/day- Wish (wishes must be stated by nongenies"
When someone casts wish, I assume that some mystic cosmic power grants the wish and if you ask too much, it might take to pervert the wish. In this case, the "mystic cosmic power" is the efreet itself.
I could see it being interpreted the other way too, surely, but I don't think it's unsupported to say that efreeti can grant a wish in exactly the way they wish, even if they are the ultimate benefactors from it (such as when using wish-slaves).
Nightwish and some of the others:
stuff about the wrong spell
\
Planar Binding specifically states that the creature is sent back to wherever you brought it from when the task is complete.
If you are getting wishes, the wishes are the task.. When they are done, he goes home, no save no choice no nuttin. Check the spell.
-S
Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
The noble is missing and alive for at least 2 weeks, and nobody can find him, really?
Locate creature won't work? Commune won't work? <---Rhetorical questions.I do agree that locate creature won't work if the Genie is dead because at that point it is a corpse, but since you choose to keep it alive 15 days is more than enough time to track it down if anyone wants to find it. Eventually all you need is Find the Path.
Now it is also possible that you happened to kidnap a noble that nobody cared about, but if you do the chain wish thing that involves more than one Genie. Expect visitors.
PS:I am now expecting the response to be "I don't have to let him live that long", but you don't have too. All you have to do is keep it up long enough to be tracked down.
I like to wish, "I wish for the wisdom to word all of my wishes in such a way that the spirit of the wish is granted, rather than anything else that could be derived from the letter of what I say.""You find your mind expanded with wisdom, altered to determine that you can never word a Wish in such a way, and have no desire to ever cast Wish again."
Or worse.
"You find yourself unable to utter the words 'I wish', as you realize that nothing can fulfill your wishes but your own actions."
I am stealing this one.
Errm, no. If you make it clear for the Efreeti to follow your instruction, he simply CAN NOT REFUSE. And believe it or not, the INT30 wizard will be BETTER at this than the Efreeti. And even if he manages to subvert instructions... Kill him. Try again. Its just that simple.Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
Yeah, and then he says "nope, I'll just play tennis with you".
EDIT: Look, everytime we show you a new loophole, you'll just add something you'd "obviously" do beforehand, showing off a new loophole. I'm sure you'll quote the tennis part and change the wording of your task, but that just goes to show how weak this is - you have to change your story afterwards just to make it fit.
Depending on the subversion of the wish you may not get to try again, and where is a 15 level wizard getting 30 int from? I have seen in it games with very high point buys, and a lot of wealth, but I don't see it in a normal game?
I had a chat earlier today with my GM about this. He asked me this "Why do you think people strong enough to bind genies into bottles do so instead of keeping them around for those 3 wishes a day?"
Depending on the subversion of the wish you may not get to try again, and where is a 15 level wizard getting 30 int from? I have seen in it games with very high point buys, and a lot of wealth, but I don't see it in a normal game?Errm, no. If you make it clear for the Efreeti to follow your instruction, he simply CAN NOT REFUSE. And believe it or not, the INT30 wizard will be BETTER at this than the Efreeti. And even if he manages to subvert instructions... Kill him. Try again. Its just that simple.Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
Yeah, and then he says "nope, I'll just play tennis with you".
EDIT: Look, everytime we show you a new loophole, you'll just add something you'd "obviously" do beforehand, showing off a new loophole. I'm sure you'll quote the tennis part and change the wording of your task, but that just goes to show how weak this is - you have to change your story afterwards just to make it fit.
18 + 2 racial + 4 stat (16's close enough) + 6 headband
So... If I kill that Efreet, I get a ring that has continuous protection from evil on it, which for some reason I can't craft myself, right together with a continuous ring of true striking? Hey, deal. Works for me.
You do realize how true strike works, right? It works only for a single melee attack. A continuous ring of true striking wouldn't recast itself, it would only work once and after that it won't do anything at all, ever again.
And a continuous item of protection from evil might be commonplace, just like how 2nd level commoners might be relatively common even if they're not statted up. If the DM thinks they should be in the setting you can probably craft one for yourself - the key is that the DM can design magic items by following the guidelines however he wishes, like he can design NPC's, while you can only create items that the DM has designed (or with his permission research other) or hire NPC's that he's designed - you can't design your own NPC's or items, but use those that exists.
@qlawdat
Don't worry, most of whats being discussed here is just "What if"'s or strict RAW readings. If you worked it out with your DM, the majority of those things are solved before ever becoming a problem.@wraithstrike
Some of it was by you, some of it by nightwish, and some of it, more recent, by other people. You, for example, were rather adamant about using divinations on the dead efreeti, while I maintained that this will not yield tangible results if you are careful. Hence the comments about disguise, obscuring mist, and so on.
You mind running these careful results by me?
Where is the body of X(using commune), or if that is too specificIs the body of X on (name location).
Before all of that you get list of those that would be powerful enough to think they pull this off and get away with it. How long this takes depends on the game world in question.
If the efreeti is kept alive then locate creature should work. I am not saying that if a DM chose to play this game it would work with the first Efreeti, but if a player kept it up then tracking him down becomes a when, not an if.
A smart player would destroy the body so locate object can't be used since a corpse is not a creature, or dump it on some other plane, but while you argue that a high int wizard might make things really hard the player probably won't, and he is the one making the decisions.
18 + 2 racial + 4 stat (16's close enough) + 6 headbandDepending on the subversion of the wish you may not get to try again, and where is a 15 level wizard getting 30 int from? I have seen in it games with very high point buys, and a lot of wealth, but I don't see it in a normal game?Errm, no. If you make it clear for the Efreeti to follow your instruction, he simply CAN NOT REFUSE. And believe it or not, the INT30 wizard will be BETTER at this than the Efreeti. And even if he manages to subvert instructions... Kill him. Try again. Its just that simple.Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
Yeah, and then he says "nope, I'll just play tennis with you".
EDIT: Look, everytime we show you a new loophole, you'll just add something you'd "obviously" do beforehand, showing off a new loophole. I'm sure you'll quote the tennis part and change the wording of your task, but that just goes to show how weak this is - you have to change your story afterwards just to make it fit.
You might even get it to a 27 with the mental tomes that boost stats, but I don't see a 30 in a standard point buy game.
You might even get it to a 27 with the mental tomes that boost stats, but I don't see a 30 in a standard point buy game.18 + 2 racial + 4 stat (16's close enough) + 6 headbandDepending on the subversion of the wish you may not get to try again, and where is a 15 level wizard getting 30 int from? I have seen in it games with very high point buys, and a lot of wealth, but I don't see it in a normal game?Errm, no. If you make it clear for the Efreeti to follow your instruction, he simply CAN NOT REFUSE. And believe it or not, the INT30 wizard will be BETTER at this than the Efreeti. And even if he manages to subvert instructions... Kill him. Try again. Its just that simple.Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
Yeah, and then he says "nope, I'll just play tennis with you".
EDIT: Look, everytime we show you a new loophole, you'll just add something you'd "obviously" do beforehand, showing off a new loophole. I'm sure you'll quote the tennis part and change the wording of your task, but that just goes to show how weak this is - you have to change your story afterwards just to make it fit.
Assuming a low point buy, a wizard's still going to try to get a base 16 in that int, he plays an elf for the +2 racial. By level 16, that's 22. A headband of int +6 costs 36k to buy, which is easy for the 315k budget for a level 16 character. So 28 assuming a 10 or 15 point buy with no fudging. If we're in a 20 point buy, it'll be rough to hit that 18 but the 17 won't be too painful so that's 29 for PFS, or just still 28 if they want more rounded stats. Any higher and you should expect to see 18's in the casting.
I'm talking about the binding agreement, not the Wish. Which by itself can already prevent hostile wish interpretation.
Depending on the subversion of the wish you may not get to try again, and where is a 15 level wizard getting 30 int from? I have seen in it games with very high point buys, and a lot of wealth, but I don't see it in a normal game?
I misunderstood
And Wish itself has very clear 'safe' applications; I still doubt Efreet get to interpret the Wish however they like. And if they do... Can you make scrolls off SLA's ? Worth investigating.
SLA's don't do scrolls. I think that wish can be safe even with a bound Efreet also.
As for INT: Pointbuy has relatively little influence on primary caster stats. If you want to, you can always start with a 20. I'd prefer spreading out stats, but even then you wont loose much more than 2 points, 4 if your race doesnt give +2 int.
That is my point. You drop enough of the other stats and you might not make it to 15. Of course not every DM runs a game the same way.
That Efreet also has bluff which most arcanist will find to be an issue due to not having sense motive. Assuming there is some sort of conversation that might be all that is needed. Many a smart man has lost his shirt to a con artist.
This exercise has been interesting though, but I think most players would find themselves in a bad situation due to them not having a 30 int. I would also think this is the type of thing you would plan for, instead of glancing through the Bestiary, and trying to get over on the DM the next session, which is probably how this would be ran.
Lists dont work. In fact, I'm quite sure noone across the planes has a list like that. Not even inevitables.
Actually there is a very quick way to pinpoint the location of anything using commune. If you need to perform an exhaustive search of an area via commune, then the amount of time to perform that search is proportional to the logarithm of the area. First go "Longitudinally, is X between A and B", then go "Longitudinally, is X between C and B where C is halfway between A and B?", then repeat latitudinally. Bam, GPS in 1-2 castings. A square mile can be exhaustively searched down to the 5 foot square in 20 questions. 1 million square miles will only take 40 questions. Now in order to avoid the issue of inaccuracy, you can simply ask several times and just do basic statistical analysis. There's only a small number of games where a basic knowledge of computer science is helpful, and PF is one of them. :)
You mind running these careful results by me?
Where is the body of X(using commune), or if that is too specific
Is the body of X on (name location).
Before all of that you get list of those that would be powerful enough to think they pull this off and get away with it. How long this takes depends on the game world in question.
If the efreeti is kept alive then locate creature should work. I am not saying that if a DM chose to play this game it would work with the first Efreeti, but if a player kept it up then tracking him down becomes a when, not an if.
A smart player would destroy the body so locate object can't be used since a corpse is not a creature, or dump it on some other plane, but while you argue that a high int wizard might make things really hard the player probably won't, and he is the one making the decisions.
It actually is indeed too specific. From the Commune spell:
"You contact your deity—or agents thereof—and ask questions that can be answered by a simple yes or no."
As for going about with a list and asking single locations... Please, PLEASE keep in mind that those hunting for the wizard do not actually know there is a wizard from the material prime chain-binding Efreet. They know Efreet are disappearing. And they have an entire MULTIVERSE to search in. It could be other genies. Even rival Efreet. It could be demons, devils, daemons, and countless other beings. Depending on your campaign setting, it could even be different planets or material planes. Some planes in some settings are even INFINITE.
Even on the material plane, I'm somewhat baffled that people only talk about wizards.
What about sorcerers? Clerics? Dragons? Liches? In the FR, the Phaerimm? What, in fact, if it was only a noble with too much cash hoarding candles of invocation? Sure, the latter is far more prone to be found out and killed, but the Efreet don't know that. The search alone is such a massively daunting task...Lists dont work. In fact, I'm quite sure noone...
As for the list I agree that it depends on the campaign world. FR would give someone a long time to hide. Eberron where hardly anyone is above level 10, narrows things down quiet a bit.
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Nightwish and some of the others:
stuff about the wrong spell
\
Planar Binding specifically states that the creature is sent back to wherever you brought it from when the task is complete.
If you are getting wishes, the wishes are the task.. When they are done, he goes home, no save no choice no nuttin. Check the spell.
-S
[roll eyes] And if the task is not completed the creature is not sent back. Getting killed not necessarily fulfil the task.
If the caster has put a condition of grant me 3 wishes and kill the Efreti after the second the task is not completed.
The character is a jerk and is courting death if he do that repeatedly but that is another matter.
Your point was that a extraplanar creature get sent back when killed, and that simply is not true for a called creature. It is trued only when you are using a summoning spell.
Task: "Serve me for Caster level / days". Im not going to bother with exact semantics here for expedience's sake.
Right after agreeing: "Grant me three wishes."
He doesn't get sent back.
Edit: the spell don't sent the efreti back when the tasks are completed, the exact wording is: "Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only to inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came."
A dead creature can't inform you of anything.Yeah, and then he says "nope, I'll just play tennis with you".
EDIT: Look, everytime we show you a new loophole, you'll just add something you'd "obviously" do beforehand, showing off a new loophole. I'm sure you'll quote the tennis part and change the wording of your task, but that just goes to show how weak this is - you have to change your story afterwards just to make it fit.
So you rule that "serving" someone equate to doing whatever you wish and disallowing the orders of the one you are serving?
A good reply would have been "Before agreeing to serve you the genie will pose the condition that granting wishes is outside the normal servitude agreement."
That would be a reasonable behaviour from a creature that will know that what a guy will want are his wishes.
The spell say "Note that a clever recipient can subvert some instructions.", something that is very different from "he can refuse your orders".
That's what I'm saying, now your changing your task. Your task was "serve me for x days". He accepts, and refutes to do anything but serve (in the tennis sense).And remember that each trial costs ~14000k if you want to soul bind. Unless you're changing your story AGAIN and making him 17th level, which would (according to the 3.5 DMG) eliminate about 86% of the potential perpertrators when they go search for you.
LOL, at that point of playing with words we will have to start to think in what languages the two guys are speaking, if tennis has been invented, if in the language in question serve (as entering in servitude) use the same word as serve (for serving a ball in a tennis court) and so on.
You are metagaming to the hilt and beyond, essentially imposing your will on the players with an hammer.
You would be more honest stating from the start "efreeti don't grant wishes". Reasonable house rule.
Playing it how you are presenting it on this forum making wish granting some kind of death trap for the fun of the GM make you a very bad GM.
In the time since I posted my original question I have talked to my DM and have agreed that I have been granted 2 wish spells, but that I cannot used them to raise my stats. This seems fair to me. The main thing I am after is more information about our mysterious foe, and his demi-plane fortress, which cannot be scryed with the spells I have access to.
I think your original question has been lost in the haze of incessant bickering a long time ago.
Since you and your DM are talking together and agreeing on things, I'd say you're probably fairly safe to wish for information about both your foe and his fortress. Personally, I wouldn't have any problems with letting you use wishes for that purpose, with no unwanted consequences.
Maybe:
"I wish to be able to scry upon my enemy" and "I wish to be able to scry upon my enemy's demi-plane".
Problem is, its not a binary spell of "yes and no". There is also "unclear", especially because deities are not omniscient. And you still have planes of existance. Some of which are infinite. And a theoretically infinite amount of demiplanes of which you may or may not have knowledge of.
My methodology is perfectly unambiguous, so clarity is not a factor. I'm just going to flat out say: BS on deities not knowing where you are. If you want to say that Mind Blank stops deities from knowing where you are, you are wrong. While they aren't omniscient or omnipotent, I'm pretty sure that they found ways around non-epic spells.
While the issue of infinite sized planes is technically valid, we're given a hint that you can easily narrow things down by the fact that they are described as "theoretically infinite" which implies that only a small portion is actually inhabited. It is akin to running a search on our universe, you don't need to search the entire thing to know nothing important inhabits 99.99999999999999999999999% of it. Since we're dealing with eternal beings, they've had an eternity to brute force search an infinite space if necessary. Infinities are such fickle things. This catches the infinite demi-planes issue too.
But kudos for logarithms :D Never thought of that one.
The only thing more powerful than a wizard is one with an education in mathematics. :)
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@Nightwish, Wraithstrike
You know... if you keep only reading half of my points, I really wonder why I bother replying. If after all these posts you still believe the dead Efreeti can yield any useful information beyond "I SAW TALKING FOG FILLED DARKNESS" or at the most the disguised wizard behind, and still think the dead Efreeti will be wished back to life (Soul Bind, even IF we clear up Wish's spell description to be non-contradictory), then you certainly haven't paid much attention to what has been posted.
As has been pointed out several times, in the example wizard you've given, Soul Bind is beyond his capabilities. Plus, Soul Bind will not work on outsiders, even for wizards capable of casting it. When an Outsider dies, whether summoned or called, it returns to its native plane. That's because its entire essence is distilled from the stuff of its native plane, it won't leave a corpse behind, and there's no soul to call forth. They are the exception to the rule about called creatures remaining, because it isn't the spell that causes them to return, it is their creature type.
As for DM's not being limited to the same rules... Yes they are. They might get some homebrew stuff or additional material, but those SHOULD still fall within the normal rules framework. Just making up spells that ignore mind blank and auto-strip a wizard's magical protection when not even Wish can do such things is well outside that framework. And a reason not to play in such a campaign for me, especially as a wizard if it ends in the expert on the field being utterly baffled by whats going on half of the time.
If you count yourself an "expert on the game" to the point that you are absolutely confident that you can auto-succeed every time, then, as I said before, you vastly overestimate yourself. Your kind of haughtiness is far more likely to turn your DM against you than it is to encourage him to work with you.
Err... Now, don't get me wrong, if a deity goes looking for a wizard, it might very well find him... But why would the deity know about the wizard ON PRINCIPLE? Deities are not omniscient. And not infallible. There are even settings out there where deities DIED by mortal hands and couldn't see it coming, so I can't see them knowing every high level wizard out there.
My methodology is perfectly unambiguous, so clarity is not a factor. I'm just going to flat out say: BS on deities not knowing where you are. If you want to say that Mind Blank stops deities from knowing where you are, you are wrong. While they aren't omniscient or omnipotent, I'm pretty sure that they found ways around non-epic spells.
Because you're level 15+ and therefore important, or as you point out, someone they might need to keep an eye on in their own interests.
But they still need to spend a lot, lot of time to skim the planes for an individual, one they know nothing about except that he is able to abduct Efreet, which still includes a multitude of beings.
They mere need to find the regions that are theoretically capable of supporting life, which even in an infinite plane, are not necessarily infinite. In order for those regions to be infinite in scope, the plane must either be uniform on some scale, or strictly chaotic (I'm using the mathematical meaning of the word chaotic).
And if you are going about this via 423 castings of Commune, I wonder what deity wouldn't start to get annoyed.
That may be, but considering that there is a history of deity slaying, deities would be interested in stopping people who are on their way to reaching deific levels of power. Getting at least 3 wishes a day is certainly qualification for attention. Note that I said at least because nothing stops you from having more than one Efreet bound. After all, he can use those wishes to duplicate planar bindings and other necessary precautions.
My methodology is perfectly unambiguous, so clarity is not a factor. I'm just going to flat out say: BS on deities not knowing where you are. If you want to say that Mind Blank stops deities from knowing where you are, you are wrong. While they aren't omniscient or omnipotent, I'm pretty sure that they found ways around non-epic spells.Err... Now, don't get me wrong, if a deity goes looking for a wizard, it might very well find him... But why would the deity know about the wizard ON PRINCIPLE? Deities are not omniscient. And not infallible. There are even settings out there where deities DIED by mortal hands and couldn't see it coming, so I can't see them knowing every high level wizard out there.
While the issue of infinite sized planes is technically valid, we're given a hint that you can easily narrow things down by the fact that they are described as "theoretically infinite" which implies that only a small portion is actually inhabited. It is akin to running a search on our universe, you don't need to search the entire thing to know nothing important inhabits 99.99999999999999999999999% of it. Since we're dealing with eternal beings, they've had an eternity to brute force search an infinite space if necessary. Infinities are such fickle things. This catches the infinite demi-planes issue too.But they still need to spend a lot, lot of time to skim the planes for an individual, one they know nothing about except that he is able to abduct Efreet, which still includes a multitude of beings.
And if you are going about this via 423 castings of Commune, I wonder what deity wouldn't start to get annoyed.
One casting of commune gets you one question per caster level, IIRC. One or two castings should be all that is needed.
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Nightwish and some of the others:
1) you play too much the omnipotent and omniscient GM angle. You can know all the defences the spellcaster has put up but the Efreti don't.
That individual efreet may not know what exact defenses the spellcaster has put up, but efreeti in general have been the targets of such spells so many gazillion times that it isn't at all beyond reason that their schools teach Protection from Calling 101 at the kindergarten level. So it wouldn't be uncommon for some of them to have taken precautions ahead of time. That's where the DM says, "tell me what you're calling, give me a few minutes to prepare (including rolling some percentage chances that the called creature is buffed, defended or advanced), and don't tell me what defenses you're going to use ahead of time."
2) wish granting creatures are subject to wish perversion, they simply have a deeper knowledge than the average guy on how they can avoid that. Wish perversion is a secondary effect of trying to change reality, not only an effect of the granting entity distortion of the wish.
That's a matter of interpretation, of course, but then so was mine, so okay.
A Efreti is not a godlike entity so it will be extra careful when trying that kind of stunts and he will not use them to do SWAT work.
I'm not really the one who was bringing up all the SWAT work, but from what I was reading, nearly all of it, if not ALL of it, could easily be done within the framework of the spell as described under its primary listing.
3) again some of your suggested ideas like "planar binding will call super-Ifrit the fully prepared 17° level wizard efreti" are really stretching the spell way beyond a reasonable level. The spell, excluding extenuating circumstances like knowing the name of the creature I am summoning, call a standard specimen of the creature, not an exceptional one.
That's entirely up to the DM. There is no rule that states that the creature called is automatically the most standard version unless it has been called by name. That's standard practice, of course, because it makes things much easier on the DM, but if the DM is faced with players who seek to abuse such things, then he is will within his rights (and well within the rules) to up the challenge in any number of ways (including advancing the creature called).
BTW: a summoned creature return immediately to his original plane if slain. It don't apply to Gate or Planar binding as these spells are from the calling subschool.
Calling: A calling spell transports a creature from
another plane to the plane you are on. The spell grants the creature the one-time ability to return to its plane of origin, although the spell may limit the circumstances under which this is possible. Creatures who are called actually die when they are killed; they do not disappear and reform, as do those brought by a summoning spell (see below). The duration of a calling spell is instantaneous, which means that the called creature can’t be dispelled.
Due to the nature of Outsiders, they would be an exception to that rule. Their plane would still draw them back, whether it was instantly or at the end of the spell, and they would remain dead, but Soul Bind would still not work on them, because you have to have a soul to remove from the body, and Outsiders don't have that.
4) You assume that efreti society care so much if a "common" efreti disappear. If they notice a sudden increase in disapparences or if someone important...
Not really. At least, not for my part. The SWAT thing that people were bringing up is not an overly likely scenario. But darkeyr was basically claiming that there was absolutely no way, no how that he could ever be caught, found out or detected by anybody at any time because he's "an expert on the game" and has already thought and buffed against every possible scenario. We're simply showing him that he hasn't thought of everything. Munchkin gamers like that need to brought down a notch from time to time.
All they have to do is be aware that Bob the Efreeti is missing and then commune or have a peon wish the information on what happened to him.
I wish I knew if Bob was alive.
I wish I knew who killed Bob.
I wish I knew how X killed Bob.
I wish I knew where X is right now.
I wish ...
You are talking about a creature who can cast wish 3 times a day. And you think you are going to get away with murdering one of them with a planar binding spell?
Good luck with that. All of your "The Dm is metagaming if he catches me" isn't going to hold water.
Ask yourself this: If one of the PC's suddenly disappeared and was later found to be dead, would you just say.. "well too bad for jim" or would you -go find out who did it-.
Efreeti aren't Wish factories sitting around isolated in caves waiting for would-be wizards to wisk them away, wish x2 and murder them to prevent them from telling about it. They are intelligent, sentient creatures with lives of their own who you are forcibly removing from that life and forcing them to do your bidding.
Binding something that can cast wish 3/day and killing it and thinking you will get away with it is just a fallicy of your own metagaming. Your PC will get killed and the DM will laugh and the players will agree that you had it coming. Assuming they survive the fight.
-S
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Lists dont work. In fact, I'm quite sure noone across the planes has a list like that. Not even inevitables.Actually there is a very quick way to pinpoint the location of anything using commune. If you need to perform an exhaustive search of an area via commune, then the amount of time to perform that search is proportional to the logarithm of the area. First go "Longitudinally, is X between A and B", then go "Longitudinally, is X between C and B where C is halfway between A and B?", then repeat latitudinally. Bam, GPS in 1-2 castings. A square mile can be exhaustively searched down to the 5 foot square in 20 questions. 1 million square miles will only take 40 questions. Now in order to avoid the issue of inaccuracy, you can simply ask several times and just do basic statistical analysis. There's only a small number of games where a basic knowledge of computer science is helpful, and PF is one of them. :)
You often play the 20 (or 40) question game with your deity?
Seriously, this whole thread is about abusing a spell (planar binding) and your solution is abuse another.
BTW, you need to pinpoint the plane and planet first, then your grid need to include 3 dimensional location. He can be in a cave underground, a flying castle that has already left the area and so on.
And again, doing it your way require that the deity or deity servant replying you know the answer and is willing to share it.
Let's say that the guy playing with planar binding is a faithful servant of Asmodeus and our LE efreti cleric is contacting a diabolic power for his answers.
Are you sure the diabolic power will reply and risk Asmodeus wrath?
If instead the guy doing the wish chaining was a follower of some demoniac entity are you sure the diabolic power youa re contacting know about all his actions, especially the more secretive one?
In a polytheistic pantheon the gods are far from omniscient and omnipotent. Their servants even less.
If the efreeti is kept alive then locate creature should work. I am not saying that if a DM chose to play this game it would work with the first Efreeti, but if a player kept it up then tracking him down becomes a when, not an if.
A smart player would destroy the body so locate object can't be used since a corpse is not a creature, or dump it on some other plane, but while you argue that a high int wizard might make things really hard the player probably won't, and he is the one making the decisions.
^^
This.The best reply instead of distorting rules to get a "win" for the GM.
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I'm talking about the binding agreement, not the Wish. Which by itself can already prevent hostile wish interpretation.
Only if you're a better contract negotiator than the efreet. And regardless of your level, it is highly unlikely that you're a more clever negotiator than they. They've had infinite lifetimes to perfect that art, you've had one. If you're not absolutely perfect in your wording (and you won't be, mere mortal), they will exploit it to your chagrin.
I still doubt Efreet get to interpret the Wish however they like.
According to the article in The Final Wish, they do.
That be said, it was a value to demonstrate. Whether its 26 or 30 or 34 doesn't make much difference. Its still vastly outclassing the Efreeti.
And still anything but automatic, especially if the efreet has also found a way to buff his CHA, through spells or magic items. You'll have a better chance than he will, sure, but there are a lot of spaces on the d20 to bridge the gap.
My point in all this is not that you're guaranteed to fail, it is that you're NOT guaranteed to succeed.
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Commune gets you 1 question per round so that is a valid use.
How am I distorting rules? We like explanations around here, not accusations.|
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3) again some of your suggested ideas like "planar binding will call super-Ifrit the fully prepared 17° level wizard efreti" are really stretching the spell way beyond a reasonable level. The spell, excluding extenuating circumstances like knowing the name of the creature I am summoning, call a standard specimen of the creature, not an exceptional one.
That's entirely up to the DM. There is no rule that states that the creature...
Can I get the same chance with my summoning spells, please?
I would very much like to summon a Dire rat with my Summon monster I and get one with +2 to all the physical characteristics and maximum hit points.
Quote:
Calling: A calling spell transports a creature from another plane to the plane you are on. The spell grants the creature the one-time ability to return to its plane of origin, although the spell may limit the circumstances under which this is possible. Creatures who are called actually die when they are killed; they do not disappear and reform, as do those brought by a summoning spell (see below). The duration of a calling spell is instantaneous, which means that the called creature can’t be dispelled.
Due to the nature of Outsiders, they would be an exception to that rule. Their plane would still draw them back, whether it was instantly or at the end of the spell, and they would remain dead,
Sorry, but that is your houserule, not RAW. There are several systems that allow the outsider to come with his body (Gate, Planar binding and so) and a good number of then don't require or force him to go back.
Planar binding:
Once the requested service is completed, the creature need
only to inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came.
Interesting it don't necessarily force the creature to speak with the conjurer after completing the task. Better remember to add that to the task when binding someone.
I see a demon getting the task "Kill X", completing it and then not reporting so he could get a free hand doing mayhem around the world.
A little thing I have found that invalidate one of my earlier comments:
Extraplanar Subtype: This subtype is applied to any
creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane.
So a PC gated to another plane get the extraplanar subtipe.
but Soul Bind would still not work on them, because you have to have a soul to remove from the body, and Outsiders don't have that.
Fully agree on this.
But darkeyr was basically claiming that there was absolutely no way, no how that he could ever be caught, found out or detected by anybody at any time because he's "an expert on the game" and has already thought and buffed against every possible scenario.
And with this too. My problem is that some reply get to the opposite side of the spectrum. They sound:
"I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS! I am the omnipotent and omniscient GM, this is my world and you will be crushed if you don't follow my script to the letter."
to my hears.
Wraithstrike reply:
I am not saying that if a DM chose to play this game it would work with the first Efreeti, but if a player kept it up then tracking him down becomes a when, not an if.
A smart player would destroy the body so locate object can't be used since a corpse is not a creature, or dump it on some other plane, but while you argue that a high int wizard might make things really hard the player probably won't, and he is the one making the decisions.
seem the right one to me.
Do it once with a few careful precautions and possibly paying the Efreti for his services and it will end well 99,9% of the time.
If you pay enough and the efreti feel that your goals are reasonably close to his or that keeping up with you can be beneficial (let's say you promise him you will enchant a ring of major cold resistance if he will accept to be called multiple times) you could even become a "costumer" for an efreti (as a GM I would not like that, but it would be possible to find a balance in that between the player goals and the GM goals [it will be like bargaining with a devil, but one more interested in material wealth than souls]).
Do it 10 times, killing the efreti every time, and someone will notice this.
Not only the efreti but even some adventuring party would probably be alerted by a deity noticing that something strange is happening in a corner of the material plane and reality is being distorted.
You often play the 20 (or 40) question game with your deity?
As an atheist, the question is meaningless.
Seriously, this whole thread is about abusing a spell (planar binding) and your solution is abuse another.
It's not abuse since the 12% chance of unhelpful or counterproductive answer forces the entire procedure to be repeated several times to ensure accuracy. So that means making the int check multiple times, spending several hours undisturbed, and then probably requiring another int check to do the statistical analysis (unless your character is trained in knowledge statistics).
BTW, you need to pinpoint the plane and planet first, then your grid need to include 3 dimensional location. He can be in a cave underground, a flying castle that has already left the area and so on.
Yeah, moving targets will bust it. Including additional dimensions is will only increase the time linearly.
And again, doing it your way require that the deity or deity servant replying you know the answer and is willing to share it.
Let's say that the guy playing with planar binding is a faithful servant of Asmodeus and our LE efreti cleric is contacting a diabolic power for his answers.
Are you sure the diabolic power will reply and risk Asmodeus wrath?If instead the guy doing the wish chaining was a follower of some demoniac entity are you sure the diabolic power youa re contacting know about all his actions, especially the more secretive one?
In a polytheistic pantheon the gods are far from omniscient and omnipotent. Their servants even less.
You don't need to contact either your own deity or his, any deity will do. And as I showed, deities have a personal interest in people like this trying to become a little too powerful for their own good. So while they are not omniscient, they would look into it. Also it is reasonable to presume that the table in Contact Other Plane already takes this into account.
This.
The best reply instead of distorting rules to get a "win" for the GM.
Except that he can cast mind blank on the efreet.
Munchkin gamers like that need to brought down a notch from time to time.
Yes, it is rather easy to do for people who have skill focus (mathematics).
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Sorry, I completely misunderstood what you said before. I took it as an insult with not explanation, not an agreement. I understand now. :)
edit:I somehow read-->
"The best reply, distorting rules to get a "win" for the GM."
I am aware that is not what you said now that I have read it again. I have no idea how I got that though.
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...Commune gets you 1 question per round so that is a valid use.
How am I distorting rules? We like explanations around here, not accusations.
I wasn't accusing you of distorting rules. Especially in regard to the post I cited. I don't see how you did get that meaning.
Some of the other are. I find the "you will summon the extra powerful version of the efreti as a standard event" as credible a scenery as "you are walking around the market and try to pickpocket a nondescript guy for some copper and discover he is a 20° level wizard that will instantly disintegrate you."
The conjurer could get efreeti with 1 or 2 class level or 1 or 2 extra dices, but more than that would be a very rare occurrence. The spells conjure the common specimens not the advanced/classed and c. unless those spells are carefully targeted to a specific entity.
Replies like this one to me smell of a GM that like much more to thwart the game for his amusement at the expenses of the players that of a master that try to keep a balanced game for the enjoyment of all the participants:
There's a big difference between "distorting the rules" and "using the rules for maximum effect." Equating the two usually means that somebody was on the losing end of the latter.
"the losing end" of "using the rules for maximum effect" from someone that has perfect knowledge of the players and the characters, the same guy advocating that every encounter should be balanced to the players CL, even when using a spell that call a creature with a maximum of 12 HD and the target creature has a CR of 8, don't sound like someone playing fairly with the rules.
Except that he can cast mind blank on the efreet.
The other poster's plan included killing the efreet which would cancel out the mind blank. That is why I suggest destroying the body to block locate object or dumping the body on another plane as another way to buy time.
@DR:I know there was no harm, but I did not the first time, which is why I was apologizing.
I have no idea how I misread it either.
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You often play the 20 (or 40) question game with your deity?As an atheist, the question is meaningless.
Seriously, this whole thread is about abusing a spell (planar binding) and your solution is abuse another.It's not abuse since the 12% chance of unhelpful or counterproductive answer forces the entire procedure to be repeated several times to ensure accuracy. So that means making the int check multiple times, spending several hours undisturbed, and then probably requiring another int check to do the statistical analysis (unless your character is trained in knowledge statistics).
BTW, you need to pinpoint the plane and planet first, then your grid need to include 3 dimensional location. He can be in a cave underground, a flying castle that has already left the area and so on.Yeah, moving targets will bust it. Including additional dimensions is will only increase the time linearly.
And again, doing it your way require that the deity or deity servant replying you know the answer and is willing to share it.
Let's say that the guy playing with planar binding is a faithful servant of Asmodeus and our LE efreti cleric is contacting a diabolic power for his answers.
Are you sure the diabolic power will reply and risk Asmodeus wrath?If instead the guy doing the wish chaining was a follower of some demoniac entity are you sure the diabolic power youa re contacting know about all his actions, especially the more secretive one?
In a polytheistic pantheon the gods are far from omniscient and omnipotent. Their servants even less.
You don't need to contact either your own deity or his, any deity will do. And as I showed, deities have a personal interest in people like this trying to become a little too powerful for their own good. So while they are not omniscient, they would look into it. Also it is reasonable to presume that the table in Contact Other Plane already takes this into account.
...This.
The
Commune - Cleric 5:
You contact your deity—or agents thereof—and ask questionsthat can be answered by a simple yes or no. (A cleric of no
particular deity contacts a philosophically allied deity.)
It has no "12% chance of unhelpful or counterproductive answer", it will not give you different results at each casting as you are always contacting the dame deity or one of his servants unless the deity has gathered more informations on the matter (note that several other divination spells will give you the same result, right of wrong, if repeated).
You are thinking of Contact other planes.
You often play the 20 (or 40) question game with your deity?
As an atheist, the question is meaningless.
For your cleric it is better not to be an atheist.
@DR:I know there was no harm, but I did not the first time, which is why I was apologizing.
I have no idea how I misread it either.
No offence taken, it happen.
Some of my replies are on the forceful side and English is not my first language, so misunderstandings can happen.We are overlapping each other reply so sometime reading them after they appear make them a bit strange.
You are thinking of Contact other planes.
Yeah, I've never picked up a divine caster in my life because their list doesn't seem as entertaining to me. I stick to arcanists. Also the whole issue with them automatically knowing their entire list doesn't give me any creative juices to work into an interesting character.
For yor cleric it is better not to be an atheist.
Yes, but arcane power flows through us all. It is blind to ideas; knowing only whims.
Actually if the commoners in your world have access to 3 wishes every day for their entire life, I would not be terribly surprised if attempting to mug them resulted in you being instantly disintegrated.
Some of the other are. I find the "you will summon the extra powerful version of the efreti as a standard event" as credible a scenery as "you are walking around the market and try to pickpocket a nondescript guy for some copper and discover he is a 20° level wizard that will instantly disintegrate you."
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Some of the other are. I find the "you will summon the extra powerful version of the efreti as a standard event" as credible a scenery as "you are walking around the market and try to pickpocket a nondescript guy for some copper and discover he is a 20° level wizard that will instantly disintegrate you."
You might want to do yourself a favor and read the entire thread, including those posts that clarified other posts, and gain some context before you start spouting garbage like this. Critical reading is a useful skill to develop. Once you do develop that skill a tad more, you will realize that I expounded more upon my comments about making the encounter appropriate to the party level by saying that the reward should be comensurate with the level of the challenge. Gaining free and unfettered access to wishes is a very, very high level reward, one that is pretty out of whack with a standard CR8 encounter. It can be balanced out by either upping the power and ability of the creature, or by increasing the challenge of the negotiations, or by strictly limiting the rewards that can be obtained through said negotations. Nowhere did I say that an extra powerful version of the efreet should be a standard event, that's just words you've invented from thin air. And again, as I've said more than once already in this thread, the possible scenarios I've mentioned are intended to show that there are always possible ways around even the best-laid plans, especially when you're dealing with something as clever and conniving as an efreet. So when I say that something is possible, that's exactly what it means. It does not mean that it is standard, or that it would happen that way all the time. The fact is, a ECL 15 caster should not be able to attain CR17 and higher level rewards from a simple CR8 creature just willy-nilly without some significant level of challenge. If they can, then the game is broken, period.
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But I am TOTALLY against the "Genie SWAT team" effect, or making it near impossible for the Genie to be "forced" to serve. Make it difficult to be done right, near impossible to abuse through long term effects and let the player decide on his fate.
Part of the problem is that when the efreet were designed for the 3.5 system (and by extension, Pathfinder), they really missed the boat with how powerful these things are supposed to be. Classically, efreet were among the most powerful of geniekind, but in the game, they made them among the weakest in all other respects except for their wish-granting ability. Really, they are one of the creatures that really needs to go back to the drawing board.
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Can I get the same chance with my summoning spells, please?
The common summoning spells (summon monster, summon nature's ally) are a little harder to adjudicate in that regard because they don't use a standard HD limit for each level of summoning (though there is a general pattern to the CRs). It could be done, but it would require more work on the part of the DM and the player, because you would have to recalculate CR after advancement, and there is no set formula for doing that. That said, there's no reason why an advanced version of a creature from a lower spell list couldn't be summoned with one of the higher level spells, as long as it is comparable to the creatures that are on that spell's list. Spells that use a set HD limit are a lot easier to work within, because it is much easier to keep track of HD when advancing a creature than it is to keep track of CR. And for that matter, creatures should be adjusted according to whether your campaign is Low, Standard, High or Epic. The Bestiary entries are designed for Low. As a rule of thumb, the CR should be adjust downward by 1 for each step above Low your campaign runs. An efreet is CR8 in a Low campaign, it would be CR4 in an Epic campaign.