Just to clarify:
3.0 - Wish RAW could make up to 15k gold worth of stuff.
3.5 - Wish RAW had no limit, save the XP sacrificed to create stuff; spell-likes had no limit. Specific settings had specific limitations.
PF - Wish RAW can't produce materials, or, if it can (subject to GM discretion) it's liable to do something dangerous. The GMG recommends letting granted wishes (like from genies) do things like this. Specific Golarion setting limitations (as described in Legacy of Fire) may apply.
PF - Fabricate, the spell, uses 'raw' items (which, for purposes of the spell, literally only means substance) of a value equal to the value needed to craft an item and then transforms the substance into the crafted item.
So what exactly is the question?
If you use Wish to mimic a Spell don't you still have to pay for the Spells needs (M or F requirements)?
Check the link in the OP for the history. If I've time later, I'll re-post stuff.
I did check the link and just ended up confused...
Are they trying to figure out if they can use Wish to create something expensive or what?
I honestly like Wish and Miracle being a Bit open as it allows for some awesome Role-Playing. Nothing beats a Wizard casting Wish to get a powerful item only to get the location of said item and directions for the most "efficient" path to the item.
It's a rather broad suite of questions of how to handle granted wishes (especially if granting creatures are presumed to be able to use them; which they aren't according to their CR, even by wish-slaves), whether or not wish economies work by RAW (they don't; at least not like previous editions), and (most recently) whether or not a wished fabricate can create stuff (which... honestly, I haven't really thought of before, so that might actually function as a work-around still, at least up to 10,000 gold value, if I recall correctly).
Personally, I handle granted wishes quite differently, much more like 3.5 or older editions in terms of 'looseness', but that's just me and my house rules.
The logical consequence for efreet and similar creatures that has such an ability (to some extent glabrezu, don't know about what other creatures) is of course to actually utilize their power for themselves as much as possible - especially for evil creatures. There's no reason efreeti would NOT have a bunch of wish-slaves that they forced to wish stuff for them.
Apparently, for some reason, they don't have more than about 3k worth of equipment though - maybe they have laws restricting the usage, or they as lawful evil have a society where all but the most powerful has to pay heavy taxes on all income, leading to the efreeti kings to have almost unlimited wealth.
Furthermore, as old, intelligent and wise creatures (remember, the average efreet has intelligence as an elf and wisdom higher than a dwarf) they naturally know that sometimes mortals and other creatures like to force them to fulfil wishes for them instead. Not wanting this practice to spread, they will naturally form "unions" (for lack of a better term) where they, for the price of a certain amount of wishes, get support in that if they're dragged of the plane a squad of efreeti or minions will be sent to their new location (locating an efreeti and keeping tabs on who's on the plane or not is quite easy when you've got more or less unlimited wishes, by the efreeti themselves binding a lot of lesser outsiders with powers fitting for their current needs).
This does not change the CR of the creature, however it does change the CR an encounter with the creature would probably involve if the creature is called.
Thus, to call an efreet and force it, you need some heavy spell protection. It's not undoable, but it's not something a 5th level party with a scroll will manage. First of you of course need to mind blank yourself, and you should probably be in an area surrounded by antimagic fields where the only gap is where you and the efreet will be, and as soon as it arrives you need to cast a quickened Non-Detection on it.
Doing it to a creature such as a glabrezu will be easier - not only does it's alignment mean it's unlikely to have as many allies, it's ability to use wish is also much more limited.
(especially if granting creatures are presumed to be able to use them; which they aren't according to their CR, even by wish-slaves),
What do you mean "according to their CR"? Creature's CR does not cause rules, it's merely a description of how hard a single of these is (and quite non-exact at that). It also does not denote the likeliness of fighting a single of them, nor does it mean the allies of such a creature won't run to it's help. If you try to kill the 8th level Aristocrat that is king, and the guards run to his side, a player saying "hey you're changing the CR we only wanted to fight the CR 6 aristocrat!" won't have solid ground.
EDIT: Also note that this is just in the specific case of forcibly ripping an efreet from it's home and trying to enslave it. If you go to it's home and ask to make out a deal for a wish, you're likely to be treated differently. Also, if you use something like Planar Ally and you end up getting a Djinni Vizier, it might work far better, at least if your goals are noble.
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[quiote=Fabricate]
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time see text
Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet of material to be affected by the spell.
Notice that Fabricate:
- require the material as a component (and that can be replaced by the wish discount on material components);- target the material to convert it, and that isn't covered in teh wish discount on component materials.
- convert the material to the finished item. The second part isn't covered by the wish discount.
So you will not be capable to duplicate fabricate with a wish spell or spell-like ability and make something from thin air.
You will need a wish to teleport the raw material from someplace to you and another wish to fabricate the final item with it.
Diego Rossi: While it's true that fabricate can't create wealth (note that as a spell-like ability it ignores material components, but if you don't have the material there's nothing to convert regardless) there are many other ways to make wealth from it. Note that we can only assume the standard uses of the wish - other methods are prone to fail, and doing them on a regular basis might be very dangerous.
What they'd probably do is using wish to locate valuable items and materials, then use wish to summon/call creatures that can do some heavy lifting, then use wish to teleport an efreet and the creatures to the object/material in question, having the summons carry the objects (or dig out the material, probably with magical help) and the efreet use a wish slave to wish them all back.
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Just to clarify:
3.0 - Wish RAW could make up to 15k gold worth of stuff.
3.5 - Wish RAW had no limit, save the XP sacrificed to create stuff; spell-likes had no limit. Specific settings had specific limitations.
PF - Wish RAW can't produce materials, or, if it can (subject to GM discretion) it's liable to do something dangerous. The GMG recommends letting granted wishes (like from genies) do things like this. Specific Golarion setting limitations (as described in Legacy of Fire) may apply.
PF - Fabricate, the spell, uses 'raw' items (which, for purposes of the spell, literally only means substance) of a value equal to the value needed to craft an item and then transforms the substance into the crafted item.
With all wishes, the best way to adjudicate them is to look at who or what is granting them. Djinn and efreet interpret them like djinn and efreet would. Demons and devils do it like demons and devils would. Wizards? The wishes they grant should be tailored to the knowledge and quirks of the wizard.
While it can be fun as a GM to play "mischievous djinn"--and completely appropriate if the wish granter is a mischievous djinn--if the Wish is from a wizard using the spell of the same name, the most a GM should do is play the wizard's id and grant the sort of thing the wizard would be thinking of. The wizard wishes for as many gold pieces as possible? Well, the spell takes a 25,000 GP diamond. It's perfectly reasonable to use it to make change and create 25,000 GP, likely stamped with the wizard's face on one side and his arcane mark on the other. Did he wish for his face and arcane mark? Probably not. But a powerful wizard is probably vain enough that he'd be thinking of that in the back of his mind and that's what he'd get.
As for getting something worth more than 25,000 GP, the magic would likely borrow it from somewhere else, or else create something that would be impermanent, either disappearing after a while or else transmuting into some less valuable equivalent. With the example of the gold, the coins could vanish or else turn into gilded tin.
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Diego Rossi: While it's true that fabricate can't create wealth (note that as a spell-like ability it ignores material components, but if you don't have the material there's nothing to convert regardless) there are many other ways to make wealth from it. Note that we can only assume the standard uses of the wish - other methods are prone to fail, and doing them on a regular basis might be very dangerous.
What they'd probably do is using wish to locate valuable items and materials, then use wish to summon/call creatures that can do some heavy lifting, then use wish to teleport an efreet and the creatures to the object/material in question, having the summons carry the objects (or dig out the material, probably with magical help) and the efreet use a wish slave to wish them all back.
Exactly what I say in the last row of my post. That is for character using wishes.
If you want efreeti to "cheat" and bypass the limit of granting wishes to non genies only, it is your game world.
If you want efreeti to "cheat" and bypass the limit of granting wishes to non genies only, it is your game world.
It's not cheating though, it's following the rules perfectly.
Subverting wishes makes the game terrible for everyone. As a GM, you can already screw over the players any way you like. Why would they ever bother casting the spell if they know you're the sort to subvert it?
It might as well not exist.
I would actually be happy to see wish disappear from the game entirely.
Subverting wishes makes the game terrible for everyone. As a GM, you can already screw over the players any way you like. Why would they ever bother casting the spell if they know you're the sort to subvert it?
For me, that depends on how and why you do it. If you're a 17th level caster using the Wish spell to get one of the listed benefits - it's yours, no strings attached.
If you're a 5th level wizard that uses a scroll of planar binding to forcefully rip a lawful evil efreet from it's home, enslave it, and tell it "make me as rich as a dragon!", the wizard's just asking for trouble.
I think you have to ignore the notion that a wish can do anything.
I think wish should be thought of as researching an 8th level arcane or 7th level divine spell. If a player wanted a spell that did what he's asking, would you allow it?
If not, then the danger triggers. Think monkey's paw. Bart Simpson wishes his family was famous. As a result, they become over-exposed, played out. Everyone hate's them. Lisa Simpson wishes for world peace. All the guns and missiles are melted down. Then aliens invade the helpless earth.
So, don't subvert every wish. Let the players use their own judgement, but keep them in check by monkey's paw-ing any megalomania.
What about Wish and Major Creation and such spells?
Personally, I only subvert the badly worded Wishes. I have a Player who can word a Wish to were you can't easily subvert it. She is just good at being short and specific.
Ilja: you are following 'logical outcome' of the rules, but I'm telling you, if an efreeti has wish-slaves capable of sending ninth level spells at a wizard, you are changing the CR of the creature. As-written, it doesn't have ninth level spells (more specifically Wish) at it's beck-and-call, by proxy or not. Especially if, as you posit, they have 'friends' who do that for them (meaning it doesn't matter what they can or cannot do, they've got one or more other buddies doing it for them, thus also giving them an edge in action economy). If they have wish-slaves, there's no reason for them not to have every conceivable spell with permanency on all their stuff. This will increase the CR. If they have wish-slaves, they have limitless access to Fabricate, which will change what their wealth is, which will change what equipment they have, which will change their CR, especially since all of them have one craft (as written). If they have wish-slaves, they will have an additional +3 inherent bonus to all their ability scores (or,if they can create magic items, like indicated in the GMG, +5), which, of course, will change their CR. This is all presuming you face them 'by themselves'.
I'm telling you that there's nothing wrong with this, but making it function that way is going against the CR, and you need to inform your players before you do that.
Your arguments consist of, "No, that won't work for <story reasons>," which I'm all for, relative to <story reasons>, but you'd better believe that you need to make sure your players understand the consequences for making presumptions about things. As-written, there is no way to presume they have anything like what you're describing as-written.
I'm not against making the consequences severe. But you're ignoring what the CR of the creature is supposed to be by granting them wish-slaves and having them behave intelligently.
Also, you're wrong about them not telling you what it means to meet more than one: check the organization entry of them, it mentions "solitary, pair, company (3-6), or band (7-12)"... and there are very specific rules for how to handle multiple creatures of similar CR.
I will submit that CR is a rough "guestimate"... but it's a useful metric nonetheless to know an approximation. If you go with your proposed changes (which there is nothing inherently wrong with) it will completely devastate any utility the CR might permit whatsoever. That's what I mean. You completely throw all the possible uses of the current measuring out the window.
Finally, let me remind you: I suggested this initially for the express purpose of using very clearly defined abilities as laid out in the Core book to raise a friend from the dead (along with a promise of using the wishes to benefit the ifreeti as well, making it a win/win situation for them, given that, as-written, they've not taken advantage of their abilities). While yes, I've used wish-abuse before (and it hasn't broken our game), I wasn't even coming close to suggesting that in the other thread (except maybe as a random/humorous aside, which in retrospect you might have taken seriously).
As I said, I handle wishes one way and historically my group's really enjoyed it. I'm totally okay if others choose a different way, however.
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I think that Wish spells, like most things in d20-based games, have only become more and more unmanageable from the attempt to hard-code everything about it.
And I feel, on the contrary, that specifying that a Wish spell can do certain things safely is a giant leap forward for Wish-kind.
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Hey, for the curious, one way I suggested handling wishes (though it does contain spoilers).
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The trouble with "following the rules perfectly" so far as the letter goes, but ignoring the spirit, is the fact that the spirit is also part of the letter of the rules.
Efreet are meant to be creatures from Arabian Nights folklore. Once you start putting in 19th-20th century concepts like unions, you get away from that. And while I find the idea of a post-industrial revolution diesel-punk City of Brass rather enchanting, complete with efreet wearing asbestos overalls and newsboy caps and carrying pipefitters' wrenches, that's certainly not the illustration in the book.
If you go back to the original folklore, the djinn--efreet included--generally grant wishes to those who've done them a great service, such as releasing them from the brazen flask or lamp in which they were imprisoned, or grant wishes because they've been enslaved by a powerful wizard or sorcerer king who's bound their service to a ring or lamp.
If you start having creatures self-aware of the rules mechanics of their own stat blocks and figuring out ways to game the system, you're breaking the fourth wall and the system at the same time. Which is fine if it's what you want to do for your own personal game, but it's not how most people are going to play.
The assumption I make with djinn and efreet is that their wish-granting abilities are based partially on their personal magic, and partially on favors they can beg or borrow from others of their kind with more power. Rather than a union, I'm assuming that the sultan of the efreet has unlimited and almost godlike power and can grant other efreet the power to grant wishes as a way to ransom them, since it's bad for the City of Brass to have its noble subjects enslaved by lesser beings. Granting the wish is like paying a ransom, and the efreet can twist the wish so that people know that you don't mess with the City of Brass lightly. What the particulars are of this magic don't matter that much since the efreet are unlikely to tell them to outsiders unless they burn a wish to know, and if they did, the logical and easy way to deal with this is to turn the wisher into an efreet so they could be in on the secret--and possibly imprisoned in a bottle for a while.
Wish is one of those things that there is no right or wrong way to handle it...
Ilja: you are following 'logical outcome' of the rules, but I'm telling you, if an efreeti has wish-slaves capable of sending ninth level spells at a wizard, you are changing the CR of the creature. As-written, it doesn't have ninth level spells (more specifically Wish) at it's beck-and-call, by proxy or not.
The CR of the _creature_ does not change, but the CR of the _encounter_ changes based on who's there more. Adjudicating encounter CR is very much a DM fiat thing anyway and clearly noted as guidelines in the book. Some creatures work better with allies than others - a 10th level fighter and 10 2nd level fighters are not as dangerous as a 10th level bard and 10 2nd level fighters.
If an efreet isn't allowed to use it's spells and spell-like abilities, should we assume no creatures are? Can't pit fiends summon other demons because the rules do not say "they do this" and just say "they can do this"?
Also, CR is quite a lousy way to calculate difficulty. *Cough* Young Advanced creature *cough*.
Especially if, as you posit, they have 'friends' who do that for them (meaning it doesn't matter what they can or cannot do, they've got one or more other buddies doing it for them, thus also giving them an edge in action economy). If they have wish-slaves, there's no reason for them not to have every conceivable spell with permanency on all their stuff.
Except their treasure line does not allow it, by RAW. This whole discussion is assuming RAW is followed, if house rules are used I'd answer very differently.
This will increase the CR. If they have wish-slaves, they have limitless access to Fabricate, which will change what their wealth is, which will change what equipment they have
Fabricate does not change wealth. It cannot create anything. It changes how useful the wealth is, however. But regardless, their treasure line clearly state they've got access to 3k + sword, so for some reason they don't. It's up to you as a DM to either houserule it or explain it in some way; being contractually forced to give away almost all their wealth makes sense compared to their alignment.
If they have wish-slaves, they will have an additional +3 inherent bonus to all their ability scores
But apparently they don't.
I'm telling you that there's nothing wrong with this, but making it function that way is going against the CR, and you need to inform your players before you do that.
What is and isn't against CR vary a LOT between DM's. Some DMs think it's against the CR to make orcs do anything but charge mindlessly in, some would say it's against CR to allow the monsters access to their treasure as gear.
Your arguments consist of, "No, that won't work for <story reasons>," which I'm all for, relative to <story reasons>, but you'd better believe that you need to make sure your players understand the consequences for making presumptions about things.
It's no more story reasons than saying "raising will work because they'll have access to the spell". Writing in a town large enough to carry such a scroll is just as much story as writing in efreeti behaving according to their abilities and intelligence.
As-written, there is no way to presume they have anything like what you're describing as-written.
There's also no text in the book saying you'll get smacked if you headbut a red dragon. It's one of those things "are you unsure, do some research".
I'm not against making the consequences severe. But you're ignoring what the CR of the creature is supposed to be by granting them wish-slaves and having them behave intelligently.
No, I'm not. Because the CR of a creature does not equal the danger in messing with the creature. A king might be an Aristocrat 3, a CR1 creature. Does that mean attacking the king should be no more dangerous than attacking a random bugbear in a forest?
Also, you're wrong about them not telling you what it means to meet more than one: check the organization entry of them, it mentions "solitary, pair, company (3-6), or band (7-12)"... and there are very specific rules for how to handle multiple creatures of similar CR.
That applies for the average encounter. That is not the same thing as magically ripping the creature from it's home. Or would you say you cannot use Summon Monster V to summon 1d4+1 electric eels because they are "organization: solitary"?
Finally, let me remind you: I suggested this initially for the express purpose of using very clearly defined abilities as laid out in the Core book to raise a friend from the dead (along with a promise of using the wishes to benefit the ifreeti as well, making it a win/win situation for them, given that, as-written, they've not taken advantage of their abilities).
What do you mean with "as written they've not made use of their abilities"? If the party encounters an ancient red dragon, would you not allow it to prebuff because the bestiary doesn't say it has prebuffed?
Efreet are meant to be creatures from Arabian Nights folklore. Once you start putting in 19th-20th century concepts like unions, you get away from that.
And as soon as you start putting Scrolls of Planar Binding and Magic Circle Against Evil into it you do the same thing, because those aren't in the arabian nights either. And if you look at other adaptations of arabian nights, they often use quite drastic twists to people's wish (look at Wishmaster for a clear example).
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I would actually be happy to see wish disappear from the game entirely.
In my games, any genie (and not just an Efreeti) can be tasked to 'grant a wish,' but these wishes are not 'Wish spells,' but simply tasks or favors that the genie can grant (which include bamfing home and putting itself in debt to another genie who *can* provide what is 'wished' for). In this case, a genie's 'wish' and a wish spell are two different things, much like a 'class level' and a 'character level' and a 'spell level' are different things.
Genies can grant all sorts of cool stuff, such as genie-crafted goods and wealth and service of various elemental creatures that are 'domesticated' by them in their home planes, but not attribute points or other meta-game things.
*If* a fiend, such as a glabrezu, grants a wish to a mortal, it's abso-freaking-lutely going to be a great deal for the mortal. The fiend will 'twist' the wish in such a way to benefit the mortal. Fiends *want* mortals to damn themselves by calling up fiends and asking for candy, after all. Punishing anyone who does so, and thereby discouraging people from ever calling up and asking favors from demons and devils is therefore shortsighted and stupid, and fiends are many things, but those that are shortsighted and stupid aren't given the authority and power to grant wishes by their lords...
It's also important that the mortal's deal and reward gets 'leaked,' so that *other* mortals get the idea that dealing with fiends can lead to awesome rewards (at the teensy weensy price of your soul). A fiend who screws over those who call upon them will never end up turning Cheliax into a devil-run state, after all, and there's literally *no benefit at all* to twisting a wish to mess with the summoner, and everything to lose. It's not 'evil,' it's just stupid, and while there might be a fair number of not-so-bright fiends out there, only the stuff what floats at the top of the barrel gets authorized to grant wishes.
The fiend, if twisting a wish to screw over a mortal petitioner, is literally screwing over and betraying their bosses, by discouraging mortals from calling up fiends and entering Faustian bargains (which was the whole reason they were granted that power in the first place!). Such a fiend is going to maybe get a cruel chuckle out of that sort of thing once, before Asmodeus or Lamashtu or some other appropriate patron busts them back down to dretch or lemure for being an idiot. It's not like killing the summoner early and reaping their soul was a mark in the plus column. The fool was summoning fiends to bargain for power. His soul was already in the bag, and granting him his wish *literally* costs the lower planes *nothing,* and only furthers the agenda of evil on the mortal plane (and encourages *more* mortals to bargain with fiends for power, making it a win-win for the fiends).
It's also often the case that the sorts of people who make deals with fiends for power, such as, say, the Thrune family of Cheliax, are the sorts of people that fiends *want* to be terribly successful and powerful in the mortal world, to advance *their own* agendas. Screwing them over by maliciously twisting wishes, at the cost of diminishing one's own power in the mortal world, is like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
The more people in Golarion get the idea that making deals with Asmodeus is a *great* thing for the security and advancement of one's nation, the happier goat-boy is, and if he has to extravagantly punish the occasional fiendish screw-up who doesn't get the 'big picture' or see the long, long game that is being played, to ensure that those Chels who 'deal with fiends' are encouraged to 'please play again,' so be it. There will always be more evil souls to make into replacement devils, which is the whole point of the exercise.
Fiends are Vegas. They know they are going to win, in the long-term. The *last* thing they want to do is make your 'gaming' experience so terrible that you never come back (and don't tell all your friends how much fun you had!). That's the only way they can lose, if they screw their customers so badly that nobody ever wants to come play with them anymore...
The Wish spell, in my experience, is about 90% used to screw over the recipient by the GM (who apparently thinks that even a clerics own deity or a wizard's own patron-less arcane power is looking for ways to maliciously twist the wording of spells like miracle or wish to bone the PC and / or their party), so I generally avoid them as a player.
You'll have better luck finding candy at the bottom of a bag of devouring or gaining super-powers from a phase spider bite.
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It's no more story reasons than saying "raising will work because they'll have access to the spell". Writing in a town large enough to carry such a scroll is just as much story as writing in efreeti behaving according to their abilities and intelligence.
1/day—grant up to 3 wishes (to nongenies only)
Your whole argument is "that limitation don't exist."
And "removing that limitation don't change the CR of the Efreeti."Fine if you want to play them that way, but you are creating a creature that is different from the bestiary efreeti.
Efreet binding and the negative impact it has on game balance has pretty much bothered me since 3.0.
Basically my solution is that average efreet don't have the grant wishes SLA only powerful high HD efreet (typically 17+ HD). That way you generally need to be a powerful caster with access to stuff like Gate already in order to do Efreet binding for free wishes.
These Efreet are generally nobility and often have large and powerful retinues of standard efreet and elemental servants. Having sorcerer levels is also not unusual.
So powerful wizards might bind powerful efreet but it's always at a high risk because if the wizard loses control the genie can often retreat to the City of Brass and send all sorts of assassins out to harass the caster.
This modification keeps genies in the game including iconic abilities like granting wishes but postpones the arrival of those abilities until a more level appropriate time.
Lower level PCs will still often get exposed to the wishes but it's almost always going to be the result of interacting with a magic item, or a bound genie, or a fiendish outsider, or some other divine or psuedo divine act. The key thing being is that wishes do not get utilized lightly because the PCs can't replenish them with a simple casting of planar binding.
For the most part this has had the beneficial impact of slowing down the arrival of inherent ability score modifiers as no chain binding of efreet means that inherents generally only get boosted pretty much at the endgame.
It's no more story reasons than saying "raising will work because they'll have access to the spell". Writing in a town large enough to carry such a scroll is just as much story as writing in efreeti behaving according to their abilities and intelligence.1/day—grant up to 3 wishes (to nongenies only)Your whole argument is "that limitation don't exist."
And "removing that limitation don't change the CR of the Efreeti."Fine if you want to play them that way, but you are creating a creature that is different from the bestiary efreeti.
No, the genie grants the wish to a non-genie. It's just that it makes sure a non-genie has a wish that somehow benefits the genie.
I'm not saying the limitation does not exist, I'm saying the limitation doesn't mean the genie can't benefit from it's ability.
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Efreet are meant to be creatures from Arabian Nights folklore. Once you start putting in 19th-20th century concepts like unions, you get away from that.And as soon as you start putting Scrolls of Planar Binding and Magic Circle Against Evil into it you do the same thing, because those aren't in the arabian nights either. And if you look at other adaptations of arabian nights, they often use quite drastic twists to people's wish (look at Wishmaster for a clear example).
Have you read the Arabian Nights? Here, read "The Story of the City of Brass" and note this bit:
And a man returned to the King, and asked him respecting this; and the King answered him, Know that this is one of the Jinn whom Suleyman the son of Da’ud, when he was incensed against them, imprisoned in these bottles, and he poured lead over them, and threw them into the sea. When the fishermen casteth his net, it generally bringeth up these bottles; and when they are broken, there cometh forth from them a Jinni, who imagineth that Suleyman is still living; wherefore he repenteth, and saith, Repentance! O Prophet of God!
How do you expect Suleiman imprisoned Jinn in the bottles? Sounds like Planar Binding too me--though Suleiman wouldn't need a scroll, being badass enough to cast it on his own. Likewise Magic Circle of Protection From Evil which is used so many places in the folklore it would be wearying to point them all out.
As for Wishmaster, the djinn in that pretty much use "I wish" as an excuse to do whatever he wanted that might get him on the cover of Fangoria. You can use that as your benchmark for adjudicating wishes, but I'd personally avoid it.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Re: Wishmaster, the only thing that made that 'fun' was the actor's charisma. :-)
IMC, I run Wishes on 'conservation of energy' concept. The Wish will use the minimum energy to complete the task, within the parameters of the task. Wish for 25K GP? Yes you're going to get that gem changed into 25K GP straight up. Wish for 50K GP? Well it's going to come from 'somewhere' a wish granting being might have a 'vault-o-bling' that he can tap, or it might come from Mammon's vault.
Now beings, as opposed to casting the spell yourself, can and will flavour the spell. Wish for gold from that Glabrezu? It's going to have some kind of taint on it, and he's waiting for you to spend it.
Wish for a +1 sword from that effret you captured and bound? it's going to come from someone important, and the effret left a note.
@Matthew_Morris: I use a similar concept...
...Ilja: you are following 'logical outcome' of the rules, but I'm telling you, if an efreeti has wish-slaves capable of sending ninth level spells at a wizard, you are changing the CR of the creature. As-written, it doesn't have ninth level spells (more specifically Wish) at it's beck-and-call, by proxy or not.The CR of the _creature_ does not change, but the CR of the _encounter_ changes based on who's there more. Adjudicating encounter CR is very much a DM fiat thing anyway and clearly noted as guidelines in the book. Some creatures work better with allies than others - a 10th level fighter and 10 2nd level fighters are not as dangerous as a 10th level bard and 10 2nd level fighters.
If an efreet isn't allowed to use it's spells and spell-like abilities, should we assume no creatures are? Can't pit fiends summon other demons because the rules do not say "they do this" and just say "they can do this"?
Also, CR is quite a lousy way to calculate difficulty. *Cough* Young Advanced creature *cough*.
Especially if, as you posit, they have 'friends' who do that for them (meaning it doesn't matter what they can or cannot do, they've got one or more other buddies doing it for them, thus also giving them an edge in action economy). If they have wish-slaves, there's no reason for them not to have every conceivable spell with permanency on all their stuff.Except their treasure line does not allow it, by RAW. This whole discussion is assuming RAW is followed, if house rules are used I'd answer very differently.
This will increase the CR. If they have wish-slaves, they have limitless access to Fabricate, which will change what their wealth is, which will change what equipment they haveFabricate does not change wealth. It cannot create anything. It changes how useful the wealth is, however. But regardless, their treasure line clearly state they've got access to 3k + sword, so for some reason they don't.
Ilja, I'm on an iPad, and thus can't meaningfully contribute too much, but...
My claim about their access to fabricate is predicated on the idea of the craft rules, and the logical outcome of those rules... which is the same premise you're using for presuming wish-slaves.
My claim about increasing the CR of the creature is entirely accurate, because the creature entry in the bestiary indicates the "groups" they are likely to be in... Including "solitary" as an option. Add that to increasing their stats by wishes (which, with slaves they can do), definitively increases their CR in a personal way. When you planar bind them you planar bind... ONE. That is, by definition, solitary.
Regardless of the flaws of the CR system (which I am not disputing), it's the system we have and it does roughly function. Instituting the changes you propose (i.e. "following to logical conclusion") actually throws it out of whack far more rapidly than it currently is to the point of being useless. Changing the CR in that way necessitates (to keep balance) a change in XP value, which necessitates a change in treasure and HD... which, in turn changes the CR a bit more. Thus we have Maliks.
You ask "why can't the monsters gain full use" but dismiss story reasons, when you're already ignoring RAW. That doesn't work well.
Ugh, ugly posy is ugly. Sorry, I should be able to make a better showing for myself later.
EDIT:
EDIT2: agh, half my post disappeared. My arguments look so stupid! Ugh!... I'll fix it layers.
EDIT3: arg, "later" not "layers", and "Ilja" not "Ilia"!
My claim about their access to fabricate is predicated on the idea of the craft rules, and the logical outcome of those rules... which is the same premise you're using for presuming wish-slaves.
The difference is that you ignore the rules as written while doing it. I'm filling out something that isn't adjudicated, you go against the literal RAW. Also, note that fabricate itself cannot create anything at all. It only converts materials.
My claim about increasing the CR of the creature is entirely accurate, because the creature entry in the bestiary indicates the "groups" they are likely to
No, reread the Gamemastering chapter. The CR of a creature belongs to the creature, but when encountered, different circumstances - such as number of creatures, favorable and unfavorable circumstances etc - change the difficulty of the encounter. While it's mostly semantics, there is a difference. A group of three standard orcs that lay an ambush are still CR 1/3, but their numbers mean the CR of the encounter is 2 and further increased to 3 by the ambush (supposing it's a good enough ambush to warrant the increase). If you encounter a frost giant and it's orc slaves, the slaves being there does not change the difficulty of the frost giant, but the encounter has a higher CR than if encountered alone.
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You are forgetting that:
- character level of wealth instead of 1/2 WBL add +1 to the CR of the single monster
- better than normal stat (i.e. the 10 point stat buy) add 1 to the CR of the creature. A inherent +3 to all the characteristics is definitely "better than normal stat"
Both modifier are widely used in Paizo published adventures.
So if your efreeti has +3 to all his stat and has used wish to increase his WBL to 300% of his starting wealth (using wish to simulate fabricate) his CR is 10 and not 8.
You are forgetting that:
- character level of wealth instead of 1/2 WBL add +1 to the CR of the single monster
- better than normal stat (i.e. the 10 point stat buy) add 1 to the CR of the creature. A inherent +3 to all the characteristics is definitely "better than normal stat"Both modifier are widely used in Paizo published adventures.
This is true, but not relevant in this case.
So if your efreeti has +3 to all his stat and has used wish to increase his WBL to 300% of his starting wealth (using wish to simulate fabricate) his CR is 10 and not 8.
That isn't the case however. I'm using the efreet straight out of the book, wealth and all. Pre-buffing with wish is a gray area as all prebuffing is (let me tell you, encountering a pre-buffed red great wyrm and an unbuffed one is two completely different encounters), though. I think it's fair to increase the CR if you do something like that though.
Hmm... An Efreet with Wish Slaves would probably be one with Class Levels and be more of a special boss rather than a base/random encounter.
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That isn't the case however. I'm using the efreet straight out of the book, wealth and all. Pre-buffing with wish is a gray area as all prebuffing is (let me tell you, encountering a pre-buffed red great wyrm and an unbuffed one is two completely different encounters), though. I think it's fair to increase the CR if you do something like that though.
Define "pre-buffing" then.
Every day the efreeti use his 3 wishes to get some extended effect on himself?He get some permanent effect added every day?
Or what?
In every instance it seem that you are turning 3 wish/day that an efreeti can't use on himself into 3 boost day equivalent to 8th level spells.
It sound terribly arbitrary.
The trouble is, if you can grant wishes, why would you need to stockpile wealth? Efreet would view efreet with homes just bursting with wished-for baubles the same way that regular people view hoarders. Yes, you might want bling-encrusted everyday items, but piles of loose jewels would be like someone stockpiling grot for handicrafts.
Get someone to wish for what you want when you want it.
I don't allow the whole wish slave exploit. Because quite frankly the logical result of the exploits above should make efreetis far more powerful in the overall game world than they are. I'm going to assume that such wishes have to be made without duress. Trickery is fully allowed, but one has to freely invoke their own doom.
While a good idea (and I like KAM's as well), in many campaigns - and Golaion in specific - that's definitively not the case: an entire AP was written about this premise, actually (Legacy of Fire).
My problem with "wish slaves" is that nobody able to make wishes would remain a slave.
Two Efreeti have such a mutual defense agreement. We'll call them Mujin and Shazrah. One day Mujin vanishes. Shazrah tells his servant to wish to discover the location of Mujin. The servant wishes to be in a safe place 1000 miles away. Well, two wishes left. The next servant surely won't try anything, the Efreet holds their family hostage. That servant wishes that their family be returned to a church on their home plane, then knowing their family is safe, leaps from the window. Last wish. Calling for the longest serving, proven loyal servant, Shazrah explains the situation, then tells him the wish. The trusted servant has been waiting for just such a chance. He wishes to cast Prismatic Spray at Shazrah. Afterwards he takes everything of value he can carry as payment for his years of servitude. Mujin meanwhile is waiting for his backup to arrive, should Shazrah somehow survive, Mujin will destroy him for failing to honor their pact. So ends an Efreeti union.
Unless you're using Dominate, in which case the genie is making the wish, and it won't work because it doesn't allow genie wishes.
Again, I love the idea, but Golarion canon, the genie gets to decide if they will grant the wish or not (and, it's pretty directly stated, can twist wishes made in weird ways).
RAW... I'm not sure. I'm out of town and on an iPad at the moment, so I can't really look up things as easily as normal.
In a home campaign setting I'm developing, fire giants, efreeti, and ifreeti are basically the same thing, are mandated to be sorcerers with the wish crafter bloodline, and live in a 'far place' of the material plane (well, one of them, anyway). The wishes most of them grant are based on their own abilities (allowing very different power levels, like the ring and lamp genies in the Arabian Nights version of Aladdin); those few who are like the bestiary ifreeti are either lords of their kind, or those who made bad bargains for rapid power and ended up enslaved themselves... They can be wished free, but this negates their excess power (like the Disney Aladdin instead).
But that's all house rules for a specific setting.
If canon actually allows use of "wish slaves", then forget Aboleth, the true masters of Golarion are Efreet. No adventures happen unless they permit it, none live unless the fiery overlords allow it. An army raised against them will be annihilated. Those who speak against them will find a symbol of death at their feet. There is no chance, no hope.
I really want to see more on that setting...
And IIRC the Bestiary says they can choose to grant the Wish or not and whether or not to twist it.
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I don't allow the whole wish slave exploit. Because quite frankly the logical result of the exploits above should make efreetis far more powerful in the overall game world than they are. I'm going to assume that such wishes have to be made without duress. Trickery is fully allowed, but one has to freely invoke their own doom.While a good idea (and I like KAM's as well), in many campaigns - and Golaion in specific - that's definitively not the case: an entire AP was written about this premise, actually (Legacy of Fire).
You have read that adventure and the article at the end of it?
1) the wishers weren't wish slaves, they were free willed and entitled to ask 2 wishes for each wish cast to return to life Xotani, a spawn of Rovagug, not a genie;
2) that had terrible effects on the reality of the area, creating wishwarps.
Not exactly the situation Ijla is depicting.
If canon actually allows use of "wish slaves", then forget Aboleth, the true masters of Golarion are Efreet. No adventures happen unless they permit it, none live unless the fiery overlords allow it. An army raised against them will be annihilated. Those who speak against them will find a symbol of death at their feet. There is no chance, no hope.
That depends of course, on how interested they are in the material plane, and how many there are of them, and how many of them are able to do this (because I assume a lot of efreet will be enslaved by more powerful beings, gods and similar, instead).
My problem with "wish slaves" is that nobody able to make wishes would remain a slave.
*snip*
The servant wishes to be in a safe place 1000 miles away.
And the efreet chooses not to grant the wish. Problem solved.
Not exactly the situation Ijla is depicting.
Neither am I depicting Golarion. Golarion has a lot of issues with believability compared to the RAW - in fact, Golarion is built on assumptions of houserules/handwaved rules, as are most worlds (*cough* perception rules *cough*). Golarion is a lot more restricted than the RAW in several cases, for example there being no concept clerics. They could very well have further restrictions on the ability of efreeti to grant wishes.
My basis has been how a world based on the actual _rules_ of the efreeti works, and stems from the raise dead discussion in which it was suggested that players just get a scroll of planar binding and thus has free access to wishes to raise dead (and other things) because the RAW did not prohibit it.
In a world where the exact RAW isn't always used to build the world believable (as believable as something that confirms to RAW can be) there could very well be a lot of things that prevent Efreeti from getting wish-slaves, but if we do that, there's also no reason not to prevent a party from having easy access to wishes at level 5.
Basically, if players argue that RAW should trump game balance issues, they shouldn't rely on a method based on the DM handwaving other parts of the RAW.
Diego and Scythia: I think we are using different definitions of the word "wish-slaves". That may be some sort of confusion with Ilja as well.
To clarify, "wish-slaves", are to Ilja (and myself) :
it's obvious to get a couple of slaves that you force to wish what you want (that's what's referred to as "wish-slaves")
... which is pretty much what you ere talking about in LoF, Diego.
Okay, Ilja:
My basis has been how a world based on the actual _rules_ of the efreeti works, and stems from the raise dead discussion in which it was suggested that players just get a scroll of planar binding and thus has free access to wishes to raise dead (and other things) because the RAW did not prohibit it.
In a world where the exact RAW isn't always used to build the world believable (as believable as something that confirms to RAW can be) there could very well be a lot of things that prevent Efreeti from getting wish-slaves, but if we do that, there's also no reason not to prevent a party from having easy access to wishes at level 5.
Basically, if players argue that RAW should trump game balance issues, they shouldn't rely on a method based on the DM handwaving other parts of the RAW.
... you are arguing three different things in three different paragraphs that I can't answer with a single point. So:
My basis has been how a world based on the actual _rules_ of the efreeti works, and stems from the raise dead discussion in which it was suggested that players just get a scroll of planar binding and thus has free access to wishes to raise dead (and other things) because the RAW did not prohibit it.
Yes, this is close to what was said. But, as the person who suggested it in the first place, allow me to point out that I've also noted several times that there is a chance of failure for this. Further, this is a different argument than...
In a world where the exact RAW isn't always used to build the world believable (as believable as something that confirms to RAW can be) there could very well be a lot of things that prevent Efreeti from getting wish-slaves, but if we do that, there's also no reason not to prevent a party from having easy access to wishes at level 5.
... which more or less contradicts...
The logical consequence for efreet and similar creatures that has such an ability (to some extent glabrezu, don't know about what other creatures) is of course to actually utilize their power for themselves as much as possible - especially for evil creatures. There's no reason efreeti would NOT have a bunch of wish-slaves that they forced to wish stuff for them.
Apparently, for some reason, they don't have more than about 3k worth of equipment though - maybe they have laws restricting the usage, or they as lawful evil have a society where all but the most powerful has to pay heavy taxes on all income, leading to the efreeti kings to have almost unlimited wealth.
Here's what I'm saying about this. The latter part is a story reason to justify a RAW presumption. And that's fine. But there's nothing in RAW to even come close to suggesting that. To the former, I've pointed out numerous loopholes that an efreeti - any efreeti at all - can and (being rather intelligent, wise, immortal creatures that they are all of which should) easily have come to.
IF there is, in fact, no reason for the efreeti not to have a bunch of wish-slaves, THEN there is nothing to prevent the efreeti from using the exploits that I have mentioned. GIVEN they are presented without said exploits, they are not presumed to be able to use them*.
Your entire argument hinges upon the (valid in some settings) concept of,
EDIT: If the players are allowed to use the full power of the RAW, then the creatures they deal with should also be able to do that.
(found here, for the curious), which, quite frankly, is assumed false by the Bestiary in many, many cases.
The real trick is that the spell can ignore material components of 10k gold or less, but Permanency has scads of things that can be purchased for less-than-10k.
Telepathic Bond, Animate Objects, Mage's Private Sanctum, Phase Door, Prismatic Sphere, Prismatic Wall, Symbol of Death, Symbol of Fear, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Symbol of Persuasion, Symbol of Strife, Symbol of Stunning, Symbol of Vulnerability, Symbol of Weakness, Teleportation Circle, Wall of Force. That's seventeen spells (out of fifty!) that Wish can't make permanent 'for free', and sixteen of those are spells that are placed on objects or locations only (most of which are symbol spells**). That means that Wish can make thirty-three different spells permanent on people (13) or locations (19) {}.
Let's look at the 'buffs' on the efreeti. One of the buff spells (magic fang) is redundant with another (greater magic fang) so that drops it to 12 useful self-buff spells. Two of the buff spells (enlarge/reduce person) are antithetical to each other so, despite being useful, we'll call those a wash and presume 10 buff spells. Anthropomorphic Animal isn't useful on the efreeti, so that drops it to 9. Darkvision and Detect Magic don't do anything for an efreeti who can do those anyway, so that's 7. Not nearly so bad as thirteen, right? That's almost half! But let's look at what they do: arcane sight, comprehend languages, read magic, see invisibility, tongues, and all natural weapons treated as +2 weapons. The most potent abilities there are arcane sight, see invisibility, and greater magic fang (the last). And that' is more than enough on its own (nevermind the others) to change the CR. One really major difference between this and other creatures that 'self buff' in advance, is that the other creatures actually sacrifice limited resources, while the efreeti don't.
Let's look at the item-alterations. Shrink Item need not apply, so, you know, that's only 18. Of those, at least fifteen are only on areas. That leaves Alarm and Invisibility... potentially the two most annoying spells to be used in conjunction on items ever conceived. Kiss stealth goodbye and make sure not to cut yourself on that super-sharp falchion that you can't see over there. Not the most powerful ever, but certainly annoying. And, if I recall, there may be some special property that makes the weapon invisible, giving a bonus to hit stuff (with the ruling given being "because it's invisible" meaning, but extrapolation...). Still, that's house rule.
While most PCs generally wouldn't be entering a house, the set up of the place completely skews the efreet's effective wealth and treasure by large margin. Still, not the biggest issue.
However, Wish doesn't stop there.
+1 to +5 (minimum presumed +3 for an efreet; presumed +5 for an efreet with friends who "hook a brother up", as it were, which is presumed under the model of multiple efreeti using wishes to aid each other above). This is very similar to the abilities granted by the Advanced template.
And then Fabricate. Daggum, that spell.
It's been said that Fabricate can't, by it's nature, alter the game economy or create wealth. But we're presuming an efreeti can use their abilities logically in the same way that PCs can. Given this, it's completely impossible to consider them unable to use their Craft Skill, access to free fabricate (3/day), and unlimited lifespans, to amass wealth beyond the comprehension of us who're thinking it up, much less those mortals who have to live according to the game rules.
And then, of course, there's the wishing for mind-affecting effects.
Charm, suggestion, dominate and hypnotize creatures, get them to give you their fortunes and other things, and then murder them (legally, it could be construed as "self defense" when they technically attack you first, regardless of whether or not it was because you ordered it by magic***, or even just because the spells ended and they remembered what you did***).
Really with wish-slaves being a presumed part of the setting, access to constant three additional 8th lvl spells per day heightened to ninth level,
If canon actually allows use of "wish slaves", then forget Aboleth, the true masters of Golarion are Efreet. No adventures happen unless they permit it, none live unless the fiery overlords allow it. An army raised against them will be annihilated. Those who speak against them will find a symbol of death at their feet. There is no chance, no hope.
... is the only logical outcome. And of course their interested in the material plane: in Golarion, they visit the sun regularly, and regardless of the setting, the material plane is where all those guys who keep binding them come from. That's instant vested interest!
Also,
because I assume a lot of efreet will be enslaved by more powerful beings, gods and similar, instead
... is an awesome assumption to make for home games. Please let me know when you find the RAW to presume it works that way, however. Point in fact, Solars, which have access to atonement, wish, miracle, and gate, not to mention amazing diplomacy checks, should have all efreeti turned good being willing servants of the Solars at all times, if they could be presumed to have access to things like that. Further, the Pech would be a valuable ally for a Solar to create lots of with all that super-magic (and their willing genie wish-granters) to gain practically infinite wealth by RAW (when combined with their profession (miner) skill).
Finally,
Basically, if players argue that RAW should trump game balance issues, they shouldn't rely on a method based on the DM handwaving other parts of the RAW.
... wasn't ever my point that a player should do ever. If it came off that way, I apologize. What was my point (from the other thread) is that players have many, many options when dealing with a lack of body parts to raise from the dead or reincarnate, but this seems to be the idea that people came away with.
Believe it or not, I had more... but I'm out of time and energy. I apologize if this came out mangled. I'll work on being better later. :)
*
** Which basically means you don't have to worry about getting insta-killed, frightened, insane, harmed, charmed, forced to attack allies, stunned, susceptible to other effects, or strength damage... every five feet. Instead you only have to worry about the efreeti being healed, gaining mirror image, scrying on you, or being slowed or outlined (if disguised)... every five feet.
*** I'm well aware that there are courts that wouldn't allow this ever. Efreeti are evil creatures who abuse the law to their own advantage. Extrapolate.