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During a high level AD&D 1e game I was DMing, I had a Cleric make a wish that went 'I wish to be able to serve St Cuthbert better'.
I turned him into a Deva, allowed him to keep his class abilities and progress in level.
At a game where I sadly couldn't attend, there was a big huge fight in a lich's phylactery lair. It was guarded by some big, bad, evil, spellcasting beastie. She was killing a player a round. The rogue/bard fellow said "nuts to this" and raided the treasure vault prematurely. Appraised successfully a ring of wishes among the treasure, picked it up and said, "I wish she didn't show up today." Time rewinds. The other players break into the vault to see the rogue/bard standing inside the treasure vault already. "Hi guys!" "How did you get in here?" "Nevermind that, wanna help with the treasure?"
I've done something similar. While infiltrating the castle of one of the world's most powerful liches, we were beset by an adamantine golem, which tore us up pretty good. After a long drawn out battle we were finally able to put it down. My sorcerer stood over the body triumphantly and said "I wish this thing had never been made."
Time rewound itself and we fought a pair of much easier giant guards instead. We got XP for both encounters and one of my character's wish components "mysteriously disappeared."
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Well, there's nothing in the pathfinder version that says wish is limited in any way. It just suggests which wishes shouldnt be subverted and leaves any other kind of wish to be handled by fiat.
I was curious if anyone ever tried to break the 'suggested' threshhold if they ever got away with it and it sounds like not only is the answer 'don't even try it, gms are cruel and love being given license to nerf any wish that isn't already outlined in the description' but the philosophy of nerfing a wish even as meager as 'give me a pretty shield' meant becoming dragon lunch has been going on a lot longer than just pathfinder.
By this measure it would imply that most gms look at the pathfinder list of suggested 'things a wish should be able to do without being nerfed' as being perhaps even too generous for their tastes.
For being aesthetically a 'capstone ability' and one of the classic examples of how brokenly powerful casters are its funny that this spell boils down to 'now that i'm 9th level i've got a spell that when I cast it it's pretty much saying "please hurt me terribly with literally no personal benefit to myself" to the gm.
I would have made them fight the dragon, and when they defeated it, it became apparant it's an illusion... But you are seen fighting it, on your very own shield :D
Also in AD&D - I was DM for a group going through D1-3 and Q1 back about 1981 or so. One of the group was a paladin with the typical high charisma, who was having a hard time keeping his sword in its sheath walking through a drow city with all the evil around. During an encounter, a female drow cleric fell for him, and since she had a high charisma as well, he didn't want to just kill her. He used a wish to turn her good. I remember she had some pet giant spiders who weren't happy with that and there was a fight with them when they turned against her.
I don't know if it would have lasted, but I think the the campaign ended after finishing Q1, so basically the character retired with his LG drow wife. I probably wouldn't allow it today as a wish probably isn't powerful enough to change someone's alignment permanantly.
Interesting question, but .... Would you allow someone to wish for a helm of opposite alignment?
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Ive been sitting on this idea for a min.
Would aney DM alow a PC to successfully wish for the Manipulate Form (mammals) ability or is it a game breaker?
Manipulate Form (Su): At will, ------- can modify the form of any (spesific subtype) native to (world name), except for aquatic and undead creatures. With a successful touch attack, he/she can cause one alteration of his choice in the target creature's body. The target falls unconscious for 2d4 rounds due to the shock of changing form. A successful DC 23 Fortitude negates both the change and the unconsciousness.
------ may use this ability to change a minor aspect of the target creature, such as the shape of its head or the color of its skin/fur/scales. He/she may also choose to make a much more significant alteration, such as converting limbs into tentacles, changing overall body shape (snake to humanoid, for example), or adding or removing an appendage. Any ability score may be decreased to a minimum of 1 or increased to a maximum equal to ------- corresponding score. --------- may also grant the target an extraordinary ability or remove one from it.
The change bestowed takes effect immediately and is permanent. Furthermore, the alterations are automatically passed on to all the creature's offspring when it breeds with another of its unmodified kind.
This might make a good plot twist for a palidin.
You won't get away with this, mammalian Pun-Pun!
As a GM I have never deliberately twisted a wish granted by any means other than an evil wish granter who is expected to do such things. In fact I consider that sort of thing to be Gygax-style GM buffoonery. As RD does, if a wish is too much, I simply tell the player the wish will not work and have them try again.
There are all sorts of things in this game where some gamers seem to think it's an absolute hoot when the GM "pulls one over" on the party. I've never cared for that, whether it's a wish or any other activity. I simply don't view the GM's role as one-upping the player. Never have.
I agree entirely. Unfortunately most of the experienced players I have refereed have assumed that all wishes are effectively traps and only rarely use them.
GM Fiat with greedy wishes is a nasty thing, sure enough.
I can't remember any wishes that I abused or granted, as we were leery of them, but how about some from the game itself.
In Wildspace, you can come across a rock tumbling in orbit around Faerun's sun in the middle of nowhere. On it is a fine house where resides an immortal stone giant with a big club +3. Turned out he was a Moonshae merchant who used a wish of "I wish myself and my family would be safe and not afraid."
So, the wish hurled him and his mansion into space, to get him away from his enemies, made him an immortal stone giant so he'd feel big and strong and not get old or need to eat, and gave him a +3 club to defend himself with.
Oh, and it manipulated his family into becoming a guild of assassins, so now they are the ones causing fear.
How f'd up a wish is that?
Probably the most repeated one is from Ed Greenwood's campaign, where the Company of Crazed Venturers wished to be transported 'into the bar at the Dripping Dagger.' And so they were, blowing the tavern's bar apart in the process!
Wishes that are abused were meant to be manipulated to balance the good with the bad. Non-abused wishes? They don't get mentioned on this thread! :)
==Aelryinth
Near the end of our high level/semi epic game (Pathfinder with the play past 20 rules) we were in a friendly army camp (about 300 men) that was recovering from a recent battle with a strike force of powerful drow.
Suddenly an obviously magical storm appeared that was empowered by the planetary fluctuations in magic we had been experiencing for months in the game (there were two deities fighting over the portfolio of magic and magic was all messed up). Nothing we tried in any way affected the storm and the lightning bolts it was raining down were doing 50D6 damage and getting worse, so our archmage made his concentration check (required to do almost any spell at that point due to the flux in magic) and wished the entire army camp to a place of safety from the storm.
The PC's, army, all it's tents, supplies, animals and even a 3 foot thick plot of ground the camp was set up on (about a half mile in diameter) appeared near the north pole of the world. It was arctic cold and there was no civilisation for hundreds of miles, but at that moment there was no local inclement weather and the magic storm we fled was roughly 100 miles south of the worldws equater so we were safe from THAT.
It gave us time to get the army packed and healed with other magic and then the archmage opened a Teleport Circle and sent them back to their military capital, which was about 6 days north of where the storm struck.
I have very little experience with the highest experience levels of the game, but the only three Wish-type experiences I can think of happpen to all involve me, in the 3.5 days. My mid-level marshall, heavily burdened by both corrruption and taint, made a bargain with a glabrazu and gained a wish that yielded a cloak of charisma +6. My high level cleric sacrificed a celestial to Graz'zt and, thanks to an awesome religion skill check, the offering was pleasing to the dark master, and I was able to wish for full-plate +5. This was crucial because hee had recently been freed from a Mud to Stone trap when the wizard cast Disintegrate at the stone. *Every* *single* item I owned failed it's saving throw against the spell, and I was literally naked and without a single posession. The same character a few levels later was facing the seemingly final villain of the campaign and things were not going well for the party. Half the group was dead. I performed a Miracle (which is like Wish, right?), paid 5000 XP, went down in level, and instantaneously resurrected my fallen allies. We had to flee, but returned with all the proper spells prepped. This time around I cast Disintegration, which rebounded back at me thanks to Spell Turning, and I failed my own save, which reduced me to dust. My allies won the battle though and the wizard, as he was adjaccent to me at the time, was able to brush some of my dusty remains from his fur and get me resurrected.
In our campaigns, virtually every wish has been used for field resurrections or undoing some sort of nasty damage or effect on our characters. This was never a rule, it just seems to be how things have always played out.
I had 3 wishes due to a Deck of Many Things. I was level 6. We figured if the GM is willing to throw a Deck at us then, we'd go whole hog. I drew third. The party Cleric had become Imprisoned, leaving behind a couple draws. The GM said the Deck would wait for him. I and the Wizard agreed that he would Wish our Cleric back with one of his 4 Wishes, and I would Wish to remove from availability 3 black cards (the wraith, Imprisonment, and one other, I can't remember). Our Cleric came back and pulled a 50k bonus XP card.
I was in a game with an annoying overweight elf once. I think the player just wanted to poke fun at elves for being so slender so he made the most obese elf possible. When we found a Ring of Wishes with one charge left, I wished that the elf would be thin. While the effects were purely cosmetic in regards to gameplay, the look on the elf player’s face when he realized I was serious was priceless.
Aside from the now listed as safe uses for wish, probably the biggest things I've allowed were race changes, class level changes, spells known (in 3.0, before sorcerers got the swap every few levels), and gaining spell-like or other class abilities.
I'm with the "don't twist unless it's from an evil source" crowd, but conversely I almost always twist wishes from an evil source. I've never had a player turn down an offered wish, even when they don't trust the source, so maybe they enjoy the risk.
The Void. It's the worst of them all.
And oddly enough, the most frequent source of granted wishes back in the day. As a player you just can't say no, and as a DM it's a player trap the player know is a trap and you know you get to enjoy watching them jump into it anyway.
As for wishes;
Granted - a huge flying castle, complete with an atmosphere protected shell to keep it safe from storms, and a large preserve for magical wildlife between the castle and the outer wall.
At least IMO, that's the most powerful.
Most of my players wished for things like permanant abilities such as regeneration, or other long term benefit. Occasionally someone would blow a wish on something mundane like +1 to their STR, but only if it was already high.
Wished for - different things. One had to take pains with wording and specifics, of course. The powers that grant these things are mysterious and powerful, with their own agendas. I've personally pulled off flight, at will, manifesting wings the appearance of my choosing when I flew. Whipping out silvery angel wings, or demonic bat wings at will was an added bonus, and allowed for some great RP.
Another - that magical items I put on absorbed into my body, specifically limiting myself in that this wouldn't allow me to wear additional items over absorbed items. Dispel worked normally, and ejected items. And it didnt work for weapons or armor.
I've never seen a wish wasted on duplicating the effects of another spell, as a DM or a player.
Yay! My thread is back!
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Somebody obviously wished for the thread back.
As for me, back in the days when Wish actually meant something, and the GM said that selfish wishes world be punished and selfless wishes would be enacted...
"I wish everyone would be nicer to each other, and stop being mean, and take care of each other and live together in peace and harmony..."
At this point the gm, in the form of the god granting the wish was going "Shutupshutupshutup SHUT UP!"
Pity the game ended before I saw the effect of that wish...
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Somebody obviously wished for the thread back.
As for me, back in the days when Wish actually meant something, and the GM said that selfish wishes world be punished and selfless wishes would be enacted...
"I wish everyone would be nicer to each other, and stop being mean, and take care of each other and live together in peace and harmony..."
At this point the gm, in the form of the god granting the wish was going "Shutupshutupshutup SHUT UP!"
Pity the game ended before I saw the effect of that wish...
I would have used that wish to end the campaign. Everyone living in peace and harmony means no reason to adventure.
I've had people ask for access to capstone abilities early, trade capstone abilities with another class. SU abilities from a creature.... But by the time they got access to the wishes even if the wishes were granted the campaigns were usually almost over and for the most part nobody ever got to use the abilities they were asking for.... So thats an ironic twist.
Either that or a perfect example of a gm that once you get your wish he becomes no longer interested in running a campaign...
We were going through a tough series of combats and just found ourselves facing the BBEG with almost no remaining spells, abilities, powers, etc...
I used a wish to give the party the effects of nights rest and recovery including spells.
Afterward, we all agreed that was too powerful. It basically made the BBEG fight into a curb stomp.
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Thats hillarious and very poignant actually. We wish for a good night's sleep. Game is ruined.
I mean it's not as bad as all that. In reality it's we wish for a good night's sleep. Single Encounter is Ruined. But still.
Such an innocuous sounding wish.
Thats hillarious and very poignant actually. We wish for a good night's sleep. Game is ruined.
I mean it's not as bad as all that. In reality it's we wish for a good night's sleep. Single Encounter is Ruined. But still.
Such an innocuous sounding wish.
Yeah, it didn't sound like much when I said it. But the BBEG really wasn't all that much more than his LT's that we had been fighting all day and he was almost alone.
The AP encounter hadn't been based on full up PC's.And no, it didn't ruin the campaign. Just made the very end of the 3rd book of the AP kinda an anticlimax. We were like, "What he's really dead already?"
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My character (whom this avatar is named after) used a wish granted by a deck of many things to kill the main BBEG of the over arching campaign outright*.
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We've often used Wishes for the "boring stuff" - inherent bonuses, auto-successes on die rolls, combat resurrecting dead people.
Most of the more gonzo things we've done in our games have involved Miracle.
But this is asking for wishes, so here's two recent decisive wishes...
1) From a couple weeks ago - In what became the final battle of my Carrion Crown campaign, the party was facing the vampire lord Malyas (who I had raised up to L20 and given 10 mythic tiers and a number of unique powers, making him a vampire demigod) for the second time. They'd faced him in the field before and been forced to retreat; a couple days later he came after them in Caliphas.
The diviner wizard NPC (Kendra Lorrimar, actually) won initiative and mazed Malyas. Malyas went next and rolled a 1 on his check to escape the maze, and then flubbed his surge roll. The party's ranger suggested using a wish to go into the maze after him and fight Malyas without his allies. The party's sorceress cast the wish. Thunderdome promptly occured, as the party and their allies warped into the maze to do battle with Malyas. With the exits sealed, because Thunderdome. Malyas still put up a hell of a fight (outright killed the toughest PC in the party and knocked other people unconscious), but he was separated from his functionally endless reinforcements and facing an 11 on 1 dogpile (because the party had a LOT of allies). The battle ended with him being pinned, restrained, and staked with an artifact staff (a re-worked Raven's Head) after targeted dispels suppressed ALL of his magic items.
2) Last night we were facing the final battle of another campaign, where a proto-dragon that'd been created by Ihys and Asmodeus was trying to harness the vestiges of Ihys's power so that it could both become a god and revoke the gift of free will. We were facing it in its personal dempilane; the dragon had laid a trail to himself because he needed to kill the party, who held some of Ihys's power, to complete his goal. A rather complicated battlefield was set up, with it being made clear the battle would be a race against time, and then we went to dinner. I spent most of dinner scheming on what my wizard could do to soundly handle the upcoming fight. And I concluded I needed a wish from an ally so I could enact my plan.
The wish (technically an alter reality, the psionic equivalent) was simple - my wizard asked the tactician to alter reality for me so I could combine two prepared instances of the same spell into a single casting, doubling the numbers on the spell and expending both slots in one cast. The DMs (the campaign had two DMs - one who handled most mechanics and one who wrote most of the story stuff) allowed it and it was cast.
The important thing is what I used the wish to enable -
My wizard in turn then mashed two gate spells into one gate with a 92 hit dice limit (20th level, +1 from ioun stone, +1 from Magaambyan Arcanist casting a good spell, +1 from allied spellcaster, getting 46 hite dice per gate). The following exchange resulted.
Mechanics DM: Cool. That's a pretty big gate.
Story DM: Um, what are you trying to get?
Me: Sarenrae.
Story DM: What.
Mechanics DM: Sarenrae?
Me: We aren't on the prime any more, and under the circumstances I think she'd accept the gate. A 92 hit die gate might actually be strong enough to accommodate her.
DMs: *stare at each other, start talking over each other, and then turn to the table* We need to consult.
About 10 minutes later, the DMs came back, and advised that this was still well beyond the scope of mortal magic, and I'd take 19 negative levels, be cut to 1 HP, and be drained of all my spell slots if I went through with it.
I, of course, replied with "Sure." And due to various story-related circumstances, it worked.
And so my wizard made use of a wish to successfully gate Sarenrae into a fight.
Yeah, we won that pretty soundly.
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We got a wish from the Pathfinder variant deck of many things. The one stated to be stronger then a regular wish spell, capable of reshaping things, etc etc.
Big burly dragon obsessed ranger asks about the villain we are fighting. Some evil sultry thousand year old sorceress queen.
''I wish she was my wife, and loved me and wasn't interested in doing evil things anymore.''
And that's how the campaign ended, with the entire group riding on in the sunset on a flying carpet (we all drew 3-4 cards from the deck of many things, most of it good things) to another continent to help one of the party members with his card inflicted geas. 4 lvl 10's, and 1 lvl 20 sorceress riding off to kill whatever happens to be the Spider Queen of Rakshlar.
Then we went for pizza.
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My friend once used an end-of-campaign-cycle wish to replace to role of a fallen deity, elevating himself to godhood and permanently retiring the PC. Later he played a cleric dedicated to his former PC.
I once had an elf archer PC who had terrible trouble with monsters always trying to eat her. She wished to have bad taste, such that anything that once tasted her would never again try to eat her. This actually worked a few times.
I have seen a wish for to additional arms get granted back in 3.5 so the character could use multiattack,
In 3.5 there was a second-level spell called Girallon's blessing which gave you two extra arms, and the spell could be made permanent with a permanency spell, so this is actually pretty reasonable for a 3.5 wish.
I am in a 3.5 campaign that has just reached 19th level. I used one wish for a stat bonus, but aside from that we used one to restore our dead wizards special item abilities. The GM created a number of powerful items, one for each character, which could be upgraded, but death would re-set the items back to their original state, and we used a wish to restore the items upgrades after he died.
The other one was a wish scroll that I used to add Gargoyle to the list of creatures I could shapechange to - my character is a Silver Dragon and they have an inherent ability to shapechange into medium or small humanoids or animals, but gargoyle is a monstrous humanoid. The GM came up with the character who was originally an NPC and there are apparently rules for playing dragons as characters.
Peet
I've nothing to add other than: Great thread, just great.
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As a player back in 2e I wished for the ability to cast permanency without draining a con point form me or any anyone else.
As a DM ive given away more then a few wishes. But I never tell the heroes when they are granted a wish. just the next time they say I wish... it happens.
One crazy character.. was a wemic(SP) basically a leoniod but more Egyptian. cleric/sorc/fighter used some divinitation and actually Communed with his God and got a real answer and as a bonus his god told him he had an active wish spell in effect on himself.
What did that player do? he excused himself (as he went to sleep in game) went to the store, picked up one of the best pizzas in the area (was bout a mile away) came back with the pizza, a case of my favorite beer, pack of my smokes, other type of smokes, and this four page letter he had been working on since the 80s.. this took place in the early 07. He came back an handed all that to me and asked me to read it.
It was the most detailed wished you could think off, im not a lawyer he studied law for fun, he delivers pizza cuz that's what he wants to do. I will see if he still has it and if so post it. because of the blatant dm bribery, his wish went into full effect.
As a player back in 2e I wished for the ability to cast permanency without draining a con point form me or any anyone else.
As a DM ive given away more then a few wishes. But I never tell the heroes when they are granted a wish. just the next time they say I wish... it happens.
One crazy character.. was a wemic(SP) basically a leoniod but more Egyptian. cleric/sorc/fighter used some divinitation and actually Communed with his God and got a real answer and as a bonus his god told him he had an active wish spell in effect on himself.
What did that player do? he excused himself (as he went to sleep in game) went to the store, picked up one of the best pizzas in the area (was bout a mile away) came back with the pizza, a case of my favorite beer, pack of my smokes, other type of smokes, and this four page letter he had been working on since the 80s.. this took place in the early 07. He came back an handed all that to me and asked me to read it.
It was the most detailed wished you could think off, im not a lawyer he studied law for fun, he delivers pizza cuz that's what he wants to do. I will see if he still has it and if so post it. because of the blatant dm bribery, his wish went into full effect.
If he doesn't still have it could you summarize? I'm curious now.
Edit-spelling...
Most powerful wish I've ever allowed? Player wished for a simulacrum of the BBEG they were preparing to fight, then used Mind Rape on the simulacrum to learn all of the BBEG's prepared defenses and weaknesses.
Most powerful wish I've ever allowed? Player wished for a simulacrum of the BBEG they were preparing to fight, then used Mind Rape on the simulacrum to learn all of the BBEG's prepared defenses and weaknesses.
Simulacrum is loyal to its creator, so if making the wish created it the mind rape would have been unnecessary. That's grey DM area though.
Also how funny would it be to send the thing into battle vs the bbeg? Lol.
We had a need to resurrect a party member but only had a ring of wishes so decided to blow a wish on the rez. The GM was known to subvert wishes if possible so we spent a while wording this wish, but we still had to actually say the wish.
I cant remember the actual specifics but i know that one of the conditions was that it had to be the person who i was touching at the time with a specified hand.
1 mispronunciation of resurrection and a real life face palm left the gm with no option to to inflict my character with a Priapism and looking for another wish :/
A 2 edged sword indeed
The craziest wish I have encountered was during a 1st edition Dragonlance campaign. One of the PCs attained 18th level as a wizard of High Sorcery and was promptly kicked off of that plane by the gods. The group ended up in the Forgotten Realms. He really liked Kenders and was disappointed that Kenders didn't exist in the Forgotten Realms so he wished that 25% of all intelligent life in the Forgotten Realms excluding himself would be transformed into Kenders. This was after wishing for a part of the moon Nutari so he could remain a wizard of high sorcery.
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I was playing a DM created LE anti-paladin class back in 3.0. The DM ended giving me a ring of 3 wishes which he rolled for on a random treasure table. I figured he gave me the ring just to mess with my character, so I made some pretty crazy wishes for a low level character( maybe 5th, don't have the character sheet anymore).
My first wish was for an Unholy Avenger. My second wish was to have my own stronghold that was defended by some loyal hellhounds and some evil outsiders. My third wish was to have a black dragon as a loyal mount.
He granted everything without corrupting any of the wishes. I was completely shocked by this because he had screwed over players wishing for minor things in other campaigns. My character, they party, and I were all enjoying our new toys and for several months in game time and everything was just fine, or so I thought.
One day out raiding a town on my dragon, I spot another dragon heading my way. It was a silver dragon being ridden by a paladin wielding a holy avenger. And shortly after that the evil campaign ended. I ended killing the paladin, but every other party member was killed. A crusade was led to clear the land of me, my stronghold, and all of its remaining inhabitants. It was fun while it lasted, at least.
That was the last time anyone used a wish from that DM in our gaming group.
3.5, we were fighting some crazy magic-sucking demi-diety, which effectively rendered most of our abilities useless and we were stuck in a rut of hit-and-run tactics, which we were pretty sure meant we were going to have to run away or lose, until our wizard stops talking and is rifling through various rulebooks so we start skipping him. After about 20 minutes of real time he finally pops up that he's ready to make his wish. He then produces in intricate detail a sketch depicting the exact angle, trajectory, and mass of his wish... twenty five thousand gold pieces worth of granite to appear essentially above the head of the deity. We had to break out siege warfare books to determine how much that actually was. It was practically a small mountain, and we won the encounter with one wish.
Needless to say, he was never allowed to do that again.
In Pathfinder, this one was cool, and in a game I was GMing. Essentially, my party was putting around and searching for treasure at the bottom of the ocean. It was a seafaring game and they had taken to looking for shipwrecks. Well, they found one through the use of a series of locate object spells and the like, and when they went down, they found a shipwreck encased in a large air bubble. Essentially in the world i had developed, there had been a large Mageocracy in ages past, and this was a ship that had sunk that had had an Archmage aboard. He had wrapped the ship in a giant air bubble to keep his people from perishing beneath the waves. However, this meant that he could not leave the ship, even for a moment, without dooming many of his men to die.
The PC's had several interactions with this character, and they came to overall like the wizened archmage, who only barely had enough power to stay awake, let alone speak with them at length, since he was funneling everything he had into staying alive and maintaining the bubble. As the party is getting ready to leave, the one wizard does something unexpected, and he goes in for a final visit, and to pay his respects. As a token of gratitude (the archmage had given them a few gifts, and some good advice on a predicament they were involved in), he gave the archmage something I was rather surprised by, his Luckblade with 1 remaining wish. They had used the other two, but I had figured he would save it for something later. So, I had written it in my notes back during development that the man only had one diamond for a single wish, that I was going to use later as part of a plot development. However, now the man had two wishes, and my options vastly increased. So what the man ended up doing, was taking the luckblade wish and wishing that his next wish works as intended. He then took his gem and wished that he was back to the height of his power, essentially restoring several hundred years of aging to himself, but maintaining all of the age bonuses from levelling.
This (now suddenly more impactful) NPC became a major plot point for the characters, and often fell more into the frienemy aspect than ally, because while the old wizened version of himself had been unable to do anything, this version was more than able to enact the true will of the now defunct Mageocracy, where magic is law. I was rather pleased by that outcome, more because of the benevolence of the PC than by my own innovation, but it took my campaign down an unexpected road.
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I agree entirely. Unfortunately most of the experienced players I have refereed have assumed that all wishes are effectively traps and only rarely use them.As a GM I have never deliberately twisted a wish granted by any means other than an evil wish granter who is expected to do such things. In fact I consider that sort of thing to be Gygax-style GM buffoonery. As RD does, if a wish is too much, I simply tell the player the wish will not work and have them try again.
There are all sorts of things in this game where some gamers seem to think it's an absolute hoot when the GM "pulls one over" on the party. I've never cared for that, whether it's a wish or any other activity. I simply don't view the GM's role as one-upping the player. Never have.
That's actually something I've had to fight against as well. Most all of my players almost always presume wishes are the "worst thing ever" and so strive to avoid them. Which is really, really frustrating when you're just trying to be nice and give them something nifty and they all freak out and go, "NO, I'M NOT TOUCHING THAT THING!" and run away in the other direction, or shove it into a dark hole or corner somewhere in one of their pocket planes never to see the light of day again.
In any event, though there are some spoilers here or there, they're mostly light, if you're in the midst of the events in question, so, here's a thread I go on at length about how I tend to handle wishes.
The few cases where players generally trusted the wishes were the cases they were generating or creating the effect themselves.
The most powerful wishes I can think of granting have actually all taken place in Council of Thieves. The player character can grant wishes (she's an ancient lawful good succubus-burgeoning-demigod with a lot of pacts that allow her to grant wishes... to religious fanatics on a demiplane where time flows differently, who generally recite the wishes she wants them to as prayers given them to pray by dreams from her) but tends to do extremely expensive large-scale, but highly subtle indirect things and selfless (aka, "increase general goodwill within and around the city", "upgrade the general sanitation and environment, as well as health of non-evil people in the region" and so on). Since she's willing to "buy-in" to the adventure, she's more than ready to do the adventuring thing while having this power and using it sparingly (she's never entirely sure how many wishes she has at a given point in time, and most of her requests take a lot to perform).
A few exceptions to this come from exceptional circumstances.
For instance, she transported the entirety of the [spoiler! if you've played it, you know the villain place!] from the fourth book out of the city at large, replacing it with a near-identical-volume area of a paradisaical park from one of her other (linked) demiplanes instead. After she made sure it wouldn't harm her demiplane, of course (thus having adventured through it).
The planes themselves have also been linked. She loved the [spoiler from the second book!] and so used that place, combined her own power, along with a contract devil who is badly smitten with her, to clean the place up, and create a nested linked series of demiplanes (and attach a few others) to create a nested series of paradises with various time flows for various effects. (Sadly, and through no connection to the wishes directly, but rather the events of part four, she currently has no way of getting back, currently, as the entire city is under a planar stasis, and even if she left, she couldn't be guaranteed to get back in time. Fortunately, most of the extraplanar locales still exist, just her "gateway" - the place from book 2 - does not.)
And then there were the illusion-clones. She made illusion clones (lesser simulacra) of herself and all her people that lasted for a total of two missions. So moved was she by their genuine good nature, that she made them real people with instantaneous durations. She then moved them to another demiplane (the one the [book four spoiler!] would eventually end up in) to created a generally stable population for that plane.
EDIT: sorry, posted before intended to...
Thunderdome and Sarenrae
... I... I heart this post.
