How's this?: "I wish that instantly upon completion of this wish I become a god with power equivalent to, but different from <insert god> in the height of their power, with no consequences I would see as negative from my present opinion."
Cast only when you have no mind-affecting effects on you.
Please "Sadistic Genie" me as much as you like.
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Call an Efreet or any other genie:
Pass the DC30 Sense Motive check (by level 20 should be really easy)
This is the winner. It has all the mechanical ability to figure out a perfectly worded wish in game without necessarily knowing it out of game.
How's this?: "I wish that instantly upon completion of this wish I become a god with power equivalent to, but different from <insert god> in the height of their power, with no consequences I would see as negative from my present opinion."
Cast only when you have no mind-affecting effects on you.Please "Sadistic Genie" me as much as you like.
Define "present" "negative" and "see" because a true "sadistic genie" is going to eat that up.
Some might consider time freezing and the universe effectively coming to an end a negative consequence too.
Some might. Sadistic Genie does not (and it's Sadistic Genie that's granting the wish).
The reason these things don't quite work out the way they seem like they should is that English - language in general, really - is not as air-tight as we'd like it to be. There is a certain amount of informed consent on the definition of words - when two people speak, they are subconsciously agreeing (or not, hence miscommunication) on what the words they are saying actually mean.
Truly lawful evil and/or sadistic creatures can turn any "air tight" case into "Oh, wait, that wasn't what you meant? My bad... >:D" without too much trouble.
EDIT:
"I wish to become a powerful god, with no negative consequences."
"Here are some terrible consequences that positively exist."
EDIT:
First, cast Augury and get an answer before you ask whether it'll turn out good or bad (only sees 30 minutes into the future, and only up to 90% accurate, but hey, we're playing with fire anyway).
"I wish, upon completion of this sentence, while maintaining my current sense of self-awareness and consciousness, excepting in the expansion thereof, become a deific being of power equivalent to <insert major deity name here> without destroying, supplanting, or weakening any current deity or their purview, destruction of current or past life, or established political entity."
"You become a deity that is unable to influence, alter, or otherwise inhibit any current actual, probable, or possible established political entity, any creature with any life - past or present - or any deity or their purview. Congratulations. You may play around with empty space, but only over there in the corner away from everyone else."
EDIT: Also, by the way, it should be noted that I don't pull this kind of junk in a game. My players are terrified of wishes enough as it is...
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I always love these wish threads.
I used to be like this too. How can I totally screw over anybody who makes a wish? Why? Just because it's fun to screw people over.
I used to have players who were terrified of making wishes. I remember in high school one of my players got a wish and spent a whole week writing it down on paper. When he brought it to me it was hand-written on college-ruled paper and took the entire front and half the back of the page. I had to read it about 6 times just to parse out what he really wanted buried beneath his verbal spaghetti of clauses and exceptions and restrictions and so forth.
Then I had an epiphany and applied a new principle to how I handled wishes. Two new principles, really:
1. Wishes should be fun. IRL if a genie appeared and gave me a wish I'd be ecstatic. I decided I wanted my players to view wishes as a prize, not a curse. Their first reaction to getting a wish should be happiness and joy and awe. Not terror.
2. Wishes require energy of some kind and therefore work like energy. This means being efficient and always finding the path of least resistance. As such, I look for a solution that fulfills the wish and only apply any loopholes if they would make it require less magical energy to fulfill the wish.
For example, if you wish to have a million gold pieces, my first thought would be to magically make the coins appear. Principle #1, have fun. But then I think about the energy. Principle #2. Creating something from nothing probably requires a lot of energy. But moving something from one place to another is less energy, so it might move a million GP from somewhere else to you. Shorter distance is less energy than greater distance, so probably the nearest million GP are moved to you. That might include GP in your own backpack and your friends, certainly the townsfolk in the nearest towns and even monster hoards in nearby monster lairs. But then it occurs to me that moving a 200 pound adventurer is easier than moving 20,000 pounds of gold as long as I don't move him more than 1,000x farther than the gold. So the wish might move you to the nearest treasure hoard with a million GP in it.
But what I wouldn't do is whip a million GP and ALSO turn you insane, or kill you, or curse you, or trap you in a magical prison, or whatever, because that requires MORE energy than just whipping up the million GP. I wouldn't put the million GP in the air over your head so it falls and crushes you. While that might not require more energy (seems about the same), there is no reason to see that as a fulfillment of a which that you want to have a million GP - being crushed under them is not "having" them. Etc.
While it's all good fun to think up good ways to screw over the wisher and laugh about it, I'd suggest keeping those two principles in mind. It makes wishes fun again. At least, in my experience, they've been a lot more fun in the couple decades since I had my epiphany than they ever were before.
"I wish that, upon completing the speaking of this wish, I am to be permanently bestowed with the knowledge, powers, comprehension, competency and body of a God equivalent in potency but different in purview to the Goddess Desna as she existed immediately before I began making this wish, and further providing that there shall be no consequences that I would deem negative, if, based on my present state of mind and faculties, I had prior knowledge of the full outcome of this wish."
I approve of this. Let me throw this past my lawyer friend and see if he comes up with a loophole.
I always love these wish threads.
I used to be like this too. How can I totally screw over anybody who makes a wish? Why? Just because it's fun to screw people over.
I used to have players who were terrified of making wishes. I remember in high school one of my players got a wish and spent a whole week writing it down on paper. When he brought it to me it was hand-written on college-ruled paper and took the entire front and half the back of the page. I had to read it about 6 times just to parse out what he really wanted buried beneath his verbal spaghetti of clauses and exceptions and restrictions and so forth.
Then I had an epiphany and applied a new principle to how I handled wishes. Two new principles, really:
1. Wishes should be fun. IRL if a genie appeared and gave me a wish I'd be ecstatic. I decided I wanted my players to view wishes as a prize, not a curse. Their first reaction to getting a wish should be happiness and joy and awe. Not terror.
2. Wishes require energy of some kind and therefore work like energy. This means being efficient and always finding the path of least resistance. As such, I look for a solution that fulfills the wish and only apply any loopholes if they would make it require less magical energy to fulfill the wish.
For example, if you wish to have a million gold pieces, my first thought would be to magically make the coins appear. Principle #1, have fun. But then I think about the energy. Principle #2. Creating something from nothing probably requires a lot of energy. But moving something from one place to another is less energy, so it might move a million GP from somewhere else to you. Shorter distance is less energy than greater distance, so probably the nearest million GP are moved to you. That might include GP in your own backpack and your friends, certainly the townsfolk in the nearest towns and even monster hoards in nearby monster lairs. But then it occurs to me that moving a 200 pound adventurer is easier than moving 20,000 pounds of gold as long as I...
Yeah, in games, I don't even make it that "bad". I just directly grant the intent or say "Sorry, not possible." (barring very few exceptions*).
* Specifically, a single exception: an online game I'm running now, and it's not really "messing with the literal wording" but "getting something similar done" and it's so because of <plot specific> reasons. That said, if a player was foolish enough to call up a demon to grant them a wish and expect no strings attached, however... I'd warn 'em first.
"I wish that, upon completing the speaking of this wish, I am to be permanently bestowed with the knowledge, powers, comprehension, competency and body of a God equivalent in potency but different in purview to the Goddess Desna as she existed immediately before I began making this wish, and further providing that there shall be no consequences that I would deem negative, if, based on my present state of mind and faculties, I had prior knowledge of the full outcome of this wish."
I approve of this. Let me throw this past my lawyer friend and see if he comes up with a loophole.
I'd be curious to know what your friend thinks. I am a lawyer, so I feel like I've got the chops for this kind of thing.
That being said, I'm just playing along with the thread. I don't think a wish (or any 9th level spell) should ever be that powerful. If I were the GM, it wouldn't work. Or at least, it wouldn't work as intended. Maybe the wisher gets an audience with his patron deity who lays out a series of near impossible tasks that--if completed--could lead the character to become a demi-god. And that could be a campaign all on its own. . .
Back on topic, this is how I word all my wishes:
"I wish that the following thing will happen: I am to immediately be granted full foreknowledge of the outcome of this wish, including all consequences intended or otherwise, no matter how trivial, and granted unlimited opportunity to revise the wording of this wish until prior to it being fulfilled until I'm satisfied with the correct wording, at which time the wish is to be the following..."
This way every wish has a recursive revision clause and the wish is only finalized when I'm satisfied that I have the wording right.
As for me as a GM, I'm disinclined to think that any amount of magic commonly available to 17th level spellcasters could transform anyone into a god. Spellcasters of that level are rare, but not as rare as gods; yet if every such spellcaster had the ability to become a god, there would surely be many more transformed former-spellcaster gods out there.
At least, certainly not tot he power of Desna. Maybe a wish could get someone's foot in the divinity door as a petty godling, but from there out, you have got to build your own plane, find your own followers, and grow your own religion old school.
That's probably how I'd answer this wish for a player who wished to be a god. Nothing would instantly change, but the magic would find a few "seekers" out there in the world, people who are currently godless but are seeking a god to believe in, and it would give them magical awareness of the PC. They would start worshiping him which, as far as I'm concerned, is the universal trigger for divine ascension. The PC becomes immediately aware of his worshipers and is able to try to answer their prayers (but would have to do so with his own ability) and might even be able to speak to them telepathically or empathically in such a way that those followers would hear their god's voice in their heads and do what he wants them to do. So, basically a modified Leadership feat with a few side perks.
And then the PC could build his religion from there. Could be a fun new campaign...
How about "I wish that, upon completing the speaking of this wish, I am to be permanently bestowed with the knowledge, powers, comprehension, competency and body of a God equivalent in potency but different in purview to the Goddess Desna as she existed immediately before I began making this wish."
Clever!
"Here is the goddess Desna." *produces a copy of every written instance up until the point you made the wish, "Enjoy being a well-known set of words on a piece of paper."
OR
"I wish that, upon completing the speaking of this wish, I am to be permanently bestowed with the knowledge, powers, comprehension, competency and body of a God equivalent in potency but different in purview to the Goddess Desna as she existed immediately before I began making this wish, and further providing that there shall be no consequences that I would deem negative, if, based on my present state of mind and faculties, I had prior knowledge of the full outcome of this wish."
Creative and clever!
"As Desna does not actually exist [in certain worlds], you may now join her in that non-existence while inspiring legions of people to be better themselves."
A slightly-less Sadistic Genie would change the "." to a ";" and add, ";or negate the wish entirely." to the end.
One problem is that you presuppose which "Goddess Desna" that you're talking about. There are many. What about the goddess Shimye-Amigalla, who, though she "is" the "Goddess Desna" and also "is" the "God(dess) Gozreh" and also "doesn't actually exist".
You also make a wish that gives no leeway for your own error, presupposing that you've made no error, but accepting that you might have made an error. This causes a paradox that can't necessarily be resolved by the very power you wish to become... and is thus invalid.
I mean, I could wish for "Garasopdfkn;kloug", but that doesn't actually mean anything, and hence could be taken to mean absolutely anything by the Sadistic Genie.
"I wish that, upon completing the speaking of this wish, I am to be permanently bestowed with the knowledge, powers, comprehension, competency and body of a God equivalent in potency but different in purview to the Goddess Desna as she existed immediately before I began making this wish, and further providing that there shall be no consequences that I would deem negative, if, based on my present state of mind and faculties, I had prior knowledge of the full outcome of this wish."
I approve of this. Let me throw this past my lawyer friend and see if he comes up with a loophole.
I'd be curious to know what your friend thinks. I am a lawyer, so I feel like I've got the chops for this kind of thing.
That being said, I'm just playing along with the thread. I don't think a wish (or any 9th level spell) should ever be that powerful. If I were the GM, it wouldn't work. Or at least, it wouldn't work as intended. Maybe the wisher gets an audience with his patron deity who lays out a series of near impossible tasks that--if completed--could lead the character to become a demi-god. And that could be a campaign all on its own. . .
See... That kind of reward would be fine for me. But since we were trying to make a 'perfect' wish for godhood, I thought I'd try my hand at it. He's not responded yet, but that's not a surprise. He's got a long transit home from the 9th Circle.