The intent of these line of threads is to generate GM and player discussion on how these spells are used in their games in order to generate some logical analytical discussion about how GMs can make in game rulings, provide fun challenges and encounters, and if required provide some house-rule mechanics options for their table as players gain access to these spells. In theory, a GM could type the spell name in the search and then review this thread to get some useful ideas for this spell in their game.
As always, actual game-use examples from your table preferred, but we can dialogue possible uses if you can provide context.
How did this one change your game? Where there things you didn't anticipate during encounters or skill challenges? Any things a new GM should consider as these spells enter the game?
PRD Link to Wish
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The biggest problem I have had with Wish as a GM is the mistrust that almost all players show whenever they get access to one and therefore they avoid using it.
Too many GMs treat it as a trap where they try to ruin the player's day for daring to use one.
I prefer to use a Linguistic ability check so any phrasing or loopholes become a matter of the PC's ability rather than spending 3 hours plus while the players try to come up with some gibberish that works the way they intend.
This way, the games progresses and the meta gaming that some players are either afraid of or are too enamored of is avoided.
Gilarius wrote: The biggest problem I have had with Wish as a GM is the mistrust that almost all players show whenever they get access to one and therefore they avoid using it.
Too many GMs treat it as a trap where they try to ruin the player's day for daring to use one.
I prefer to use a Linguistic ability check so any phrasing or loopholes become a matter of the PC's ability rather than spending 3 hours plus while the players try to come up with some gibberish that works the way they intend.
This way, the games progresses and the meta gaming that some players are either afraid of or are too enamored of is avoided.
Really good point, and its nice that since 1E the rules have laid out some good and easier to execute things Wish can do right in the spell description, while still leaving the door open for "anything you desire".
I only remember having it once in a campaign as a 1E player, and as you state - we did spend hours word-smithing the wish to ensure we didn't get shafted. Kind of defeated the purpose, as I think we were just using it to raise a slain party member.
Good idea with the linguistics check, gives the 22INT wizard a chance to get it right, when the 11INT Player would easily screw it up.
Linguistics has the intro line of 'You are skilled at working with language, in both its spoken and written forms.'
It's not my own original idea; I think Way of the Wicked uses linguistics for finding loopholes in contracts with devils - unless that's my current GM's own idea.
Anyway, I just get fed up of the lawyer-ese that groups descend into when trying not to get shafted by a Wish. In the past, before PF existed, I have had players refuse to use it even when they really should!
In actual game-play, I haven't had any PCs reach a high enough level to cast it themselves, but have issued Wishes on scrolls occasionally as loot - so they have a 'Get out of Jail Free' card for disasters. This generally allows them to avoid a TPK, or to do a 'Wish Rest' when absolutely essential. Eg we were under severe time pressure to close a portal before the equivalent of Rovagug got free and had used up too many spells and daily uses of abilities, so we used a scroll of Wish to effectively be fresh and have regained our spells etc. The GM simply hand-waved the wording and declared us to be ready. It's possible that we could have wished for something more useful, but there is an element of trust when using Wish, on both sides.
No one in my games has ever tried to abuse one, unlike the tales you hear on these forums.
On the other hand, I don't allow PCs to molest efreet (which don't have Wish in my games; instead they have 'Lesser Wishes', taken from the limited versions that Rolemaster used, based on their hit dice) after one player tried to imprison one as a slave back in 2nd ed days.
In my current game, I have a Diabolist as a cohort (WotW), and the GM has simply removed all Wishes from efreet.
I like the idea that wishes are literally unmaking and remaking reality. Kind of making a hole in the fundamental forces of the universe. The more stuff that has to change to accommodate it the more risk the wish goes wrong and it backfires.
I like the idea of consequences of wishes not being apparent straight away but instead being folded into the campaign world, almost so no-one notices.
Wishes should be powerful and a little scary, otherwise why bother with any other spells. At the same time they are a great tool for the creative. I like to have the wishes fail by misunderstanding rather than malice. Almost as if the universe that responds to the wish can't see the context.
What should be discouraged in my mind should be the long list of linguistic clauses with each wish. GMs need to be fair and trust their party.
From a personal perspective by the time my players get wishes the campaign is almost over so I don't get too phased. I use it as more of an NPC spell used to create unique situations in the game world.
The exception is a ring of three wishes which I sometimes like to give the party at level six or seven and watch them have some fun! I would NEVER let them but it on a scroll for anything less than an astronomical price.
I allow players to do the effects listed in the spell description without any funky legalese or other verbal gymnastics. My players know that those effects just work, they can use a wish for those, and the game goes on.
For "other effects," it depends on what entity is granting the wish. If you're getting a wish from a LE efreet it will almost certainly try to twist your intentions to suit its own evil ends. If the party has done a favor for some good entity and gain a wish that way, they will likely get a wish twisted for benign ends.
For "free floating" wishes from magic items, spells, and so forth, I tend to consider them granted by whatever entity is "nearest" the desire conceptually, and proceed from there. The idea that all wishes are granted by some sort of powerful being is something I pulled from 1e/2e but I've kept because I like it.
The spell lists what effects are okay. From there I merely base it on the material componant cost and consider if the wish is equal or lower in value to that cost, as well as how they are getting the wish (from a genie, for instance, or a scroll). If the value is higher than what they ask they are given the option to change their wish (if there isn't another mind manipulating the wish like a demon or genie), and if they don't change it, they get the closest comparable effect. Like having wished to gain more levels, he got it from a genie and was unconscious for 24 hours with a +10 temperary level modifier which expired after the 24 hour period.
This way of handling it lead to a flying sky castle capable of etching runes into the planet with a massive laser cannon, though... A PC made an amulet of infinite wishes at an epic level, then used that to make another one, then used one of them to craft a castle, using the second to power that castle, having already bound them together magically. The capabilities of the energy source were laid out and he was able to use his amulet to control the whole thing. When he ascended to godhood ultimately his castle was left disused, the amulet powering it failed because he was elsewhere for too long, and the whole thing is now sitting as a ruin in a particular place within the world. But ah well.
Gilarius wrote: The biggest problem I have had with Wish as a GM is the mistrust that almost all players show whenever they get access to one and therefore they avoid using it.
Too many GMs treat it as a trap where they try to ruin the player's day for daring to use one.
I prefer to use a Linguistic ability check so any phrasing or loopholes become a matter of the PC's ability rather than spending 3 hours plus while the players try to come up with some gibberish that works the way they intend.
This way, the games progresses and the meta gaming that some players are either afraid of or are too enamored of is avoided.
I attended a local GM conference that covered this very topic. The presenter did a great job of explaining how it gets to be this way and how to prevent it. Hopefully, I can do it justice.
He read a number of passages from the original Aladdin story. Aladdin and his mom were making some pretty crazy wishes. Stuff like wanting a feast with all the best foods, with no mess to clean up, not feeling stuffed when they over ate, and not getting fat. The genie gave it to them, based on the spirit of what they said. No word-smithing or tricks. The point being, what players often ask for (or want to ask for) is in keeping with the original wish story.
The ultimate problem is that wish is likely to change the game - the game that the GM and players originally agreed upon. "I wish I am king" said in just about any game is going to change that game from "The adventures of misfit murder hobos" to "The adventures of the king and his misfit murder hobos". The "proper" way to handle this kind of thing would be to have a group discussion about the impact and decide if that is where everyone wants the game to go. If so, long live the king! If not, maybe that wish doesn't get made. And hopefully, a greater discussion about why someone wanted that in the first place takes place, with a solution that meets whatever need that wish represents.
What I just described is pretty advanced gaming. The simpler (and more destructive) way is to start restricting wish rather than say "I don't want the game to change. I like it how it is now". Which leads to word-smithing, tricks, mistrust, etc. All things that make a wish no fun to use and/or eventually ends the game.
For what it's worth, there's a precedent of needing multiple, simultaneous Wish spells for greater results. I figure things like suddenly being the King and having everyone BELIEVE you're the King and all the history books showing you're the King would fall into that category.
Aside from that, one player asking to be King isn't necessarily a bad thing... if they've talked with the GM beforehand and made sure the Wish would be appropriate for the game. I generally believe that anything genuinely story-changing should be discussed and approved prior to the actual gaming session. This lets the GM respond to it properly, rather than suddenly finding that the plan for the rest of the session (and all the sessions beyond it) are suddenly wasted work that no longer applies.
(In other words, if your Wish would throw off the game, scrap the many hours of planning your GM has done, and generally decrease the fun at the table... don't make that Wish. Stick with the normal listed effects and Wish responsibly. I actually would support any GM who said "no" to Wishes that were too disruptive to the game. Pathfinder is a cooperative game, after all. If you really want to control the setting, be the GM.)
Mike J, GM Rednal, good points from both of you. It took me many years to reach the same conclusion, and you've explained it better than I did.
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