When should the DM make a wish go wrong?

[Yqatuba]

I always got the impression that the listed uses for wish are the safe options, meaning they won't go wrong if the caster picks one. Only if they try to wish for something more powerful should there be a chance of the wish doing something bad.

[Warped Savant]

The listed uses are meant to be safe options.
The text in the spell let's you know when it could go wrong:
"You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the GM's discretion.)"

But if you're getting the wish granted to you by an evil creature the creature itself will likely "misinterpret" what you're asking for.

(Earlier versions of the spell... I think AD&D... had the spell always try to twist things around and some GMs think it's still meant to be that way.)

[Senko]

I generally go by the wish granter when venturing outside the safe options.

You
If the person/being granting the wish is you e.g. wizard casting the spell 99% it will grant what you want as you shape it to your desired goal. That last 1% is the wild card see below.

Aligned Being
If the wish is being granted to you by someone else just like you casting the wish they can shape and guide it. They can't break it but they are quite capable of twisting it. Whether they will or not depends entirely on their alignement, their goals and your wish. For example a good being who disagrees with your wish is likely to try and talk you into making a different one or outright refuse to grant it e.g. genie from Aladin "No making someone fall in love with you.". Whereas an evil being who disagrees will try to twist it for their own amusement "I wish I was young and beautiful." could get you turned into a baby parrot with beautiful colouring.

Item
These always default to a literal and simple interpretation of the wish rather than the intent and in my games don't recognize conditionals. That is "and, but not" and other similiar conditions simply don't get recognized. For example "I wish to be young, beautiful and wealthy." would only get the young part granted by making you the young age category (a child) and the other two conditions ignored. For the item you caused the activation "I wish" and stated the goal "to be young" anything after that is not its concern. I do make sure players know items work this way.

Wild Card
This is when as the GM you judge a wish would bring about the intervention of a god to warp it. This isn't something I use often as doing so (a) means you may as well just always screw the player over and (b) it has ingame issues like why gods are hanging around just to screw with people making wishes. In this case its a matter of again what the wish is as much as anything else. Your wish only affects you e.g. wanting to win millions in a lottery so you can retire unlikely to be bothered with. Interfering in a deities domain e.g. wishing to be immortal may or may not depending on circumstances such as pharasma chosing to intervene as your cheating death or allowing it because you've done many great things to help her.

Obviously with the wild card the more your wish affects the more likely a god or gods are going to decide they need to intervene e.g. wishing everyone in the city will do what you want is going to affect every single priest and priestess so it is guaranteed to attract divine intervention to warp or even outright cause it to fail.

[VoodistMonk]

Whenever the it is bad for the overall story...

Say your Wish is a Bloodline/Domain spell... and say someone/something opposed to this specific Bloodline/Domain has been waiting for a chance to mess with the opposing side...

Petty revenge from an opposing God, or whatever...

If they are Wish'ing to loophole/f!ck up your narrative... whoopsie wishes... f!ck you, buddy...

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Warped Savant wrote:

(Earlier versions of the spell... I think AD&D... had the spell always try to twist things around and some GMs think it's still meant to be that way.)

Sort of. 1e and 2e say "Regardless of what is wished for, the exact terminology of the Wish is likely to be carried through. (This discretionary power of the referee is necessary in order to maintain game balance)"

BECMI had at least a couple of instances in modules where it was suggested the PCs use Wish to do specific things, and there was no mention of it going bad. The description of Wish is several times longer than in AD&D but the most important difference is the meaning of game balance is qualified with 'being neither too generous nor too stingy', though it too emphasizes that wording is important. BECMI Wish also had a longer list of examples of what was allowed and possible consequences of poorly worded Wishes.

The general idea, though poorly explained in any edition, is one I still follow: If Wish advances the story, it will likely work, especially if it is used to save PCs. If it tries to solve the story, it is going to run into issues. If Wish tries to grossly imbalance wealth or power of PCs, there will be unintended consequences unless you are really, really careful.

[OmniMage]

It costs you 25000 gp to cast a wish spell.Consequentially, I think a PC casting a wish spell should get what they want, owed in fact, assuming they don't try to push the spell beyond how it normally works. I think its the cleric who should be wary. After all, they are the ones asking for divine intervention.

Every version of the wish spell that I've seen has a cost.
In AD&D, you would age 5 years for casting a wish spell.
DND 3.5 would charge you 5000 xp to cast wish.
Pathfinder's wish spell requires a diamond worth 25000 gp.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

BECMI Wish has no cost, unless you wish for things with money value, at which point you can wish for up to 50 000 gp of value but lose the same amount of XP. 1e/2e Wishes inflict a weakness (Strength penalty and require days of rest) for more powerful attempts. 1e Wish has no other cost.

[TwilightKnight]

Wish can do anything and be as dangerous as your GM wants it to be. Better to ask them than a bunch of message board knuckleheads :-D

In my campaigns, wish/miracle is an attempt by mere mortals to enter the realm of deific power and they don't take kindly to such things. Every wish will have some unforeseen consequences though it will generally comply with the initiator. Just remember, you're gonna get everything you want, but you may not want what you're gonna get.

[Thunder999]

Wish clearly does all the things listed with no risk at all, it's only when you go beyond that that issues may arise, in such a case I generally prefer partial fulfillment unless it's being granted by a malevolent entity who may prefer to twist it.

It is after all an extremely expensive 9th level spell, it should be worth it.

[Senko]

Thunder999 wrote:

Wish clearly does all the things listed with no risk at all, it's only when you go beyond that that issues may arise, in such a case I generally prefer partial fulfillment unless it's being granted by a malevolent entity who may prefer to twist it.

It is after all an extremely expensive 9th level spell, it should be worth it.

This you need to be lvl 17 to cast it and each casting costs you 25 thousand gold. Its why I only mess with it in certain circumstances as I outlined above.

[Ryze Kuja]

If the caster of your Wish is a pissed off Efreeti and the Wish itself is so poorly worded that the first thing that comes to your mind is a horrible way to corrupt it, then by all means corrupt it. <---- Besides a situation like this, I usually give the PC's exactly what they Wish for but also as long as it doesn't break my game in some way.

Unless you're a notoriously sadistic GM and/or don't care what your PC's think about corrupting Wishes, I think there's a breach in the barrier of trust with the PC's that comes with corrupting Wishes on a constant basis and without any good reason. Also, I'm not the only GM at the table (out of 6 ppl, we have 3 & 1/2 GM's), so when someone else is running and I'm a PC, I don't want corrupted Wishes to be so commonplace that the Wish spell is essentially worthless at our table.

Games are supposed to be fun, and dealing with a Corrupted Wish *can* be fun every once in a while, but not every time you cast Wish.

The 2nd GM I ever played with would corrupt Wishes even if you worded it perfectly, and frankly it was annoying.

[TwilightKnight]

Oh, I warn my players whenever the subject of wishing comes up that I don't take it lightly and neither should they. Its the ultimate power in the universe and with great power comes great responsibility. Rarely can you disrupt the natural flow of things and not expect ripples to result. YMMV

[Zepheri]

Okay
A question for those who have played with high-level spell casters what is more powerful the wish spell or the miracle spell.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

It depends. A Miracle can go beyond normal limits of Wish because it is the direct intervention of a god (or higher being or Concept or whatever) and they tend to have more mystical might than mere mortals. Also, I tend to be less strict in interpreting wording because the god will (hopefully) not be a dick when granting a miracle. On the other hand, they will not grant miracles they don't approve of, and they may do the whole "gods work in mysterious ways" and grant a miracle in a different way than desired.

Wish is less dependent on beings other than the wisher, unless granted by an external being, but more dependent on proper wording to not cause too many ripples in the world. If you cast your own, you don't have to worry about some other being approving of your wish or altering it, but you have to suffer the consequences without someone to smooth out problems.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Also, you can (if you don't honk off your deity or other patron) potentially keep on casting Miracles, whereas if you keep on casting Wishes, no matter how well you word them, pretty soon you're going to go broke.

[Claxon]

Yeah, I would typically consider Miracle to be more powerful, so long as your goal and desires align with your deity's.

You're asking for miracle to "smite" (not the literal game mechanic) the BBEG and you worship Iomedae? It's your lucky day, she loves doing that. She's going to give you everything she can that your tiny little mortal frame can channel can handle (I always envision divine spell casters as a conduit for the divine power).

[Tacticslion]

I tend to give players what they wish for unless it's beyond the pale of the game - and usually in that case, I'll do what I do when they use non-wish stuff that will also break the game: I tell them, "Dude - this will make the game not work and we'll have to stop." and, while often mildly disappointed, they're generally pretty likely to change how they handle things for the sake of the game running well.

Most of the time, it's been very reasonable stuff wished for, or extremely thematic/awesome/well-timed stuff wished for (which sometimes has a roll of some sort against a secret DC^), and either way I tend not to corrupt that.

Twice I've had people do something so monumentally foolish that I've talked to them out of character and explained why, in-character, they should know better, and probably shouldn't take that action but the players have persisted anyway. In both cases they were explicitly told out of character and in character that the wish was going to be corrupted. ("It's a demon that specializes in twisting wishes and it hates you in specific. Your character knows this. Your character is (in effect) literally wishing for the demon to do what it wants with its wish power, because of the words, 'or whatever.' you added at the end. You failed to charm it, and your attempts at diplomacy and charisma have failed. You are aware of this. Your character is aware of this. Want to rephrase that? Because it will use the wish in a way you won't like, otherwise. Seriously. Just change how you word it." "Nah, I'm good. I got a good feeling." "It's not going to work out." "I don't want to change anything." O.O "Fine: the demon says, 'You know what you just did? You gave me free reign for anything. >:D'" "Cool, cool.") One opted to change the wording, but still left the part of the wish that caused it to fail, and the other one insisted the wish be left exactly as it was worded. The first one just kind of shrugged when the wish went wrong, while the second got actively angry that I dared have the thing happen I told him would happen in clear terms.

In all other cases, it's gone smoothly (though most players have been extremely shy of wishes in general, so... it's hard to literally give them away. "The angel, impressed with your good deeds, has given you a true resurrection and offers you anything your hearts desire: a wish." "Oh heeeeeeeeeeck no, I'm already in debt from the true rez, I am not gonna touch that twisted wish stuff with a 50 ft. pole." "No-no, the return from death was free and you get a wish. It's a reward for all your hard work and service. I'm telling you, as GM, it won't be twisted. At most, it might suggest you wish for something less if it can't do it, or suggest a different wish or similar if it suspects your wouldn't go wrong or your wording is off. Strictly by intent." "Yeah, no, that's stuff's flippin' hecka-cursed, I'm out. Stupid angel can't trick me!" "O.o" {wording has been mildly censored}). Because of that I am very uninterested in twisting wishes in general. It's hard enough to encourage players to use them in the first place.

^GMs only:

The secret is that I rarely have a set DC. I just make 'em roll to see what the number they get is and use that to vaguely correlate what happens.

[rorek55]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Also, you can (if you don't honk off your deity or other patron) potentially keep on casting Miracles, whereas if you keep on casting Wishes, no matter how well you word them, pretty soon you're going to go broke.

"I wish to be able to use, though not limited only to, this diamond repeatedly for every wish spell I cast without it needing replacing or requiring further monetary material."

*laughs as he awaits repercussions*

[Tacticslion]

rorek55 wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Also, you can (if you don't honk off your deity or other patron) potentially keep on casting Miracles, whereas if you keep on casting Wishes, no matter how well you word them, pretty soon you're going to go broke.

"I wish to be able to use, though not limited only to, this diamond repeatedly for every wish spell I cast without it needing replacing or requiring further monetary material."

*laughs as he awaits repercussions*

I mean, are you wanting this twisted?

Because it can be twisted if you want.

I'd prefer simply saying, "No." either with consuming the diamond or not. (I mean, either way, this technically fulfills the wish in the least interesting way.) After all,

Quote:

You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the GM's discretion.)

But if you want it warped, then the ability to cast wish is removed from the character doing the wishing, hence every wish spell cast used only the one diamond. Or that diamond continues to exist so long as you have fed it money: all monetary value you own is absorbed into your diamond as "charges" to pay for your future wish casting (this wish does not "require further monetary material" because it isn't expended in the casting, like normal for a wish; the diamond requires it, however).

Buuu~uuut talking about it first is probably for the best. :D

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I remember going up against a lich in 2e. I had a Wish and time to word the thing properly to be quite unavoidable and un-twistable. At least as unavoidable and un-twistable as my 14(ish) year old mind could make it.
The lich had Spell Turning.

[Sandslice]

rorek55 wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Also, you can (if you don't honk off your deity or other patron) potentially keep on casting Miracles, whereas if you keep on casting Wishes, no matter how well you word them, pretty soon you're going to go broke.

"I wish to be able to use, though not limited only to, this diamond repeatedly for every wish spell I cast without it needing replacing or requiring further monetary material."

*laughs as he awaits repercussions*

WIsh-granter: "What diamond?" *poofs*

Just then, you realize that you played yourself. As it turns out, you destroy the material component DURING casting, and a wish's outcome is not determined until you've FINISHED casting:

Quote:

Material (M): A material component consists of one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process. Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible. Don’t bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch.

[UnArcaneElection]

Tacticslion wrote:

{. . .}

Twice I've had people do something so monumentally foolish that I've talked to them out of character and explained why, in-character, they should know better, and probably shouldn't take that action but the players have persisted anyway. In both cases they were explicitly told out of character and in character that the wish was going to be corrupted. ([ooc]"It's a demon that specializes in twisting wishes and it hates you in specific. Your character knows this. Your character is (in effect) literally wishing for the demon to do what it wants with its wish power, because of the words, 'or whatever.' you added at the end. You failed to charm it, and your attempts at diplomacy and charisma have failed. You are aware of this. Your character is aware of this. Want to rephrase that? Because it will use the wish in a way you won't like, otherwise. Seriously. Just change how you word it." "Nah, I'm good. I got a good feeling." {. . .}

Now I've got this vision of the Demon walking away afterwards, chuckling and rolling eyes, and muttering "It really is true what they say -- you can't fix stupid" . . . .

[rorek55]

"nooooooooooo"

*falls to knees cursing the skies*

I could also see the devil just, so flabergasted at being given the chance to do whatever, gives the guy something. A taste, so maybe he calls him again. After all, an idiot summoning devils, is a devils dream come true.

[TriOmegaZero]

Quote:

When should the DM make a wish go wrong?

When the player is on board and the character is trying to wish for things beyond the 'safe' bounds of the spell.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

So if the player wants something beyond the safe bounds of the spell but is not on board with things going wrong, the DM should just let it go through unhindered?

[TriOmegaZero]

Spell fails.

[CorvusMask]

Tacticslion wrote:

I tend to give players what they wish for unless it's beyond the pale of the game - and usually in that case, I'll do what I do when they use non-wish stuff that will also break the game: I tell them, "Dude - this will make the game not work and we'll have to stop." and, while often mildly disappointed, they're generally pretty likely to change how they handle things for the sake of the game running well.

Most of the time, it's been very reasonable stuff wished for, or extremely thematic/awesome/well-timed stuff wished for (which sometimes has a roll of some sort against a secret DC^), and either way I tend not to corrupt that.

Twice I've had people do something so monumentally foolish that I've talked to them out of character and explained why, in-character, they should know better, and probably shouldn't take that action but the players have persisted anyway. In both cases they were explicitly told out of character and in character that the wish was going to be corrupted. ("It's a demon that specializes in twisting wishes and it hates you in specific. Your character knows this. Your character is (in effect) literally wishing for the demon to do what it wants with its wish power, because of the words, 'or whatever.' you added at the end. You failed to charm it, and your attempts at diplomacy and charisma have failed. You are aware of this. Your character is aware of this. Want to rephrase that? Because it will use the wish in a way you won't like, otherwise. Seriously. Just change how you word it." "Nah, I'm good. I got a good feeling." "It's not going to work out." "I don't want to change anything." O.O "Fine: the demon says, 'You know what you just did? You gave me free reign for anything. >:D'" "Cool, cool.") One opted to change the wording, but still left the part of the wish that caused it to fail, and the other one insisted the wish be left exactly as it was worded. The first one just kind of shrugged when the wish went wrong, while the second got actively angry that I...

I like to imagine the demon started in character explain "Wait, you do realize how stupid that wish is?"

[Tacticslion]

“I’m a literal embodiment of chaos and evil incarnate and even I can’t just... sigh, look, you realize how dumb that is?”

[Ryze Kuja]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

So if the player wants something beyond the safe bounds of the spell but is not on board with things going wrong, the DM should just let it go through unhindered?

PC: *casts Wish* "I wish for some overpowered bull&*^% that will break your campaign"

DM: "Okay, you see the Diamond in your hand crumble to dust and begin swirling with vigorous sparkling and raw magical power, becoming a helix of green, blue, and purple-hued energy that suddenly extends up to the clouds like a vortex-shaped magical conduit that you can see begins to reach into other dimensions right before your eyes, as to provide a multiversic-pathway to summon your Wish from the cosmos straight to your hand"

PC: *thinks "omg omg omg omg omg"...*

DM:

PC:

DM:

PC: "And?!"

DM: "Nothing happens, don't break my game"

[TriOmegaZero]

Yes, that.

[yukongil]

part of me feels like if you're giving out wishes, because let's remember, the players aren't getting something you aren't explicitly giving them, you are asking for whatever comes and you might as well roll with it at that point.

[TriOmegaZero]

Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then.

[Claxon]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then.

You don't even need to go that far. Just finish games at level 16 as part of the plan. Can't cast wish if you don't have 9th level spells.

Honestly the game breaks down before then anyways.

[yukongil]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then.

if you aren't okay with seeing where it takes you, that's probably a good idea. Just seems kind of wrong to dangle something like a wish spell out there for use and then lose your cool when they use it.

Its the same as the old grogards who would complain about their campaign being wrecked after the players got a Deck of Many Things, like you gave it to them, you can't cry about it now.

[TriOmegaZero]

Handing out the Deck of Many Things is shorthand for 'we are done with this campaign'.

[Tacticslion]

yukongil wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then.

if you aren't okay with seeing where it takes you, that's probably a good idea. Just seems kind of wrong to dangle something like a wish spell out there for use and then lose your cool when they use it.

Its the same as the old grogards who would complain about their campaign being wrecked after the players got a Deck of Many Things, like you gave it to them, you can't cry about it now.

This is explicitly why I talk about something with them if it won't work.

I like giving my players things and making it work.

Sometimes, it just doesn't.

APs, especially, are prone to disruption by accident, and...

Claxon wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Oh cool, I'll just ban wish from my games then.

You don't even need to go that far. Just finish games at level 16 as part of the plan. Can't cast wish if you don't have 9th level spells.

Honestly the game breaks down before then anyways.

... though wishes are usually not exactly common in such, there are plenty of ways to get them prior to 16th level.

The thing is, the wish spell (and the miracle spell) is pretty cool, and I like it. I like using it as a tool and I like my players having something cool in their back pocket. I like interesting and fun wishes that represent in-character ideas and concepts.

Heck, I'm even fine with some of the ludicrously over-powered options, too! ... but sometimes you just want to process a story game with a rough plot, and the PCs can make a specific wish that simply won't work with the story or plot beyond the GM going, "Okay; you win, game's over." and that's often a very unsatisfying narrative for the GM, the player making the wish, and the other players at the table.

Wish in itself isn't even the only potential culprit by a wide margin - it's merely one option that can break a given game. And none of that is bad - effectively, you need to work with your particular table and their particular group expectations.

So, in other words,

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Quote:

When should the DM make a wish go wrong?

When the player is on board and the character is trying to wish for things beyond the 'safe' bounds of the spell.

[Tacticslion]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Handing out the Deck of Many Things is shorthand for 'we are done with this campaign'.

It's not for me! For me it's an opportunity for interesting and random nonsense that can happen!

... but for most of my players see it as shorthand for "we are done with this campaign (and characters)" and fear it greatly.

[rorek55]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Handing out the Deck of Many Things is shorthand for 'we are done with this campaign'.

I tried to give it to my group twice.

Both times, no one used it. They locked it up tighter than the great beast himself.

[VoodistMonk]

The Deck of Many Things is just good, clean fun. Ain't never scared...

zza ni wrote:
horrower prestige class 10th + other caster level 5+ with fortunate trait and the planeshift spell ready. make the silent aviary (cost to make 97.5k + wish and planeshift) then 1/day can pull up to 4 cards and pick best. if all are bad use command word to redraw but willingly fail the save and planeshift out . that day is simply a no gain. all other days are keepers. so since about half are good and half are bad cards drawing all 4 to be bad is 1/2^4 chance 1/16 days are no gain draw rest should be very good - gm made me retire my toon after a month of downtime...

[TOZ]

Now do it without the prestige class.

[VoodistMonk]

TOZ wrote:

Now do it without the prestige class.

The prestige class is the whole point of my Fortune-Teller Bard build, though. I even VMC'ed Sorcerer for the Harrowed Bloodline... flavors maximum.

She is already playing a pretty dangerous game... given that she doesn't actually have the ability to cast Plane Shift herself... she has to rely on items to get her out of the Prison card when it inevitably shows up.

She is one of my favorite gypsies, though.

[TOZ]

So what you're saying is that you are scared.

[VoodistMonk]

TOZ wrote:

So what you're saying is that you are scared.

Lmao...

Me, personally? No.

My Fortune-Teller Bard? Also, no.

See, my Noble Drow Arcane Duelist Bard would tell everyone it is bad luck to be superstitious, and grab a card from the deck all willy-nilly.

Variel, my Elf master of Panache, would have grabbed a card in the name of science... he is infinitely curious, to a fault.

Hbob, my Kobold Cleric, was actually afraid of the deck. He advised the party to avoid temptation, and supported the Inquisitor's decision to lock it up immediately.

In real life, I would grab all the cards, in a row. Take the corner, join the crash. F*** it. Not only am I face to face with a real magical item, and the understanding that magic is real... this particular magical item even messes with the boundaries of magic, itself... so I am in the presence of something equally powerful as it is unique... yep, let's see where this b!tch goes... all-in, 100%... doing it.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Handing out the Deck of Many Things is shorthand for 'we are done with this campaign'.

My players players love it, and it's never messed anything up. Caused complications, sure, but that's half the fun. The first time we encountered one the Magic-user lost all his magic items and the group ended up in Ravenloft. The former pissed off the MU but he got over it, and the DM was gonna take us to Ravenloft anyway at some point. That is literally the worst that has happened.

One of my PCs lets his friends and family draw from his Deck when they come of age, and even (especially) when bad stuff happens it makes for cool stories. At worst a draw is inconsequential, at best the DoMT makes for cooler games.
Two examples about how to make it work. One character got a major magic weapon, which turned out to be a returning, thundering, flaming, shocking spear. One of the major gods of the setting is the god of Fire and thunder, a harsh and heroic character. The PC was described as quiet and unassuming, the exact opposite of this god. Now the PC has been blessed with what is obviously a weapon from a god which expect hard, great things from his followers. What sort of adventures will follow?
The other, one of my favorite characters, was ambitious and drew 5 cards. He got -1 STs, enmity from an outsider, a friend betraying him, lost all wealth and property, and lost all magic items. At 1st level he didn't have anything magical worth speaking of except his spellbooks, so those went bye-bye. So he went from a prince of a respected family to being expelled, a 1st level caster with even s@@~tier saves than normal, powerful enemies at court, and a demon wanting his soul.
If that doesn't sound like a solid backstory for a character, I don't know what is.

General advice for the DoMT:
Stop worrying about how certain draws screw you over and start thinking about how you can turn them into an adventure.

[Yqatuba]

Something I thought of: Should a player casting wish be able to make a linguistics (or bluff, or something) check to see if they say it right? After all, the player doesn't really have 30 cha even if their sorcerer does.

[Tacticslion]

Yqatuba wrote:

Something I thought of: Should a player casting wish be able to make a linguistics (or bluff, or something) check to see if they say it right? After all, the player doesn't really have 30 cha even if their sorcerer does.

That's a valid way of handling things, if that's how your table wants to play it. Or you can talk with them, personally. It's up to you.

[Sandslice]

Yqatuba wrote:

Something I thought of: Should a player casting wish be able to make a linguistics (or bluff, or something) check to see if they say it right? After all, the player doesn't really have 30 cha even if their sorcerer does.

There's a trait for that, though it's regional for the Plane of Fire: Thoughtful Wish-Maker.

You get +2 on Sense Motive; and when making a wish from an Outsider, you can roll Sense Motive DC 25. Basically, if you succeed but not by 5 or more, the GM has to tell you what twists are being applied to the wish. If you succeed BY 5 or more, the GM is not allowed to twist the wish.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Surprised that this isn't also Regional to Hell.

[Claxon]

Sandslice wrote:

Yqatuba wrote:

Something I thought of: Should a player casting wish be able to make a linguistics (or bluff, or something) check to see if they say it right? After all, the player doesn't really have 30 cha even if their sorcerer does.

There's a trait for that, though it's regional for the Plane of Fire: Thoughtful Wish-Maker.

You get +2 on Sense Motive; and when making a wish from an Outsider, you can roll Sense Motive DC 25. Basically, if you succeed but not by 5 or more, the GM has to tell you what twists are being applied to the wish. If you succeed BY 5 or more, the GM is not allowed to twist the wish.

I'm going to be honest, if I had a player that picked up this trait it would :

1) Clue me in that they intend to make lots of use of wish
2) Probably prompt me to tell them straight up that anything beyond the specified uses is going to cause the spell to fail
3) But promise them it wont have any unintended consequences, it will simply fail.

[Yqatuba]

Claxon wrote:

Sandslice wrote:

Yqatuba wrote:

Something I thought of: Should a player casting wish be able to make a linguistics (or bluff, or something) check to see if they say it right? After all, the player doesn't really have 30 cha even if their sorcerer does.

There's a trait for that, though it's regional for the Plane of Fire: Thoughtful Wish-Maker.

You get +2 on Sense Motive; and when making a wish from an Outsider, you can roll Sense Motive DC 25. Basically, if you succeed but not by 5 or more, the GM has to tell you what twists are being applied to the wish. If you succeed BY 5 or more, the GM is not allowed to twist the wish.

I'm going to be honest, if I had a player that picked up this trait it would :

1) Clue me in that they intend to make lots of use of wish
2) Probably prompt me to tell them straight up that anything beyond the specified uses is going to cause the spell to fail
3) But promise them it wont have any unintended consequences, it will simply fail.

So, basically, you're punishing players for not making characters the way you want?