D&D 5E DM needs help with outcome from using Cursed Wishing Gem

[Sir Brownstone]

Hi, I need a little help.

I am runing a D&D Next campaign using the newest playtest packet. I have a group of experieced players (15+ years). This is the first real campaign, or serious DMing, that I have done in quite some time. Our normal DM is playing an elf wizard. The Wizard and the other PCs dared to enter the Tomb of Horrors in search of Acererak's Skull. While in the Tomb of Horrors, they snatched up the "Cursed Wishing Gem" putting it in their bag for safe keeping. I used the 4e version for source material.

Time went by, and they hadn't thought about or dared use the gem until....they needed to rescue a captured NPC friend. Deciding to be a hero, the Wizard attempted to use the gem to rescue his friend. He wished for the friend to be brought back to the party's current location at this particular time. I had the friend drop from the sky onto the Wizard. The friend took 20d6 falling damage, and I had the Wizard make a Dex save [DC 15] to only take 1/2 damage. It was possible for the friend to survive the fall, but I rolled very high damage.

The friend died from negative max hps. The Wizard made his Dex save and took 1/2 the damage. The Wizard was 1 hp away from negative max hps; thus, he was merely unconscious. The very next round the Wizard rolled a natural 20 on his Con save, and he popped back up to 1 hp. What amazing luck! However, the friend was still dead. Fair enough outcome for using the Cursed Wishing Gem.

Realizing the friend was dead, the Wizard once again tried to use the gem to save him. (The night they found the Cursed Wishing Gem, I was extremely tired, and I told them that it was a "Gem of Three Wishes" omitting the cursed part of course until it was further investigated or used.) This time the Wizard wished that when his friend fell moments ago, he was affected by the featherfall spell.

For some reason, I cannot come up with an appropriate outcome. Help would greatly be appreciated.

Here is what the 4E Tomb of Horrors module states:

"No matter what is desired by the character daring to touch it and wish, a reverse or perversion will bring doom to that character and all named in the wish."

The more devious the better! Thanks in advance!

 

[GX.Sigma]

Reverse: The friend turns into an anvil as he falls, and this time he hits the wizard for double falling damage.
Perversion: The friend turns into a feather as he falls, and can never even be resurrected.
Interpretation: As the friend is falling, Acererak walks into the room and casts feather fall on him. Now the wizard and the friend survive. And are immediately slain by Acererak.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The way I like to look at it is that a wish has a certain amount of magical power it can safely handle. If you wish for something within that range, you pretty much get what you wished for. If you try to push beyond it, the wish will do its darnedest to grant you exactly what you requested, but it will find a way to do it with the power available. This either means that you get precisely what you requested in a way that you definitely did not intend or desire, or there is a sort of cosmic balance, and you get what you wished for, but it is accompanied by negative affects (think of the negative effects as a backlash from a "negative charge" created when you sucked the extra energy needed to power a "pushed" wish). If there is simply no reasonable way for the wish to grant the literal wording without hitting epic or divine (or otherwise considered too high by the DM) levels of power, I'd say the wish "simple fails." I'm not a fan of wishes actually not abiding by your literal request--I think it makes them much more interesting when you have to be careful what you wish for because you might get it, not because you might get smacked for asking.

Of course, this gem says it reverses or perverts, which means it's working as intended for it not to grant you what you asked for. I'd have to read the adventure and see how the overall feel is supposed to be, but I'd personally consider just using it as per my normal wishing rules, but saying that it always included negative consequences--and tried to make them as bad as it could.

One thing you could focus on, if you wanted to go that way, would be finding a way to make featherfall a liability. I'm having a hard time thinking of a truly great example right now, but I have some concepts floating around.

What does featherfall do? It slows the rate of falling. How could this be negative? If it were better to be on the ground right away. What sort of things could make that true?

Perhaps a dangerous storm, or a swarm of abyssal locusts, or flying monkeys. It should be something that makes the wizard see his friend up there and feel like he really messed this one up. If you want a tipping of the hat from the gem, so they catch on that it's cursed, I'd throw in special effects and make the whole situation just overt enough that they all catch on that this is warping of wishes with malice aforethought, rather than merely wishes being wishes.

Just some late night thoughts. Tell us what you come up with.

 

[Quickleaf]

My favorites so far are:
1. Acererak appears to cast featherfall, then laughs at the use of the Gem before attacking party. Never said who or what would cast the feather fall!
2. Featherfall just happens but abyssal locusts or storm hits right then and need to get the NPc to lands quickly. The butterfly effect.

Another idea is to subvert the very premise of what the wizard is trying to accomplish, namely to rescue a friend. Well...what if the NPC is rescued but is no longer friendly? What if they were broken or swayed to the dark side by Acererak? What if they made a deal with some evil force to die so that someone they care about can live...only now that they're back that deal is nullified? What if they went mad in the Tomb of Horrors and covertly plot to lead the party to their death-by-traps, pretending to have witnessed a great treasure?

 

[Sir Brownstone]

Thank you for the ideas. You guys have given me some inspiration.

When the friend was under the effect of feather fall, he became light as a feather and floats to the ground. Maybe Cursed Wishing Gem causes the friend's weight to permenantly shift to the Wizard. Any small breeze will pick the friend up and blow him around, and the Wizard suffers all the effects of the extra weight. The Wizard's strength is 8, and the friend's 200+ lb would really be problematic encumbrancewise.

Please let me know what you guys think.

 

[Mistwell]

I like the idea that the friendly NPC becomes light as a helium balloon, permanently. I imagine the party needs to tie a rope to him, leading him around as he floats in the air above. Going to the bathroom may be a problem...

 

[Umbran]

I don't have my 4e rules at hand, so this may no longer hold...

The friend simply falls from higher up, so that the Feather Fall expires before he hits the ground...

 

[Tortoise]

In this case I would take inspiration from a certain episode of the show WKRP in Cincinati.
"I thought turkeys could fly!"

 

[Dausuul]

I wouldn't go with Acerak himself, but the basic idea is good. A powerful evil wizard appears and casts feather fall on the friend as he pops into existence. The evil wizard then nails the PC wizard with power word kill, hits the friend with trap the soul, and leaves with the friend in a black gemstone in her back pocket.

 

[Umbran]

A powerful evil wizard appears and casts feather fall on the friend as he pops into existence. The evil wizard then nails the PC wizard with power word kill, hits the friend with trap the soul, and leaves with the friend in a black gemstone in her back pocket.

..Thus leading the party into the "Ghost Tower of Inverness" adventure....