Wish

[Feeroper]

I know this spell was removed for 4th, and probobly for good reason, but i would like to include it in a campaign comming up and i was wondering how you would suggest ruling it?

I believe in prevous editions, it cost a portion of the casters XP, and the effect would have negative results if the wish was not smartly worded. I want to keep the effect the same, but how would you rule the cost of Wish? XP loss? If so how much? and also, would it make more sense as a ritual? Or a daily power?

Any input would be appretiated. Thanks!

 

[Ryujin]

Going back to the original AD&D, Limited Wish typically held to the letter of the request. Wish was more in the spirit of the request.

You would be best off making it a level 31+ spell and, therefore, only available via item, scroll, or divine intervention. That way you can keep a better handle on its use. It would be a ritual, rather than a power, with a casting time equal to the amount of time that it took to vocalize the request.

 

[mneme]

Wish was pretty much always a bad idea.

That said, yes, make it a ritual, put it up at the 29th level, don't have it cost XP (things simply don't cost XP in 4e; it's not part of the mechanic), and it can't produce an effect above its level-2 (which means that you can't wish for more astral diamonds than you spent on the spell components, among other things).

 

[Feeroper]

Indeed. I like the idea of divine itervention, or an aladdin type situation, finding an enchanted item that allows the owner 3 wishes only and then the item is useless. But also, it would contain a warning against how you word your wish.

 

[Abisashi]

I know this spell was removed for 4th, and probobly for good reason, but i would like to include it in a campaign comming up and i was wondering how you would suggest ruling it?

Why do you want to include it in your campaign? Your reasoning would help us help you create a Wish spell better tailored to your campaign.


If you are giving it out via divine intervention/Aladdin's lamp, I wouldn't add any extra costs (XP, etc.), and I'd just make it a 1 or 3-use artifact with no other powers. You might consider being more lenient/favorable in your interpretation of wishes if the god/genie likes the character.

 

[Ryujin]

Indeed. I like the idea of divine itervention, or an aladdin type situation, finding an enchanted item that allows the owner 3 wishes only and then the item is useless. But also, it would contain a warning against how you word your wish.

It makes things a little more interesting if you make the wishes of less than godlike power (capable of doing something that is already within the scope of the game) and attach them to a powerful and useful item that will be useless, once the wish(es) are expended. That makes them THINK about using them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've seen very few cases where a wish was anything less than than a pain in the butt for the DM and it almost goes without saying that the net effect is unlikely to ever be anything beyond what a character could get by some other means.

The legitimate use of wishes would basically devolve down to being able to accomplish some effect that the character COULD at least in theory accomplish by some other less convenient or reliable means, or at somewhat more expense by some other means.

If I gave a player a wish in 4e that would be how it would play out. If it is a 30th level power (and I really don't see how it would ever be less than that) then it would at most accomplish something similar to other 30th level or lower powers. In other words you could use it to attack someone or gain some treasure or whatnot. You might even be able to use it to do something that is slightly outside of the normal rules, like gaining some power or feat you couldn't normally have.

Things that might be appropriate could be say:

Gaining a treasure parcel
Gaining an immediate use of some high level power one time
Gaining access to a power of another class as a swap for an existing power IF it didn't allow some stupendous cheese
Gaining information or other things of value that could be gained via some other ritual (perhaps one the character cannot access directly for whatever reason).
Gaining some bonus equivalent to one you could gain with an epic tier feat

Like artifacts, wishes really can't be assigned a specific cost. They would be a unique boon granted one time. Were a lower level character to acquire a wish somehow I would think the way to handle it would be to look at the power of the wish request and compare it to the level of the PC. Something far beyond the range of the character's level would be quite likely to come with some nasty strings attached.

 

[Phaezen]

Just throwing out a couple of ideas here,

You could make wish a high level ritual, but recquire the caster to dicover the true name of a creature that can grant a wish (for example you could rule that pitfiends can grant 1 wish every 100 years in your setting), make the discovery of this information part of the campaign, possibly have a rival group also looking for the information as tthe creature in question could have granted a wish just under 100 years previously.

You could also tie a wish like power to an artifact, but recquire the player to appease the artifact in some way before the wish is granted. If the appeasement is even slightly contrary to the character's morales, the group's morales or the main quest it should add some interesting tension to the game.

Doing it along these lines could add greatly to the game instead of the wizard summarily acquiring the wish spell.

Phaezen

 

[Starfox]

Going more on an Aladdin theme, I would make Wish a ritual capable of creating great and wonderful things like palaces. I would not let it make magical effects, magical items, or change your character in any way.

Such a wish could be level 20 or so; by then most mundane wealth is easily accessible anyway. Basically, what it does is convert gold to palaces faster than an architect can, but probably less efficiently. In other worlds, you save time, but cost is 150% normal or somesuch.

 

[Tuft]

One way I've seen the old. more freely interpreted wishes of the older editions used was as "Undo buttons" after major screw ups, i.e. "I wish X never happened". (A very classical usage of wishes indeed.) Just roll back the stage of the campaign to what it was before the bad thing happened.

One such incident was when the party met some advance scouts of an invading army. "Hey, if we surrender to these, they will transfer us to their generals, and those are the ones we are after". Unfortunately the one player who liked to call the shots, and got very irritated af someone else did, was not in the mood that day. So we were marched to their main camp; nobody acted. We surrendered our weapons and armor; nobody acted. We were led in front of the generals; nobody acted. They sentenced us to death; nobody acted. The marched us to the gallows; nobody acted. They put the nooses around our necks; nobody acted. The players started to look nervously at each other, and the DM started to get pale. They pulled the lever on the first trapdoor, and that character started to roll death saves vs strangulation. Now, finally, people reacted, and started to try to hand-to-hand the hangmen while bound hands and feet. A serious scuffle broke out, and the party scattered through out the camp, getting chopped down one by one. One of the thieves managed to reach the tent which had our equipment, which contained a Scroll of Wish.

Next we knew, we were back on our horses, looking down at the invading army, on the day before, and finding ourselves saying: "let's not go down there".

Now, that's a game effect that is easy to define and harder than many others to misuse...