Anyone want to help adjudicate a Wish spell?

[Bad Paper]

Give them all another chance at that secondary Fortitude save.

This is the one I would do. It's a clean response to a clean wish. If any (or all) fail the second one, then so be it. You can't cheat destiny.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Myself I would combine this:

What would I do? I would grant the wish. It's a good, clean, simple wish. It's a selfless act of the sorceress, and I feel a good use of a spell that is often abused both by players and, more often, by DMs. Let the character's come back and be done with it. Simple, really.

with this:

Might I suggest something? Marut.

Have the wish bring them back just fine, but their use of magic to avoid death attracts the attention of a Marut Inevitable (3.5MM p.159), who hounds them and demands that they correct the balance of life and death - by dying.

I would craft it so that they don't necessarily have to fight him, maybe running a quest for him (killing a lich or some other undead would also balance the scales, for instance).

This gives the sorceress' player good value for her five-thousand xp and 9th-level spell, while at the same time providing a consequence to balance the benefit, and a plot hook as well! Everybody wins.

IME, very few spellcasters will ever cast Wish. It's stupidly expensive. A cleric will have Miracle prepped every day. The wizard isn't going to prep Wish unless he's crafting a Tome. This wasn't a crazy Wish. I'd give it to them, then start plotting out the dungeon where the lich lives that they're going to have to kill to stave off the Inevitable.

 

[Someone]

From a rules lawyering point of view, she´s effectively asking for three resurrections, and a wish only grants one per casting. It´s like wishing "I wish this 1 million gold lottery ticket was the winner". I´d go for a reduced effect: they are revived, but unconscious (they ´resisted´the effect not dieing)

 

[Infiniti2000]

If you allow the wish to grant three resurrections, not only are you breaking the rules on wishes, but you are setting yourself up for two significant problems.

1. Now that you are known to break the rules in the PC's favor, they will continue to drum up more scenarios, possibly even worse. You will know it's all over once one of the players mumbles, "But, you let us do the wish."
2. You are breaking the rules to cover up a serious tactical error on the players' part. You are now saying, "It's okay to do whatever you want 'cause I got your back." The party knows about poison. They specifically should know about iron golem poison. They should have neutralized the poison or at least delayed it before chasing the golem OFF THE CLIFF when they were so badly injured as it was. If the players' can't think of the danger they're in, then you shouldn't solve their problems.

 

[Talmun]

...That or let them all be rezz'd, and then immediately send at inevitable at them..the one that doesn't like ppl hosing the time stream and/or using wish.

What a great idea...

(see my post upthread)

 

[rushlight]

I can understand the desire to keep the PCs around, but be carefyl what you start. Essentially, you're adding a "save" button to your game. Anytime things go wrong - just get the sorcerer out. For a measly 5k XP she can undo whatever. You've effectively houseruled that one Wish equals three True Resurrections.

Personally, I'd knock their heads together like Moe and give them new character sheets. In your game, 5000 xp = 75,000gp. That's not a shabby tradeoff.

In the end, allowing the wish is the same as just saying, "Wow guys, that sucked. Let's just pretend it never happened." You will totally eliminate any fear of death ("Ehh, just jump down the 700 foot tall Red Dragon's mouth. If you die trying to cut it's heart out, we'll just pretend it never happened.") Also, you'll make using dice pointless ("Well, you fight a hard monster and win! You get 5000xp!" and "Well, you fight a hard monster and win! You lose 5000xp!") will be the result of every combat. There's no risk when 5k XP can undo anything. And honestly, 5k is not that much to a 17th level caster. It's only 4 challenges of equal CR. During those same 4 challenges, the player would have racked up only 36,000 gp. If you've got a spell that trades 5k XP for 75,000 gp, then you've got one hell of an exchange rate going!

In the end, the players should take their breaks. Life is hard in the big city. That's not to say that they must lose their characters, however. Consider that on average, a "Mass" version of a spell is 3-4 levels higher than the original spell. I'd allow a Wish to create a "Mass Raise Dead" effect for 5k XP plus 25,000 gp in diamond dust (or the disappearance of an equal value in magic items!). Everyone loses a level, but their characters keep on going. They're also out the XP plus the cost of a single True Res as well, so they aren't likely to use this as a "save" button unless forced to. It keeps your campaign on track (since the PCs are all alive again) but it assigns a price for dying. I would consider that a perfect balance to the equation.

 

[Raging Epistaxis]

By wording the wish:

I wish that [Character A], [Character B], and [Character C] had resisted the poison that just killed them.

they effectively eliminate the 'roll again' option. (emphasis mine)

You could also revive the Golem - heck they are getting 3 rez'es, why not another for the bargain? Which would effectively be similar to reversing 'the clock' back to the beginning of the round on which they were poisoned.

I agree completely with the Inevitable being summoned by the wish, and some difficult follow-up adventure/quest/geas whatever to avoid the consequences of the wish.

Or just say "Fizzle". and give the Sorc RP credit for such a selfless act. Perhaps some Good outsider/diety notices the act and rewards them appropriately at a later time?

R E

 

[Joshua Randall]

Getting all three of the PCs back from the dead is clearly outside the scope of a single wish. I'd allow one and only one PC to be returned -- roll randomly if you don't want to pick one.

The rest of the party then has to determine how to get the other two back from the dead. At such high level, it shouldn't be a big problem.

 

[mvincent]

I believe, if they made their first save, they shouldn't have had to make their second save? Or am I mistaken?

Has anyone answered this yet? I'd like to know also.

 

[mvincent]

Since it was Iron Golem poison, they died.

Are you playing 3.0?

Note that in 3.5, secondary damage is 3d4 Con (not death)