Can you do this with a wish?

[EOL]

Wishes bend and break a lot of rules, as such they are always going to require a substantial amount of DM oversight. That being said I think that allowing a feat from a wish is not out of line, but as others have said it should be probably limited to feats you already have the qualifications for and no more than a few feats ever from wishes.

In other words people arguing that wish does not explicitly mention a feat need to realize that as much as wish has been qualified and defined it is still always going to be something the DM is going to have to "play by ear".

 

[Artoomis]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Can you do this with a wish?

His point is not about "ability increases", it is the following:

Allowed under Core Rules: Human Com1, Str 18, Dex 18, Con 18.
Not allowed under Core Rules: Human Com1 with 3 Feats.

Anyone may have arbitrarily high abilities. No one is allowed more than a limited number of Feats. Allowing wishes to alter the regulated number feats allows players to take a PC to a new compaign and say, "Oh, why do I have 25 Feats? I wished for them all. It just took me a long time to make up the XP I spent."

You can do nearly the same thing with ability scores - raising them all by 5 points. "Why do I have a 80-pt character?" "Well, I started with 32 points, but I used a bunch of wishes - boy it took a long time to make up the XP I used for all those wishes."

Thus my suggestion to treat feats like a single ability score for wish purposes.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Re: Feats are important!

Remember, the DM can refuse Money or Treasure, but can't refuse XP.

Refuse? No.

Severly Reduce? Yes.

--All-Powerful DM Spikey

 

[RedShirtNo5]

Alternate viewpoint

Wish permits you to:

"Create a valuable item, even a magic item, of up to 15,000 gp in value."

This is the section I would use to evaluate the reasonableness of most requests for special abilities, such as feats, increased spell capacity, etc.

As a first cut, I would look through the DMG for an item that grants the feat and determine it's market price. If market price is more than 15,000 gp, the wish cannot create an item that grants the feat, and it should not be able to bestow the feat as an inherent ability.

Furthermore, unlike an item, an inherent ability does not take up a slot and cannot be destroyed, stolen or dispelled. So I would probably permit a wish to grant a special ability that I would price at at or less than 3,750 gp if it was in a normal magic item that takes a slot. This is more generous than the value of a +1 stat enhancement item (usually 1,000 gp), but prohibits the person from duplicating the effect of a +2 stat enhancement item (4,000 gp), and IMO seems about equivalent to the gp value that can be created.

I would permit the character to have up to five such special abilities, total (whether a feat, or something else).

-RedShirt

 

[CRGreathouse]

I wouldn't let my players wish for feats, skill points, increased skill point caps, or BAB.

I _would_ let them wish for XP, though... 5,000 per wish.

 

[MythandLore]

Re: Re: Re: Can you do this with a wish?

Feats are more difficult to have? Let's look at it...

1st level human wizard - 3 feats, 0 ability increases
1st level human fighter - 3 feats, 0 ability increases
1st level human ranger - 3 virtual feats, 2 other feats, 0 ability increase

I find it difficult for you to justify your statement that feats are much more difficult to have than ability scores.

Let's take a look at your idea, it's a bit flawed because you are looking at first level and your not looking at ablitly scores, BTW you start with the feats at first level SO! YOU! DON'T! INCREASE! THEM! At first level! There are no increases to anything! Get it? - DUH!:

1st level Dwarf Cleric - 1 Feat, up to 108 ability points
1st level human wizard - 2 Feats, 1 Pre-Picked Bonus Feat, up to 108 ability points
1st level human fighter - 2 Feats, 1 Bonus Picked from a List Feat, up to 108 ability points
1st level human ranger - 2 Feats, 1 Pre-picked Bonus Feat, 2 Virtual feats, up to 108 ability points

So if your a 1st level Dwarf Cleric 1 Feat = up to 108 ability points
But if your a 1st level human Regardless of class you can have 2 real Feats, so to him 1 feat = up to 54 ability points
Or if your a 1st level Human Ranger you have 2 Real Feats and 3 Fake Feats, even if you count the fake feats that's 1 feat = up to 21 ability points
Now we've been using up to 108 right?
Well what if the guy really really sucks???
Say He has 50 ablitily points total, that's like an 8 in each score, he retarded, weak, hated, and trips over himself.
Say he's a Dwarf Cleric again.
That's Still 1 Feat = 50 ability points.
What if he trys to be the munchkin Ranger you say?
Even if we count his fake feats he's still 1 feat = 10 ability points

But you say: "I'm not foolish, what about at high level! Take that!"
Okay lets make a 20th level Human Fighter - He gets the most fake feats.
And lets assume some how he made it to 20th with only 50 total ability points (He's the weakest fighter ever with 45 points then gained 5 for levels).
He has 8 Feats + 11 bonus feats.
So we'll count the fake feats too, to make it look like he has lots of real feats.
Thats still 19 feats (8 real 11 fake) vs. 50 ability points.
Or 1 feat = 2+ abiltiy points

If it was a 20th level Dwarf Barbarian with max abilty points he would have 7 feats and 113 abiltiy points.
1 feat 16+ ablity points.

So, at no point in the game, NEVER EVER, is a single ability point equal to a feat.

___________________ADDED_______________________
BTW at you really shouldn't be counting things like the fighters bonus feats because they are class features, which a wish can't give you anyway.
Yo can't use a wish to cast like your one level higher or gain the evasion or uncanny dodge like a thief, so you can't gain the the bonus feats with a wish.
OR you "could" but it would be one of dangerous wording things.

So a 20th level Human fighter has 8 feats.
8 feats to 113 ablilty points is 1 feat = 14+ ablity points
8 feats to 50 ability points is 1 feat = 6+ ability points

You should not "really" count the extra feat for being human ether, because racial abilities (darkvision 60', Elf-blooded, etc) can't be granted by a non-dangerous wish.

 

[green slime]

Except, MythandLore, that your measerement is inaccurate, in that no character raises stats that are unimportant to them, if they have a choice.

And a stat of 20 in Intelligence is worth far more to a low level wizard than the same level Fighter, even more so than a feat, at those levels.

So the problem only REALLY appears if you only regard the HIGH level end of the character spectrum, and only if you do not pay any attention whatsoever.

So what if the 21st level epic character gets an extra 9th level spell slot? Just because you let the character wish for the feat once, does in no way force you to grant the wish the next time the player asks. If you limit the power of wish to grant feats 3 to 5 times, and feats for which you qualify, you could also limit this to grant a single feat only once. So you couldn't ask for Extra Spell (9th level) a second time. (But perhaps allowing the character Extra Spell (8th level))

The problem with new players appearing with old characters: You have every right as the DM to deny the player the character!! This is a non-problem, an imaginary whinge!

 

[Cabral]

Just a note, but the duration for a wish is unclear. Since wishing for an ability score increase is similar to combining bull's strength (or a similar spell for other attributes) with permancy, I would say it has similar duration. A permanent duration would mean the wish effects could be dispelled as well as detected (strong transmutation effect.). Additionally, the character would be cut off from the effects while in an anti-magic area.

If you use this interpretation, then a character who wished for a feat could lose it and be cut off from any others that used that as a prerequisite as well as any levels in prestige classes that used the required feat.

If you allow skills and feats to be wished for, I reccomend you use this interpretation too.

 

[MasterOfHeaven]

That makes the Wish spell about as useful as the Permanency spell when granting ability bonuses... which is to say, not very. Considering the huge experience cost you pay for the spell, I think it's a bad idea to restrict in such a fashion.

 

[Cabral]

No. It would still be more useful. Permancey there aren't any ability increasing spells under by-the-book allowed by permancy. Also, using wish to acheive the affects of prestidigitation spell is pretty damn useless but doesn't mean I have to modify the wish rules to accomodate that. The wish spell is the only way to magically increase your ability scores (to my knowledge) and so it's hard to benchmark it against anything else.