D&D 5E Casting Wish To Duplicate Homebrew Spells

[jgsugden]

I allow:

1.) Any spell in any WotC source that is 8th level or below.
2.) Anything they propose that I would allow to be an 8th level spell.
3.) Spells modified by metamagic so long as the slot+sorcery point cost would not exceed an 8th level spell equivalent (I have a formula).

This is one spell. You can cast it once pe Long Rest. It is the most iconic spell in the game. It is more of a class feature than a spell, honestly - so it should be very powerful.

 

[Mort]

I allow:

1.) Any spell in any WotC source that is 8th level or below.
2.) Anything they propose that I would allow to be an 8th level spell.
3.) Spells modified by metamagic so long as the slot+sorcery point cost would not exceed an 8th level spell equivalent (I have a formula).

Very reasonable. #2 is a bit hard to adjudicate, but once you get practiced at it (and as long as you are consistent) it shouldn't be a big problem.

But what the OP is proposing seems to exceed these guidelines. I guess it depends on what "tweak" means at any given time.

This is one spell. You can cast it once pe Long Rest. It is the most iconic spell in the game. It is more of a class feature than a spell, honestly - so it should be very powerful.

Absolutely.

But there's a reason it's split into 2 sections and being too flexible with the first essentially eliminates the second - and IMO that's a step too far.

 

[LordEntrails]

It seems to me that without specific examples the discussion is indeterminant. All of us can think of "tweaked" spells we would allow, and examples we would NOT allow.

Would I allow a MM to have a range of 120ft? Sure, but would I give it range line of sight through a magic telescope?

Would I allow Fireball to do necrotic damage instead? Sure. But, what about make it necrotic, double damage, and have no save?

 

[Kurotowa]

Let's turn it around and make it a practical question. "Do I, the DM, want to make Wish an entire freeform magic system, one where every use involves an OOC debate on if the effect is equivalent to an 8th level spell or lower?"

I don't know about you, but my answer to that is HELL no. That's highly disruptive to the game and impossible to balance at all well. So let's spin some arcanobabble about how a lot of the art of developing a spell is achieving a sweet spot where the magical forces are in balance and the sympathetic resonances are just right. You can't alter the result willy nilly without destabilizing the whole thing. That's why upcasting has specifically defined effects, rather than allowing the caster to pump up whatever aspect they please. And why Sorcerer metamagic is a rare and special thing.

Now, can Wish go ahead and ignore those limitations? Sure it can. But it's harder, so it comes at a cost. One which the Wish spell very helpfully defines.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Let's turn it around and make it a practical question. "Do I, the DM, want to make Wish an entire freeform magic system, one where every use involves an OOC debate on if the effect is equivalent to an 8th level spell or lower?"

I don't know about you, but my answer to that is HELL no. That's highly disruptive to the game and impossible to balance at all well. So let's spin some arcanobabble about how a lot of the art of developing a spell is achieving a sweet spot where the magical forces are in balance and the sympathetic resonances are just right. You can't alter the result willy nilly without destabilizing the whole thing. That's why upcasting has specifically defined effects, rather than allowing the caster to pump up whatever aspect they please. And why Sorcerer metamagic is a rare and special thing.

Now, can Wish go ahead and ignore those limitations? Sure it can. But it's harder, so it comes at a cost. One which the Wish spell very helpfully defines.

I think that most DMs who would be DMing at such high levels would probably have some sense of the balance up to a certain point. Beyond such a point however, I agree that the difficulty ramps up higher and higher. The relative scarcity of 7th to 9th level spells compared to other spell levels in published DnD 5e works would be a big contributor to that difficulty, since balance in design requires points of reference and comparison.

As Wish can only be cast once per long rest, I don't think that it would step on the Sorcerer's feet so much, especially at 17th level when sorcerers have a very large number of sorcery points.

I suppose this also brings up the question of what the gameplay experience of the players and DM in mind is for such a situation. A player who has a good grasp on the game rules might be trusted to handle a tweaked spell for Wish within reason, but a player with very little experience in the game might overshoot easily. A DM who has run games at high levels in turn would have an easier time of it than a DM who has only run games at low to mid levels.

 

[Li Shenron]

How would you define "established" then? In-game, the wizard may know nothing about the intricacies of faith that enable a cleric to cast divine magic, yet still recreate a spell that normally only clerics would be able to cast, by the description of Wish itself.

I would rule that at least the caster must know such a spell exist and, so as to be able to say "I wish to  duplicate <spell_name>".

That would be my minimum requirement but possibly I may also rule that the caster needs to know how the spell works, in the sense similar of knowing what is written on the spell describe in the book, because presumably the caster wants to be able to select the target and any other variable effect. If the spell is e.g. a personal secret spell of an NPC or group, knowing it exists would not be enough to duplicate it without stress.

I would not consider knowing how a Cleric earns from faith the right to cast the spell a requirement.

 

[the Jester]

By logic, a tweaked existing spell would be a homebrew spell, since a homebrew spell by definition is a non-[official content] spell, therefore a tweaked existing spell, which is not [official content], IS homebrew.

I reject your reasoning. I have a 174-page long book of homebrewed spells printed out. Those are established existing spells in my campaign. A tweaked version of a spell is not the same as one I have, at minimum, tweaked, vetted, and checked for balance.

 

[MarkB]

Leave the Wish out of it for a moment. Would you, as a DM, allow a player to apply these non-standard, ad hoc effects to a spell when upcasting it using regular spell slots, without prior approval by the DM?

If so, then it's reasonable to consider those to be standard spell effects for the purposes of Wish. If not, then it isn't.

 

[delericho]

I think it depends on how you view magic in general:

If you take the view that magic can do anything, and the existing spells just represent the ones that spellcasters have thus far codified, I'd tend to allow someone to homebrew a spell on the fly. Provided it's clearly 8th level of lower, I'd say go for it.

If you take the view that magic can do anything but some things are easier than others, and therefore the existing spells represent the 'easy' things that can be done, then I'd allow the wish under the "dangerous effects" clause.

But you may take the view that magic can't do anything, and that there are some weird and wonderful rules about what is possible. (And, indeed, some of those might be near-trivial!) In that case, I might well not allow the wish at all.

Edit to add: for myself, I'd tend towards #1 but use a very conservative estimate of what's in scope. But then I've only ever seen a handful of wishes used IMC ever.

 

[James Gasik]

It depends on what you're trying to to do, really. Altering parameters of a spell to the point where it still falls in line with what an 8th level spell can do? Sure, why not? But the issue here is defining exactly what an 8th level spell can do in the first place, something best left to spell research and discussions with the DM- if in the middle of an adventure you suddenly say "I wish for intercontinental ballistic magic missile", and then rattle off what you want it to do, I'm going to tell you what I think it does off the cuff and include a free Gibbs slap for springing that on me (to your character, I don't condone violence against players).