Is it safe to give away wishes?

[Noumenon]

I have a module with an efreet in it that can give wishes to PCs three times a day. It also suggests hooking the players with a genie that offers a wish as reward. There's also an altar that you give you a limited wish. Wouldn't that be massively distorting for an adventure for level 3-5 characters?

Are there any threads extant explaining what's a good thing to wish for if you only get one?

 

[Crothian]

It all depends on the DM. Some DMs see wishes as rewards and others see them as ways to punish players.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What is good to wish on?
- World Peace
Of course, it would be screwed over by the Genie....

3 wishes per day is a lot. Mechanically speaking (in 3.x), a Wish could grant you an ability score increase. (1 Wish per +1 inherent bonus, they don't stack, so if you want a +3 bonus, you need 3 wishes at once.) That might be one of the most powerful wishes the game rules describe (and wouldn't result in you screwing over by "secondary" effects of the Wish.) It's also pretty boring, overall.
You can raise a dead person, and also replicate spell effects (8th level or so is the limit?). That might serve as guidelines at what might be reasonable to ask for.

I think one of the best wishes you can give away is one that is not egoistic and helps other people. If World Peace is too much, you might help a local village, maybe guarantee that it will never have a bad harvest and that they will never grow ill.

It could be something related to the module story. Maybe a wish is required to open a portal, or to get an item that can be used to defeat the villain or one of his powerful monsters.
You could ask for a powerful magical item. A Longsword +5 or a Ring of Invisibility. (The Wish spell also has guidelines on how powerful the item can be.)

The question is - is it about "power-gaming" or "narrative impact"?

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If you're not talking about 3.x and the Wish spell, consider how the wish is realized. For example, maybe the Genie can offer to fulfill you a wish, but he can only do what is in his own power. So if you demand riches, the Genie will have to steal the money or become a succesful banker (or help you become one.) Or he has to locate a dragon hoard and help you find it and defeat its owner. (Or he guides you there when the owner is away and you will have to deal with the consequences alone)

 

[freyar]

Consider what an efreeti would want in exchange for a wish. They're evil manipulators, after all. I'm sure you could find a balancing price to pay.

 

[Squizzle]

If you're not talking about 3.x and the Wish spell, consider how the wish is realized. For example, maybe the Genie can offer to fulfill you a wish, but he can only do what is in his own power. So if you demand riches, the Genie will have to steal the money or become a succesful banker (or help you become one.) Or he has to locate a dragon hoard and help you find it and defeat its owner. (Or he guides you there when the owner is away and you will have to deal with the consequences alone)

Oh goddamn, you got to say it before I did. I was going to recommend almost exactly this: "wishes" being things that the efreet is willing to do for the characters, as if engaging in a highly restricted (three requests a day) form of indentured servitude. As Mustrum hints, I'd overtly recommend using the wishes as the day's adventure hooks. If they wish for riches, the efreet robs royal coffers, declaring loudly that he is taking the wealth for his masters, Their Names Here; or he mystically transports the characters instantly into a sealed vault, requiring a skill challenge to escape; etc.

There will be a temptation to use further wishes to get out of wish-induced adventures: "Take us out of this vault!" While you could just pile more complication--e.g., the efreet excorts them out through the vault door, which is for them, for a moment, as immaterial as smoke, and the guards on the other side become extremely interested in what the hell is happening--I'd recommend restricting the wishes to three specific times a day. Maybe they get one wish in the morning when they rise, one wish at midday, and one wish at night before they go to sleep. If they miss a "wish meeting" (perhaps being rendered unconscious via blunt trauma, and thus unavailable in the morning), that wish is lost.

I'd avoid using the wishes to put the players into inescapable screwjobs, but so long as you can think quickly on your feet, you could have a lot of fun twisting their words to put them into high-risk, high-reward adventures.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's fine. Can lead to wonderful and interesting opportunities.

I gave the 7th level Eberron party I was DMing for a ring with a wish, and they agonised about when and were to use it. In the end it was used for exactly the right purpose at exactly the right moment.

 

[Noumenon]

You could ask for a powerful magical item. A Longsword +5 or a Ring of Invisibility. (The Wish spell also has guidelines on how powerful the item can be.)

I guess that was what really worried me. +1 to a stat is nothing, neither is "I wish I always had free chocolate." But a +5 longsword at 4th level, that's pretty broken. But now that I look at the spell, can you even wish for a +5 longsword?

When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.

If you rule that the genie's wishes are the standard 5,000 XP and you can't contribute your own XP to him, that would prevent building any magic items. Otherwise, a 5th level character could give up one level (4000 XP) and get a +5 longsword. That would be worth it. Which way is it supposed to work?

 

[Ariosto]

At worst, the players should have the option the Lords of Demonland choose at the end of The Worm Ouroboros.