D&D 3E/3.5 List of Problem 3.5e spells? Where?

[Vysirez]

I have to say that I think the "don't twist his result" clause in the wish spell only applies if the character is casting the spell hmself. If the character is getting the spell cast on his behalf by someone else he had better trust that person. If it's a semi-hostile extraplanar creature that you just summoned from whatever he was doing, then you deserve what you get.

Bascially the statement in the wish spell applies to the person casting it. IE the Efreeti can get a fairly predicatable result if he stays in the standards set. That doesnt mean that he has to give the exact result the wizard was wanting if he can avoid it. If you are assuming otherwise I think you are assuming too much.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I have to say that I think the "don't twist his result" clause in the wish spell only applies if the character is casting the spell hmself. If the character is getting the spell cast on his behalf by someone else he had better trust that person. If it's a semi-hostile extraplanar creature that you just summoned from whatever he was doing, then you deserve what you get.

Bascially the statement in the wish spell applies to the person casting it. IE the Efreeti can get a fairly predicatable result if he stays in the standards set. That doesnt mean that he has to give the exact result the wizard was wanting if he can avoid it. If you are assuming otherwise I think you are assuming too much.

Although I supose you could conjure/dominate or conjure/charm the beastie? Perhaps killing it afterwards? That still isn't going to make its relatives very happy.

As for balor mining... IIRC. There is the name problem:

If you don't have the exact name of a demon, then you just get one of its type:

If they don't have the name of a 'minor' balor, could the offending character 'accidentaly' get hold of Grizblob the Horrible - an old and experienced Balor, who happens to have 30+ levels as a wizard?

What happens if the name they got was a bit out of date. Grizblob the normal has changed into Grizblob the horrible in the 3000 years since their planar book was written.

Besides, the same thing applies to balors as effreti - they will work for someone - surely the boss is going to be hacked off if someone is killing off his highest ranking servants?

Frankly I'd rather have the City of Brass after me than a Duke of Hell?

 

[Scion]

Character says "wish to make me stronger three times in rapid succession". Efreet grants the first one by permanently turning the wizard into a Troll, complete with the mental attributes. The second two make the troll slightly stronger, by shifting points from intelligence to strength.

Just because the list is given in the PHB doesn't mean that the efreet summoned has to choose one of those interpretations of the wish. Heck, it could even just wish for the wizard to be targetted by bull's strength, then animal affinity, then get a temporary chance to wear a belt of strength +6.

There is no way to word a wish that an intelligent evil creature cannot twist, and that does not use game mechanics.

Of course if said character already had an intelligence of up near 30 then as a player I would be well within my rights to just say, 'my character spends a few weeks thinking up the perfectly worded wish useing various languages that he knows to come up with something that means exactly what I want in terms that cannot be twisted in any way.' This of course is a bit of a cop out, but then so is twisting something that is nearly impossible to take from out of character terms into character terms. Strength has many meanings, but for the player it usually means the stat, but a character saying, 'my strength statistic' is generally considered bad form. There has to be a line drawn somewhere otherwise you cant even begin to do the most rational of things.

Telling the efreet to kill something could be done in many different ways, however it sees fit. If you tell it to kill something useing a toothpick its ways are much more limited. If you tell it to kill something with said toothpick by putting it through the enemies heart it is even further limited, so on and so forth. You will have several rounds with which to describe exactly what you want from the efreet, it should be a simple matter for even though lowly int scores of 14 or so to come up with a foolproof plan, because you have control of the efreet. (14 roughly being 140 IQ, not to mention int 30..lol)

 

[Nail]

chonjurer has a list on the wizard.com boards.

Where? Link?

 

[Vurt]

Telling the efreet to kill something could be done in many different ways, however it sees fit. If you tell it to kill something useing a toothpick its ways are much more limited. If you tell it to kill something with said toothpick by putting it through the enemies heart it is even further limited, so on and so forth. You will have several rounds with which to describe exactly what you want from the efreet, it should be a simple matter for even though lowly int scores of 14 or so to come up with a foolproof plan, because you have control of the efreet. (14 roughly being 140 IQ, not to mention int 30..lol)

As a DM, I would never reward a player for abusing a loophole in the rules.

While the character may have an Int 30 at his disposal to create a "perfectly worded wish", I have to ask, could an Int 50 character come up with an even better worded wish? If so, then the original is not "perfectly worded". If not, then maybe it's not that much different from a wish coined by an Int 20 or even an Int 15 character. Which is to say, no wish can plan for all contingencies, and hence, no wish cannot be twisted by an evil creature granting it. If nothing else, my Rule 0 tells me this is absolutely true in my game.

Players shouldn't count on their sense of game logic to trump the DM's own sense of fairness, especially in his game world.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[MerakSpielman]

If you're too much smarter than the Efreet, it could honestly misunderstand your perfectly worded, high-falootin' big words, no matter how precise their definition is.

 

[Nail]

Alright, it's official: I'm sorry I mentioned Balor Mining and Infinite Inherent Bonuses. As should be clear to everyone lurking or participating in this thread, the spells these tactics are based on are two of the most broken spells in the game.

Oh yeah: And I'm right about the rules interp.

Anyway, the other spells nominated (and seconded?) are:

Enlarge Person
Polar Ray
Illusionary Wall
Emotion
Alter Self
Blasphemy
Silence

Of these (as a player), I've been most abusive with Silence. There will be no enemy spell casting! That spell, centered on my pal the speedy fighter, makes NPC spell casters irrelevent after round 1.

Heh.

...but as a DM, I haven't decided what to do about it.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Somebody had the idea in another thread to cast silence on tanglefoot bags before throwing them. A real pain for enemy casters!

 

[Scion]

No one ever said it wasnt the place of the dm to find out where these problems are and fix them. That is what the point of this thread is I believe.

Now, if the player does come up with something in the rules that you had not thought of then it is perfectly fine to talk with them and come up with something later. However, most of the comments made here have seemed to be more like the dm saying, 'oh, clever, I know how to reward cleverness.. where is my Smite Button..' and I have seen a lot of dms like this in real life. That may not be your intent, but I feel it is definately my place to try and point out that it shouldnt happen that way.

Perfect wording is not needed, perfect understanding it not required. A moderate dose of each should be more than useful.

If you, as the dm, cannot come up with some way to use in game terms for out of game effects (such as those that are perfectly well allowed by spells already in existance) then the onus does not fall to the player. Come up with whatever ruling you feel is fair and stick with it, but make sure it is fair to all involved. If your npc's can make up wishes or contigencies or what have you's then the players should be able to do the same. If someone out there has a +5 inherant bonus to a stat from wishes then they have figured out the way which means that other people should do so as well, have done so as well, and will do so again.

No one here doubts rule 0, no one here is trying to rain on your parade. Dont worry, you still have ultimate power in your campaign setting.

Here is that link by the way nail

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86768&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

 

[Nail]

No one ever said it wasnt the place of the dm to find out where these problems are and fix them. That is what the point of this thread is I believe.

Indeed!

.... most of the comments made here have seemed to be more like the dm saying, 'oh, clever, I know how to reward cleverness.. where is my Smite Button..' and I have seen a lot of dms like this in real life.

(rueful laugh)

That's what's bugged me in some of the responses to this thread. Ah well.

Here is that link by the way nail

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86768&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

Excellent! Just what I needed. I spend a short while yesterday looking over the Wizard's boards for this, and missed it. Thanks!