Planar binding = unlimited wishes?

[Jack Simth]

I'd like to emphasize that if the efreeti really is that much weaker than the PCs, the revenge shouldn't be coming back later and trying to kill them, since that's too easily solved, but rather looking for other people to get revenge on them instead, and/or going around messing up their plans (impersonating them, trashing their reputation, impersonating allies of theirs and sending them off on wild goose chases, messing with their stuff in secret, messing with their friends)... that sort of thing.

Make the efreeti a wily little {illegitamate son}. A potential BBEG, for that matter.

BBEG: What are you doing inside my sanctum?
Efreeti: Well, I heard we have an enemy in common.... got a few little chores that need doing? Wish and it will be so..... three today, three tomorrow, three the next..... for, oh, about a week, provided you can get our mutual enemies killed by then.


The one you have to watch out for?

PC: Sorry for the rough call. I hear competition is stiff in the city of brass. Everyone's looking for an edge. Now, I know all y'all have the ability to grant little weakling mortals like me three wishes on a daily basis. Now, you can't use them for yourself... at least, not directly. Now, here's the deal: You either tell me you aren't interested, and our deal is concluded, or, you grant me three wishes, which I'll use to Wish up 25,000 standard gold coins of the realm each time, into different piles. Once I've got the gold from your Wishes to my satisfaction, I'll give you back two of the piles, keeping only one third of the total as a handling fee. 50,000 gp ought to be quite handy in the constant vying for status, no? Oh, and purely up to you, if you want me to do this again some other time, you can leave me your name, and I'll be sure to Call you again at a later date.

How do you say no to that in character... other than inventing things for it, that is?

Edit: Oh, and if he fights you? Don't kill him. Dismiss him. Quickened Dispel Magic, if needed, to remove the Dimensional Anchor you put in place.

 

[GwydapLlew]

My take on this situation is ... meh?

In the legends, genies are constantly summoned and bound to perform services, fulfill wishes and make the binder's life easier. Why should it be any different in D&D?

If a character starts to abuse the situation, then the various Genie rulers will certainly notice - that is one of the risks the sha'ir class (from al-Quadim) takes when he uses his class features. Eventually the efreet will arrange for the offender to be removed, and all that time and energy will be for naught.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Whenever I hear little DM-lesson fantasies like this, I have a fantasy of my own. I have a fantasy of being a player who just bulls ahead and lets the DM destroy my PC. And then afterwards, I'd ask him,

"But who really lost more here, oh DM? I can make a new character in an hour or so, and it will be fun and interesting to do that. You, on the other hand, have to deal with the disruption in your campaign and ending the story we were collectively telling on a sour note. You have to be the one to worry about fitting my new character in and abandoning all the plot threads from my old character. All because you refused to address an out of game problem, out of game. So good luck with that."

And you went into the situation cynically hoping that I would simply put up with this exploit for the sake of my game. You have demonstrated that you have an awful opinion of your fellow gamers and are essentially just trying to have fun at everyone's expense. See, the thing is, you can't just roll up a new character. That's because you're getting the black die. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, jerk.

I don't think my players would pull something this juvenile. Which is why I'm looking for a nice fair way to dissuade them of the idea.

 

[Wolfwood2]

And you went into the situation cynically hoping that I would simply put up with this exploit for the sake of my game. You have demonstrated that you have an awful opinion of your fellow gamers and are essentially just trying to have fun at everyone's expense. See, the thing is, you can't just roll up a new character. That's because you're getting the black die. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, jerk.

Hah, and then I take back control of the fantasy and all the other players get up and follow me out, giving the DM the finger on the way, because it was the DM who was the jerk. Win!

Seriously, my point is that if you put it entirely in terms of in-game difficulty with the request, the the players are liable to take it as a challenge rather than a OOG request. I mean, when you put the key that can save the kingdom inside the keep of the invincible overlord, guarded by three five-headed dragons, that's not a signal that the PCs shouldn't try to get the key.

It's a signal that the PCs should be very _clever_ in getting the key. It's a challenge, and it's no shame to them to take up the challenge.

I don't think my players would pull something this juvenile. Which is why I'm looking for a nice fair way to dissuade them of the idea.

"Please don't do that." The 'please' makes it nice and not having the NPCs do it either makes it fair.

Or you could just ask them, "I don't know, that seems like a problem in the game. Why don't you tell me why people don't do that," and then let them explain it.

 

[Artoomis]

No, definitely not. How do you refute my post above? It's at most +1 to all stats.

No... If you are willing to pay full price, then you could bargain with FIVE djinn to get them to cast the wishes one right after the other.

Seems okay to me. It will only cost about 144,000 gp per stat, right?

That's about the total wealth of of a 14th level character. Seems fair enough.

 

[Artoomis]

But what is the value of the wishes? Essentially it's the value of the Efreeti's time, plus mark-up. Only meta-game considerations say that it needs to be valued equivalently to the cost of a wizard casting a wish. Why should the Efreet charge enormously more than for the use of any of his other 3/day spell-like abilties...

Because he is not stupid and knows their value, perhaps?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Whereas my "limited wish" solution fixes the problem...

IMO, using the rule for conjuration (summoning) as a house rule for conjuration (calling) fixes the problem.

"A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells."

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'd simply say, with utmost frankness to my players, that the reasons for it being a bad idea are entirely RP reasons and that I, myself, don't want to turn the campaign into: "Genie Wars, the RPG".

I usually find it most effective to address the fourth wall at this point and just avoid it altogether. The people I play with aren't jerks, I'm not a jerk, we can all agree that a genie from a race of genies ... the genies have probably figured out how to keep this from becoming a problem. Usually its a horror story. Wishmaster, etc.

Same method I use to keep CN from being a problem and to keep people from playing Evil characters. Sure, we can go around and around spending our game nights playing out how a nation or city gets revenge on evil characters or play through the party getting tired of the CN crazy guy ... but why.

I'd say it's probably like the slippery slope of the Dark Side. Efreet have those Wishes so they can seduce mortals into their own plans. Probably, Efreet sit around rubbing their hands together waiting for somebody to call them up for wishes. And that, more than "we could kill this genie in one round!" aught to scare the characters/players into not doing it. Calling up timeless evil to make deals for personal power is pretty much the definition of Really Bad Idea.

--fje

 

[Sejs]

One of my players just informed me of a cheeseball way of enhancing his ability scores: planar binding.

The first thing frankly is to look at the player and tell them not to be a dick. If they want to persue this particular course of action they can, but to do so means that you will no longer play nice.

After which allow me to point out a few things regarding efreeti in addition to the Plane Shift thing that's been mentioned already.

Alignment: Lawful Evil.
Organization: ... Band (6-15)
Size: Large
Change Size: as enlarge or reduce person, except it can also affect the efreeti.
Spell-like Abilities: ... 3/day Invisibility.

...oh, and Plane Shift can affect an unwilling target.

 

[Storyteller01]

One of my players just informed me of a cheeseball way of enhancing his ability scores: planar binding. This 6th level spell can be used to call an efreeti, who can grant 3 wishes. Assuming that the party is already 11th or 12th level, an efreeti isn't exactly a scary monster for them, so they can threaten it with death if it doesn't make with the wishes post-haste. The wishes are used to increase ability scores in the manner that Wish is able to do. At the point where more than 3 wishes are needed, a second efreeti can be called.

Efreeti are lawful evil and usually bound to a pasha or noble, however tenuously. When they make their 'request' tell them "I have swore my service and life to my pasha. Granting these wishes will only enable you to harm him (you figure out the details for this, but the 'if you'll hurt me you'll hurt him' senario is a good start). I will not grant your request."

Or...

'By order of my pasha, I may only grant wishes to those he finds worthy. Would you care to speak with him?'

And as far as I can tell it's legit. You're playing the character as per it's alignment, making it an impossible or unreasonable command for the efreeti. You threaten death, but what will his boss (who probably has access to the necessary resurrection spells for outsiders) do to him if he grants them?