Planar binding = unlimited wishes?

[Artoomis]

...Such a creature must exist, or there'd be no end to the free wishes by high-level characters.

More likely a certain amount of abuse of individual efreets is permitted, (maybe it’s embarrassing to admit you got trapped into giving out a wish or three) but anything excessive and you get visited by the efreet enforcer squad.

Calling in creatures from other planes and forcing them to do your bidding should have more than a small element of danger and personal risk.

edit: Doing this repeatedly should raise the risk level astronomically high.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I like this answer...

Apart from the bold bit. The worst stuff always happens to the survivors.

I was thinking something like:

"They found him a broken man, pushed through gateways of horror far beyond any human had ever passed. His life's work was destroyed utterly and completely, reduced to ash and scattered among the spheres. His family were put through such torments as only demons can conceive. He was discovered in his tower, alone in one of the empty rooms. His eyes and mouth had been removed. Not by blade or violence; his face was smooth, as though those organs had never been present at all. He wore nothing but a shirt stitched of the skin of his best companion and lifelong friend, and he scrabbled at the floor, blindly and vainly trying to pick up and reattach his fingers and toes."

Efreet are, after all, Evil.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I was thinking something like:

"They found him a broken man, pushed through gateways of horror far beyond any human had ever passed. His life's work was destroyed utterly and completely, reduced to ash and scattered among the spheres. His family were put through such torments as only demons can conceive. He was discovered in his tower, alone in one of the empty rooms. His eyes and mouth had been removed. Not by blade or violence; his face was smooth, as though those organs had never been present at all. He wore nothing but a shirt stitched of the skin of his best companion and lifelong friend, and he scrabbled at the floor, blindly and vainly trying to pick up and reattach his fingers and toes."

Efreet are, after all, Evil.

Sounds like just the ticket... do like the smooth face - it's a good and unpleasant look. And the final finger and toe removal finishes it off nicely!

I guess when they found that out, they might not be so happy about the 3 'free' wishes they'd just grabbed themselves?

 

[Sejs]

(maybe it’s embarrassing to admit you got trapped into giving out a wish or three)

I could definitely see that as being the case. It's pretty much in-line with the genie mythological roots, too. Wishes were generally given out in one of a small number of situations:

1) You somehow coerce one into giving you a wish, which they absolutely friggin' hate and will do what they can to screw you on the deal,

2) You do one a really big favor such as releasing it from eons of imprisonment, and they grant you a wish out of boundless thanks,

3) They grant you one just to give you enough rope to hang yourself with, again screwing you, because they're mean, capricious bastards.


Another interesting thing, and something that may be worth considering - classically when you made a wish often times the manifestation of said wish didn't happen right then and there, it took a little while to sort of build up. Particularly true of the ones you get shafted on. Genie would grant 'em, poof away the moment the 3rd wish was made, and afterward the wishmaker realizes just how hosed he's been. Lesson learned, credits roll, see you next week.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I suppose we arn't really disagreeing upon anything substantial.

Probably not. Note that now the OP is talking about "free wishes" which is what my entire premise was predicated on.

Basically, the way planar binding works is that you always force the target(s) of the spell into servitude. Because of the saving throw, the target(s) are definitely not willing. I can't imagine a scenario (except an RP one with perhaps a prearranged deal setup) where the target choose to fail. Thus, the target is never willing.

Given that, you must either force him to obey with threats or by paying off the service. Obviously, if you're paying it's quite simply to make whatever you obtain balanced, whether it's a few rounds of fighting, buffing, healing, wishes or anything. I have no problem with that, and bargaining for multiple wishes at once would be okay in my book.

However, threatening the efreeti's life in exchange for up to three free wishes is a different scenario.

 

[marune]

Not related to the OP but the Planar Binding spell; it's not a bit strange for a Good Wizard to use such a spell to bring a Good Outsider ? (IIRC, that would give the spell a Good descriptor).

 

[nameless]

Probably not. Note that now the OP is talking about "free wishes" which is what my entire premise was predicated on.

Basically, the way planar binding works is that you always force the target(s) of the spell into servitude. Because of the saving throw, the target(s) are definitely not willing. I can't imagine a scenario (except an RP one with perhaps a prearranged deal setup) where the target choose to fail. Thus, the target is never willing.

Given that, you must either force him to obey with threats or by paying off the service. Obviously, if you're paying it's quite simply to make whatever you obtain balanced, whether it's a few rounds of fighting, buffing, healing, wishes or anything. I have no problem with that, and bargaining for multiple wishes at once would be okay in my book.

However, threatening the efreeti's life in exchange for up to three free wishes is a different scenario.

You don't HAVE to offer anything. You don't have to offer threats or money, the spell has the built-in rule that you need to succeed on an opposed Cha check to get the outsider to serve you. It further says that you can get a bonus on the check depending on what you offer to sweeten the deal. So you aren't necessarily reasoning with the efreet at all, you bind it with the sheer power of your magic and you compel it with sheer force of will.

Compare all of the previous "dealmaking scenarios" with what a simple 4th level spell can do in this situation: Charm Monster. Assuming you can charm the efreet, which is at least 50% likely to work without any special preparations, why wouldn't it then give you wishes? Even though wish is a very powerful ability to a mortal, it's not much to an efreet, where literally everybody he knows can grant more wishes than they know what to do with.

It's not fair to make the players pay as much money or xp to get the wish as they would have otherwise, because that makes planar binding pointless. Unless it confers an advantage of some sort on the caster, the players might as well just learn and cast disintegrate an extra time that day.

Cheiromancer's idea is the best way to handle it. You don't punish the players for good thinking by taking something away from them when they should be gaining. But if the genie, in good faith, grants them their 3 wishes and tells them that bad things happen if any mortal binds a genie twice in the same 1,001 nights (or something equally mythic), the players are happy that their plan works, but you effectively stop campaign-altering abuse from taking place. Everybody wins.

 

[LostSoul]

If you want the efreet to be all nice, you should Diplomacy him first.

Anyway, I would let it work the first time, because the players are smart and they worked out a loophole. Then I'd say that it would unbalance the game and probably shouldn't happen again.

 

[Jack Simth]

Not related to the OP but the Planar Binding spell; it's not a bit strange for a Good Wizard to use such a spell to bring a Good Outsider ? (IIRC, that would give the spell a Good descriptor).

It would. "When you use a calling spell to call an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type."

The problem being, of course, that to hold it, you need a Magic Circle Against [X] spell. And Magic Circle Against Good is an [Evil] spell, Magic Circle Against Evil is a [Good] spell, Magic Circle Against Law is a [Chaotic] spell, and Magic Circle Against Chaos is a [Lawful] spell.... sure, if you're Calling an Archon, well, they all have the Lawful and Good subtypes - so Magic Circle Against Chaos, and you're Good, but you're not okay, as the Archon has clear proof that you serve Chaos (he's stuck in a [Chaotic] spell, after all). That Planetar you were planning on using Greater Planar Binding to fetch a caster that can do a True Ressurection for the Cleric, on the other hand, is "Always good (any)" - in order to Bind it, you're basically stuck with Magic Circle Against Good to hold it (well, if your DM rolls the law-chaos axis, you've got a 2 in 3 chance of having something that will hold it....). Which means you're casting an [Evil] spell, to force a [Good] creature to do your bidding. Is it any wonder these things come out hostile?

Okay, Elementals are usually neutral, and any of the Magic Circle spells will work.... so you haven't done anything direcly opposing their alignment. But still, you trap them and they bargain for their freedom (which is, ultimately, what they get by giving in).

Now, RAW doesn't address what happens if you skip the trap.....but if you do, you're only casting a spell that's in tune with what you're Calling up. So the NG Sorcerer with Magic Circle Against Evil is *probably* going to be okay if he attempts to hire the Planetar, rather than coercing (skips the Magic Circle, skips the Calling Diagram, skips the Dimensional Anchor - and the Planetar is in no way trapped - and my just go back to whatever it was it was doing).

Oh, but if you're going the Planar Binding route? Pick up Moment of Prescience as soon as you can - bargaining is an opposed Charisma check, which Moment of Prescience covers.

 

[Felix]

It's not fair to make the players pay as much money or xp to get the wish as they would have otherwise

It is not clear that it would cost them an equal amount of money to get the wish, merely that it would cost something in the negotiation.