Use of a Wish spell

[darthkilmor]

The way you describe it, it sounds like the best thing to do would be to hold onto the wish as a trump card. ie, "Oh no's i'm the last one left alive, wish us all back to our last safe campsite!" How you get the PC to do that is another matter. The wish won't get the hammer immediately, anything else just sounds like a formula for trouble. Also consider that the drow house would probably have some kind of teleportation block. you could rule that the wish might be able to overcome that though.

 

[Artoomis]

Well, it's a tough call for the Bard.

If he uses the wish too soon, he could get the whole group killed. That's his choice, really.

He really should have a pretty good idea of what wishes can and cannot do from his Bardic Lore. Use that to give the player some guidance. Tell him he knows of legends of wishes being used and good and bad effects of them being used well and poorly.

Give him some pause for thought!

This should pretty much take care of this problem. If he wishes poorly, he (and the group, very likely) will suffer the consequences. If he wishes well, they all reap the benefits (unless he is greedy and wishes for a magic item for him alone!). Either way, as a bard, he should pretty well know what he's getting into, though the rest of the party might not.

 

[Wikid Klown]

Put the hammer in a giant creature (pretty big one at that). When he wishes for the hammer, give him the hammer, and the creature. It has a nice picture in the DMG 2 of one of hte iconic characters trying to destroy a magic item by dropping into the Terrasque. You could use something like that, only you find it. It also mentions something about an enormous Maralith (like 39 HD or something), and how they won't soon forget a battle like that.