Wish/Ltd Wish & Class Skills.......

[Darmanicus]

What I meant regarding the use of wish is that if it were worded properly and in character then it should be possible.

'I wish I could learn to use magical items without necessarily knowing how they work - and I'd like to not have to sacrifice my study of spells to do it.'

This could work and give you access to UMD or maybe just give you a one off wish bonus to your ability score.

 

[CalrinAlshaw]

What I meant regarding the use of wish is that if it were worded properly and in character then it should be possible.

'I wish I could learn to use magical items without necessarily knowing how they work - and I'd like to not have to sacrifice my study of spells to do it.'

This could work and give you access to UMD or maybe just give you a one off wish bonus to your ability score.

One thing people are forgetting, especially in Greyhawk.
Wish spells, are EASILY TAMPERED WITH BY OUTSIDE DEITIES.
In other words, the wish gets cast, and any of the gods that like THAT material plane (Iuz especially) are gonna have a field day playing with the wish and twisting it as much as possible.

In other words, even if your a lawyer, Iuz and company (all the other gods) especially those opposed to your alignment are going to be playing with that wish.

The whole wishing to use magical items without know how they work first is all well and good. Once you tack on the word AND I'd say the wish stopped right before that, and gets sent silly-puddy style into the hands of manipulative gods.

Anyhow, heh, feats are the way to go I think. Safer that way.

Calrin Alshaw

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

This could work and give you access to UMD or maybe just give you a one off wish bonus to your ability score.

But in 3.5, you HAVE access to UMD. Its just a cross-class skill...but you still do have access to it.

 

[jgsugden]

Why all these problems with metagaming? I think he was asking from a perspective of a balanced use of wish.

Anyway, I agree that metagaming is not nice, but can't the character wish "I wish it would be always easy for me to learn using magic devices as it is for a Rogue"?

Why the problem with meta gaming? (All together now): Because it is a role playing game, not a roll playing game.

People treat D&D like a giant strategy game. The strategy aspects of it are fun, but if that is all you care about, you should play fantasy wargaming instead of fantasy roleplaying. You're wasting your time on the pretense of a character if you don't actually play the character.

Look at it this way: If a genie popped up and granted any wish for *you* and that one wish was to improve your ability to write computer programs, would you wish "I wish it would always be as easy for me to code as it is for a computer programmer"?

Not bloody likely. You might wish to be a better programmer. You might wish to be able to write a code to do anything you want. You'd be more direct than worrying about the 'rules behind' learning to code.

You should not use game terms when forming a wish. At least, they should not be used as game terms. The character is forming the wish. Not the player. The character doesn't describe himself as a 13th level wizard. He describes himself as a powerful wizard.

What I meant regarding the use of wish is that if it were worded properly and in character then it should be possible.

'I wish I could learn to use magical items without necessarily knowing how they work - and I'd like to not have to sacrifice my study of spells to do it.'

This could work and give you access to UMD or maybe just give you a one off wish bonus to your ability score.

That is not in character. Would you wish:

'I wish I could learn to code without necessarily knowing how computers work - and I'd like to not have to sacrifice my study of cooking to do it'?

Again, not bloody likely. You might wish to be a better programmer, but you wouldn't consider offsets like in your example.

Wishes are phrased by the character. The character has no concept of the D&D rules. The character shouldn't use the D&D rules in his wishes. Period.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

One thing people are forgetting, especially in Greyhawk.
Wish spells, are EASILY TAMPERED WITH BY OUTSIDE DEITIES.
In other words, the wish gets cast, and any of the gods that like THAT material plane (Iuz especially) are gonna have a field day playing with the wish and twisting it as much as possible.

Where does it say this? I have never understood the whole "Ha Ha you screwed up the exact literal saying in your wish so now you are screwed" approach to gamemastering. What fun is that? Now, if you are getting a wish granted by an evil being, then go for all the hosing of players you want, but the 9th level spell WISH doesn't imply it's granted by any being in particular. How do you know its not granted by the Great Goddess Of Knowing What You Mean Instead Of What You Say.

If you can be granted feats by weapons/armor/magical devices, then you should be able to be granted feats by a wish as well.

DS

 

[Li Shenron]

One thing people are forgetting, especially in Greyhawk.
Wish spells, are EASILY TAMPERED WITH BY OUTSIDE DEITIES.
In other words, the wish gets cast, and any of the gods that like THAT material plane (Iuz especially) are gonna have a field day playing with the wish and twisting it as much as possible.

...

Anyhow, heh, feats are the way to go I think. Safer that way.

I think this is your own opinion only. Well, it could be the way you say in a specific setting, but by the core rules it is not. There is no reference to gods at all in the spell description, it actually says "Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you." and later "You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)". This is deliberately left to DM's decision, and if I am asked what I would do if I was the DM and a character wished to have a cross-class skill become a class skill I think I would probably allow it from the balance point of view, which is what I think the poster was asking. I can't say I would allow Wish to grant any feat, but with several core feats I would have no problem at all.
As I said, it's completely DM's call for effects other than the ones listed in the Wish description, but what you are supposing in your post is that the DM must actively try every possible way to screw up the Wish whenever it asks anything which isn't on that list, and this is simply your own way to adjudicate Wish, but not everybody's way.

 

[Silverglass]

<snip>
Wishes are phrased by the character. The character has no concept of the D&D rules. The character shouldn't use the D&D rules in his wishes. Period.

The character has a huge knowledge of the D&D rules, because they govern how "their" world actually works, so any character is aware of class and cross-class skills, it is the terminology that is different not the concepts. Any "Fighter" knows that however hard he tries he cannot match a "Rogue" of an equal amount of adventuring experience in the ability to conceal themselves behind partial cover if that is something the Rogue has chosen to "perfect".

That is how the "Fighter" sees that fact that Hide is a cross-class skill for him and a class skill for the Rogue. Its not metagaming to say that the Fighter understands this, the metagame element is the rule terminology.

Also as most 17th Level Wizards casting wish have an inhumanely high Intelligence they would be able to frame the wording in their own terms far better than any player. So let the player say what the their character is wishing for and leave it at that. After all saying "My fighter will take an AoO on the Orc as it moves past him" is metagaming to a degree because AoO is a game mechanic not a "role play" wording.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to agree with jgsugden. If there's one thing I can't stand it's meta-gaming. Your character has no idea classes or skill points or cross-class skills or Base Attack Bonuses or d20s or Dungeon Masters or Monster Manual IIs exist. If you want to accurately play in character you'd probably wish that you were better at using Magical Devices. You can't say "I wish I was as good at doing it as a Rogue" because the terms "Rogue" and "Fighter" only exist in the clockwork of the game to define certain characters' strengths and weaknesses. Mialee knows that she's a wizard and that she studies and practices the art of wizardry, but she doesn't know that there are 11 different types of people you can be and she chose "Wizard" over "Rogue" or "Fighter". That's just asinine.

 

[Li Shenron]

I want to insist that IMHO the original poster is not asking an opinion about avoiding metagaming: I really think that at this point he wanted to know only if the spell Wish could be used to grant a cross-class skill become a class skill and if this kind of use would be balanced or inappropriate.

 

[hong]

If rubbing your 'lamp' made a wish fulfilling genie pop out and you decided that you wanted to be the best pianist in the world

... oh, PIANIST.


Hong "so, a 12-inch pianist walks into a bar" Ooi