Wish & Miracle?

[Methos]

Ok,

Admittedly, I have finally capitulated to 4e. For 3 years, I have refused to acknowledge its existence and have been still chugging along with 3e and Pathfinder. However, I finally decided to give it a chance and purchased all of the core books as well as most of the follow on books such as Complete Divine, etc.

I have decided that 4e is a good game after all by keeping an open mind. It is a different approach to be sure from 3e and Pathfinder but a good game nonetheless.

I'm sure that this question was answered long ago, but what the h#&! happened to Limited Wish, Wish and Miracle? Do they just not fit with the style of play for 4e? They are not even listed as Rituals anywhere? If they are, please direct me to where they might be listed?

Has anyone come up with a decent house rule for them?

To my mind, after reading through a lot of material and trolling on the boards for some time, they would seem to fit in with the Epic levels somewhere?

Cheers

Methos

 

[ppaladin123]

They don't exist. Some of the old effects can be found in rituals.

You can bind demons/planar entities, break curses, raise the dead, magically generate castles, create floating islands, chat with your god, plane shift, turn into a lich, wipe someone's memory, teleport anywhere in creation, etc. but each is a separate ritual.

Dragon magazine is supposedly going to produce a grand index of all rituals with brief descriptions and release it sometime this month. That should help you find those that meet your needs.

 

[fba827]

They weren't particularly well-defined in the style that 4e has so there isn't a direct conversation.

what is it that you are looking for our of the wish/miracle?

If you're looking for ability score increases (if i recall, taht was another thing that wish and miracle did) that was built right in to many epic destiny choices - so you can get permanent ability increases at epic level beyond just the character level ability bumps (though you'll note that no magic item or power itemself does a permanent ability score increase anymore, at most you'll have a power or ability that mimics a temporary increase)

But by and large, the things you could do with a wish/miracle have been broken down into different very specific rituals (such as removing a curse, and so on) rather than a single catch-all.

 

[Matt James]

Let me ask. What are you hoping to capture with a 4e version of Wish and Miracle? Using the ritual casting system you can easily recreate these with little work. Is it your intent to use it to permanently raise attributes, etc...?

 

[Methos]

Good question as to what I'm looking for. For a bit of background, keep in mind that I'm a definite dinosaur by D&D standards since I started playing 1e back in 1980 and still have my old 1e books kicking around........albeit they haven't seen the light of day in many years. So, I've seen various incarnations of D&D for over 30 years now, and played/DM'd in many styles of campaigns.

Really, I think I'm looking for that signature spell that meant a Wizard arrived and could really do just about anything with the right imagination and creativity. I understand that with the rituals out there, a Cleric or Wizard could probably do the same things............but having Wish/Miracle at your disposal really was the penultimate spell that defined your powers.

It really is nothing more than that and I suppose being a bit nostalgic. In looking at the framework of 4e, however, I had pretty much deduced that Wish/Miracle were a little too fluid of a spell/ritual to fit with the framework of the 4e system.

Hmmm............not to say that I couldn't come up with a house rule/spell, however........

Cheers

Methos

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sure that this question was answered long ago, but what the h#&! happened to Limited Wish, Wish and Miracle? Do they just not fit with the style of play for 4e? They are not even listed as Rituals anywhere?

Yep, they're gone, and yeah, they don't 'fit' the 4e style, which is less into absolute and hyper-flexible effects.

Has anyone come up with a decent house rule for them?

Wish probably works best in a "Fullfill another's Wish" NPC power kind of way, where the DM has some fun twisting the wish around, and the whole thing is really just a plot device.

One way to house-rule in a Wish might be to have it as a risky sort of Epic Ritual that can duplicate the effect of any other ritual(s) of lower level, and lower total component cost, perhaps with a short (for a ritual) casting time, high (but adjustable?) cost (maybe in Residuum, only, with the option of spending magic items as if they were residuum?), an extra cost in healing surges or some such, and an Arcana check to avoid it being twisted too much.

Arcana Check:

60+ Wish works perfectly, exceeding slightly the power of the ritual(s) being duplicated in accord with the wording.
50-59 Wish works as desired, duplicating the lower level ritual(s) as desired.
45-49 Wish works about as desired, but has unexpected side effects based on the wording.
44- Wish fails and has unexpected side effects based on the wording.

(I'm assuming an Epic level ritual, with an Epic level caster having something like a +40 Arcana check... not sure if that's out of line...)


Miracle would be much the same, with a Religion check, presumably.

 

[WalterKovacs]

One way to house-rule in a Wish might be to have it as a risky sort of Epic Ritual that can duplicate the effect of any other ritual(s) of lower level, and lower total component cost, perhaps with a short (for a ritual) casting time, high (but adjustable?) cost (maybe in Residuum, only, with the option of spending magic items as if they were residuum?), an extra cost in healing surges or some such, and an Arcana check to avoid it being.

Something like this probably. Maybe even something along the lines to being a "super" ritual that let's you copy other lower level rituals, substituting it's check for Arcana (or Religion), subbing the original rituals reagents for arcane (or religious) reagents, etc. Perhaps a 'surcharge' [a cost to cast Wish/Miracle above and beyond the cost of the ritual being performed]. So a sort of swiss army ritual, but with a hefty cost (for some rituals, it's much easier to just master it and perform it, instead of using Wish/Miracle). The idea of a second check to make sure it 'works' is also a good idea.

Ultimately, the idea of fueling the Wish/Miracle via XP is no longer something the game does ... so any Wish/Miracle ritual usage is going to be only limited by component cost.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ultimately, the idea of fueling the Wish/Miracle via XP is no longer something the game does ... so any Wish/Miracle ritual usage is going to be only limited by component cost.

Well, and surges, there are a number of rituals that cost a surge. Heck, Knock costs a surge. If that classic 2nd level spell costs a surge, the epitome of 9th level spells should cost 10.

 

[Feeroper]

There is actually a write up for a 4e wish in a back issue of Kobold Quarterly if you are interested (maybe issue 11 or 12?) I thought their interpretation of it was pretty good.

 

[Ryujin]

"The Wizard has arrived" meme doesn't exist in 4e. The general idea is to put the various types of characters on relative even footing so the god-like archanist (or 10,000hp/round damage Cleric) is a thing of the past.

Epic Destinies could be seen as ultimately arriving though, given the level and type of power acquired. Wish and Limited Wish are more relegated to the concept of driving the plot; DM fiat.