Wish question

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I wonder why wish gets so screwed in 3.x compared to AD&D? Before, when you made a wish, it was reality-bending. Now, there are TONS of limits and drawbacks and such.

...

I can see a geenie popping out of a lamp and saying "Yes, I can grant you a fortune.. the limit of which is 25,000 gold pieces."

Ah - I can see you missed the point.

Wish didn't get screwed or nerfed in 3.X. It got significantly upgraded.

There is now a list of things which are absolutely guaranteed safe wishes. Anything beyond that is less safe, depending on how far outside the limits you go.

In previous editions, if you asked a genie for a fortune, how many people would actually get a fortune in a safe manner? I know I never did, and the internet is full of stories of idiot DMs saying, "Sure - you get 100,000gp - but it shows up in copper coins in a mountain 100 feet above you! It falls and you die."

In 3.X, you can wish for up to 25kgp and have it appear exactly as you want it. It's a safe wish. It's the maximum amount that reality can be bent without the Auditors taking notice.

Anything beyond that opens up DM Fiat again.

 

[Nail]

Exactly. Excellent post, Patryn.

In 2e, it was nearly impossible to increase your ability scores (like a 3x "inherent bonus") with a wish. Whenever a player tried, his DM invariably screwed the player over in some major way.

Kristivas, when our 2e group (back in the day) found a ring of wishes, we would find someplace safe to lock it up, and hope that it stayed there! (The party's thief or truely chaotic wizard would try to get it and use it, of course.....and the consequences were always BAD, BAD, BAD.)

Don't use rose-colored glasses on 2e. They don't see well.

 

[dcollins]

In 2e, it was nearly impossible to increase your ability scores (like a 3x "inherent bonus") with a wish. Whenever a player tried, his DM invariably screwed the player over in some major way.

Really? That's wierd. The 1st Ed. AD&D DMG says this (p. 11):

It is quite usual for players to use wishes... to increase their ability scores in desired areas, whatever the areas might be. It is strongly suggested that you place no restrictions upon such use of wishes.

Although it then outlines a requirement that for scores over 16, it takes 10 wishes to increase them by 1 point. (Passingly similar to current increase in number of wishes required per point of inherent bonus.)

Of course, I have a very low opinion of the changes made in 2nd Ed.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Don't use rose-colored glasses on 2e. They don't see well.

Don't condemn a game because of bad game masters either. It's hardly fair, is it?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Really? That's wierd. The 1st Ed. AD&D DMG says this (p. 11):



Although it then outlines a requirement that for scores over 16, it takes 10 wishes to increase them by 1 point. (Passingly similar to current increase in number of wishes required per point of inherent bonus.)

Of course, I have a very low opinion of the changes made in 2nd Ed.

I remember similar phrasings from Basic D&D. The Wish in AD&D 2E is very poorly worded, though. :\

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Really? That's wierd. The 1st Ed. AD&D DMG says this (p. 11):

Yeah - but I'm assuming that Nail is referring to the usual, in-character method of wishing for such.

Wizard: "I wish I was as intelligent as the most intelligent Archmage in history!"

DM: "Fine. Bamf! You are transported to a world just formed from the ether where magic doesn't work. Since you are the only archmage in its history, you are by default as intelligent as the most intelligent archmage in its history."

 

[Kristivas]

Ha! Our DM in 2nd ed stopped trying to thwart us with wishes, because every wish we made was well-written and so specific that it was scary. After we wrote 1-3 pages of specifics, he asked us to just start summarizing what we actually wanted at the end. It was only those really game-breaking things where he tried screwing us over.

Eventually, we just stopped finding rings with wishes

Don't use rose-colored glasses on 2e. They don't see well.

I could never go back to playing 2E, but I certainly did like handing over our wish sheet to the DM and watching him cringe, mutter, or his lower lip tremble! He, however, told us that the limitations of what's 'safe' in the DMG were the limit of the spell when 3.0 came out. I didn't bother to read it again til just now. Funny what you miss when you take someone's word for something!

 

[ARandomGod]

I could never go back to playing 2E, but I certainly did like handing over our wish sheet to the DM and watching him cringe, mutter, or his lower lip tremble! He, however, told us that the limitations of what's 'safe' in the DMG were the limit of the spell when 3.0 came out. I didn't bother to read it again til just now. Funny what you miss when you take someone's word for something!

Yea, now that limit is indeed what's "safe", and condoned for everyday use. The GM in the above dragon instance would be fully expected to give the wish as worded, as long as it fits under the auspice of the "safe" list. And he *might* give it as worded more powerfully than the safe list (IE no SR< or no saves, or altered saves, or whatever he felt best).

However, now that there are guidelines, a lot of people like to overlook that wish *can* do more. GM's feel that they have to stick to the listed safe level of a wish. It's the nature of 3.x to make ppl feel this way, but if you read it you'll see that even going straight RAW the GM is free to make wish as powerful as he wants, just as powerful as the old 2e wish.

And those 2E wishes were good. As long as the GM felt you weren't "abusing" the wish, you were fine, and it could do ANYthing! The problem was you never really knew what the GM would consider abuse. In one campaign getting help killing a dragon would be very wish-worthy, in another wasting a wish attempting to overcome what was "clearly" a campaign specific and important adventure was abuse to be pun-esh-ed!

 

[Patlin]

My love affair with 1e wishes (I mostly skipped 2e) ended abruptly when the Dm read over my carefully phrased wish, decided he couldn't twist it but couldn't grant it, and then had the ring explode taking my finger with it. The character's name was Thrum, and after being told that the explosion was so powerfull the finger couldn't be regenerated I was serenaded with a chorus of "Thrum of the Nine Fingers."

The general gist of things was that I wanted to summon the enemies of the cult we were fighting to the final battle, so that they would help us destroy them. Problem was I thought the cult was a newish thing, while in reality it had been in existence for thousands of years. They had made enemies of huge numbers of beings, including some gods, and the DM said they wouldn't even fit in the available space.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Wasn't there an example in one of the 1e or 2e books of how to actually screw a player when they used a wish spell? It was an example like:

Player: I wish my ability scores were raised.
DM: Ok, you are dead.
Player: WHAT!?!?
DM: Razed means "to destroy". You just wished for your ability scores to be destroyed.

Or something similiar like that...