on a side question since I was looking up the info about a nymph does the nymph's druid spell casting abilities actually go up if the pc takes levels in druid? My gut tells me no since the MM shows it as a fixed spell level.
A nymph with Druid levels does progress the spell-casting, but all other abilities are the same as a level 1 Druid. Look at it as if it was a Druid with levels in a prestige class that progresses spellcasting.
yea it seems over the top but most of the other pcs are playing half dragon or half celestials. he willingly let the rest of us play an uber pc and he took a normal halfing scout.
That's where Level Adjustment comes into play, even a level 1 half-celestial isn't balanced with a level 4 human, a level 1 half-dragon would be though.
Also, if you're a beginning DM you probably should have only allowed simple races, Core Rulebook only, with maybe a few other humanoids like Goblin, Kobold or Orc if your players feel like playing something monstrous.
Don't forget that you shouldn't judge his first wish on the basis of the intention of the 3 wishes he uses for it.
Judge every wish based on that wish alone.
So when he wishes for a ring of three wishes, don't give him nymph powers instead, since that isn't a perversion of the wish, it's just something completely different.
Simple answers for the ring wish are this:
- Be teleported to the current owner of the ring (if you don't want to kill the player, then maybe this is simple a magic shop's stock room, 'causing him to get arrested.)
- Be granted a (partially) used up ring. Maybe it has one charge so the player hasn't wasted his wish.
- Be granted a cursed version of the ring
- Each wish from this ring is automatically perverted even if it would fall within the limits of the spell.
- The ring doesn't grant wishes at all, but it makes the wearing think it does.
- The wishes are used up unintentionally whenever the player even thinks about something ever so slightly, the player is hungry and thinks about his favorite meal which then appears before him as one charge is used up. You could allow the player to realise this after 2 charges is used up so he can still retry his final wish he was supposed to be allowed.
- Some combination of the above.
Even if the player is careful about his wording and says something like "I wish for a working non-cursed ring of wishes to be transported here without its owner." then you could have the ring be protected by a magical trap that the owner put on it to guard his treasure. Or you could pervert despite the careful wording, since the spell description doesn't say careful wording prevents perverting.