Wishin' is fo' suckahs...

[IcyCool]

I wish everybody in that encampment would fall asleep for the next 2 hours.
-blarg

That wish doesn't seem very pervertable, but neither does it seem all that useful. Care to elaborate?

 

[blargney the second]

Procure some castings of silence, then go CdG the entire army. Two hours is enough time for one person to slaughter 1200 foes.

 

[Wystan]

Whole lot of Coup de Grace

 

[werk]

I like the 'i wish the army was interested in something else' idea. very subtle.

It does say that the wish may pervert your intent, seems to me that the opinion of most people is that the wish will always pervert your intent. Is this based on experience or are you just saying what could happen worst case? I'm not looking for worst case, but more how you would play it or have seen it played. (I've never seen a Wish used for anything beyond those things listed in the spell description.)

So aside from the DM, um..., unfairly disadvantaging the caster, what is the draw-back of the spell? In the Ur Priest example, he got wish 3x/day...seems like he could eventually get it right and/or seriously twist a game.

What I'm hearing is that Wish works great when used to do one of the things detailed in the spell description, but when you go outside that, either the character dies or the game is basically ended. That seems odd that that would be the intent of leaving the spell open like it is.

 

[IcyCool]

Procure some castings of silence, then go CdG the entire army. Two hours is enough time for one person to slaughter 1200 foes.

Ah, hadn't thought about the silence part. Also, you'd better hope that every one of those 1200 foes fails their save.

 

[werk]

How about 'I wish the opposing army would bleed to death?' or 'I wish the opposing army would drown to death."?

Two hours is enough time for one person to slaughter 1200 foes.

If they are all within 5' of each other.

 

[IcyCool]

So aside from the DM, um..., unfairly disadvantaging the caster, what is the draw-back of the spell? In the Ur Priest example, he got wish 3x/day...seems like he could eventually get it right and/or seriously twist a game.

What I'm hearing is that Wish works great when used to do one of the things detailed in the spell description, but when you go outside that, either the character dies or the game is basically ended. That seems odd that that would be the intent of leaving the spell open like it is.

If the wish is used for something not on the list, the DM is NOT unfairly disadvantaging the caster by possibly perverting it. As to draw-backs, the XP cost would be first in my mind.

I'm not sure where you heard that when you go outside the limits of wish that the character dies or the game ends. I don't see that anywhere here. Could you point it out?

 

[werk]

I'm not sure where you heard that when you go outside the limits of wish that the character dies or the game ends. I don't see that anywhere here. Could you point it out?

This thread (opinions of the best people playing the game!)

Sounds like most DM's salivate at the chance to rip an 'open' Wish apart...see two's post.

So it is implied that the 'open' Wish is not going to go right, aside from the advice of Whimsicle to make it very subtle and low-powered (which two can probably twist too).

So for the only way for an 'open' Wish to work properly is if the DM 'gives' a decent interpretation to the player. Which seems really arbitrary.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

How about 'I wish the opposing army would bleed to death?' or 'I wish the opposing army would drown to death."?

Wouldn't work.

Easily pervertable by "cursing" the entire enemy army. Whatever else it was going to be, the new cause of each member's death would be drowning or bleeding to death - whether that happens now or in 50 years.

EDIT:

For instance, Bob the Front-line Soldier was fated to die, 40 years hence, of the flu. Because of your wish, he now dies at exactly the same time, but because the nurse taking care of him pours some soup into his mouth while he was taking a breath. He drowns on the soup.

 

[Pielorinho]

Another fun one:

"I wish that all the foot-soldiers in the camp below believe that they are ghouls." Even if it only lasts for a couple minutes, mass carnage will ensue.

Daniel