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Message: <blockquote data-quote="General Starlight" data-source="post: 121420" data-attributes="member: 3653">I'm not sure why so many follow the monkey paw philosophy to Wishes.  My best guess is it seems to happen a lot in literature, or at times when there's an actual malevolent entity involved, like the devil or an Efreeti granting the Wishes who would love to screw you over.  But when speaking of the Wish spell, the universe itself is not so malevolent, but nor is it particularly benevolent either.    The problem to watch out for is the principle of the path of least resistance (POLR), to which the universe notoriously adheres.  A Wish will likely do its best to fulfill one's desires in the shortest, quickest, easiest way possible.    However, it is not easy to affect other living, unwilling creatures with magic that reaches out like that.  So it is darn unlikely, when Wishing for a Girdle Of Storm Giant Strength, for example, it would come complete with angry storm giant, and making provisions in the wording of the Wish to prevent that isn't really required.  Nor would most of the other wording in that example.    A near by grave or tomb, however, if it had such an item buried there that wasn't also magically guarded, would have little problem being whisked to the caster (perhaps with a dead body in it, but even that requires more work to move the extra mass, so probably not).  The less the item is used or known about, the less it falls under the control of another.  A long lost magic item would come probably sooner than one in your neighbor's attic trunk, even if they hadn't used it in years (due to stronger, more recent psyche residue).  The sea floor is a great place for a Wish to pick up lost items no one has great claim over.  It's hard for a Wish to interfere with the unwilling living, and some would say basically unfair.  Fair or not really isn't the issue, IMHO, so much as it's so much easier for the Wish to avoid living creatures who might get a saving throw and screw it all over.  Thus, lost, unowned, unguarded items are far easier to get and will always be tried first (POLR).    Other than that, the basic idea that Wishes are risky is valid enough, and the more you ask for, the more likely it won't work out so well.  'Greed Kills' seems almost a law of the universe, and the DM should give it a hand when the unreasonable is Wished for.    2 gallons of water in a 3 gallon container, make it snow.  4 gallons?  Make a temporary extra dimensional pocket, like a rope trick (it's in there).  There are always ways.  Anyway, I think it's better if the DM just helped their players rather than try to screw them over.  It was the DM who allowed them to get a Wish in the first place.  If he didn't want them to have it, he shouldn't have given it to them<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />    Jim<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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