Wishes

[Barrok]

When a player wishes for something which seems to breaking the constraints of a wish spell (I.e I want to e the king of all existance) who do you as a DM handle it? Do you just flat out say the wish has no effect or do you do something more sneaky than that?

Examples of corrupted wishes would be a blessing.

[CountFalchiezVander]

For me, as a DM, it all depends on the player. Now if the player is a power hungry, every character I build must be indestructible, seeking to become a god type player (I have one of those now in my table top gaming group) I would let him have all the fun in the world with it. For example, if he wanted to be king of all existence, sure thing, then he hands his character over to become a NPC, or he is hit with an annilhating strike from the Gods, who don't find that kind of wish very entertaining at all.
Of course, I am a bit of a loophole finder when it comes to wishes. If someone wishes to become something incredibly powerful, I say sure, but I check to see if they stated when, if not, then they will become that on their deathbed. Most people I know that have access to wishes are pretty decent, and know that I will put them in their place if they try to uber up their character beyond what I feel is appropriate to the adventure. If someone asks for a charisma boost, which would add more flavor to the character, then sure, I am not going to be stingy about it.
But it someone is going to ask to have put in their hands at that moment a legacy weapon fully unlocked, and I know they are doing it for an advantage that they know of out of game, then sometimes I will give it to them, only to have the previous owner appear and beat the snot of them. I like to keep my PC's in their place.
Finally, if you believe that the wish itself breaks the restrictions and rules of the wish spell, then you can either have it fizzle, or have it backfire, doing the opposite, or build a misfire table to roll upon..... Hey...That's not a bad idea at all.....

[Scorch]

I can't put it any better than that, theres nothing more entertaining than having a wish come half true, or happen slightly different to how they expected.

"I wish I could swim like a fish"
instead of making them an adept swimmer
*polomorphed perm. into a sturgeon*

[Barrok]

One wish a player made when I was DMing about 10 years ago was have all the pices of The Rod of Seven Parts. To all those who do not know of the Rod in the context of 1st edition rules, The rod's parts each had a random power, the more parts assemble the more powers you got as it seemed to gain them expernentially. So as the wish came into being he was sliced up insnatly into seven parts and teleported to each of the Rod parts' locations. There was a quest then for the party to try and find the pieces of their comrade and bring him back to life.

[Barrok]

so Does Anyone Else Have Anything On The Subject Of Wishes Or Some Wish Related Stories?

[Sunfist]

One time a player wished to be made a god and so I made him the God of Grass.

He was less than amused.

[Barrok]

But imagine the sheer power of the dominion over grass. I would be making patches of multicoloured grass all over the place, perhaps making some of it grow faster until a whole field was full of waist high grass.. or even laughing menacingly as soon as a reaper came along to cut the grass I would reduce it in size... making sure that he did not work that day..

MWAHAHAHAHAHA

I might actually use that idea if anyone is insane enough to wish to become a god.

[Sunfist]

Oh, he thought he'd be clever with a "Blades of Grass" pun.

I said, "This ain't Xanth, buddy."

edit: Incidentally, the best part of doing this is roleplaying the other gods making fun of him. Especially if it's a small pantheon. (So that they are gods of major things like War and Death.)

[MindForge]

A wish can produce any one of the following effects.


Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/geasQuest.htm) or insanity (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/insanity.htm).
Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
Create a magic item, or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison) effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#dead) creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resurrection.htm) spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#will) to negate the effect, and spell resistance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellResistance) (if any) applies.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#criticalHits) (either the attack roll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#attackRoll) or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#will) to negate the effect, and spell resistance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellResistance) (if any) applies.

You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)

Ok. I let the characters do anything on this list. I change the last sentence to;

"You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so will kill you instantly and banish your soul to the realm of 'untold wishes'. In this realm, all your wishes come true for eternity. Now, give me your character sheet, your character won the game."

[Barrok]

Your Character Won The Game!!

I can imagine some hyper competitive power gamers doing that.

[MindForge]

I have just had too many players come up with the "I wish to be king of everything" so I ask for their character sheet and say "Congrats, you win."

Then, I turn back to the table with "Ok. Where were we?"

[Barrok]

I've had players try to do that, though I just smile and try to think up the most crushing defeat they could encounter. One bloke wanted to be immortal so he became a Golgothan (shameless rip off from Dogma - if you have not seen the film.. are you sure you are alive?) and was attacked by a long haired, smoking quiet chap wielding a can of air freshener. Funnily enough Silent Bob dispatched him in one round.

[VoidPointer]

I usually handle this by removing Wish from the SOR/WIZ spell list, ditto Miracle from the CLR one, possibly replacing it with a more limited version. If you want to make a wish that can alter anything in the universe, you'd better get on the good side of a greater deity. Wishes are the kind of thing that should be the crux of a great journey, not something the party wizard whips up five of every day. This is also how I tend to handle death and resurrection, a la Orpheus and Eurydice.

[Niko_Kaze]

In my campaigns the "simple" wishes (i.e. the ones the spell says it can do) happen with no possible DM reprecussions. Now the King of all Existance issue (and what DM hasn't had it?). I gave him exactly what he wanted. Now being he was mortal, most of the Gods ignored him until they had a problem then they expected him to fix it. The Gods of Fate where the worse, "fix this or the universe unravels!" Most mortals didn't even know that there was a King of all Existance (ignorance is bliss) and didn't treat him any differently than the did before (one NPC: "Yeah right and I'm the tooth fairy! There's no such thing!"). Please note a King really doesn't have any special powers either.

Other wishes usually don't go quite right, (i.e. I wish the dragon was dead, well ok now it's a dragon ghost), or the Gods of Fate step in an unweave that person's wish (i.e. the player says, "I wish to undo reality" and the other players hear "I wish to I had a salamii sandwich on rye").

[Firefox15]

Also, do not forget, it is how the person says the wish that can derive different outcomes. Like changing a single word or words can have drastic effects.


A funny thing happened in an online chat room awhile ago. In the middle of a session, one of the people wished that could channel the God of War and destroy everyone in his path. The god of war did show up, and the wish backfired and the guy who made the wish got taken away to the torture chambers of the gods for eternal punishment for wishing a god to do something.