wishes

[geoffrey]

M&T notes that wishes that unfortunate adventures never happened should be granted.

Suppose a party of 8 invades a vampire's castle, and gets the worst of it. Only two survivors limp out alive (a formerly 10th-level Lord, now only 2nd level; and a formerly 12th-level wizard, now only 2nd level). Luckily, the magic-user has a ring of wishes, and he wishes that their adventure in the vampire's castle had never happened.

Poof! That's the equivalent of 6 raise dead fully spells, and a whopping 18 restoration spells.

It seems, then, that an OD&D wish is virtually limitless in power in regards to fixing the PCs (whether raising from the dead, healing, restoring lost levels, restoring lost ability points, etc.).

On the other hand, wishing for anything else gets you very little at best and a disaster at worst. If you wish for a shiny new X, the best you're going to get is a clue to the whereabouts of a shiny new X. At worst a shiny new X will materialize impaled through your head.

I remember Gary on his ENWorld Q&A thread saying that the only use Mordenkainen ever made of wishes was to raise compatriots from the dead.

Thoughts?

[ffilz]

Remember the cost of wishing the adventure never happened. The PCs lose all the XP and treasure gained on the adventure.

That a 9th level MU spell could be used to do the same thing as lower level cleric spells doesn't bother me.

Frank

[coffee]

Wishes have always been tricky things.

Whenever there have been wishes in folktales, the whole point was to show that "greed is bad". There have been any number of tales to that effect.

This is the source material for D&D and it has been taken to heart. Any altruistic uses of wishes should be granted, but purely greedy (I want all the money in the world!) wishes may be freely twisted at the DMs pleasure.

I have always understood this (probably because I was exposed to those stories...), so I've never really grasped the 'greed-monster' mentality that causes people to go hog wild -- and then scream and rant when the DM iwon't let them have "everything AND a kite".

Quite simply, a Wish in D&D is a 'do-over'. It should be regarded as such. Anything else is just letting the DM slap you around.

Anyway, that's my two coppers worth.