Is this in the scope of wish? Or is it still too powerful? 3.5

[Doctor Despair]

Idle thoughts sparked this idea... The concept is that a mage wants to use castings of wish to render a target undetectable by contingent magic. This means that objects the target carries, actions taken by the target, the presence of the target, etc. would not trigger contingent magic. Naturally this is extremely broken as is, so to balance it, I'm considering having the duration limited to one day and perhaps taking four castings of wish. Is this something that is in the scope of wish(es) at all, or is it too ludicrously strong to even be considered at all by a reasonable DM despite my attempts at balancing? Or is there something we could do to make it more balanced?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Savage Species has a few rituals that allow you to change your race, including taking on a template. The wish based version, the one you're looking at to get a template, requires a few spellcraft checks to fully function but the god-blooded template, tuned to vecna, can make you essentially completely undetectable by any magical means.

With that in mind, four wishes should be more than adequate to replicate this effect alone, provided your DM doesn't just nuke this idea as being unfair.

[fishyfishyfishy]

This seems to fall within the "greater but more dangerous" scope of what Wish is capable of. You'll need to come up with a very specific wording for an effect like this. As is it is too vague and easily countered. Does a Heal spell from Craft Contingent Spell that triggers when the caster is reduced to 33% or less health still go off? If I have a contingent Teleport that activates when a Disjunction is being cast within 150 feet of me, does that still trigger?

[Deophaun]

Naturally this is extremely broken as is...
Is it? It's a wish that creates a solution to an extremely broken mechanic without breaking anything else. About the only thing I would limit it to is that you would need specify whose contingencies (either who the contingency is active upon, or who cast/created it) you are bypassing. That would be a built-in gotcha if you did your intel gatherings wrong.

[Doctor Despair]

Savage Species has a few rituals that allow you to change your race, including taking on a template. The wish based version, the one you're looking at to get a template, requires a few spellcraft checks to fully function but the god-blooded template, tuned to vecna, can make you essentially completely undetectable by any magical means.

With that in mind, four wishes should be more than adequate to replicate this effect alone, provided your DM doesn't just nuke this idea as being unfair.

The thing is that God Blooded removes all knowledge of you and protects from divination effects -- but contingent magic isn't divination. It's meant to trigger when the conditions in the universe are met. For example, technically you could use it for silly things like: if the king was murdered by the queen, cast prestidigitation. This kind of renders wizards completely unkillable without the use of disjunction -- which will invariably kill the caster, since spell component pouches contain an infinite number of priceless artifacts.


This seems to fall within the "greater but more dangerous" scope of what Wish is capable of. You'll need to come up with a very specific wording for an effect like this. As is it is too vague and easily countered. Does a Heal spell from Craft Contingent Spell that triggers when the caster is reduced to 33% or less health still go off? If I have a contingent Teleport that activates when a Disjunction is being cast within 150 feet of me, does that still trigger?

My original intention was that the heal and teleport both would not trigger, but as I think about it, it makes more sense for the teleport not to trigger but the heal to function. The heal checks: is the caster below 33% health? Therefore, it is unrelated to the person under the influence of this multi-wish effect. Meanwhile, the teleport checks: is disjunction being cast? This is directly a result of the caster's actions, so it would not trigger. Therefore, disjunction is probably the safest spell to initiate with under the effects of this multi-wish effort so that subsequent contingencies could be disrupted -- though one would have to do so via an ice assassin of some sort to avoid the artifacts-in-the-spell-pouch issue.

So you do think that, if carefully worded enough, this could be a functional strategy to approach engaging the hyper-buffed mage with? Are the limitations in place sufficient to limit the scope of that ability (four level nine slots each day), or are they too much/little? I wanted it to be approachable for the typical caster if they truly wanted to pursue this sort of avenue, but not so easily accessed that the feat for crafting contingent spells is nullified altogether.

Edit:


Is it? It's a wish that creates a solution to an extremely broken mechanic without breaking anything else. About the only thing I would limit it to is that you would need specify whose contingencies (either who the contingency is active upon, or who cast/created it) you are bypassing. That would be a built-in gotcha if you did your intel gatherings wrong.

That's a fair thought -- if it has the one-day limitation, you ought to know who you are approaching in the first place, haha. That does open the door to having the caster with leadership or mindraping another wizard to craft the contingent spells on him though... which, if it's the kind of mage who uses Craft Contingent Spell, definitely would be doing. Perhaps that could be a lesser version of the effect, at say two wishes, in case you want to have more than just your bonus spells to engage here? And then the full four could be more protective?

[Flickerdart]

If you want this to be balanced, err on the side of caution. I would do something like this for a safe wish:

Bypass contingencies: The caster can cloak himself or another creature against triggering a specific contingency effect. This can either be the trigger ("when I am ambushed") or the result ("cast teleport"). The affected creature's presence and actions do not trigger the effect, but the consequences of their actions might - for instance, the creature's attacks would not trigger a contingency (as they are an action) but reducing someone's HP might (since that is a consequence).

If you think that is too weak, make it affect one contingency per n caster levels (but cap it, maybe at # of HD).

This makes the use of wish not automatic, but requiring thinking and research. Otherwise every wizard would cast this and be immune to contingencies, making them even more uber.

[J-H]

I'd allow it, with a set duration of perhaps a week. Wish is a substantial investment.

Mind Blank is an 8th-level spell that grants immunity to a whole list of dangerous things. Contingencies are pretty weak in comparison.

[fishyfishyfishy]

So you do think that, if carefully worded enough, this could be a functional strategy to approach engaging the hyper-buffed mage with? Are the limitations in place sufficient to limit the scope of that ability (four level nine slots each day), or are they too much/little? I wanted it to be approachable for the typical caster if they truly wanted to pursue this sort of avenue, but not so easily accessed that the feat for crafting contingent spells is nullified altogether.


Yes, I do think this could be a functional strategy. I also think each casting of wish should be capable of stopping one instance of Contingency within 24 hours, no more, and with very careful wording. You run the risk of making this into another hard "No, I win" button that Wish users have at their disposal if you're too generous.