If-Then Wishing

[unseenmage]

So would you allow a PC to phrase a wish so that if their dead friend's soul is trapped by a method only wish can reverse the wish free the soul but if their soul is ok and they're only dead then True Res them instead?

Both are allowed by wish IIRC and they're only getting one allowed effect.

If you would allow this, what about listing ALL the allowed wish actions and gating each one behind if-then statements?

[Bronk]

So would you allow a PC to phrase a wish so that if their dead friend's soul is trapped by a method only wish can reverse the wish free the soul but if their soul is ok and they're only dead then True Res them instead?

Both are allowed by wish IIRC and they're only getting one allowed effect.

I wouldn't allow it... To me, they would still be getting two spell effects.

To get the second effect, you're getting the effect of an Augury spell followed by a True Res (actually, True Res is a 9th so isn't valid, so Res I guess, as stated in the spell description), or you're getting a failed spell freeing the soul followed by the Res.

Plus, that and the the linked if-then statements would be unsafe wishes at the very least. One or the other would be safe, but not more than one together.

[Quertus]

I guess it depends. This is simply a more legalistic wording of "take the most expedient and necessary action to return my friend to life"; as such, it would be fine in my book.

[ericgrau]

So would you allow a PC to phrase a wish so that if their dead friend's soul is trapped by a method only wish can reverse the wish free the soul but if their soul is ok and they're only dead then True Res them instead?

Both are allowed by wish IIRC and they're only getting one allowed effect.

If you would allow this, what about listing ALL the allowed wish actions and gating each one behind if-then statements?

Actually true res is beyond the power of a normal wish. Ressurection works OTOH.

But doing versatile things is wish's whole shtick, so generally I'd allow if then wishes. Allowing for too many possibilities is a power bump, so if the player tries to pull a paragraph of if thens and a spell level bump would put them beyond the power of a wish, only then would I deny it.

[Aquillion]

Nope (not without using a wish beyond the usual limits, with all its risk.)

Using Wish to mimic a spell mimics one spell exactly as written. It dosen't let you add additional criteria or conditions or options beyond what the spell would usually have. Some DMs might allow you to mimic a spell that could notionally exist, but Resurrection is already beyond the limits of what Wish could do in terms of non wiz/sorc spell levels and is only allowed via a clause in the spell that whitelists it specifically, so you can't get something better than that.

[Bucky]

I'd use granter discretion and so allow it from a friendly Wish source but not an unfriendly one.

[Ashtagon]

Fluff-wise, the spell was always intended to duplicate the effects of Arabian Nights lore genies granting wishes. In those tales, there wasn't any kind of "if then" statement going on. The wisher simply expressed a desire and the genie made it happen (or not).

If specifically duplicating spell effects, I would only allow a wish to do the spell and nothing else - no if statements allowed. This is basically a shorthand way of saying "hey GM, if the player asks for this, don't try to twist the meaning of the wish".

Anything else, and I'd ask the player to structure it in the form of a simple sentence (i.e., no if/then statements) as if spoken in-character. Whether it works is then a matter of how overpowered (or not) the intended effect is, and the whims of who or whatever is granting the wish.

[Divine Susuryu]

I see no reason a wizard couldn't conceive of the idea, at least. The minimum INT score to cast wish is 19, which is already in genius territory, and any wizard worth their salt will have a much higher intelligence score than that. Lets assume 18 intelligence at 1st level (not hard), +4 from level increases, and +6 item, that's already 28. That's vastly beyond any real life levels of intelligence, and definitely beyond the player. So if the player can conceive of if-then, then the wizard definitely can. Particularly because if-then is pretty basic syllogistic logic, which Aristotle pioneered in a time period prior to the time period that the vast majority of campaign settings are based in.

I mean, I wouldn't let it work automatically, I'd consider it to fall under greater effects. But there's no reason that it couldn't be attempted.

[Quertus]

So, just to be clear on my stance:

So long as the if/then chain is all thematic towards a single goal, and what a "friendly" source would do anyway, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I wouldn't even have a problem with a conditional mixing safe and unsafe wishes, and, if it followed a path to a safe condition, adjudicating it as a safe wish.

Further, back in 2e, there were rules for creating custom spells that said that combining the effects of an X level spell & a Y level spell produces a spell of level X+Y. So I'd have no problem with wishes that require multiple spells, and even let them be safe up to the normal spell level limit.

So, suppose an adventurer comes across a "perfect statue" of one of their allies. Sure, they might Wish for a Flesh to Stone spell, but what if it's a special condition that can only be cured with Remove Curse? And a Commoner isn't going to know any of that, they're just going to want the djinni they've freed to "fix it".

I don't require my players to have encyclopedic knowledge of spells to utilize Wish effectively. Although, realistically, most Wizards who could cast Wish, would.

[Frozen_Feet]

That's two if-then clauses, and hence two wishes.

Specifically:

IF X THEN Y
IF -X THEN Z

If someone wants to build a complex hierarchy of conditional wishes, they can do that, but only one effect per wish basis.

[Segev]

On the subject of specifying spells, I will tend to assume that wishes will be granted safely if there is a straightforward interpretation of them that can be expressed as a spell. If a highly intelligent wizard makes a wish with specificity naming a spell, so be it, but (for example) I once had a PC in a game I was running “waste” a wish on a character motivated, “I wish I was prettier than my [inhumanly beautiful half-fey] sisters.”

That sounded like a wish for +1 Charisma to me. So she became physically gorgeous but gained no real extra talent for using it, and mechanically, that was treated as a +1 inherent bonus to Charisma based on the fact that being hat pretty has an effect despite any lack of special ability to capitalize on it.

There’s no need to play evil genie to keep wishes from being abused. Just grant them by default as a “safe” wish if at all possible. Only if you can’t think of a way to achieve the wish with a safe method should you start twisting it. And even then, the first go-to should be to twist it into a safe wish that may have disappointing results. Only get mean about it if the wishes are deliberately pushing out of the safe power zone with specific effort to keep it from twisting to something “safe.”


On the original question in this thread, then, the safe twisting of this wish would be to treat it like a break enchantment or greater dispel or what have you if the subject is soul bound or otherwise not resurrectable, and to do nothing if the subject can be true resurrected. The discernment aspect may sound like a divination spell being added in, but not only can wish replicate such things, it already has a lot of discernment going on just to determine how to grant a wish in the first place.

Worded something like: “I wish my friend were brought safe and free to me here right now,” it would use the general relocation effect, and possibly a break enchantment/stone to flesh/resurrection/remove curse/whatever (but only one of them) to make him alive, not soul trapped or stoned, and generally okay.

Adding a clause of “if he’d be happy to be brought here” or something would allow for a check a la resurrection for willingness based on similar knowledge of whose calling.

So if he’d prefer to wait for his cleric friend to true Rez him, he won’t come back to life after all.

Yes, this gets two safe effects for one wish, but they’re hardly game breaking and the wish isn’t being abused and twisted. Just a straightforward wish that only takes safe effects to pull off, none alone necessarily saturating the power of a ninth level spell. (Admittedly, the relocation effect could, if local conditions are really complicated regarding magical travel, so it might fail on other parts if that’s the case, twisting to only bringing the soul gem or the statue without freeing it, for example.)

[lightningcat]

My default position is the more conditions you add to a Wish, the more likely it is to backfire in some way.
If you "Wish for my freind to be returned to life" and their soul was trapped, then it would break that and return a cryptic riddle to the character. Which would be the same as your if/then wish.
If the Wish is coming from a malicious source, then these rules are mostly reversed. The same Wish would get you the equivalent of a 404 error.