Villain Using Wish

[blackwindbears]

I am running an adventure (the Spire of Long Shadows, Age of Worms #7) I plan on running with a party of two level 13 PCs and two level 14 PCs. The system is D&D 3.5.

D&D 3.5 expects 3 to 6 encounters per day for game balance. I often put clocks on my adventures in order to keep this enforced. I want a softer limit for this adventure. I noticed that the main villain is high enough level to cast wish, but probably no more than once per day.

The idea is that if the party doesn't resolve the adventure quickly enough getting hit by a remote wish (maybe through scry?) every day will eventually prove too much and they'll have to abandon the adventure.

What sort of wishes inflict ongoing harm that is not cured by a long rest, but still feel balanced?

Here are my ideas so far:

- Depower one magic item of value 25,000 gp or less (will save negates)

- Wish a single target dead (fortitude save negates)

- Send each party member to a different plane (will save negates)

- Change the alignment of a single party member (will save negates)

- Give each party member a nightmare as the spell (will save negates)

I'm looking for ideas in approximately this level of power. How else might a (trapped in one location) high level wizard use wish or other high level spells to screw with a party that sits on their hands too long?

[Ramza00]

One can set up a good 90 issue manga arc for everyone lacks teleport magic yet has divination spells.

Or perhaps a battle royale involving the ghosts of the dead legends manifested in the present 🤔

[aglondier]

Your big bad has scry and wish...why in Hades are you even considering using it for Save or Die effects?

You have unlimited opportunity to mess with them, use it...

"I wish that (party leader)'s wife just fell pregnant and is demanding he come home and retire from heroics"
"I wish that the heroes all spoke different languages and that they had no language in common"
"I wish that the forbidden lovechild of an Invisible Stalker and a Rust Monster would visit the party every d4 days"
"I wish that the strongest and weakest party members would swap strength"
"I wish that every time (tallest party member) takes a life they would shrink by 1 inch"
"I wish that only those wearing a floppy bunny costume can find the way to my dread castle"
"I wish that (party healer) would be attacked by thrown haddocks when noone is looking at them"

Go nuts, my friend...

[redking]

Wish that the party becomes despised. Whoever they encounter is treated as having an initial attitude of 1 step less than they would normally have. That means that indifferent people start off as unfriendly. It could really throw a spanner in their hero work and self-image. They need not even know that they are under the influence of a spell.

[Eurus]

Anything that directly affects the stats of a PC should definitely require a save, which means wishing people dead or to be transported to some really awful place is probably the most effective "direct" method. If the party can actually make their saves, using Wish to drop monsters on them at inconvenient times would be pretty good.

Having the villain spam Wish effects too much might feel cheap, since it's not like the guy in question has a good source of XP to fuel them, but maybe he's been sitting on a pile of it for a long time. Maybe he can spam some Nightmares directly, or bind some outsiders to fling at the party?

[Troacctid]

Are we talking about the Harbinger? Because he doesn't have enough XP to cast wish. His statblock specifies that he only has 3,000 XP available to use for XP components.

[blackwindbears]

Your big bad has scry and wish...why in Hades are you even considering using it for Save or Die effects?

You have unlimited opportunity to mess with them, use it...

"I wish that (party leader)'s wife just fell pregnant and is demanding he come home and retire from heroics"
"I wish that the heroes all spoke different languages and that they had no language in common"
"I wish that the forbidden lovechild of an Invisible Stalker and a Rust Monster would visit the party every d4 days"
"I wish that the strongest and weakest party members would swap strength"
"I wish that every time (tallest party member) takes a life they would shrink by 1 inch"
"I wish that only those wearing a floppy bunny costume can find the way to my dread castle"
"I wish that (party healer) would be attacked by thrown haddocks when noone is looking at them"

Go nuts, my friend...

I want to keep the power level in line with what I would allow a PC wish to do. Arbitrary effects should therefore be in line with an 8th level spell.


Wish that the party becomes despised. Whoever they encounter is treated as having an initial attitude of 1 step less than they would normally have. That means that indifferent people start off as unfriendly. It could really throw a spanner in their hero work and self-image. They need not even know that they are under the influence of a spell.

This could lead to an interesting adventure, but it doesn't solve the design problem I'm trying to solve. I want a big rattlesnake's tail that makes the party feel pressure to pack as much as possible into a day, because tomorrow will be harder.


Anything that directly affects the stats of a PC should definitely require a save, which means wishing people dead or to be transported to some really awful place is probably the most effective "direct" method. If the party can actually make their saves, using Wish to drop monsters on them at inconvenient times would be pretty good.

Having the villain spam Wish effects too much might feel cheap, since it's not like the guy in question has a good source of XP to fuel them, but maybe he's been sitting on a pile of it for a long time. Maybe he can spam some Nightmares directly, or bind some outsiders to fling at the party?

I thought about this, but I'm worried that dropping monsters on them might encourage them to rest *earlier* while they can still handle an additional encounter. Instead I want them to push through as many encounters as possible because they realize every rest is a big risk.


Are we talking about the Harbinger? Because he doesn't have enough XP to cast wish. His statblock specifies that he only has 3,000 XP available to use for XP components.

Basically a character at the same level as the harbinger. The XP point is really salient. A canny wizard would realize they should realistically have to deal with no more than a few wishes from a single mage.

[Quertus]

Just have the first attempt that they make to try to cast the spell kill them. Award the party full XP, with no explanation of where it came from. Have the party find their corpse in the course of their adventures. If they use Speak with Dead, they can put 2 and 2 together.

Honestly, the best use of Wish is probably to get a “Sending” effect off to a being matching arbitrary specifications (like, someone with the power of Quertus (or whatever passes for a “being of power” in their legends, even if it’s something generic, like “something at least as powerful as a Pit Fiend”), but who can and would harass the party on the caster’s behalf).

More to the point, what I actually mean is, normally, a being capable of casting such magic is capable of casting not just spells up to 8th level, but other 9th level spells, too. It would seem most reasonable for them to use those *other* spells to harass the party to the extent possible, and save their very limited ability for things that they simply can’t do any other way.

[aglondier]

Use his first wish to give the big bad the option to offset the xp component to the subject or recipient of the wish. Henceforth, all his debilitating wishes will also slowly drain the xp from the party...

Also, this is the Big Bad of the entire campaign...the rules that bind player characters do not necessarily apply...

[Promethean]

Your big bad has scry and wish...why in Hades are you even considering using it for Save or Die effects?

You have unlimited opportunity to mess with them, use it...

"I wish that (party leader)'s wife just fell pregnant and is demanding he come home and retire from heroics"
"I wish that the heroes all spoke different languages and that they had no language in common"
"I wish that the forbidden lovechild of an Invisible Stalker and a Rust Monster would visit the party every d4 days"
"I wish that the strongest and weakest party members would swap strength"
"I wish that every time (tallest party member) takes a life they would shrink by 1 inch"
"I wish that only those wearing a floppy bunny costume can find the way to my dread castle"
"I wish that (party healer) would be attacked by thrown haddocks when noone is looking at them"

Go nuts, my friend...

Isn't this literaly just getting creative with what curse/greater curse does anyway?

Leaving curses with a specific way out is 100% in line with the spells intent(unless I'm thinking of ravenloft...)

[Vaern]

In line with depowering magic items and scattering the party across the multiverse, here are a couple more that are essentially opposites of suggested uses of Wish from the spell description:

Reduce an inherent bonus to an ability score by 1.

Bestow a -1 inherent penalty to an ability score. Multiple consecutive castings may cause this penalty to stack up to -5 with in the same way as an inherent bonus.

Cause injuries or afflictions. You may harm one creature per caster level, as the spell, or afflict them with a single disease or poison of your choice. The same affliction affects all creatures targeted by this effect.



Wish is able to duplicate the effects of 8th-level sor/wiz spells, which means the effects of Bestow Curse and Bestow Greater Curse are available. Book of Vile Darkness has a handful of suggestions for alternative curse effects, which include but are not limited to:

Any result of 20 on a d20 roll is instead treated as a 1 (automatic successes on attack rolls and saving throws are no longer possible; automatic failures are twice as likely)

Target becomes deaf and blind

A certain kind of creature becomes invisible to the target (target the healer and make other party members invisible to him)

The target's most powerful or cherished item falls apart (much like your depowering a magic item, but not limited by GP value)

Valuable metals in the target's possession turn to lead (character loses all wealth and is unable to gain more until the curse is lifted)

Target can not cast spells, use spell-like abilities, or activate spell completion or spell trigger items.



Book of Vile Darkness also suggests that Wish may be used to bestow family curses, which sculpt the destiny of the cursed character's lineage. These have no immediate noticeable impact, but come with severe long-term repercussions up to and including one of the character's descendants bringing doom to their entire land.

[Particle_Man]

If the party is human, maybe wish that they age a year (5 years? 10 years? You set the amount) every day? It gets noticeable after a while and is a great way to spur on a party if they worry about aging out.

[Crake]

I want to keep the power level in line with what I would allow a PC wish to do. Arbitrary effects should therefore be in line with an 8th level spell.

As prometheum said, these effects are all fairly in line with the 7th level spell greater curse

[blackwindbears]

In line with depowering magic items and scattering the party across the multiverse, here are a couple more that are essentially opposites of suggested uses of Wish from the spell description:

Reduce an inherent bonus to an ability score by 1.

Bestow a -1 inherent penalty to an ability score. Multiple consecutive castings may cause this penalty to stack up to -5 with in the same way as an inherent bonus.

Cause injuries or afflictions. You may harm one creature per caster level, as the spell, or afflict them with a single disease or poison of your choice. The same affliction affects all creatures targeted by this effect.



Wish is able to duplicate the effects of 8th-level sor/wiz spells, which means the effects of Bestow Curse and Bestow Greater Curse are available. Book of Vile Darkness has a handful of suggestions for alternative curse effects, which include but are not limited to:

Any result of 20 on a d20 roll is instead treated as a 1 (automatic successes on attack rolls and saving throws are no longer possible; automatic failures are twice as likely)

Target becomes deaf and blind

A certain kind of creature becomes invisible to the target (target the healer and make other party members invisible to him)

The target's most powerful or cherished item falls apart (much like your depowering a magic item, but not limited by GP value)

Valuable metals in the target's possession turn to lead (character loses all wealth and is unable to gain more until the curse is lifted)

Target can not cast spells, use spell-like abilities, or activate spell completion or spell trigger items.



Book of Vile Darkness also suggests that Wish may be used to bestow family curses, which sculpt the destiny of the cursed character's lineage. These have no immediate noticeable impact, but come with severe long-term repercussions up to and including one of the character's descendants bringing doom to their entire land.

Brilliant! Exactly what I was looking for!

[awa]

remember your the Dm your job is not to beat the pcs over the head with how clever you are but to make a fun game. Do you think these effects will be fun or obnoxious for your players?

[Coeruleum]

One can set up a good 90 issue manga arc for everyone lacks teleport magic yet has divination spells.

Unless someone is a psion, it's really easy to make an armchair adventurer out of psions using Clairtangent Hand and Remote View Trap, astral projecting, traveling through dreams, or mind swapping, all without actually teleporting to physically leave their room at all. Which would be a really fun campaign honestly, but could easily end way before 90 issues since people could kill each other by stabbing them in their dreams, this fails to kill a seer, then they wake up and start telekinetically throwing things at the nomad who tried stabbing the seer in the seer's dreams.

[blackwindbears]

remember your the Dm your job is not to beat the pcs over the head with how clever you are but to make a fun game. Do you think these effects will be fun or obnoxious for your players?

I agree that the point isn't to show the players how clever I am. I disagree that the point is to make a fun game.

The point is to make a *satisfying* game. To keep a game satisfying for years on end there need to be reversals. Sometimes that means the enemies will do obnoxious things.

The important thing in my view is that the things that happen *feel* like they are logical consequences of 1) the parties actions, 2) the villains abilities.

My players are absolutely going to hate getting kicked in the **** every time they go to rest. It's gonna make them try to push through harder and faster. It's gonna make the adventure real difficult. But as long as they feel like I'm playing fair with the villain's resources and they have ways to interact with the ****-kicking, they're gonna hate *the villain* not the game.

At that point I think they'll find beating this particular enemy really rewarding, rather than just reaching the final room of yet another monster that sits and waits to be killed, you know?

[Troacctid]

If a villain is trying to disrupt their rests specifically, I think casting nightmare or demand makes more sense. Preventing enemies from sleeping is a tactic that you use in drawn-out battles of attrition, and if you're digging in for a drawn-out battle of attrition, you don't want to be spewing 5,000 xp a day.

[Crake]

But as long as they feel like I'm playing fair with the villain's resources and they have ways to interact with the ****-kicking, they're gonna hate *the villain* not the game.

I dunno if a villain who can apparently spend 5000xp a day would necessarily feel fair. Like, maybe its possible as a technicality, but I somehow doubt your players would feel like its fair, because its probably not something they would do themselves, simply as part of the unspoken gentleman’s agreement at your table.

Now, you know your players better than I do, but I find it hard to imagine that they would consider it “fair”.

[pabelfly]

If you want players to rush and drop any ideas about five-minute adventure days, set a harsh countdown timer that can only be beat by travelling multiple days in a row without rest, and enforce fatigue penalties and daily respurce usage. If players try to beat the timer with spells, etc, have the countdown adjust for that too.

[blackwindbears]

I dunno if a villain who can apparently spend 5000xp a day would necessarily feel fair. Like, maybe its possible as a technicality, but I somehow doubt your players would feel like its fair, because its probably not something they would do themselves, simply as part of the unspoken gentleman’s agreement at your table.

Now, you know your players better than I do, but I find it hard to imagine that they would consider it “fair”.

That's right! So probably not using more than one or two wishes



Basically a character at the same level as the harbinger. The XP point is really salient. A canny wizard would realize they should realistically have to deal with no more than a few wishes from a single mage.



If you want players to rush and drop any ideas about five-minute adventure days, set a harsh countdown timer that can only be beat by travelling multiple days in a row without rest, and enforce fatigue penalties and daily respurce usage. If players try to beat the timer with spells, etc, have the countdown adjust for that too.

There was a hard timer for adventure 4 and 5. I'm going to use a hard timer in adventure 8 and 11, and probably 12, so I'd like to avoid it for this one.

[Promethean]

The XP cost wouldn't necessarily matter if they have any means of negation, like being a dweomerkeeper.

The 4 free wishes a day is 100% believable because they're Free.

There's also a feat for a familiar substitution ACF in dragon magazine that can potentially give 1/day free wish or limited wish(can't remember which).

[blackwindbears]

The XP cost wouldn't necessarily matter if they have any means of negation, like being a dweomerkeeper.

The 4 free wishes a day is 100% believable because they're Free.

There's also a feat for a familiar substitution ACF in dragon magazine that can potentially give 1/day free wish or limited wish(can't remember which).

This is true, but I wouldn't allow a PC to have it so I don't expect them to treat it as fair play