[3.5] Candle of Invocation/Gate

[Crow]

I had never really looked into the Candle and Gate to see how they can completely and utterly demolish WBL. I knew it was cheese, and I don't really spend time looking into known cheese too far. To make sure I understand it right, though, presumably, any character with enough ranks in Knowledge:The Planes, and a Candle of Invocation can start summoning Efreeti and have them "Wish" more and more Candles, which leads to more and more wishes, and by extension, magic items, or anything else they want. I was hoping that the Efreeti entry in the MM would mention something about possibly twisting those wishes, but no such luck.

I am not too worried about it breaking my game or anything (I have reasonable players), but I was still curious how other DM's went about fixing this particular item. Did you "Just Say No" when someone mentioned using these in this way? Did you houserule the Efreeti twisting wish intentions around, or just eliminate Candles of Invocation and Gate from your setting/game? Or did you do something entirely different?

[Saph]

It's generally understood that the main houserule in my games is "Don't be a jerk". As such, I don't individually ban things; I leave it up to players' common sense. Most of them don't know about the Gate thing in the first place, so it doesn't come up.

If one of them went reading on the Character Optimisation boards and came to the game one day intending to do it, I'd point out four things:

a) It's blatant abuse of the rules.
b) They still have to buy the Candle of Invocation in the first place, and I'm under no obligation to make one available.
c) They're trying to get a LAWFUL EVIL outsider - a race whose flavour text SPECIFICALLY states that they passionately hate serving mortals - to grant them WISHES. Yeah, no way that could possibly go wrong. :)
d) If the player ignores a), b), and c), I'll point out that anything they can do, NPCs can do. If this works, it means NPCs could do it, and can have done it in the past, many, many times. Furthermore, the world has been around for thousands of years before the PCs showed up. Think about that for a minute.

If the player's smart, they'll get the hint and back off at this point. If they're not smart, they'll run into whatever this particular universe's block against easy ultimate power is, which'll be as humourous or vicious as I choose to make it, depending on how good-humoured the player was about the whole thing and how much I like him. :P

Or I suppose I could just houserule it and say "No". But I find doing these sorts of things in-universe is much more fun, and you can get a decent adventure hook out of it, so why not play along?

- Saph

Edit: Just remembered. While I've never seen a Candle used, there was one time someone in one of my campaigns did the binding-an-outsider-for-three-wishes thing. It's a funny story, actually. :)

[Curmudgeon]

A Candle of Invocation has a strong alignment. If the user isn't of that alignment as a DM I'd switch them immediately, because it's a conscious choice to use such an item. (They could, of course, make a DC 30 Use Magic Device check to get around this.) If the PC decided to call an efreeti, I'd explain that each one gets to grant wishes only once a day, and because such services are so much in demand they've got a 1% chance (i.e., the same chance that a random djinni happens to be the noble version) that this particular creature hasn't already used up theirs for the day. That doesn't seem like too much of a problem.

[Douglas]

I haven't done much GMing myself, but if I were running a near-RAW campaign and a player tried to exploit a combo that thoroughly broken I would promptly introduce him to the fact that Pun-pun actually exists in my custom campaign setting - he's the overdeity of exploits, he's aware of the setting's nature as a game and the purpose of that game, and he uses his power as an omnipotent overdeity to prevent any exploit that would break the game too much. The scene might go something like this:

Player: I use the Candle to call an Efreeti. Let the Wish loop begin! :smallbiggrin:
Me: The Gate opens and a kobold steps through. He says "nice try, but no", picks up your candle, and goes back through the Gate. It closes behind him.

[Dr Bwaa]

Player: I use the Candle to call an Efreeti. Let the Wish loop begin! :smallbiggrin:
Me: The Gate opens and a kobold steps through. He says "nice try, but no", picks up your candle, and goes back through the Gate. It closes behind him.

That's really classy. I love it. :smallsmile:

[Curmudgeon]

Quote of the Week:

"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors." I want to be the magical girl. Buffy's died three times ...
drowned by the Master
sacrificed herself instead of Dawn to close the interdimensional portal
flatlined briefly when Warren shot her
... and is still going strong (in Season Eight comic books). :smallcool:

[chiasaur11]

That's really classy. I love it. :smallsmile:

Same.

Plus, it falls under "friendly warning" rather than being a jerk about it.

Which, I suppose, falls under classy.

[monty]

Player: I use the Candle to call an Efreeti. Let the Wish loop begin! :smallbiggrin:
Me: The Gate opens and a kobold steps through. He says "nice try, but no", picks up your candle, and goes back through the Gate. It closes behind him.

I like this. Why Rule 0 when you can Pun-Pun?

[Arbitrarity]

I love Pun-Pun as an overdeity. He's stylish. Viper familiar, army of squirrels, punches echoed by shadow thousands of miles away, and HE CAN SEE THE SUN.

[BobVosh]

Easy way around this is to rule whoever gains the benefit of the wish, i.e. the player, pays the exp cost.

[Innis Cabal]

d) If the player ignores a), b), and c), I'll point out that anything they can do, NPCs can do. If this works, it means NPCs could do it, and can have done it in the past, many, many times. Furthermore, the world has been around for thousands of years before the PCs showed up. Think about that for a minute.

That right there. Works every time.

[chiasaur11]

I love Pun-Pun as an overdeity. He's stylish. Viper familiar, army of squirrels, punches echoed by shadow thousands of miles away, and HE CAN SEE THE SUN.

Plus, the Lady of Pain was shown in Torment to be a bunch of squirrels.

And guess who is both nigh-omnipotent, and has a lot of squirrels as minions?

Plus, it explains the not wanting worship.

[BobVosh]

Plus, the Lady of Pain was shown in Torment to be a bunch of squirrels.

And guess who is both nigh-omnipotent, and has a lot of squirrels as minions?

Plus, it explains the not wanting worship.

Is it deranged hermit?

[Raging Gene Ray]

Plus, the Lady of Pain was shown in Torment to be a bunch of squirrels.


...where was this? That sounds like more of something out of a webcomic

[Innis Cabal]

One of the insane gibberings about the Lady of Pain is she is a ton of squrriels in a robe.

Its never ever been proven by canon