Quote Originally Posted by TheOOB View Post
The wish spell involves the caster altering reality to suit their whims, and thus a wish will usually follow the spirit of the wisher, assuming the wisher is the one who cast the spell.

When casting wish, you don't need to write out a legal document. The only time your wish should backfire is when you wish for something that is obviously a very bad idea (eg. eternal life = temporal stasis). If the wish can be accomplished within the preset bounds (say by emulating a spell) it will do so, if it cannot, the DM decides if the wish is possible for a 9th level spell, if it is, it happens, if not, the wish either a)tries to fulfill the wish as best as possible(a wish for the most powerful magic sword ever may still get you a magic sword, just not the most powerful one), or b)simply fails.

Items would, as stated above, follow the path of least resistance. They would have some ability to identify the intent of the wish (and would never fail if it was for one of the listed things in the wish entry), but would otherwise try to do what the wisher wanted in the way that affects the least number of people the smallest amount. Remember, as a general rule, magic items don't have a sense of humor or irony, they won't try to make a fool out of your or prevert your wish(unless specifically designed to, eg the monkey's paw), nor should they be hopelessly literal, they are designed to help the wielder. They simple do what the wielder says to the best of their ability.

When dealing with other, wish-casting beings, however, all bets are off. They cast the wish, not you, and while they may be obligated to follow the wording of your wish, they are the ones who choose how they follow the wording. When getting a wish from an efreet, break out the profession(lawyer) skill(not that they wouldn't have more ranks then you).

Wish is the ultimate DM's fiat spell, it has a list of what is can defiantly do, everything else is up to the DM. It's balancing factor is that it costs a ton of XP, a quarter of the amount neccesary to go from level 20 to 21 in fact.
I'm not disagreeing you, but none of this is RAW. If a wish cast by an item is used to go beyond the normal limits, nowhere does it say that is HAS to fail or that it HAS to only partially grant the wish. As a DM, I usually go for the 'literal interpretation'. Eg: Wishing for the most powerful sword in the world will bring it to you, but the people with the most powerful items in the world tend to have ways of tracking them down.