Oh, the fun of three wishes.

[Lolzords]

We're playing a level 10-15 campaign. I'm playing the wizard, at the moment we're at level 11. Level 10 we were in the underdark helping the mindflayers, then we got on a mindflayer airship and traveled to astral plane where we were attack by the githyanki. (By this time we were level 11) We boarded the ship and blew it up, landing in a githyanki fortress.

We walked into a room where I saw a lamp on the floor, I picked it up. As I picked it up, the party members were attacked from the rear and the door swung shut. Being almost out of spells, I decided to let them battle on themselves. I rubbed the lamp and out came a Djinn. (stereotyped, I know) Blah blah blah 3 wishes ect.

My first wish was to have my intelligence permanently boosted. My int. was boosted from 20 to 22, the catch? The cleric's int was drained by 2. No biggy, the cleric doesn't use int that much.

My second wish was to have many many scrolls of all levels. More or less all of the spells appeared all around me. I managed to scribe one, flesh to stone to my spellbook before a lich appeared,

"GIVE ME BACK MY DAMN SCROLLS" The lich yelled, the door behind me becoming fully locked instead of just closed.

My third wish was for the lich to be gone. His phalactary (sorry, awful spelling) appeared in my hand. After some banter and me threatening to smash his phalactary (sorry again) unless he lets me copy all his scrolls, the lich turned invisible and did 40 damage to me, leaving me at low health. Even though the Djinn is now free, he is sitting in the corner of the room, which the DM has pointed out to me for several times.

I reckon as a free action I'm gonna yell at the Djinn for help, if that doesn't work i'm gonna spend a move action grabbing an armful of scrolls and teleporting away as my standard action.

What would you do in my position?

[Neko]

Hmmm well sounds like your DM is very strict with stuff.. I mean most would give the boosts not make you take penalties or fight a litch for the scrolls or anything. Rather severe in my opinion... anyways... Yeah I'd go for the teleport with the armful myself. He who runs away... with an armfull of spells in hand... lives to nuke the litch another day.. and get back at the genie possibly for being such a pain with the wishes.

[Lolzords]

Hmmm well sounds like your DM is very strict with stuff.. I mean most would give the boosts not make you take penalties or fight a litch for the scrolls or anything. Rather severe in my opinion... anyways... Yeah I'd go for the teleport with the armful myself. He who runs away... with an armfull of spells in hand... lives to nuke the litch another day.. and get back at the genie possibly for being such a pain with the wishes.

Exactly, a wizard who's low on health and spells isn't going to be able to take on a lich who probably has full health and full spells and who probably is a higher level then me.

As for the wishes, it's the same as the OOTS oracle, if you don't word your wish specifically, it always screws up somehow. I want more int. someone else loses some. I want lots of scrolls, they're stolen from a high level dude.

[Dragonmuncher]

Man, I hate stuff like this.

It's one thing to twist a wish when it's patently unreasonable- Most powerful being in the world (get shifted to a pocket plane where you're the only inhabitant), be the richest being in the world (You get all the gold, but the economy collapses and no one gives a damn about gold anymore. Or all the former owners of said gold are very, very mad at you and destroy you), etc.

Now, the increase to Int is perfectly within the power of Wish. The scroll thing is a little iffy, but not too bad. And how does getting the phylactery of a lich make him go away? If anything, he'd try to kill you right away and get it back.



Bah. It just annoys me.


Sorry for the rant. I was going to suggest threaten to destroy the phylactery, but then I found this in the SRD:

The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.

So... that's a little tough to destroy easily.

[GoblinJTHM]

is your party high enough level to get anywhere if everyone attacked the box and you went invis or teleported behind them (well really anywhere away from the lich)

thats some good xp

[Quietus]

Man, I hate stuff like this.

It's one thing to twist a wish when it's patently unreasonable- Most powerful being in the world (get shifted to a pocket plane where you're the only inhabitant), be the richest being in the world (You get all the gold, but the economy collapses and no one gives a damn about gold anymore. Or all the former owners of said gold are very, very mad at you and destroy you), etc.

Now, the increase to Int is perfectly within the power of Wish. The scroll thing is a little iffy, but not too bad. And how does getting the phylactery of a lich make him go away? If anything, he'd try to kill you right away and get it back.



Bah. It just annoys me.


Sorry for the rant. I was going to suggest threaten to destroy the phylactery, but then I found this in the SRD:



So... that's a little tough to destroy easily.

Unless you have Disintegrate prepared. Sure, YOU'RE holding it, but that just means you basically control the save. Choose to have the phylactery fail.

[Delaney Gale]

I stick out my tongue at your DM- he has made the classic mistake of putting powerful spell effects too early in the campaign, and is trying frantically to cover for it. Roll with his frantic covering-of-arse, and come back later with a lot more firepower- because if your DM did this to you, you're not going to have any chance of getting out alive if you fight it.

Unless you have Disintegrate prepared. Sure, YOU'RE holding it, but that just means you basically control the save. Choose to have the phylactery fail.

Ah, disintegrate. Is there a problem it doesn't solve? (this opinion brought to you by the IC version of Delaney Gale)

P.S. Do I spy a minature giant space hamster in your avatar?

[Lolzords]

Unless you have Disintegrate prepared. Sure, YOU'RE holding it, but that just means you basically control the save. Choose to have the phylactery fail.

Nah, I said before I have few spells memorized.

Earlier, I had just regained consciousness, being carried by a fleeing githyanki slave type person. I shrugged, touched his face and cast disintergrate. Sure, I fell on my arse, but he poofed into dust. ^_^

[GoblinJTHM]

did you try giving him back the scrolls? it sounds like the entire point of the genie in the bottle was to use whatever you wished to screw you over.

we're you complaining to the DM about how boring the quest was?

[Zaeron]

Man, I hate DMs that handle wishes like that.

Wish is a spell with perfectly laid out parameters, and you're ONLY supposed to be 'penalized' by the spell when you blatantly exceed those. The scroll thing was kind of iffy, but the int thing wasn't bad at all, and the cleric DEFINATELY shouldn't have been punished for a wish he didn't even make. And the phylactery thing is just plain stupid. Any Lich who didn't have a dimensional anchor on his phylactery for exactly this reason doesn't deserve to be a lich - and on top of that, it didn't even fulfill the wish, unless it gave you a way to break the box easily, before the lich can stop you, AND the lich is willing to talk it over rather than just desperately attempt to get the thing back.

I think my first action would be to hand my character sheet to the DM and tell him that if he's going to punish me for all your actions, he might as well play my character for me. :-p

Other than that, I really don't know. Beg your DM OOC for a do-over? You're clearly supposed to ask the Dijinn for help - if I had to guess, the dijinn is a plot hook and the DM just didn't want you to get any benefit from the Wishes you got.

You could try handing the scrolls back to the Lich and offering to repay the cost of the one you scribed. Or you could grab some of the 'scrolls of all levels' lying around and hope it's a good one.

The way to do that is to specifically ask your DM "so the scrolls are scattered all over the floor, right?" And then "what ones can I see clearly?" to find out what spells are nearby. Don't give any hints until then. Then grab one and cast it. You even have a shot at a level 9 spell since you're a level.. 10 or 11 wizard. Good luck!

[Mad Wizard]

Yeah, did your DM explain how you getting the phylactery = the lich being gone? Seems odd.

[martyboy74]

The way to do that is to specifically ask your DM "so the scrolls are scattered all over the floor, right?" And then "what ones can I see clearly?" to find out what spells are nearby. Don't give any hints until then. Then grab one and cast it. You even have a shot at a level 9 spell since you're a level.. 10 or 11 wizard. Good luck!

If the DM's in 'Oh ****' mode, it'll be a bunch of low level scrolls, like Magic Missile and Shield, because he doesn't want you getting any more powerful. If he's a 'plot hook' mode, it'll be a bunchof low level scrolls, because he doesn't want you getting out without being plot hooked.

[Neek]

It seems a bit of a stretch, but I get the premise. The phylactery was given to him to force him away. He was given the means to remove it, more or less. Standing on a pile of scrolls with phylactery in hand... yeah. Find yourself the Disintegrate or Polymorph Any Object scroll. For the latter, convert to a sugar cube and put it in a cup of tea. Or polymorph it into a bunny and kill it. :D

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

Man, my players say I'm the strictest guy they've seen with wishes, and I think your DM is way too hard on you.

[GoblinJTHM]

yeah, but it wasn't the wish spell, it was a wish granting djinni, and I'd have to guess an evil one. And if I had to guess, this evil djinni's entire purpose is that no matter what you wish for, no matter how specific you are, it's his job to find some way to screw you over.

The djinni originates from homebrew fairy tails of old where the moral of the story was 'be careful what you wish for' and/or 'don't wish at all' and or 'take other's concerns into consideration/put other's concerns before your own' being that as seen in alladin, all the djinni wants is to be free.

Unless you have some failsafe way figure out to deal with the djinni, any djinni, causing no negative effects, wouldn't you agree the safest thing to do is not to wish at all, or wish the djinni free? (at which point if he remains evil as he originally way, he may proceed to attack you)

Not only that theres a number of ways to deal with the lich, especially when you have his magic regen thingie.

Finally I want to ask, did you wish for scrolls or did you wish for a bunch of high level lich's scrolls?

[Belteshazzar]

The Djinn was offering the wishes, as stated above this is important because it sounds like you simply took his word for it that you would be safe when making a wish. It sounds like the Djinns alignment is lawful evil (with a sadistic bent) and he offered the wishes planning to screw you over with you own words. Berating the DM because he created a character whose intention is to screw you over is no fun for either party. I would just roll with it and accept that he is trying to keep you on your toes. However if this becomes a constant trend then it could grow old rather fast.

[Citizen Joe]

Clearly your third wish should have been "I wish I had never rubbed this lamp."

[Roog]

If the GM gives me whishes in any campaign, then unless the charcter is actually familiar with the wish spell, I do something like this.

1: I wish I has a ham sandwidge.

2: That was tasty, I wish I has another.

3: Now that I think about it, I wish I had asked for mustard as well.

Seriously, any GM who gives out wishes needs to consider the IC effects of beeing granted a wish, because it often seems that a GM who gives out wishes wants to play some sort of OOC meta-game with the player.

[Icewalker]

We had an interesting one involving low level characters, an interplanar war between heaven and hell, and a lot of scavenging.

ring of three wishes, one is used.

the wish: one 25 CR worth of loot.

A balor shows up. He's mad at us for killing his brother with this wish.

We call on the assistance of some lesser celestial rescued down the line. Now due to some fogginess with the rules, we were not aware of the 'if summoned, they can't summon' but before long the balor was summoning pals, the celestial was summoning bigger ones, and a massive fight broke out. When it was over we looted the bodies. Then stopped playing and didn't come back.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Clearly your third wish should have been "I wish I had never rubbed this lamp."

The genie would prrobably have erased your entire existence in that case.