Where's the fun playing in a Wish-based economy?

[Endarire]

Assume you're from a society relying on a wish-based economy with a cap of 15,000G on wished items.  (That is, you can create an item worth up to 15,000G with 1 wish or add up to 15,000G of 'improvements' with 1 wish.)

You may adventure to find more valuable things, but a level 1 adventurer- if such a thing existed- would be decked out in +8 armor and at least one +3 weapon.  (Getting to +8 on armor would take 6 days and +3 on the weapon would take 2 days, not counting especially expensive materials.)

Opponents would seemingly be magical experiments run amuck, enemy citizens, 'primitives,' extraplanar beings, and nonsentient animals.  Time may be a factor, though you may be able to wish for enough items to manifest time regression that it wouldn't matter.

The main fun I'm seeing is very short-term, being given lots of immediate power with challenges based limiting one's ability to wish.

[PhaedrusXY]

You don't normally enter the Wish economy till somewhere around 9th level, around the time that the party mage can access ways to get free wishes. Societies are not based around it at all. Did you actually read the stuff they'd written on it? It's supposed to exist right along side the "turnip economy" and the "gold economy".

You could probably enter it earlier if you actually knew it existed, and saved all your money until you could afford to go buy a scroll of Lesser Planar Binding, I guess. But still, level 1 adventurers aren't going to be in it at all, unless they're PunPun or something.

[RobbyPants]

Minor nitpick, but you need the regular version of Planar Binding to bind an efreet based on Hit Dice...

... of is there some other outsider that grants Wishes that I don't even know about? 

[Arcane-surge]

I remember Frank mentioning this once (the level 9 entry to the Wish Economy). You can use Lesser Planar Binding to bind something that has Limited Wish as Su or Sp, and use it to duplicate the regular version of Planar Binding. I think that's how it works.

[RobbyPants]

That could be.  There's also the whole LE Candle of Invocation trick.  I think WBL lets you afford that around level 7 or so.  You technically have enough at 5th level, but it's not until 7th level that it costs you less than half your total.

[Leress]

I remember Frank mentioning this once (the level 9 entry to the Wish Economy). You can use Lesser Planar Binding to bind something that has Limited Wish as Su or Sp, and use it to duplicate the regular version of Planar Binding. I think that's how it works.

That would be the Dao from Manual of the Planes.

[Sinfire Titan]

It all depends on how the DM interprets the Wish and the intent of the Wish-granter. Remember, he has total control over everything, and he can have the Wish-granter create Cursed items if he so pleases.



Mind you, this is heavily DM-dependent. Some may overlook this fact, and doing the Wish-granter a legitimate favor does warrant reward. That, and the fact that the DM can simply say every magic item on your character is slightly cursed, even if you crafted it yourself.

[PhaedrusXY]

Yes, and you can kick the DM in the nuts for being a douchebag, too. 

[RobbyPants]

I always thought you could make a wish without risk of anything wierd happening if it came off of the bulleted list of "allowed" options.  Everything else was up in the air.

You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)

Obviously the DM can do what he wants, but I'm merely stating RAW.

[veekie]

I always thought you could make a wish without risk of anything wierd happening if it came off of the bulleted list of "allowed" options.  Everything else was up in the air.

Similar view here, wishes to replicate spell effects(within reason of course, theres potential xp/gp cost shenanigans) works fine. Other wishes may result in trouble if granted by a malicious entity(creative misinterpretation is a classic) or if the effect wished for exceeds the power of a 9th level spell by a caster of X level.

[Caelic]

Other wishes may result in trouble if granted by a malicious entity(creative misinterpretation is a classic) or if the effect wished for exceeds the power of a 9th level spell by a caster of X level.

It's the second part that's always formed my guiding philosophy when it comes to Wishes.

A Wish is a ninth level spell; it has a finite amount of magical energy with which to work.  It's going to take the path of least resistance to get the requested job done, particularly if that job is otherwise beyond what it could accomplish.

Thus, if the party wishes for a powerful magical item, it's easier for the Wish to teleport such an item to them from elsewhere in the world than to spontaneously create it.  That, of course, might cause problems when the original owner comes looking.

[archangel.arcanis]

I never thought about it that way but the teleport is a good example, but i think it should generate some items from nothing.

as to the intentional misunderstandings let me recount an event in a game i ran once. the setup: the party finds a magic "lamp" (really an iron flask with a different look) and out pops a red genie (efreeti) to grant that person 3 wishes.
player1 wish1: wish for a billion plat.   
Ef: granted. you own a billion plat. it is somewhere that way.
p1w2: wish for the plat to be here where we are. 
Ef: ok. now there are a bunch of guys loading it all into holding bags and loading those onto wagons to be delivered to this spot. it should take a few months assuming they don't get robbed. oh and minus the costs of the bags, wagons, mules, and labor.
p1w3: wishes for the party to each get 1million xp, ef makes him define who the party is for the purpose of this wish. 
ef: causes a balor to show up and fight the party, they are lvl 6-8 at this time. 
dmpc: rubs the lamp while running around trying to not get killed. Wishes the Balor dead and the party gets xp for it.
Ef: makes the balor dead and he takes the xp as the "party" wasn't defined by the new wisher, so he decided the definition of party was the Ef. 
dmpc: wishes for the knowledge of what wishes he isn't allowed screw up on purpose.
Ef: tells him the bullet list in the phb.
dmpc: wishes new body for pc that died from balor
pc2w1: wishes the dead pc back to life.
pc2w2: +1 stat bonus
pc2w3: small bonus to his armor.

All players found this whole thing entertaining and decided they would never use wish again in a game where i got to decide what happened. 

[veekie]

Well, in this case it's legit with a malicious wish granter. Though I'd have thought it'd try to twist those wishes towards the efreet's personal benefit...like making the PCs opposed to one of it's enemies(via unintentional consequences of Loot-O-Matic wish), and then using more wishes to attack that enemy.

[Akalsaris]

I always assumed that the only core creatures that frequently grant wishes are noble djinn, efreeti, and nalfenshees.  Of those, the noble djinn are quite rare and powerful, and probably would demand huge services in return for their wishes, or have their own assassins to deal with wizards who planar bind them, while the efreeti and nalfenshee always try to corrupt the wishes made.  Anyone else only uses a wish spell in an emergency, because losing experience sucks badly.

Though as far as Endairire's hypothetical situation goes (let's assume that in this setting candles of invocation are commonplace and that wish doesn't require experience), it could still be fun to play.  It would just make the campaign much more monty haul, and would probably eventually involve artifact-based adventures in an escalating battle of wishes between the main NPCs and PCs.

[PhaedrusXY]

I always assumed that the only core creatures that frequently grant wishes are noble djinn, efreeti, and nalfenshees.  Of those, the noble djinn are quite rare and powerful, and probably would demand huge services in return for their wishes, or have their own assassins to deal with wizards who planar bind them, while the efreeti and nalfenshee always try to corrupt the wishes made.  Anyone else only uses a wish spell in an emergency, because losing experience sucks badly.

SLAs don't cost XP. XP is a component. SLAs don't have components.

Though as far as Endairire's hypothetical situation goes (let's assume that in this setting candles of invocation are commonplace and that wish doesn't require experience), it could still be fun to play.  It would just make the campaign much more monty haul, and would probably eventually involve artifact-based adventures in an escalating battle of wishes between the main NPCs and PCs.

That's called The Wish Economy. It's like... the whole point of this thread. Endairire didn't come up with it. He just heard about it, and wanted to discuss it. Frank and K came up with a logically consistent version of it, where you can't Wish for anything worth more than 15,000 gp. It changes the economics of the game, but actually winds up a lot less breakable than Core D&D, where you can Wish for any damn thing you want, including a Staff of Infinite Wishes, using a SLA. You can read about the details of their version here.

[awaken DM golem]

If you're going by: the rules are the rules - regardless of the contortions - then
there's a minor problem area.

The (+3) town has an item cap of 3000 gp, so the Candle loop can't get going there.
1st wish is OK, 2nd wish is OK, wish for another Candle, and you violate the item gp cap.
Can't do it there. Don't know why, but that doesn't matter.
You can speculate as to what happens.
(a) ... Candle shows up, but it doesn't have the extra goodie
(b) ... You get Teleported to a (+6) town, and you get a lesser candle as above, and the townspeople notice.


The (+6) town has an item cap of 15000 gp, Candle loop happens there.
Somebody else did it first.
"We don't have those spells memorized today, come back tomorrow. Cheer-io  . "
Gives the local powers a chance to figure out the next step.

Wishing for a Scroll of Planar Binding works, though the devils in the details.
.

[wotmaniac]

I'm posting this here in regards to a derail on the AaSQ thread (as per PhaedrusXY's direction):

Okay, things basically went something like -- "if your DM tries to twist a wish that you get from planar binding, then he sucks donkey nuts" ^{_{(this is only a characterization)}}.

Well, I submit this:
If you decide to bind something like an efreet to get his wishes, and your DM doesn't try to twist it apart, then he's doing it wrong (and you should hang your head with your disappointment in him).
If you (in that situation) actually expect to not get fucked with, then perhaps it's time to pull your head up out of the theoretical possibilities that you think your character has and give yourself a reality check.

... I'm just sayin' ...

[PhaedrusXY]

I've actually started DMing a game that uses the Wish economy as a PbP on this board. The PCs haven't really gotten into it yet, but it is the economic backdrop of the game, including the house rules to keep it from being broken. It lets you do fun things like actually have dragons that sleep on mountains of gold, kings that build solid gold thrones, wizards that mine the elemental plane of Earth for diamonds (or abuse Flesh to Salt...), etc, without ruining the game. Infinite money is not a problem, nor are infinite Wishes. Overall, it is actually far harder to break a game that uses it than one that doesn't... (without resorting to DM fiat to prevent it).

Here is the rules thread for that game, with a link to the full rules list, if you're interested.

[wotmaniac]

I've actually started DMing a game that uses the Wish economy as a PbP on this board. The PCs haven't really gotten into it yet, but it is the economic backdrop of the game, including the house rules to keep it from being broken. It lets you do fun things like actually have dragons that sleep on mountains of gold, kings that build solid gold thrones, wizards that mine the elemental plane of Earth for diamonds (or abuse Flesh to Salt...), etc, without ruining the game. Infinite money is not a problem, nor are infinite Wishes. Overall, it is actually far harder to break a game that uses it than one that doesn't... (without resorting to DM fiat to prevent it).

Here is the rules thread for that game, with a link to the full rules list, if you're interested.

bookmarked -- THANKS!

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Never done it. It doesn't sound like fun. Unlike deals with the devil, I see this one as having no built-in control to it. This makes the DM do all sorts of revengish NPC things. So I just leave it be and haven't had a player actually try this.

If I did I would let them but would warn them that powerful beings don't like being imprisoned. And they hold grudges. Did I mention they are powerful beings?