Wish

AN AD&D GAME FEATURE
Wishes have their limits

by Kim Mohan

Hornrim was a very smart magic-user.
There was no disputing that, because you
don't get to use the 9th-level spells without
having a lot upstairs. He was smart
enough to know that when he got to the
18th level of experience, he would have a
chance of being able ot learn how to cast a
Wish spell. Everything was working out
just the way Hornrim wanted it to.

He had been thinking about this day
almost since the start of his adventuring
career, and now all the preliminaries were
over. He had reached 18th level, and
he was about to utter what he called "the
ultimate Wish." It would be the first Wish
he had ever used, but he wasn't worried
about the consequences -- Hornrim was
convinced that his Wish would unlock all
the secrets of the universe for him, bringing
him all the knowledge and power he
had waited so long to get.

He committed the spell to memory,
settled back in his overstuffed wizard's
recliner, took a deep breath, and spoke
the words he had so carefully chosen:

"I wish to know everything there is to
know about the Wish spell."

And, just as he had hoped, his Wish
came true. In less tiem than it takes to tell
it, Hornrim's head was filled with everything
there is to know about the Wish
spell. An instant later, all the facts started
crashing into one another inside of his cranium.
Contradictions bounced off one
another, setting in motion a cataclysmic
cerebral chain reaction. Two instants
later, Hornrim's brain simply gave up.
He turned into a gibbering, insane idiot,
and when his family found him they
cashed in a few magic items and got him
a room in the Home for Wizards Who
Knew Too Much. He's still there, and
you can talk to him if you want, but don't
expect him to make any sense.

. . . . And that's why this article does
not include everything there is to know
about the Wish spell. I don't want ot end
up like old Hornrim, and I assume you
don't either. Be we can at least take a
look at the AD&D rules to see what
there is to know about the Wish spell. :
Nobody's gone crazy from simply
studying the rules, although I know of a few
people who've had some close calls.

Wishes are not all-powerful; after all
Wish is "only" a 9th-level spell, and it is
only one of a dozen such spells in the <list the spells here>
Players Handbook. Other more powerful
forms of magic exist in the AD&D game
universe, such as some of the powers of
deities, artifacts, and relics. And the
AD&D game rule books are replete with
specific mentions of things a Wish cannot
accomplish.

For instance: A Wish cannot prevent a
character from dying of old age, or enable
such a character to brought back from
death, (DMG, p.15).

A Wish cannot make it possible to cast
the same spell from a scroll more than
one, (DMG, p.128)

A Wish cannot reduce the time needed
to cast an Enchant an Item spell, (Players
Handbook, p.83).

A Wish cannot endow a character with
more hit points than the character
originally possessed, (PH, p.34)

. . . And so on. Other examples exist,
and we'll get to a few more of them later.
These first few examples help us to
establish . . .

The First Law of Wishes

A Wish can do anything not specifically prohibited by the rules, as long as
no clear-cut violation of the rules is involved.

That sounds okay, except we don't
know what a "clear-cut violation of the
rules" is. Well, that requires some judgment
on the part of you, the DM, or you,
the player (whichever one you happen to
be). You have to be familiar enough with
the AD&D rule system to make some
justifiable assumptions about the intent of
the rules -- which means, in a nutshell,
that you have to keep the campaign from getting
out of control.

For instance, I would rule that a Wish
cannot remove a class or level restriction
for a non-human player character -- not
without changing something else at the
same time so that no rules violation
occurs. If an 11th-level elven magic-user
gets ahold of a Ring of Three Wishes and
says, "I want ot be able to go higher than
11th level ," the wish may be granted --
turning the 11th-level elven magic-user
into a 1st-level human magic-user. Now
the character can advance as many levels
as he wants to, or is able to, and no rules
were broken in the process. If the same
character makes the same wish but adds,
"and I want to stay an elf," then the DM
is perfectly within his rights to rule that
the Wish simply doesn't, and can't, work
-- and to punish the player/character for
trying to break a rule, he might also
decide that the "impossible Wish" put
such a strain on the ring that all of its
remaining Wishes were dissipated at the
same time.

One aspect of what a Wish cannot do is
distinctive and important enough to be in
a class by itself. In fact, we'll steal the
words directly from the DMG (p.130)
and turn them into . . .

The Second Law of Wishes

No Wish is able to cancel the decrees of
god-like beings, unless it comes from
another such creature.

That says it all -- almost. I'd expand
and elaborate on that statement just a bit,
for clarity's sake. No player character --
and no NPC either, for that matter -- can
use a Wish to bring about divine intervention,
to get a deity to come when and
where it's called, or to get a deity to do
anything that deity doesn't want to do,
even if no actual "decree" is involved. If
a character tries to do such a thing, it will
certainly fail, and the possibilities for
retribution on the part of the deity/DM
are virtually limitless. A deity who got up
on the right side of the bed might show up,
shake a finger at the wisher, and say,
"Don't ever do that again." One who
wasn't so kindly disposed would simply
raise his right eyebrow and blast the character
into tiny smithereens. Either way,
no character is liable to try such a thing
twice.

The Second Law also applies, generally
and "usually" (as the DMG puts it), to
artifacts and relics. A Wish or even the
action of a deity, cannot counteract the
effects of the prime powers of these
extraordinary magic items, and a Wish is
often useless against major powers and
effects as well (the DM is obliged to make
specific rulings in these cases). Since the
relevant text on p. 156 of the DMG does
not mention minor powers and effects or
side effects, we can suppose that a Wish is
able to undo these aspects of an artifafct or
relic. You can get rid of acne (Minor
Malevolent Effect A) or negate a reduction
in charisma (Side Effect B) with a
Wish, but you can't prevent the "capricious
alignment change" caused by
Major Malevolent Effect B. As further
evidence of the fact that a deity's actions
can carry more clout than a character's
Wish, the DMG allows exceptions to the
above guidelines in the case of a deity
who created the artifact or relic in question,
or a deity who is able to fully control
the item -- and these exceptions can only
be granted by decision of the Dungeon
Master.

A Wish can do anything not
specifically prohibited by the rules,
as long as no clear-cut violation of
the rules is involved.

The First Law and the Second Law
cover a lot of ground, and they're also
pretty self-evident to anyone who's familiar
with the AD&D game rules. The
Third Law of Wishes, however, makes a
stipulation that is drawn from an assumption
instead of an outright statement:

The Third Law of Wishes

A Wish is able to duplicate the effect
of any other single spell, whenever
the user of the Wish specifies this as
his intent.

This is particularly useful for countering
the effects of a spell or magic item, in
cases where the rules say that only a certain
type of magic will work. For
instance, the indigo globe of a Prismatic
Sphere spell is impervious to all magical
spells, with the exception of Continual
Light, which will negate that globe and its
effect. If a character is in a life or death
situation where negation of the indigo
globe is crucial, and he doesn't have
access to a Continual Light spell but
happens to be carrying a Wish, then the
latter spell can be used as the equivalent
of Continual Light, and the globe can be
dissipated.

This may seem like a waste of the
Wish, and in some cases it might be. But
in a life-threatening situation, it may be a
character's only option -- and it may be a
real smart thing to do in a campaign
where Wishes are relatively plentiful and
Resurrections are relatively scarce.

Notice that the Third Law says "any
other single spell," and also note that it
doesn't restrict which type of magic might
be involved. Both of these assumptions
are sort of shaky, since they're based on
an assumption in the first place, but they
seem fair and logical. You can't use a
Wish to take the place of more than one
spell, such as in the casting of a Simulacrum
spell or the creatoin of a golem --
but a magic-user character (for instance)
can duplicate the effect of a spell that is
normally only usable by a member of
some other class. In essence, what's what
happens when a Wish, masquerading as a
Cure Wounds spell, is used ot restore lost
hit points to a character or a party. And
that's what happens every time a member
of a non-spell-casting class uses a Wish
(from a ring, or through the "courtesy"
of a creature like an efreeti).

If a character uses a Wish to duplicate
another spell, and it's important to know
at what level that spell is "cast," use this
simple rule of thumb: A spell cast through
the use of a Wish is treated as though that
spell was cast by an 18th-level character,
since that is the minimum experience
level a magic-user must have to be able to
use a Wish spell. An exception to this rule
is made for druid spells, where an effective
level of 14th is assumed <UA, update>, because
that's as high as experience levels go in
the druid class.

That leads to an interesting distinction:
If a Wish is used to simulate a spell that's
available to more than one class, the
wording of the Wish must specify which
version of the spell is desired. The magic-user
version of Dispel Magic, for example,
would be more powerful than the
druid version of the same spell, because of
the difference between 18th and 14th
level. If, in this case, a player/character
wanted to simulate Dispel Magic but
didn't specify the magic-user or cleric
version of the spell, the DM would be
within his rights to fulfill the Wish with
granting the druid version of Dispel
Magic -- and the relative weakness of
that form of the spell might cause the
Dispel to fail when, as a cleric or magic-user
spell, it would have succeeded.

If an 18th-level magic-user casts a Wish spell . . . his effort cannot be
undone by someone else wearing a
Ring of Wishes, even if that someone
else is higher than 18th level.

When a character simulates another
spell by use of a Wish, it isn't possible
for that same Wish to make the spell
special or super-powerful in any way that
isn't allowed by the spell description in
the Players Handbook. For instance, a
Wish can be used to simulate a Fireball
-- in this case, a Fireball that does 18d6
of damage -- but the Wish does not allow
the character to stipulate that the
Fireball will do maximum damage (6
points per die). If you want a maximum-damage
Fireball, you have to make that
request with a Wish that's phrased before
the Fireball is cast.

The Fourth (and final) Law of Wishes
is sort of a companion ot the Third Law,
but a couple of particular differences
make it worth listing as a separate law. It
goes like this:

The Fourth Law of Wishes

A Wish can counteract any
magic spell, including another Wish.

If a Wish can simulate any other spell,
it stands to reason that a Wish can "unsimulate"
just as well. This isn't too
tough to understand or justify, except
when another Wish is the magic that's
being acted upon. Can a Wish undo or
neutralize a previous Wish? Well . . .

Yes, if the second Wish comes from a
character of equal or higher level than the
originator of the first Wish, and if both
Wishes are "pure" magic. For this purpose,
we have to draw a distinction
between a Wish as a cast spell and a Wish
that comes from the use of a magic item
(typically a Ring of Three Wishes or a
Ring of Multiple Wishes). The "pure"
Wish that comes from the casting of the
spell or through the actions of a magically
endowed creature has more clout than the
"second-hand" Wish obtainable through
the use of a ring or other item. If an 18th-level
magic-user casts a Wish spell and succeeds
in getting what he asked for, his
effort cannot be undone by someone else
wearing a Ring of Wishes, even if that
someone else is higher than 18th level.

Yes, if both Wishes are "second-hand"
magic (as defined above). A character
using a Wish from a ring can always
neutralize or cancel the effects of another
Wish also brought forth from a ring or
other type of wish-containing item, even
if the second wisher is lower in level than
the first one.

No, in any case where neither of the
"yes" conditions is satisfied. A Wish from
a ring cannot counteract a "pure" Wish
(although two second-hand Wishes, used
in succession, might be able to do so).
And, like it says in the Second Law
above, no Wish made by a character of
any level can counteract the effects of a
Wish that came from a "deity level"
being, even if that being is not definable
as having a particular experience level.
(Whatever that level might be, it's certainly
higher than any level a player character
or NPC could attain.)

For the record, here's a fairly complete
list of the limitations that the official
AD&D game rules place on the Wish
spell, above and beyond the particular
prohibitions given earlier in this article --
designed to drive home even harder the
point that a Wish can't do whatever a
wisher wants it to.

* A Wish cannot raise a character's ability
scores higher than 16, except at the
slowed-down rate of 1/10 point per Wish,
so that it takes 10 Wishes to go from 16 to
17, or 17 to 18 -- and the beneficiary of
all these Wishes doesn't get the benefit of
the higher ability score until the next whole
number is reached; a strength of
16.9 is still treated as a strength of 16 for
game purposes. The Dungeon Masters
Guide is very specific on this point, in an
obvious attempt to keep characters (and
their players) from abusing the Wish in
this manner. Unfortunately, we aren't
given this kind of specific guidance in lots
of other areas -- but the intent of the
rules is still clear.

* A Wish cannot restore magical power
to items that are drained by a Rod of
Cancellation.

* It cannot save the life of a character
who drowns in a Bowl of Watery Death.

* It cannot "bring the character back"
after that character draws (and suffers the
effects of) the Void card from a Deck of
Many Things.

* It cannot necessarily (50% chance)
restore the gender of a character affected
by a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity.

* If calamity befalls the caster of a
Leomund's Secret Chest spell, it cannot
bring back the large chest from the ethereal
plane when the miniature chest is lost
or destroyed.

* It cannot "break through the cloaking
protection": of a Mind Blank spell -- but
"exceedingly powerful deities would be
able to penetrate the spell's powers."

* It cannot be used to conduct a "magical
search" to reveal the fact that a creature
or character is under the effect of an
Imprisonment spell.

* It cannot bring back a character or
creature killed by a ghost, because this is
the same as dying of old age; see the text
preceding the First Law of Wishes.

For all the difficulties it can and does
cause, the magic of a Wish is an important
and perhaps even vital part of the
AD&D game universe. It gives characters
and their players -- and yes, even the
Dungeon Master -- a degree of flexibility
and freedom that's essential for that universe
to have the open-endedness that a
magical world must have. It's often said
in this non-magical real world we live in,
that you can accomplish anything you put
your mind to. Of course, that's not literally
true, just as it's not literally true that
a Wish can accomplish anything in the AD&D
game universe. But what sorry
worlds they both would be if we didn't at
least have the opportunity to try.

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