Geann after I called you cheeky I started to take some of posts with a grain of salt per say. Although, to be honest while I think as you seem to say you were going after the semantics in my words and such your posts did have actual inquiries and complaints that while it may be unknowingly (probably knowingly) you made me improve not only on my wording of how I would wish but also on my understanding of wish.
P.S: As for my wish there is a difference between “wishing your true intent” and “wishing for your true intent” to happen as the first requires the wish to as you say “read my mind” while the latter just has the wish take my true intent and make it happen as apposed to the former. And while you may think the slight change in text doesn’t do much in fact between the former and latter there is a distinct difference that would make the wish work instead of not.
Assuming your DM has house-ruled that True Polymorph's ban on speaking and casting spells is redundant and deleted the text, ancient brass dragons don't retain the spellcasting of the wizard in question - they have exactly 4 spells (ordinarily chosen by the DM - there is no valid basis for arguing that the 4 would be 4 that the original wizard had prepared or even knew) of spell level 6 or less, each castable once per day.
Answer: Um what? where… huh? what are you talking about? The process for this combo one could say is: Cast simulacrum, Cast True Polymorph to turn simulacrum into adult gold shadow dragon waiting for it to finish, simu-gon uses shape change into humanoid, you cast magic jar possess simu-gon, you are now a spellcasting adult gold shadow dragon, now there are a few ways to age yourself, waiting is one way, summoning ghosts is another, casting time ravage on yourself is another then getting rid of the side effects but keep age, casting wish to age yourself to ancient level, etc. And some ways to make this form permanent is to ether cast wish or do the clone, power word kill strategy where in your new form you clone your self the wait for the clone to mature/reach the age you want you hurt yourself then cast powerword kill to kill yourself in your new form and therefore send your soul into the clone of this form where the clone can’t be dispelled as it just is. Also a way to make the clone grow faster if you want you could just cast wish. And if you encounter any problems you can just wish them away. Just saying there is some slight variation on how you can do this strategy.
note: in case you were not aware, dragons get innate spellcasting letting them cast a number of spells equal to your charisma modifier, with the spells being chosen by the DM and the highest level innate spell they can cast being their challenge rating / 3.
of course it is a variant, and i don't think the spell is capable of using variant stat blocks willy-nilly
and the question of how reliable and precise true polymoph is also touches on another subject, how precisely can you even control the new biological age of the reature reshaped by true polymorph. Becuase if you really want to be an ancient gold dragon who is in some kind of humanoid shape, you might have to wait hundreds of years to pull the strategy off, meaning that in the whiteroom scenario it has absolutely no buisness being even considered. If your solution to fighting the wizard involves teleporting away to do the exploit properly then the fighter will probably have died of old age by the time you go back to finish him off.
It is for this reason among others that i think that a new rule should be added to the combat scenario: Joe Commoner is going to start a long rest as soon as the combat scenario starts, and if both parties are alive when Joe Commoner finishes his long rest, the fight is considered a draw regardless of how advantageous of an situation either party is in. 8 hours is more than enough for either party to kill the other without too much issue, all it does it prevent the wizard from teleporting away and going on an extended holliday from the duel to the death they are currently still doing for half a year
Also another point: how much gold and equipment are we allowed in this supposed "whiteroom" scenario? Magic jar in particular requires a material component worth at least 500 gp (and you can't get around this requirement by using wish to replicate it since your soul goes to the container used as the material component, if there is no material component there is no container, no container no spell) and while we are at it muskets and plate armor are also extremely expensive, and so is the 1500 gp ruby dust component for the ever-popular SmeatCage . In the case of the musket it would be covered by the fighter's starting equipment, i'm just sayin' if weard using allow expensive spell components and plate armor, are we also going to allow say purchasing a war elephant or three, war chariots, airships, cannons etc?
The resources we assume these people have becuase they are class-essential we are reaching sums of like Starting Wealth + 1500 gp, and that is quite the large amount of money. You could buy 75 thousand loaves of bread for that amount of money.... Not that having that amount of bread will help protect you more than plate armor/ Forcecage unless you like hide in a big pile of them, just pointing that out.
Also you could like purchase a bunch of gunpowder and try to ignite it assuming your carry capacity is good enough to haul all of them
Answer: Yeah you missed a lot first off I was and like have never had wanted to instantly go for the ancient gold dragon. I went for the adult gold shadow dragon and if you look at the young red shadow dragon you see it’s CR after becoming a shadow dragon jump up by 3 as a normal young red is CR 10 but as a shadow dragon its CR is 13. Since an adult gold dragon is CR 17 and the max plus to CR for becoming anshadow dragon is +3 that means our adult gold shadow dragon sits nicely at CR 20 ripe for the True Polymorph spell. And yes we use metallic dragons because that have change shape to turn into a humanoid for our purposes.
not to mention how your calculations for the shadow dragon are just way off. This ain't 3.5, you don't just take the existing challenge rating and add a number to get the result, you'd have to pick up an copy of the dungeon master's guide and recalculate the gold dragon's challenge rating by hand taking into account effective hit point increases thanks to shadow form as well as effective ac/ attack bonus increases thanks to shadow form. This shit is by no means a simple matter
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
State a Wish full out. I can't work with just the first part where you try and convince whatever it is that grants wishes to do as you desire. You need to state what power you are asking. If you want it to be the Weave, you are talking to Elminster, because the Weave itself can't answer, it has no sentience. If you want it to be my Cosmic Forces, say so. Whatever. Give me the full wish, and I'll tell you what it does. It's a fun game.
note: in case you were not aware, dragons get innate spellcasting letting them cast a number of spells equal to your charisma modifier, with the spells being chosen by the DM and the highest level innate spell they can cast being their challenge rating / 3.
of course it is a variant, and i don't think the spell is capable of using variant stat blocks willy-nilly
Answer: I should do the spellcasting variant is available because when I think about it since it is possible as a potential stat block for a innate spellcasting gold shadow dragon to exist therefore as a stat block I can true polymorph into it. The spellcasting variant in all means and purposes exactly in the same lane as psionic dragons, dracoliches, shadow dragons and so on. In conclusion I see no problem with acquiring the spellcasting variant.
and the question of how reliable and precise true polymoph is also touches on another subject, how precisely can you even control the new biological age of the reature reshaped by true polymorph. Becuase if you really want to be an ancient gold dragon who is in some kind of humanoid shape, you might have to wait hundreds of years to pull the strategy off, meaning that in the whiteroom scenario it has absolutely no buisness being even considered.
Answer: Just realized… well since the qualification for true polymorph is a stat block and since it doesn’t say anything about not controlling your age, appearance, etc. So by still being an adult dragon I can have my age be 800 years old and like 11 months and 30 days old and since a ancient dragon is 801+ years old I have to wait like 1 second (or if you want it more “realistic” you could make the time to become ancient like 12 hours but who cares about realism when you can do it NOW!) to hit the age to become an ancient dragon (and it’s all RAW muahahahahahah).
If your solution to fighting the wizard involves teleporting away to do the exploit properly then the fighter will probably have died of old age by the time you go back to finish him off.
Answer: Hahahahah this was actually one of my early strategies by using demiplane and sequester (though tbh instead of sequester you could just not and instead just do research and such). Though tbh in a death match it’s still a viable way to win I guess but definitely not cinematic though.
It is for this reason among others that i think that a new rule should be added to the combat scenario: Joe Commoner is going to start a long rest as soon as the combat scenario starts, and if both parties are alive when Joe Commoner finishes his long rest, the fight is considered a draw regardless of how advantageous of an situation either party is in. 8 hours is more than enough for either party to kill the other without too much issue, all it does it prevent the wizard from teleporting away and going on an extended holliday from the duel to the death they are currently still doing for half a year
Answer: If the time limit was 8 hours personally if I was in that scenario I wouldn’t be opposed to it but to uphold the sanctity of the whiteroom I am opposed to the installation of a time limit. Although… if you kill joe he sleeps… for eternity *maniacal laughter* in the background.
Also another point: how much gold and equipment are we allowed in this supposed "whiteroom" scenario? Magic jar in particular requires a material component worth at least 500 gp (and you can't get around this requirement by using wish to replicate it since your soul goes to the container used as the material component, if there is no material component there is no container, no container no spell) and while we are at it muskets and plate armor are also extremely expensive, and so is the 1500 gp ruby dust component for the ever-popular SmeatCage . In the case of the musket it would be covered by the fighter's starting equipment, i'm just sayin' if weard using allow expensive spell components and plate armor, are we also going to allow say purchasing a war elephant or three, war chariots, airships, cannons etc?
Answer: I was under the assumption that spells have their costs paid for, for material components wise. Other than that it’s starting equipment or starting gold and whatever you get from your background (Noble gives 25gp). So if you wanted a mount you could spend most of your gear to get it and tbh for the fighter there really isn’t a point to have armor as all it does is just eats gold you coulda used as the wizard has spell that don’t care about what you have. As for the musket yes it is a martial starting weapon so you can use it off the bat as opposed to buying since if you were to try to buy it you would have to sell everything and just maybe get close. As for mounts go right ahead… if you have money.
Ok now this might be a little weird but if you choose the RETAINERS variant feature of the Noble then you sell those three retainers I feel you could get around 300gp (100go per retainer seems reasonable?) but other than that I don’t see much other ways to get large sums of money.
The resources we assume these people have becuase they are class-essential we are reaching sums of like Starting Wealth + 1500 gp, and that is quite the large amount of money. You could buy 75 thousand loaves of bread for that amount of money.... Not that having that amount of bread will help protect you more than plate armor/ Forcecage unless you like hide in a big pile of them, just pointing that out.
Also you could like purchase a bunch of gunpowder and try to ignite it assuming your carry capacity is good enough to haul all of them
Answer: Ehh gunpowder barrel = fireball damage? well I don’t know/remember but gunpowder could be useful nonetheless as seen with the musket 1d12 damage so who knows.
not to mention how your calculations for the shadow dragon are just way off. This ain't 3.5, you don't just take the existing challenge rating and add a number to get the result, you'd have to pick up an copy of the dungeon master's guide and recalculate the gold dragon's challenge rating by hand taking into account effective hit point increases thanks to shadow form as well as effective ac/ attack bonus increases thanks to shadow form. This shit is by no means a simple matter
Answer: Yes I know but I just took it as the upper tier of what the CR boost could be but tbh if I were to do that at most the CR would increase by like 1 or maybe 2 but that is still within the range needed so all is well that ends well as they say.
P.S: Now do tell if I missed or misunderstood something if so do tell it’s much appreciated.
Answer: Just realized… well since the qualification for true polymorph is a stat block and since it doesn’t say anything about not controlling your age, appearance, etc.
The general rule with spells is that they can only do what they say they can do; so if it doesn't say that you can choose the age then it should be assumed that either you get a default age (such as the bare minimum to qualify as an adult dragon) or it's up to the DM, I wouldn't expect this to be up to the player.
Also, while there are guideline ages as to what qualifies as adult, ancient etc. there are no actual rules that state that the moment a dragon hits 800 it immediately uses the ancient stat-block, this again would be up to the DM to decide. Even if you could pick the age, your DM could just rule that your growth is stunted.
Becoming something other than what you chose as the stat block within the rules for True Polymorph is definitely a stretch, and it'd be a very generous DM who would grant something like that, especially when there are two CR20 ancient dragon types that qualify for a 20th level Wizard to turn into (white and brass, iirc).
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Answer: I’m very sure my wish works for how I do it but whatever… so like this?:
”I wish, for my present true intent of (‘insert wish’) to be realized without fail, complication, or being unduly altered.”
That seems relatively safe and if you guys find some fault with the wish, it can be altered accordingly to encompass such a new development/loophole.
I can't work with just the first part where you try and convince whatever it is that grants wishes to do as you desire. You need to state what power you are asking. If you want it to be the Weave, you are talking to Elminster, because the Weave itself can't answer, it has no sentience. If you want it to be my Cosmic Forces, say so. Whatever. Give me the full wish, and I'll tell you what it does. It's a fun game.
Answer: “See above” Well as a wizard they draw their power from the cosmos so he draws his power from the fundamental forces of power within the universe and through the words of his wish which he spouts out into the air his magical force bends the cosmos’s power to him to channel the unstable raw magical force required to make the words he spoke become true… like what do you want from me!? Hahahaha just kidding but yeah I guess what I said works?
The general rule with spells is that they can only do what they say they can do; so if it doesn't say that you can choose the age then it should be assumed that either you get a default age (such as the bare minimum to qualify as an adult dragon) or it's up to the DM, I wouldn't expect this to be up to the player.
Answer: I guess I could see that though I do think you would be able to control the age at least because then what would be the minimum age of a commoner or other types of monsters?
Also, while there are guideline ages as to what qualifies as adult, ancient etc. there are no actual rules that state that the moment a dragon hits 800 it immediately uses the ancient stat-block, this again would be up to the DM to decide. Even if you could pick the age, your DM could just rule that your growth is stunted.
Answer: We’ll I was under the assumption that once you hit the ancient age category you become an ancient dragon since… you know that makes sense… but I guess not since there isn’t a specific rule that says so (if ignore the age chart I guess). Well then…
As for DM being like “your growth is stunted” that just sounds like a spiteful DM than anything else because then it would be an ”””average””” dragon but whatever.
Becoming something other than what you chose as the stat block within the rules for True Polymorph is definitely a stretch, and it'd be a very generous DM who would grant something like that, especially when there are two CR20 ancient dragon types that qualify for a 20th level Wizard to turn into (white and brass, iirc).
Answer: Wait you need to be more specific (or maybe I’m just dumb) but are you talking about the me getting the innate spellcasting variant or the shadow dragon because if it’s the shadow dragon one… there is a shadow dragon stat block so any dragon can bexome a shadow dragon. As for spellcasting I could see why you would question it but for how it is (it’s akin to the shadow dragon variant and is in stats blocks) so it makes to be able to have when true polymorphing. I feel like I might have missed something…
As for DM being like “your growth is stunted” that just sounds like a spiteful DM than anything else because then it would be an ”””average””” dragon but whatever.
Doesn't have to be spiteful; you chose to be an adult dragon, then tried to immediately become an ancient dragon through something not defined in the rules, a DM ruling as to why that might be the case is just practical, after all, despite the spell having "True" in the title you're not really a dragon as you can be dispelled right back to being a Wizard again (or revert if you take too much damage etc.).
Answer: Wait you need to be more specific (or maybe I’m just dumb) but are you talking about the me getting the innate spellcasting variant or the shadow dragon because if it’s the shadow dragon one… there is a shadow dragon stat block so any dragon can bexome a shadow dragon. As for spellcasting I could see why you would question it but for how it is (it’s akin to the shadow dragon variant and is in stats blocks) so it makes to be able to have when true polymorphing. I feel like I might have missed something…
I'm talking about becoming a stat block other than what you chose to be when you cast True Polymorph; i.e- becoming an ancient dragon despite choosing to be an adult dragon. If your DM is happy to let you use monsters created via templates, variants etc. then as long as they don't exceed the CR limit that's fine, but none of them (at least to my knowledge) have rules that allow you to then transform into a more powerful creature.
For example, you can True Polymorph into an Adult Gold Dragon, then use its Change Shape ability to turn into an Archmage (CR12), but not Halaster Blackcloak (CR23), as that's clearly defined in that ability.
The age table for dragons I believe is intended to be used like the age recommendations for playable races; i.e- if you have an adult dragon then it's age is probably somewhere within that range, it doesn't necessarily mean an adult dragon can't be a bit older or younger for whatever reason, and certainly doesn't mean that it instantly becomes an ancient dragon when it hits 800, it's just to help the DM know how long a particular dragon might have been around for, i.e- a Wyrmling isn't likely to have been around for the Spellplague unless it was catapulted forward in time. If you think about it, the tipping point from adult stats to ancient stats could be anywhere (up to the DM), as a dragon grows gradually, so in reality a 700 year old adult dragon could have a higher CR stat block if the DM wanted it to, to represent it being somewhere in between. But for practical reasons we don't have stat blocks for every single step between each age-class.
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Ok Deathknight, you point at your target, cast Wish, and say "I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without fail, complication, or being unduly altered." First off, since it's not on the list, it causes Stress. Nothing at all, ever, can prevent Stress from taking place for anything that isn't on the list. So your spell fails right at the point where you said "realized without fail" because that's impossible, Stress itself is one of the complications. What happens next? In my game, you die forever. It's poetic justice.
Ok Deathknight, you point at your target, cast Wish, and say "I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without fail, complication, or being unduly altered." First off, since it's not on the list, it causes Stress. Nothing at all, ever, can prevent Stress from taking place for anything that isn't on the list. So your spell fails right at the point where you said "realized without fail" because that's impossible, Stress itself is one of the complications. What happens next? In my game, you die forever. It's poetic justice.
This is fun! Next?
Answer:
“I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
“I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
Still impossible. Not on the list. Stress. It's a complication.
Doesn't have to be spiteful; you chose to be an adult dragon, then tried to immediately become an ancient dragon through something not defined in the rules, a DM ruling as to why that might be the case is just practical, after all, despite the spell having "True" in the title you're not really a dragon as you can be dispelled right back to being a Wizard again (or revert if you take too much damage etc.).
Answer: “despite the spell having "True" in the title you're not really a dragon…” um no you are for all intents and purposes a dragon perhaps a dispellable* dragon but still a dragon nonetheless. And as such you age like a dragon, look like a dragon, and as you have the dragon’s stats as I said you are a dragon.
*can be made in dispellable by change shape into a medium humanoid creature then clone your self wait for clone to grow fully then hurt yourself below 100hp then cast power word kill insta killing you in this body then travel your soul into the clone that while exactly the same it doesn’t have the possibility of being dispelled since you are it but of the flesh now instead of via magic.
I'm talking about becoming a stat block other than what you chose to be when you cast True Polymorph; i.e- becoming an ancient dragon despite choosing to be an adult dragon. If your DM is happy to let you use monsters created via templates, variants etc. then as long as they don't exceed the CR limit that's fine, but none of them (at least to my knowledge) have rules that allow you to then transform into a more powerful creature.
For example, you can True Polymorph into an Adult Gold Dragon, then use its Change Shape ability to turn into an Archmage (CR12), but not Halaster Blackcloak (CR23), as that's clearly defined in that ability.
Answer: I didn’t ever say that there were “rules that allow you to then transform into a more powerful creature” like how you said with the Archmage vs Halaster Blackcloak example I did however say that after you become say an ancient gold dragon at minimum your CR is 24 so if you wanted you could cast true polymorph and become a CR 24 or lower creature and as I don’t thonk you can raise your CR any more say above 24 you are stuck at that level but tbh an innate spellcasting, spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon would probably have more than a CR of 24 especially with the added spellcastings.
The age table for dragons I believe is intended to be used like the age recommendations for playable races; i.e- if you have an adult dragon then it's age is probably somewhere within that range, it doesn't necessarily mean an adult dragon can't be a bit older or younger for whatever reason, and certainly doesn't mean that it instantly becomes an ancient dragon when it hits 800, it's just to help the DM know how long a particular dragon might have been around for, i.e- a Wyrmling isn't likely to have been around for the Spellplague unless it was catapulted forward in time. If you think about it, the tipping point from adult stats to ancient stats could be anywhere (up to the DM), as a dragon grows gradually, so in reality a 700 year old adult dragon could have a higher CR stat block if the DM wanted it to, to represent it being somewhere in between. But for practical reasons we don't have stat blocks for every single step between each age-class.
Answer: While I agree with the sentiment and I do see where you coming from but just for how the age classes are one could say that they are put out to be are like ‘if your dragon is gargantuan and 801+ years old it is considered to be ancient’ or at least that’s how I see it. As for the “instantly becoming an ancient dragon” I could see the true polymorph making the dragon be at an age and size just below an ancient but hasn’t hit the benchmark to be considered an ancient dragon and in say like one day (an amount of time later) is considered an ancient. Sorry if that was said weirdly or hard to follow…
“I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
Still impossible. Not on the list. Stress. It's a complication.
Next? :-)
Answer: Uh no… stress is not a complication as it is just a part of the spell as in it’s not messing with my wish it’s just hurting me while for the previous “for this realized without fail” meant that the wish could have no chance of failure where you can’t say that since one could say any wish has a chance of failure. So I’m conclusion stress is not a complication it’s just a part of the spell (stress doesn’t mess with what I wish for). So this one works.
Answer: Uh no… stress is not a complication as it is just a part of the spell as in it’s not messing with my wish it’s just hurting me while for the previous “for this realized without fail” meant that the wish could have no chance of failure where you can’t say that since one could say any wish has a chance of failure. So I’m conclusion stress is not a complication it’s just a part of the spell (stress doesn’t mess with what I wish for). So this one works.
You are factually incorrect. Which word of the Wish spell exactly is it that you have trouble with?
feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable; want something that cannot or probably will not happen.
noun
a desire or hope for something to happen.
Keyword there is desire. The whole point of why even level 20 wizards, let alone anyone with a lick of sense doesn't rely on or use wish, other than a last ditch suicide tactic, is because of how the word Wish is defined. It's an expectation of one's desire to be manifested though impossible means. No matter how you phrase the wording thereafter, one's intent means nothing. Why?, because the word WISH replaces any "Intent" with expectation of desire.
It's also the reason why the phrase "Careful what you wish for " was invented. Whatever Chaotic Evil entity created the spell, knew what it was doing. The power to alter the very fabric of reality could easily be abused infinitely if left unchecked. So, as a point of irony, the very words needed to evoke that power limits it's ability to massively devastate indefinitely.
The resources we assume these people have becuase they are class-essential we are reaching sums of like Starting Wealth + 1500 gp, and that is quite the large amount of money. You could buy 75 thousand loaves of bread for that amount of money.... Not that having that amount of bread will help protect you more than plate armor/ Forcecage unless you like hide in a big pile of them, just pointing that out.
Also you could like purchase a bunch of gunpowder and try to ignite it assuming your carry capacity is good enough to haul all of them
Answer: Ehh gunpowder barrel = fireball damage? well I don’t know/remember but gunpowder could be useful nonetheless as seen with the musket 1d12 damage so who knows.
(will adress other stuff later, just needed to cover that first, there ya' go, you can ignite gunpowder to deal damage)
also if the opponent died of old age, you did not win the fight. In that scenario Age, the horrible thing that has killed the most humans on the planet would be the winner of the fight, not you. Your lazy ass did nothing while the reaper collected his dues for the fighter and along with him several other people, it would be closer to a draw. If the opponent's death is by natural causes you did not kill him.
Time ravage might be slightly more valid for this purpose as you caused death by old age to happen slightly faster than what the fighter would have anyways but that is about it
Geann this one you just can’t say no to… maybe hahaha.
“I Wish, that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish, desire, and long for my current target to die forever, and for this desire to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
There Geann… with the small tweak of making the “I wish…” become “I wish, desire and long for…” then following it up with “and for this desire to be realized without complication…” means that I talk about my desire not having the complication but while still having the same effect so yeah…
Geann this one you just can’t say no to… maybe hahaha.
“I Wish, that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish, desire, and long for my current target to die forever, and for this desire to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
There Geann… with the small tweak of making the “I wish…” become “I wish, desire and long for…” then following it up with “and for this desire to be realized without complication…” means that I talk about my desire not having the complication but while still having the same effect so yeah…
This still doesn't solve the fundamental problem you're facing, which is that the DM can choose to only partially grant the wish, grant it with consequences, or have the spell simply fail. Basically the DM has license to ignore or overrule any and all wording of the wish, so long as it either fails entirely, or only part of the wish is granted in some way.
The same issue exists regardless of whether you're trying to have the wish read your intent, or simply phrase it in such a way that is so specific that it cannot possibly be misinterpreted; unless your wish is something that always succeeds (8th level spell or lower etc.) then you cannot force it to do so, as the DM is the one who decides, all you can do is paint them into a corner so that their only remaining choice is to either have the wish succeed or fail outright. Killing someone outright is the domain of other 9th level spells that cannot actually do this without extra steps (Power Word Kill for example can only kill outright if the target has 100 HP or fewer), so it isn't unreasonable for the DM to just say "nope" to this one.
There's no need to stack the deck further in the wizard's favour; 5e is already very caster friendly, and the advantages of martial classes don't really tell in one-on-one duels, a fighter's greatest strength is in staying power over the course of an adventuring day (the fighter is the one that drag's the casters out of the dungeon after they run out of spell slots).
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Answer: Wow I was surprisingly close for just memory other than that when you think about how realistic is to have enough gunpowder to kill a like at least 160hp wizard with just what you can muster of gunpowder. But let’s say for the sake of fun the fighter has like twenty powder kegs (worth around 5000gp/over of price range but eh) and he gets his turn (starting out hold his weapon and a free hand) he closes the distance between and drops the kegs (no action required) then throws a candle/lantern (object interaction) into the kegs to ignite them then for the rest of the turn say swing at the wizard. Ok now you have 20 kegs exploding each dealing 7d6 fire damage with a DC of 12 and assuming the wizard doesn’t have resilient (Dex) as having it would mean along with a 20 Dex he would auto succeed every Dex save and half all the damage twice (due to absorb elements). 7d6 averages out to 24.5 damage, and having a DC of 12 means that anything below a 7 fails for the wizard so he has a 30% chance to fail the check sound we apply that chance to the 20 kegs we get he would fail 6 of the kegs. But nonetheless the wizard casts absorb elements gaining resistance to fire. So we have 6 kegs that are halved, and 14 kegs that are quartered in damage. A halved keg deals 12.25 fire damage while a quartered deals 6.125 fire damage. So 6 x 12.25 = 73.5, while 14 x 6.125 = 85.75, for a total of 159.25 fire damage for twenty kegs.
(will adress other stuff later, just needed to cover that first, there ya' go, you can ignite gunpowder to deal damage)
Answer: I knew you could ignite gunpowder just was to lazy to look it up to I just used my memory. As for addressing the other stuff I’d love to see when it comes out.
also if the opponent died of old age, you did not win the fight. In that scenario Age, the horrible thing that has killed the most humans on the planet would be the winner of the fight, not you. Your lazy ass did nothing while the reaper collected his dues for the fighter and along with him several other people, it would be closer to a draw. If the opponent's death is by natural causes you did not kill him.
Time ravage might be slightly more valid for this purpose as you caused death by old age to happen slightly faster than what the fighter would have anyways but that is about it
Answer: Well then is this a deathmatch or a death match since if it is the former that’d mean whoever does first loses while the latter is whoever kills the other first wins. But then we get into the argument of what counts as you dealing the “final blow” or if the actions you take lead to the death of your opponent are you not the killer as your actions led to his death and then blaha blah does summoned creature count as you blah blah blah you get it…
Geann this one you just can’t say no to… maybe hahaha.
“I Wish, that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish, desire, and long for my current target to die forever, and for this desire to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
Error 404:
no being or force called "Fundamental Forces of Power" found. Please try again.
also there are weird ways of interpreting this segment:
"(...) and for this desire to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
it could be interpreted as:
wish must be both realized without complication and also without being unduly altered
wish must be both realized without complication and must also be unduly altered in some way
wish must be either realized without complication or it can be unduly altered, the caster does not care much either way
you have also made it clear that the wish starts after "following words" but you don't make it clear when the wish ends, so after you have said all that it is possible that the spell is still listening for further instructions, think of it like programming in c#, you have written a line of code but you have completely forgotten to write a semicolon at the end.
Not to mention how the wish does not have a clear definition of what a "complication" means. Maybe the wish blows up the planet you are on, because how is it supposed to know that not having a planet anymore is a "complication". Also complication from whose perspective? Is it from the perspective of an deity? From the perspective of the wizard? From the perspective of the monk about to get killed?
You can never construct a sentence that contains no ambiguity, and all you have done here is make the wish a bit more clunky. Like honestly it might be better to just ******* say "all monk die, me no die" or "i wish for everyone wearing [whatever armor the fighter is wearing] would have their consciousnesses permanently removed from existance without anyone not wearing [armor the fighter is wearing] being affected" something to that effect, instead of trying to target just the monk or just the fighter, target a broad demographic that ultimately includes your opponent but not you.
Does it really matter in this whiteroom scenario if you accidentally caused a little genocide, caused a million orphans and probably became the BBEG to a future adventuring party along the way?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
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Geann after I called you cheeky I started to take some of posts with a grain of salt per say. Although, to be honest while I think as you seem to say you were going after the semantics in my words and such your posts did have actual inquiries and complaints that while it may be unknowingly (probably knowingly) you made me improve not only on my wording of how I would wish but also on my understanding of wish.
P.S: As for my wish there is a difference between “wishing your true intent” and “wishing for your true intent” to happen as the first requires the wish to as you say “read my mind” while the latter just has the wish take my true intent and make it happen as apposed to the former. And while you may think the slight change in text doesn’t do much in fact between the former and latter there is a distinct difference that would make the wish work instead of not.
note: in case you were not aware, dragons get innate spellcasting letting them cast a number of spells equal to your charisma modifier, with the spells being chosen by the DM and the highest level innate spell they can cast being their challenge rating / 3.
of course it is a variant, and i don't think the spell is capable of using variant stat blocks willy-nilly
and the question of how reliable and precise true polymoph is also touches on another subject, how precisely can you even control the new biological age of the reature reshaped by true polymorph. Becuase if you really want to be an ancient gold dragon who is in some kind of humanoid shape, you might have to wait hundreds of years to pull the strategy off, meaning that in the whiteroom scenario it has absolutely no buisness being even considered. If your solution to fighting the wizard involves teleporting away to do the exploit properly then the fighter will probably have died of old age by the time you go back to finish him off.
It is for this reason among others that i think that a new rule should be added to the combat scenario: Joe Commoner is going to start a long rest as soon as the combat scenario starts, and if both parties are alive when Joe Commoner finishes his long rest, the fight is considered a draw regardless of how advantageous of an situation either party is in. 8 hours is more than enough for either party to kill the other without too much issue, all it does it prevent the wizard from teleporting away and going on an extended holliday from the duel to the death they are currently still doing for half a year
Also another point: how much gold and equipment are we allowed in this supposed "whiteroom" scenario? Magic jar in particular requires a material component worth at least 500 gp (and you can't get around this requirement by using wish to replicate it since your soul goes to the container used as the material component, if there is no material component there is no container, no container no spell) and while we are at it muskets and plate armor are also extremely expensive, and so is the 1500 gp ruby dust component for the ever-popular SmeatCage . In the case of the musket it would be covered by the fighter's starting equipment, i'm just sayin' if weard using allow expensive spell components and plate armor, are we also going to allow say purchasing a war elephant or three, war chariots, airships, cannons etc?
The resources we assume these people have becuase they are class-essential we are reaching sums of like Starting Wealth + 1500 gp, and that is quite the large amount of money. You could buy 75 thousand loaves of bread for that amount of money.... Not that having that amount of bread will help protect you more than plate armor/ Forcecage unless you like hide in a big pile of them, just pointing that out.
Also you could like purchase a bunch of gunpowder and try to ignite it assuming your carry capacity is good enough to haul all of them
not to mention how your calculations for the shadow dragon are just way off. This ain't 3.5, you don't just take the existing challenge rating and add a number to get the result, you'd have to pick up an copy of the dungeon master's guide and recalculate the gold dragon's challenge rating by hand taking into account effective hit point increases thanks to shadow form as well as effective ac/ attack bonus increases thanks to shadow form. This shit is by no means a simple matter
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
State a Wish full out. I can't work with just the first part where you try and convince whatever it is that grants wishes to do as you desire. You need to state what power you are asking. If you want it to be the Weave, you are talking to Elminster, because the Weave itself can't answer, it has no sentience. If you want it to be my Cosmic Forces, say so. Whatever. Give me the full wish, and I'll tell you what it does. It's a fun game.
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Answer: I should do the spellcasting variant is available because when I think about it since it is possible as a potential stat block for a innate spellcasting gold shadow dragon to exist therefore as a stat block I can true polymorph into it. The spellcasting variant in all means and purposes exactly in the same lane as psionic dragons, dracoliches, shadow dragons and so on. In conclusion I see no problem with acquiring the spellcasting variant.
Answer: Just realized… well since the qualification for true polymorph is a stat block and since it doesn’t say anything about not controlling your age, appearance, etc. So by still being an adult dragon I can have my age be 800 years old and like 11 months and 30 days old and since a ancient dragon is 801+ years old I have to wait like 1 second (or if you want it more “realistic” you could make the time to become ancient like 12 hours but who cares about realism when you can do it NOW!) to hit the age to become an ancient dragon (and it’s all RAW muahahahahahah).
Answer: Hahahahah this was actually one of my early strategies by using demiplane and sequester (though tbh instead of sequester you could just not and instead just do research and such). Though tbh in a death match it’s still a viable way to win I guess but definitely not cinematic though.
Answer: If the time limit was 8 hours personally if I was in that scenario I wouldn’t be opposed to it but to uphold the sanctity of the whiteroom I am opposed to the installation of a time limit.
Although… if you kill joe he sleeps… for eternity *maniacal laughter* in the background.
Answer: I was under the assumption that spells have their costs paid for, for material components wise. Other than that it’s starting equipment or starting gold and whatever you get from your background (Noble gives 25gp). So if you wanted a mount you could spend most of your gear to get it and tbh for the fighter there really isn’t a point to have armor as all it does is just eats gold you coulda used as the wizard has spell that don’t care about what you have.
As for the musket yes it is a martial starting weapon so you can use it off the bat as opposed to buying since if you were to try to buy it you would have to sell everything and just maybe get close. As for mounts go right ahead… if you have money.
Ok now this might be a little weird but if you choose the RETAINERS variant feature of the Noble then you sell those three retainers I feel you could get around 300gp (100go per retainer seems reasonable?) but other than that I don’t see much other ways to get large sums of money.
Answer: Ehh gunpowder barrel = fireball damage? well I don’t know/remember but gunpowder could be useful nonetheless as seen with the musket 1d12 damage so who knows.
Answer: Yes I know but I just took it as the upper tier of what the CR boost could be but tbh if I were to do that at most the CR would increase by like 1 or maybe 2 but that is still within the range needed so all is well that ends well as they say.
P.S: Now do tell if I missed or misunderstood something if so do tell it’s much appreciated.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Answer: I’m very sure my wish works for how I do it but whatever… so like this?:
”I wish, for my present true intent of (‘insert wish’) to be realized without fail, complication, or being unduly altered.”
That seems relatively safe and if you guys find some fault with the wish, it can be altered accordingly to encompass such a new development/loophole.
Answer: “See above”
Well as a wizard they draw their power from the cosmos so he draws his power from the fundamental forces of power within the universe and through the words of his wish which he spouts out into the air his magical force bends the cosmos’s power to him to channel the unstable raw magical force required to make the words he spoke become true… like what do you want from me!? Hahahaha just kidding but yeah I guess what I said works?
Answer: Wait you need to be more specific (or maybe I’m just dumb) but are you talking about the me getting the innate spellcasting variant or the shadow dragon because if it’s the shadow dragon one… there is a shadow dragon stat block so any dragon can bexome a shadow dragon. As for spellcasting I could see why you would question it but for how it is (it’s akin to the shadow dragon variant and is in stats blocks) so it makes to be able to have when true polymorphing. I feel like I might have missed something…
Doesn't have to be spiteful; you chose to be an adult dragon, then tried to immediately become an ancient dragon through something not defined in the rules, a DM ruling as to why that might be the case is just practical, after all, despite the spell having "True" in the title you're not really a dragon as you can be dispelled right back to being a Wizard again (or revert if you take too much damage etc.).
I'm talking about becoming a stat block other than what you chose to be when you cast True Polymorph; i.e- becoming an ancient dragon despite choosing to be an adult dragon. If your DM is happy to let you use monsters created via templates, variants etc. then as long as they don't exceed the CR limit that's fine, but none of them (at least to my knowledge) have rules that allow you to then transform into a more powerful creature.
For example, you can True Polymorph into an Adult Gold Dragon, then use its Change Shape ability to turn into an Archmage (CR12), but not Halaster Blackcloak (CR23), as that's clearly defined in that ability.
The age table for dragons I believe is intended to be used like the age recommendations for playable races; i.e- if you have an adult dragon then it's age is probably somewhere within that range, it doesn't necessarily mean an adult dragon can't be a bit older or younger for whatever reason, and certainly doesn't mean that it instantly becomes an ancient dragon when it hits 800, it's just to help the DM know how long a particular dragon might have been around for, i.e- a Wyrmling isn't likely to have been around for the Spellplague unless it was catapulted forward in time. If you think about it, the tipping point from adult stats to ancient stats could be anywhere (up to the DM), as a dragon grows gradually, so in reality a 700 year old adult dragon could have a higher CR stat block if the DM wanted it to, to represent it being somewhere in between. But for practical reasons we don't have stat blocks for every single step between each age-class.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Ok Deathknight, you point at your target, cast Wish, and say "I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without fail, complication, or being unduly altered." First off, since it's not on the list, it causes Stress. Nothing at all, ever, can prevent Stress from taking place for anything that isn't on the list. So your spell fails right at the point where you said "realized without fail" because that's impossible, Stress itself is one of the complications. What happens next? In my game, you die forever. It's poetic justice.
This is fun! Next?
<Insert clever signature here>
Answer:
“I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
“I Wish that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish for my current target to die forever, and for this to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
Still impossible. Not on the list. Stress. It's a complication.
Next? :-)
<Insert clever signature here>
Answer: “despite the spell having "True" in the title you're not really a dragon…” um no you are for all intents and purposes a dragon perhaps a dispellable* dragon but still a dragon nonetheless. And as such you age like a dragon, look like a dragon, and as you have the dragon’s stats as I said you are a dragon.
*can be made in dispellable by change shape into a medium humanoid creature then clone your self wait for clone to grow fully then hurt yourself below 100hp then cast power word kill insta killing you in this body then travel your soul into the clone that while exactly the same it doesn’t have the possibility of being dispelled since you are it but of the flesh now instead of via magic.
Answer: I didn’t ever say that there were “rules that allow you to then transform into a more powerful creature” like how you said with the Archmage vs Halaster Blackcloak example I did however say that after you become say an ancient gold dragon at minimum your CR is 24 so if you wanted you could cast true polymorph and become a CR 24 or lower creature and as I don’t thonk you can raise your CR any more say above 24 you are stuck at that level but tbh an innate spellcasting, spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon would probably have more than a CR of 24 especially with the added spellcastings.
Answer: While I agree with the sentiment and I do see where you coming from but just for how the age classes are one could say that they are put out to be are like ‘if your dragon is gargantuan and 801+ years old it is considered to be ancient’ or at least that’s how I see it.
As for the “instantly becoming an ancient dragon” I could see the true polymorph making the dragon be at an age and size just below an ancient but hasn’t hit the benchmark to be considered an ancient dragon and in say like one day (an amount of time later) is considered an ancient.
Sorry if that was said weirdly or hard to follow…
Answer: Uh no… stress is not a complication as it is just a part of the spell as in it’s not messing with my wish it’s just hurting me while for the previous “for this realized without fail” meant that the wish could have no chance of failure where you can’t say that since one could say any wish has a chance of failure.
So I’m conclusion stress is not a complication it’s just a part of the spell (stress doesn’t mess with what I wish for). So this one works.
Answer: Uh no… stress is not a complication as it is just a part of the spell as in it’s not messing with my wish it’s just hurting me while for the previous “for this realized without fail” meant that the wish could have no chance of failure where you can’t say that since one could say any wish has a chance of failure.
So I’m conclusion stress is not a complication it’s just a part of the spell (stress doesn’t mess with what I wish for). So this one works.
You are factually incorrect. Which word of the Wish spell exactly is it that you have trouble with?
<Insert clever signature here>
Gunpowder, Keg
7d6 points of fire damage if ignited
DC 12 dex save for half damage
(will adress other stuff later, just needed to cover that first, there ya' go, you can ignite gunpowder to deal damage)
also if the opponent died of old age, you did not win the fight. In that scenario Age, the horrible thing that has killed the most humans on the planet would be the winner of the fight, not you. Your lazy ass did nothing while the reaper collected his dues for the fighter and along with him several other people, it would be closer to a draw. If the opponent's death is by natural causes you did not kill him.
Time ravage might be slightly more valid for this purpose as you caused death by old age to happen slightly faster than what the fighter would have anyways but that is about it
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Geann this one you just can’t say no to… maybe hahaha.
“I Wish, that the Fundamental Forces of Power within the Universe would grant me the following wish, and through the following words, I wish, desire, and long for my current target to die forever, and for this desire to be realized without complication, and/or being unduly altered.”
There Geann… with the small tweak of making the “I wish…” become “I wish, desire and long for…” then following it up with “and for this desire to be realized without complication…” means that I talk about my desire not having the complication but while still having the same effect so yeah…
This still doesn't solve the fundamental problem you're facing, which is that the DM can choose to only partially grant the wish, grant it with consequences, or have the spell simply fail. Basically the DM has license to ignore or overrule any and all wording of the wish, so long as it either fails entirely, or only part of the wish is granted in some way.
The same issue exists regardless of whether you're trying to have the wish read your intent, or simply phrase it in such a way that is so specific that it cannot possibly be misinterpreted; unless your wish is something that always succeeds (8th level spell or lower etc.) then you cannot force it to do so, as the DM is the one who decides, all you can do is paint them into a corner so that their only remaining choice is to either have the wish succeed or fail outright. Killing someone outright is the domain of other 9th level spells that cannot actually do this without extra steps (Power Word Kill for example can only kill outright if the target has 100 HP or fewer), so it isn't unreasonable for the DM to just say "nope" to this one.
There's no need to stack the deck further in the wizard's favour; 5e is already very caster friendly, and the advantages of martial classes don't really tell in one-on-one duels, a fighter's greatest strength is in staying power over the course of an adventuring day (the fighter is the one that drag's the casters out of the dungeon after they run out of spell slots).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Answer: Wow I was surprisingly close for just memory other than that when you think about how realistic is to have enough gunpowder to kill a like at least 160hp wizard with just what you can muster of gunpowder. But let’s say for the sake of fun the fighter has like twenty powder kegs (worth around 5000gp/over of price range but eh) and he gets his turn (starting out hold his weapon and a free hand) he closes the distance between and drops the kegs (no action required) then throws a candle/lantern (object interaction) into the kegs to ignite them then for the rest of the turn say swing at the wizard. Ok now you have 20 kegs exploding each dealing 7d6 fire damage with a DC of 12 and assuming the wizard doesn’t have resilient (Dex) as having it would mean along with a 20 Dex he would auto succeed every Dex save and half all the damage twice (due to absorb elements). 7d6 averages out to 24.5 damage, and having a DC of 12 means that anything below a 7 fails for the wizard so he has a 30% chance to fail the check sound we apply that chance to the 20 kegs we get he would fail 6 of the kegs. But nonetheless the wizard casts absorb elements gaining resistance to fire. So we have 6 kegs that are halved, and 14 kegs that are quartered in damage. A halved keg deals 12.25 fire damage while a quartered deals 6.125 fire damage. So 6 x 12.25 = 73.5, while 14 x 6.125 = 85.75, for a total of 159.25 fire damage for twenty kegs.
Answer: I knew you could ignite gunpowder just was to lazy to look it up to I just used my memory. As for addressing the other stuff I’d love to see when it comes out.
Answer: Well then is this a deathmatch or a death match since if it is the former that’d mean whoever does first loses while the latter is whoever kills the other first wins. But then we get into the argument of what counts as you dealing the “final blow” or if the actions you take lead to the death of your opponent are you not the killer as your actions led to his death and then blaha blah does summoned creature count as you blah blah blah you get it…
also there are weird ways of interpreting this segment:
it could be interpreted as:
you have also made it clear that the wish starts after "following words" but you don't make it clear when the wish ends, so after you have said all that it is possible that the spell is still listening for further instructions, think of it like programming in c#, you have written a line of code but you have completely forgotten to write a semicolon at the end.
Not to mention how the wish does not have a clear definition of what a "complication" means. Maybe the wish blows up the planet you are on, because how is it supposed to know that not having a planet anymore is a "complication". Also complication from whose perspective? Is it from the perspective of an deity? From the perspective of the wizard? From the perspective of the monk about to get killed?
You can never construct a sentence that contains no ambiguity, and all you have done here is make the wish a bit more clunky. Like honestly it might be better to just ******* say "all monk die, me no die" or "i wish for everyone wearing [whatever armor the fighter is wearing] would have their consciousnesses permanently removed from existance without anyone not wearing [armor the fighter is wearing] being affected" something to that effect, instead of trying to target just the monk or just the fighter, target a broad demographic that ultimately includes your opponent but not you.
Does it really matter in this whiteroom scenario if you accidentally caused a little genocide, caused a million orphans and probably became the BBEG to a future adventuring party along the way?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes