I am a DM. Recently, one of my players—who plays an immortal race—successfully defeated and captured an Archmage. They are now forcing the Archmage to cast Wish on behalf of their human friend (who is currently 24 years old) to extend his youth and ensure they can stay together indefinitely."
"The player intends to have the Archmage repeatedly cast Wish to grant the friend as much lifespan as the spell possibly can. However, I’m unsure how to officially rule this. Are there any official WotC precedents or rulings regarding using Wish for immortality or life extension in this manner?
"Restore Youth" isn't a listed effect of Wish so it falls under GM's judgement. Personally, since it only effects one creature and has no actual in-game effects, I'd say that a single Wish ought to be sufficient to greatly extend the character's lifespan. Among other things, most of the named human wizard characters in D&D that are capable of casting Wish are also centuries older than normal human lifespan would allow.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The players chose to use Dominate Person to control the archmage, preventing him from saying anything he shouldn’t.
That might work once. Assuming he even has the spell prepared and hasn't already used his 9th level slot. You're not going to hold him through a long rest, though.
Well, you could take interpretation of the wish literally and duplicate the effects of a Potion of Longevity, not necessarily what they wanted exactly but well within the parameters!
So, the rules are pretty clear about how Wish works in this case. Your players are asking the Archmage to cast Wish to "Reshape reality." And it explicitly states that you, the DM, have "great latitude in ruling what occurs... the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong." If I were to Wish to simply "live forever," then my DM would be well within their right to transform me into a statue of living crystal, forever trapped as an immobile, undying statue. They could also give me neverending life without neverending youth or health, forcing my partner to watch as my body inevitably withered into a sickly, undying husk who wants nothing but the elusive relief of death. They could also just turn me into a lich, or a mummy, or a zombie, depending on how carelessly I worded the spell. When it comes to Wish, you need to pick your language carefully, and you need to weigh the consequences carefully. Also, even a creature under the effect of a Dominate Person spell only has to do what they're told, not what is best for the person dominating them, and an Archmage would be very well aware of this. Unless they were very specifically instructed to cast the spell with very specific wording, then I would rule that the Archmage would cast the spell carelessly as a form of deliberate rebellion.
That said, even as a DM, I would weight the actual gameplay impact of a Wish before getting real squirrely with it. Living forever isn't going to impact the lifetime of the characters for however long the players are playing them, unless you intend to have your campaign span more than a decade. I'd go one of two directions:
Wish is granted, but it's the "live forever, but don't stay young and healthy forever" version. The epilogue of these players' lives comes with them discovering too late that tampering with the fabric of reality has its price, as the now-"immortal" player character finds their body withering away, subjected to the agonizing pain of every sickness, every injury, every wasting, painful consequence of advancing age, until they're eventually driven mad by the desire to die.
Wish is granted, and the player character is transformed into a living crystal statue that can neither move nor die, trapped in a pristine, crystalline hell until the rest of the party finds a way to undo the Wish, at which point, they realize that they should make the best of the time they have, rather than attempt to cheat fate.
Keep in mind, in this (or any other) instance, if they attempt to solve the Wish with another Wish, then things just go from bad to worse as any careless wording would further compound their miseries. They'd ultimately likely have to petition a god to reverse the effects, and that debt could create any number of future quest hooks.
I am a DM. Recently, one of my players—who plays an immortal race—successfully defeated and captured an Archmage. They are now forcing the Archmage to cast Wish on behalf of their human friend (who is currently 24 years old) to extend his youth and ensure they can stay together indefinitely."
"The player intends to have the Archmage repeatedly cast Wish to grant the friend as much lifespan as the spell possibly can. However, I’m unsure how to officially rule this. Are there any official WotC precedents or rulings regarding using Wish for immortality or life extension in this manner?
This is one of those scenarios where the player simply hasn't thought their intention through, and where you as DM haven't played the NPC in a thought out way.
I don't mean to offend here, but consider that Wish has only Verbal components. That means unless the Archmage is gagged, they can just cast wish to alter the one decision that they got wrong and which lead them to being captured. Or, the Archmage can wait until they are face to face with their captor and use Wish to cast Feeblemind on the player character. Maybe they use Wish to cast Earthquake. They could even just use Wish to replicate Teleport and free themselves from captivity.
This is what I mean when I say you're not thinking about how to play the NPC very well. You've got an NPC that you're using as little more than a paper doll. Possibly you've given that Archmage no real ambition, drive, or intelligence.
Put simply then, once you consider that this Archmage is a person with any real sense of self-preservation the player character's scheme becomes a very, very silly one. Why, when the only cost to cast Wish is a spell slot and being able to speak would the Archmage ever agree to the player's request? And again short of the PC gagging the NPC, why would the Archmage not wake up in their cell and merely Teleport out of there?
I am a DM. Recently, one of my players—who plays an immortal race—successfully defeated and captured an Archmage. They are now forcing the Archmage to cast Wish on behalf of their human friend (who is currently 24 years old) to extend his youth and ensure they can stay together indefinitely."
"The player intends to have the Archmage repeatedly cast Wish to grant the friend as much lifespan as the spell possibly can. However, I’m unsure how to officially rule this. Are there any official WotC precedents or rulings regarding using Wish for immortality or life extension in this manner?
The player plans to burn through the Archmage's Wish capacity...milking the NPC for every last Wish until the 33% failure chance finally kicks in.
You don't need wish to restore youth; just use clone.
"Restore Youth" isn't a listed effect of Wish so it falls under GM's judgement. Personally, since it only effects one creature and has no actual in-game effects, I'd say that a single Wish ought to be sufficient to greatly extend the character's lifespan. Among other things, most of the named human wizard characters in D&D that are capable of casting Wish are also centuries older than normal human lifespan would allow.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I would note that any plan that starts with "we're going to force the archmage to cast wish" seems... fraught with danger.
I wish your whole party to the plane of carceri
Or if not danger, it just won’t work. If I’m the wizard in question, I use it to cast teleport and get out of there.
In this world, most of the technologies related to immortality and extending lifespan have been lost. That's why players choose the Wish Spell.
The players chose to use Dominate Person to control the archmage, preventing him from saying anything he shouldn’t.
In the end, I ruled:
“Uh… yes. Your friend has gained many years of youth, but exactly how many will only become clear over a long period of time.”
I have no idea how that even happened, what scenario would the party be able to capture a archmage but not be capable of using wish themselves?
That might work once. Assuming he even has the spell prepared and hasn't already used his 9th level slot. You're not going to hold him through a long rest, though.
They had a rather unreliable beholder ally, and used its antimagic cone to capture the archmage.
I believe the issue is not with the wish spell, but that a powerful npc is unable to roll initiative and attempt escape.
If the archmage can cast wish, they can cast any wish, and only a successful counterspell can stop it.
If the players cast dominate person, the archmage cant possibly fail every saving throw
If the beholder is unreliable, then they should actually be ubreliable.
Well, you could take interpretation of the wish literally and duplicate the effects of a Potion of Longevity, not necessarily what they wanted exactly but well within the parameters!
So, the rules are pretty clear about how Wish works in this case. Your players are asking the Archmage to cast Wish to "Reshape reality." And it explicitly states that you, the DM, have "great latitude in ruling what occurs... the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong." If I were to Wish to simply "live forever," then my DM would be well within their right to transform me into a statue of living crystal, forever trapped as an immobile, undying statue. They could also give me neverending life without neverending youth or health, forcing my partner to watch as my body inevitably withered into a sickly, undying husk who wants nothing but the elusive relief of death. They could also just turn me into a lich, or a mummy, or a zombie, depending on how carelessly I worded the spell. When it comes to Wish, you need to pick your language carefully, and you need to weigh the consequences carefully. Also, even a creature under the effect of a Dominate Person spell only has to do what they're told, not what is best for the person dominating them, and an Archmage would be very well aware of this. Unless they were very specifically instructed to cast the spell with very specific wording, then I would rule that the Archmage would cast the spell carelessly as a form of deliberate rebellion.
That said, even as a DM, I would weight the actual gameplay impact of a Wish before getting real squirrely with it. Living forever isn't going to impact the lifetime of the characters for however long the players are playing them, unless you intend to have your campaign span more than a decade. I'd go one of two directions:
Keep in mind, in this (or any other) instance, if they attempt to solve the Wish with another Wish, then things just go from bad to worse as any careless wording would further compound their miseries. They'd ultimately likely have to petition a god to reverse the effects, and that debt could create any number of future quest hooks.
This is one of those scenarios where the player simply hasn't thought their intention through, and where you as DM haven't played the NPC in a thought out way.
I don't mean to offend here, but consider that Wish has only Verbal components. That means unless the Archmage is gagged, they can just cast wish to alter the one decision that they got wrong and which lead them to being captured. Or, the Archmage can wait until they are face to face with their captor and use Wish to cast Feeblemind on the player character. Maybe they use Wish to cast Earthquake. They could even just use Wish to replicate Teleport and free themselves from captivity.
This is what I mean when I say you're not thinking about how to play the NPC very well. You've got an NPC that you're using as little more than a paper doll. Possibly you've given that Archmage no real ambition, drive, or intelligence.
Put simply then, once you consider that this Archmage is a person with any real sense of self-preservation the player character's scheme becomes a very, very silly one. Why, when the only cost to cast Wish is a spell slot and being able to speak would the Archmage ever agree to the player's request? And again short of the PC gagging the NPC, why would the Archmage not wake up in their cell and merely Teleport out of there?
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