Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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RAW doesn’t seem to offer a positive answer for or against using Wish for upcasts. On the one hand “the spell takes effect” would seem to read as “read from the description and apply appropriately”, in which case the typical “can’t upcast if a slot wasn’t used” point applies since the effect is iterating out of another effect rather than a direct cast. On the other, the bit about ignoring requirements could be interpreted to include spell slots, although given that upcasting rules are more a “if x features y then z” sequence it’s really getting into fine semantic points. Personally I wouldn’t let it upcast, but I wouldn’t say someone else is pushing the envelope particularly far if they do allow it.
It's been pointed out a few times, but you're not casting (or upcasting for that matter) the spell you're duplicating when you cast Wish. And since the spell slot requirement is associated with the casting part, it doesn't apply to this case. When you cast Wish, you perform the verbal component (for example by saying "I wish for an 8th level Fireball"), and immediately after that, the spell takes effect, and your 8th level Fireball appears. At no point do you do anything pertaining to casting Fireball itself, which by the way wouldn't make any sense if you tried to duplicate a spell you normally don't know how to cast.
If a dm wants to allow it in their campaign, thats their choice, but a player trying to tell me i should allow it in my campaign because their interpretation of free upcasting with zero side effects is raw? Nope.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
PCs can use magic items. Ergo, PCs can upcast spells without using a spell slot, as long as some effect lets them do so.
Magic items (just like monsters) can do all sorts of things that players cant do. Some are even sentient, some are cursed, and many have features unavailable to players. The player just waves it around. The magic item does all the work. You dont even have to be a spellcaster to use a magic item. My familiar can use a wand of magic missiles or a ring of spell storing. The creature using the magic item has no inherent ability for magic whatsoever. The magic item does all the work
Wish is a player spell, so must follow all the spellcasting rules for players, not the rules for magic items, and not the rules for monsters.
In the rules for spellcasting for players, EVERY SPELL that a player can upcast, the spell description explicitly states how to upcast the spell, most say with a spell slot but Twinned say you can do an "effective" one level upcast with a socerery point. Wish is also a spell for players, and in that spell description, it makes no mention of upcasting in any way. The only way anyone can extract the idea of upcasting via Wish is by indirect inference and implication, and indirect implication is never used anywhere else in any rule discussing players upcasting a spell. EVER.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
Except then you’re arguably not simply replicating the spell effect. The spell effect for any upcast is “if a slot greater than Y is used for X, then Z”. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an 8th level Fireball- there is the single spell Fireball which will have a modified effect if cast with an 8th level slot. If you’re bypassing the spell slot requirement, then by definition the check if the slot exceeds Y is not met. It’s a question of if the meta element of slot levels qualifies as a “requirement” to the spell effect, or if that’s a separate secondary element. Arguments can be made either way, but RAW doesn’t give a conclusive answer to which elements Wish covers.
There is plenty of textual evidence that Fireball (8th level version) is a valid construction.
I think it is relevant to note that any player with this feat can cast an upcasted spell without spending any spell slot.
The_Ace_of_Rogue, thanks for your input! :) I totally agree with you that the rules on the topic are not 100% clear. Personally since Jeremy Crawford, who wrote the text, has wrote separately that upcasting with wish is possible, I believe this was the RAI. But if another table concludes otherwise is not unreasonable.
Regarding what Pantagruel666 is saying however, here is the paragraph from the PHB2024. I think on this the rules are unambiguous.
Bit that text description EXPLICITLY states that you can upcast and by how much, "as though using a level 2 spell slot"
If Wish said something about "the spell is cast as if using a level 8 slot" then sure. Upcasting is raw and rai.
But as Wish is actually written, upcasting is not RAW. you can only attempt to infer that its allowed by interpreting, and those interpretations are based on ambiguous text that could also be interpreted that upcasting is not allowed, and your interpretation ignores how literally every other spell description and spell related feature that allows upcasting explicitly says how to upcast.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
We've reached the point in a thread where people are just repeating their arguments. Time for both sides to recognize that anyone who doesn't already agree with them isn't going to be convinced.
Nobody is telling you that. This is a RAW discussion. You don't HAVE to rule your game strictly RAW. The vast majority of DMs don't do that. But the very fact that this is a controversial topic should drive you to clarify your position on this as a house-rule, whether your interpretation is RAW or not.
My comment was in response to Ace of Rogues saying "Personally I wouldn’t let it upcast, but I wouldn’t say someone else is pushing the envelope particularly far if they do allow it."
And "this is just a rules conversation" doesnt preclude people from saying whether they'd allow it in their game as dm. Especially if there is some ambiguity ijn the rules, sometimes a dm has to look at the ambiguity and the rest of the rules and make a judgement call.
The only way "wish lets you upcast" argument works is by taking the sentence that says "you dont need costly components" and argue that it also implies upcasting is allowed. But this also has to ignore that every other rule that allows upcasting explicitly says how you do it. Even the limited wish genie warlock rules explains how to upcast and what its limits are.
Given every other rule about upcasting uses explicit text to define it, it seems extremely odd that Wish intended to allow it, but faliled to include a single actual word about it.
Sometimes one might consider the power consequences of one interpretation versus another, such as "if the designers meant X, then damage is 20. If they meant Y, then damage could be 100. Did they have intended that?
Being able to cast any spell from any spell list day after day with no negative consequences is already extremely powerful. Bards are meh until level 10, and then magical secrets kicks in and they can start learning any spel from any spell list. I played a bard in a 2014 campaign and at high level i was riding a pegasus from paladins find steed spell, casting fireball from wizard spell list, picking and choosing the best spells.
2024 rules decided that was too powerful and dialed back magical secrets to only spells from wizard, sorcerer, and druid spell lists. Being able to cast ANY spell is EXTREMELY powerful.
And the wider discussion of a rule includes things like how does it affect balance between the different classes? The martial/caster divide has always been a problem. 2024 rules tried to fix some of it. But its still enough of a problem that i havent seen someone play a single-class high-level martial in years.
Tldr: the forum is called "Rules and Game Mechanics" not "Strict Rules as Written discussions only".
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
As Pantagruel said, at this point it's clear that you're not listening to what anybody says and you just keep repeating the same points over and over even though they've already been addressed.