Wish and the Ring of Spell Storing

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

What Wish actually says: "The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of level 8 or lower."

Why mention spells of "level 8 or lower" if everyone is going to be casting every spell at level 8, because thats what will happen if your interpretation is how it works?  

Magic missile? Cast at level 8. Fireball? Cast at level 8.

Because every rule that mentions upcasting says you need to use a higher level slot. And theres no slot being used here. In twinned metamagic, it explicitly says how the spell is effectively upcast by one level. But there is no mention of upcasting, no mention of slots, no mention of anything about changing  "effective" levels in Wish.

So you use base level spell.

 
What part of "Wish doesn't actually cast or upcast the spell whose effect you're duplicating" do you not understand?
Wish says it itself: "If you use it this way, you don’t need to meet any requirements to cast that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect."

That's also the reason why you don't have to worry about the duplicated spell's casting time, or even whether it's in your spell list: you're not actually casting it, so you don't even need to know how to.
Normally, to cast a spell with your spellcasting feature, you need to have it in your spell list and have it prepare, and you have to provide the components, respect the casting time, and consume a resource (charge, daily use, spell slot, special action).
It's during that phase that the rules of upcasting apply. You can't upcast a spell by consuming a charge (unless the item specifically casts at a specific level, in the case of Magic Missile, which doesn't constitute "upcasting" as Pantagruel mentioned) or a special action (although some actions mention a specific level, like the Pit Fiend's Fireballs). And THEN, after the casting phase is over, you get to read the description of the spell as it takes effect.

Wish by-passes all that and skips straight to the "takes effect" phase.
That's why any rule related to casting does not apply to Wish's basic use: you never get the point where you need to consider them.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

If you want to rule in your game that your players can upcast with wish, sure, it seems to be a reasonable, if more relaxed reading of the rules the overlooks the inconsistency it creates of how the rules deal with upcasting. But sure. 

From a power perspective this interpretation of Wish really makes it so that once Wish is available to players, theres no benefit to playing anything but a class that can cast wish. Not only is every spell from every spell list available, but also they can all be upcast to level 8?

Not "you can cast anybspell from any list" but "you can cast any spell from any list upcast to level 8" is a big difference.

No one is playing a fighter with that version of Wish available.

 Let us not pretend that wish can't upcast because it's a balance issue.

If wish with upcasting is so powerful that nobody would play a fighter, then wish without upcasting is quite sufficient for that. But most people don't pick their class because of what they get at 17th level.

Wish can't, by the book, upcast because of how it interacts with the mechanics that are primarily written for other abilities. Whether it would be even more unbalanced if it could is orthogonal to the rules question at hand. (Personally, I doubt it, because upcast spells are generally inferior to what you can get natively at that level.)

No one is playing a fighter with that version of Wish available.

I do not understand why everyone is so focused with being the most powerful character in a group. Frodo was the protagonist of LoTR, not Gandalf, Aragorn or Legolas. There are other things beside sheer power in a RPG fantasy.

And yes, Wish IS the most powerful spell in the game, one that can easily destroy the player character if used wrongly. I am ok with that. 

Beside, I think you moved the goalpost a bit here, from 

what im saying is that every rule that equate a spells level to be higher than its base level does so by using the slot used to cast the spell. 

to 

You brought up twinned metamagic, it explicitly says how to effectively upcast the spell without a slot, using metamagic instead.   Every other rule says to upcast a spell, you need a higher level spell slot. Make a spell scroll? No slot involved, scroll is always at base spell level.

So it is possible to upcast a spell without using a spell slot. There are circumstances where it is possible.

 Wish can't, by the book, upcast because of how it interacts with the mechanics that are primarily written for other abilities. 

As I mentioned earlier, this really seems to me like a philosophical matter. 

Potentiality versus actuality.

THEORY A (Actuality):

• An upcast Magic Missile is an 8th-level spell only once the act of casting with an 8th-level slot has happened.
• Wish never performs that act.
• Therefore Wish never reaches the state where the spell becomes 8th level. In other words: Magic Missile isn't inherently an 8th-level spell. It only becomes one if and when a higher-level slot is actually used.

THEORY B (Potentiality):

• The PHB tells us that once cast with an 8th-level slot, the spell takes on the higher level for that casting.
• Therefore an 8th-level Magic Missile is a valid magical entity that exists within the rules.
• Wish doesn't need to recreate the process or any of the circumstances that made it 8th level; it merely duplicates that already-defined spell entity by spending a level 9 slot.

I really do not think there is a clear winner in this debate. Both theory are compelling and it is a matter of preference until a Sage Advice clarifies it.

Since JC answers lines with theory B, I tend to think this was the RAI.

You took "costly component" and completely forgot about the "any requirements" and the fact that "costly component" was preceded with "including"...
"You don’t need to meet any requirements" means what it says. You have 0 requirements to meet. No spell slots, no components at all, nothing at all.

An 8th level Chromatic Orb is a level 8 spell that exists in the game. The upcast mechanic is irrelevant to this fact. It is a level 8 spell, therefore you can duplicate its effect as part of Wish, without meeting any requirements normally expected to do so, whatsoever. Whatever you think might prevent this from being possible, it is waived by the "You don’t need to meet any requirements" part of Wish.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

 

But you want that extra power, so here we are.

 Again with the animus. 

Wish makes no mention of it because it does not upcast anything nor cast anything. A spell does not cast nor upcast another spell. Wish copies an effect. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"So it is possible to upcast a spell without using a spell slot. There are circumstances where it is possible"

Yeah. Twinned says EXACTLY how effectively upcasting works. 

There are quite a few places where the rules upcast without a spell slot (as a monster or item specifies a higher level version of a given spell) and do not say anything about how that works. This tells us that upcasting without a spell slot is definitely possible, and that magic missile (level N variant) is a thing that exists in the game and is a level N spell. Therefore, Wish can cast magic missile (level 8 variant), because it's a spell that exists in the game and is 8th level or lower.

Spending the entire thread cherry picking the rules to justify the most over powered interpretation of how the Wish spell works, and then chastizing everyone for being so focused on power? Thats the best epilogue for this entire thread.

I think you are the one cherry picking and twisting yourself in a pretzel tbh. The levels of projection are off the chart here. 

My comment was about people wanting to be the most powerful character in a group.

I'd like wish to be able to upcast regardlessly of what class I play. I want the big bad wizard enemy to be able to do that, because it is awesome and makes narrative sense. If you automatically think it is about what my character wants for themselves, well that tells more about your game philosophy then it tells about mine. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

The only way wish is dangerous is if you use it for anything other than what it calls "basic use".  Basic use is casting any spell below level 9. Most would say that basic use would cast those spells at their base level, and any other casting, such as up casting, would set your stength to 3 for a few days and you risk never casting Wish again.

None of the problematic use cases for Wish are reliant on the ability to upcast -- they rely on ignoring casting time and material components. If you really want to make Wish not a problematic spell, change the basic use from

The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of level 8 or lower. If you use it this way, you don’t need to meet any requirements to cast that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect.

to

The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of level 8 or lower with a casting time of 1 action, bonus action, or reaction, and no consumed costly components. If you use it this way, you don’t need to meet any requirements to cast that spell, including costly (non-consumed) components. The spell simply takes effect.

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.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Again, monsters and magic items do NOT have to follow the same rules as players. So any rules that talk about monsters upcasting a spell or a magic item inherently upcasting a spell do NOT APPLY to what players can and cannot do.

PCs can use magic items. Ergo, PCs can upcast spells without using a spell slot, as long as some effect lets them do so.

Quote from Natrel >>

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.

 
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.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an 8th level Fireball.

There is plenty of textual evidence that Fireball (8th level version) is a valid construction.

Genie Magic

General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+)

Wish Magic. As a Magic action, you can cast a level 1 spell of your choice from the Sorcerer spell list that has a casting time of an action. Once you use this benefit, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest. The spell’s spellcasting ability is the ability increased by this feat.

When you reach level 11, the spell you cast with this feat is cast as though using a level 2 spell slot. When you reach level 17, the spell is cast as though using a level 3 spell slot.

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.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an 8th level Fireball.

Regarding what Pantagruel666 is saying however, here is the paragraph from the PHB2024. I think on this the rules are unambiguous.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot

When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell takes on the higher level for that casting. For instance, if a Wizard casts Magic Missile using a level 2 slot, that Magic Missile is level 2. Effectively, the spell expands to fill the slot it is put into.

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.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

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.

 
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.

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.