This week on Todd Talks, Todd Kenreck gathered a panel of sharp-minded D&D players: Lauren Urban, Jen Kretchmer, and Jim Davis, to talk about controversial spells in D&D. With the latest events of Heroes of the Vale fresh on their minds, the wish spell immediately became their first topic of conversation. In this week’s Spell Spotlight, let’s take a close look at the history of the wish spell, and some ways for you to adjudicate player wishes without breaking your campaign.
A History of Wishes
The wish spell has changed a lot over the ages. Some editions wildly restrict its power, some editions let the characters rewrite reality with a word. Some wishes have discrete costs, while others are more lax. Before we dig into the best ways to adjudicate wish at your table, we need to see why wish works the way it does in the current edition of D&D.
Original D&D
Wish first appeared in “OD&D,” in Supplement 1: Greyhawk. This version of wish was, in keeping with the style of OD&D, light on hard-coded restrictions. However, it advised the Dungeon Master (or rather, the “referee”) to be as devious and cruel as they liked with their interpretation of the player character’s wish.
[Wish alters] the past, present, or future to cause a wish to come true. The caster may wish to erase an unfortunate adventure, for instance, or may get a clue to a powerful item or great treasure. Wishes must be careful: the referee may grant a wish in such a way as to kill or handicap a character.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition
The AD&D Player’s Handbook published an updated version of the wish spell, as well as another spell known as limited wish, a 7th-level spell with more restricted effects.
A Limited Wish is a very potent but difficult spell. It will fulfill literally, but only partially or for a limited duration, the utterance of the spell caster. Thus, the actuality of the past, present or future might be altered (but possibly only for the magic-user unless the wording of the Limited Wish is most carefully stated) in some limited manner. The use of a Limited Wish will not substantially change major realities, nor will it bring wealth or experience merely by asking. The spell can, for example, restore some hit points (or all hit points for a limited duration) lost by the magic-user. It can reduce opponent hit probabilities or damage, it can increase duration of some magical effect, it can cause a creature to be favorably disposed to the spell caster, and so on. The Limited Wish can possibly give a minor clue to some treasure or magic item. Greedy desires will usually end in disaster for the wisher.
And though wish was still the ultimate spell, it saw a significant reduction in power between OD&D and AD&D. Interestingly, its power was reduced not by placing restrictions on what kind of wishes the caster could make, but by striking the caster with fatigue that persisted after the spell’s casting. Worthy of note also, is that the spell text now gave referees a certain amount of guidance as how to adjudicate the spell, even going so far as to encourage the DM to “maintain game balance” by obliquely interpreting player wishes.
The Wish spell is a more potent version of a Limited Wish. If it is used to alter reality with respect to hit points sustained by a party, to bring a dead character to life, or to escape from a difficult situation by lifting the spell caster (and his or her party) from one place to another, it will not cause the magic-user any disability. Other forms of wishes, however, will cause the spell caster to be weak (–3 on strength) and require 2 to 8 days of bed rest due to the stresses the wish places upon time, space, and his or her body. Regardless of what is wished for, the exact terminology of the Wish spell is likely to be carried through. (This discretionary power of the referee is necessary in order to maintain game balance. As wishing another character dead would be grossly unfair, for example, your DM might well advance the spell caster to a future period where the object is no longer alive, i.e. putting the wishing character out of the campaign.)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition
The versions of wish and limited wish in AD&D 2nd edition are much the same as they were in 1st edition. The text is almost identical, in fact! Its one significant divergence from the wish as presented in 1e is a permanent cost to the caster!
Casting a wish spell ages the caster five years.
This is the first instance of wish requiring a cost beyond simply a 9th-level spell slot to cast. This idea would be developed further in 3rd edition. Speaking of which…
3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons
D&D changed a lot in the jump from 2nd to 3rd edition, including dropping the now-superfluous “Advanced” moniker. The wish spell received a significant overhaul, which in true 3rd edition style, was a full codification of the spell’s effects. While this expansive elucidation helped remove guesswork and DM-to-DM variance in the spell’s usefulness, it significantly increased the complexity and restrictiveness of the spell. Ultimately, it’s a matter of opinion whether or an increase in codification made wish better or worse.
Continuing the trend that 2nd edition began, wish now costs experience points to cast, but no longer caused the spellcaster to suffer wish fatigue. Now, a not-insignificant XP cost was the balancing factor in this reality-altering spell. This spell wasn’t the only thing in this edition of D&D to use XP as a currency; creating magic items required an expenditure of experience points, for instance. The XP cost may have been a more successful disincentive than a few days of bedrest, but simply marking down a number feels less epic and mythic than suffering from debilitating weakness after channeling untold arcane power through your flimsy mortal frame. Again, a fielder’s choice.
See the full text of wish in the 3rd edition System Reference Document.
4th Edition D&D
Interestingly, wish didn’t appear in 4th edition D&D as a spell in any capacity, though creatures like genies could still grant wishes. To the best of my knowledge, no official explanation for the spell’s controversial removal is available online, but there’s no reason to ignite old edition wars. Broadly speaking, the effects of wish were divvied up among the game’s many rituals. It’s also entirely possible that the reality altering effects of wish were just another way that spellcasting characters were superior to martial characters, and wish was removed in the name of harmonious game balance.
Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Finally, wish appeared in the fifth edition Player’s Handbook as “the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast,” though it should be noted that limited wish, which existed in D&D since 1st edition (not counting 4th edition), didn’t appear alongside it’s more powerful cousin. One particular item of note is that this incarnation of wish gives the Dungeon Master guidance on how to adjudicate a player wishing a villain were dead, as opposed to the AD&D version of wish, which gave (identical) advice on how to deal with a player wishing another player out of existence.
This change in advice is emblematic of a broad change in playstyle that took place in the decades separating AD&D 1st edition and fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. To oversimplify, players were still ostensibly allies in 1st edition, but life was cheap and campaigns with elaborate plots, complete with character development, were rare. Characters were expected to die early, often, and for petty reasons, all of which meant that intra-party conflict wasn’t nearly as taboo as it is today. If none of the characters had favorable odds of surviving a dungeon crawl anyway, what did it matter if a traitorous rogue was killed by an aggrieved party member, rather than a sphere of annihilation?
This version of wish also introduces one interesting new piece of guidance for the DM: “the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong.” The idea of the magnitude of the wish being linked to the magnitude of its consequences is narratively satisfying, and inherently provides a unique aspect of risk and reward to the casting of wish.
One final new element of the wish rules also serves to keep the power of the spell in line by discouraging uses of wish outside of certain limited parameters. The Experience point cost from 3rd edition is gone, and the “wish fatigue” present in 2nd edition and earlier returns with a burning vengeance, but only if you use wish to create a wholly original effect. Additionally, using wish to create a wholly original effect also comes with a 1-in-3 chance that the caster is “unable to cast wish ever again.” Those are rough odds… but what a magnificent thing if you use wish to alter reality for the better (or for the worse), but you pay the price of never being able to wish again. Now that’s a plot twist!
Adjudicating Player Wishes
Throughout the ages, wish has advised Dungeon Masters to be cunning with their interpretations of player wishes. This is for good reason; allowing players to wish without restraint is essentially the default end of a game of D&D. Anyone who can’t wish would then essentially be a second-class character, and you would be better off moving to a game system like Exalted, where everyone has godlike power. The restrictions placed upon the spell help mitigate this, of course, but allowing the DM to interpret player wishes how they will is, first, in keeping with our myths of trickster genies and double-edged wishes, and also helps DMs maintain a semblance of control over their campaigns.
If I could only give one piece of advice regarding wishing, I would say: always be generous to players that are willing to be generous to you. If the wizards and sorcerers in your game are using wish to enhance your campaign, let their wishes work to everyone’s benefit. However, the inverse is also true. Never be generous to players that are unwilling to be generous to you. If those reality altering dastards want to wreak havoc with your campaign—and it’s making the game less fun for you—let your inner trickster god flourish and twist those wishes however you see fit.
Of course, in the latter scenario, you would probably be better off having a frank, out-of-character conversation with your players than trying to torment them in-character. Talking things out works much better than playing hardball, in my experience.
If you need concrete advice on managing wish, I highly recommend listening to Todd Kenreck’s Todd Talk on the subject; it’s embedded at the top of this article. Beyond that, I have three pieces of advice for DMs struggling to get a handle on wish.
The Law of Equivalent Exchange
To quote Fullmetal Alchemist, “If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given.” The text of wish promises something similar. “[The] greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong.”
Presumably, this guideline given in the text of the wish spell is just a guideline to help you twist your players’ words to create a double-edged wish. This works perfectly well. However, imagine if casting wish literally required a sacrifice of some sort. Do you know what the caster would exchange in order to see their vision fulfilled? Once you’ve decided, keep this in mind when determining the outcome of the wish, and keep the real consequences of the caster’s actions in your back pocket to reveal when the time is right.
Alternatively, you could propose this question to the caster directly. Maybe a god of fate speaks to the caster at the moment the wish is spoken, and the character must choose their sacrifice up front. To save a loved one’s life, another loved one must die instead. Who will take the fatal blow? Now, the choice is entirely in the caster’s hands. Now, the casting of a wish is more than just a spell or a story beat, but a potential ethical dilemma.
Make it Worth It
Earning the power to cast wish is no simple feat. It is truly the capstone of a wizard’s power, and an achievement in its own right. Let the wizard have their fun with their phenomenal cosmic power for a bit, so long as it doesn’t ruin anyone else’s fun. From a diabolical point of view, this is also to your benefit. Let the caster get comfortable making little wishes with only minor consequences. Then, when they become cocky enough to try and fundamentally rewrite reality, pull the rug out from under them!
Consider the Other Players
Fifth edition D&D isn’t a symmetrically balanced game. Its balance is imperfect and asymmetric, but ultimately, I believe that’s for the best. Wizards and bards and sorcerers are the only people who get to cast wish, and clerics have something similar in their Divine Intervention feature. All eight other classes in D&D have nothing that approaches the sheer versatility and potential power as wish. And, in a vacuum, this is a huge problem.
But we don’t play D&D in a vacuum. There are ways to balance this power. The simplest and most symmetrical (and in my opinion, least interesting) way to balance this is to hand out magic items that grant wishes. A ring of three wishes, or a luck blade, for instance. Then, everyone has the power to alter reality!
Or, consider what the wizard gets out of having a wish. What does it accomplish for them from a character standpoint. Is power all they seek? Is it to bring back a lost loved one? Is it to save their ancestral kingdom? Once you distill the power of wish down to this narrative purpose, you can find a way to balance it. How does a fighter gain the power to fundamentally change the world in the way a wizard can with wish? In a way, they already have it.
For example: a 20th-level bard wishes that the evil king were a toad. The consequence? The evil king’s equally evil daughter rules the evil kingdom instead. However, a 20th-level fighter could stride into the evil king’s throne room and cleave his head off with a clean stroke of her greatsword.
Another example: a 20th-level wizard in the midst of a nation-wide famine wishes that the crops in their country flourished instead of suffering from a disease that year. The consequence, the insects that plagued their crops instead plagues a neighboring realm, which declares war on the kingdom. However, a 20th-level fighter could march into that same neighboring realm, which in this reality is flush with food, and demand a share of it—or take it by force.
The power of a wish is to get the DM to pay attention to your character for a time, and then for the DM to decide how to reward or punish whatever ideas you present. Other classes have that too; they just don’t have rules for it.
What unbelievable wishes have you seen in your game? What have the consequences been, either for the player or for the DM?
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their sweet kitties Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I use the rule of equivalent exchange in my campaign, and my players (bunch of masochists that they are) absolutely love it. As soon as I introduced the possibility of Wish with an equivalent cost (in the form of magical flowers) my players started sending me messages about what their character in particular would value and what would push them to use such a wish and loose it. Nobody has used the flowers so far, but I've some very good ideas for what to do when that eventually happens and I'm excited to see how it plays out. My players are really great ^_^
My DM rolled a random loot table and my rogue ended up finding the Luck Blade at level 5. This had the potential to be game breaking, but the DM and I had several conversations about expectations, whether or not I would even be able to keep it secret, etc. We have since advanced to level 9, and I have only used the Wish spell twice. The first time was to cast Horrid Wilting on an Elder Ooblex after it had Hypnotic Pattern-ed the rest of the party, and a TPK seemed certain ("I really Wish you'd just shrivel up and DIE already!!"), and the second time was to restore an ancient library to its former glory. There were definite consequences- I took points of exhaustion, and I am starting to be noticed by forces I probably don't want to be noticed by. But these character moments have been some of the most incredible experiences in the game. I even commissioned artwork of the Ooblex kill. The Wishes didn't break the game, they were very in character, and they furthered the story in very interesting ways.
I think that the presence of Wish in a campaign requires a lot of trust and mutual respect between the DM and the player/s who possess/es the spell. So long as the magic is treated with appropriate reverence, and you don't intentionally break the game, it can work.
Edit to clarify: Since the first casting of Wish duplicated a spell, it happened, no problem. The second casting was given a 10% chance of success, and the DM rolled a 7 on the d100. Luck was on my side!
I once played with a DM who had a very odd rule about wish as a spell or as a granted ability via a magic item or an other planer being.
He would have the person casting wish, write down their wish on a piece of paper. He would then fold the paper into a small square, toss it into the air with a flip and twist so it would spin in as many directions as possible before hitting table or floor. Once all this nonsense was done, he would unfold the paper without moving it from where it landed and then... read the wish from left to right, top to bottom word for word as it appeared to him. In other words, if it was upside down or on its side, he would take the words as written and mix them up as it would be appropriate to their placement on the page versus his position reading them... complex? Overly screwy? YEP!
Then he would "interpret" the wish as he saw it from the words he read in the order he read them.
If you are a DM and you don't like the spell Wish, just ban it please and be done with it. Don't create some crazy scheme to pretend to give your players a chance when it is clear, you just don't want them using the spell :P
Excellent conclusion. Thank you James. I hope you will discuss rituals becoming a group effort more in the future. I felt mentioning how the whole of the party could contribute to a Wish spell casting could be a great topic of discussion for the future?
if I ever DM a campaign where a player wishes for an elephant to appear, I will make an intelligent talking tarasque named elephant appear and introduce themselves.
My take on wish is a bit different. I commented on this a little while ago on reddit. Basically, it already says it can replicate other spells up to 8th level. If you wish for anything else, you're essentially creating a new spell on the fly up to 8th level and possibly not quite 9th level. So if what you wish for can be described as a new spell less than 9th level, it should work as stated but you now suffer wish fatigue. If it's something that needs to be at least 9th level, the wish starts to fall apart at the seams and you end up with undesired consequences. Essentially, the wizard is pushing themselves and the spell past it's limits and suffering. Obviously the DM will adjudicate this but I think it makes sense in terms of spell mechanics and it will seem fair to players.
As for wish fatigue, I think a 1 in 3 chance of never casting again is ridiculous. Better to impose a time period where they can't cast it again because it was too stressful. For example, 1d12 months or maybe if the wish was only slightly different to an existing spell (Frostball instead of Fireball) it might be only a few days. The harder the wizard pushed, the longer they have to wait. This gives more control to the player who can now make a decision on the trade off. Ultimately, you can adjust the time so they only end up getting a few big wishes through the whole campaign anyway and deprive themselves of smaller wishes while they recover.
Finally, I'd say don't try to screw them over if they are casting the spell themselves. Go for the intent not the wording. A wizard probably knows how much they are pushing themselves and the spell so give them a hint. "... you're asking for something big. It will be a long time before you can wish again and it may not work. Are you sure you want to try this?". If another entity is granting the wish, that's different.
"genie, I wish to be a great fighter"
"granted!" (A large Grate monster appears and attacks)
I wish that the next hit on the evil big bad will hit and have enough damage to one shot them.
Your wish is granted, you "hit on the evil big bad" and he falls for you, scoops you up and runs you down to the chapel to marry you, all in one shot.
In the post apocalyptic fantasy world Novaltos the heroes of Pardis discovered “Any reality altering Wish is adjudicated by those deities whose domains would be affected.” One of those heroes while exploring the Elemental Plane of Air gained the friendship of a djinn by refusing wishes offered in exchange for work she had done in Strawberry Fields. The djinn has since dropped in occasionally and lectured the group on the limits of reality alteration particularly when a Sphinx left them 10 years in the past.
My thought is, that if the wish is to be cast, the player as only 6 seconds to speak the wish, as the wish is 1 action and only has the verbal component. What ever they say in those six seconds is what happens. "I wish..." This way they can't tack on too many conditions and give the DM the real power of how the wish is full filled.
good thought - makes sense and prevents elaborate wishes
"you would probably be better off having a frank, out-of-character conversation with your players than trying to torment them in-character"
This should be writ large across every forum and every game supplement. So often, the go-to way to reign in problem players is to torment their character, which at best is passive-aggressive and at worst just escalates the problem. Real talk has solved every problem I've ever had.
As for wish in particular, luckily, most of us are not going to engage in tier 4 play with people we haven't played with for some time, making sure we all have a good idea what we want out of the campaign. I admire those of you brave enough to do AL or convention play at that tier, especially to try to DM it!
Agreed, but to a point. I tend to use the "if you give a mouse a cookie" approach to it. If they say "this is what I wish for", then you say "this is what I'm going to do", then they say "Ok, then THIS is what i wish for" and you say "then I'll do this"...there is literally no end to it.
So instead I say, in advance, what I said above...If it is within the letter of the spell, then I will not mess with it. If the intent is positive in nature, then I will follow the "spirit" of the wish, but if the wish is negative than I will follow the letter of the wish and *WILL* screw you over.
If, after that, they make a stupid wish, then I do horrible stuff to them with a clear conscience :)
I think the guidance in the PHB for how to use wishes in 5e is great for both DMs and players. If a player wants to use a wish spell along those guidelines, they and I both know that they don't need to spend hours drafting an ironclad contract and that I don't have to spend hours figuring out how to screw them. I've also had to spend a bizarre amount of time lawyering up wishes on legal pads, and I can say from experience, it adds nothing to the game.
I also like the spell fatigue, not just the chance of never casting wish again (which is a good "three-strikes" remedy for players who like to push the envelope), but also the immediate stat drop and necrotic damage. If you want to use it on a battlefield, your options are mostly limited to copying other spells. If you want to do something outside-the-box with it, you need to be good and certain that it'll be the last spell you cast that day. That just seems like a natural story fit to me.
Wizard, wizard, wizard... Sorcerers can cast Wish too, as someone who enjoys the sorcerer class quite a bit I am rather offended...
So, losing part of your knowledge, possibly a level and forgetting spells that you got by reaching that level is a less "epic" consequence... than being forced to sleep for 2-8 days? What kind of Dm would simply say "You casted wish and you lose xp points"? Stop piling shit on other editions to promote the current one.
Well done article, I loved it!
I believe that Wish is a great spell, in the right hands. I tend to enjoy story-driven campaigns, so when players play it like a video or board game it bothers me. Wish has the potential to change up the narrative, completely change the focus for a time, and lead to a very fun and engaging game for everybody involved. However, in the hands of a numbers gamer, it inevitably leads to one player winning and the rest of the players and the DM losing out on the fun they could have had. So I agree with all the advice to DMs this article to be careful when giving the players the power to take control of your world and storyline, and don't entrust that power to just anybody
Try taking a long jog since you sound like you need to blow off a lot of steam, and keeping it pent up cannot be healthy for you. Also, someone saying they prefer a current version of how a spell in a GAME (remember, it is only just a game) is written is not "piling shit on other editions," but simply stating their preference. And, remember that you are reading an opinion column, if you don't like the opinion, then read something else, or as an even more creative alternative, start writing your own opinion column or make YouTube videos, etc.
I like your take on Wish, and it is similar to my thoughts about the spell. A wish spell is supposed to be the most epic spell a mortal can cast, and being too restrictive with it just makes it feel lackluster, boring, and a huge disappointment. There are better ways to prevent the spell from upending a campaign. I agree with a variable time limit on being able to cast wish again based on how much the caster tries to push the boundaries of mortal magic, and also with imposing unintended and potentially dangerous consequences (with this communicated in advance to the players) when a caster tries to push singificantly beyond the limits. Then, a truly great wish can be cast either as a heroic or desperate gamble, as the case may be, and lesser wishes can simply reflect a powerful spell from a character at the pinnacle of its power or one using a mighty magic item (as a 9th level spell should be), but nothing earth-shattering.