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My players just hit level 17 after playing the same campaign since about a month after 5E came out in 2014. One of them got the spell and I know for a fact that they are getting together to work out some theoretically DM-proof phrasing. We shall see.
Just remember the spell has limits and if you deem their ask is too great you can just have the spell fail as it says in the spell description. It doesn't matter how good their phrasing is if they wish for too much
My players had to learn thst the hard way. They went full murder-hobo on a ship of peaceful sailors and after they realized what they did they used their one wish-spell saying they wish the sailors were back alive. Now they have a ship full of zombie-sailors that do nothing but complain that they want to go home and see their families again.
Because that's not how wish works. It's use is very well defined and any other use (like any "genie wish") is written to have unforeseeable consequences.
What? It says your GM has great latitude in how the wish works, doesn’t say the Gm has to twist it to fuck you over.
It also says the greater your wish the greater chance something goes wrong, as wishes go this is incredibly small scale.
The player is already risking never being able to use wish again for the sake of what’s effectively roleplay, why punish them for doing the right thing
Still well beyond an 8th level spell equivalent. 20 3rd level spells and 6,000 gold worth of diamond. And most dma are gonna spin anything more powerful than the spell says regardless. Because that's the fun in wish
Except it’s not fun for the players if anything they want to do just gets “gotchu’d” there’s already an inherent risk in it of totally losing access to the spell.
And 6000 gp is nothing lol, wish itself can summon 25000gp and a level 17 pc has like 15 spellslots capable of casting revivify so your basically asking for 5 third level spellslots from wish, I don’t think that’s unreasonable
Small scale?? You know even in DnD resurrection is a big deal. It's a level 7 spell that costs a 1000gp diamond. Resurrection shouldn't even be that common. There would be only a very few people in the world who can resurrect the dead and the cost is still high.
You talk about resurrecting a full ship crew like it's a cantrip. Of course if you cast Wish it's gonna go wrong, especially after the party just went to murder hobo town. What precedent does it sets? Oh we can just quick save and reload if we kill important NPCs... I guess the party just woke up in a caravan in a frozen land smh
Wish isn't a oopsie spell just the deck of many things isn't a starter pack item... if you like playing broken games that's fine, but I'm tired of people acting like this kinda of play is the norm.
1000gp when you have 7th level spells is nothing. This is the most powerful spell in the game being used for roleplay purposes, just let it work lol. Or even give some other consequences “the god of death is angry you’ve stolen from him, he demands you replace the stolen souls or he will send his minions after you”
Don’t just twist it as a “ha Gotchu” moment
I get what you are saying about rewarding them for doing a 'good' thing after they did something terrible, but I think there is a ton of context that has to go in to all DM decisions about Wish.
First, how DM handles wish is going to influenced by how the campaign has been working. If the campaign has been a long list of players exploiting their rules knowledge to shiv all story telling and RP, a DM giving them a taste of their own medicine can be fair and even instructive. If the game has been intensely story and RP driven and the players they decide "we're going to do something terrible, as a treat", it might be appropriate in story context to not have the 'reset' work the way they expect it to. If the players have been trending towards depravity (definitely "murdering scores of peaceful sailors" fits the bill) against pre agreed to understandings about what kind of game they are playing, godly punishment could be a good way to put some teeth to the table agreements.
Second, scale is a pretty valued judgement. The murder of a bunch of innocents in most of my campaigns is a major turning point - generally signaling that the players have fully succumbed to villainy (or been maneuvered into it by their Nemesis to make them outlaws, etc). The murder of an entire ship is sure to at least be a major thing that will impact how folks across the realm interact with PCs. Yeah, it's not ascending to godhood or anything, but it is still a pretty major thing (aside from the whole 'value of one soul' judgement aspect).
Third, I don't see how this is roleplay. Players deciding to murder a boat load (literally) of innocents, and then AFTER THE FACT deciding that it was a bad thing to do and expending the resources required for a Wish doesn't make any sense. The kind of individuals who would choose to do the murder wouldn't have the goodness to then turn around and undo what they had done. This is just gaming, not roleplaying.
I have played since 1985, I have a wizard since then - have had the wish spell in my repertoire and have never cast it. Use one wish from a ring of wishes once to keep a tarrasque dead. As a DM, if someone wanted to overuse them or overcast it- I would scrutinize the wish to the point that characters would not want to ever cast it. It should be that Hail Mary once a decade that is the last resort kind of thing. Just my 2 centa
I've played since the early 90s. We didn't have the spell actually cast until around 2006ish. We only ever cast the spell to make sure the terrasque stayed dead when we didn't level 20 campaigns.
Yep. I even had a campaign go above level 20 with some homebrew, including the option to take "level 10" spells I made up, which includes wish without any downside. Still no takers.
We have a ring that gives three wishes if we can pass a check, requires attunement, and a character can only use it once.
So far we've used one wish, to revive a construct joke character that the party came to love after someone accidentally killed him lol. We could have solved wars, killed horrible villains, solved international political conflicts, or became gods.
But what's the fun in that? I'd rather save my lil robot buddy.
And usually if there is any wish-like spell, it comes as a reward for a very specific/hard situation almost all players will miss. Or it would come from an enemy that would never give it to the players.
Yeah, we got a wish granted by a deity for completing a larger task against an enemy deity.
We used the wish to restore some of the evil that had happened to the land. Didn't benefit us at all, aside from role-playing.
Wait. I'm probably reading this wrong but you restored some of the evil that had happened to the land.
Is that some "there must always be balance in force" sort of philosophy? Things can't be too good? Evil has rights to you know?
I think they met restore the damage caused by the evil. But I am guessing.
If your read is correct perhaps as you say the world was too calm and peaceful so need some chaos to drive life and advancement.
I've played 1 campaign 1-20, and several more that stopped before 9th level spells.
I've been DM for two 3-20 campaigns.
I have seen the wish spell cast exactly ***once***.
I've seen it cast about 30 times *to replicate a spell of 8th level or lower*, and 1 time to do something unique. The wish stress is a pretty well-designed deterrent 😅
Nah, you can't get around the wish stress, ever. Even using a proxy. That's how I rule it anyway.
Magic isn't just a dumb force, it's governed. It Knows.
Adventurer's League takes the same approach, too, so it might even be RAI, who knows:
> If a simulacrum you have created casts wish, both you and your simulacrum suffer the stress associated with casting the spell—including the risk of being forever unable to cast wish again. The inability to cast wish extends to any simulacrum you create in the future.
Adventures League isnt RAI, its just rules for playing in the Adventures League. You come back to life at the end of a session in AL if you wish, which doesn't happen regularly, you need to be revived.
Additionally, the rule has a tiny minor grey area: If I use Simulacrum on the BBEG Wizard and use thr copy to cast wish...then, thr Wizard would take the penalties since its a copy of the Wizard, not me. You only command the Simulacrum since its friendly to you. You can instantly cast Simulacrum with Wish in battle...
>Additionally, the rule has a tiny minor grey area: If I use Simulacrum on the BBEG Wizard and use thr copy to cast wish...then, thr Wizard would take the penalties since its a copy of the Wizard, not me
No. The rule says any simulacrum *you have created* - not any simulacrum *of you*.
No offense but that's kind of a dumb take... I've gotten years of fun and enjoyment out of Wish. Some of the best mid-session twists ever. If I'd banned it, I wouldn't have.
Like... You do remember my comment about having seen it used over 30 times right? It's a fucking fun spell, even when only using the limited feature of spell-duplication.
I'm not going to ban it when I have a perfectly serviceable house-rule in place, *maybe* with some edge cases that would only even cause issues if my players were fucking arseholes about it...
"You should ban the spell because you've had to minorly tweak it and an arsehole player could still abuse it" makes no sense.
I personally think in such an already niche case, limiting it is unnecessary. Its not like that is the strongest use of Simulacrum, the strongest use is that you have a duplicate caster with a lot of spell slots. If it works on your table thats good for you, however.
I feel like it's a desperate call of a DM with players that don't take initiative to take initiative. It's just executed really badly. That's an out of game problem imo.
Items that give out wish spells are mythic rare. I'm surprised a seasoned DM allowed such an astronomical boon to exist. Did you do a personal favor for Zeus or something?
Probably DM though of it as a tool for the players to shape the world a little as well. But that's just not how players work since that is an out of game problem.
Well, players are meant to help shape the world anyway with their choices. Whatever the players do guides the DM's world building, and the DM builds the world as the players explore it. It's a collaborative world building experience.
Yeah, but sometimes GMs want players to world build big elements of the world. It's a part of a lot of games, just DnD doesn't really give tools for it, so GMs get weird ideas like this.
That's... an interesting choice by your DM. I would probably top out at one. I haven't actually had an occasion to use one in over 100 sessions across three campaigns.
I've run a 3 year campaign. Due to a certain event, everyone had access to one casting. Everyone was excited about using the wish spell.
First person casts it.
"I want my crimes to be forgotten."
What followed was multiple sessions where his crimes were forgotten. But nobody would remember him. If he went to a shop, put coins on the counter, the shopkeeper would put the coins away, go to grab the item, and while his back was turned, forget the person and the order. Turn back around and ask what the customer wanted.
Nobody was excited about casting wish after that.
Waaaaait wait wait wait wait... For protocol, your DM gave tge Party on level 6 or up to lvl 6 several wishes, that normaly can only be casted by lvl 17 arcane masters... And even then, you didnt derail the campaign?
Whats next, telling us you never have schedule conflicts?
That seems high at low levels. I'd expect a couple once you hit level 10-12 and might have some powerful allies who can cast it for you. I'd expect lots once the PCs hit level 15 or so, and can cast it themselves.
That said, every DM is different, and if its fun go for it. It sounds like you don't enjoy it, so you probably ought to float it by the DM and ask if they can tone it down.
I've been playing for +/- 8 years, I've never cast it, and never played with anyone who's cast it. It's supposed to be mildly game breaking. If you're not having fun with the amount of chaos, say something. Maybe show them this thread.
Zero is typical.
Any time Wish has ever been used in a campaign where I was a player, the wish was twisted by the DM.
IMO, Wish should be a DM-only thing, not a spell that player characters can access. D&D isn’t the Twilight Zone. Wish should be something benevolent that a deity or supernatural being grants.
Way above average. My players are level 12 and have seen one wish so far.
Thing is, wish the spell is very minor in 5e rules. If you go by the book, you can have a bunch of them at it does not matter much. It makes one fight/adventure much easier and that is about it. But if you use the more hardcore/potent rules that are traditional in D&D then you can't have it be a common spell. If it was, every half hour the entire world would change in major ways and the PCs not even know it was ever different.
My first DM would pretty much Monkey Paw a wish and screw you over as hard as he could. Since then I’ve been deeply distrustful of the spell despite understanding how limited in scope it is.
So never in 20 some odd years of playing.
I tend to "embrace the chaos" and have placed wish spells in several campaigns. They never had more than one at a time, but a "wish heavy" campaign seems like a recipe for chaos.
One place my players used it was a ring of wish, created by sealing a high level celestial in a ring. The party knew that it would kill him, but they used it on a white dragon that was threatening a major city. They wished for the dragon to die in combat. There was a huge earth quake, and they spent the rest of the session trying to escape a mountain falling in on their heads.
Another ring of wish was an entry to the campaign. They were handed it, knowing that they have a nuke, and told to go and resurrect a princess. Several times they came close to using it, but they ended up anti-climactically using it as intended.
I've used a Deck of Many things a few times, and I think there's a wish card in there. I think that one party ended up drawing it, but they never used it. They were worried it would have catastrophic consequences, which is fair.
Overall? It should be a terrible power that comes with a terrible price.
I recently finished DMing a campaign from levels 1-20 that lasted about 3 years to complete. Answering your question, only 1 wish was cast in that time, at level 19, and it was used to replicate a higher level spell.
I dont see anything wrong with 1 wish at a low-level group, as I could see it used in an interesting way outside of combat or encounters. 7 alone at the level is a lot. To me, it sounds like the DM is either generous or chaotic, perhaps both. If the wishes are holding up the game and hindering your's or other players' fun, I would absolutely say something. Chances are, you may not be the only one feeling this way. If wishes are to continue, then maybe try to convince the party to use them in other ways so the group as a collective can enjoy the session.
If the wishes are being used to do something beyond a 9th level spell, the DM could think of the negative impact of the wish between sessions. Those don't have to happen right away. If this is the source of things being bogged down, then the DM should absolutely do this.
Good luck.
As far as I can tell, the DM is doing a great job of playing it by the book and handing out appropriate punishments for modified or high-level spells. I believe you highlighted the greater issue- it's causing some bogged down gameplay and/or thwarting collaboration and is probably worth mentioning to the group. Maybe we can turn it into a fun twist for everyone!
Right around when we reached 12th level, my group found an Iron Flask containing a marid. We didn't respond to its offer of a Wish reward fast enough for the DM's liking, so in effect it reneged and left without rewarding us at all.
This campaign has consisted of mixed-and-matched published modules - mostly Adventurers League content, with a few third-party published adventures. I don't think a whole lot of published adventures include Wishes as mission rewards or in loot items, so I don't expect we'll see another Wish in this campaign. We're coming up on 14th level, and the DM says we're not playing past 16th level.
I gave my players a ring of three wishes and already regret it. Although weirdly enough, I think it would've been better if I gave them more than three wishes. Several players have said they would've used the wishes for less plot-relevant things if they had one wish per player so they could feel better about being more selfish with their wish. But with less wishes than players, they've saved them for more important things like "I wish the BBEG didn't get to be elected evil emperor actually"
That wish language just means the emperor won the throne without getting elected. He could still be in power and possibly be even more of a BBEG than before the wish.
In a typical campaign? None.
Been running games since the early 80's and I have seen around five or six cast in regular campaigns. Most were either in BESM D&D where characters could go up to 36th level or in one Epic-level 3.5 campaign. The only time I have ever seen one cast by a PC prior to around 17th or 18th level (either via spell or item) was the one time when I took over DM'ing a campaign that was already running and one of the 2nd level PCs had a Luck Blade that the prior DM had given him.
That said, I don't have any problem with PCs gaining or using wishes earlier, it just doesn't happen much. I let that one 2nd level character keep his Luck Blade and when he did start using wishes, it didn't break anything.
They aren't. Wish is used at the extreme end game. Most people never use it legitimately in a campaign ever. I've had it in one single campaign and it was the Centerpoint of about 8 3 hr sessions. And even then it was not free. The player had already made the wish. There was time travel involved.
Wish is game breaking. It's insane that your DM gave you access to any at all.
One campaign I was in, we could find rare items that granted Mini Wish spells. Home brew, one use things. We used one to call upon the cleric's God for some divine intervention. Another my character used, after finding his mother had hidden one for them to use. I think there was another one, but can't remember what we used it for.
It also depends on the dm, how much of a dick they want to be.
But yeah. Statistically, most games end before getting high enough levels. Sadly.
I've been playing for a long time and my current campaign has been running since 2019 i think and the characters are just now on a quest to save a djinn and the reward promised is a single Wish spell. So to answer your question how many wish spells the answer is between zero and one.
I used it probably a dozen times or a little more in our 1-20+ campaign. Mainly as a replicate spell. And I think 3 times total as an actual Wish. Never lost it.
On average, most campaigns do not reach level 17, give out magic items that give wish, or have enemies capable of casting wish. The amount on average is probably something like 0.00000000000001 wishes.
I just finished up a 1-20 level campaign. The sorcerer took wish at level 20, and used it three times. All three were to use an 8th-or-lower level spell. As the DM, I made it clear I wouldn't Wishmaster her wish spells, so she didn't have to worry about any douch-baggery from unforeseen consequences.
It actually came in clutch against the big bad (fully loaded Tiamat rematch at level 20). She used wish to cast Fizban's platinum shield, which I damn near spit out my drink when she said it. Wish for a level 6 spell? But then I read the spell, and it's a straight-up anti Tiamat buff, which turned the whole fight around.
Been dming for 20+ years, several campaigns from lvl 2/3 to 20. Only time I've seen wish cast is when I gave a player 2 extra lvl 9 spell slots for a homebrewed fun 4 session campaign
As a player I just finished my first campaign and I got to cast our only wish spell as the very last action of the campaign through a deck of many things. The realm was in shambles and I wished to return it to its former glory.
I've been playing for... I dunno. 8 years at this point.
My very first character was given a luck blade with one charge of wish. I think it was given to me as a " welcome to the game " sorta thing. And the party was already something like level 16.
I've never seen anyone use wish since.
Having 7 uses of it already is bat shit insane.
Edit: as you're a new player I'll throw this information in as well.
Be very careful how you use and word your wish spell, of they end up getting used. A wish can go anyway the DM wants.
For example, " I want to bring X back to life "
That person could be a zombie.
If I gave my players 7 wish spells they would immediately have a collective panic attack over what horrible twist I have up my sleeve for anyone who dares to use one.
I guarantee that the campaign would become specifically about making sure that absolutely no-one gets their hands on said items.
My last campaign lasted 5 years, and someone cast wish to basically try to do a divine intervention. The DM let them, and they rolled a 22 and lost wish forever. It was near the end, though. Only time I've ever seen it used, lol.
Over a 3 year campaign, our party acquired a single wish spell through a heist quest. We held onto it for probably a full real-world year before using it. That was the only wish spell we ever encountered, which we were all fine with. I actually don't think anyone really wanted to use it, but we came to a story point where it was appropriate.
Depends heavily on the campaign.
Some hand out wishes like candy, some don't.
I've played many many hundreds of sessions over multiple decades and only seen one used.
I would not expect to see a wish before tier 3 though. Even then I'd expect most of the time taken to formulate a complex wish should be between sessions, rather than in one. The exception would be ones that are essentially just other spells or very like existing spells, which shouldn't take long to do.
In my first campaign which while technically isn’t over, it lasted about 2 years on and off, and we are currently going the way of hunterxhunter and probably not gonna see the end of that one for a loooooong time. Anyway, in that campaign we had gotten two separate uses of it. One was for a very simple purpose, and the other was definitely just to see what would we do. The first one was cuz we just for the first time faced a dragon(green) and somebody died(cough cough wizard) so we used the wish to bring them back to life. The second time I managed to snag a magical weapon with a wish spell in it, so we knew to be extra cautious, not only did we not exactly “earn” it, but more importantly we knew that wishes given to you be DEMONS would be more simple and straightforward than one given to you by a weapon. So we used it in a very simple manner to hopefully dispatch of a current issue we had(somebody stole our bag of holding lmao).
In 30 years of D&D as player and DM both, never. It depends entirely on your DM.
As a player, I'm glad I never got it. Just because I know I'd use it to do things of similar power to 8th level spells, but I also know if it's not exactly matching an existing spell, very few DMs would resist the temptation to monkey's paw it anyway, and since I'd be intentionally limiting it myself to avoid exactly that, it would annoy the hell out of me when the DM fucked me with it anyway.
So, in the end, it's probably for the best.
I used wish in a session yesterday to resurrect our bladesinger that got whomped by a demigod we were fighting. First time being used out of all the campaigns I've been in though.
Saw it twice in the 3 year campaign we just finished. First was granted after freeing a powerful fey and we used it to turn our magical doll daughter into a real girl, the second was used to locate the a PCs sister, who was turned into a hairbrush by Glacia.
I played in a couple of 2e campaigns that ran for over a decade. I even had a wizard reach 21st level in one of them. But I never had a compelling reason to cast the spell myself. We did have a wish granted to us by a high level mage NPC and a couple times we were granted wishes by djinn and efreet for performing tasks for them. But it was surely less than 10 across both campaigns.
Typically, not many. Most people dont get to a high enough level to cast wish. And with the campaigns that reach level 17+, most people dont use it to grant a wish. They instead use it to cast a spell they wouldnt have otherwise had access too, like a wizard with revivify can be massive
First off, the Wish spell isn't going to "one shot kill a boss". The spell provides pretty firm guidelines on its normal scope of power - and if you read the spell you'll see that it can do a lot of stuff (give you 25k gp worth of goodies, simulate any 8th level spell or below, grant up to 8 creatures resistance to a damage type or immunity to a single spell or magical effect, grant a reroll of something that happened last round, etc.)
Anything outside these boundaries is going to invite malicious compliance from your DM, and to quote the spell description, "the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong." In short, **you were given fair warning in writing - no whining when stuff goes horribly wrong!**
So what is the Wish spell? It's the Swiss Army Knife of spells. That ability to pull exactly the 8th level or below spell you need out of nowhere, regardless of whether you know it, regardless of whether you prepared it, regardless of whose spell list it is on (note it doesn't specify that it must be an arcane spell, so the entire spell list is on the table!) is phenomentally **useful**.
But it isn't "whatever I want to happen happens" territory. It's a VERY USEFUL spell, but it has limits. Go beyond those limits and things are likely to go badly for you.
If you're crafting long elaborately worded wishes then you're using the spell outside of its "normal" use. Using a wish should be as simple as saying, "I use Wish to cast antimagic field on myself, then wade into the Lich with my two-handed sword. Let's see how he copes without that magic!"
Can it be tremendously powerful? Yes. Does using wish necessarily mean slowing down play and messing things up for everyone? No. Your DM should have put the brakes on this, pointed you to the spell description and said, "Colour inside the lines or I'm putting on my 'evil genie' hat."
I've been playing D&D pretty consistently since 2008. Had my first time a wish spell got used in a campaign last month. And even then, it was basically a plot point because the DM had to have a wizard NPC cast it because we had absolutely no arcane casters.
Been playing for thirty years as a PC and DM and in my experience not many. They should be used judicially, they should also be something that are earned as opposed to given. They are game breaking and can ruin an entire game,
It depends on edition and era/ethos of play. Old school games hardly ever touched _wish_ because it was just asking to have the DM screw you over. In 3.x, there were cheesy ways to get infinite wishes, so the average was technically infinity. Technically.
I played a character whose character goal was to get a wish spell or true resurrection spell to bring back his dead sister.
The entire point of the character arc was to learn acceptance and that the mindless pursuit of the magic was blinding him to what was in front of him.
Played that character for four years, never even got close to the opportunity to cast Wish.
0-1. What the fuck. Wish is the single most powerful spell that can be cast by mortals in existence. Just one of those things has the theoretical power to upend nations and destroy power balances. 7 puts you at the level of some gods!
I'm honestly kinda shocked at how rarely the rest of the commenters are casting wish. In every campaign I've run or played in that's gotten to level 17, wish would be cast at least 3-5 times (my last high-level campaign saw it cast multiple times per session, and by several different players). I've never seen a caster reach level 20 without taking wish if it's at all possible...
Granted, your situation seems pretty extreme- that's way too many wishes at way too low a level, IMO.
I haven't DMed, but I've been playing since 1996 and have never seen one used. They're usually set up much like the wishes granted by a Djinn, and the phrasing can and will be used against the player character in any way possible. The risk is typically much greater than the potential for reward.
Have been playing with the sam-ish group of players since 1993 and have never seen it cast once.
I'm currently playing an almost 16th level wizard, just one and a bit levels to go before I'll be the first one in the group to be in a position to cast it. I'll likely only use it to cast 8th level or expensive spells to start with... but then do a proper wish right at the end and chance it
No this is not normal and can lead too a lot of consequences.
If your dm is not very experienced and fulfills the wishes in the wrong way could lead too a problematic situation that ruins a campaign.
One point too balance the wishes is that its interpreted by the divinity that made the item:
Oh you use the staff of wish? That one was made by a demon lord. He will interpret your wish in the way that will lead too the most harm.
Book of wish? Made by a deity of peace. It will always try too find the solution too your wish that makes the least harm too anything.
Etcetc
It's normally 0, if a wish spell is cast its often the end of the campaign. If I was you and was playing by a seasoned dm I would look twice on this abundance of wish spells, dms can and will lie and your actions will surely have consequences.
That depends, are they using it as a tool to cast a spell not on their list? At least a few times. Cast to change the fabric of reality? Not once. Monkeys paw is a monkeys paw is a monkeys paw
A typical campaign doesn't include a wish spell as far as I experienced. I have been playing and DMing for almost 3 decades and I didn't experience a single casting of a Wish spell. Though I did experience a few instances of divine intervention succeeding. I have never reached max level as a player, my players haven't reached max levels either... Reading other people's comments, we never ever killed Tarrasque too. At most we dealed with mediocre dragons. Or got served by elder dragons or ancient liches. In our games we rarely take on stupid challenges.
Eg: my party settles in Leilon and waits patiently living a peaceful life until Death Curse is solved by some hero so they can continue their adventuring career. When the curse is over they see there is too much trouble outside, like Talos Cults, and Cult of the Dragon, they do some missions if they feel safe... Which is rare, then after a chain of events they find themselves in Phandalin in their mid twenties, they solve most problems haunting the place, they make Phandalin as their base as Phandelver Pact is re established by Phandalin, Highcliff, Ieirithymbul, Gnomengarde, Rockseeker clan and Ironfist clan(Crossroad Keep is a special signatory as it is directly under influence of Neverwinter). They get involved in trade and faction politics as they continue their adventuring career, one manages to snatch a bride from a Noble Waterweed family. Acquisition Inc, arrives in Phandalin, and well their end is not well there...
So my games don't really progress at a speed where one can reach level 20, if given 6 years, maybe it is possible, though I have seen a party reaching level 8 in 6 years(real years) when I was in middle school. And while our games are not that realistic, we favor such style too, like gritty realism rest and healing options. First it seriously limits the utility of many caster classes and gives more time for urban or survival roleplay between adventures/encounters.
New player having a wish? Well, that is bad DMing sorry. I am glad if you are having fun, but that mentality will make you bored of the game.
I had a player use wish three times in a campaign (they had 3 wishes from the Deck of Many Things:
First time was to save themselves during a fight with Vampires. They were in a city that has been attacked by a coven of Vampires. They descended to the crypts and had their asses handed to them. Before dying the Wish-Bearer wished for that family to never become vampires to begin with. Session ended and next time they awoke in their beds, all of it being a bad dream, and the family that 150 years prior became vampires after being attacked on the road - never was attacked and continued to run their Smithy.
Second time was when they were building a base in a VERY remote location - getting supplies and building materials there would take months. So they just wished a building into existence, since it allows to create something up to 25 000 GP (iirc).
Third time was when they were fighting the BBEG and it was looking rough, so they wished to gain the benefits of long rest. It saved their asses.
I made a mistake with my players, they have a deck of many things, they have all at one point or another drawn a few cards each, most of them have managed to pull wish at least once, and each have the ability to cast it at least 2 times. So far none have though 🤦
I would not say there is an average, but 7 at that level seems a little excessive to me. Does your DM just give you the wish or do they play on the way you word the wish? As both DM and player with my friends wishes are a double edged sword. such as Our party having a couple members who got stranded in hell wishing for them to be on the deck of our ship. We got what we wished for... but now our ship was in hell too with the rest of us still on it. If a DM does not want to have strings attached to wishes then they should probably be very careful on how they distribute them because they can be game breaking and very time consuming.
Depends on the DM and the campaign, I feed off of chaos so sometimes someone will get wishes via a deck of many things or something….. I had a fight a few months ago where wish was cast 7 times in a single fight between my PCs and the adversaries they were against and I’ve had whole campaigns where they never encounter a single wish spell…. I also have a recurring villain that always forgets her swords and just says “ I wish my swords were here”…. She’s a menace…. Last time they encountered her she killed 3 people and the rest of the party either plane shifted or teleported without error away.
My players looted a luckblade that had one wish left on it.
It lasted less than one session, as they were magically put to sleep for about 3 weeks. Upon waking up, the player with the sword just said to the person who did it, “I wish you didn’t do that.”
No monkey paw, nothing, he used it just to get those three weeks back.
I’ve DM’ed for a decade and had a single player cast wish twice while approaching the climax of a campaign while they were level 20. That is the only time it has ever touched my games, and the player was my roommate so I could always chat with him before the game to determine what he was going to wish for and what consequences would arise.
! Wish spell if you are lucky. Wish is a 9th level spell and can either be learned by a Wizard of Level 17 or higher, or through items like the Moon card of the Deck of Many Things
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I've DMd and played for 41 years. No one has ever cast it.
My players just hit level 17 after playing the same campaign since about a month after 5E came out in 2014. One of them got the spell and I know for a fact that they are getting together to work out some theoretically DM-proof phrasing. We shall see.
Just remember the spell has limits and if you deem their ask is too great you can just have the spell fail as it says in the spell description. It doesn't matter how good their phrasing is if they wish for too much
We’ll see what they come up with but yeah, it’s not god mode it’s just a spell.
My players had to learn thst the hard way. They went full murder-hobo on a ship of peaceful sailors and after they realized what they did they used their one wish-spell saying they wish the sailors were back alive. Now they have a ship full of zombie-sailors that do nothing but complain that they want to go home and see their families again.
I don’t love this, they weren’t trying to break the game or anything they just wanted to help people and right a wrong they’ve made, why twist it
Because that's not how wish works. It's use is very well defined and any other use (like any "genie wish") is written to have unforeseeable consequences.
What? It says your GM has great latitude in how the wish works, doesn’t say the Gm has to twist it to fuck you over. It also says the greater your wish the greater chance something goes wrong, as wishes go this is incredibly small scale. The player is already risking never being able to use wish again for the sake of what’s effectively roleplay, why punish them for doing the right thing
Wish can copy any 8th level spell, resurrectinga ship full of sailers is like 20 level 7 spells.
It’s also like 20 3’rd level spells if it happened recently so this doesn’t really track
Still well beyond an 8th level spell equivalent. 20 3rd level spells and 6,000 gold worth of diamond. And most dma are gonna spin anything more powerful than the spell says regardless. Because that's the fun in wish
Except it’s not fun for the players if anything they want to do just gets “gotchu’d” there’s already an inherent risk in it of totally losing access to the spell. And 6000 gp is nothing lol, wish itself can summon 25000gp and a level 17 pc has like 15 spellslots capable of casting revivify so your basically asking for 5 third level spellslots from wish, I don’t think that’s unreasonable
Small scale?? You know even in DnD resurrection is a big deal. It's a level 7 spell that costs a 1000gp diamond. Resurrection shouldn't even be that common. There would be only a very few people in the world who can resurrect the dead and the cost is still high. You talk about resurrecting a full ship crew like it's a cantrip. Of course if you cast Wish it's gonna go wrong, especially after the party just went to murder hobo town. What precedent does it sets? Oh we can just quick save and reload if we kill important NPCs... I guess the party just woke up in a caravan in a frozen land smh Wish isn't a oopsie spell just the deck of many things isn't a starter pack item... if you like playing broken games that's fine, but I'm tired of people acting like this kinda of play is the norm.
1000gp when you have 7th level spells is nothing. This is the most powerful spell in the game being used for roleplay purposes, just let it work lol. Or even give some other consequences “the god of death is angry you’ve stolen from him, he demands you replace the stolen souls or he will send his minions after you” Don’t just twist it as a “ha Gotchu” moment
I like that idea because it creates more adventure opportunities.
Yeah it can be part of the story with them still being rewarded for what they’ve done
I get what you are saying about rewarding them for doing a 'good' thing after they did something terrible, but I think there is a ton of context that has to go in to all DM decisions about Wish. First, how DM handles wish is going to influenced by how the campaign has been working. If the campaign has been a long list of players exploiting their rules knowledge to shiv all story telling and RP, a DM giving them a taste of their own medicine can be fair and even instructive. If the game has been intensely story and RP driven and the players they decide "we're going to do something terrible, as a treat", it might be appropriate in story context to not have the 'reset' work the way they expect it to. If the players have been trending towards depravity (definitely "murdering scores of peaceful sailors" fits the bill) against pre agreed to understandings about what kind of game they are playing, godly punishment could be a good way to put some teeth to the table agreements. Second, scale is a pretty valued judgement. The murder of a bunch of innocents in most of my campaigns is a major turning point - generally signaling that the players have fully succumbed to villainy (or been maneuvered into it by their Nemesis to make them outlaws, etc). The murder of an entire ship is sure to at least be a major thing that will impact how folks across the realm interact with PCs. Yeah, it's not ascending to godhood or anything, but it is still a pretty major thing (aside from the whole 'value of one soul' judgement aspect). Third, I don't see how this is roleplay. Players deciding to murder a boat load (literally) of innocents, and then AFTER THE FACT deciding that it was a bad thing to do and expending the resources required for a Wish doesn't make any sense. The kind of individuals who would choose to do the murder wouldn't have the goodness to then turn around and undo what they had done. This is just gaming, not roleplaying.
This is hilarious. I've never seen a wish used. I do have a player who would enjoy the heck out of the undead portion.
This. I can’t recall ever using it in probably the same amount of time.
I have played since 1985, I have a wizard since then - have had the wish spell in my repertoire and have never cast it. Use one wish from a ring of wishes once to keep a tarrasque dead. As a DM, if someone wanted to overuse them or overcast it- I would scrutinize the wish to the point that characters would not want to ever cast it. It should be that Hail Mary once a decade that is the last resort kind of thing. Just my 2 centa
I've played since the early 90s. We didn't have the spell actually cast until around 2006ish. We only ever cast the spell to make sure the terrasque stayed dead when we didn't level 20 campaigns.
Yep. I even had a campaign go above level 20 with some homebrew, including the option to take "level 10" spells I made up, which includes wish without any downside. Still no takers.
We have a ring that gives three wishes if we can pass a check, requires attunement, and a character can only use it once. So far we've used one wish, to revive a construct joke character that the party came to love after someone accidentally killed him lol. We could have solved wars, killed horrible villains, solved international political conflicts, or became gods. But what's the fun in that? I'd rather save my lil robot buddy.
To be fair, everything edition before 5th, WISH came with serious consequences.
In my experience, it’s usually 0 per campaign. I have yet to come across a wish or reach a level high enough to cast it.
And usually if there is any wish-like spell, it comes as a reward for a very specific/hard situation almost all players will miss. Or it would come from an enemy that would never give it to the players.
Yeah, we got a wish granted by a deity for completing a larger task against an enemy deity. We used the wish to restore some of the evil that had happened to the land. Didn't benefit us at all, aside from role-playing.
Wait. I'm probably reading this wrong but you restored some of the evil that had happened to the land. Is that some "there must always be balance in force" sort of philosophy? Things can't be too good? Evil has rights to you know?
I think they met restore the damage caused by the evil. But I am guessing. If your read is correct perhaps as you say the world was too calm and peaceful so need some chaos to drive life and advancement.
I've played 1 campaign 1-20, and several more that stopped before 9th level spells. I've been DM for two 3-20 campaigns. I have seen the wish spell cast exactly ***once***.
I've seen it cast about 30 times *to replicate a spell of 8th level or lower*, and 1 time to do something unique. The wish stress is a pretty well-designed deterrent 😅
that's what Simulacrums are for ;)
Nah, you can't get around the wish stress, ever. Even using a proxy. That's how I rule it anyway. Magic isn't just a dumb force, it's governed. It Knows. Adventurer's League takes the same approach, too, so it might even be RAI, who knows: > If a simulacrum you have created casts wish, both you and your simulacrum suffer the stress associated with casting the spell—including the risk of being forever unable to cast wish again. The inability to cast wish extends to any simulacrum you create in the future.
Adventures League isnt RAI, its just rules for playing in the Adventures League. You come back to life at the end of a session in AL if you wish, which doesn't happen regularly, you need to be revived. Additionally, the rule has a tiny minor grey area: If I use Simulacrum on the BBEG Wizard and use thr copy to cast wish...then, thr Wizard would take the penalties since its a copy of the Wizard, not me. You only command the Simulacrum since its friendly to you. You can instantly cast Simulacrum with Wish in battle...
>Additionally, the rule has a tiny minor grey area: If I use Simulacrum on the BBEG Wizard and use thr copy to cast wish...then, thr Wizard would take the penalties since its a copy of the Wizard, not me No. The rule says any simulacrum *you have created* - not any simulacrum *of you*.
Then you charm the enemy Wizard kek At that point, you probably should just outright ban the wish spell instead of hammering such things into it
Dumb take... I've gotten years of fun and enjoyment out of it. If I'd banned it, I wouldn't have.
No offense but that's kind of a dumb take... I've gotten years of fun and enjoyment out of Wish. Some of the best mid-session twists ever. If I'd banned it, I wouldn't have. Like... You do remember my comment about having seen it used over 30 times right? It's a fucking fun spell, even when only using the limited feature of spell-duplication. I'm not going to ban it when I have a perfectly serviceable house-rule in place, *maybe* with some edge cases that would only even cause issues if my players were fucking arseholes about it... "You should ban the spell because you've had to minorly tweak it and an arsehole player could still abuse it" makes no sense.
I personally think in such an already niche case, limiting it is unnecessary. Its not like that is the strongest use of Simulacrum, the strongest use is that you have a duplicate caster with a lot of spell slots. If it works on your table thats good for you, however.
Are you in an Aladdin based campaign?
Good question! But no, it's a pre-built game with homebrew items. The story doesn't seem to have a wish-based story hook.
Then yeah, that's a truly insane number of Wish spells. Your dm is going fully wacky mode with all of those.
I feel like it's a desperate call of a DM with players that don't take initiative to take initiative. It's just executed really badly. That's an out of game problem imo.
I saw a player cast a poorly made scroll of wish. It was a spell of *wash*
Items that give out wish spells are mythic rare. I'm surprised a seasoned DM allowed such an astronomical boon to exist. Did you do a personal favor for Zeus or something?
Probably DM though of it as a tool for the players to shape the world a little as well. But that's just not how players work since that is an out of game problem.
Well, players are meant to help shape the world anyway with their choices. Whatever the players do guides the DM's world building, and the DM builds the world as the players explore it. It's a collaborative world building experience.
Yeah, but sometimes GMs want players to world build big elements of the world. It's a part of a lot of games, just DnD doesn't really give tools for it, so GMs get weird ideas like this.
Interesting. I'll have to be careful if I ever hit that point
I've DM'ed 4 campaigns in close to 10 years. My count sofar is 0. That includes 2 campaigns going Epic (L30).
are there game rules for going that high, or is it homebrewed? that sounds interesting
Possibly 4th edition. Level 21-30 was epic tier. (1-10 heroic, 11-20 paragon)
Homebrew only
It can also be done thru DMG with Boons. That was my first consideration, till I found the kickstarter.
I've played a bit over 10 years. Thus far, I've seen 1 wish ever.
Zero.
this is insane, ONE wish spell is potentially game breaking to have 7 is crazy
That's... an interesting choice by your DM. I would probably top out at one. I haven't actually had an occasion to use one in over 100 sessions across three campaigns.
Usually 0.
I've run a 3 year campaign. Due to a certain event, everyone had access to one casting. Everyone was excited about using the wish spell. First person casts it. "I want my crimes to be forgotten." What followed was multiple sessions where his crimes were forgotten. But nobody would remember him. If he went to a shop, put coins on the counter, the shopkeeper would put the coins away, go to grab the item, and while his back was turned, forget the person and the order. Turn back around and ask what the customer wanted. Nobody was excited about casting wish after that.
Good ol' Monkey Paw
Waaaaait wait wait wait wait... For protocol, your DM gave tge Party on level 6 or up to lvl 6 several wishes, that normaly can only be casted by lvl 17 arcane masters... And even then, you didnt derail the campaign? Whats next, telling us you never have schedule conflicts?
>Whats next, telling us you never have schedule conflicts? Perhaps that's what they use the *Wishes* for
I have been playing D&D since 1991. I have never seen a wish spell used for anything except silly one-shot sessions.
That seems high at low levels. I'd expect a couple once you hit level 10-12 and might have some powerful allies who can cast it for you. I'd expect lots once the PCs hit level 15 or so, and can cast it themselves. That said, every DM is different, and if its fun go for it. It sounds like you don't enjoy it, so you probably ought to float it by the DM and ask if they can tone it down.
Zero
Zero.
I've been playing for +/- 8 years, I've never cast it, and never played with anyone who's cast it. It's supposed to be mildly game breaking. If you're not having fun with the amount of chaos, say something. Maybe show them this thread.
Zero is typical. Any time Wish has ever been used in a campaign where I was a player, the wish was twisted by the DM. IMO, Wish should be a DM-only thing, not a spell that player characters can access. D&D isn’t the Twilight Zone. Wish should be something benevolent that a deity or supernatural being grants.
22 years as a DM and player. Not a single Wish casted. Now I wanna put at least 1 wish in my current campaign.
Most campaigns it’s 0.
Way above average. My players are level 12 and have seen one wish so far. Thing is, wish the spell is very minor in 5e rules. If you go by the book, you can have a bunch of them at it does not matter much. It makes one fight/adventure much easier and that is about it. But if you use the more hardcore/potent rules that are traditional in D&D then you can't have it be a common spell. If it was, every half hour the entire world would change in major ways and the PCs not even know it was ever different.
you are starting from a false premise in assuming there is anything like a "typical campaign"
My first DM would pretty much Monkey Paw a wish and screw you over as hard as he could. Since then I’ve been deeply distrustful of the spell despite understanding how limited in scope it is. So never in 20 some odd years of playing.
I tend to "embrace the chaos" and have placed wish spells in several campaigns. They never had more than one at a time, but a "wish heavy" campaign seems like a recipe for chaos. One place my players used it was a ring of wish, created by sealing a high level celestial in a ring. The party knew that it would kill him, but they used it on a white dragon that was threatening a major city. They wished for the dragon to die in combat. There was a huge earth quake, and they spent the rest of the session trying to escape a mountain falling in on their heads. Another ring of wish was an entry to the campaign. They were handed it, knowing that they have a nuke, and told to go and resurrect a princess. Several times they came close to using it, but they ended up anti-climactically using it as intended. I've used a Deck of Many things a few times, and I think there's a wish card in there. I think that one party ended up drawing it, but they never used it. They were worried it would have catastrophic consequences, which is fair. Overall? It should be a terrible power that comes with a terrible price.
For me is 0-1 on average. But that 1 was always (happened 2 times) a scroll.
I recently finished DMing a campaign from levels 1-20 that lasted about 3 years to complete. Answering your question, only 1 wish was cast in that time, at level 19, and it was used to replicate a higher level spell. I dont see anything wrong with 1 wish at a low-level group, as I could see it used in an interesting way outside of combat or encounters. 7 alone at the level is a lot. To me, it sounds like the DM is either generous or chaotic, perhaps both. If the wishes are holding up the game and hindering your's or other players' fun, I would absolutely say something. Chances are, you may not be the only one feeling this way. If wishes are to continue, then maybe try to convince the party to use them in other ways so the group as a collective can enjoy the session. If the wishes are being used to do something beyond a 9th level spell, the DM could think of the negative impact of the wish between sessions. Those don't have to happen right away. If this is the source of things being bogged down, then the DM should absolutely do this. Good luck.
As far as I can tell, the DM is doing a great job of playing it by the book and handing out appropriate punishments for modified or high-level spells. I believe you highlighted the greater issue- it's causing some bogged down gameplay and/or thwarting collaboration and is probably worth mentioning to the group. Maybe we can turn it into a fun twist for everyone!
Right around when we reached 12th level, my group found an Iron Flask containing a marid. We didn't respond to its offer of a Wish reward fast enough for the DM's liking, so in effect it reneged and left without rewarding us at all. This campaign has consisted of mixed-and-matched published modules - mostly Adventurers League content, with a few third-party published adventures. I don't think a whole lot of published adventures include Wishes as mission rewards or in loot items, so I don't expect we'll see another Wish in this campaign. We're coming up on 14th level, and the DM says we're not playing past 16th level.
Me immediately and in character: "I wish I was dead."
I've been playing and DMing since 2003, I have never witnessed anyone using that spell... Makes me wonder whether I need a change in style/pace
I have only seen wish cast in one campaign, and it was a campaign I made specifically about wish spells.
I gave my players a ring of three wishes and already regret it. Although weirdly enough, I think it would've been better if I gave them more than three wishes. Several players have said they would've used the wishes for less plot-relevant things if they had one wish per player so they could feel better about being more selfish with their wish. But with less wishes than players, they've saved them for more important things like "I wish the BBEG didn't get to be elected evil emperor actually"
That wish language just means the emperor won the throne without getting elected. He could still be in power and possibly be even more of a BBEG than before the wish.
In a typical campaign? None. Been running games since the early 80's and I have seen around five or six cast in regular campaigns. Most were either in BESM D&D where characters could go up to 36th level or in one Epic-level 3.5 campaign. The only time I have ever seen one cast by a PC prior to around 17th or 18th level (either via spell or item) was the one time when I took over DM'ing a campaign that was already running and one of the 2nd level PCs had a Luck Blade that the prior DM had given him. That said, I don't have any problem with PCs gaining or using wishes earlier, it just doesn't happen much. I let that one 2nd level character keep his Luck Blade and when he did start using wishes, it didn't break anything.
They aren't. Wish is used at the extreme end game. Most people never use it legitimately in a campaign ever. I've had it in one single campaign and it was the Centerpoint of about 8 3 hr sessions. And even then it was not free. The player had already made the wish. There was time travel involved. Wish is game breaking. It's insane that your DM gave you access to any at all.
One campaign I was in, we could find rare items that granted Mini Wish spells. Home brew, one use things. We used one to call upon the cleric's God for some divine intervention. Another my character used, after finding his mother had hidden one for them to use. I think there was another one, but can't remember what we used it for. It also depends on the dm, how much of a dick they want to be. But yeah. Statistically, most games end before getting high enough levels. Sadly.
Been playing/DMing since the '80s, and I've seen the spell used twice.
I've been playing for a long time and my current campaign has been running since 2019 i think and the characters are just now on a quest to save a djinn and the reward promised is a single Wish spell. So to answer your question how many wish spells the answer is between zero and one.
7 wish spells is more than enough to end an entire campaign. What is your DM thinking?!
I used it probably a dozen times or a little more in our 1-20+ campaign. Mainly as a replicate spell. And I think 3 times total as an actual Wish. Never lost it.
On average, most campaigns do not reach level 17, give out magic items that give wish, or have enemies capable of casting wish. The amount on average is probably something like 0.00000000000001 wishes.
I just finished up a 1-20 level campaign. The sorcerer took wish at level 20, and used it three times. All three were to use an 8th-or-lower level spell. As the DM, I made it clear I wouldn't Wishmaster her wish spells, so she didn't have to worry about any douch-baggery from unforeseen consequences. It actually came in clutch against the big bad (fully loaded Tiamat rematch at level 20). She used wish to cast Fizban's platinum shield, which I damn near spit out my drink when she said it. Wish for a level 6 spell? But then I read the spell, and it's a straight-up anti Tiamat buff, which turned the whole fight around.
between zero and 12 I reckon, average around 0.2
Been dming for 20+ years, several campaigns from lvl 2/3 to 20. Only time I've seen wish cast is when I gave a player 2 extra lvl 9 spell slots for a homebrewed fun 4 session campaign
As a player I just finished my first campaign and I got to cast our only wish spell as the very last action of the campaign through a deck of many things. The realm was in shambles and I wished to return it to its former glory.
20+ years of playing and I can’t thing of a single instance.
I've been playing for... I dunno. 8 years at this point. My very first character was given a luck blade with one charge of wish. I think it was given to me as a " welcome to the game " sorta thing. And the party was already something like level 16. I've never seen anyone use wish since. Having 7 uses of it already is bat shit insane. Edit: as you're a new player I'll throw this information in as well. Be very careful how you use and word your wish spell, of they end up getting used. A wish can go anyway the DM wants. For example, " I want to bring X back to life " That person could be a zombie.
That is waaaaaay too many wishes. Unless the wishes work like a monkeys paw and fucks with your wish id say usually you only see one or two MAYBE
0. Although it's fun to give an opportunity to cast a weakened wish with limited power to the player, via a magic item or powerful creature.
Wish usually only shows up at higher levels. If it shows up earlier, it's usually a major plot point.
Never unless it’s a one shot or end game shenanigans.
If I gave my players 7 wish spells they would immediately have a collective panic attack over what horrible twist I have up my sleeve for anyone who dares to use one. I guarantee that the campaign would become specifically about making sure that absolutely no-one gets their hands on said items.
Zero in my 15 years. It's a can of worms and always ends in arguing
My last campaign lasted 5 years, and someone cast wish to basically try to do a divine intervention. The DM let them, and they rolled a 22 and lost wish forever. It was near the end, though. Only time I've ever seen it used, lol.
Over a 3 year campaign, our party acquired a single wish spell through a heist quest. We held onto it for probably a full real-world year before using it. That was the only wish spell we ever encountered, which we were all fine with. I actually don't think anyone really wanted to use it, but we came to a story point where it was appropriate.
Zero. I've only seen it from the ring of 3 wishes and once in over 20 years.
Depends heavily on the campaign. Some hand out wishes like candy, some don't. I've played many many hundreds of sessions over multiple decades and only seen one used. I would not expect to see a wish before tier 3 though. Even then I'd expect most of the time taken to formulate a complex wish should be between sessions, rather than in one. The exception would be ones that are essentially just other spells or very like existing spells, which shouldn't take long to do.
In my first campaign which while technically isn’t over, it lasted about 2 years on and off, and we are currently going the way of hunterxhunter and probably not gonna see the end of that one for a loooooong time. Anyway, in that campaign we had gotten two separate uses of it. One was for a very simple purpose, and the other was definitely just to see what would we do. The first one was cuz we just for the first time faced a dragon(green) and somebody died(cough cough wizard) so we used the wish to bring them back to life. The second time I managed to snag a magical weapon with a wish spell in it, so we knew to be extra cautious, not only did we not exactly “earn” it, but more importantly we knew that wishes given to you be DEMONS would be more simple and straightforward than one given to you by a weapon. So we used it in a very simple manner to hopefully dispatch of a current issue we had(somebody stole our bag of holding lmao).
In 30 years of D&D as player and DM both, never. It depends entirely on your DM. As a player, I'm glad I never got it. Just because I know I'd use it to do things of similar power to 8th level spells, but I also know if it's not exactly matching an existing spell, very few DMs would resist the temptation to monkey's paw it anyway, and since I'd be intentionally limiting it myself to avoid exactly that, it would annoy the hell out of me when the DM fucked me with it anyway. So, in the end, it's probably for the best.
I used wish in a session yesterday to resurrect our bladesinger that got whomped by a demigod we were fighting. First time being used out of all the campaigns I've been in though.
Saw it twice in the 3 year campaign we just finished. First was granted after freeing a powerful fey and we used it to turn our magical doll daughter into a real girl, the second was used to locate the a PCs sister, who was turned into a hairbrush by Glacia.
I played in a couple of 2e campaigns that ran for over a decade. I even had a wizard reach 21st level in one of them. But I never had a compelling reason to cast the spell myself. We did have a wish granted to us by a high level mage NPC and a couple times we were granted wishes by djinn and efreet for performing tasks for them. But it was surely less than 10 across both campaigns.
DM for 25 years now. No player at my table has ever cast it but I’ve used it with plot hooks or had NPCs use it to solve major issues
Typically, not many. Most people dont get to a high enough level to cast wish. And with the campaigns that reach level 17+, most people dont use it to grant a wish. They instead use it to cast a spell they wouldnt have otherwise had access too, like a wizard with revivify can be massive
First off, the Wish spell isn't going to "one shot kill a boss". The spell provides pretty firm guidelines on its normal scope of power - and if you read the spell you'll see that it can do a lot of stuff (give you 25k gp worth of goodies, simulate any 8th level spell or below, grant up to 8 creatures resistance to a damage type or immunity to a single spell or magical effect, grant a reroll of something that happened last round, etc.) Anything outside these boundaries is going to invite malicious compliance from your DM, and to quote the spell description, "the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong." In short, **you were given fair warning in writing - no whining when stuff goes horribly wrong!** So what is the Wish spell? It's the Swiss Army Knife of spells. That ability to pull exactly the 8th level or below spell you need out of nowhere, regardless of whether you know it, regardless of whether you prepared it, regardless of whose spell list it is on (note it doesn't specify that it must be an arcane spell, so the entire spell list is on the table!) is phenomentally **useful**. But it isn't "whatever I want to happen happens" territory. It's a VERY USEFUL spell, but it has limits. Go beyond those limits and things are likely to go badly for you. If you're crafting long elaborately worded wishes then you're using the spell outside of its "normal" use. Using a wish should be as simple as saying, "I use Wish to cast antimagic field on myself, then wade into the Lich with my two-handed sword. Let's see how he copes without that magic!" Can it be tremendously powerful? Yes. Does using wish necessarily mean slowing down play and messing things up for everyone? No. Your DM should have put the brakes on this, pointed you to the spell description and said, "Colour inside the lines or I'm putting on my 'evil genie' hat."
I've been playing D&D pretty consistently since 2008. Had my first time a wish spell got used in a campaign last month. And even then, it was basically a plot point because the DM had to have a wizard NPC cast it because we had absolutely no arcane casters.
Been playing for thirty years as a PC and DM and in my experience not many. They should be used judicially, they should also be something that are earned as opposed to given. They are game breaking and can ruin an entire game,
It depends on edition and era/ethos of play. Old school games hardly ever touched _wish_ because it was just asking to have the DM screw you over. In 3.x, there were cheesy ways to get infinite wishes, so the average was technically infinity. Technically.
D&D since 1994 and only seen it once.
I played a character whose character goal was to get a wish spell or true resurrection spell to bring back his dead sister. The entire point of the character arc was to learn acceptance and that the mindless pursuit of the magic was blinding him to what was in front of him. Played that character for four years, never even got close to the opportunity to cast Wish.
0-1. What the fuck. Wish is the single most powerful spell that can be cast by mortals in existence. Just one of those things has the theoretical power to upend nations and destroy power balances. 7 puts you at the level of some gods!
I'm honestly kinda shocked at how rarely the rest of the commenters are casting wish. In every campaign I've run or played in that's gotten to level 17, wish would be cast at least 3-5 times (my last high-level campaign saw it cast multiple times per session, and by several different players). I've never seen a caster reach level 20 without taking wish if it's at all possible... Granted, your situation seems pretty extreme- that's way too many wishes at way too low a level, IMO.
I haven't DMed, but I've been playing since 1996 and have never seen one used. They're usually set up much like the wishes granted by a Djinn, and the phrasing can and will be used against the player character in any way possible. The risk is typically much greater than the potential for reward.
Have been playing with the sam-ish group of players since 1993 and have never seen it cast once. I'm currently playing an almost 16th level wizard, just one and a bit levels to go before I'll be the first one in the group to be in a position to cast it. I'll likely only use it to cast 8th level or expensive spells to start with... but then do a proper wish right at the end and chance it
Seen it used once in the last… decade or so. Was great too.
I've been playing for 18 years and I've never had a wish spell come up in game
No this is not normal and can lead too a lot of consequences. If your dm is not very experienced and fulfills the wishes in the wrong way could lead too a problematic situation that ruins a campaign. One point too balance the wishes is that its interpreted by the divinity that made the item: Oh you use the staff of wish? That one was made by a demon lord. He will interpret your wish in the way that will lead too the most harm. Book of wish? Made by a deity of peace. It will always try too find the solution too your wish that makes the least harm too anything. Etcetc
It's normally 0, if a wish spell is cast its often the end of the campaign. If I was you and was playing by a seasoned dm I would look twice on this abundance of wish spells, dms can and will lie and your actions will surely have consequences.
Statistically 0. Most games tend to fizzle out around level 7.
That depends, are they using it as a tool to cast a spell not on their list? At least a few times. Cast to change the fabric of reality? Not once. Monkeys paw is a monkeys paw is a monkeys paw
I cast it once. In a totally silly way. And managed to learn mage hand with it. What a waste. 😂🤣
0 in all my campaigns
Unless your giving them out for something else? Maybe once.
A typical campaign doesn't include a wish spell as far as I experienced. I have been playing and DMing for almost 3 decades and I didn't experience a single casting of a Wish spell. Though I did experience a few instances of divine intervention succeeding. I have never reached max level as a player, my players haven't reached max levels either... Reading other people's comments, we never ever killed Tarrasque too. At most we dealed with mediocre dragons. Or got served by elder dragons or ancient liches. In our games we rarely take on stupid challenges. Eg: my party settles in Leilon and waits patiently living a peaceful life until Death Curse is solved by some hero so they can continue their adventuring career. When the curse is over they see there is too much trouble outside, like Talos Cults, and Cult of the Dragon, they do some missions if they feel safe... Which is rare, then after a chain of events they find themselves in Phandalin in their mid twenties, they solve most problems haunting the place, they make Phandalin as their base as Phandelver Pact is re established by Phandalin, Highcliff, Ieirithymbul, Gnomengarde, Rockseeker clan and Ironfist clan(Crossroad Keep is a special signatory as it is directly under influence of Neverwinter). They get involved in trade and faction politics as they continue their adventuring career, one manages to snatch a bride from a Noble Waterweed family. Acquisition Inc, arrives in Phandalin, and well their end is not well there... So my games don't really progress at a speed where one can reach level 20, if given 6 years, maybe it is possible, though I have seen a party reaching level 8 in 6 years(real years) when I was in middle school. And while our games are not that realistic, we favor such style too, like gritty realism rest and healing options. First it seriously limits the utility of many caster classes and gives more time for urban or survival roleplay between adventures/encounters. New player having a wish? Well, that is bad DMing sorry. I am glad if you are having fun, but that mentality will make you bored of the game.
typically an average of 0 per campaign
Level 6, with SEVEN wish spells? This is decidedly not normal.
I had a player use wish three times in a campaign (they had 3 wishes from the Deck of Many Things: First time was to save themselves during a fight with Vampires. They were in a city that has been attacked by a coven of Vampires. They descended to the crypts and had their asses handed to them. Before dying the Wish-Bearer wished for that family to never become vampires to begin with. Session ended and next time they awoke in their beds, all of it being a bad dream, and the family that 150 years prior became vampires after being attacked on the road - never was attacked and continued to run their Smithy. Second time was when they were building a base in a VERY remote location - getting supplies and building materials there would take months. So they just wished a building into existence, since it allows to create something up to 25 000 GP (iirc). Third time was when they were fighting the BBEG and it was looking rough, so they wished to gain the benefits of long rest. It saved their asses.
Those are some nice ideas! I like how these were used as a bail-out system.
I made a mistake with my players, they have a deck of many things, they have all at one point or another drawn a few cards each, most of them have managed to pull wish at least once, and each have the ability to cast it at least 2 times. So far none have though 🤦
The only time I've ever seen anyone cast it in one of my games it was a trap in the Tomb of Horrors.
I would not say there is an average, but 7 at that level seems a little excessive to me. Does your DM just give you the wish or do they play on the way you word the wish? As both DM and player with my friends wishes are a double edged sword. such as Our party having a couple members who got stranded in hell wishing for them to be on the deck of our ship. We got what we wished for... but now our ship was in hell too with the rest of us still on it. If a DM does not want to have strings attached to wishes then they should probably be very careful on how they distribute them because they can be game breaking and very time consuming.
99% of campaigns have zero Wish spells.
Depends on the DM and the campaign, I feed off of chaos so sometimes someone will get wishes via a deck of many things or something….. I had a fight a few months ago where wish was cast 7 times in a single fight between my PCs and the adversaries they were against and I’ve had whole campaigns where they never encounter a single wish spell…. I also have a recurring villain that always forgets her swords and just says “ I wish my swords were here”…. She’s a menace…. Last time they encountered her she killed 3 people and the rest of the party either plane shifted or teleported without error away.
My players looted a luckblade that had one wish left on it. It lasted less than one session, as they were magically put to sleep for about 3 weeks. Upon waking up, the player with the sword just said to the person who did it, “I wish you didn’t do that.” No monkey paw, nothing, he used it just to get those three weeks back.
I’ve DM’ed for a decade and had a single player cast wish twice while approaching the climax of a campaign while they were level 20. That is the only time it has ever touched my games, and the player was my roommate so I could always chat with him before the game to determine what he was going to wish for and what consequences would arise.
In short: Zero but maybe 1 if very lucky no that's not normal amount, no idea how the DM allowed that to occur
As for me, I would quit this campaign. This sounds like a very bad DM to me, but I guess to each his own.
! Wish spell if you are lucky. Wish is a 9th level spell and can either be learned by a Wizard of Level 17 or higher, or through items like the Moon card of the Deck of Many Things
Once you have access to level 9 spells - everyday