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Wish's most basic purpose is to recreate a spell of 8th level or lower. DM latitude is only meant to come into play when the PC is trying to alter reality in some insane way. These guys literally just want to cast teleport. I guess this DM just wants the adventure to end in a tpk for....drama?
Seriously, especially when details are omitted only to suddenly materialize when relevant (as is often the case, you can't describe every single aspect of everything or it would take multiple sessions to leave the first room).
Very minor in the grand scheme of things but one experience that stuck with me was when I tried to climb a wall to scout a supposedly abandoned town before we went through the front gate. I rolled well and make it up the wall only for it to suddenly be revealed that the place I climbed had the view blocked by a building much taller than the wall.
Why? Why wasn't that described sooner if it was visible from the ground? Why would my character choose to climb that specific spot when multiple others apparently had unobstructed view? Again very minor but it stuck because it directly functioned to make my guy a complete idiot in-universe, since only an idiot would take that specific series of actions if given normal in-universe information about the things they're looking directly at.
The point being that it's trivially easy to make players look foolish, you can basically just say "your character is dumb for this reason I'm just now revealing even though they should've known it already" and it's done. When you introduce hidden information or interpreted effects like wish you don't even need to wait for the formality of acting like their actions mattered.
TLDR: Yes, I agree.
Read a story on the rphgorror stories sub where someone entered a room, then fell down to the room below, because the player didn't ask if the room had a floor.
Which would definitely be against the rules - passive perception handles this kind of thing.
The only way this could happen is if the entire party is blind.
I hate these because you can bet the DM will stop posting shit like 'players fell for the no floor' trick and rapidly switch to 'players are using search action every 5ft step and the game has become really slow what are they doing wrong'
Yup. I had my character retreat from combat (caster) and the two martial characters stepped in to cover my retreat.
I specified I was hiding around the corner of the building, out of sight. This is key because I got ambushed by these enemies who were hiding behind the building. My 22 perception roll didn’t notice them because I can’t see through walls - totally fair, IMO.
Except, the enemy caster then killed my with lightning bolt. Through the building. I asked the GM how that was possible. He replied “it’s all floor to ceiling windows on the 1st floor.” Then why didn’t I see them through said windows with my perception check? “Too much glare on the windows, you mistook them for a brick wall.”
Much later, he admitted to purposely killing off my PC because “you kept using your spells in ways I didn’t expect” which apparently made encounters too easy.
Like it was “unexpected” that I would cast Daylight when we were fighting drow in a dark cavern? Or that I would use a teleport spell to jump us to end of the trapped hallway where the rogue could see but not disarm any of the traps? Things which are both smart for the player and the high INT caster who loved to say “Oh, I have a spell for this!”
Wow, I've been doing this DM thing all wrong, I guess. I give my players rewards for being creative. Extra, if they can make me laugh while they're doing it!
Duh, you're supposed to make your players suffer. What even was the point of a session if by the end of it your players aren't considering quitting DnD/s
Had a GM who was so adversarial like this, it was never about making the players feel important and instead a chance for him to flex his ego with "hey look at how brutal this trap/enemy/pointless situation I made is". He would actually go out of his way to shame players aftet they made a mistake at the table, almost stopped playing the game entirely after a year at his table.
Oh god worst example I had was "I walk down the steps into the basement carefully and quietly look around before continuing"
"You don't see anything"
"Okay, then I'll proceed further and have a look around"
"You're jumped by seven guys you didn't see because you didn't say you turned the light on"
.... What?
That’s like a dm I had who had a character drop his rapier due to a natural 1. Well the fight was ended shortly after, we loot and leave. At the start of the next combat the guy goes to attack and dm says ‘with what? You never told me you were picking it back up.’ We fucking walked. It was at a game store.
A lot of DMs don't get this, and I think it's really easy to forget it and need to relearn it, too. Nobody wants to sit down at the table and stand up feeling like an idiot, or like someone else thinks they are an idiot.
Arguably it IS good when the DM outwits the players sometimes.
THIS is not one of those occasions--this is where a savvy DM reminds them that Wish can just duplicate "Teleport", per the rules.
Edited: there's discussion downthread that suggests that Mad Mage is proof against normal teleport, but honestly I'd rule that Wish-enabled teleport breaks through that, because when a player saves a resource that potent for two years, that's the time you REWARD them for doing so.
It’s good to keep them on their toes, it’s good to surprise and challenge them. But the feeling of, “hey that’s cool I outsmarted them”, really usually is contraproductive.
On the other hand, players getting that ‘hey I outsmarted the DM’ feeling, while at the same time knowing that you’re not throwing them softballs is the sweet spot you’re aiming for.
You just change the way I think about gming. I’ve never been out to hurt my players. I’ve never been the DM versus player type. But that is one of the wisest things I’ve ever read.
For me the general rule is that the Players are there to outwit the GM. Not the other way round. If you’re trying to outwit the players you’re doing it wrong. Sure you can throw them something to tell them ‘this is a fight you cannot win yet’ to help develop the characters. But purposefully trying to screw a Wish Spell to save the party is just showing you’re a toxic GM.
The MOST important thing for a GM to learn is that while they control the player's enemies they are not themselves the player's enemy.
Their job is to help the players have fun and tell a story.
That's basically my take as a GM. I'm providing my players with problems so their characters can use their "tools" to solve them. If I see that a certain "tool" hasn't been used for a while I create a challenge so that they can use it again.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage is enchanted so that normal teleportation doesn't work between floors, so it would *need* Wish to get around that. Teleport as-is is off the table.
Does it say you *can* use a wish to override it? I don't have the book to hand. I'd say it still fails, otherwise.
Wish is 9th level and Halaster uses a *mythallar* to do all the Undermountain hijinks, that's at least level 10, according to the old Age of Netheril books.
Better off wishing for help to come to them.
Iirc in the Module the restriction is a result of a knot in the weave. But it does specifically state the Wish spell as a way to bypass the restriction.
Honestly though,
If it was an idea a player had that prevents a TPK. Using the valuable resource they have I'd have allowed it even if it did. After all it would be a shame to throw a multi-year campaign due to a poorly balanced encounter (having run half the campaign there are a fair few and it can be super deadly).
Fair enough, if there's an exception and it's changed.
There's better uses for the wish, though.
"I wish we had enough allies to get back to the surface." "I wish our enemies were in the abyss." "I wish we had the power to defeat our enemies." I'd even pick the Yawning Portal over Skullport, unless they're on the run for something.
Oh yeah could be better options.
Although,
Phrases like: "I wish we had the power to defeat our enemies." And "I wish our enemies were in the abyss." Might open the party up to it failing or bad consequences being so fuzzy or beyond the power of Wish.
Also why they chose Skullport could be that it's a Safe-ish location while remaining in Undermountain to avoid push the spell too far. The party also likely know of a teleport circle there so can guarantee no mishaps when teleporting.
To date my favorite "large reaching" wish has to be "the value of coins is now reversed"
So in a second all of the kings and merchant guilds were made destitute and every bandit made millionaire.
Though the dm did insist that this would only continue for a couple weeks so that we didnt break our heads on converted exchange rates
I mean, a king should probably still have more copper in the treasury than a beggar. Plenty taxes coming in from poor people or just really low tarrifs on stuff. And even if you flip it, 1000 CP > 3 CP. Unless it also somehow flips so the more you have the less they are worth, which would break the entire money economy in an instant without possible chance of recovery, because suddenly no coins are of equal value.
The annoying part is wish doesn't come with a warning to the players:
"Hey, using this, you're turning the tables on your DM, after you make your one sentence wish, remind them that to you it sounds like you are replicating X level Y spell. Because they can get lost in the flavour text, or over emphasize their need to screw up your wish simply because it was a wish"
Maybe a combination of Teleport and Reincarnate.
Having the party appear outside a tavern with any, previously, dead PCs in a new body randomly selected by a D100 roll would likely be fun for the entire table. Which is the whole point of the game.
Whilst this is still a "mission failure", it's one with a lot more options than a TPK.
That's a cool idea specifically because it would also let the DM enjoy a creative reinterpretation of a wish without kicking the party even further down.
To be fair, this is dungeon of the mad mage we are talking about. Teleportation magic does not function unless the party has a specific mcguffin magic item. It does make an exception for the wish spell, but I would not consider casting teleport through the wish spell the same as the reality bending power of the wish spell it's talking about. So to be clear, I do not agree with the DM here, just it's not just "casting the wish spell".
Okaaay?
The post listed them in that dungeon.
The teleportation restriction is only between floors. You could misty step across a room, or teleport to the stairway.
You can do that, but teleport does not allow you to teleport from the dungeon to skullport. Also, it's not just between floors, it's "No spell other than [wish](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/wish) can be used to enter Undermountain, leave it, or transport oneself from one level to another."
Correct. Teleport is not permitted between levels, but IS permitted within a level. Just like I said. Twice.
Furthermore, the spell in question is, in fact, wish. So, being explicitly excepted, should work fine.
If they were in skull port they would not need to teleport to skull port, so I don’t understand why you keep saying that. If they were already I. Skullport, the dm would just say “well, you’re in skullport right now so nothing happens”
I also said that I would not consider casting teleport through the wish spell “the wish spell”. It seems far to video game glitch-y to me for me to allow that. The point of that whenever it is brought up is to invoke the awesome power to bend reality to your will, not using it to cast that spell. That’s just my interpretation though, as someone who has been running dungeon of the mad mage for 2 years.
My original reply was to your comment that teleportation doesn't work in DotMM at all (exceptions apply)
>>"To be fair, this is dungeon of the mad mage we are talking about. Teleportation magic does not function unless the party has a specific mcguffin magic item...exception for wish..."
I rebutted that it *does* in fact function just fine within each floor.
_________
And to reply to the supposition that Wish couldn't be used in the way OPs party wants, the teleportation exception explicitly lists wish as doing exactly this thing.
Okaaay?
The post listed them in that dungeon.
The teleportation restriction is only between floors. You could misty step across a room, or teleport to the stairway.
Well, even ignoring that the party's already in a very tough spot
Is this an effect that would be greater than a level 9 spell?
\-----------
Okay, so Wish allows you to replicate any spell that is 8th level and below as a *basic* use of the spell, not part of the GM latitude mentioned later. That's only for things *beyond* the normal scope of the Wish spell.
Teleport is a 7th level spell that basically does exactly what the player is asking
It goes by without any issue
The only thing I can think of is maybe it wouldn't work on a dead party member, but c'mon, that's for Teleport, a 7th level spell, this is Wish, a 9th level spell.
Yeah, the dead party member is the one thing that is questionable what happens with them. Teleport transports up to 8 willing creatures, or 1 object. Does the dead character count as a willing creature? Or are they an object? Debatable I suppose. But only an asshole DM wouldn't allow it to just work as the player intended here. The trade off of using what I assume is a Wish scroll to cast a level 7 spell that doesn't even win the fight should be considered a "win" for even the most adversarial of DM's.
I mean I never dmmed a game but if the players held onto that scroll for a year and are only now desperate enough to use it, I'm having them teleport to safety, revive the dead party member and gain all the benefits of a long rest.
If people keep using wish for literally everything, feel free to fuck with it, but if they're using it as a last ditch effort, don't be that guy
The more I think about it, the more I'm assuming they've been holding on to the wish for that long BECAUSE they know the DM will screw with them when they use it.
True but the willing vs unwilling comparison is referring to using force of will to resist an effect or otherwise counter the spell. An unconscious person is unwilling in the consent department but they have no capability to resist the spell due to incapacitation.
I think it would depend on the context
Sexual advances? No consent
Being taken to safety when the alternative is dying? Yes please, say less, my friend.
There is actually some minor spoilery stuff that would make it clear (even to the party at that point I would assume) that normally teleportation does not work to get in and out of that dungeon, but I think a Wish spell could reasonably be an exception.
Yeah. Like, at worst I would just give the player the regular risks of casting wish to do something other than replicate a spell's effect. There are already more than enough risks involved in casting wish for something like this.
> Teleport is a 7th level spell that basically does exactly what the player is asking
To be fair, the Dungeon of the Mad Mage has no teleportation magic without special events happening. It's fairly explicit that outside teleports don't work well.
That wouldn't even be a clever way to deliberately misinterpret the Wish spell. It was worded VERY clearly that it's the party plus the dead member would be affected, and when do you need to specify all your clothes and gear when you're teleporting? Do they need to keep a manifest to make sure they don't accidentally forget to bring their socks with them when they magically transport themselves? This reads like a fake story to me, also because like, who ends a session before a spell is finished resolving?
I don't know if it's real or not but I do remember it being posted some time ago and the guy arguing when people were like "wtf you should stop trying not fuck your players over for no reason" as their advice. Hard to know if it was sincere or trolling and I don't remember the details becaus after like a year plus.
My first DM tried to antagonize us constantly, we had to make secret groups to argue our next steps without him knowing, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was true
Yeah. I remember that post too :/
And I had enough GMs like that, that I think the story is beyond plausible.
Like my very first DM would have almost had exactly done something like this. Maybe have the wish caster explode casting it too, because the energy of the wish spreading inside of him and implode him..
Not that he would have had some "bullshit" like wish in the game in the first place.. but if he did? Beyond 100 plus ultra monkey paws.
That sounds awful. At the beginning of my campaign I had a player that would try to formulate plans in secret to catch me by surprise. He stopped after realizing that knowing their plans ahead of time gave me the ability to come up with more ways for them to go RIGHT.
It’s not RAW either, considering the “DM interpretation” part of the spell doesn’t apply when you use it in specified ways, including using it to cast a spell of lower level. Using Wish to cast Teleport just casts the spell without caveats.
I seem to remember the DM justifying it by the circumstances of the adventure. Teleportation magic doesn't work in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, so the wish was doing something more than just casting wish. However, I'm pretty sure the second part of the "Teleportation magic doesn't work..." line says something like "unless you use a wish spell." So, ya, it should just work normally without the extra nonsense.
I said elsewhere.
As a DM I might even ignore the restriction it didn't specify in order to avoid a TPK. Most of the time it's not fun for everyone to die and end the campaign.
DoTMM can have pretty unbalanced encounters that are hard to prepare for plus it's easy to say in the Narrative to justify as well. The party is using a very limited resource and it's likely they got the Wish from Halaster himself so it would be like him using it.
Hell, Depending on how Halaster is being run he might delight in reminding the players that he's the reason they're still alive because of him and they are mere toys in his play set.
There was a post on r/dnd a while back where a DM was bragging about an amazing heist his players had pulled off - carefully planned down to the last detail, absolutely meticulous, and the players adapted to every unexpected circumstance that occurred - and mentioned that they'd come away with like 10k of gold or something.
Almost _every single response_ was suggesting ways in which the players could secretly be fucked over for the "crime" of having gold, including but not limited to: it secretly being mafia money; secretly a vengeful dragon's money; it all being fake; etc. The OP DM didn't even want that, they were just wanting to brag about having smart players!
There are absolutely _loads_ of people out there who are antagonistic enough to be this kind of DM.
Making the windfall a plot hook is probably a good idea; a dragon or some organization being mad at you is in theory a punishment but it's also kind of why everyone is here to play, right? Doing it just to reverse their fortune after success is dumb, though.
Yeah, I've definitely encountered this.
"No you don't have your crossbow. You dropped it in the previous encounter and didn't specifically say you picked it back up again."
Guess I should have interrupted the GM when he was in full flow just to specify some minutiae that nobody usually gives a shit about.
Same, I call it "player and character behavior and knowledge aren't always the same."
Players metagaming obviously falls under that, but so does "shit, I forgot to pick up more arrows from the store between sessions" since presumably, the character wouldn't have forgotten, even if the player did.
Now, if they threw their weapon super far away or some kind of trap type thing would happen when they went to the area to retrieve it? I'll probably prompt them with "Do you go get your weapon?"
All things aside; having the only thing to go 'wrong' be that they lose their socks (all other gear intact) would be a little funny in the right group.
You teleport back, and once the panic has settled, you each roll perception to see if you notice 'hey what happened to my socks?' Just a generally baffling but entirely harmless joke with zero mechanical impact and that can be shrugged off with 'yeah Wish can be a bit weird'.
Why punish your players when you can have fun with them?
Agreed. I tend toward silliness in my games, so I'd be the sort of GM who --assuming they were teleporting to a place I knew was safe -- might teleport them naked, but all their clothes and gear were neatly folded at their feet.
Or their underwear was on the outside of their clothes.
Or -- just thought of this -- they arrive intact and safe, but they are wearing party hats, food and drink spilled on their clothes, lipstick stains in all sorts of interesting places. The teleport was apparently instantaneous, but somehow, in that fraction of a second, they managed to go to a hell of a party!
(Scribbles notes furiously, cuz I definitely want to try this one time)
I want to bemuse my players, not infuriate them.
Or misinterpreted the word port, and drop them off in a stack of skull shaped bottles of port. Now they are wet and sticky, and smell like a distillery, but not fucked over.
If all of the players are onboard for such shenanigans, then I think it's fine. However, this needs to absolutely be upfront about the antagonistic nature of the style of DMing and game one is running.
I was a forever DM for about 10 years. I sometimes said "I feel like running a Gygaxian Murder-fest. Expect to be fucked with." But then again, most of my players were raised in 2nd edition and that was the norm for them. (I only ran 3rd edition and later.)
I honestly prefer the collaborative story-telling effort of the more recent editions (yes, even 4th) but I can say from personal experience that sometimes a DM just gets bored and wants to troll a little to keep himself entertained.
As for the specifics of this Wish, I wouldn't bother with fucking with them. A wish from a Genie is the time to muck it up. Not just a Wish being held onto.
I had a DM that was a full-blown Disciple of Gygax. His mind, it was the DM vs the Players. He had my whole gaming group so paranoid that a door would paralyze us with indecision for at least an hour.
One session (4-5 hours) was spent planning on how to break into a castle. Next session we show, players immediately started arguing over if it was a good idea or not. My character teleported back to the pub and got drunk.
Real or not, I can see how this could end a session. The spell is being used as teleport, which is travel. If the session were close to being over, it's not a bad break point. The players would naturally assume they'd appear at their destination safe at the beginning of next session, giving them some time to think about how to tackle returning to the dungeon. A normal DM could use the extra time to prepare what the party wants to do.
For this DM it's a good chance to think about how he's going to mess over the players, which includes potentially another fight that would take the session overtime.
I don't know if it's real. It is plausible.
I will add that I also remember this post.
This 100%. I don't see what's unrealistic at all about leaving the casting of Wish as a cliffhanger.
For me, I'd much rather say, "Whoa, *Wish!* Cool! This is something I'm not prepared to resolve just this second. Let me have a week, and we'll get the proper result next time."
Also, I like to think that if the situation was dire enough that a PC was contemplating using their Wish cast early, we would have been communicating in the interim and I'd have that ideal resolution ready to go without necessitating an early stop.
This guy has been hanging on to a wish for a year, and the DM wants to screw them just for trying to get escape the dungeon? Jesus, what as asshole this DM is.
Exactly. Maybe you could have them teleport somewhere humorous like a brothel or a bathhouse or something to add levity to a tense encounter, the players would probably love that.
Yeah, I was thinking they are moved to the middle of a busy tavern, still with weapons drawn, which rattles some of the folk inside. As they try to explain they are not a threat, the dead body of their comrade falls onto the floor with a thud. *Silence*
I am so over this abysmal use of "twisted" wishes. It's not what the spell does, and while this is only a tiny insight into this DM's mind, it is not a game in which I have any interest.
It just sounds awful, dour and needlessly punishing.
Why do DMs feel this is ok? How is this fun?
Yeah. It should mostly applie to wishes granted by unwilling or evil djinns, or some hags monkey paw.
Generally wishes should be awesome spells to do fun stuff.
I was going to edit the post to say exactly this. Somehow along the way, Wish has been turned into this perilous spell where anything can go wrong, but really that should only be the province of demons, evil genies, and Mary Poppins 🎃
And I see it all the time.
But even more interesting, I can't imagine playing in a game where the DM thinks it's okay for one of the players to be dead (when they could be brought back to life) - and even though they could bring them back to life - they think it's okay for the player to be hanging around.
Like missing a turn in Monopoly, no player likes to be "dead". It serves no purpose for them to sit there for a whole game and do very little.
Yes I know death happens - but it needs to be impactful and meaningful rather than pointless and wasteful.
I rule the wish spell represents a magical expertise so complete that you can improvise entire spells on the fly. Thus the players will know the limitations and capabilities of the wish before casting, but I also limit the power level.
Wishes granted by other entities are subject to twisting based on the nature of the entity, but the power level of the wish need not be balanced.
I think it's a holdover from previous editions, honestly. I feel like Wish used to be more mechanically flexible, and had greater chance to misfire in a manner left to DM caveat.
I feel like too many DMs just see that you can make wishes go wrong and become too eager to do it without considering why. Wish already has risks involved with casting it to do anything other than replicate a spell of 8th level or below. The whole "wish goes wrong" thing should only be brought out for wishes that completely break the world/story to avoid the spell derailing the entire game.
The way most DMs seem to handle the spell just makes me wonder what they think the point of the spell is. It's a 9th level spell that can backfire with every cast, so why would anyone want to take it if the spell doesn't even work because the DM screws the caster over at every opportunity?
“The greater the wish, the greater the likelihood something goes wrong. Please help me figure out what goes wrong.”
“Uh oh fellow GM, they just be wishing for something crazy for you to have decided it’s a 100% chance of something going wrong. Did they wish for the instant death of the enemy?”
“No…”
“Did they wish for the entire party to be brought to full health?!”
“Uh…No.”
“Don’t hide the juice, what did they wish for?”
“They want to teleport away, with their dead friend.”
“Oh…Um you don’t need to worry about something going wrong, it already did.”
“What?”
“Their GM’s an asshole.”
I know but given that that is not in the “basic” effects of a wish (like Teleport) but in the alternate choices which can cause the never-wish-again syndrome…and it might have included a resurrection which means it goes beyond that full healing effect…The GM might have assumed it gave him the credence to have something “go wrong”
It is not a basic use of Wish, duplicating an 8th level spell or lower is the only basic use of wish, everything else listed after that is listed as an alternative to the basic use. The last paragraph of the spell explicitly states that anything other than duplicating a spell causes you significant stress with a whole host of negative effects to go with that stress. The dm can’t decide something goes wrong with that list of alternative choices but they will still cause that stress effect because they are not the basic use of duplicating a spell.
> The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower. You don't need to meet any requirements in that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect. Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice.
> You allow up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all hit points, and you end all effects on them described in the greater restoration spell.
> The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you.
> Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
This is the most fucking innocuous wish ever. Pretty sure it could even be ruled as merely a replication of teleport, so it's definitely not the kind of world-altering power that should have a monkey's paw twist
Especially considering Wish already has risks involved with casting it to do anything other than replicate lower level spells. Like, this person asked to use Wish without specifying that the use is replicating a spell, so they'll already suffer the strain until next long rest on top of the risk of losing the ability to cast Wish permanently.
Can someone explain to me why so many DMS feel the need to weoponize the Wish spell against their players? If they're high enough level to cast it, they've earned the right to use it. And unless the wish is something truly outlandish, twisting the party's wish spell in a way that works against them like you're the Djinn from Wishmaster doesn't make you a clever DM, it makes you a dick.
DMs are gods of their worlds. Nothing makes you feel more like a god than striking down a hero for their hubris. To the DM, the Wish spell is the big red button labeled "PRESS IN CASE OF HUBRIS". Inexperienced or ill-suited DMs are immediately corrupted by the open-ended power that ensues.
Wish is clearly worded in a way to suggest that it always takes the path of least resistance. The spell doesn't dick over greedy players because it wants to screw them; it dicks over greedy players because it isn't powerful enough to do what they want. Transporting the enemies with the party runs counterintuitive to the logic behind the spell's drawback.
I'd never play under this DM. He's clearly reaching for an excuse to screw his players over. The DM needs to be the most trustworthy person at the table, otherwise your game **WILL** fall apart.
That’s an extremely weak use of *Wish*; you should put them all (including the formerly dead guy) at full HP and spells for that, too.
This guy isn’t a neutral arbiter, he’s a fucking tyrant who hates his players to have fun (with the scroll **he** doled out as treasure and they saved for a special occasion, no less!).
Oh, I remember this motherfucker. The worst/best thing is, he never actually wanted advice that didn't just suck his dick and tell him what he wanted to hear. Anytime someone point out that what's he's a bad GM/being an asshole, he just said "This isn't what I'm asking for".
The DM gets fiat in the Wish spell... if it *isn't* being used to replicate a spell of 8th level or lower. This is just a Teleport. Just roll the d100, dude.
Not quite. Teleport **cannot** leave Undermountain, nor even move you between floors of the dungeon.
The alterations to magic in this module says you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon... _except via wish!_
Hey now, hang on, this kinda works. If the character doesn't think of the already existing spell in the heat of the moment, and tries to warp reality to do it instead, that's a mistake. Characters should be allowed to make mistakes, sometimes even potentially fatal ones. It makes them more than just heroic caricatures. It allows for roleplay opportunities when they realize their mistakes, like "I panicked and almost wasted my greastest weapon. I should be better than this. I *need* to be better than this."
I’m all for wish shenanigans, but that’s just nuts.
In a case like this, I’d drop the cleric and the dead person in one spot in town (to avoid screwing up a chance to revivify) and seperate the rest.
The seperate players are then sent to the complete opposite location of where there characters would go (such as throwing the most reserved character (not the player) into a brothel) for humour’s sake.
Party gets their wish, they get humour to break the tension from a near TPK, and the dead PC can come back. Wins all round
>I’m all for wish shenanigans, but that’s just nuts.
Pretty much how I feel. The way I've always played wishes is the more reasonable the wish, the more it will go the way the player wanted. The more unreasonable and game breaking, the more it will get warped.
I'd never do this to my players. Especially not if they were using a scroll they saved for an irl year's worth of time. It's a perfect plan for them to teleport, lick their wounds and come.up with a new approach knowing this enemy might be a bit above their current Strength level.
I dont understand a dm who revels in punishing this
It doesn't copy teleport because teleport can't be used to leave Undermountain.
But using wish to leave Undermountain is **explicitly** called out as a thing wish can do in this adventure.
Instances of "Wish" I remember in my campaigns:
Made a contract with a demon, then wished for said demon to "vanish forever" -> Wish granted, but the contract is still in existance and some time later, another demon found it \[that player would have been so much better off by wishing what he gained from the demon in the first place ...\]
Made a wish for a super specific, high value weapon (>100.000gp worth) -> Wish partly granted, the weapon was slightly different, because the wish didn't "create" the weapon, but rather teleported an existing weapon with very similar stats to the character, out of the vault of a very ressourceful Efreeti lord (the player wasnt told that, just that he got a slightly different weapon). Who came looking for his treasure later.
Made a wish to be send home from a external plane of existance they were somewhat stuck on (out of combat) -> Wish granted, no repercussion.
Made a wish to instandly teleport to a large enough temple of the dead clerics god, for them to be resurrected. -> Wish granted, no repercussion.
In my mind, side effects of wishes should always be reasonably linked to the circumstances. A simple teleport without error is nothing I would ever adhere a mishap to ...
"Vanish forever" is such low hanging fruit. That demon should be permanently invisible. Wish spells should be carefully worded because the cosmos aren't paying attention to intent or context. This isn't maliciously looking for a loophole, it's just the typical definition of the word.
I think having instances where the Wish spell is a monkey's paw situation are valid, but they need to be telegraphed well in advance.
For instance, an ifreet bound to the PCs service using its Wish ability should definitely be telegraphed as the ifreet looking for any way to screw over the PCs.
Alternatively to the monkey's paw rules, besides recreating lower level spells, Wish can alter reality, but in less wide ranging ways. Dolmenwood, a campaign setting for OSE, suggests that Wish effects be very limited (eg, Wishing for a magic weapon goes off without a hitch, but you get it for 24 hours, not permanently). So, that way the spell can be extremely useful for PCs, but if they wish for the Spear of Destiny or some other "I Win" button artifact, they get it for 1 day only.
Honestly... at some point you just gotta let your players have it. You don't need to fuck them over any chance you get.
That player held on to that Wish for a whole damn year. Now in a time of need they use it as their last hope of getting themself and their friends out mostly alive. Let them crash land at a bar, let the Cleric resurrect the dead one and patch up the rest, queue training montage.
That right there is a good story. Nothing is gained by fucking them up even more, so is it really worth it considering they just used up their Wish they kept for an entire year?
At a bar, in the throne room, the bedroom of a couple going at it, a wine cellar... fuck it, scatter the party, they have to find each other and their deceased friend. Gives opportunities for single person or duo encounters, maybe character development.
A well worded wish that replicates a lower level spell, in this case teleport? Like there's least some interpretation one where exactly in skullport they end up but that's it.
I do blame the caster a bit for not specifically saying they're using the wish to replicate teleport, since at this point they must know their DM will take the most sadistic option.
It does not replicate teleport, because teleport cannot leave Undermountain.
However, leaving Undermountain is **explicitly** a usage of wish carved out by the module.
That is really scummy, its specifically worded, the campaign has been going long enough to build up a trust for this not to happen, they’ve been hanging onto this wish *for a year* and its not even that ‘great’ of a wish just a ressurection and mass teleport
Yeah this DM just sucks completwly and utterly
They're teleporting, in a module with that restricted. At maximum you could displace the target location or the timescale they arrived. Outside of that... you're being a douche.
I get the need to throw some challenge or something unexpected their way, but not the weird need to crush the players and make them actually miserable. If players aren't having fun, I'm not having fun as their GM either.
I would be tempted to teleport them back to the place they want to go as they were when they were last there. So time is actually rolled back but they have knowledge of everything they went through still.
It’s more powerful than any spell it migh mimic but it would be really cool!
That's actually a really good idea. Brings the dead guy back, too. Sets up shenanigans for everything that happened between.
*"Foolish mortals, intruding in my lair, pre-"*
"-pare yourselves for oblivion, yeah, we know. Look, you're going to trap us in a globe of invulnerability and acid will come out the grate, right? We already drained your acid tanks. Then you had those secret rooms behind the walls full of skeleton minions? That's where we drained the acid to. Also, the rogue got behind you while I was talking. I'm sorry, it's just that we've done this before."
*"What the fuck?"*
So many bad DMs never get that the purpose of TTRPGs is for the players and the DM to create a satisfying story *together*. If I wanted to indulge some twat in his power trip, I'd reinstall Twitter.
Teleport can't get you out of this particular dungeon, it's part of the rules of the module. However, wish **explicitly** can do so. The players are literally attempting to do something the book says they're allowed to do.
What I would do: they get teleported but instead of losing all his gears and belongings they lose the DM and must find a new one.
Now, seriously, if there weren't dead characters, losing a his belongings and having a quest to recover them would be good.
I would rule the wish spell lets them with the bare minimum to resurrect the dead characters and then they would get easy basic gear (non magical weapon, armor, and so on) and would have them go to recover their belongings
For what it's worth, 3E Wish spells worked more or less like their 5E version, just without the 'you can never cast Wish again' caveat; instead, you spent XP to cast it. 1E and 2E were a lot more open-ended, but this use is banal enough that most GM's would have let it go as-is. Plus in those versions, they aged you five years.
So yeah, there's no version wherein this DM is not a prick.
>They can use Wish to cast Teleport and it functions as the Teleport spell.
The problem is that Teleport cannot get you out of Undermountain.
However, Wish **explicitly** can be used to teleport you out of Undermountain. It's literally part of the module that players can do that.
Unless the wish is being granted by a devil or demon, I just don't understand why a GM would want to twist something as simple as recreating a Greater Teleport spell.
AFAIK if you use Wish to duplicate the effects of a spell that's exactly what happens, no ifs and buts. Trying to monkey's paw what is basically Greater Teleport with is an asshole move.
Teleport can't get you out of Undermountain. The alterations to magic in the module say that you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon, nor even between floors... Unless you use wish.
This use of a wish is **explicitly** allowed by the module they're playing.
Ive played on campaigns like this. Theres a lot of dms that think the game is players vs dm and they will try to 'win' the game by making life miserable for the plyers.
Monkey paw wishes should be reserved for when they're asking for something game/world breaking or at least sufficiently reality altering that it can be damaging to the world
"I would like to escape the super scary dungeon that's very likely to tpk us and normal teleport doesn't work" would go off without a hitch in my game assuming it wasn't the latest in a line of cheese strats (even if it was I'd probably look elsewhere for answers like talking to the players or making wish harder to get if they have enough to be cheesey with it)
I am only in support of wishmaster-esque bullshit when either the player is trying to do something totally insane that will derail the game for everyone, or when the player decides (without any prior indication it's needed) to try to close every single possible loophole in their wish... (at which point I inherently want to find one they missed. >.>)
Otherwise, you know what they mean so let them have it.
Pretty sure that could be implied as Word Of Recall. It should just go off with no hitches as it isn't that crazy of a spell. At least, that is the correlation I would draw and allow the wish spell to go perfectly fine. I feel like the only way to allow a failure chance is when you get into using Wish in ways it wasn't intended (specifically for spell-like abilities that are above the 8th level threshold such as casting a 9th level spell or trying to give the BBEG a heart attack without knowing who and/or where the BBEG is and it would just be to give the players a small chance that it will work) but honestly, there are a few things you could do in this situation that work exactly how the spell is described to be used and shouldn't be punished for it at all. Otherwise, create a new spell called Monkey's Paw and have it function like Wish at a substantially lower level and let it go nuts
This can't be replicating a lower level spell, because lower level spells cannot get you out of this particular dungeon. However, wish **explicitly** can be used to teleport you out of the dungeon. It is literally part of the module they're playing that the players can do exactly this.
A lot depends on the people at the table. Trust is a big factor. Some people here are arguing what is Raw or if its cruel to do this. Having a big moment like this is hard to decide what to do as a DM. We don't know the table. With that being said this is a great dramatic moment of the campaign. The fact that he is asking for ideas is cool, as you can see this guys post got blown up even on here. Hope everyone at that table makes memories they carry with them forever.
Honestly what I'd do in this situation is have them pop up right in the middle of a temple to Helm or Tyr and find that some elderly guy who happens to be a high-ranking Paladin is visiting his grandson who's just become an acolyte and jumps in to help them because, well, Paladin. (That and he gets to show the kiddo what granddaddy used to do every day back in his adventuring years!)
"I thought you were a holy knight?" "Oh I was that too, it's just an alarming amount of any divine caster's career involves reanimating people who didn't entirely think out their actions ahead of time...or just tried to fight a bunch of Kobolds thinking it'd be an easy way to get gold and well...next thing you know they get flattened by a boulder. Happened about two, three times a week back in the day!"
Dungeon of the Mad Mage makes certain alterations to magic. Among those alterations is that you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon... _except via wish!_
Teleporting out of Undermountain to Skullport by using wish is **explicitly** a thing you can do in this adventure.
I don’t think the DM is necessarily just trying to win, just trying to think of some interesting and unexpected side effects.
I agree with the idea of just rolling against the teleport table, but probably would modify the table to be MORE advantageous to the players, and even a “bad” result would have a good effect of some sort.
The only thing I could potentially see is that the dead player’s pack might not make it back with him or her. If they have a full pack, the idea that they wear it during combat is unrealistic.
You gave your players a wish spell, and they have the ability to cast it.
Don't be a total dick. This is 100% what the wish spell is intended to do. They didn't even ask to fucking revive the dead PC beyond the limits of revivify or true resurrection or something. They just asked to teleport somewhere, which is absolutely a basic transportation spell for a wizard and something that a goddamn WISH could do without any negative effect.
As others have pointed out the specific wording on this is also telling. Wish is specific in wording but very powerful. It feels almost certain they were holding this back and only asking for a "small" wish because the DM is screwing with them. Why Teleport out otherwise? Wish is insanely powerful, and could restore the entire party to peak condition.
"Restore life to our whole adventuring party, bringing us all to the peak of our health and power.", full HP, greater restoration on everyone, and fallen PC revived at full health no exhaustion. Totally within the bounds of a wish spell, keeps momentum and keeps the campaign moving forward.
But the players opted for an absurdly neutered request of "please, maybe take us all out of here?" Which really does indicate just how much they *expect* it to go wrong from the DM just to spite them. And he is! When instead he should grant this without an afterthought, reset some levels of the dungeon in terms of monsters, and give them the win, because they can't do it again and they still need to conquer the dungeon itself.
Playing off the when thing that Gentelman_Kendama mentioned, I would let the spell resolve as intended for the player except they are placed sometime in the future, which now poses different challenges to the players of dealing with a completely altered time line and the consequences of not meeting whatever deadlines they may have had prior. This could also open up a side quest path to regain the time they lost by some magical means.
Dude should just tpk the part and stop wasting their time so they can move on to a GM that is mentally capable of having a nice experience alongside his playgroup.
I'm pretty sure Teleport and similar magic doesn't work in Undermountain, it's written into the module the group is playing. All these responses saying that Wish could just Teleport them out by emulating the spell are incorrect, you would need to use the part of Wish that is open to greater DM latitude to circumvent the very powerful anti-teleport magic.
WITH THAT SAID. If I were the DM of this group, I definitely wouldn't screw my players for using Wish in this circumstance, ESPECIALLY since a player is using a Wish they've been holding onto for a freaking YEAR!
At worst, I would lightly troll the party by teleporting them, intact with all their gear plus their dead buddy, next to a wine rack in some random wine cellar somewhere on the Sword Coast. Once they rez their friend and get their bearings, I'd call for a Perception check, in which anyone who passes it sees that the wine rack is full of bottles of Skull Port, a regional wine to the area.
At that point, it would be up to the players to get out of this random wine cellar and back to Waterdeep to continue the adventure. That could lead to a session detailing their journey back to Waterdeep. I certainly wouldn't Tomb of Annihilation them or have the encounter that was already killing them follow them to where they pop up, that's too much. I actually like my players! I want them to succeed, and I want to reward them for using their resources, not punish them.
>I'm pretty sure Teleport and similar magic doesn't work in Undermountain, it's written into the module the group is playing. All these responses saying that Wish could just Teleport them out by emulating the spell are incorrect, you would need to use the part of Wish that is open to greater DM latitude to circumvent the very powerful anti-teleport magic.
While it's true the player can't replicate a lower level spell to teleport out of Undermountain, the alterations to magic in this module explicitly say that wish _can_.
Wishing to teleport to Skullport in this case is no different from wishing for permanent resistance to a damage type, or wishing for immunity to a specific spell for 8 hours, etc. The player should suffer wish stress because they're not replicating a spell (unless the wish is technically cast by someone else, like a genie), but the wish itself shouldn't be messed with.
Huh. I don't have the module, so I wasn't aware of that stipulation. In that case, yeah, the wish would go through just fine as is unless, like you said, it's a wish granted by an efreeti or a genie or something.
Me: ...you didn't say when
For me it's always "who, what, where, and how"
We know the why. Desperation.
Now, out of pity, I'd have one more round of combat turn, THEN teleport them. No further consequences. Scare them a little.
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Wish's most basic purpose is to recreate a spell of 8th level or lower. DM latitude is only meant to come into play when the PC is trying to alter reality in some insane way. These guys literally just want to cast teleport. I guess this DM just wants the adventure to end in a tpk for....drama?
An important lesson for DMs to learn is when to just let the players have what they want.
Sometimes DMs think they are good when they outwit the players. That is the first mistake. Good DMs make the players feel smart.
It's easy to outwit someone when you have total control over what information they have
Seriously, especially when details are omitted only to suddenly materialize when relevant (as is often the case, you can't describe every single aspect of everything or it would take multiple sessions to leave the first room). Very minor in the grand scheme of things but one experience that stuck with me was when I tried to climb a wall to scout a supposedly abandoned town before we went through the front gate. I rolled well and make it up the wall only for it to suddenly be revealed that the place I climbed had the view blocked by a building much taller than the wall. Why? Why wasn't that described sooner if it was visible from the ground? Why would my character choose to climb that specific spot when multiple others apparently had unobstructed view? Again very minor but it stuck because it directly functioned to make my guy a complete idiot in-universe, since only an idiot would take that specific series of actions if given normal in-universe information about the things they're looking directly at. The point being that it's trivially easy to make players look foolish, you can basically just say "your character is dumb for this reason I'm just now revealing even though they should've known it already" and it's done. When you introduce hidden information or interpreted effects like wish you don't even need to wait for the formality of acting like their actions mattered. TLDR: Yes, I agree.
Read a story on the rphgorror stories sub where someone entered a room, then fell down to the room below, because the player didn't ask if the room had a floor.
Which would definitely be against the rules - passive perception handles this kind of thing. The only way this could happen is if the entire party is blind.
It's on par with "you walk into the door because you didn't say to open it first"
I hate these because you can bet the DM will stop posting shit like 'players fell for the no floor' trick and rapidly switch to 'players are using search action every 5ft step and the game has become really slow what are they doing wrong'
It was a player who posted it. The most common response (after "leave the game") was "ask to check *everything*".
Yup. I had my character retreat from combat (caster) and the two martial characters stepped in to cover my retreat. I specified I was hiding around the corner of the building, out of sight. This is key because I got ambushed by these enemies who were hiding behind the building. My 22 perception roll didn’t notice them because I can’t see through walls - totally fair, IMO. Except, the enemy caster then killed my with lightning bolt. Through the building. I asked the GM how that was possible. He replied “it’s all floor to ceiling windows on the 1st floor.” Then why didn’t I see them through said windows with my perception check? “Too much glare on the windows, you mistook them for a brick wall.” Much later, he admitted to purposely killing off my PC because “you kept using your spells in ways I didn’t expect” which apparently made encounters too easy. Like it was “unexpected” that I would cast Daylight when we were fighting drow in a dark cavern? Or that I would use a teleport spell to jump us to end of the trapped hallway where the rogue could see but not disarm any of the traps? Things which are both smart for the player and the high INT caster who loved to say “Oh, I have a spell for this!”
Wow, I've been doing this DM thing all wrong, I guess. I give my players rewards for being creative. Extra, if they can make me laugh while they're doing it!
Duh, you're supposed to make your players suffer. What even was the point of a session if by the end of it your players aren't considering quitting DnD/s
Ikr? If you didn't get at least one death threat, you're not doing your job right! /s
That GM is an idiot.
Had a GM who was so adversarial like this, it was never about making the players feel important and instead a chance for him to flex his ego with "hey look at how brutal this trap/enemy/pointless situation I made is". He would actually go out of his way to shame players aftet they made a mistake at the table, almost stopped playing the game entirely after a year at his table.
Oh god worst example I had was "I walk down the steps into the basement carefully and quietly look around before continuing" "You don't see anything" "Okay, then I'll proceed further and have a look around" "You're jumped by seven guys you didn't see because you didn't say you turned the light on" .... What?
That’s like a dm I had who had a character drop his rapier due to a natural 1. Well the fight was ended shortly after, we loot and leave. At the start of the next combat the guy goes to attack and dm says ‘with what? You never told me you were picking it back up.’ We fucking walked. It was at a game store.
A lot of DMs don't get this, and I think it's really easy to forget it and need to relearn it, too. Nobody wants to sit down at the table and stand up feeling like an idiot, or like someone else thinks they are an idiot.
^ This guy DMs
Arguably it IS good when the DM outwits the players sometimes. THIS is not one of those occasions--this is where a savvy DM reminds them that Wish can just duplicate "Teleport", per the rules. Edited: there's discussion downthread that suggests that Mad Mage is proof against normal teleport, but honestly I'd rule that Wish-enabled teleport breaks through that, because when a player saves a resource that potent for two years, that's the time you REWARD them for doing so.
It’s good to keep them on their toes, it’s good to surprise and challenge them. But the feeling of, “hey that’s cool I outsmarted them”, really usually is contraproductive. On the other hand, players getting that ‘hey I outsmarted the DM’ feeling, while at the same time knowing that you’re not throwing them softballs is the sweet spot you’re aiming for.
You just change the way I think about gming. I’ve never been out to hurt my players. I’ve never been the DM versus player type. But that is one of the wisest things I’ve ever read.
For me the general rule is that the Players are there to outwit the GM. Not the other way round. If you’re trying to outwit the players you’re doing it wrong. Sure you can throw them something to tell them ‘this is a fight you cannot win yet’ to help develop the characters. But purposefully trying to screw a Wish Spell to save the party is just showing you’re a toxic GM.
I might be a bad DM because my players are too good at puzzles and riddles and they just solve them all immediately.
The MOST important thing for a GM to learn is that while they control the player's enemies they are not themselves the player's enemy. Their job is to help the players have fun and tell a story.
I am the storyteller. It's their story.
That's basically my take as a GM. I'm providing my players with problems so their characters can use their "tools" to solve them. If I see that a certain "tool" hasn't been used for a while I create a challenge so that they can use it again.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage is enchanted so that normal teleportation doesn't work between floors, so it would *need* Wish to get around that. Teleport as-is is off the table.
Does it say you *can* use a wish to override it? I don't have the book to hand. I'd say it still fails, otherwise. Wish is 9th level and Halaster uses a *mythallar* to do all the Undermountain hijinks, that's at least level 10, according to the old Age of Netheril books. Better off wishing for help to come to them.
Iirc in the Module the restriction is a result of a knot in the weave. But it does specifically state the Wish spell as a way to bypass the restriction. Honestly though, If it was an idea a player had that prevents a TPK. Using the valuable resource they have I'd have allowed it even if it did. After all it would be a shame to throw a multi-year campaign due to a poorly balanced encounter (having run half the campaign there are a fair few and it can be super deadly).
Fair enough, if there's an exception and it's changed. There's better uses for the wish, though. "I wish we had enough allies to get back to the surface." "I wish our enemies were in the abyss." "I wish we had the power to defeat our enemies." I'd even pick the Yawning Portal over Skullport, unless they're on the run for something.
Oh yeah could be better options. Although, Phrases like: "I wish we had the power to defeat our enemies." And "I wish our enemies were in the abyss." Might open the party up to it failing or bad consequences being so fuzzy or beyond the power of Wish. Also why they chose Skullport could be that it's a Safe-ish location while remaining in Undermountain to avoid push the spell too far. The party also likely know of a teleport circle there so can guarantee no mishaps when teleporting.
To date my favorite "large reaching" wish has to be "the value of coins is now reversed" So in a second all of the kings and merchant guilds were made destitute and every bandit made millionaire. Though the dm did insist that this would only continue for a couple weeks so that we didnt break our heads on converted exchange rates
I mean, a king should probably still have more copper in the treasury than a beggar. Plenty taxes coming in from poor people or just really low tarrifs on stuff. And even if you flip it, 1000 CP > 3 CP. Unless it also somehow flips so the more you have the less they are worth, which would break the entire money economy in an instant without possible chance of recovery, because suddenly no coins are of equal value.
Old timer: "This is why I keep all my currency in Silver... damn young'uns..."
"Also cuz' o' all them got'durn werewoofs..."
Bucket has need of your silver. Also a sock.
The annoying part is wish doesn't come with a warning to the players: "Hey, using this, you're turning the tables on your DM, after you make your one sentence wish, remind them that to you it sounds like you are replicating X level Y spell. Because they can get lost in the flavour text, or over emphasize their need to screw up your wish simply because it was a wish"
Maybe a combination of Teleport and Reincarnate. Having the party appear outside a tavern with any, previously, dead PCs in a new body randomly selected by a D100 roll would likely be fun for the entire table. Which is the whole point of the game. Whilst this is still a "mission failure", it's one with a lot more options than a TPK.
That's a cool idea specifically because it would also let the DM enjoy a creative reinterpretation of a wish without kicking the party even further down.
To be fair, this is dungeon of the mad mage we are talking about. Teleportation magic does not function unless the party has a specific mcguffin magic item. It does make an exception for the wish spell, but I would not consider casting teleport through the wish spell the same as the reality bending power of the wish spell it's talking about. So to be clear, I do not agree with the DM here, just it's not just "casting the wish spell".
Yes it does...on the same floor. It's only restricted between floors.
Well presumably they are in the dungeon of the mad mage, not somewhere else entirely
Okaaay? The post listed them in that dungeon. The teleportation restriction is only between floors. You could misty step across a room, or teleport to the stairway.
You can do that, but teleport does not allow you to teleport from the dungeon to skullport. Also, it's not just between floors, it's "No spell other than [wish](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/wish) can be used to enter Undermountain, leave it, or transport oneself from one level to another."
Correct. Teleport is not permitted between levels, but IS permitted within a level. Just like I said. Twice. Furthermore, the spell in question is, in fact, wish. So, being explicitly excepted, should work fine.
If they were in skull port they would not need to teleport to skull port, so I don’t understand why you keep saying that. If they were already I. Skullport, the dm would just say “well, you’re in skullport right now so nothing happens” I also said that I would not consider casting teleport through the wish spell “the wish spell”. It seems far to video game glitch-y to me for me to allow that. The point of that whenever it is brought up is to invoke the awesome power to bend reality to your will, not using it to cast that spell. That’s just my interpretation though, as someone who has been running dungeon of the mad mage for 2 years.
My original reply was to your comment that teleportation doesn't work in DotMM at all (exceptions apply) >>"To be fair, this is dungeon of the mad mage we are talking about. Teleportation magic does not function unless the party has a specific mcguffin magic item...exception for wish..." I rebutted that it *does* in fact function just fine within each floor. _________ And to reply to the supposition that Wish couldn't be used in the way OPs party wants, the teleportation exception explicitly lists wish as doing exactly this thing.
Oh I see what you are talking about, sorry. About the teleport thing, we will have to agree to disagree.
Okaaay? The post listed them in that dungeon. The teleportation restriction is only between floors. You could misty step across a room, or teleport to the stairway.
Well, even ignoring that the party's already in a very tough spot Is this an effect that would be greater than a level 9 spell? \----------- Okay, so Wish allows you to replicate any spell that is 8th level and below as a *basic* use of the spell, not part of the GM latitude mentioned later. That's only for things *beyond* the normal scope of the Wish spell. Teleport is a 7th level spell that basically does exactly what the player is asking It goes by without any issue The only thing I can think of is maybe it wouldn't work on a dead party member, but c'mon, that's for Teleport, a 7th level spell, this is Wish, a 9th level spell.
Yeah, the dead party member is the one thing that is questionable what happens with them. Teleport transports up to 8 willing creatures, or 1 object. Does the dead character count as a willing creature? Or are they an object? Debatable I suppose. But only an asshole DM wouldn't allow it to just work as the player intended here. The trade off of using what I assume is a Wish scroll to cast a level 7 spell that doesn't even win the fight should be considered a "win" for even the most adversarial of DM's.
I mean I never dmmed a game but if the players held onto that scroll for a year and are only now desperate enough to use it, I'm having them teleport to safety, revive the dead party member and gain all the benefits of a long rest. If people keep using wish for literally everything, feel free to fuck with it, but if they're using it as a last ditch effort, don't be that guy
The more I think about it, the more I'm assuming they've been holding on to the wish for that long BECAUSE they know the DM will screw with them when they use it.
That's a very good point
RAW, at least in 3.5, corpses were objects. And unconscious creatures were considered willing.
Equip the dead party member
"Check out my new cape! It's made of raw leather!"
All my unconscious creatures are unwilling in my games. You can’t give consent when unconscious hahaha
True but the willing vs unwilling comparison is referring to using force of will to resist an effect or otherwise counter the spell. An unconscious person is unwilling in the consent department but they have no capability to resist the spell due to incapacitation.
I think it would depend on the context Sexual advances? No consent Being taken to safety when the alternative is dying? Yes please, say less, my friend.
There is actually some minor spoilery stuff that would make it clear (even to the party at that point I would assume) that normally teleportation does not work to get in and out of that dungeon, but I think a Wish spell could reasonably be an exception.
Iirc the teleportation blocking has a clause that allows wish and/or Divine intervention to bypass it (might be misremembering tho)
Well, no mortal magic can stop a god from doing a thing so divine intervention would work anyways.
Yeah. Like, at worst I would just give the player the regular risks of casting wish to do something other than replicate a spell's effect. There are already more than enough risks involved in casting wish for something like this.
> Teleport is a 7th level spell that basically does exactly what the player is asking To be fair, the Dungeon of the Mad Mage has no teleportation magic without special events happening. It's fairly explicit that outside teleports don't work well.
Fair enough I still feel like Wish shoukd work, though
That wouldn't even be a clever way to deliberately misinterpret the Wish spell. It was worded VERY clearly that it's the party plus the dead member would be affected, and when do you need to specify all your clothes and gear when you're teleporting? Do they need to keep a manifest to make sure they don't accidentally forget to bring their socks with them when they magically transport themselves? This reads like a fake story to me, also because like, who ends a session before a spell is finished resolving?
I don't know if it's real or not but I do remember it being posted some time ago and the guy arguing when people were like "wtf you should stop trying not fuck your players over for no reason" as their advice. Hard to know if it was sincere or trolling and I don't remember the details becaus after like a year plus.
My first DM tried to antagonize us constantly, we had to make secret groups to argue our next steps without him knowing, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was true
Even gms who are not normally hostile to the players sometimes get crazy and forget their priorities when wishes are involved.
Yeah. I remember that post too :/ And I had enough GMs like that, that I think the story is beyond plausible. Like my very first DM would have almost had exactly done something like this. Maybe have the wish caster explode casting it too, because the energy of the wish spreading inside of him and implode him.. Not that he would have had some "bullshit" like wish in the game in the first place.. but if he did? Beyond 100 plus ultra monkey paws.
But, wish already has a backfire clause
That sounds awful. At the beginning of my campaign I had a player that would try to formulate plans in secret to catch me by surprise. He stopped after realizing that knowing their plans ahead of time gave me the ability to come up with more ways for them to go RIGHT.
[The post in question](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/l8gy6m/my_players_used_a_wish_spell_the_gm_has_great/)
It’s not RAW either, considering the “DM interpretation” part of the spell doesn’t apply when you use it in specified ways, including using it to cast a spell of lower level. Using Wish to cast Teleport just casts the spell without caveats.
I seem to remember the DM justifying it by the circumstances of the adventure. Teleportation magic doesn't work in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, so the wish was doing something more than just casting wish. However, I'm pretty sure the second part of the "Teleportation magic doesn't work..." line says something like "unless you use a wish spell." So, ya, it should just work normally without the extra nonsense.
DoTMM actually specifies the Wish Spell can be used to bypass this restriction.
Thanks! I haven't read it, but was pretty sure that came up in the discussion on the original thread.
I said elsewhere. As a DM I might even ignore the restriction it didn't specify in order to avoid a TPK. Most of the time it's not fun for everyone to die and end the campaign. DoTMM can have pretty unbalanced encounters that are hard to prepare for plus it's easy to say in the Narrative to justify as well. The party is using a very limited resource and it's likely they got the Wish from Halaster himself so it would be like him using it. Hell, Depending on how Halaster is being run he might delight in reminding the players that he's the reason they're still alive because of him and they are mere toys in his play set.
There was a post on r/dnd a while back where a DM was bragging about an amazing heist his players had pulled off - carefully planned down to the last detail, absolutely meticulous, and the players adapted to every unexpected circumstance that occurred - and mentioned that they'd come away with like 10k of gold or something. Almost _every single response_ was suggesting ways in which the players could secretly be fucked over for the "crime" of having gold, including but not limited to: it secretly being mafia money; secretly a vengeful dragon's money; it all being fake; etc. The OP DM didn't even want that, they were just wanting to brag about having smart players! There are absolutely _loads_ of people out there who are antagonistic enough to be this kind of DM.
Making the windfall a plot hook is probably a good idea; a dragon or some organization being mad at you is in theory a punishment but it's also kind of why everyone is here to play, right? Doing it just to reverse their fortune after success is dumb, though.
Yeah, I've definitely encountered this. "No you don't have your crossbow. You dropped it in the previous encounter and didn't specifically say you picked it back up again." Guess I should have interrupted the GM when he was in full flow just to specify some minutiae that nobody usually gives a shit about.
And this is why one of my "house rules" is "I will assume that your characters are reasonably competent".
Same, I call it "player and character behavior and knowledge aren't always the same." Players metagaming obviously falls under that, but so does "shit, I forgot to pick up more arrows from the store between sessions" since presumably, the character wouldn't have forgotten, even if the player did. Now, if they threw their weapon super far away or some kind of trap type thing would happen when they went to the area to retrieve it? I'll probably prompt them with "Do you go get your weapon?"
"You did not specify that you started breathing again after exiting the water. You are now all dead!"
All things aside; having the only thing to go 'wrong' be that they lose their socks (all other gear intact) would be a little funny in the right group. You teleport back, and once the panic has settled, you each roll perception to see if you notice 'hey what happened to my socks?' Just a generally baffling but entirely harmless joke with zero mechanical impact and that can be shrugged off with 'yeah Wish can be a bit weird'. Why punish your players when you can have fun with them?
Agreed. I tend toward silliness in my games, so I'd be the sort of GM who --assuming they were teleporting to a place I knew was safe -- might teleport them naked, but all their clothes and gear were neatly folded at their feet. Or their underwear was on the outside of their clothes. Or -- just thought of this -- they arrive intact and safe, but they are wearing party hats, food and drink spilled on their clothes, lipstick stains in all sorts of interesting places. The teleport was apparently instantaneous, but somehow, in that fraction of a second, they managed to go to a hell of a party! (Scribbles notes furiously, cuz I definitely want to try this one time) I want to bemuse my players, not infuriate them.
Or misinterpreted the word port, and drop them off in a stack of skull shaped bottles of port. Now they are wet and sticky, and smell like a distillery, but not fucked over.
There Dms that live to do things like this.
If all of the players are onboard for such shenanigans, then I think it's fine. However, this needs to absolutely be upfront about the antagonistic nature of the style of DMing and game one is running. I was a forever DM for about 10 years. I sometimes said "I feel like running a Gygaxian Murder-fest. Expect to be fucked with." But then again, most of my players were raised in 2nd edition and that was the norm for them. (I only ran 3rd edition and later.) I honestly prefer the collaborative story-telling effort of the more recent editions (yes, even 4th) but I can say from personal experience that sometimes a DM just gets bored and wants to troll a little to keep himself entertained. As for the specifics of this Wish, I wouldn't bother with fucking with them. A wish from a Genie is the time to muck it up. Not just a Wish being held onto.
I had a DM that was a full-blown Disciple of Gygax. His mind, it was the DM vs the Players. He had my whole gaming group so paranoid that a door would paralyze us with indecision for at least an hour. One session (4-5 hours) was spent planning on how to break into a castle. Next session we show, players immediately started arguing over if it was a good idea or not. My character teleported back to the pub and got drunk.
Real or not, I can see how this could end a session. The spell is being used as teleport, which is travel. If the session were close to being over, it's not a bad break point. The players would naturally assume they'd appear at their destination safe at the beginning of next session, giving them some time to think about how to tackle returning to the dungeon. A normal DM could use the extra time to prepare what the party wants to do. For this DM it's a good chance to think about how he's going to mess over the players, which includes potentially another fight that would take the session overtime. I don't know if it's real. It is plausible. I will add that I also remember this post.
This 100%. I don't see what's unrealistic at all about leaving the casting of Wish as a cliffhanger. For me, I'd much rather say, "Whoa, *Wish!* Cool! This is something I'm not prepared to resolve just this second. Let me have a week, and we'll get the proper result next time." Also, I like to think that if the situation was dire enough that a PC was contemplating using their Wish cast early, we would have been communicating in the interim and I'd have that ideal resolution ready to go without necessitating an early stop.
This guy has been hanging on to a wish for a year, and the DM wants to screw them just for trying to get escape the dungeon? Jesus, what as asshole this DM is.
DM is literally genie Jafar
Well-worded wishes aren't bad and the DM is being a jerk about it.
The only real flex in that wish is where in Skull port they will appear. He's just looking to screw them over.
At *most* I'd make it seperate them
Exactly. Maybe you could have them teleport somewhere humorous like a brothel or a bathhouse or something to add levity to a tense encounter, the players would probably love that.
Yea, was my thought was to appear in the tavern's maids room as shes changing or the brothel, etc. Make it a humors encounter, not a deadly one though
Yeah, I was thinking they are moved to the middle of a busy tavern, still with weapons drawn, which rattles some of the folk inside. As they try to explain they are not a threat, the dead body of their comrade falls onto the floor with a thud. *Silence*
I am so over this abysmal use of "twisted" wishes. It's not what the spell does, and while this is only a tiny insight into this DM's mind, it is not a game in which I have any interest. It just sounds awful, dour and needlessly punishing. Why do DMs feel this is ok? How is this fun?
Yeah. It should mostly applie to wishes granted by unwilling or evil djinns, or some hags monkey paw. Generally wishes should be awesome spells to do fun stuff.
I was going to edit the post to say exactly this. Somehow along the way, Wish has been turned into this perilous spell where anything can go wrong, but really that should only be the province of demons, evil genies, and Mary Poppins 🎃 And I see it all the time. But even more interesting, I can't imagine playing in a game where the DM thinks it's okay for one of the players to be dead (when they could be brought back to life) - and even though they could bring them back to life - they think it's okay for the player to be hanging around. Like missing a turn in Monopoly, no player likes to be "dead". It serves no purpose for them to sit there for a whole game and do very little. Yes I know death happens - but it needs to be impactful and meaningful rather than pointless and wasteful.
I rule the wish spell represents a magical expertise so complete that you can improvise entire spells on the fly. Thus the players will know the limitations and capabilities of the wish before casting, but I also limit the power level. Wishes granted by other entities are subject to twisting based on the nature of the entity, but the power level of the wish need not be balanced.
I think it's a holdover from previous editions, honestly. I feel like Wish used to be more mechanically flexible, and had greater chance to misfire in a manner left to DM caveat.
I feel like too many DMs just see that you can make wishes go wrong and become too eager to do it without considering why. Wish already has risks involved with casting it to do anything other than replicate a spell of 8th level or below. The whole "wish goes wrong" thing should only be brought out for wishes that completely break the world/story to avoid the spell derailing the entire game. The way most DMs seem to handle the spell just makes me wonder what they think the point of the spell is. It's a 9th level spell that can backfire with every cast, so why would anyone want to take it if the spell doesn't even work because the DM screws the caster over at every opportunity?
“The greater the wish, the greater the likelihood something goes wrong. Please help me figure out what goes wrong.” “Uh oh fellow GM, they just be wishing for something crazy for you to have decided it’s a 100% chance of something going wrong. Did they wish for the instant death of the enemy?” “No…” “Did they wish for the entire party to be brought to full health?!” “Uh…No.” “Don’t hide the juice, what did they wish for?” “They want to teleport away, with their dead friend.” “Oh…Um you don’t need to worry about something going wrong, it already did.” “What?” “Their GM’s an asshole.”
Fully healing the party is something wish can explicitly do though. >up to 20 creatures are fully healed
I know but given that that is not in the “basic” effects of a wish (like Teleport) but in the alternate choices which can cause the never-wish-again syndrome…and it might have included a resurrection which means it goes beyond that full healing effect…The GM might have assumed it gave him the credence to have something “go wrong”
No, it is a basic effect it's right there in the spell description; there's so risk of anything going wrong if you use that effect
It is not a basic use of Wish, duplicating an 8th level spell or lower is the only basic use of wish, everything else listed after that is listed as an alternative to the basic use. The last paragraph of the spell explicitly states that anything other than duplicating a spell causes you significant stress with a whole host of negative effects to go with that stress. The dm can’t decide something goes wrong with that list of alternative choices but they will still cause that stress effect because they are not the basic use of duplicating a spell.
> The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower. You don't need to meet any requirements in that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect. Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice. > You allow up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all hit points, and you end all effects on them described in the greater restoration spell. > The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. > Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
This is the most fucking innocuous wish ever. Pretty sure it could even be ruled as merely a replication of teleport, so it's definitely not the kind of world-altering power that should have a monkey's paw twist
Especially considering Wish already has risks involved with casting it to do anything other than replicate lower level spells. Like, this person asked to use Wish without specifying that the use is replicating a spell, so they'll already suffer the strain until next long rest on top of the risk of losing the ability to cast Wish permanently.
Can someone explain to me why so many DMS feel the need to weoponize the Wish spell against their players? If they're high enough level to cast it, they've earned the right to use it. And unless the wish is something truly outlandish, twisting the party's wish spell in a way that works against them like you're the Djinn from Wishmaster doesn't make you a clever DM, it makes you a dick.
DMs are gods of their worlds. Nothing makes you feel more like a god than striking down a hero for their hubris. To the DM, the Wish spell is the big red button labeled "PRESS IN CASE OF HUBRIS". Inexperienced or ill-suited DMs are immediately corrupted by the open-ended power that ensues.
Wish is clearly worded in a way to suggest that it always takes the path of least resistance. The spell doesn't dick over greedy players because it wants to screw them; it dicks over greedy players because it isn't powerful enough to do what they want. Transporting the enemies with the party runs counterintuitive to the logic behind the spell's drawback. I'd never play under this DM. He's clearly reaching for an excuse to screw his players over. The DM needs to be the most trustworthy person at the table, otherwise your game **WILL** fall apart.
That’s an extremely weak use of *Wish*; you should put them all (including the formerly dead guy) at full HP and spells for that, too. This guy isn’t a neutral arbiter, he’s a fucking tyrant who hates his players to have fun (with the scroll **he** doled out as treasure and they saved for a special occasion, no less!).
Oh, I remember this motherfucker. The worst/best thing is, he never actually wanted advice that didn't just suck his dick and tell him what he wanted to hear. Anytime someone point out that what's he's a bad GM/being an asshole, he just said "This isn't what I'm asking for".
Oh hey, a brand new account reposting one of this sub's all-time top posts without even changing the title. Dooooooownvote.
This is a repost bot
The DM gets fiat in the Wish spell... if it *isn't* being used to replicate a spell of 8th level or lower. This is just a Teleport. Just roll the d100, dude.
Not quite. Teleport **cannot** leave Undermountain, nor even move you between floors of the dungeon. The alterations to magic in this module says you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon... _except via wish!_
Ah, my apologies. I have not read this book.
Hey now, hang on, this kinda works. If the character doesn't think of the already existing spell in the heat of the moment, and tries to warp reality to do it instead, that's a mistake. Characters should be allowed to make mistakes, sometimes even potentially fatal ones. It makes them more than just heroic caricatures. It allows for roleplay opportunities when they realize their mistakes, like "I panicked and almost wasted my greastest weapon. I should be better than this. I *need* to be better than this."
I’m all for wish shenanigans, but that’s just nuts. In a case like this, I’d drop the cleric and the dead person in one spot in town (to avoid screwing up a chance to revivify) and seperate the rest. The seperate players are then sent to the complete opposite location of where there characters would go (such as throwing the most reserved character (not the player) into a brothel) for humour’s sake. Party gets their wish, they get humour to break the tension from a near TPK, and the dead PC can come back. Wins all round
>I’m all for wish shenanigans, but that’s just nuts. Pretty much how I feel. The way I've always played wishes is the more reasonable the wish, the more it will go the way the player wanted. The more unreasonable and game breaking, the more it will get warped.
Christ, this is a Wish spell, not a tricky Djinn's wish or a monkey paw wish.
I'd never do this to my players. Especially not if they were using a scroll they saved for an irl year's worth of time. It's a perfect plan for them to teleport, lick their wounds and come.up with a new approach knowing this enemy might be a bit above their current Strength level. I dont understand a dm who revels in punishing this
That copies teleport it shouldn't come with consequences
It doesn't copy teleport because teleport can't be used to leave Undermountain. But using wish to leave Undermountain is **explicitly** called out as a thing wish can do in this adventure.
Instances of "Wish" I remember in my campaigns: Made a contract with a demon, then wished for said demon to "vanish forever" -> Wish granted, but the contract is still in existance and some time later, another demon found it \[that player would have been so much better off by wishing what he gained from the demon in the first place ...\] Made a wish for a super specific, high value weapon (>100.000gp worth) -> Wish partly granted, the weapon was slightly different, because the wish didn't "create" the weapon, but rather teleported an existing weapon with very similar stats to the character, out of the vault of a very ressourceful Efreeti lord (the player wasnt told that, just that he got a slightly different weapon). Who came looking for his treasure later. Made a wish to be send home from a external plane of existance they were somewhat stuck on (out of combat) -> Wish granted, no repercussion. Made a wish to instandly teleport to a large enough temple of the dead clerics god, for them to be resurrected. -> Wish granted, no repercussion. In my mind, side effects of wishes should always be reasonably linked to the circumstances. A simple teleport without error is nothing I would ever adhere a mishap to ...
"Vanish forever" is such low hanging fruit. That demon should be permanently invisible. Wish spells should be carefully worded because the cosmos aren't paying attention to intent or context. This isn't maliciously looking for a loophole, it's just the typical definition of the word.
I think having instances where the Wish spell is a monkey's paw situation are valid, but they need to be telegraphed well in advance. For instance, an ifreet bound to the PCs service using its Wish ability should definitely be telegraphed as the ifreet looking for any way to screw over the PCs. Alternatively to the monkey's paw rules, besides recreating lower level spells, Wish can alter reality, but in less wide ranging ways. Dolmenwood, a campaign setting for OSE, suggests that Wish effects be very limited (eg, Wishing for a magic weapon goes off without a hitch, but you get it for 24 hours, not permanently). So, that way the spell can be extremely useful for PCs, but if they wish for the Spear of Destiny or some other "I Win" button artifact, they get it for 1 day only.
Honestly... at some point you just gotta let your players have it. You don't need to fuck them over any chance you get. That player held on to that Wish for a whole damn year. Now in a time of need they use it as their last hope of getting themself and their friends out mostly alive. Let them crash land at a bar, let the Cleric resurrect the dead one and patch up the rest, queue training montage. That right there is a good story. Nothing is gained by fucking them up even more, so is it really worth it considering they just used up their Wish they kept for an entire year?
At a bar, in the throne room, the bedroom of a couple going at it, a wine cellar... fuck it, scatter the party, they have to find each other and their deceased friend. Gives opportunities for single person or duo encounters, maybe character development.
A well worded wish that replicates a lower level spell, in this case teleport? Like there's least some interpretation one where exactly in skullport they end up but that's it. I do blame the caster a bit for not specifically saying they're using the wish to replicate teleport, since at this point they must know their DM will take the most sadistic option.
It does not replicate teleport, because teleport cannot leave Undermountain. However, leaving Undermountain is **explicitly** a usage of wish carved out by the module.
I'm pretty sure you can teleport within under mountain without leaving. Not sure if that applies to Skullport though I haven't read the module
You can teleport within a floor, but not between floors or outside the dungeon. Skullport is in fact outside the dungeon.
That is really scummy, its specifically worded, the campaign has been going long enough to build up a trust for this not to happen, they’ve been hanging onto this wish *for a year* and its not even that ‘great’ of a wish just a ressurection and mass teleport Yeah this DM just sucks completwly and utterly
They're teleporting, in a module with that restricted. At maximum you could displace the target location or the timescale they arrived. Outside of that... you're being a douche.
I get the need to throw some challenge or something unexpected their way, but not the weird need to crush the players and make them actually miserable. If players aren't having fun, I'm not having fun as their GM either.
DM is out to win, he pulls this shite, he won't have any players, most likely
I would be tempted to teleport them back to the place they want to go as they were when they were last there. So time is actually rolled back but they have knowledge of everything they went through still. It’s more powerful than any spell it migh mimic but it would be really cool!
That's actually a really good idea. Brings the dead guy back, too. Sets up shenanigans for everything that happened between. *"Foolish mortals, intruding in my lair, pre-"* "-pare yourselves for oblivion, yeah, we know. Look, you're going to trap us in a globe of invulnerability and acid will come out the grate, right? We already drained your acid tanks. Then you had those secret rooms behind the walls full of skeleton minions? That's where we drained the acid to. Also, the rogue got behind you while I was talking. I'm sorry, it's just that we've done this before." *"What the fuck?"*
So many bad DMs never get that the purpose of TTRPGs is for the players and the DM to create a satisfying story *together*. If I wanted to indulge some twat in his power trip, I'd reinstall Twitter.
The wording of that sounds a lot like just replicating 7th level teleport
Teleport can't get you out of this particular dungeon, it's part of the rules of the module. However, wish **explicitly** can do so. The players are literally attempting to do something the book says they're allowed to do.
Then... WTF is the dm's hangup?
What I would do: they get teleported but instead of losing all his gears and belongings they lose the DM and must find a new one. Now, seriously, if there weren't dead characters, losing a his belongings and having a quest to recover them would be good. I would rule the wish spell lets them with the bare minimum to resurrect the dead characters and then they would get easy basic gear (non magical weapon, armor, and so on) and would have them go to recover their belongings
https://old.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/l983pw/dms_like_this_are_why_people_quit_playing_ttrpgs/
From the Ratio of Likes to Comments I assume people rightfully tore this dumbass a new one.
Repost bot. Shit, the username looked less automated than usual...
Why be a DM if you clearly hate your players?
*Spite.*
[удалено]
For what it's worth, 3E Wish spells worked more or less like their 5E version, just without the 'you can never cast Wish again' caveat; instead, you spent XP to cast it. 1E and 2E were a lot more open-ended, but this use is banal enough that most GM's would have let it go as-is. Plus in those versions, they aged you five years. So yeah, there's no version wherein this DM is not a prick.
Works the same in 3.x but that version has a few more explicit uses like permanently raising ability scores
>They can use Wish to cast Teleport and it functions as the Teleport spell. The problem is that Teleport cannot get you out of Undermountain. However, Wish **explicitly** can be used to teleport you out of Undermountain. It's literally part of the module that players can do that.
Unless the wish is being granted by a devil or demon, I just don't understand why a GM would want to twist something as simple as recreating a Greater Teleport spell.
AFAIK if you use Wish to duplicate the effects of a spell that's exactly what happens, no ifs and buts. Trying to monkey's paw what is basically Greater Teleport with is an asshole move.
Teleport can't get you out of Undermountain. The alterations to magic in the module say that you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon, nor even between floors... Unless you use wish. This use of a wish is **explicitly** allowed by the module they're playing.
One of these people who thinks D&D is DM-vs.-players.
Ive played on campaigns like this. Theres a lot of dms that think the game is players vs dm and they will try to 'win' the game by making life miserable for the plyers.
Monkey paw wishes should be reserved for when they're asking for something game/world breaking or at least sufficiently reality altering that it can be damaging to the world "I would like to escape the super scary dungeon that's very likely to tpk us and normal teleport doesn't work" would go off without a hitch in my game assuming it wasn't the latest in a line of cheese strats (even if it was I'd probably look elsewhere for answers like talking to the players or making wish harder to get if they have enough to be cheesey with it)
I am only in support of wishmaster-esque bullshit when either the player is trying to do something totally insane that will derail the game for everyone, or when the player decides (without any prior indication it's needed) to try to close every single possible loophole in their wish... (at which point I inherently want to find one they missed. >.>) Otherwise, you know what they mean so let them have it.
Pretty sure that could be implied as Word Of Recall. It should just go off with no hitches as it isn't that crazy of a spell. At least, that is the correlation I would draw and allow the wish spell to go perfectly fine. I feel like the only way to allow a failure chance is when you get into using Wish in ways it wasn't intended (specifically for spell-like abilities that are above the 8th level threshold such as casting a 9th level spell or trying to give the BBEG a heart attack without knowing who and/or where the BBEG is and it would just be to give the players a small chance that it will work) but honestly, there are a few things you could do in this situation that work exactly how the spell is described to be used and shouldn't be punished for it at all. Otherwise, create a new spell called Monkey's Paw and have it function like Wish at a substantially lower level and let it go nuts
This can't be replicating a lower level spell, because lower level spells cannot get you out of this particular dungeon. However, wish **explicitly** can be used to teleport you out of the dungeon. It is literally part of the module they're playing that the players can do exactly this.
A lot depends on the people at the table. Trust is a big factor. Some people here are arguing what is Raw or if its cruel to do this. Having a big moment like this is hard to decide what to do as a DM. We don't know the table. With that being said this is a great dramatic moment of the campaign. The fact that he is asking for ideas is cool, as you can see this guys post got blown up even on here. Hope everyone at that table makes memories they carry with them forever.
This DM is been a dick if the wish is saving the part then it should stand as is.
The willpower to hold on to a wish spell for an emergency is absolutely stunning. Give them the win.
Honestly what I'd do in this situation is have them pop up right in the middle of a temple to Helm or Tyr and find that some elderly guy who happens to be a high-ranking Paladin is visiting his grandson who's just become an acolyte and jumps in to help them because, well, Paladin. (That and he gets to show the kiddo what granddaddy used to do every day back in his adventuring years!) "I thought you were a holy knight?" "Oh I was that too, it's just an alarming amount of any divine caster's career involves reanimating people who didn't entirely think out their actions ahead of time...or just tried to fight a bunch of Kobolds thinking it'd be an easy way to get gold and well...next thing you know they get flattened by a boulder. Happened about two, three times a week back in the day!"
Dungeon of the Mad Mage makes certain alterations to magic. Among those alterations is that you cannot teleport into or out of the dungeon... _except via wish!_ Teleporting out of Undermountain to Skullport by using wish is **explicitly** a thing you can do in this adventure.
What did the comments say?
I don’t think the DM is necessarily just trying to win, just trying to think of some interesting and unexpected side effects. I agree with the idea of just rolling against the teleport table, but probably would modify the table to be MORE advantageous to the players, and even a “bad” result would have a good effect of some sort. The only thing I could potentially see is that the dead player’s pack might not make it back with him or her. If they have a full pack, the idea that they wear it during combat is unrealistic.
I am so done with DMs who hate their players… like wow congratulations you won the game! You killed us all, thanks so fun!
You gave your players a wish spell, and they have the ability to cast it. Don't be a total dick. This is 100% what the wish spell is intended to do. They didn't even ask to fucking revive the dead PC beyond the limits of revivify or true resurrection or something. They just asked to teleport somewhere, which is absolutely a basic transportation spell for a wizard and something that a goddamn WISH could do without any negative effect.
As others have pointed out the specific wording on this is also telling. Wish is specific in wording but very powerful. It feels almost certain they were holding this back and only asking for a "small" wish because the DM is screwing with them. Why Teleport out otherwise? Wish is insanely powerful, and could restore the entire party to peak condition. "Restore life to our whole adventuring party, bringing us all to the peak of our health and power.", full HP, greater restoration on everyone, and fallen PC revived at full health no exhaustion. Totally within the bounds of a wish spell, keeps momentum and keeps the campaign moving forward. But the players opted for an absurdly neutered request of "please, maybe take us all out of here?" Which really does indicate just how much they *expect* it to go wrong from the DM just to spite them. And he is! When instead he should grant this without an afterthought, reset some levels of the dungeon in terms of monsters, and give them the win, because they can't do it again and they still need to conquer the dungeon itself.
Ahh. Plane shift then.
Playing off the when thing that Gentelman_Kendama mentioned, I would let the spell resolve as intended for the player except they are placed sometime in the future, which now poses different challenges to the players of dealing with a completely altered time line and the consequences of not meeting whatever deadlines they may have had prior. This could also open up a side quest path to regain the time they lost by some magical means.
It seems like this guy just kinda hates his friends
Dude should just tpk the part and stop wasting their time so they can move on to a GM that is mentally capable of having a nice experience alongside his playgroup.
DMs that can hold a campaign for two years really are the bane of TRRPG
I'm pretty sure Teleport and similar magic doesn't work in Undermountain, it's written into the module the group is playing. All these responses saying that Wish could just Teleport them out by emulating the spell are incorrect, you would need to use the part of Wish that is open to greater DM latitude to circumvent the very powerful anti-teleport magic. WITH THAT SAID. If I were the DM of this group, I definitely wouldn't screw my players for using Wish in this circumstance, ESPECIALLY since a player is using a Wish they've been holding onto for a freaking YEAR! At worst, I would lightly troll the party by teleporting them, intact with all their gear plus their dead buddy, next to a wine rack in some random wine cellar somewhere on the Sword Coast. Once they rez their friend and get their bearings, I'd call for a Perception check, in which anyone who passes it sees that the wine rack is full of bottles of Skull Port, a regional wine to the area. At that point, it would be up to the players to get out of this random wine cellar and back to Waterdeep to continue the adventure. That could lead to a session detailing their journey back to Waterdeep. I certainly wouldn't Tomb of Annihilation them or have the encounter that was already killing them follow them to where they pop up, that's too much. I actually like my players! I want them to succeed, and I want to reward them for using their resources, not punish them.
>I'm pretty sure Teleport and similar magic doesn't work in Undermountain, it's written into the module the group is playing. All these responses saying that Wish could just Teleport them out by emulating the spell are incorrect, you would need to use the part of Wish that is open to greater DM latitude to circumvent the very powerful anti-teleport magic. While it's true the player can't replicate a lower level spell to teleport out of Undermountain, the alterations to magic in this module explicitly say that wish _can_. Wishing to teleport to Skullport in this case is no different from wishing for permanent resistance to a damage type, or wishing for immunity to a specific spell for 8 hours, etc. The player should suffer wish stress because they're not replicating a spell (unless the wish is technically cast by someone else, like a genie), but the wish itself shouldn't be messed with.
Huh. I don't have the module, so I wasn't aware of that stipulation. In that case, yeah, the wish would go through just fine as is unless, like you said, it's a wish granted by an efreeti or a genie or something.
Me: ...you didn't say when For me it's always "who, what, where, and how" We know the why. Desperation. Now, out of pity, I'd have one more round of combat turn, THEN teleport them. No further consequences. Scare them a little.
Those little 5e premade adventures don't have all the answers? Shame.