Wishful Thinking: DM Tips for Granting D&D’s Most Powerful Spell

Few spells or abilities in dungeons & dragons are as powerful or open-ended as the Wish. Having the power to simply wish for whatever you want, and then have it given to you, is the stuff of legends. As a DM, how do you handle that?

In classical stories, someone might find a genie, or perhaps even make a deal with the devil himself, to obtain this level of phenomenal cosmic power! However, in D&D there are a few ways players can get access to wishes, and how a DM should deal with it is not easily answered.

I am going to attempt to walk you through some steps that should help you handle a player wish without derailing your campaign. If you are a player, I will go over some tips that will help your wish be something worth remembering and not a legendary disaster. ( like the time one of my fellow party members wanted to save us some time traveling north through a desert and we ended up in an arctic circle! ) 

Disclaimer: Several spells and effects produce effects similar to Wish,  such as Limited Wish. I am only dealing with the classic wish spell here.

Make a Wish, Kid!

If you are the player, you should ask your DM how they like their wishes worded.

Sometimes DMs want it straight and to the point, while others want it put together like a legal document. If the DM is expecting the wish worded in a different style than you say it, things may end badly. There really is no right or wrong answer here, but this is something that definitely needs to be on the table before any wish making occurs.

As a DM if there was a time limit on how long the player has to make the wish, I would allow a pause so this can be clarified. On the flip side, a DM has the right to say the player simply doesn’t know based on the character’s knowledge or would rather keep a degree of mystique surrounding the power of the wish. Both are fine if you want to play it like that, but you really need to know your audience so you don’t create a real problem at the table if the wish goes extremely south.

Setting DM Boundaries

The player can wish for absolutely anything that they want. However, as the person running the game, it’s ultimately for you to decide if that fits into the continuity of your world.

If a player wished for everyone in the kingdom besides themselves and their party to die would, you allow that? How about half of everyone in the kingdom? Or maybe, just a hundred?

Maybe on the first night of a full moon following the wish, it would mark the beginning of an undead apocalypse/invasion? ( One that is completely out of control of the players and would quickly spread into the neighboring kingdoms. Have fun with that!)

If the player asks for something off the wall like that, look and see if it can be replicated using an existing spell of some type.

For example, if the player was in a village and wished for everyone to die, maybe that could be handled with a well-placed, rolling Cloudkill (as opposed to power word kill, which could not be replicated because it’s level 9)?

Everyone needs to keep in mind that, while wishes are incredibly powerful, even Aladdin’s lamp can’t give you Jupiter.

Practice Safe Wishing

The more powerful the wish, the more careful the wisher should be with how it’s put together.

This is a principle that goes back to 1st and 2nd edition D&D, and I stand behind it in my games today. If a player wishes for a dying person to be healed, that should happen simply enough. However, if they wish to be king of a major empire, they might find themselves 200 years in the past when the throne was unoccupied. (And they might find themselves separated from the party.)

It has been said numerous times on our podcast that we teach our players how things in our campaign work with how we handle situations just like these. If they were fortunate enough to get access to a wish, then they should be allowed to do something neat with that. However, granting something neat does not mean making them vastly more powerful than all the players in the game so they have no chance of ever being on their level. 

Example: How would your players feel if you were in a 5th level party and one of their teammates wished for more experience points? And then the DM awarded them 50,0000 xp, which makes them 4 levels higher than everyone else?

Some people at the table might think that’s great. Others will be grumbling about how it took them 4 sessions to make it to level 5. Now, if the party was level 15, it wouldn’t be hardly as big a deal because that character would be just ahead of the curve.

So, to the players out there, while it’s up to the DM how the wish resolves, you should take into consideration that if you were granted the superpower of your dreams. Would you still have a party to enjoy it with?

While superman is really cool, I don’t know if I would really want him on my team. Because, why would my 6th-level ranger even be needed? In case we got lost in the woods? He would just fly up into space and look down at the earth and be like “Ah Ha! There’s that green dragon’s lair!” 

Mo’ Wishes, Mo’ Problems

A DM could be in a situation where one of your players accumulates not just one wish but several via something like a Luck Blade or the infamous Deck of Many Things. If one of your players is that fortunate, then they have a great magical treasure on their hands. However, even if someone has multiple wishes, it should not be enough to unravel the fabric of your campaign or your party. 

So how do you deal with multiple wishes?

If you are even thinking about adding the opportunity for wish(es) to be obtained in your game, then I would immediately establish some baselines in your head. For example, I would have an idea of how much I would allow a player to advance ability scores with a single wish. This also applied to gold or even XP – some DM’s would allow a player to wish for XP while others will not.

I would also take into consideration what level of magic item you would allow them to simply wish for. While I do believe you could wish for a powerful magical item, if it’s  powerful enough, its owner may come looking for it.

The best advice I can give here is that I would definitely take the level and strength of the party into consideration. Consider: If a 14th-level character acquires a major magical item via a wish ( it’s not so crazy right?), then what if a third level character acquired that same major magical item? The latter could prove to be a big headache for the DM and even the other players.

As a DM, don’t be afraid to establish that the use of wish comes with a degree of risk. What the players want may not turn out exactly as they intend, even if it is carefully worded or well-thought-out.

I am not advising you to crush their dreams. But what I’m saying is, if a player asks for powers that absolutely do not fit the continuity for the game, then it’s more important to  preserve that continuity than one player going off on a tangent. One thing I absolutely do not allow with wishes is time travel, don’t even go there. (At least not intentionally.) 

Final Thoughts

In conclusion: When a player has an opportunity to make a wish, they should be given a chance to run with that. However, I strongly recommend discussing, before the wishes are made, how the DM wants the wish worded and some general parameters of what they can wish for. Wishes are an amazing opportunity to allow players to give you free material for subplots. Let them play into your hands. ( Insert evil laugh here.) 

As a player, consider the long term effects of what you are wishing for, both on your character and your party.

Feel free to ignore all this advice, but be advised: You are working with live rounds.

Free Sample Wishes!

Below are some parameters for wishes I might grant, and I will leave the wording to fit the context of your game. I strongly advise that the DM take power scaling into consideration so a single wish doesn’t become a problem that will require several Tylenol and an overly complicated plot device to fix. 

• Ability scores: I would allow a player to raise any stat of two points to a maxim of 30. 
• Feats: Since feats are extremely powerful in 5E, I would allow them to gain one from a wish. 
• Skills: They could gain 3, just as they would with the feat ( see a pattern here yet?). 
• Gold: No one has ever wished for JUST gold in one of my campaigns. I would allow them what you would term as a large reward depending on the level they are at. If someone were to wish for a dragon’s horde, I would be fine with that, but the dragon would be included! Maybe the King would like to know why his treasure room is now empty. Let the wisher beware!
• XP: Like with wishing for gold, I am not a fan of this. However, if the player has their heart set, then I would consider the following: If a party spell caster is able to cast a wish spell, I would not allow them to grant themselves more power in that respect. However, if the wish is coming from an external source, like the Deck of Many Things, then other members of the party may have already gained a level or two (if they are not trapped in the phantom zone with general Zod). In this context, it seems reasonable to allow a player to advance to the minimum experience points needed to get to the next level. In other scenarios, I would lower the amount of XP that can be obtained, and, as the DM, you may just want to give the player a decent-sized XP reward at your discretion.
• Magical items:  I would use power scaling here. If a level 5 player wanted a staff of power, they might get a map to where one is. For a higher level player, I might drop them in a Lich’s lair where they can battle it for the magic staff (try and turn this to your advantage as a plot device).
• Time travel: Just don’t … Only Dr. Who does it well. 
• Gaining permanent abilities: I would allow a player to gain a power that replicates an existing spell. For example, I would allow them to gain the permanent ability to fly with a wish or even turn invisible. (They would still both require concentration to use.) 
• Other class abilities: I wouldn’t allow a wizard to simply wish to have the multiattack ability. Instead, I might allow them to gain the abilities of a level-1 martial character in terms of weapon and armor proficiencies, but not class features, hit points or saving throw proficiencies. 
• Clues and knowledge: I would allow the party to wish for information. However, if the information is too important to your storyline, I would give them more information they had on this subject without letting the cat out of the bag. 
• Altering reality itself: Unless you have the Reality Infinity Stone, I advise strongly against this. A player could wish to be the ruler over a small keep, for a kingdom to end its  long drought, or perhaps for a mighty dragon that has been terrorizing the nation to fall into a deep slumber. I wouldn’t recommend for them to roll out of bed and then announce that they are a child of Zeus and gain all of the power and fame associated with that. (Unless that’s a plot you want to run with, and then that player can enjoy having the Goddess Hera sending assassins and monsters to try and kill them for the rest of their careers. But I digress.)