At the end of a level 1 to 20 campaign, the heroes prepared to fight the BBEG: an ancient black shadow-dragon. They knew killing this foe was a risky proposition, because his minions on the far side of the world had means to resurrect him. They might take time to do so, but being heroes, they didn't want to leave the world with a future problem.
So they had prepared what they needed for an minimus containment [imprisonment](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/imprisonment):
* They had the rare black-diamond gemstone from an engagement ring returned to the paladin by his spurned fiance.
* Instead of the traditional material component of imprisonment, they had the dragon's taxidermied tail-tip, borrowed from from a collection of historic artefacts. (As DM, I allowed this, it seemed very fitting.)
* The tail-tip had been severed during a scene played out as part of [legend lore](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/legend-lore). The players played as heroes from the past who battled the dragon, one of them critically hit at the tail, so it became lore it was damaged and taken by the history figure as a trophy.
The heroes battled the dragon and his unending army of shadow monsters. They burned through all the Legendary Saving Throws. They forced the dragon to the ground and were on the verge of slaying it.
The wizard, meanwhile, knew he only had one shot with *imprisonment*. To help his chances, he cast *wish*. The player described how his kenku wizard cast the spell, wracking his body. He described his prize arcane focus -- an arcane orb from a lost race -- cracking and disintegrating from the effort. His wish? "I wish that the dragon will fail its saving throw against my next spell." (Not sure if he used that jargon, but that was the intent.)
As the dragon dropped to 0 hit points, that last spell was *imprisonment*.
Very good point! From memory, the wizard got a round or two head-start into it as the party took the BBEG to 0 hit points. In the meantime, I can't remember if the BBEG stabilised naturally or if the heroes used *spare the dying* or a medicine check. They were very mindful that he needed to be kept alive.
Turned back time to avoid a TPK.
Long story short, we entered a dungeon chamber low on resources and were stomped by a deadly encounter.
My rogue was the last one standing and had a wish in his pocket, he had planned to use it for other things but facing death he wished they nevered entered that chamber.
Time turned back and he was able to convince the party to not enter until they had prepared.
I had a player use wishes to become human to get around demihuman level restrictions in second edition. I know he definitely managed to be an elf with his extra levels in the end, but I don't remember what workaround he used. It was pretty well done, I remember being impressed.
Thanks to a random loot table, we got a ring of 3 wishes at the single digit levels...
We burned one to awaken a cow.
That cow, throughout the campaign, kept showing up, and was forming an uprising.
It was glorious.
Our party had been regularly dealing with a Devil who called himself D. D and our warlock Raymon hated each other. Raymon found a luck sword that had 2 charges left and got to work. He wrote up a soul binding contract. He then used the wish spell to learn the Devils true name. In our campaign, learning a Devil or Demons true name gives you power over them. Raymon then used the name to forcefully summon D and presented the contract. In exchange for signing the contract D's true name would be erased from Raymon's memory. D nat 1'd an intelligence check and missed some key details in the contract and basically became a slave.
Most commonly: Copy a spell 8th level or lower.
One PC used it to save an important NPC who was definitely planned to die by the DM.
One PC in another game just used to return to her original race.
One of my PCs used a wish spell to stop being an abomination after undergoing an unwilling transformation earlier in the campaign.
One character who got a wish from a Genie ended up wishing to be taller, that's probably the most frivolous wish.
The Empress was sick and dying and succession crisis loomed on the horizon. So, the players being good little patriots, when they found a wish-granting item wished for a powerful artifact whig they knew about beforehand - a staff capable of curing any sickness, even ailments normally only curable by wish. I was pretty proud of them for coming up with this wish, because it's kinda selfless (they kept the staff afterwards) and was based on their knowledge of in-game lore. The Empress rewarded them with fancy pegasus mounts, magic rings and then went to kick the BBEG's ass personally.
Two PCs were dead and so was one beloved NPC, and their draconic ally had been corrupted into an undead abomination. A surviving PC wished for his friends to be restored to full health and healed. It was such a clutch use of wish when the party were at their wits end…
Pretty packed tavern, one of the patrons turned out to be a BBEG sleeper agent. He morphed into a huge demon and went on a killing spree. The party started intervening and that's when the druid used a AoE spell that killed some kids too. My Wizard used Wish to bring the kids back which caused her to suffer the combined damage the kids suffered (almost bringing her to 0HP) and she failed the "Wish reuse save" so she cannot use Wish ever again. Druid was unapologetic af, some good RP ensued.
Same campaign, we met some creatures that essentially could sacrifice their own lifes to cast Wish if ordered to do so. We faced the BBEG's right hand that day and it was not going well at all. She took upon herself to make the creature sacrifice itself to cast a 8th level Desintegration spell. Thankfully the enemy failed his saving throw.
PC: "I wish the moon was gone."
DM: "Okay"
PC: "Why is the moon still in the sky?"
DM: "Who said that was a moon? You now notice cracks begin to appear, as the cosmic egg begins to hatch."
In Curse of Strahd they found a >!luckblade with one wish left!< which I totally forgot was in the module lol. I was generous and hinted that certain wishes wouldn't work (as per the module wishing for Strahd to be dead wouldn't work, wishing to escape to Barovia wouldn't work).
They spent a good while thinking about what to wish for. They got back to me with an extremely specifically worded wish that I don't have anymore, but basically said "We wish for the good deities of Faerun such as [lists nearly all the good deities] to once again have presence and power in Barovia."
The Curse of Strahd community gave me a lot of recommendations on how to screw them over with this wish, but it was near the end of a long campaign and I wanted to give it to them. So it simply... worked. It didn't have a big effect on them honestly, but I tried to RP a lot of small positive changes to bring an atmosphere of renewed hope into the lands.
The biggest effects were as follows: the soulless people in Barovia who were just bland depressing husks suddenly have souls, they got to see some touching scenes where a soulless father suddenly starts crying and embracing his children. The Abbott >!who was a corrupted Deva originally sent to Barovia by the party Cleric's god, had a sudden alignment shift back to good, stopped doing the weird flesh crafting stuff he was up to, was nicer to the mongrelfolk he created, and sought out the Cleric to repent of his sins. She forgave him and he helped the party along with his saner mongrelfolk and golems in the last battle. That was the most material benefit they got from the wish.!< The sun was a little brighter but was still trapped behind the clouds so long as Strahd is alive. The moon felt more comforting and less sinister. There were small signs of the gods as well, such as a blue star for Corellon.
After their wish they gathered up all their allies to talk about the final attack on Ravenloft. Strahd had been amassing his forces to the castle grounds (undead armies, werewolves, etc). So the plan was for them to charge the castle and fight those forces, while the Party snuck in to >!use their Dark Gift from the Amber Tenple to resurrected Strahd's dead beother Sergei, give him his sunsword back, and then kill Strahd alongside him.!< The Paladin on his black horse got the final hit against Strahd on his nightmare, was pretty cool.
Afterwards, they reunited Sergei with Ireena (who they had killed early on and then later brought back as a halfling through Reincarnation, which was weird but yeah) and nominated the Abbott to be the next Lord of the Domain of Barovia, hoping he'll be able to withstand getting corrupted a second time. The party went home and the allies they had that wanted to leave also left. Sergei and Ireena led a bunch of Barovian refugees who wanted to leave into Faerun.
In my early years of DMing (a time period I refer to as Year 1), I had a friend that would always Wish to become a dragon. It always within the last three or four sessions so I let it fly. He has not Wished to do so again in I don’t know how many years.
A wish chain. Specifically several had wish, so if one failed the 33% roll another would wish for that to be rerolled. Each successive link in the wish chain reduced the chance of permanently losing the ability by a third, they managed to get ten casts off making them all resistant to all damage without losing it once.
While in the Feywild, my crew just had a little side quest thanks to the Deck of Many Things. The Cleric drew the Void card, and because the Warlock is bound to him thanks to Archfey shenanigans, they both ended up being shunted off to Gods only know where. The Ranger and the Druid used a Wish from Titania to go to their location and rescue them both. Facing a two-headed Helldrake who was guarding the vessel, the Warlock called upon help from the God of Shadows (a PC from another campaign who is now an NPC is this one) to help them and then he sent them back to their airship in the Feywild. They are now indebted to two Archfey, a minor God, and Loki, who is the Cleric's Patron.
I went outside the "copy 8th spell or lower" use twice.
The first time was while the party was fighting Tromokratis and getting the absolute business from its tentacle attacks, with damage output that exceeded how quickly we could heal from it. So I burned a Wish to make the party and some present NPCs resist bludgeoning damage, and it was clutch, but also meant I had to spend the rest of the battle with Wish fatigue.
The second time was at the end of the campaign, when my tiefling sorceress Wished to have a lifespan that matched that of her Gnome husband and children.
The Fighter got a Wish spell from the Deck of Many Things and used it to wish for our Bard back after he died during the final battle against an Emerald Dragon.
Before that, we'd threatened to wish the death of an NPC that made vague threats against a friend of ours because the DM said they didn't plan for him to be considered an enemy/bad guy.
I've used wish exactly once and in it my ranger, Estalla "Blaze" Sergandi, wished to be able to create magical fire rather than just using tinderboxes and torches.
Since it was the last session the DM ruled she got a custom boon that let her cast fireball 1/day. Bragging rights reward since we had finished the campaign, but still neat.
I had previously (and unexpectedly) 'Akued' my party l by throwing them forward in time, from our hombrew psuedo eberron, into what was essentially a Dark Suns future. They learned the basics of what happened and what was currently going on and eventually found a portal in an old castle that led into the Supreme archwizard's tower. There they found a scroll of wish and wished themselves back to their correct place in time. Now they are working hard to undo the evil that is.... I guess me.
Right but if they hadn't have gone forward in time to the Evil Future they couldn't have made the wish. If they're successful in stopping the BBEG then it is impossible for them to have gone into the Evil Future to make that wish to go back in time so they could undo the Evil Future.
Ah, but have you considered triple BBEG, but one of them is double crossing the other 2 by helping the party only to triple cross the party at the end after they kill the other 2?
Well, it's Dyrrn, I feel like he'd just merge with himself to become mega dyrrn. I'm considering luring the party into a false premise by having all of his ground troops occasionally explode from being in the wrong time-line, but not work on him.
Final adventuring day of the campaign had 3 wishes:
> 1. Wish for several creatures to be immune to the effects of the Dispel Magic spell. Several NPCs in the past had dispelled Simulacrums and Planar Bound creatures.
> 2. Wish for immunity to the effects of Soul Chill. This is a mechanic unique to the BBEG and its minions, it's main threat is possibly turning affected creatures over to the BBEGs control.
> 3. Wish for all their allies to regain all hit points during the boss fight.
Altogether I was fine with the first two, they are clever reactions to things the party knew the baddies would try against them. The third one was what I considered bad for the game, simply because the party had been fighting for 4 real-life hours at that point. Having them get all their hit points back really felt like my BBEG had lost all the progress they'd made whittling down these powerful PCs.
I had a long arc where one player had this orb with a skull in it who was friendly. Over the course of the campaign they learned about the person trapped in it and it was basically a necromantic version of an imprisonment spell that a Lich had trapped this person in 1500 years ago. And they used Wish among some other things to break him out and bring him back to life.
I've also seen it used / used it myself for lots of spell duplication. Lots of good choices there and if you have regular access to wish then I would mostly stick to that.
I also was a player in a campaign where all 4 of us at the end got a wish because of the power involved in something. I already had access to wish so used it for a spell duplication to not lose it, but the others used it to reshape the world in some ways. There was an island that only returned like once a century that we had the final boss on and they wished for that to remain on the world. That also had some big ramifications in the next campaign as this new island was there more permanently and had different races and magical stuff there.
I have seen wish cast four times. Once to create a simulacrum (they understand how rules prevent further cheese), and the rest with selecting the option to heal the party back to full. Once while fighting a Red Great Wurm, 2 more times while fighting Tiamat with the Ring of 3 Wishes. Honestly wasn't that bad.
Wishes I've seen:
1st/2nd edition---Wishing for the lifespan of a grey elf. Also seen this one in later editions. This one isn't very significant in the scope of ordinary campaign activity but is huge from a worldbuilding standpoint.
3.x Wishes for inherent bonus to X stat. Saw this one a lot.
Wish for a simulacrum to be a 'real girl'. PC really liked her and the simulacrum was of a woman who really wanted children so she inherited that desire.
To undo brain damage her charm magic caused in a central npc from her backstory. Cast it as soon as she could prepare wish and immediately lost it. Changing the past also changed her from an enchantress to an evoker. She pretty immediately regretted not using it on actual plot problems XD
Other mostly uses it to mimic teleport spell
My old, former alcoholic, evocation wizard was a shit father to his now-adult daughter, to the degree that she decided to apprentice with the big-bad wizard-turned-eldritch abomination. His daughter was injured during the fight and the evil wizard offered to let her leave unharmed if my wizard took his place as lord of the dungeon. He made a big show of ruminating over this decision while he used his one metamagic of the day to subtle spell wish, banishing the evil wizard to the far realm.
The fighter in my group acquired a very powerful relic that he couldn't use properly as it either required a very strong connection to the wind crystal, or to be personally trained by Odin in how to use it. I was going to be a very cool build up over time as he slowly unlocked powers. Then I threw the deck of many things at my players and the chaos gremlin pulled from the deck and ended up getting 3 wishes... One was to give the fighter a strong connection to the wind crystal.
My players had a one time use item that would give them a wish without wish stress, but the item was fragile and there were decent odds of breaking it if they got into combat while carrying it. They were level 11 or 12, IIRC.
They turned a corner and saw a sleeping adult red dragon, so they backed up to prepare for the fight, and used the wish to give themselves permanent fire resistance.
The dragon was an illusion covering a gorgon who was not asleep.
(They did fight an actual red dragon a bit later, so it's not like their wish was wasted.)
5 year long game. My very innocent monk was the only survivor of a massive fight, part of that fight had involved freeing a trapped Djinn. The Djinn very grouchily asked what I wanted (the word wish was never used). I said "I just wish my friends were alive." DM started laughing. I didn't just bring back the party, but like 7 other characters that we had lost on the way. There was a lot of confusion for a while as several players had dead characters returned to them.
I've wished for legendary items before. This is one of my preferred ways to use wish, because you get something you'll likely have, and benefit from for the rest of the campaign.
Currently playing a wizard with Wish. I use it to cast 8th or lower spells that my character doesn't know or have access to. It's fun to get creative with it and cast something different each time.
At the end of a level 1 to 20 campaign, the heroes prepared to fight the BBEG: an ancient black shadow-dragon. They knew killing this foe was a risky proposition, because his minions on the far side of the world had means to resurrect him. They might take time to do so, but being heroes, they didn't want to leave the world with a future problem. So they had prepared what they needed for an minimus containment [imprisonment](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/imprisonment): * They had the rare black-diamond gemstone from an engagement ring returned to the paladin by his spurned fiance. * Instead of the traditional material component of imprisonment, they had the dragon's taxidermied tail-tip, borrowed from from a collection of historic artefacts. (As DM, I allowed this, it seemed very fitting.) * The tail-tip had been severed during a scene played out as part of [legend lore](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/legend-lore). The players played as heroes from the past who battled the dragon, one of them critically hit at the tail, so it became lore it was damaged and taken by the history figure as a trophy. The heroes battled the dragon and his unending army of shadow monsters. They burned through all the Legendary Saving Throws. They forced the dragon to the ground and were on the verge of slaying it. The wizard, meanwhile, knew he only had one shot with *imprisonment*. To help his chances, he cast *wish*. The player described how his kenku wizard cast the spell, wracking his body. He described his prize arcane focus -- an arcane orb from a lost race -- cracking and disintegrating from the effort. His wish? "I wish that the dragon will fail its saving throw against my next spell." (Not sure if he used that jargon, but that was the intent.) As the dragon dropped to 0 hit points, that last spell was *imprisonment*.
By the gods. That was so fucking awesome. All of it
How did you get around the 1 minute casting time? Just timing so it hit 0 the same round you finished casting?
Very good point! From memory, the wizard got a round or two head-start into it as the party took the BBEG to 0 hit points. In the meantime, I can't remember if the BBEG stabilised naturally or if the heroes used *spare the dying* or a medicine check. They were very mindful that he needed to be kept alive.
Honesty at that point a rule of cool would be perfectly fitting anyway.
Turned back time to avoid a TPK. Long story short, we entered a dungeon chamber low on resources and were stomped by a deadly encounter. My rogue was the last one standing and had a wish in his pocket, he had planned to use it for other things but facing death he wished they nevered entered that chamber. Time turned back and he was able to convince the party to not enter until they had prepared.
My half elf asked to become an elf.
My dragonborn wished to become a dragon.
My human wished to become a man
This
Racial purity acquired.
Heil.
I had a player use wishes to become human to get around demihuman level restrictions in second edition. I know he definitely managed to be an elf with his extra levels in the end, but I don't remember what workaround he used. It was pretty well done, I remember being impressed.
Thanks to a random loot table, we got a ring of 3 wishes at the single digit levels... We burned one to awaken a cow. That cow, throughout the campaign, kept showing up, and was forming an uprising. It was glorious.
Animal Farm meets D&D?
Making their fortress impenetrable. They never again could set foot in their fortress.
Our party had been regularly dealing with a Devil who called himself D. D and our warlock Raymon hated each other. Raymon found a luck sword that had 2 charges left and got to work. He wrote up a soul binding contract. He then used the wish spell to learn the Devils true name. In our campaign, learning a Devil or Demons true name gives you power over them. Raymon then used the name to forcefully summon D and presented the contract. In exchange for signing the contract D's true name would be erased from Raymon's memory. D nat 1'd an intelligence check and missed some key details in the contract and basically became a slave.
>Look at me…..I am de captain now. - Raymon, probably.
It was more like this D: “I go by D. And you are?” Raymon: “better than you.”
Did he hate those who live in death?
Nope. If this is a reference then I don’t get it
Exponentially more awesome than mine, I hope they got inspiration for that one lol.
Most commonly: Copy a spell 8th level or lower. One PC used it to save an important NPC who was definitely planned to die by the DM. One PC in another game just used to return to her original race. One of my PCs used a wish spell to stop being an abomination after undergoing an unwilling transformation earlier in the campaign. One character who got a wish from a Genie ended up wishing to be taller, that's probably the most frivolous wish.
The Empress was sick and dying and succession crisis loomed on the horizon. So, the players being good little patriots, when they found a wish-granting item wished for a powerful artifact whig they knew about beforehand - a staff capable of curing any sickness, even ailments normally only curable by wish. I was pretty proud of them for coming up with this wish, because it's kinda selfless (they kept the staff afterwards) and was based on their knowledge of in-game lore. The Empress rewarded them with fancy pegasus mounts, magic rings and then went to kick the BBEG's ass personally.
>artifact whig heh heh heh
Two PCs were dead and so was one beloved NPC, and their draconic ally had been corrupted into an undead abomination. A surviving PC wished for his friends to be restored to full health and healed. It was such a clutch use of wish when the party were at their wits end…
Pretty packed tavern, one of the patrons turned out to be a BBEG sleeper agent. He morphed into a huge demon and went on a killing spree. The party started intervening and that's when the druid used a AoE spell that killed some kids too. My Wizard used Wish to bring the kids back which caused her to suffer the combined damage the kids suffered (almost bringing her to 0HP) and she failed the "Wish reuse save" so she cannot use Wish ever again. Druid was unapologetic af, some good RP ensued. Same campaign, we met some creatures that essentially could sacrifice their own lifes to cast Wish if ordered to do so. We faced the BBEG's right hand that day and it was not going well at all. She took upon herself to make the creature sacrifice itself to cast a 8th level Desintegration spell. Thankfully the enemy failed his saving throw.
I tried to wish away the moon once
PC: "I wish the moon was gone." DM: "Okay" PC: "Why is the moon still in the sky?" DM: "Who said that was a moon? You now notice cracks begin to appear, as the cosmic egg begins to hatch."
what happened then
"No"
Piccolo: Stop mocking me! [Boom]
In Curse of Strahd they found a >!luckblade with one wish left!< which I totally forgot was in the module lol. I was generous and hinted that certain wishes wouldn't work (as per the module wishing for Strahd to be dead wouldn't work, wishing to escape to Barovia wouldn't work). They spent a good while thinking about what to wish for. They got back to me with an extremely specifically worded wish that I don't have anymore, but basically said "We wish for the good deities of Faerun such as [lists nearly all the good deities] to once again have presence and power in Barovia." The Curse of Strahd community gave me a lot of recommendations on how to screw them over with this wish, but it was near the end of a long campaign and I wanted to give it to them. So it simply... worked. It didn't have a big effect on them honestly, but I tried to RP a lot of small positive changes to bring an atmosphere of renewed hope into the lands. The biggest effects were as follows: the soulless people in Barovia who were just bland depressing husks suddenly have souls, they got to see some touching scenes where a soulless father suddenly starts crying and embracing his children. The Abbott >!who was a corrupted Deva originally sent to Barovia by the party Cleric's god, had a sudden alignment shift back to good, stopped doing the weird flesh crafting stuff he was up to, was nicer to the mongrelfolk he created, and sought out the Cleric to repent of his sins. She forgave him and he helped the party along with his saner mongrelfolk and golems in the last battle. That was the most material benefit they got from the wish.!< The sun was a little brighter but was still trapped behind the clouds so long as Strahd is alive. The moon felt more comforting and less sinister. There were small signs of the gods as well, such as a blue star for Corellon. After their wish they gathered up all their allies to talk about the final attack on Ravenloft. Strahd had been amassing his forces to the castle grounds (undead armies, werewolves, etc). So the plan was for them to charge the castle and fight those forces, while the Party snuck in to >!use their Dark Gift from the Amber Tenple to resurrected Strahd's dead beother Sergei, give him his sunsword back, and then kill Strahd alongside him.!< The Paladin on his black horse got the final hit against Strahd on his nightmare, was pretty cool. Afterwards, they reunited Sergei with Ireena (who they had killed early on and then later brought back as a halfling through Reincarnation, which was weird but yeah) and nominated the Abbott to be the next Lord of the Domain of Barovia, hoping he'll be able to withstand getting corrupted a second time. The party went home and the allies they had that wanted to leave also left. Sergei and Ireena led a bunch of Barovian refugees who wanted to leave into Faerun.
In my early years of DMing (a time period I refer to as Year 1), I had a friend that would always Wish to become a dragon. It always within the last three or four sessions so I let it fly. He has not Wished to do so again in I don’t know how many years.
A wish chain. Specifically several had wish, so if one failed the 33% roll another would wish for that to be rerolled. Each successive link in the wish chain reduced the chance of permanently losing the ability by a third, they managed to get ten casts off making them all resistant to all damage without losing it once.
While in the Feywild, my crew just had a little side quest thanks to the Deck of Many Things. The Cleric drew the Void card, and because the Warlock is bound to him thanks to Archfey shenanigans, they both ended up being shunted off to Gods only know where. The Ranger and the Druid used a Wish from Titania to go to their location and rescue them both. Facing a two-headed Helldrake who was guarding the vessel, the Warlock called upon help from the God of Shadows (a PC from another campaign who is now an NPC is this one) to help them and then he sent them back to their airship in the Feywild. They are now indebted to two Archfey, a minor God, and Loki, who is the Cleric's Patron.
I went outside the "copy 8th spell or lower" use twice. The first time was while the party was fighting Tromokratis and getting the absolute business from its tentacle attacks, with damage output that exceeded how quickly we could heal from it. So I burned a Wish to make the party and some present NPCs resist bludgeoning damage, and it was clutch, but also meant I had to spend the rest of the battle with Wish fatigue. The second time was at the end of the campaign, when my tiefling sorceress Wished to have a lifespan that matched that of her Gnome husband and children.
The Fighter got a Wish spell from the Deck of Many Things and used it to wish for our Bard back after he died during the final battle against an Emerald Dragon. Before that, we'd threatened to wish the death of an NPC that made vague threats against a friend of ours because the DM said they didn't plan for him to be considered an enemy/bad guy.
I've used wish exactly once and in it my ranger, Estalla "Blaze" Sergandi, wished to be able to create magical fire rather than just using tinderboxes and torches. Since it was the last session the DM ruled she got a custom boon that let her cast fireball 1/day. Bragging rights reward since we had finished the campaign, but still neat.
I had previously (and unexpectedly) 'Akued' my party l by throwing them forward in time, from our hombrew psuedo eberron, into what was essentially a Dark Suns future. They learned the basics of what happened and what was currently going on and eventually found a portal in an old castle that led into the Supreme archwizard's tower. There they found a scroll of wish and wished themselves back to their correct place in time. Now they are working hard to undo the evil that is.... I guess me.
Ooh, time travel paradox.
Yeah, they were smart with their wording, so they avoided any shenanigans and went straight back to the second they initially left.
Right but if they hadn't have gone forward in time to the Evil Future they couldn't have made the wish. If they're successful in stopping the BBEG then it is impossible for them to have gone into the Evil Future to make that wish to go back in time so they could undo the Evil Future.
Behind the curtain it's a timeline split
Oh no, a potential invasion from another time line. Or...OOOH BBEG teams up with himself
Yeah, I've considered a double bbeg situation, could be pretty cool
Ah, but have you considered triple BBEG, but one of them is double crossing the other 2 by helping the party only to triple cross the party at the end after they kill the other 2?
Well, it's Dyrrn, I feel like he'd just merge with himself to become mega dyrrn. I'm considering luring the party into a false premise by having all of his ground troops occasionally explode from being in the wrong time-line, but not work on him.
One of my players pulled the wish card from a deck of many things. He was level 7 at the time. He wished for a bag of holding. Lol
I had a pc wish for more wishes after I warned him that it wasn't a good idea and I rolled a d100 looking for under a 5 and got a 3 so he imploded.
Final adventuring day of the campaign had 3 wishes: > 1. Wish for several creatures to be immune to the effects of the Dispel Magic spell. Several NPCs in the past had dispelled Simulacrums and Planar Bound creatures. > 2. Wish for immunity to the effects of Soul Chill. This is a mechanic unique to the BBEG and its minions, it's main threat is possibly turning affected creatures over to the BBEGs control. > 3. Wish for all their allies to regain all hit points during the boss fight. Altogether I was fine with the first two, they are clever reactions to things the party knew the baddies would try against them. The third one was what I considered bad for the game, simply because the party had been fighting for 4 real-life hours at that point. Having them get all their hit points back really felt like my BBEG had lost all the progress they'd made whittling down these powerful PCs.
I had a long arc where one player had this orb with a skull in it who was friendly. Over the course of the campaign they learned about the person trapped in it and it was basically a necromantic version of an imprisonment spell that a Lich had trapped this person in 1500 years ago. And they used Wish among some other things to break him out and bring him back to life. I've also seen it used / used it myself for lots of spell duplication. Lots of good choices there and if you have regular access to wish then I would mostly stick to that. I also was a player in a campaign where all 4 of us at the end got a wish because of the power involved in something. I already had access to wish so used it for a spell duplication to not lose it, but the others used it to reshape the world in some ways. There was an island that only returned like once a century that we had the final boss on and they wished for that to remain on the world. That also had some big ramifications in the next campaign as this new island was there more permanently and had different races and magical stuff there.
I have seen wish cast four times. Once to create a simulacrum (they understand how rules prevent further cheese), and the rest with selecting the option to heal the party back to full. Once while fighting a Red Great Wurm, 2 more times while fighting Tiamat with the Ring of 3 Wishes. Honestly wasn't that bad.
Wishes I've seen: 1st/2nd edition---Wishing for the lifespan of a grey elf. Also seen this one in later editions. This one isn't very significant in the scope of ordinary campaign activity but is huge from a worldbuilding standpoint. 3.x Wishes for inherent bonus to X stat. Saw this one a lot. Wish for a simulacrum to be a 'real girl'. PC really liked her and the simulacrum was of a woman who really wanted children so she inherited that desire.
To undo brain damage her charm magic caused in a central npc from her backstory. Cast it as soon as she could prepare wish and immediately lost it. Changing the past also changed her from an enchantress to an evoker. She pretty immediately regretted not using it on actual plot problems XD Other mostly uses it to mimic teleport spell
"it's only a 33% chance to fail. It definitely won't happen the first time I ever cast Wish"
My old, former alcoholic, evocation wizard was a shit father to his now-adult daughter, to the degree that she decided to apprentice with the big-bad wizard-turned-eldritch abomination. His daughter was injured during the fight and the evil wizard offered to let her leave unharmed if my wizard took his place as lord of the dungeon. He made a big show of ruminating over this decision while he used his one metamagic of the day to subtle spell wish, banishing the evil wizard to the far realm.
The fighter in my group acquired a very powerful relic that he couldn't use properly as it either required a very strong connection to the wind crystal, or to be personally trained by Odin in how to use it. I was going to be a very cool build up over time as he slowly unlocked powers. Then I threw the deck of many things at my players and the chaos gremlin pulled from the deck and ended up getting 3 wishes... One was to give the fighter a strong connection to the wind crystal.
"I wish you were free" The geniee was evil... they freed an evil geniee.
My players had a one time use item that would give them a wish without wish stress, but the item was fragile and there were decent odds of breaking it if they got into combat while carrying it. They were level 11 or 12, IIRC. They turned a corner and saw a sleeping adult red dragon, so they backed up to prepare for the fight, and used the wish to give themselves permanent fire resistance. The dragon was an illusion covering a gorgon who was not asleep. (They did fight an actual red dragon a bit later, so it's not like their wish was wasted.)
5 year long game. My very innocent monk was the only survivor of a massive fight, part of that fight had involved freeing a trapped Djinn. The Djinn very grouchily asked what I wanted (the word wish was never used). I said "I just wish my friends were alive." DM started laughing. I didn't just bring back the party, but like 7 other characters that we had lost on the way. There was a lot of confusion for a while as several players had dead characters returned to them.
I've wished for legendary items before. This is one of my preferred ways to use wish, because you get something you'll likely have, and benefit from for the rest of the campaign.
"I wish we were clean... I hate being smelly..." Yeah, I gave them soap...
Currently playing a wizard with Wish. I use it to cast 8th or lower spells that my character doesn't know or have access to. It's fun to get creative with it and cast something different each time.
My Barbarian wished to go to hell because that's where his estranged daughter was. He came back later.
I had a player use Wish to make a character stop speaking in an old western voice.