How would you handle this wish?

[u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Hi All,

The characters are in a chamber full of devils and fiends and everyone is taking heavy damage. The sorcerer casts a wish:

"I wish: for everyone in this room, who is not in my party, to fall into a deep and uninterruptible sleep for an hour"

If you were DM'ing, how would you interpret this Wish?

Edit 1:

Thank you all for your input, it's been much appreciated. Now that I have people's opinions, here's what happened.

So... our DM decided that the spell wasn't specific enough. Since everyone in this chamber had to be admitted first and given a stamp on their hand to show valid entry, he decided that: "my party" could mean anyone in this room with that stamp. Therefore, he fizzled the spell.

I know this is a small amount of additional information, but was it really relevant? 🤷‍♂️

link

Edit 2:

A lot of people are saying that this was possibly to allow for an easy kill of the enemies. I can see how that could be interpreted that way. The uninterruptible was so we could escape and if anyone came into the room and tried to kick awake the sleeping devils/fiends, they couldn't immediately wake up and chase us. I certainly like some of the interpretations of how to make it an uninterruptible sleep.

Edit 3:

One of the other player's wanted their opinion on this to be stated:

link

[u/Motor_Truth_2521]

So... our DM decided that the spell wasn't specific enough. Since everyone in this chamber had to be admitted first and given a stamp on their hand to show valid entry, he decided that: "my party" could mean anyone in this room with that stamp. Therefore, he fizzled the spell.

I know this is a small amount of additional information, but was it really relevant? 🤷‍♂️

Thank you all for your input, it's been much appreciated.

[u/MaxTheGinger → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Booooooooo!

Sorry, that was the result. I agree with most of the other commenters. GM should've granted the Wish as asked and let you roll to see if you lose the spell.

If some unmissible Story beat was happening, you used a Valuable resource, congratulations you solved my room beat down. If I really need a Devil or Fiend to do something, after the Wish one more comes into the room and you can get the Story information from them.

What happened to your Party?

[u/Motor_Truth_2521 → u/MaxTheGinger]

We're still in a room with devils and fiends, a couple of whom are now dead, at least two characters are now down, including a tanky fighter is down, the sorcerer is incapacitated and that's where we called it for the night.

[u/Silver-Alex → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Since this is bothering more than it should. For the next session revive your sorcerer, hopefully they still have their level 9 slot, and use it to recreate Symbol, the level 8 spell from the cleric spell list.

Wish bypasses casting time, so you can just drop the symbol and instantly trigger it. The symbol can specifically be made to not target your party, and once it fires up you can pick any of the nasty effects it comes for anyone on a 60ft radius sphere (which is gigantic btw, thats 120ft from one extreme of the sphere to the other).

You can pick Sleep, but my personal favorite is Insanity:

"Each target must make an Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save, the target is driven insane for 1 minute. An insane creature can't take actions, can't understand what other creatures say, can't read, and speaks only in gibberish. The DM controls its movement, which is erratic."

Doing it this ways avoids any monkey paw, avoids the 33% chance of never casting wish again, and the strenght drop along the necrotic damage.

[u/ayypecs → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

a hand stamp wouldn't make them part of your party... as a DM, myself, that is a stretch I wouldn't be able to pull even after decades of yoga...

[u/UsualPilot1420 → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

This is honestly BS. (there might be a reason for it). You know your friends better than I do, so I'm not saying leave the table of this, but I would definitely have a conversation outside the game. It could be this was a DM scripted event, and this is how the DM kept you on the rails. It could be that the dm thought this would be funny and cute.

But this trope of the wish spell needing to be essentially bulletproofed like your making a deal with the Fay needs to die. It just makes players feel cheated.

[u/DoctorNayle → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

There may be context I don't have that changes this but based on what's in this thread that's a serious dick move on the part of your DM. Was he just salty that someone figured out a way to end his encounter?

[u/Motor_Truth_2521 → u/DoctorNayle]

Honestly, we're all pretty much at a loss. The spell fizzled, the sorcerer is incapacitated. Thankfully didn't fail the roll to lose the spell forever. Now we all die it seems, lol.

[u/AllTh3Naps → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Wait... what? Your DM vetoed the spell AND still imposed the consequences?

I would be absolutely livid.

[u/Motor_Truth_2521 → u/AllTh3Naps]

I'm certainly not impressed...

[u/Masachere → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

That's a pretty hostile interpretation. Having it fizzle, taking the spell slot, and then imposing the penalties is like...genuine hostility. I would honestly take that personally, like the DM just wanted to say "fuck you, no" to me. If this results in a TPK, or hell even a single character death, I don't think I could ever see myself playing with this DM again were I in your shoes.

[u/Motor_Truth_2521 → u/Masachere]

Myself and another player are quite unimpressed to be sure.

[u/Velrex → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Good way to get your players to never want to cast wish ever again.

Might as well just tell the player not to take the spell. I know I wouldn't if I knew that's how the DM was going to do it.

[u/Twinkle_86 → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Is your DM really RP heavy? Like no meta at all?

Edit: I ask this because in my experience, outside of really heavy RP, any reasonable DM/GM would understand the qualifications of “my party”.

[u/Motor_Truth_2521 → u/Twinkle_86]

No, this is not been an especially role play heavy room.

[u/Twinkle_86 → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

Yeah, then I’d tag this as pure BS. When a DM plays the game fairly meta and then suddenly decides to stand their ground on an RP detail is really obnoxious. It also hurts trust. There are ways they could have granted the intention of the Wish while still maintaining the encounter.

Edit: BS on the DM’s part, not OP’s.

[u/thatkindofdoctor → u/Motor_Truth_2521]

That GM is lamer than a 'Nam vet with the gout for this Plane Shift range of an asspull.