Best wish production

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Other options for limiting wishes.

Summon Demon summons demons from one small group. Once you've mined out that group you need to research a new variation to target a different group. If you share your variation with the Wizard's Guild then they'll give you one wish, but quickly bit mine that group to extinction.

I think the key to limiting wishes will be the GM gradually revealing the unintended consequences of dealing with demonic forces. All transactions have a cost and balance must be maintained.

For example (as shared in another thread), in order to grant a wish for riches might require the demon to go out and kill some rich guy and steal his stuff which would make the wisher responsible for the death and could lead to them being hunted by the rich guy's family. That seems more like how a demon would operate to me.

See also, premises from the movies Wish Upon and The Box

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

I think the key to limiting wishes will be the GM gradually revealing the unintended consequences of dealing with demonic forces.

Yes, this became a theme in our TFT campaign even for exploiting various other types of magic or even mundane power dynamics. Our players never got into demon summoning, but even if they could, they would probably have expected our GMs to personalize the experience in interesting ways that would make the endeavor something you should expect serious risk and consequence from. But even if the PCs never do it, it's fun and useful to figure out if/when the NPC wizards in the world are doing it, and what the situation is.

We've been over several possibilities on these forums over the last few months, and I think there are countless interesting ways to do it, so I kind of like how genericly the rules present demons, though I think it could use a sentence along the lines of "why wizards don't mass produce wishes isn't common knowledge, and even demonologists don't know all the reasons why this spell isn't more commonly used. Each GM may want to consider what may or may not happen if and when wizards start to over-use the spell."

Some of my favorite ideas include:

* Demons vary widely in stats and abilities. (GURPS Magic has some fairly nice random demon generation tables which could be adapted to TFT and/or used for inspiration.) Some may have rather higher resistance to a battle of wills than expected, and/or have other unpleasant tricks.

* Some or all Greater Demons can't grant spells as described, though they may have some magic abilities and can try to do things to grant your wishes by doing things.

* Demons may hold grudges against wizards who extract wishes or otherwise abuse them, and may prepare surprises for them.

* Demons who have been summoned may re-appear later not under control of the caster, and/or bring friends, and/or astral project to haunt/torment a resented summoner, and/or do other mischief.

* The GM might develop the plane of existence the Demons exist on and have the demons be individuals with various wants, needs, abilities, allies, enemies, politics, etc., and the more you summon them, the more that stuff becomes relevant in one way or another.

Another example:
If you invoke a Greater Demon-Wish for an increased attribute, the Demon divines where there is an attribute adder magic item, and goes and gets it. If it's worn or carried by someone, the demon may need to fight, kill, or remove their arm, to get it and bring it to the wisher. They tend to pick items as near to the wisher as possible, and if someone who lost such an item makes such a wish, they tend to go back to the same item. This interestingly makes such items a bit dangerous to carry around...

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Skarg

We've been over several possibilities on these forums over the last few months, and I think there are countless interesting ways to do it, so I kind of like how genericly the rules present demons, though I think it could use a sentence along the lines of "why wizards don't mass produce wishes isn't common knowledge, and even demonologists don't know all the reasons why this spell isn't more commonly used. Each GM may want to consider what may or may not happen if and when wizards start to over-use the spell."

Here's mine... demons want to be summoned by foolish wizards because they want out of their dimensional prison. Every wish they grant will contain some element that will eventually help to free themselves.

[hcobb]

Here's my setup.

The entire goblin city under the mountain has a column every other hex. The only cleared megahex is the one pentagram in the local branch of the Wizard's Guild.

Nothing expensive is in even a straight line from that megahex. The demon will only chew through two (of 48) inches of the first column in the minute he has.

So in exchange for five years of the wizard's salary to build him up we get 30 wishes. That's $700/week for five years or $175,000 which is $6k per wish.

"Mother!"

Helianthodae put aside her book. It was the slightly embellished tale of the exploits of a Goblin hero of four centuries previously. There were more recent tales, but she dared not ask for them. She must not allow into her mind any memories concerning living being who dwelt outside the columns of the narrow city.

She rose from her chair and greeted her daughter. "Hello, my little Asteraceae, how was school today?"

"It was boring low level spells. Who'd ever bother with Light?"

"I drove away a demon with a Light spell two years ago."

"Really?"

"Would a Goblin ever lie? I cast it on his nose and he vanished. They really hate having spells cast on them."

"It's your turn tonight, isn't it?"

"Yes. If I'm not back by morning please be strong for your father."

"I wish I had a wish!"

"Whatever for? Don't we already get the best our city has to offer?"

"I'd wish you'd be safe tonight."

"It doesn't work like that. Wishes don't work against demons."

"Then I'd wish you back to life."

"Don't worry, the guild will do that anyway, if they can. If they do the woman who returns will be only a shadow of the mother you remember. It could take a decade for me to regain my full abilities."

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Here's mine... demons want to be summoned by foolish wizards because they want out of their dimensional prison. Every wish they grant will contain some element that will eventually help to free themselves.

This might seem to ring true, since the Demons are said to have magical powers they mostly can't use in this plane. So when a wizard summons theme to this plane, that weakens their confinement to their plane, and when a wizard tries to elicit a Wish from them, it weakens the prohibition on their using magic in this plane. When they do finally break those bonds, they could have their old-TFT IQ 16-20, and be wizards.


Another twist on this: If you lose the contest of wills to get a wish from them, their attack on you isn't actually about trying to kill you. They're trying to overpower you so they can possess your body! On a double failure that seems to blast you to dust, they've fully succeeded and teleported you away.

A way a GM could play this out:

In order to elicit a wish, a wizard must stand in front of the Demon and not be separated by a pentagram, nor have a Spell Shield on.

If the demon wins both contests of wills, both the wizard and the Demon vanish and the spectators may assume the wizard was blasted to dust. Really the Demon was able to possess the Wizard and then teleport away immediately.

If the demon wins only the first contest of wills, he may kill the wizard in an attempt to have that wizard weaker if/when he gets Revived and loses attributes and then tries to get more wishes.

But if the Demon judges it likely to succeed, he may try to capture the wizard instead, by getting the wizard in HTH, pinning the wizard, and then teleporting away to a remote location with the wizard as a carried item.

If that happens, the wizard will then have another small amount of time (GM discretion) at that location to try to escape (fat chance breaking the pin, but spells can be cast in HTH at -6).

If the wizard fails to escape and is still pinned, the Demon gets a chance to forcibly possess the wizard (contest of wills).

If the demon fails to possess the wizard, he will release the wizard at that remote location, and perhaps offer to teleport the wizard someplace else if he's willing to try another battle of wills, again with possession at stake.

How the possession works exactly would be up to the GM. e.g. can the demon now cast spells it knows or use other magic abilities it couldn't use before, and what are they? Can the demon use the wizard's spells, talents, and memories? Can the demon still teleport at will? Can the demon ever assume its demon form again? Can it do so and still retain its magic abilities on this plane? Can the wizard ever be re-possessed or de-possessed? What happens if another wizard casts Possession on the demon-possessed wizard? What happens if a wizard casts Possession on a demon itself?

[hcobb]

My initial guess population dynamics gives one in 2000 Goblins are born to be a demon summoner.

If they do one summoning per week (and recharge mana the rest of the time) then that's $10k per week against an expected payroll of $200k. Sending the select few to a community focused on demon summoning gives a local population of 100 with the summoners left with no idea of the current locations of their childhood friends so this can't be read from them.

That's then two dozen wizards (mostly apprentices, with only 3 or 4 qualified summoners), two dozen guards, a half dozen in administration and the other half in support trades. These are then supported by a half dozen or so outlying villages and trade with the Goblin kingdom.

[TippetsTX]

In my campaign, I'm fairly certain that wishes will be...
1) Non-transferrable,
2) Non-'bankable',
3) Costly (in a karmic sense)

[hcobb]

Assuming the perfect protections of my narrow city I get the following.

IQ 17 wizards got an average of 10.2423 wishes before being dusted

IQ 18 wizards got an average of 23.6652 wishes before being dusted

IQ 19 wizards got an average of 47.2012 wishes before being dusted

IQ 20 wizards got an average of 72.5495 wishes before being dusted

IQ 21 wizards got an average of 85.2069 wishes before being dusted

IQ 22 wizards got an average of 97.864 wishes before being dusted

IQ 23 wizards got an average of 98.0806 wishes before being dusted

IQ 24 wizards got an average of 96.2742 wishes before being dusted

So the wish maker is a Goblin with ST 6, DX 9, IQ 22 i.e. 37 attribute points or three years experience (at 600 XP/year) and they last about two years and are then dusted. If they had just done enchantments for 30 years they would have made $400 per week for 50 weeks a year times three decades or $600,000. Fair market price for a wish remains around $10k.

Halfling or Elf is 38 attribute points and so takes two additional years (total five) to develop.

Human or Orc is 39 attribute points: ST 8, DX 9, IQ 22 and takes eight years to develop.

And so on.