Greater wish flowchart

[hcobb]

First roll the wizard's DX. We can assume that the wizard get aids up to DX 15 at the last moment.

If the DX roll is failed the demon pops up next to the wizard and kills her.

The wizard and demon both roll.

If the wizard rolls 16+ then no wish is granted and if in addition the demon rolls 11 or less the wizard is dead.

Otherwise if the wizard rolls a 3 she gets three wishes.

If the wizard rolls a 4 she gets two wishes.

Otherwise if the demon rolls better than the wizard he kills her.

Otherwise if the wizard rolls better than the demon she gets one wish.

Assuming all of that we get...

IQ 17 wizards got an average of 7.6297 wishes

IQ 18 wizards got an average of 9.4729 wishes

IQ 19 wizards got an average of 10.8981 wishes

IQ 20 wizards got an average of 11.8573 wishes

IQ 21 wizards got an average of 12.6305 wishes

IQ 22 wizards got an average of 12.5807 wishes

IQ 23 wizards got an average of 12.4548 wishes

IQ 24 wizards got an average of 12.6475 wishes

[Skarg]

Here's my take:

Turn 1:
Main Wizard (IQ 17+) begins casting Summon Greater Demon

Turns 2-10:
Main Wizard keeps casting Summon Greater Demon - it takes 10 turns.

Turn 7:
Another Wizard (IQ 15+, Pentagram spell) starts drawing a Pentagram to summon the demon into. (Can be the same wizard, but he'd need to do it before starting the summoning, which will require 9 more ST to maintain the pentagram during the summoning compared to another wizard waiting till turn 7 to start drawing it.)

Turn 8-10:
Apprentices try to Aid the Main Wizard's ST (so he has enough ST to summon the demon (30), and DX 15 so he'll be unlikely to fail the summoning DX roll).

Turn 10:
The wizard makes his DX roll, probably only trying if he's been aided up to adjDX 15. If he fails, the demon attacks and the pentagram caster rolls 3/IQ (which needs to be 15+ to know the spell) to contain the demon. If both rolls fail (4.63% chance for each, so combined 0.21% chance, or 1 in 466 chance), the demon attacks - hopefully you're surrounded by guards or something.

Turn 11:
The wizard attempts to compel a wish from the demon. Contest of main wizard's IQ versus the Demon's new-edition-reduced IQ of 11:

The chance of winning the contest without any auto-success/failure would be:
IQ 17: 93.9%
IQ 18: 96.4%
IQ 19: 98.0%
IQ 20: 99.0%
IQ 21: 99.5%
IQ 22: 99.8%
IQ 23: 99.9%
IQ 24: 99.98%

However, the chance of an auto-success by the demon (and not by the wizard) is 4.4%, and there's another 4.4% chance of an auto-fail by the wizard (and not by the demon), so if the GM allows those to count as failures for the wizard, then the odds of failure due to auto-results is about 8.6% combined probability, or a maximum success rate of about 91.4% - multiply by the % by IQ to get the combined odds.

That means that after about 8 tries, there's only a 48.6% chance at most of not failing at least one of them.

Sadly, the current ITL PDF now says that if this contest fails, the Demon attacks... this is a huge nerf of the risk, because the wizard can set up some defensible situation, which rather spoils any odds combinations since you can probably arrange to keep a wizard alive with adequate defensive measures set up. Which seems to me pretty unacceptible, since it invites industrial wish generation by the Wizards' Guild, unless the GM does something to change the situation, like say the demons will wise up and start not going after that wizard but start attacking the guild in clever ways instead, or something. Also, it doesn't even say it gets past the pentagram if that happens, which would mean a 95.4% chance the failure has no effect.

And of course, even if there were not that nerf, there's also the matter of the demon not blasting the wizard to ashes unless another IQ contest is won, so some annoying wizards might arrange for revivals... and if the GM lets them choose which 5 attributes to lose, they can just knock 5 off ST and then start wishing again.

A 32-point goblin can have IQ 17 or 18 to start, and could begin these antics straight away, even using starting wealth to head to the Wizards' Guild and hire some apprentices to get the summoning going immediately.

Maybe it's a good thing the demon attacks physically, as that at least gives them the demon who sees a well-defended wizard the option of teleporting away and attacking something other than the wizard that the wizard might care about and not be prepared to defend... but then the GM needs to figure out how the demon would know that and so on. Maybe he just goes on an innocent victim mayhem spree for 11 turns, telling everyone that it's that wizard's fault.

Seems to me there need to be a few more points of palpable danger in there to avoid annoyingly-safe attribute pumping.

A 32-point goblin can have IQ 17 or 18 to start, and could begin these antics straight away.

Clever demon rampage behavior seems like the least rule-bending way to make there be a real risk, and it needs the pentagram to fail somehow. Either that or have the wizard die on a loss as before (or in addition to a demon attack). Of course, I can imagine many ways to make demons more interesting and the risks of wish farming very real for my own games, but the RAW assessment looks pretty bleak (that is, too easy on farmers) to me, especially if a GM makes any easy rulings (e.g. not using auto-failures, having a failure just mean the demon snarls at the pentagram, or letting a prepared defense just defeat the demon if the wizard fails the contest).

[hcobb]

If we modify the DX roll to be only on an 18 is the demon summoned outside the pentagram to kill and maim then the averages become:

IQ 17 wizards got an average of 11.9592 wishes

IQ 18 wizards got an average of 16.9605 wishes

IQ 19 wizards got an average of 22.1167 wishes

IQ 20 wizards got an average of 25.6014 wishes

IQ 21 wizards got an average of 28.2519 wishes

IQ 22 wizards got an average of 28.9222 wishes

IQ 23 wizards got an average of 29.3406 wishes

IQ 24 wizards got an average of 29.4459 wishes

[Skarg]

A possible house rule - in order to do a wish-compelling battle of wills with a demon that is on the other side of a pentagram from the wizard, the wizard has to be the one that made the pentagram. If he loses the contest of wills, the wizard dies on the spot and the pentagram is dispelled, which also releases the demon.


Another possible house rule - since hostile demons show up by themselves 1/6 the time just when someone makes an image or illusion of a demon, summoning demons (especially to compel wishes from them) can also attract the attention of one or more demons, which can appear outside of pentagrams.

One possible implementation:

The first time a demon is summoned per month by the same wizard, a hostile demon will only show up if they fail their roll as described, but there is a 1/6 chance an uninvited hostile demon will show up outside of pentagrams.

If the wizard summons another demon within the month, there is a 1/6 chance a hostile demon will show up outside of pentagrams, whether the wizard makes his DX roll or not. This uninvited demon will wait until the summoned demon leaves or becomes hostile to the wizard before it appears.

Record each demon the wizard has won a wish from. Any time an uninvited hostile demon appears to retaliate for a demon illusion or summoning, there is a 1/6 chance each such demon will also appear at the same time. Defeating a demon on a retaliation will remove it from the pool of the wizard's grudge-bearing demons.

[Shostak]

Giving demons the higher IQ they had in the original ITL is a simple house rule that would deter wish factories. Of course, the GM is also perfectly free to make the Summon Demon spell nearly impossible to find, and to have characters known to summon demons face stiff social consequences.

[Skarg]

Yes, although since the rules for coercing wishes have also changed, restoring their IQ wouldn't be all that effective by itself - especially if the GM has a failed contest just mean the demon tries to attack (and probably fails either to escape the pentagram or to avoid the defenses prepared for that case).

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Which seems to me pretty unacceptible, since it invites industrial wish generation by the Wizards' Guild, unless the GM does something to change the situation, like say the demons will wise up and start not going after that wizard but start attacking the guild in clever ways instead, or something.


Seems to me there need to be a few more points of palpable danger in there to avoid annoyingly-safe attribute pumping.

I've always been a fan of minimizing house rules in favor of natural consequences. With an IQ of 11 it shouldn't take that long for them to wise up to a wish factory. Also, the Greater Demons that are summonable are IQ 11. That doesn't mean there aren't higher IQ "mega" Demons on that other plane. Perhaps they never show up, are unsummonable, whatever, but can guide the actions of the Greater Demons who do cross over.

I would imagine that demons would be annoyed at being used as a cog in a wish factory and would take action against a wizard/wizard guild that did so. If they deliberately showed up on a summoning wizards "day off" when he wasn't producing wishes and surrounded by guards, well, sucks to be him.

[Skarg]

Sure, but it's just another form of house rule to say that demons can show up at will and will tend to do so. Seems like it would still make sense that if that's the case, the Wizards Guild and/or writings about summoning demons would contain some information about how likely that is to happen.

As it is, the RAW might seem to imply to some players and GMs that wizards could crank wishes with relatively little risk as long as they took precautions, contrary to the original description still in there which reads:

They can be summoned for a short
time and (if the summoner is powerful and lucky) constrained
to do a service, after which they depart.

So it's up to GMs that don't want wish farming to be low-risk, to figure out exactly how to restore that risk.

[Anthony]

The problem is that wishes as being a separate mechanic don't make sense (though it's D&D's fault). The traditional way a wish works is that the creature granting the wish just executes the wish with its own inherent power, so anything that can grant a wish also has the power to do anything a wish can do. This makes any plausible sources for greater wishes... fairly terrifying.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The problem is that wishes as being a separate mechanic don't make sense (though it's D&D's fault). The traditional way a wish works is that the creature granting the wish just executes the wish with its own inherent power, so anything that can grant a wish also has the power to do anything a wish can do. This makes any plausible sources for greater wishes... fairly terrifying.

My memory is fuzzy on this subject, but I seem to recall that our GM back in the day played this differently. A demon could be bound to provide a 'greater wish', but the effect was rarely instantaneous. The demon would actually have to do some leg-work to grant the requested boon and their powers to do so, while significant, was not 'reality altering' (unlike wishes granted by genies in most media).