Quick question regarding the infamous "efreeti wish" loophole...

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Originally Posted by LTwerewolf

I see an argument for Psyren's argument not based on the all consuming need, but based on the fact that the spell says "The ice assassin is under your absolute command." It's not directly spelled out, but it does imply that controlling affects don't work on it. It would have been nice if they had clarified it, but it's a legitimate argument about it. That being said, the owner could command it not to kill the original if they so chose. I did say that everyone was wrong in there opinion, not just you.

Edit:I also live in a world where opinions can be wrong, so feel free to ignore everything I said.

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Except that everything you just said once again Explicitly and directly contradicts everything Psyren has said.

Psyren claims that the all consuming need means that it is impossible literally impossible, no possibility at all, absolutely unpossible, incredibly not able to happen, for the caster of the Ice Assassin to make an Ice Assassin obey a command.

That his explicit and only argument. Is he wron? Of course he is, the entire universe would literally explode if Psyren was ever correct about anything because he is deliberately making up nonsense and lies in every single post as his only possible means of arguing.

But that is still his actual argument.

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Originally Posted by Segev

The issue is that usually, the ice assassin is of yourself. At least in the traditional form of this cheese. Since you can cast wish, yourself, and you just don't want to have to pay the costs.

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That... Can't possibly be the plan, because it doesn't work. The point is to have an Ice Assassin of something with SLA wish, so that it can wish for a Staff of Wishes, or a +9999999 Belt of Magnificence, or both. You will never have enough XP for that, but every Ice Assassin of an Efferti or Noble Djinni does (because they need zero XP).

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Originally Posted by Psyren

It is, luckily I'm not doing that.

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You may be feeding a few.

And you have to ask yourself, do you provide the friction to those trolls that other interpretations are possible, and indeed viable views based on RAW, or cede the floor and be silenced?

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Originally Posted by daremetoidareyo

You may be feeding a few.

And you have to ask yourself, do you provide the friction to those trolls that other interpretations are possible, and indeed viable views based on RAW, or cede the floor and be silenced?

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To quote myself (with emphasis), post #226:

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Originally Posted by Psyren

I fully acknowledge that this is just my interpretation of the rules text in Ice Assassin and other GMs may vary - just like GMs will vary on "unreasonable commands," "against its nature," or any other nebulous aspect of the RAW. The designers built in vague clauses like this on purpose to make controlling magic less than absolute.

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So I'm pretty sure I've said "this is my interpretation of the RAW and other GMs may vary" plainly and explicitly.

I was saying the bit about him being right that it would be immune to controlling affects. Also you might want to forego the hostile language, if he doesn't want to listen, he doesn't want to listen. It's not helping. He's right a lot of the time, and he has a different interpretation of this rule than you do. That's ok.

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Originally Posted by LTwerewolf

I was saying the bit about him being right that it would be immune to controlling affects. Also you might want to forego the hostile language, if he doesn't want to listen, he doesn't want to listen. It's not helping. He's right a lot of the time, and he has a different interpretation of this rule than you do. That's ok.

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If you're speaking to Beheld, it's quite all right, I can't see his posts anyway.

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Originally Posted by LTwerewolf

He's right a lot of the time

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Are you from an alternate dimension? Is Donald Trump reasonable in yours?

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Originally Posted by Psyren

Making it of yourself is even worse - now it has an all-consuming need to slay you!

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Under your interpretation, yes. The typical interpretation in my experience is not yours, however: the overriding absolute obedience to your will keeps it from ever being able to act on that, unless you suddenly develop a desire to let it kill you. At which point it happily complies.

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Originally Posted by Beheld

Are you from an alternate dimension? Is Donald Trump reasonable in yours?

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I was going to post a joking response to this, because I am not a Trump supporter, either, but it occurred to me that I would be possibly baiting others who actually agreed with the candidate I was going to mention. Since I had this second-thought, I think it's probably wise not to bring up active political candidates at all and insinuate they are or are not reasonable. Too many people will disagree, and this isn't the thread for that particular flame war.

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Originally Posted by Segev

The issue is that usually, the ice assassin is of yourself. At least in the traditional form of this cheese. Since you can cast wish, yourself, and you just don't want to have to pay the costs.

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The idea is that we just side-step what Psyren is saying by setting up a situation where the only way the ice assassin can kill its target is with your help and the only way for it to get your help is by giving you an XP free wish.

So you trap the Efreet ice assassin in a room (you can do this because it is CR 8 and you are level 17), and tell it that it only gets out if it gives you an XP free wish for <cool magic item>. Alternatively (or additionally), you cast imprisonment or trap the soul on the original and inform the ice assassin that you will let the original out once it gives you <cool magic item>.

Now, it is possible for Psyren to make his interpretation sufficiently insane for that not to work. Perhaps the "all consuming need" consumes the ice assassin's abstract ability to be contained and allows if to hunt down the original regardless of how you imprison the ice assassin.

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Originally Posted by Cosi

Now, it is possible for Psyren to make his interpretation sufficiently insane for that not to work. Perhaps the "all consuming need" consumes the ice assassin's abstract ability to be contained and allows if to hunt down the original regardless of how you imprison the ice assassin.

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Indeed, since Psyren has already decided that all consuming need bypasses Dominate Monster and the Stun condition, it is only natural that "all consuming need" also allows them to Greater Teleport at will, even in Dimensional Locks while subject to Dimensional Anchor. And of course, clearly it gives the Freedom at Will as an SLA.

Because it's totally balanced for players to have access to XP free wish, but impossible for that to actually happen!

I'm just curious what goal everyone is looking for in arguing this topic. I get the whole "some guy on the internet is wrong!" thing, but what they do in their games has literally no effect on what you do in yours.

I love debating as much as the next guy, and maybe I'm reading into the tone of the text too much.

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Originally Posted by dascarletm

I'm just curious what goal everyone is looking for in arguing this topic. I get the whole "some guy on the internet is wrong!" thing, but what they do in their games has literally no effect on what you do in yours.

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I want the games I play to be good. I want their rules to be consistent with the game world, well thought out, and not to imbalance the game. And I want them to do those things without mental gymnastics. I think an important part of that is getting people to admit that the rules are broken when the rules are broken. Because if people don't complain about bad rules, we never get good rules.

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Originally Posted by Cosi

I want the games I play to be good. I want their rules to be consistent with the game world, well thought out, and not to imbalance the game. And I want them to do those things without mental gymnastics. I think an important part of that is getting people to admit that the rules are broken when the rules are broken. Because if people don't complain about bad rules, we never get good rules.

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This plus, attempts to distort language create worse results than just making appropriate changes. People's refusal to admit when rules are broken and immediate jump to terrible distortions of words to try to make them balanced such as "The Ice Assassin That Is Absolutely Under Your Command Doesn't Obey Any Commands" or "It is Unreasonable to Ask Anything At All, So Casting Planar Binding Never Works" gets in the way of making good rules, and frankly, creates much much worse rules than almost literally anything else.

The game can't get better without admitting there are flaws, but it can get worse when you choose to give Ice Assassin's immunity to Dominate Monster solely because you are worried about SLA Ice Assassin Efferti granting wishes and for no other reason, because there is no possible way to come to that conclusion honestly.

Planar Binding is broken, but the solution is to define tasks so that you can't spend a spell slot yesterday to make a fight today easier, not to declare that you can't Lesser Planar Bind an Imp to run messages for you, because the mere act of casting Planar Binding makes all possible requests unreasonable.

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Originally Posted by Cosi

I want the games I play to be good. I want their rules to be consistent with the game world, well thought out, and not to imbalance the game. And I want them to do those things without mental gymnastics. I think an important part of that is getting people to admit that the rules are broken when the rules are broken. Because if people don't complain about bad rules, we never get good rules.

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I don't know if you noticed this, but 3.5 is kind of a done deal :smalltongue: So if you're hoping for some kind of epiphany on WotC's part regarding Frostburn upon reading posts in this or any other thread, I have unfortunate news for you: they have their solution, which is to make things more explicitly rules-light, i.e. 5e.

Also, I agree with you that the rule is bad - or at least that there are valid interpretations of the text that have bad results, and that there are valid interpretations of the text that have less bad results, the net result of which is still bad since there isn't even consensus on which to use.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

Also, I agree with you that the rule is bad - or at least that there are valid interpretations of the text that have bad results, and that there are valid interpretations of the text that have less bad results, the net result of which is still bad since there isn't even consensus on which to use.

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Your "interpretation" (by which I mean, blatantly ridiculous nonsense lies about what the spell says) produces worse results than his.

He's not the one claiming that Ice Assassins are immune to Dominate (and stun, and Confusion, and nausea, and death) because they have a desire that renders them immune to the effect of and spell even the literal Ice Assassin spell that created them.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

I don't know if you noticed this, but 3.5 is kind of a done deal :smalltongue: So if you're hoping for some kind of epiphany on WotC's part regarding Frostburn upon reading posts in this or any other thread, I have unfortunate news for you: they have their solution, which is to make things more explicitly rules-light, i.e. 5e.

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WotC is not the only entity capable of producing games I want to play. Given that I am most interested in games that improve on 3e, rather than throw it all away because balancing it is hard, I am well served by discussing balancing 3e.

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Also, I agree with you that the rule is bad - or at least that there are valid interpretations of the text that have bad results, and that there are valid interpretations of the text that have less bad results, the net result of which is still bad since there isn't even consensus on which to use.

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None of your stuff fixes wish in any way at all. It makes it harder to get SLA/Su wish but it does absolutely nothing to stop someone with that capability from breaking the entire game. All your solutions do is break other things. Like planar binding or ice assassin.

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Originally Posted by Cosi

WotC is not the only entity capable of producing games I want to play. Given that I am most interested in games that improve on 3e, rather than throw it all away because balancing it is hard, I am well served by discussing balancing 3e.

None of your stuff fixes wish in any way at all. It makes it harder to get SLA/Su wish but it does absolutely nothing to stop someone with that capability from breaking the entire game. All your solutions do is break other things. Like planar binding or ice assassin.

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In that case I'll go back to my very first post in this thread - Pathfinder already solved this problem by removing the item creation function from the safe list, hamstringing wish loops like these. Even if you dislike PF as a whole, borrowing their tweaks to individual spells is an easy lift. And then if you feel the need to dampen it further, we can apply efreet nature and the other drawbacks to early wishing that the designers saw fit to point out to GMs etc.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

In that case I'll go back to my very first post in this thread - Pathfinder already solved this problem by removing the item creation function from the safe list, hamstringing wish loops like these. Even if you dislike PF as a whole, borrowing their tweaks to individual spells is an easy lift.

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Yes, Pathfinder definitely invented that, and it isn't like they were explicitly told by people perhaps nearly identical to Cosi and I who had been using houserules on wish item creation for years.

Pathfinder accidentally stumbled into one competent change and made many bad ones. "adopting Pathfinder individual tweaks to the Wish spell" is basically slightly worse than continuing to play D&D like we have been since 2000.

But part of the reason Pathfinder has failed so spectacularly to improve on existing D&D is precisely because of the culture of their forums and developers that says "things aren't broken, because you can always twist words into saying things they don't say in a way that breaks several other parts of the game instead of admitting there is a problem that needs to be fixed."

So in this case, that you would recommend Pathfinder is precisely the point. Pathfinder is worse than D&D precisely because outside of accidental stumbling into partial corrections most of their material is just straight up worse or no change precisely because of the people like you who condemn recognizing flaws in the rules and fixing them.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

If he can, then his need isn't actually "all-consuming." That's okay though since your passage isn't rules text.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

You certainly can compel them. What happens at that point is up to the GM, as it becomes an unstoppable force/immovable object problem.

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See this post of mine:

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Originally Posted by Graypairofsocks

A less technical view:
All-consuming means "taking up all of ones time and effort" or "Obsessively".
A literal interpretation of "All-consuming need" means something like "Something you need to do all the time". Basically something you need to do a lot.
If you have absolute command over a creature you can force it not to do things it needs to.

You don't need magic to force someone to not fulfill their needs.
In real life you could force yourself not to eat even though you need to.
You could force someone else not to eat even though they need to.

Suppose you are walking a narrow ledge at a massive height.
If you fall you will die.
You have an all-consuming need to maintain balance.
However you can voluntarily choose to jump off the ledge.
Someone could also force you to jump of the ledge.


The other interpretation of it is as figure of speech meaning "obsessively desiring".

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Originally Posted by Psyren

The trouble with invoking the fallacy here is that the DM is mandated to make adjustments to 3.0 material, per the 3.5 DMG. Also, the Fiend Folio update starts with this sentence: "The purpose of this booklet is not to provide a comprehensive list of everything that has changed with the 3.5 revision. The changes are too large in number and varied in scope to be able to provide an all-inclusive inventory." So it is an inclusive update, not an exclusive one.

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If you look on the same page you will see this:

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Originally Posted by D&D Update booklet

We provide a brief, general overview of the core books and detailed revision notes for Deities and Demigods, Epic Level Handbook, Fiend Folio, Manual of the Planes, and Monster Manual II.

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They were saying that the list of what they changed in the core books was not comprehensive.

EDIT:
Woops, double post.

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Originally Posted by Graypairofsocks

If you look on the same page you will see this:


They were saying that the list of what they changed in the core books was not comprehensive.

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Those passages don't contradict. You can have detailed notes on something without them being comprehensive.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

I will make up any lie so long as it gets me to my goal.

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Yeah, sure.

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Originally Posted by Segev

Good luck finding things specifically noted to think being kidnapped and coerced is "reasonable." Even CE things which would do it to others tend not to be very consistent in finding it acceptable to do to them.

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Strangely, if you dropped "coerced" from your phrasing, planar binding works just fine. Planar binding doesn't coerce. At most, it inconviences and restrains. Coercion is what the PC chooses to do when he doesn't respect the creature he just bound. Otherwise, there are plenty of outsiders that would be happy to grant his desire, provided it was compatible with their nature. Glabrezzu skyrocket to the top of the list, because corrupting mortals through their desires is their thing. That's your wish granter, not the effreti.

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Originally Posted by Deophaun

Strangely, if you dropped "coerced" from your phrasing, planar binding works just fine. Planar binding doesn't coerce. At most, it inconviences and restrains. Coercion is what the PC chooses to do when he doesn't respect the creature he just bound. Otherwise, there are plenty of outsiders that would be happy to grant his desire, provided it was compatible with their nature. Glabrezzu skyrocket to the top of the list, because corrupting mortals through their desires is their thing. That's your wish granter, not the effreti.

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In context of that to which I was replying, "coerced" applies inevitably.

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Originally Posted by Segev

In context of that to which I was replying, "coerced" applies inevitably.

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You think too highly of your context:

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Originally Posted by Segev

That's an argument that makes planar binding literally never work. Planar binding cannot make them agree to "unreasonable demands." If the very casting of planar binding - which "[yanks] someone out of their home" so you can "[demand] they do whatever you say under pain of" some threat (death, imprisonment, pain, etc.) makes the request itself unreasonable, then planar binding literally never works to get you the service it spends a lot of text discussing the negotiation of.

A request can be reasonable even if the means used to make it are not. "Please prepare a delicious lunch for me to eat," is a reasonable request (especially on the scale of services planar binding is usually used to secure). You can just ask somebody you meet to do this, or you could kidnap them and drag them, blindfolded, to your secret underground kitchen and then make that request. The reasonableness of the request itself is unchanged.

In fact, the incentive to agree to it has increased: you've proven that you're willing and able to put this person under your power and imprison them in a location of your choosing; the fact that you're clearly not letting them go until they make for you that tasty meal is going to make the reasonableness of the request compared to the unreasonableness of the alternative strongly encourage them to just comply so they can go the heck home.

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Hardly respectful, that context.

Don't get me wrong, it would work fine for imps and quasits and such who are used to "requests" being accompanied with threats to their continued existence--heck, they probably expect it--but it won't work so well on others.

Furthermore, you forget that your context also changes the nature of the request. It goes from "make a tasty meal" to "make a tasty meal and negotiate with a terrorist." You throw extra baggage onto the request depending on how you go about asking. And who. Asking the Glabrezu is "make a tasty meal that can put this mortal in my debt and allow me to corrupt him," whereas asking the Efreeti is "lower myself to something far beneath my station--to the level of a cockroach or a slime mold or a gnome--and make a tasty meal and, in doing so, encourage others to bind my fellow genies in the future." One of these requests is reasonable, the other is not.

There is nothing in planar binding that forbids civility on the part of the caster. There is nothing in planar binding that forces the caster to hold the called creature until it has agreed to the demand. But the very fact that a theoretical caster would assume such, and treat all bindings in the same agressive style without regard to the type of creature he was binding, speaks to the caster's unreasonableness.

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Originally Posted by Deophaun

You think too highly of your context:

Hardly respectful, that context.

Don't get me wrong, it would work fine for imps and quasits and such who are used to "requests" being accompanied with threats to their continued existence--heck, they probably expect it--but it won't work so well on others.

Furthermore, you forget that your context also changes the nature of the request. It goes from "make a tasty meal" to "make a tasty meal and negotiate with a terrorist." You throw extra baggage onto the request depending on how you go about asking. And who. Asking the Glabrezu is "make a tasty meal that can put this mortal in my debt and allow me to corrupt him," whereas asking the Efreeti is "lower myself to something far beneath my station--to the level of a cockroach or a slime mold or a gnome--and make a tasty meal and, in doing so, encourage others to bind my fellow genies in the future." One of these requests is reasonable, the other is not.

There is nothing in planar binding that forbids civility on the part of the caster. There is nothing in planar binding that forces the caster to hold the called creature until it has agreed to the demand. But the very fact that a theoretical caster would assume such, and treat all bindings in the same agressive style without regard to the type of creature he was binding, speaks to the caster's unreasonableness.

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Nope, sorry, the full context of this relates back to Psyren's claim that no amount of "and I'll do this for you, too" would ever make it a "reasonable" request, because the Efreeti hate servitude. And it's automatically servitude because you used planar binding to call them, and the threat is all you have with planar binding, because the offering side of it doesn't change things. It's always unreasonable, all the time, because you used planar binding.

That is what I was saying is a bad reading.

I don't really care to argue for the strawman you want to beat up; I agree, it's a terrible argument.

Planar binding is a mean thing to do.

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Originally Posted by Segev

Nope, sorry, the full context of this relates back to Psyren's claim that no amount of "and I'll do this for you, too" would ever make it a "reasonable" request, because the Efreeti hate servitude. And it's automatically servitude because you used planar binding to call them, and the threat is all you have with planar binding, because the offering side of it doesn't change things. It's always unreasonable, all the time, because you used planar binding.

That is what I was saying is a bad reading.

I don't really care to argue for the strawman you want to beat up; I agree, it's a terrible argument.

Planar binding is a mean thing to do.

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Actually, there would be one that would definitely work - "I'll let you screw with my wish however you please." It's risky, but you might actually get what you want that way, with a downside that proves manageable if you outsmart the Efreeti. Needless to say, CharOp isn't fond of that option, because they view Efreet solely as wish dispensers.

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Originally Posted by Psyren

Actually, there would be one that would definitely work - "I'll let you screw with my wish however you please." It's risky, but you might actually get what you want that way, with a downside that proves manageable if you outsmart the Efreeti. Needless to say, CharOp isn't fond of that option, because they view Efreet solely as wish dispensers.

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No, there's no way you're coming out ahead on that. That's not just "CharOp isn't fond of it because Efreet are wish dispensers," but rather "CharOp - and any sane being - isn't fond of it because it's beating a gangster up, dragging him into your home, handing him a shotgun, and telling him he can shoot anybody he wants with it with no consequences as long as he also promises to shoot it in a direction you indicate."

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Originally Posted by Segev

No, there's no way you're coming out ahead on that. That's not just "CharOp isn't fond of it because Efreet are wish dispensers," but rather "CharOp - and any sane being - isn't fond of it because it's beating a gangster up, dragging him into your home, handing him a shotgun, and telling him he can shoot anybody he wants with it with no consequences as long as he also promises to shoot it in a direction you indicate."

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That's why you do it all in a disguise of the real bad guy. Mwa Ha ha.

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Originally Posted by Segev

No, there's no way you're coming out ahead on that. That's not just "CharOp isn't fond of it because Efreet are wish dispensers," but rather "CharOp - and any sane being - isn't fond of it because it's beating a gangster up, dragging him into your home, handing him a shotgun, and telling him he can shoot anybody he wants with it with no consequences as long as he also promises to shoot it in a direction you indicate."

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Sounds like a very good reason not to drag gangsters into your home and then ask them for things to me :smalltongue:

(Particularly not immortal gangsters who hate servitude and are all members of an always-LE planar mafia.)

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Originally Posted by Segev

No, there's no way you're coming out ahead on that. That's not just "CharOp isn't fond of it because Efreet are wish dispensers," but rather "CharOp - and any sane being - isn't fond of it because it's beating a gangster up, dragging him into your home, handing him a shotgun, and telling him he can shoot anybody he wants with it with no consequences as long as he also promises to shoot it in a direction you indicate."

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It's also still super dumb, because the DM actually has to kill your character or just not grant your wish every time. It's the same dumb thing that dumb people have been saying about D&D since Gygax first said it.

"This is totally balanced, because sometimes I kill their character, and sometimes I make them way overpowered!"

But what that really means of course, is that in some campaigns one person is really upset, and in other campaigns, everyone except that person is upset, that doesn't mean you have a good game, it means that you are a ****ty DM with ****ty games who makes people miserable.