Create a magical item through Wish spell

[Samael Morgenst]

The core description of the Wish spell allows to use it for create a magical item up to the value of 25000 gp.

It would be a reasonable request to create an item of higher value, if the caster provides experience points and gold pieces to compensate the difference?

[Inevitability]

Read it again: it allows you to create a nonmagical item with a value up to 25000 GP. There is no cap on the value of magical items created with Wish. However:

When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP

[redking]

The core description of the Wish spell allows to use it for create a magical item up to the value of 25000 gp.

No. The creation of magical items via the wish spell is governed by the paragraph pertaining to the creation of magical items in the wish spell description.

[Darg]

Read it again: it allows you to create a nonmagical item with a value up to 25000 GP. There is no cap on the value of magical items created with Wish. However:

Technically there is. You can't spend xp that will make you lose a level. A 17th level wizard could have a maximum of 15,999 xp to spend for example. This would cap at a 137,487 gp base price. Though it would most likely be less.

[Jay R]

The core description of the Wish spell allows to use it for create a magical item up to the value of 25000 gp.

It would be a reasonable request to create an item of higher value, if the caster provides experience points and gold pieces to compensate the difference?

The 25,000 gp cap is for non-magical items only. This is a huge loophole. You can't wish for a galley, but you can wish for a galley that flies.

For this reason, many DMs apply the 25,000 gp cap to magical items as well. Let's assume such a DM, and then try to answer the question, because that's the only case in which it applies.

OK, we assume DMs who know that they are the final authority, just like the rulebook says. In that case, they'll have to make a judgment call,

And the crucial thing about judgment calls is that different people make them differently.

Your idea sounds fairly reasonable to me, but if I had to make the call, there are several issues I'd consider.

Do you have the ability to make that item yourself? The correct item creation feat, necessary spells or skills, and high enough level? If a Fighter wants to add her own XPs and gold coins, I'd probably say "No", simply because a Fighter can't do that. You get one effect. Perhaps with one wish you can ask to be able to add GPs and XPs, and with the next wish you ask to create the item.

Do you also plan to put in the extra time?

Who granted the wish, and what is their approach?

Etc. There is no simple answer that all DMs would agree on.

For example, here is my approach to wishes, as taken from my "Rules for DMs" document.

52. Wishes ought to be a social contract between the players and the DM. Don’t try to screw up the game, and I won’t try to screw up your character.

a. If a game system has clear, unambiguous limits for wishes, and a wish falls within the limits, then it should work as intended.
b. There is no sentient entity processing the wish. It is pure magical effect – akin to programming a computer. There is neither benevolence nor malevolence involved. The risk of a wish is the same as the risk of a car or a power saw; it goes where you steer it, not where you intended to steer it.
c. Unless it will screw up the game, the DM should follow the exact wording of the wish. This is usually, but not always, the same as the intent.

i. Following the exact wording of the wish does not mean abusing homonyms. If they ask for an extra feat, they don’t get extra feet.
ii. Following the exact meaning of the wish does not mean a bizarre, unlikely meaning. It means the most reasonable meaning of those exact words.
iii. If it took you more than a few seconds to come up with that interpretation, then it isn’t the obvious meaning of those words.

d. Wishes should rarely go wrong.

i. The best way for a wish to fail is to have no meaningful effect at all. Wasting a wish is well-attested in fantasy literature. It doesn’t hurt the game or the PC.
ii. When a wish actually goes bad, it should not cripple or destroy the PC, but at worst put the character in a difficult and threatening situation. Difficult and threatening situations are a DM’s stock in trade.

e. A wish will be fulfilled in the simplest manner possible. If a player wishes to have the only sword in the world, it is easier for the magic to put him and his sword on a separate world than to find and destroy every other sword on the primary gameworld.
f. An unselfish wish is always much safer. Wish for bumper crops near the village, or for the plague to end, and the magic flows much more smoothly.
g. A wish grants one effect. If the PC wishes for a sword and a shield, then he gets a sword. The shield is another wish. If he has two wishes, he gets the first two effects requested. If he wishes to travel to another continent to be introduced to the king and marry the princess, then he gets the travel and to meet the king, and his wishes are done.

i. Among other things, this means that long contract-like texts of legalese won’t work. Only the first clause is enacted.

h. The primary principle remains this: Don’t try to screw up the game, and I won’t try to screw up your character.

These rules were written for myself, for the way I run games. I am not saying that anybody else “should” run a game this way. These rules exist to help me be consistent, and so my players can know what to expect.

Anybody else is free to use them as guidelines, to modify them, to use some but not others, or to ignore them altogether, as seems best to you. Not everybody agrees on how to run a game, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Darg]

The 25,000 gp cap is for non-magical items only. This is a huge loophole. You can't wish for a galley, but you can wish for a galley that flies.

For this reason, many DMs apply the 25,000 gp cap to magical items as well. Let's assume such a DM, and then try to answer the question, because that's the only case in which it applies.

Creating a magical item is pretty clearly using the same terminology for creating magic items. As in, the mundane is available and the wish just makes it magical. If you want a flying galley, you need to have a galley to wish upon.

To further elaborate, the text never uses "create" or "creation" in the context of bringing something into existence out of nothing. In all cases it's used to describe the manipulation of something into something different.

[Tohron]

Would it be reasonable to also limit the items you can wish for to things that could plausibly be created somehow? Legally, one could wish for a Caster Level 200 scroll of Extended Owl's Insight (worth 270,000 gp) and combine with Heward's Fortifying Bedroll to let the Cleric enter a fight with +100 Wisdom, but there's not really a way for someone to create such an item without extreme levels of cheese.

[RSGA]

Owl's Insight doesn't boost Wisdom like that, so all you would have is a very long, very durant +4 Wisdom from that scroll. Well, very long based on the 3.5 version of it. It's short compared to the 3.0 version, but that one would also just give you a very long, very hard to dispel but random bonus to Wisdom.

[Darg]

Would it be reasonable to also limit the items you can wish for to things that could plausibly be created somehow? Legally, one could wish for a Caster Level 200 scroll of Extended Owl's Insight (worth 270,000 gp) and combine with Heward's Fortifying Bedroll to let the Cleric enter a fight with +100 Wisdom, but there's not really a way for someone to create such an item without extreme levels of cheese.

I mean, considering you'd need to be level 27 before you could actually have the chance of being able to spend that much xp, I don't think it's a problem. Another issue you have is how is the character wishing for a CL 200 scroll when they'd have to break the 4th wall to do so? At best you'd get a scroll of your caster level, or at minimum the level of a normal store bought version of the scroll.

Then again, if someone is willing to spend an entire level's worth of xp on a single consumable that lasts only one hour then I don't think it'd be much of an issue (especially since it gets counted against their wealth until they use it).

[Inevitability]

Owl's Insight doesn't boost Wisdom like that, so all you would have is a very long, very durant +4 Wisdom from that scroll. Well, very long based on the 3.5 version of it. It's short compared to the 3.0 version, but that one would also just give you a very long, very hard to dispel but random bonus to Wisdom.

Owl's Insight isn't Owl's Wisdom. The latter is the PHB +4 wisdom 2nd-level spell. The former is a SpC/MoF druid 5 spell that straight up says "The subject gains an insight bonus to Wisdom equal to 1/2 your caster level".

[Chronos]

JayR, back in the day, before they made it explicit what exactly Wish can do, I had my own set of rulings. Basically, I ruled that there were three different kinds of wishes, benevolent wishes, malevolent wishes, and neutral wishes. The first two were granted by some sentient agency (a god, a demon, a genie, etc.) who either likes or dislikes the character.

A benevolent wish might be granted as a reward for some great service, out of gratitude, and takes care of the details that the character didn't think to specify. If you have a benevolent wish, and wish for a million gold pieces, then you're probably going to get a mixture of coins, gems, letters of credit, deeds to land, etc., worth a total of a million GP, because an actual million gold coins would be very difficult to carry around and otherwise quite impractical.

A malevolent wish is what you're going to get if you imprison something, especially something evil, and force it to grant you a wish in exchange for its freedom. It'll be interpreted in the worst way possible for the wisher. A malevolent wish for a million gold pieces will result in them falling on your head and killing you.

A neutral wish is what you get from the Wish spell, or from nonsentient items that grant wishes. It's neither benevolent nor malevolent, and will give you whatever meets the exact wording of the wish, in the most minimal way possible. A neutral wish for a million gold pieces would result in a million grains of fine gold powder, because you didn't specify the size of the grains.

Of course, no matter the source, it's possible for someone to wish for something beyond what's even possible. There, if there's some part of it that is possible, you might get that. If no part of it is possible, then the spell simply fails entirely.

In practice, very few games get to the point where neutral wishes are on the table (since you generally need a 17th-level caster for that), and sensible characters will never go for malevolent wishes, because there's all sorts of precedent and warning that those are dangerous. So most often, the net effect of this ruling is just "be nice, with benevolent wishes".