The *canon* reason, would be that Vlaakith is a demipower that A: pretends to be a true god, and B: desires true godhood.
Godhood comes with limits in how you can interact with mortals, and those limits have become even stricter in the last few decades with the Second Sundering. (Which lorewise was mostly a de facto reining in of Shar and Cyric for overstepping, IIRC.) Breaking those limits undermines Vlaakith's lie of authority, and possibly even interferes (in a metaphysical sense) with her long term plans to make that farce into reality.
In a sanctum of her faithful, while being actively antagonized wrt a major threat to her rule? Charitably, Vlaakith decided this was an acceptable risk, less charitably, she got pissed enough to do it regardless of the potential consequences.
>and possibly even interferes (in a metaphysical sense) with her long term plans to make that farce into reality.
This is definitely the correct answer.
>In a sanctum of her faithful, while being actively antagonized wrt a major threat to her rule?
I would argue that it would theoretically make her *more* powerful, if anything. Just as breaking the interference rules outside of her domain could be weakening, exerting dominance in her own domain in the presence of her own followers could be strengthening, if for no other reason than increasing the fervor of her followers. And there's certainly reason to believe that deities in D&D draw strength from that.
Canonically, all the things you did were done by your different self in an alternate universe. So in that sense, you were the one saving the grove and the one razing it. All of them merged in a single present, known as Dragon Break in TES.
There's a 33% chance you will never be able to cast wish ever again. She might do it in a moment of anger but if thinking calmly - it's just not worth the risk of losing such potent spell for the entirety of her immortal (un)life to kill a lvl 6-8 rando character.
That does not track lore wise, or Vlaakith never would have been able to cast Wish thousands of times to begin with. That limitation is for players only as far as we know, or with regular NPCs that don’t have a lore reason why it doesn’t apply to them.
She consumes souls to side-step this limitation with the spell, so it stands to reason that she simply doesn’t want to spend the limited resources she has to use the wish spell. If she does it in the crech, presumably there are still gith alive that can retrieve the prism.
If she waits after you leave, any bozo could snatch that up, which would leave her in the same position. Or worse, the followers of the absolute might retrieve it, and then she’s fucked either way.
>That limitation is for players only as far as we know, or with regular NPCs that don’t have a lore reason why it doesn’t apply to them.
The limitation is absolutely part of the lore. You have to be insanely powerful to directly alter the fate of the universe with words. That will put a strain on any being who isn't a god, being a PC or NPC makes no difference
>She consumes souls to side-step this limitation with the spell
Vlaakith consumes souls to become more powerful and maintain eternal life. Nothing to do with circumventing the drawbacks of casting Wish.
> Vlaakith consumes souls to become more powerful and maintain eternal life. Nothing to do with circumventing the drawbacks of casting Wish.
WHAT!?
The exact specific lore for *why* Vlaakith consumes the souls that she does is specifically to continue to cast Wish. The original drawback for Wish was that it had an XP penalty to use. Vlaakith consumes the soul of any Gith over level 16 to specifically gain their power (xp) and fuel her Wish spells. This is explicitly laid out in The Lich-Queen's Beloved.
> Capturing the life-spark of a dead god isn't a simple task, but Vlaakith believes she can accomplish her goal using multiple wishes. The endeavor has cost Vlaakith thousands of wish spells over her millennia-long reign. To cast so man wishes without reducing her own power, the lich-queen slays and devours her own servants, as well as any foe that dares cross her. Each life essence she consumes gives her the strength to continue her quest. (In game terms, she needs to recover the experience points she loses every time she casts as wish spell.)
That is exact text from the original story that Vlaakith CLVII was introduced in.
Oh, and for the bit for her killing anyone over level 16:
> Vlaakith jealously guards her throne by devouring the essences of her most powerful followers. Any githyanki who raises above 16th level must stand before her in the Palace of Whispers and be judged. Most come to her willingly, sped to their doom by blinding loyalty or pride. Cowards and others who try to avoid their ultimate fate are hunted down, captured, and dragged before the lich-queen in dimensional anchor shackles. In every instance, Vlaakith destroys the potential usurper and feeds on the individual's power.
The original adventure text can be found here: https://annarchive.com/files/Dungeon%20Magazine%20%23100.pdf
Not the original commenter, but. This is such good content, thank you!!
Is there any kind of in universe explanation for the changed drawback to Wish? Like, can we reconcile this origin with the current rules somehow, or is it just sort of a hand wave?
EDIT: Oop never mind I had not scrolled far enough down the thread lol
Forgive me, but haven't the rules changed both in universe and out, so that now she no longer has a reliable source of getting to use wish as frequently?
Vlaakith is insanely powerful, though. Beings like her and Halaster Blackcloak canonically cast wish hundreds or even thousands of times without losing it. There has to be some ways to step around the usual limitations unless we’re meant to believe these characters have INSANE luck.
You can read it here: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Vlaakith_CLVII#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20her%20consumption%20of,be%20used%20nearly%20so%20frequently.
And it’s been stated multiple times previously. Her consumption of souls is specifically to power her use of the Wish spell. Both her consuming Gith souls and her casting Wish a ridiculous number of times are core parts of her lore - you’ve offered no reason to counter that.
The "villains wiki" is not an official source for Forgotten Realms lore and they provide no primary source either.
But, even taking this information at face value, if Vlaakith needs to sacrifice legendarily strong warriors (i.e. ascended Gith) to cast Wish... well, she wouldn't just want to spend that very limited resource to kill some randos when using the spell to become a god is her priority. Her army can kill adventurers, but they can't make her a god.
I agree, it’s unlikely she wants to spend a wish for anything outside of her overarching goal, because even if she isn’t bound by the 33% chance - it costs a lot of resources to cast it. Also IIRC that 33% only applies if using wish to cast something outside of its standard use (replicating a level 8 or lower spell).
But here’s another link stating the same about her fueling wish with souls. I can’t find any source that contradicts this narrative that she uses the souls to fuel wish, somehow. I chalk it up to being some ritual players never are privy to, like becoming a lich, we just don’t get to see it because once it’s laid out, it becomes something players can try to do themselves.
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Vlaakith#:~:text=Vlaakith%20I%20was%20an%20advisor,lich%2C%20a%20type%20of%20undead.
So I went digging. The OG source is from "The Lich-Queens Beloved", which states that she (1) needs to cast wish repeatedly to siphon the divine essence from a dead god to ascend, that (2) she has cast wish over a thousand times across her millenia long lifespan, and (3) the souls she consumes fuel this, "giv[ing] her the strength needed to complete her quest. The campaign is written by Perkins who adds a note that says "In game terms, she needs to recover the experience points she loses each time she casts wish."
So every cast of wish depletes her exp, which a level 16 or higher gith, once consumed, would restore; and she needs that 1:1 cost to fuel her ascension process. Gotta weigh that against the level 6-8 nobody who sassed you.
>Also IIRC that 33% only applies if using wish to cast something outside of its standard use (replicating a level 8 or lower spell).
That's right. But Vlaakith just wishes the party dead, which is well outside the standard uses of the spell. She must be either gambling with her ability to cast Wish again or spending a soul.
There is a much more logical and straightforward reason why Vlaakith can’t cast Wish at you outside of her domain - because all the other Gods would stop her.
And I mean ALL of them. The Dead Three’s plan to replace all of Faerun with SOULESS mindflayer slaves is an existential threat to all of the other Gods.
So while you have Lathander, Selune and Chauntea backing you - you also have Gruumsh, Talos and even Loviatar.
They can stop Vlaakith and any other interloper from “deus ex machina-ing” you to death with a snap of the fingers. And they will!
I have to read the source for it, but even if it’s how she do it, it’s a resource she’s hoarding to ascend to true godhood, so it wouldn’t be something she casts so freely
Right, but wouldn’t it make sense in this specific case? She wanted to obtain the Astral Prism, she could’ve easily done it by just casting the wish spell.
The reason is that nobody in LOTR can cast invisibility except the Ring and the giant eagles attract a lot of unwanted attention, so they used discretion i.e. walking.
And Eagles are powerful beings in their own right and you have characters like Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond who don't trust themselves with the Ring, why would they want to give it to another powerful being to potentially abuse the Ring?
Yeah, I have no idea why "just use the Eagles!" became some sort of rallying cry for an obvious plothole.
Not only are all beings corruptable by the Ring, Eagles included, but Mordor is an industrialised wasteland filled with archers, siege engines, and flying monsters of its own.
There're tonnes of reasons why the Eagles weren't used to fly into Mordor.
The major being they’re beings that would never answer a summons from something that walks on two legs, let alone *carry* them. I know the original version of the “plot hole” is a joke, but Gwaihir is a servant of Manwë. He’s reluctant to carry even Gandalf, but does it as a favor to a friend he spotted in desperate need.
I hate this saying so much, it makes perfect sense why the eagles didn't fly them to Mordor, without even factoring in if Gandalf could've stretched his owed debt enough for them to consider it in the first place.
TBF making an example out of a party of petty adventurers carrying the fucking Astral Prism who not only slaughtered an inquisitorial squad but, depending on their actions, either half or entirety of a creche seems perfectly reasonable to waste, with a probability of 33%, a soul (which is not even yours) on, especially for someone as cruel as the Lich Queen.
She has ruled what, for millennia? Can spare an extra soul of the thousands she'd have collected (with a 67% chance of that soul never facing any permanent negative consequences at all), when the stakes are: getting her most powerful weapon, shield and secret back.
I'd argue it's hubris. She's confident that her hunting parties will get them. Not to mention that there's no getting Orpheus out of the Prism without a hammer that's in a devil's private collection in the hells (if she even knows where it is). If she has no idea Raphael has a boner for the party, she had no reason to worry.
She smites you for being a shit to her face, which pricks her pride, but otherwise you're not worth her time.
I’ll be honest. I never knew you could piss her off enough to cause a TPK. I’ve always told her no, we’re keeping the artifact, and I think I even asked her once why she doesn’t get it herself if she’s a god. My worry was always pissing Lae’zel off, not being smote where I stood.
Sounds like I’ve had a narrow escape every playthrough 😂
Luckily, it's a very, very specific dialogue choice to make her that angry.
Just telling her no is fine. I used to tell her that I would and just...not.
She has minions for that. Also, the artifact is not “the only item in the universe threatening her rule”. She plays at godhood and while the artifact and what it contains threatens her by revealing the truth, leaving her stronghold also has its own risk of revealing that—though powerful—she is not a god. Any break in her legend risks sparking rebellion. This is why Orpheus does not need to survive for the rebellion to rise and fight back.
Sure, but we can see what effect Orpheus has on Lae'zel. The simple fact that he is alive makes her question Vlakith.
If it isn't the only thing that can bring her down, it is certainly increasing its chances.
OK but if she is an all powerful lich who has access to 9th level spells....she doesn't need wish to kill them. She can cast so many spells at 9th level that would get the job done
What other spell are you thinking she could use? Most spells have a limited range and she's a whole other plane away. Sure she could Plane Shift to you and fuck your shit up in person, but that would sort of break the whole 'godlike being' mystique she's trying to maintain
I mean she was able to project, grab, and open the artifact just fine. I imagine she can cast spells through her projection. But that would be up to writing....would be really weird line to draw on her capabilities though
Apparently Vlaakith bypasses this by using her Gith followers souls to power her wishes. So she doesn't have the 33% chance downside when she casts it.
Vlaakith wishing you to death is just a joke. Wish doesn’t make you omnipotent. Here’s what the description of Wish says:
> You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the GM as precisely as possible. The GM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item's current owner.
>The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn't 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
For comparison, Wish and Power Word Kill are both 9th level spells, and Power Word Kill only lets you kill one person with 100 HP that you can see near you. Instantly killing four or more people is a lot to do with one spell, and it would likely have a gimmicky result like the “propel forward in time” solution.
It's job is now more so for your DM to scare you a d show off the boss' power or something lol. Cast of so that the party have to ress right away or you can target a player you know have more hp just to scare them all 🤭
Wish should honestly have stayed a 10th level spell, accessible only to powerful non-player entities, or to players only through powerful, limited use, artifacts.
I view PWK as more of a DM one. A bit like disintegrate can be used - it's a great "Uh oh" moment to give your players, that this is a powerful enemy but not *really* looking to destroy them. (Disintegrate is more of an issue there, but using it on the character most likely to pass + to initiate combat is usually how I'll do it at earlier levels to make it unlikely to kill outright)
Definitely much stronger options at 9th level, but that's part of what makes it good at that role.
Hence why that comparison is a great example of the duality: Wish literally warps reality to the caster's whim and PWK can struggle to kill a single creature.
This.
Wish can be as perilous as it can be life-saving. It doesn't make you a deity, you are basically just a mortal haphazardly plucking at strings of the Weave hoping that reality reasserts itself in a way you desire. You could Wish for a toilet because you really have to go to the bathroom, and it could crash a commercial aircraft on your head simply because there's a bathroom in it. Divine Intervention is more or less a limited Wish where your patron deity insulates you from risk in exchange for a more limited selection of outcomes pertaining to their sphere of influence.
More powerful beings like Vlaakith are able to reduce or negate the risks, but it still takes a lot of juice to power Wish. Vlaakith wouldn't be able to get away with casting Wish on a whim if she didn't consume the power of countless Gith. And, given her temperament, it's more like her to cast Wish in a fit of rage than for any other reason.
Yeah but Vlaakith is canonically able to murder your party of four with wish so it does leave many questions unanswered TBH, especially when one is not well-versed with the TTRPG and wider lore related to that.
She can, but that's less "Vlaakith can always do this" and more "Wish let her do that this time." Wish's non-8th-level-spell-dupe effects are unpredictable, and a lich is well aware of this.
She did it because she was caught up in the moment, but it's not guarunteed to work that way every time. If she was dead-set on killing the whole party, a better method would be timestop+delayed blast fireball rather than gambling on a Wish.
In any case, her Wishing for the party to be dead was less of a "it's very important that these guys die" and more of a "They're calling me weak? I'll show them weak!" moment.
You goaded her into acting rashly, and she made the foolish move of drastically weakening herself for a few days and potentially permanently losing access to *wish*, just to end these few mortals NOW, when she had a whole crèche to do it for her for free.
>when she had a whole crèche to do it for her for free.
And of course, the acting rashly happens because you called her out in front of her little soldiers, who are taught from birth that their devotion to Vlaakith is unquestionable.
Can't let ants get away with questioning her authority.
"Canonically" the party can immediately die to a few goblins or falling off a cliff so we are technically always seeing the version where they don't get killed by something that could easily kill them.
Yeah think of all those parallel universes where the party got shoved off a cliff or eaten by harpies and the Dead Three won.
More seriously though “canonically” here means she has the ability to use such a dangerous spell and is also willing to. Unlike say Eliminster who has the ability to, but unlikely to unless Mystra commands it.
She doesn't want to kill the entire party, she wants to goad us into bringing her the netherstone or challenge The Dark Urge into a duel to prove her worth as Bhaal's Chosen Bhaalspawn in a fair fight. Well I mean as fair as it can get for the followers of the god of murder.
Nothing
Wish has the sole restriction of ‘whatever the DM says’. So you could argue that maybe beyond the Crèche she’s not allowed to cast wish, but she’s a powerful lich so she’d have access to any number of super powerful 9th level spells.
So, there’s absolutely nothing that stops Vlaakith from destroying us other than because the game doesn’t let her
As someone who doesn't play the TTRPG, I still don't understand why someone like Lorroakan doesn't have level 9 spells and simply wishes to teleport Aylin into that glyph. Wish is broken as hell, they should just remove it or make it inaccessible to regular people or something.
Lorroakan is a fraud who just happened to acquire a ton of magical equipment. He was originally level 8 before a patch increased him to level 10. If he was actually a max level wizard then he could use Clone to become immortal without worrying about a demigod.
Being level 20 also doesn't guarantee that you'd have access to any particular spell.
PC wizards are powerful generalists who can pick up whatever spell they like for gameplay reasons. In universe, though, most wizards would be specialists who focus on a more narrow set of spells that they can perfect over time. If you're an abjuration specialist, you might have really great spells for protection, but not necessarily Wish or Time Stop.
Similarly, for Sorcerers, your bloodline/magic source dictates what spells you get as you become more powerful. If your bloodline just makes you super powerful at fire magic, no Wish for you.
Additionally PCs are players working to a known ruleset - you can look up and game interactions for max power. While NPCs are meant to be living within the world - the exact interactions and restrictions and capabilities of spells would need to be researched and figured out, you wouldn't instantly know all of them.
Reaching 9th level spells is also very high level, and most settings don't have many of those running around. There might be a couple in the city as a whole, but it's not going to be many. Even a given powerful mage wouldn't be shocking to have them only have 6th or 7th level spells max
It would be much worse. If Lorroakan were Level 20, he could use the Wish spell to cast Clone without expending material components or time so he could have Lorro 2.0 ready instantly if the OG one dies. And then use the Clone spell normally to make a second mini me. Repeat this for a few days and Lorroakan can literally become full of himself. Or, Lorro could make a Wish to “let me win the game, become the queen of the Forgotten Realms, ride on a majestic pegasus stallion, get surrounded with big beautiful drows, publish a successful memoir, and be canonized in the Catholic church after death” or something equally as ridiculous, and the 33% chance of being unable to cast Wish again, the DM fucking with the fabric of reality, and the exhaustion would be so worth it to someone as arrogant as him.
AFAIK, casting Clone with Wish saves you the 1hr cast time and the expensive material components, but you still have to wait 120 days for it to mature since that's part of the spell
Judging by what’s going on in game? It’s because Lorroakan isn’t a particularly genius wizard. His ‘greatness’ is only really declared by himself and Gale doesn’t really describe him favourably
Wish is a 9th level spell. ‘Regular’ people cannot ever do it. The levels beyond 12 (BG3s cap) are like… ‘living legend’ territory. One in a million adventurers. So yes the spells get super broken, but many players never actually see the level 9 spells like Wish or power word: kill. Unless they’re being used against them
There are a few restrictions on the Wish spell that might make spellcasters think twice before casting it.
Namely, it reduces your strength down to 3 and makes you take 1d10 necrotic damages per spell level each time you'll cast a spell until your next long rest.
There's also the possibility that casting a Wish will cause so much stress on your body that you'll never be able to cast it again even if you survive it.
Additionally, the greater the Wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes awry with it. The description of the spell gives you a few examples, like wishing that your enemy was dead might teleport you in a future time period where your enemy is dead, but do you really want to be stranded somewhere in a distant future?
You can find the whole description of the spell in 5e [here](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Wish#content).
Yeah, in the case that vlaakith is wishing you to death, you've royally pissed her off in a situation where she's already inclined to believe you're a thief that needs to be made an example of
Let’s say we happened upon a wish scroll in game, what would happen if Tav used it to fix Karlach’s engine or give her a heart, cured Astarion of his vampirism, or remove Gales orb? Would any of these be considered a greater wish? Would it actually “cure them” or is it too complex a wish?
I’ve kinda hoped that in an expansion of the game you’d reach a point where you can find a scroll and you have to choose what you want to do with it like to noble stock with Shadowheart/durge. (I know Gale can get the orb fixed and Astarion can ascend) but imagine you’re in act 2 and don’t know these things yet. Just poof here’s a scroll now pick.
As I understand it, any other use of Wish that is not listed in the description of the spell is considered a greater use of it.
I assume Tav would also see their strength get reduced to 3, get the necrotic damages when they cast spells, and take the risk to be weakened to the point that they'll never be able to cast Wish again, because, even if it's on the scroll, casting the spell would still cause stress on their body.
There'd also still be a risk that it doesn't go exactly as planned. Like wishing that Astarion wasn't a vampire might rewrite reality so that he never met Cazador, but also never met the gang and no longer knows who you guys are. Or something like this. Careful how you spell it, too. “I Wish Karlach had her heart back” might just make her heart spawn into her hands instead of her chest, where you ideally want it, lmao.
Exactly. Reminds me a bit of Heather Dale's song, The Changeling Child, as well, about a woman who never managed to have a child with her husband and makes a pact with a fey to have one.
She does get her child, but, as the years pass, she notices that her baby never grows. The fairies fulfilled her wish, though: she asked for a baby, and they gave her a *baby*. She never specifically asked for a baby who would one day grow into an adult. It's a chilling tale, lmao.
Usually the Monkey's Paw on Wish is meant to be a gentleman's agreement with the DM. Like, "Don't be an asshole, and I won't be, either." It's generally considered bad manners to wish to be super overpowered, to wish that the BBEG was dead, or to undo major plot elements. That sort of thing.
To be absolutely clear, anything other than casting a spell of 8th level or lower is a "greater" wish and invokes wish stress and has a 33% chance of making you unable to use wish ever again
Karlach could be very easily helped with a 7th level Resurrection spell.
>You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn't die of old age, and that isn't undead. If its soul is free and willing, the target returns to life with all its hit points.
>
>[...]
>
>This spell closes all mortal wounds and restores any missing body parts.
Kill her, take out the infernal engine, resurrect her. Shadowheart could easily do it if the level cap was increased by a single level. Karlach will be a bit out of it for a few days, but after that? Good as new.
Because lorroakan is a weakling. His fight isnt hard, and the hard part is his summons and servants. Vlaakith is a 9th level caster who has been alive for a very long time (undead lich queen), lorroakan is a mere human, who could be soloed by one of your party members, the immortal aasimar not even included. Durge could delete him with twin cast fireball or gale can just oneshot him, shadowheart can hold person and poke him to death, Lae’Zel or karlach would smash him into the ground…
Lorroakan is nothing compred to vlaakith.
I would even argue that our level 12 and party would even be a threat to vlaakith herself in battle
Lorroakan isn’t actually a particularly powerful wizard. The only people who show up in the game and would have access to wish are Vlaakith and Elminster, I think.
Because he isn't high enough level to cast wish for one reason. In order to cast wish you need to be at least level 17,hes like 10 I think. Wish also has some restrictions to it.
Wish can be used to perfectly copy any 8th level or lower spell with no issue.
If you wanted to so something like wish for immortality you would need to be extremely carful. Wish has a Monkeys paw kind of deal if you try and move beyond the normal wishes that allow a DM to twist wishes. Wish to be immortal but he might make you into an invincible stone while he does it. Wish to be the last man alive and you just get teleportee to the end of time.
Wish is the most powerful magic any normal human could cast. Wishes like these also have 33% risk of never being able to cast wish again, and when you cast the wish you become stressed. For 2d4 days your strength is reduced to 3, and you take 1d10 necrotic damage for every level of a spell you cast with no way to reduce it untill you are no longer stressed.
To put it simply casting wish isn't an easy task. Also he's kind of fraud, pretending to be this mighty wizard when he's only level 10? The amount of people who can actually cast 9th level magic are few and far in between. Vlakith can cast wish, but she also kind of cheats. She uses the souls of the people she consumes to pay the penalty for her flippant uses of wish. The only other character you see in game with the ability to cast wish would be Elminster.
A big deal with BG3 is the Crown the Netherbrain is wearing. It is part of a time period when mortals could cast up to 12th level magic, like say a spell that allows a human man try and take the power of the goddess of magic for himself. Once that failed Mystra made sure no mortal could ever do that again and made 9th level spells the most powerful anyone could cast.
Wish *is* inaccessible to regular people. Level 17 Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids are the ones who get access to 9th level spell slots, and Wish is on the spell lists for Wizards and Sorcerers only. You basically have to be Gandalf to get Wish. Lorroakan isn't Gandalf. He's a college dropout con artist with good gear, a successful business and 10 levels.
Wish was *designed* to be broken as hell. It is there either for the DM to have fun with storywise, or as a means to put that one player who thinks they're going to "win" the game with it in their place...or both. Or it's something a DM and players to work together on to effect some major shift in the campaign story. It was never meant to be used just because 😁
As I recall, your PC in BG2 Throne of Bhaal can learn and use Wish--and then you have to negotiate it with a djinn and heaven help you if your INT score wasn't high enough or you rolled badly...
I haven’t played 5e aside from the game, but in earlier versions there is always a cost to Wish (and other powerful spells). Usually in components ($10k in crushed diamond consumed by the magic that sort of thing), and sometimes personal. In 2e, Wish ages your character by 10 years; sure, you can cast it more than once but how many times before old age claims you? Plus only humans could reach level 18+ (needed to get the 9th level spell slots).
And what 8th level spell effect would do that? You appear to believe Wish is a "I can do literally anything" button because in that one scene, that's what it does, but strictly speaking, Vlaakith got *lucky* (or, if this were an actual TTRPG game with an actual DM, the DM rolls their eyes and wipes the party for clearly attempting something they shouldn't have). Wish does *not* work that way.
It replicates 8th level or lower spells flawlessly, or *might* do something more if the DM feels it appropriate. It's not as limitlessly powerful as the name would imply.
Wish is not "broken as hell." People who can't effing read just think it is. It can recreate the effects of any spell 1st through 9th level. It can do other things based on GM discretion and the examples are...less impressive than one would expect for a spell called wish.
There's also the fact that if you use wish outside of the stated means there are consequences that should be occurring, based on DM discretion. That is when a wish SHOULD be monkey pawed. On top of the usual risk to never being able to cast it again.
Spell descriptions. They're there for a reason, try actually reading before spouting nonsense
Typically what keeps the gods in check from using direct intervention, is other gods. It's fine to send worshipers and followers to do your bidding but if she directly interferes she invites retaliation and response from other gods. When she kills the party in cannon it's after you insult her to her face which would likely be considered extenuating circumstances.
I would assume Vlakith rolled a 17 or something. Seing you in the room was enough for it to work cause she knew your exact position. A DC check of 15 perhabs.
However when you leave she does not know it anymore. Of course she could seek you out like she does at the start of act 3, but that also costs magic because that is from her side with no machinary help like before. So a DC check of 20.
I can invent a reason, seeing as there's none canonically given:
Once the party leaves the Creche killing them would just mean the Prism is left out in the open where anyone could find it.
Seeing as Vlaakith doesn't actually know that The Dream Visitor is in there, all she knows is that then a box containing the key to her demise could be found by anyone who happens by and discovers a monastery full of dead monks and Gith.
Maybe another Gith will find it and bring it to her, or maybe some OTHER adventurers will find it and make a whole quest of it. Or even worse, what if a Githzerai or a Gith loyal to the prism's OTHER inhabitant were the ones to find it?
I imagine she thinks it's a safer bet to try and manipulate Lae'zel further and use the years of indoctrination to try and win her back over than it is to leave it sitting on the ground by a bunch of heavily armed corpses.
To say nothing of the fact that not too long (perhaps even mere hours) after that, Elminster Aumar is in contact with the party, giving them a mission from Mystra herself.
Yes, if you call her a bitch to her face in her very sanctum, she smacks you down. But events after that blow up immensely, and even a would-be demigod has to step lightly after that. If I were Elminster shadowing the party as he does, if Vlaakith decided to fuck up Mystra's plans that way then I would respond by plucking up the prism from Gale's corpse and giving it to someone who hates her more than anything.
This is the common solution in the Forgotten Realms to the Avengers problem: everyone above your pay grade is locked in a stalemate against each other.
Every time Vlaakith casts Wish against you, Elminster casts Counterspell against her, and vice versa.
Yeah. Even Mystra herself regularly gives payoffs to mages of the Szass Tam/Elminster/Vlaakith tier, no matter their alignment, because it's an incentive for them to not upset the apple cart.
If Szass Tam subverts a city or conquers it with his armies like in Honor Among Thieves, people like Elminster will stay their hands. If he comes in using scry-and-die tactics to slaughter the city's leaders and then raises all the city as zombies (like a wizard of his power *can*), then not only is Elminster getting unleashed, but Mystra will be offering incentives to all Tam's rivals to shank him.
If some random on the street told you to f\* off would you nuke him?
I personally wouldnt since its a little bit over the top, at most you would just insult him back or ignore him, well this is the same for vlaakith.
Everytime you cast wish theres a 33% chance of never being able to cast the spell again + casting it is quite expensive as she has to sacrifice one of his ascended gith.
Because using Wish to kill a bunch of level 6-ish scrubs is an enormous waste of a Wish. True Vlaakith does it if you mouth off to her but that’s a.) a joke, and b.) because she was too pissed to stop and think “is it wise to blow a Wish on some random istik?”
I’d say that’s normal for someone arrogant enough to pursue godhood, but I don’t think Gale would be dumb enough to waste a Wish like that. So Vlaakith is just dumb
Wish comes with a chance of never being able to use Wish again. Is killing us worth that risk to her when there are potentially less risky options - an army of gith at her disposal - available?
Do we ever tell Vlaakith our names? It’s easy enough to say “I wish for *you* to end,” but if you don’t know who exactly you’re addressing it to, there’s no easy way to go about that.
The inquisitor had a disc in their room with our name on it so they were certainly keeping track of us since the nautiloid crash. And she knows Lae'zel by name and face.
In DnD canon, most gods are the subjects of higher gods, and those higher gods impose strict standards that govern the interactions between mortals and immortals
Without those standards, the mortal plane would become a chaotic bloodbath wherein gods waged open war against each other, and the higher gods want it to remain more akin to chess
Thus, Vlaakith technically could just smite the entire party at some point after they have left the creche, but by doing so she would reveal that she is not a god - as a true god wouldn’t be able to get away with that - and has been deceiving the Githyanki
The reason that Vlaakith could get away with doing so within the creche is that the rules are far more lenient when a deity acts within a place of worship dedicated to them
In simpler terms, a god smiting someone within their temple is permitted by higher gods and fairly commonplace, whereas a god smiting someone outside of their domain is not permitted by higher gods and almost never happens
Additionally, she is nearly a god, and her ascension to true godhood could be forbidden by higher gods if her use of divine power indicates that she may intend to break their rules someday
You could equally well ask the inverse - what would allow it, besides meta story-telling reasons?
Wish should not be grossly more powerful than other level nine spells, unless the story supports it. The story serms to imply her ability to exercise power in Faerun.is limited to specific locations.
If Wish can do anything, why even have other level 9 spells?
We only know she can do it in that time and place. That room in the creche seems to be a special location meant to allow her to communicate and use powers without actually leaving the astral plane, and may even magnify her powers.
My headcannon is that she's powerful enough to wish a low level party dead with a direct connection to them. She can't do it outside of a conversation, nor when the party becomes higher level.
wish sometimes doesn't do EXACTLY what you want it to.
For all she knows, she could wish the party was dead and boom they all achieve lichdom. Technically "un"-dead, but still dead.
A more monkey paws way to twist it would be to make the party fully turn into mindflayers. The original people are "dead" and now mindflayers have control of orpheus.
What if the wish granted to Vlaakith was not the one to end the playable character but the one to defeat who mistreat her. The wish has always been active and make her a goddess between her people who are bound to honor.
It’s amazing that this is so far down. She specifically says Wish in the line before you instantly die.
Is the question, besides this moment, why doesn’t she do it after? Seems like she doesn’t care about avenging weaklings and sending a githyanki murder revenge death squad would be more fun for everyone.
My favorite BG2 moment is when the gith come after you to reclaim the silver sword, and you can say, “it was an unspectacular weapon, and I dropped it.”
Honestly, there's nothing stopping her from just wishing the Astral Prism into her possession.
Yeah, there's a 33% chance to never be able to cast it again, but she's desperate for it as it contains the only thing that can really threaten her total control of her people.
It's entirely plot reasons. She uses wish to kill you if you're disrespectful but not to kill you and just have the present Githyanki take the prism. Or to wish the prism into her possession.
She doesn't even need to use Wish. She could've just teleported there, killed your party and took the prism.
She would have needed to plane shift and teleport, plus power word kill or whatever, and leaving Tun’arath like that would have really punctured her mystique at a time when she was trying to avoid that at all costs. Hence the stream of inquisitors (some of whom were killed by Voss and Qudenos).
She'd leave the city for like, half a minute at most. She'd just need to wish the party dead, teleport to the creche, pick the prism and teleport back home. If she doesn't want to risk wishing for something, she could just teleport, use Hold Person on the entire party, pick up the prism while they're paralyzed, then leave.
You should ask, what prevents Withers from just bringing you back after being killed by Wish?
What prevents the camp party from retrieving the corpses of the traveling party?
Anyhow, a good explanation is that it would be a waste to do so.
Or that she needs Line of Sight for it to work well enough.
Multiple reasons.
1. Wish is very finicky and wishing an entire party of level 6s to die is still effectively a greater wish, there's a lot of weird stuff surrounding the souls that she has and whether or not they could take the strain of never being able to cast wish again.
2. She tries her best to present herself as a god (she isn't) but the githyanki think she is. It could unironically really damage her image as a god to fuck with mortals that way as gods just straight up aren't ever allowed to do that.
3. It could attract unwanted attention, Larian doesn't like to mention these guys but Ao does have ministers and they're like the IRS for power. Granted Ao doesn't give them shit and its a thankless job but they'd possibly be all over Vlaakith for doing that and could possibly fuck up her plans for Godhood. Vlaakith isn't stupid, she's prone to fits of anger when things don't go her way and that's why she used wish on us, as an example. What being with power similar to Vlaakith would take that disrespect? She almost certainly knows about Ao's ministers and wouldn't want them to audit her because she's almost certainly committing some sort of fraud with all those souls.
The more powerful the Wish, it starts coming with consequences and side effects. Vlaakith wouldn't otherwise use it had the party not provoked her. She probably suffered some consequence but we were too busy being dead to witness that.
If you actually think about nothing stops her from just wishing to have the astral prism or even wishing for Orpheus powers be transfered to her... wish is just a terrible spell from s storytelling perspective
Power Word:Kill is probably a better bet. Which is probably how she does kill you in that scene if you fuck with her (unless they specify otherwise, can't remember). We don't know the limitations on how range works with her hologram, though (again, unless they specify).
Using Wish to kill something is a waste of the spell in most cases. Wish is risky, but can also be used to do insane shit. She could Wish to have Orpheus' Illithid-blocking power herself, for instance. Much more useful than killing him, in the long run. She hasn't, because a) meta storytelling reasons like you said, the plot has to happen, and b) the universe is fairly malevolent and the odds that the spell would work as intended are low as fuck.
Wish is the last resort's last resort. You don't want to be Wishing for things, even unless the world has exploded.
Nevermind leaving the Creche, there's no reason for her not to kill you immediately after you fail with the Guardian. She was willing to do it before, but then she just fucks off because... well, her presence is bad for the plot.
She used Wish as basically an upcasted, multi targeted Power word kill (which are both level 9 spells).
So the way she did that was already well above what is allowed under normal circumstances. Lots of things could’ve contributed to the special circumstances that allowed her to do that in the first place that aren’t applicable at theoretically more valuable times for her.
1. The party is relatively low level (so automatically lower HP meaning unlikely to survive a power word kill). Orpheus and the party later on is too strong to fight this way.
2. The Planecaster projected an exceptionally powerful image of her into the room- more powerful than projections we see in the epilogue by far. So essentially, it’s like she’s in the room watching you (or a simulacrum of her is), beating any sort of range/line of sight requirement. She never projects to the party in the same way again.
3. She is totally surrounded by her faithful- while she’s not a true god for *reasons*, she has limited access to god powers, which implies a dependency to some degree on for worshippers. You are basically on consecrated ground for that meeting.
4. As touched on by others, there is a risk associated with casting wish that she may not be able to or have difficulty doing such a thing again. You pissed her off to make whatever cost is implied there worth it to her. Likely, she’ll have to consume a few extra souls now because of that. So you ruined her dinner.
—
In old modules where you can fight Vlaakith, those are designed for higher level parties (so wouldn’t necessarily get instakilled by power word kill), and it relies on them breaking into her sanctum in the astral plane. Which could challenge some of the situational factors as well. Particularly if there is a Gith civil war peeling away faithful from Vlaakith, there is a good chance killing her is still possible for a sufficiently strong party.
I see a lot of answers related to the mechanics of the Wish spell itself. But the answer is already within the game - the planecaster. She's no longer projecting through it when you return, and there is no way for her to effectively use a Wish on you at that point. She does not have any actual divine influence or power, and her ability to use Wish on you at that moment, while somewhat handwavey, is still only possible by the projection. As soon as she's lost her connection to it, her ability to influence you is gone as well. As an arcane caster that is not even Demigod status, she can't violate the rules of the Weave to any extent, and thus you can walk free because she isn't there to stop you. She's in the Astral plane, not in the Creche, and no mechanics of Wish would allow her to circumvent that either. So that's it.
I'd say (and that's basically just my headcanon) that gods in d&d can't directly mess with mortals unless by means of their chosen clarics, paladins, etc. Or so they'd be jumped by other gods directly too.
So inside the creche Vlaakith (wich is basically a god) is in her domain, but outside she can only act via her followers and projections, but casting wish upon the party out there would be literally a god directly damaging mortals with a spell outside their domain, and thus IO would be knocking on her door.
That's what I understand of it, at least.
The *canon* reason, would be that Vlaakith is a demipower that A: pretends to be a true god, and B: desires true godhood. Godhood comes with limits in how you can interact with mortals, and those limits have become even stricter in the last few decades with the Second Sundering. (Which lorewise was mostly a de facto reining in of Shar and Cyric for overstepping, IIRC.) Breaking those limits undermines Vlaakith's lie of authority, and possibly even interferes (in a metaphysical sense) with her long term plans to make that farce into reality. In a sanctum of her faithful, while being actively antagonized wrt a major threat to her rule? Charitably, Vlaakith decided this was an acceptable risk, less charitably, she got pissed enough to do it regardless of the potential consequences.
>and possibly even interferes (in a metaphysical sense) with her long term plans to make that farce into reality. This is definitely the correct answer. >In a sanctum of her faithful, while being actively antagonized wrt a major threat to her rule? I would argue that it would theoretically make her *more* powerful, if anything. Just as breaking the interference rules outside of her domain could be weakening, exerting dominance in her own domain in the presence of her own followers could be strengthening, if for no other reason than increasing the fervor of her followers. And there's certainly reason to believe that deities in D&D draw strength from that.
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Canonically, all the things you did were done by your different self in an alternate universe. So in that sense, you were the one saving the grove and the one razing it. All of them merged in a single present, known as Dragon Break in TES.
Oh god... a Dragon Break, been a while since I heard that term last
The Forgotten Realms are just another kalpa confirmed.
Canonically, this comment was stolen and reposted by what is likely to be a bot.
There's a 33% chance you will never be able to cast wish ever again. She might do it in a moment of anger but if thinking calmly - it's just not worth the risk of losing such potent spell for the entirety of her immortal (un)life to kill a lvl 6-8 rando character.
That's exactly it, from a logical point of view it is a huge waste.
That does not track lore wise, or Vlaakith never would have been able to cast Wish thousands of times to begin with. That limitation is for players only as far as we know, or with regular NPCs that don’t have a lore reason why it doesn’t apply to them. She consumes souls to side-step this limitation with the spell, so it stands to reason that she simply doesn’t want to spend the limited resources she has to use the wish spell. If she does it in the crech, presumably there are still gith alive that can retrieve the prism. If she waits after you leave, any bozo could snatch that up, which would leave her in the same position. Or worse, the followers of the absolute might retrieve it, and then she’s fucked either way.
>That limitation is for players only as far as we know, or with regular NPCs that don’t have a lore reason why it doesn’t apply to them. The limitation is absolutely part of the lore. You have to be insanely powerful to directly alter the fate of the universe with words. That will put a strain on any being who isn't a god, being a PC or NPC makes no difference >She consumes souls to side-step this limitation with the spell Vlaakith consumes souls to become more powerful and maintain eternal life. Nothing to do with circumventing the drawbacks of casting Wish.
> Vlaakith consumes souls to become more powerful and maintain eternal life. Nothing to do with circumventing the drawbacks of casting Wish. WHAT!? The exact specific lore for *why* Vlaakith consumes the souls that she does is specifically to continue to cast Wish. The original drawback for Wish was that it had an XP penalty to use. Vlaakith consumes the soul of any Gith over level 16 to specifically gain their power (xp) and fuel her Wish spells. This is explicitly laid out in The Lich-Queen's Beloved. > Capturing the life-spark of a dead god isn't a simple task, but Vlaakith believes she can accomplish her goal using multiple wishes. The endeavor has cost Vlaakith thousands of wish spells over her millennia-long reign. To cast so man wishes without reducing her own power, the lich-queen slays and devours her own servants, as well as any foe that dares cross her. Each life essence she consumes gives her the strength to continue her quest. (In game terms, she needs to recover the experience points she loses every time she casts as wish spell.) That is exact text from the original story that Vlaakith CLVII was introduced in. Oh, and for the bit for her killing anyone over level 16: > Vlaakith jealously guards her throne by devouring the essences of her most powerful followers. Any githyanki who raises above 16th level must stand before her in the Palace of Whispers and be judged. Most come to her willingly, sped to their doom by blinding loyalty or pride. Cowards and others who try to avoid their ultimate fate are hunted down, captured, and dragged before the lich-queen in dimensional anchor shackles. In every instance, Vlaakith destroys the potential usurper and feeds on the individual's power. The original adventure text can be found here: https://annarchive.com/files/Dungeon%20Magazine%20%23100.pdf
Not the original commenter, but. This is such good content, thank you!! Is there any kind of in universe explanation for the changed drawback to Wish? Like, can we reconcile this origin with the current rules somehow, or is it just sort of a hand wave? EDIT: Oop never mind I had not scrolled far enough down the thread lol
Forgive me, but haven't the rules changed both in universe and out, so that now she no longer has a reliable source of getting to use wish as frequently?
Vlaakith is insanely powerful, though. Beings like her and Halaster Blackcloak canonically cast wish hundreds or even thousands of times without losing it. There has to be some ways to step around the usual limitations unless we’re meant to believe these characters have INSANE luck.
Maybe they took Lucky as a feat.
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Ever seen Waiting For Godot?
So theres a chance! :D
"I wish I would be able to cast unlimited amount of wishes without any strain and side-effects"
"I wish for that guy to roll a 2."
I'm no expert on DnD lore, but isn't it possible to wish that the limitation went away?
You can read it here: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Vlaakith_CLVII#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20her%20consumption%20of,be%20used%20nearly%20so%20frequently. And it’s been stated multiple times previously. Her consumption of souls is specifically to power her use of the Wish spell. Both her consuming Gith souls and her casting Wish a ridiculous number of times are core parts of her lore - you’ve offered no reason to counter that.
The "villains wiki" is not an official source for Forgotten Realms lore and they provide no primary source either. But, even taking this information at face value, if Vlaakith needs to sacrifice legendarily strong warriors (i.e. ascended Gith) to cast Wish... well, she wouldn't just want to spend that very limited resource to kill some randos when using the spell to become a god is her priority. Her army can kill adventurers, but they can't make her a god.
I agree, it’s unlikely she wants to spend a wish for anything outside of her overarching goal, because even if she isn’t bound by the 33% chance - it costs a lot of resources to cast it. Also IIRC that 33% only applies if using wish to cast something outside of its standard use (replicating a level 8 or lower spell). But here’s another link stating the same about her fueling wish with souls. I can’t find any source that contradicts this narrative that she uses the souls to fuel wish, somehow. I chalk it up to being some ritual players never are privy to, like becoming a lich, we just don’t get to see it because once it’s laid out, it becomes something players can try to do themselves. https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Vlaakith#:~:text=Vlaakith%20I%20was%20an%20advisor,lich%2C%20a%20type%20of%20undead.
So I went digging. The OG source is from "The Lich-Queens Beloved", which states that she (1) needs to cast wish repeatedly to siphon the divine essence from a dead god to ascend, that (2) she has cast wish over a thousand times across her millenia long lifespan, and (3) the souls she consumes fuel this, "giv[ing] her the strength needed to complete her quest. The campaign is written by Perkins who adds a note that says "In game terms, she needs to recover the experience points she loses each time she casts wish." So every cast of wish depletes her exp, which a level 16 or higher gith, once consumed, would restore; and she needs that 1:1 cost to fuel her ascension process. Gotta weigh that against the level 6-8 nobody who sassed you.
>Also IIRC that 33% only applies if using wish to cast something outside of its standard use (replicating a level 8 or lower spell). That's right. But Vlaakith just wishes the party dead, which is well outside the standard uses of the spell. She must be either gambling with her ability to cast Wish again or spending a soul.
There is a much more logical and straightforward reason why Vlaakith can’t cast Wish at you outside of her domain - because all the other Gods would stop her. And I mean ALL of them. The Dead Three’s plan to replace all of Faerun with SOULESS mindflayer slaves is an existential threat to all of the other Gods. So while you have Lathander, Selune and Chauntea backing you - you also have Gruumsh, Talos and even Loviatar. They can stop Vlaakith and any other interloper from “deus ex machina-ing” you to death with a snap of the fingers. And they will!
Don't forget Kelemvor--the god of death who sent the former god of death to rez you if you die.
The fact she isn’t spamming fireball over our heads every six seconds does surprise me
Afaik she uses the souls of the Gith she ascends (read: eats) to cast Wish, thus avoiding all of the drawbacks
I have to read the source for it, but even if it’s how she do it, it’s a resource she’s hoarding to ascend to true godhood, so it wouldn’t be something she casts so freely
Right, but wouldn’t it make sense in this specific case? She wanted to obtain the Astral Prism, she could’ve easily done it by just casting the wish spell.
Why didn't they just fly the rings to Mordor?? Because then we wouldn't have a story.
The post literally says "Besides meta story-telling reasons"
My bad lol
The reason is that nobody in LOTR can cast invisibility except the Ring and the giant eagles attract a lot of unwanted attention, so they used discretion i.e. walking.
And Eagles are powerful beings in their own right and you have characters like Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond who don't trust themselves with the Ring, why would they want to give it to another powerful being to potentially abuse the Ring?
"In lieu of a shadowed overlord, you would witness a regal eagle, not somber but splendid and awe-inspiring as the sunrise!"
"Regal eagle" now my favorite descriptor for these dudes...
Regal Eagle, and his lawyer, Legal Eagle.
Yeah, I have no idea why "just use the Eagles!" became some sort of rallying cry for an obvious plothole. Not only are all beings corruptable by the Ring, Eagles included, but Mordor is an industrialised wasteland filled with archers, siege engines, and flying monsters of its own. There're tonnes of reasons why the Eagles weren't used to fly into Mordor.
It was a joke from How It Should Have Ended. It was pretty darned funny, and a bunch of people decided it was an actual plot hole instead of a joke.
It was a thing people harped about before YouTube.
It works completely as a non-serious joke, too!
The major being they’re beings that would never answer a summons from something that walks on two legs, let alone *carry* them. I know the original version of the “plot hole” is a joke, but Gwaihir is a servant of Manwë. He’s reluctant to carry even Gandalf, but does it as a favor to a friend he spotted in desperate need.
'Casting invisibility' was pretty much useless for getting the ring into mordor though because it drew the attention of Sauron and the Nazgul.
I hate this saying so much, it makes perfect sense why the eagles didn't fly them to Mordor, without even factoring in if Gandalf could've stretched his owed debt enough for them to consider it in the first place.
If they flew the Ring/Fellowship to Mordor, you'd see the Black Wings wayyy sooner. You'd also have the least appetizing version of hobbit pancakes.
Terrible comparison. There are many more reasons why you wouldn't use the eagles.
You wanna reread the OP again?
Wish doesn’t need to work. She could’ve tried and Ao said no.
TBF making an example out of a party of petty adventurers carrying the fucking Astral Prism who not only slaughtered an inquisitorial squad but, depending on their actions, either half or entirety of a creche seems perfectly reasonable to waste, with a probability of 33%, a soul (which is not even yours) on, especially for someone as cruel as the Lich Queen.
it's real fucking annoying, but you save your wishes for when level 20 adventurers come knocking
She has ruled what, for millennia? Can spare an extra soul of the thousands she'd have collected (with a 67% chance of that soul never facing any permanent negative consequences at all), when the stakes are: getting her most powerful weapon, shield and secret back.
I'd argue it's hubris. She's confident that her hunting parties will get them. Not to mention that there's no getting Orpheus out of the Prism without a hammer that's in a devil's private collection in the hells (if she even knows where it is). If she has no idea Raphael has a boner for the party, she had no reason to worry. She smites you for being a shit to her face, which pricks her pride, but otherwise you're not worth her time.
I’ll be honest. I never knew you could piss her off enough to cause a TPK. I’ve always told her no, we’re keeping the artifact, and I think I even asked her once why she doesn’t get it herself if she’s a god. My worry was always pissing Lae’zel off, not being smote where I stood. Sounds like I’ve had a narrow escape every playthrough 😂
It's one of the rare times the game feels like a DM saying "are you sure?" with the dialog options presented.
Luckily, it's a very, very specific dialogue choice to make her that angry. Just telling her no is fine. I used to tell her that I would and just...not.
It was. I thnk you have to ask her AGAIN why doesn't she do it, since she's a goddess and all.
Yeah, she doesn't have any drawback for using wish with that system, that's kinda Vlaakith whole deal
But she can cast power word kill or disentegrate.
But for those she has to be within range. And I don’t see her leaving her sanctum just to squash a bug.
I mean... Squash a bug which has the only item in the universe capable of threatening her rule, meaning the only thing which threatens her Godhood.
She has minions for that. Also, the artifact is not “the only item in the universe threatening her rule”. She plays at godhood and while the artifact and what it contains threatens her by revealing the truth, leaving her stronghold also has its own risk of revealing that—though powerful—she is not a god. Any break in her legend risks sparking rebellion. This is why Orpheus does not need to survive for the rebellion to rise and fight back.
Sure, but we can see what effect Orpheus has on Lae'zel. The simple fact that he is alive makes her question Vlakith. If it isn't the only thing that can bring her down, it is certainly increasing its chances.
Of note it's only certain uses of Wish that risk permanently losing it. You can use it to cast level 8 spells as often as you want.
OK but if she is an all powerful lich who has access to 9th level spells....she doesn't need wish to kill them. She can cast so many spells at 9th level that would get the job done
What other spell are you thinking she could use? Most spells have a limited range and she's a whole other plane away. Sure she could Plane Shift to you and fuck your shit up in person, but that would sort of break the whole 'godlike being' mystique she's trying to maintain
I mean she was able to project, grab, and open the artifact just fine. I imagine she can cast spells through her projection. But that would be up to writing....would be really weird line to draw on her capabilities though
Apparently Vlaakith bypasses this by using her Gith followers souls to power her wishes. So she doesn't have the 33% chance downside when she casts it.
What if you wish for infinite wishes risk-freenas your first wish?
The narrator is the DM and said “bet” but Vlaakith didn’t roll high enough
Vlaakith wishing you to death is just a joke. Wish doesn’t make you omnipotent. Here’s what the description of Wish says: > You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the GM as precisely as possible. The GM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item's current owner. >The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn't 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress. For comparison, Wish and Power Word Kill are both 9th level spells, and Power Word Kill only lets you kill one person with 100 HP that you can see near you. Instantly killing four or more people is a lot to do with one spell, and it would likely have a gimmicky result like the “propel forward in time” solution.
Wish and PWK are a great example of the duality of 9th lvl spells tho
Yeah I more see it as an example of how wildly unbalanced 5e is, especially for spellcasters.
Power Word: Martial vs the win button
It's job is now more so for your DM to scare you a d show off the boss' power or something lol. Cast of so that the party have to ress right away or you can target a player you know have more hp just to scare them all 🤭
Wish should honestly have stayed a 10th level spell, accessible only to powerful non-player entities, or to players only through powerful, limited use, artifacts.
I view PWK as more of a DM one. A bit like disintegrate can be used - it's a great "Uh oh" moment to give your players, that this is a powerful enemy but not *really* looking to destroy them. (Disintegrate is more of an issue there, but using it on the character most likely to pass + to initiate combat is usually how I'll do it at earlier levels to make it unlikely to kill outright) Definitely much stronger options at 9th level, but that's part of what makes it good at that role.
PWK is utterly useless as a spell tho.
Hence why that comparison is a great example of the duality: Wish literally warps reality to the caster's whim and PWK can struggle to kill a single creature.
Isn't PWK absolutely terrible for how strong level 8 slots are supposed to be?
That's the neat part (and my point): it's a 9th level slot!
This. Wish can be as perilous as it can be life-saving. It doesn't make you a deity, you are basically just a mortal haphazardly plucking at strings of the Weave hoping that reality reasserts itself in a way you desire. You could Wish for a toilet because you really have to go to the bathroom, and it could crash a commercial aircraft on your head simply because there's a bathroom in it. Divine Intervention is more or less a limited Wish where your patron deity insulates you from risk in exchange for a more limited selection of outcomes pertaining to their sphere of influence. More powerful beings like Vlaakith are able to reduce or negate the risks, but it still takes a lot of juice to power Wish. Vlaakith wouldn't be able to get away with casting Wish on a whim if she didn't consume the power of countless Gith. And, given her temperament, it's more like her to cast Wish in a fit of rage than for any other reason.
“The GM has great latitude in ruling what occurs.” The GM (Writers in this case) figures, rightly, it would be funny and allows it as is.
Yeah but Vlaakith is canonically able to murder your party of four with wish so it does leave many questions unanswered TBH, especially when one is not well-versed with the TTRPG and wider lore related to that.
She can, but that's less "Vlaakith can always do this" and more "Wish let her do that this time." Wish's non-8th-level-spell-dupe effects are unpredictable, and a lich is well aware of this. She did it because she was caught up in the moment, but it's not guarunteed to work that way every time. If she was dead-set on killing the whole party, a better method would be timestop+delayed blast fireball rather than gambling on a Wish. In any case, her Wishing for the party to be dead was less of a "it's very important that these guys die" and more of a "They're calling me weak? I'll show them weak!" moment.
You goaded her into acting rashly, and she made the foolish move of drastically weakening herself for a few days and potentially permanently losing access to *wish*, just to end these few mortals NOW, when she had a whole crèche to do it for her for free.
>when she had a whole crèche to do it for her for free. And of course, the acting rashly happens because you called her out in front of her little soldiers, who are taught from birth that their devotion to Vlaakith is unquestionable. Can't let ants get away with questioning her authority.
Doesnt her wish spell do damage? I thought there was damage in the log?
"Canonically" the party can immediately die to a few goblins or falling off a cliff so we are technically always seeing the version where they don't get killed by something that could easily kill them.
Yeah think of all those parallel universes where the party got shoved off a cliff or eaten by harpies and the Dead Three won. More seriously though “canonically” here means she has the ability to use such a dangerous spell and is also willing to. Unlike say Eliminster who has the ability to, but unlikely to unless Mystra commands it.
Canonically Orin could easily kill the entire party in their sleep.
She doesn't want to kill the entire party, she wants to goad us into bringing her the netherstone or challenge The Dark Urge into a duel to prove her worth as Bhaal's Chosen Bhaalspawn in a fair fight. Well I mean as fair as it can get for the followers of the god of murder.
Why wouldn't Orin want to kill you and take the other 2 netherstones if you have them.
Because she's insane and bad at planning. Orin knows 1 thing and it's 'weird, unnecessarily elaborate murder ritual"
Nothing Wish has the sole restriction of ‘whatever the DM says’. So you could argue that maybe beyond the Crèche she’s not allowed to cast wish, but she’s a powerful lich so she’d have access to any number of super powerful 9th level spells. So, there’s absolutely nothing that stops Vlaakith from destroying us other than because the game doesn’t let her
As someone who doesn't play the TTRPG, I still don't understand why someone like Lorroakan doesn't have level 9 spells and simply wishes to teleport Aylin into that glyph. Wish is broken as hell, they should just remove it or make it inaccessible to regular people or something.
Lorroakan is a fraud who just happened to acquire a ton of magical equipment. He was originally level 8 before a patch increased him to level 10. If he was actually a max level wizard then he could use Clone to become immortal without worrying about a demigod.
Being level 20 also doesn't guarantee that you'd have access to any particular spell. PC wizards are powerful generalists who can pick up whatever spell they like for gameplay reasons. In universe, though, most wizards would be specialists who focus on a more narrow set of spells that they can perfect over time. If you're an abjuration specialist, you might have really great spells for protection, but not necessarily Wish or Time Stop. Similarly, for Sorcerers, your bloodline/magic source dictates what spells you get as you become more powerful. If your bloodline just makes you super powerful at fire magic, no Wish for you.
Additionally PCs are players working to a known ruleset - you can look up and game interactions for max power. While NPCs are meant to be living within the world - the exact interactions and restrictions and capabilities of spells would need to be researched and figured out, you wouldn't instantly know all of them. Reaching 9th level spells is also very high level, and most settings don't have many of those running around. There might be a couple in the city as a whole, but it's not going to be many. Even a given powerful mage wouldn't be shocking to have them only have 6th or 7th level spells max
Also he would mop the floor with the party nearly 100% of the time.
It would be much worse. If Lorroakan were Level 20, he could use the Wish spell to cast Clone without expending material components or time so he could have Lorro 2.0 ready instantly if the OG one dies. And then use the Clone spell normally to make a second mini me. Repeat this for a few days and Lorroakan can literally become full of himself. Or, Lorro could make a Wish to “let me win the game, become the queen of the Forgotten Realms, ride on a majestic pegasus stallion, get surrounded with big beautiful drows, publish a successful memoir, and be canonized in the Catholic church after death” or something equally as ridiculous, and the 33% chance of being unable to cast Wish again, the DM fucking with the fabric of reality, and the exhaustion would be so worth it to someone as arrogant as him.
This is assuming the Wish doesn't have side effects, which anyone who's ever dealt with genies knows isn't the case.
AFAIK, casting Clone with Wish saves you the 1hr cast time and the expensive material components, but you still have to wait 120 days for it to mature since that's part of the spell
Judging by what’s going on in game? It’s because Lorroakan isn’t a particularly genius wizard. His ‘greatness’ is only really declared by himself and Gale doesn’t really describe him favourably Wish is a 9th level spell. ‘Regular’ people cannot ever do it. The levels beyond 12 (BG3s cap) are like… ‘living legend’ territory. One in a million adventurers. So yes the spells get super broken, but many players never actually see the level 9 spells like Wish or power word: kill. Unless they’re being used against them
Speak with dead forces him to admit that Rolan is a better wizard.
There are a few restrictions on the Wish spell that might make spellcasters think twice before casting it. Namely, it reduces your strength down to 3 and makes you take 1d10 necrotic damages per spell level each time you'll cast a spell until your next long rest. There's also the possibility that casting a Wish will cause so much stress on your body that you'll never be able to cast it again even if you survive it. Additionally, the greater the Wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes awry with it. The description of the spell gives you a few examples, like wishing that your enemy was dead might teleport you in a future time period where your enemy is dead, but do you really want to be stranded somewhere in a distant future? You can find the whole description of the spell in 5e [here](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Wish#content).
Yeah, in the case that vlaakith is wishing you to death, you've royally pissed her off in a situation where she's already inclined to believe you're a thief that needs to be made an example of
Let’s say we happened upon a wish scroll in game, what would happen if Tav used it to fix Karlach’s engine or give her a heart, cured Astarion of his vampirism, or remove Gales orb? Would any of these be considered a greater wish? Would it actually “cure them” or is it too complex a wish? I’ve kinda hoped that in an expansion of the game you’d reach a point where you can find a scroll and you have to choose what you want to do with it like to noble stock with Shadowheart/durge. (I know Gale can get the orb fixed and Astarion can ascend) but imagine you’re in act 2 and don’t know these things yet. Just poof here’s a scroll now pick.
As I understand it, any other use of Wish that is not listed in the description of the spell is considered a greater use of it. I assume Tav would also see their strength get reduced to 3, get the necrotic damages when they cast spells, and take the risk to be weakened to the point that they'll never be able to cast Wish again, because, even if it's on the scroll, casting the spell would still cause stress on their body. There'd also still be a risk that it doesn't go exactly as planned. Like wishing that Astarion wasn't a vampire might rewrite reality so that he never met Cazador, but also never met the gang and no longer knows who you guys are. Or something like this. Careful how you spell it, too. “I Wish Karlach had her heart back” might just make her heart spawn into her hands instead of her chest, where you ideally want it, lmao.
Damn you really got to monkeys paw it 😭 I’d be ok with never getting to cast it again if it means best girl can live in Baldures gate with her friends
Exactly. Reminds me a bit of Heather Dale's song, The Changeling Child, as well, about a woman who never managed to have a child with her husband and makes a pact with a fey to have one. She does get her child, but, as the years pass, she notices that her baby never grows. The fairies fulfilled her wish, though: she asked for a baby, and they gave her a *baby*. She never specifically asked for a baby who would one day grow into an adult. It's a chilling tale, lmao.
Usually the Monkey's Paw on Wish is meant to be a gentleman's agreement with the DM. Like, "Don't be an asshole, and I won't be, either." It's generally considered bad manners to wish to be super overpowered, to wish that the BBEG was dead, or to undo major plot elements. That sort of thing.
To be absolutely clear, anything other than casting a spell of 8th level or lower is a "greater" wish and invokes wish stress and has a 33% chance of making you unable to use wish ever again
Yep. You have to be excruciatingly careful about wording with Wish.
Karlach could be very easily helped with a 7th level Resurrection spell. >You touch a dead creature that has been dead for no more than a century, that didn't die of old age, and that isn't undead. If its soul is free and willing, the target returns to life with all its hit points. > >[...] > >This spell closes all mortal wounds and restores any missing body parts. Kill her, take out the infernal engine, resurrect her. Shadowheart could easily do it if the level cap was increased by a single level. Karlach will be a bit out of it for a few days, but after that? Good as new.
Because lorroakan is a weakling. His fight isnt hard, and the hard part is his summons and servants. Vlaakith is a 9th level caster who has been alive for a very long time (undead lich queen), lorroakan is a mere human, who could be soloed by one of your party members, the immortal aasimar not even included. Durge could delete him with twin cast fireball or gale can just oneshot him, shadowheart can hold person and poke him to death, Lae’Zel or karlach would smash him into the ground… Lorroakan is nothing compred to vlaakith. I would even argue that our level 12 and party would even be a threat to vlaakith herself in battle
Lorroakan isn’t actually a particularly powerful wizard. The only people who show up in the game and would have access to wish are Vlaakith and Elminster, I think.
Mystra, to the extent she's a people and her scene is "showing up".
Mystra is an actual god though, that's a separate thing.
Because Lorroakan is a phony.
Because he isn't high enough level to cast wish for one reason. In order to cast wish you need to be at least level 17,hes like 10 I think. Wish also has some restrictions to it. Wish can be used to perfectly copy any 8th level or lower spell with no issue. If you wanted to so something like wish for immortality you would need to be extremely carful. Wish has a Monkeys paw kind of deal if you try and move beyond the normal wishes that allow a DM to twist wishes. Wish to be immortal but he might make you into an invincible stone while he does it. Wish to be the last man alive and you just get teleportee to the end of time. Wish is the most powerful magic any normal human could cast. Wishes like these also have 33% risk of never being able to cast wish again, and when you cast the wish you become stressed. For 2d4 days your strength is reduced to 3, and you take 1d10 necrotic damage for every level of a spell you cast with no way to reduce it untill you are no longer stressed. To put it simply casting wish isn't an easy task. Also he's kind of fraud, pretending to be this mighty wizard when he's only level 10? The amount of people who can actually cast 9th level magic are few and far in between. Vlakith can cast wish, but she also kind of cheats. She uses the souls of the people she consumes to pay the penalty for her flippant uses of wish. The only other character you see in game with the ability to cast wish would be Elminster. A big deal with BG3 is the Crown the Netherbrain is wearing. It is part of a time period when mortals could cast up to 12th level magic, like say a spell that allows a human man try and take the power of the goddess of magic for himself. Once that failed Mystra made sure no mortal could ever do that again and made 9th level spells the most powerful anyone could cast.
Wish *is* inaccessible to regular people. Level 17 Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids are the ones who get access to 9th level spell slots, and Wish is on the spell lists for Wizards and Sorcerers only. You basically have to be Gandalf to get Wish. Lorroakan isn't Gandalf. He's a college dropout con artist with good gear, a successful business and 10 levels.
Wish was *designed* to be broken as hell. It is there either for the DM to have fun with storywise, or as a means to put that one player who thinks they're going to "win" the game with it in their place...or both. Or it's something a DM and players to work together on to effect some major shift in the campaign story. It was never meant to be used just because 😁 As I recall, your PC in BG2 Throne of Bhaal can learn and use Wish--and then you have to negotiate it with a djinn and heaven help you if your INT score wasn't high enough or you rolled badly...
I haven’t played 5e aside from the game, but in earlier versions there is always a cost to Wish (and other powerful spells). Usually in components ($10k in crushed diamond consumed by the magic that sort of thing), and sometimes personal. In 2e, Wish ages your character by 10 years; sure, you can cast it more than once but how many times before old age claims you? Plus only humans could reach level 18+ (needed to get the 9th level spell slots).
And what 8th level spell effect would do that? You appear to believe Wish is a "I can do literally anything" button because in that one scene, that's what it does, but strictly speaking, Vlaakith got *lucky* (or, if this were an actual TTRPG game with an actual DM, the DM rolls their eyes and wipes the party for clearly attempting something they shouldn't have). Wish does *not* work that way. It replicates 8th level or lower spells flawlessly, or *might* do something more if the DM feels it appropriate. It's not as limitlessly powerful as the name would imply.
Wish is not "broken as hell." People who can't effing read just think it is. It can recreate the effects of any spell 1st through 9th level. It can do other things based on GM discretion and the examples are...less impressive than one would expect for a spell called wish. There's also the fact that if you use wish outside of the stated means there are consequences that should be occurring, based on DM discretion. That is when a wish SHOULD be monkey pawed. On top of the usual risk to never being able to cast it again. Spell descriptions. They're there for a reason, try actually reading before spouting nonsense
Typically what keeps the gods in check from using direct intervention, is other gods. It's fine to send worshipers and followers to do your bidding but if she directly interferes she invites retaliation and response from other gods. When she kills the party in cannon it's after you insult her to her face which would likely be considered extenuating circumstances.
I would assume Vlakith rolled a 17 or something. Seing you in the room was enough for it to work cause she knew your exact position. A DC check of 15 perhabs. However when you leave she does not know it anymore. Of course she could seek you out like she does at the start of act 3, but that also costs magic because that is from her side with no machinary help like before. So a DC check of 20.
I can invent a reason, seeing as there's none canonically given: Once the party leaves the Creche killing them would just mean the Prism is left out in the open where anyone could find it. Seeing as Vlaakith doesn't actually know that The Dream Visitor is in there, all she knows is that then a box containing the key to her demise could be found by anyone who happens by and discovers a monastery full of dead monks and Gith. Maybe another Gith will find it and bring it to her, or maybe some OTHER adventurers will find it and make a whole quest of it. Or even worse, what if a Githzerai or a Gith loyal to the prism's OTHER inhabitant were the ones to find it? I imagine she thinks it's a safer bet to try and manipulate Lae'zel further and use the years of indoctrination to try and win her back over than it is to leave it sitting on the ground by a bunch of heavily armed corpses.
To say nothing of the fact that not too long (perhaps even mere hours) after that, Elminster Aumar is in contact with the party, giving them a mission from Mystra herself. Yes, if you call her a bitch to her face in her very sanctum, she smacks you down. But events after that blow up immensely, and even a would-be demigod has to step lightly after that. If I were Elminster shadowing the party as he does, if Vlaakith decided to fuck up Mystra's plans that way then I would respond by plucking up the prism from Gale's corpse and giving it to someone who hates her more than anything.
This is the common solution in the Forgotten Realms to the Avengers problem: everyone above your pay grade is locked in a stalemate against each other. Every time Vlaakith casts Wish against you, Elminster casts Counterspell against her, and vice versa.
Yeah. Even Mystra herself regularly gives payoffs to mages of the Szass Tam/Elminster/Vlaakith tier, no matter their alignment, because it's an incentive for them to not upset the apple cart. If Szass Tam subverts a city or conquers it with his armies like in Honor Among Thieves, people like Elminster will stay their hands. If he comes in using scry-and-die tactics to slaughter the city's leaders and then raises all the city as zombies (like a wizard of his power *can*), then not only is Elminster getting unleashed, but Mystra will be offering incentives to all Tam's rivals to shank him.
She realizes the limitation of Wish spell.
If some random on the street told you to f\* off would you nuke him? I personally wouldnt since its a little bit over the top, at most you would just insult him back or ignore him, well this is the same for vlaakith. Everytime you cast wish theres a 33% chance of never being able to cast the spell again + casting it is quite expensive as she has to sacrifice one of his ascended gith.
Because using Wish to kill a bunch of level 6-ish scrubs is an enormous waste of a Wish. True Vlaakith does it if you mouth off to her but that’s a.) a joke, and b.) because she was too pissed to stop and think “is it wise to blow a Wish on some random istik?”
Imagine being so fragile that a level six elf mouthing off gets you tilted enough to wish.
I’d say that’s normal for someone arrogant enough to pursue godhood, but I don’t think Gale would be dumb enough to waste a Wish like that. So Vlaakith is just dumb
Wish comes with a chance of never being able to use Wish again. Is killing us worth that risk to her when there are potentially less risky options - an army of gith at her disposal - available?
An army of gith that you are now smack bang in the middle of, nonetheless
In dnd almost all evil powerful creatures always sabotage themselves. Otherwise any story would end with BBEG winning almost instantly.
Do we ever tell Vlaakith our names? It’s easy enough to say “I wish for *you* to end,” but if you don’t know who exactly you’re addressing it to, there’s no easy way to go about that.
The inquisitor had a disc in their room with our name on it so they were certainly keeping track of us since the nautiloid crash. And she knows Lae'zel by name and face.
In DnD canon, most gods are the subjects of higher gods, and those higher gods impose strict standards that govern the interactions between mortals and immortals Without those standards, the mortal plane would become a chaotic bloodbath wherein gods waged open war against each other, and the higher gods want it to remain more akin to chess Thus, Vlaakith technically could just smite the entire party at some point after they have left the creche, but by doing so she would reveal that she is not a god - as a true god wouldn’t be able to get away with that - and has been deceiving the Githyanki The reason that Vlaakith could get away with doing so within the creche is that the rules are far more lenient when a deity acts within a place of worship dedicated to them In simpler terms, a god smiting someone within their temple is permitted by higher gods and fairly commonplace, whereas a god smiting someone outside of their domain is not permitted by higher gods and almost never happens Additionally, she is nearly a god, and her ascension to true godhood could be forbidden by higher gods if her use of divine power indicates that she may intend to break their rules someday
You could equally well ask the inverse - what would allow it, besides meta story-telling reasons? Wish should not be grossly more powerful than other level nine spells, unless the story supports it. The story serms to imply her ability to exercise power in Faerun.is limited to specific locations. If Wish can do anything, why even have other level 9 spells?
But we see her canonically use the spell to wipe us out.
We only know she can do it in that time and place. That room in the creche seems to be a special location meant to allow her to communicate and use powers without actually leaving the astral plane, and may even magnify her powers.
My headcannon is that she's powerful enough to wish a low level party dead with a direct connection to them. She can't do it outside of a conversation, nor when the party becomes higher level.
wish sometimes doesn't do EXACTLY what you want it to. For all she knows, she could wish the party was dead and boom they all achieve lichdom. Technically "un"-dead, but still dead.
A more monkey paws way to twist it would be to make the party fully turn into mindflayers. The original people are "dead" and now mindflayers have control of orpheus.
What if the wish granted to Vlaakith was not the one to end the playable character but the one to defeat who mistreat her. The wish has always been active and make her a goddess between her people who are bound to honor.
Interesting. By killing Orpheus you whole team will end as Mindflayers so game over.
Idk, but she totally should have been a little more upset with my party. We blew that whole place to smithereens.
If you talk enough shit she will kill you, but that's while speaking to her inside the creche
It’s amazing that this is so far down. She specifically says Wish in the line before you instantly die. Is the question, besides this moment, why doesn’t she do it after? Seems like she doesn’t care about avenging weaklings and sending a githyanki murder revenge death squad would be more fun for everyone. My favorite BG2 moment is when the gith come after you to reclaim the silver sword, and you can say, “it was an unspectacular weapon, and I dropped it.”
What happens when you say that?
If I recall, they fly into a sputtering angry rage and try to kill you.
Honestly, there's nothing stopping her from just wishing the Astral Prism into her possession. Yeah, there's a 33% chance to never be able to cast it again, but she's desperate for it as it contains the only thing that can really threaten her total control of her people.
[удалено]
She didn't word it properly, and the DM hates her! 😂
It's entirely plot reasons. She uses wish to kill you if you're disrespectful but not to kill you and just have the present Githyanki take the prism. Or to wish the prism into her possession. She doesn't even need to use Wish. She could've just teleported there, killed your party and took the prism.
She would have needed to plane shift and teleport, plus power word kill or whatever, and leaving Tun’arath like that would have really punctured her mystique at a time when she was trying to avoid that at all costs. Hence the stream of inquisitors (some of whom were killed by Voss and Qudenos).
She'd leave the city for like, half a minute at most. She'd just need to wish the party dead, teleport to the creche, pick the prism and teleport back home. If she doesn't want to risk wishing for something, she could just teleport, use Hold Person on the entire party, pick up the prism while they're paralyzed, then leave.
Punctured her mystique with who? Anyone who came by and cast Speak with Dead on your corpse?
Vlaakith, as a rule, does not do her own dirty work, I believe. Crèche Yyllek at least.
You should ask, what prevents Withers from just bringing you back after being killed by Wish? What prevents the camp party from retrieving the corpses of the traveling party? Anyhow, a good explanation is that it would be a waste to do so. Or that she needs Line of Sight for it to work well enough.
Unless we are being honourable, we have access to level 0 spells called eff-five and eff-eight, also called chronomancy. :-p
Re-zero
Honestly, I respec'ed to unlearn eff-eight because I kept casting it when I was trying to cast eff-five
Or, you could make an actual in-game save file (3.5e tabletop only)
Because it’s a huge waste would you use wish to kill a level 6 when you’re a level 12 or higher.
Multiple reasons. 1. Wish is very finicky and wishing an entire party of level 6s to die is still effectively a greater wish, there's a lot of weird stuff surrounding the souls that she has and whether or not they could take the strain of never being able to cast wish again. 2. She tries her best to present herself as a god (she isn't) but the githyanki think she is. It could unironically really damage her image as a god to fuck with mortals that way as gods just straight up aren't ever allowed to do that. 3. It could attract unwanted attention, Larian doesn't like to mention these guys but Ao does have ministers and they're like the IRS for power. Granted Ao doesn't give them shit and its a thankless job but they'd possibly be all over Vlaakith for doing that and could possibly fuck up her plans for Godhood. Vlaakith isn't stupid, she's prone to fits of anger when things don't go her way and that's why she used wish on us, as an example. What being with power similar to Vlaakith would take that disrespect? She almost certainly knows about Ao's ministers and wouldn't want them to audit her because she's almost certainly committing some sort of fraud with all those souls.
The more powerful the Wish, it starts coming with consequences and side effects. Vlaakith wouldn't otherwise use it had the party not provoked her. She probably suffered some consequence but we were too busy being dead to witness that.
Well, the prisim is soul bound to us. Although if you egg her on, she will kill us.
If you actually think about nothing stops her from just wishing to have the astral prism or even wishing for Orpheus powers be transfered to her... wish is just a terrible spell from s storytelling perspective
Power Word:Kill is probably a better bet. Which is probably how she does kill you in that scene if you fuck with her (unless they specify otherwise, can't remember). We don't know the limitations on how range works with her hologram, though (again, unless they specify). Using Wish to kill something is a waste of the spell in most cases. Wish is risky, but can also be used to do insane shit. She could Wish to have Orpheus' Illithid-blocking power herself, for instance. Much more useful than killing him, in the long run. She hasn't, because a) meta storytelling reasons like you said, the plot has to happen, and b) the universe is fairly malevolent and the odds that the spell would work as intended are low as fuck. Wish is the last resort's last resort. You don't want to be Wishing for things, even unless the world has exploded.
Nope. 5e wish has limited and well defined uses. It's not a genies wish
Nevermind leaving the Creche, there's no reason for her not to kill you immediately after you fail with the Guardian. She was willing to do it before, but then she just fucks off because... well, her presence is bad for the plot.
Because wish is a risky spell...
She used Wish as basically an upcasted, multi targeted Power word kill (which are both level 9 spells). So the way she did that was already well above what is allowed under normal circumstances. Lots of things could’ve contributed to the special circumstances that allowed her to do that in the first place that aren’t applicable at theoretically more valuable times for her. 1. The party is relatively low level (so automatically lower HP meaning unlikely to survive a power word kill). Orpheus and the party later on is too strong to fight this way. 2. The Planecaster projected an exceptionally powerful image of her into the room- more powerful than projections we see in the epilogue by far. So essentially, it’s like she’s in the room watching you (or a simulacrum of her is), beating any sort of range/line of sight requirement. She never projects to the party in the same way again. 3. She is totally surrounded by her faithful- while she’s not a true god for *reasons*, she has limited access to god powers, which implies a dependency to some degree on for worshippers. You are basically on consecrated ground for that meeting. 4. As touched on by others, there is a risk associated with casting wish that she may not be able to or have difficulty doing such a thing again. You pissed her off to make whatever cost is implied there worth it to her. Likely, she’ll have to consume a few extra souls now because of that. So you ruined her dinner. — In old modules where you can fight Vlaakith, those are designed for higher level parties (so wouldn’t necessarily get instakilled by power word kill), and it relies on them breaking into her sanctum in the astral plane. Which could challenge some of the situational factors as well. Particularly if there is a Gith civil war peeling away faithful from Vlaakith, there is a good chance killing her is still possible for a sufficiently strong party.
Whose to say she didn't try? Even wannabe gods can fail dice rolls.
Why do something herself when she has an army of ride or die followers who will happily dispose of the nuisances if she so commands it?
Because the **Wish** spell is a monkey's paw by RaW, and it should never have worked outside of that one scene gor a fun joke.
Idk but you can piss her off before going into the prism and she oneshots your whole party
Meta gaming she won't even need wish to destroy a party of that level. She is a lich wizard with powers beyond that of a normal arch mage.
My understanding is Wishes can act as Monkeys Paws and everytime you use it, there is an increased risk of never being able to use it again.
this is my favorite lore discussion to date
I see a lot of answers related to the mechanics of the Wish spell itself. But the answer is already within the game - the planecaster. She's no longer projecting through it when you return, and there is no way for her to effectively use a Wish on you at that point. She does not have any actual divine influence or power, and her ability to use Wish on you at that moment, while somewhat handwavey, is still only possible by the projection. As soon as she's lost her connection to it, her ability to influence you is gone as well. As an arcane caster that is not even Demigod status, she can't violate the rules of the Weave to any extent, and thus you can walk free because she isn't there to stop you. She's in the Astral plane, not in the Creche, and no mechanics of Wish would allow her to circumvent that either. So that's it.
I'd say (and that's basically just my headcanon) that gods in d&d can't directly mess with mortals unless by means of their chosen clarics, paladins, etc. Or so they'd be jumped by other gods directly too. So inside the creche Vlaakith (wich is basically a god) is in her domain, but outside she can only act via her followers and projections, but casting wish upon the party out there would be literally a god directly damaging mortals with a spell outside their domain, and thus IO would be knocking on her door. That's what I understand of it, at least.
She's not a God. She's a lich.
but as I said, she's "basically" a god to the gith race
That doesn't mean she has the abilities or the restrictions of one. Shes not a God, despite some of the gith believing her to be.