[RPG] Can the Wish spell be used to allow someone to be able to cast all of their spells at will

dnd-5emagic-itemsspellcastingwish

In my campaign, the PCs have recently defeated a dragon and looted its hoard. In it, among some other things, they found a fully charged Ring of Three Wishes. Not knowing what it was, the party had their Wizard cast identify on it.

After the game, the player of the Wizard came to me in private and asked if he could use one of the rings uses to wish for the ability to cast all of his spells at will from now on. I told him that he'd have to find out by using the ring and the conversation ended there. I have no reason to suspect that the player was not entirely serious.

Is this something that the spell Wish could theoretically do or is my player just gonna be out of luck when he tries it?

Best Answer

That would be very powerful.

Let's compare the effect with the other things Wish can do:

  • You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours
  • You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any roll made within the last round
  • You grant up to ten creatures that you can see resistance to a damage type you choose
  • You create one object of up to 25,000 gp in value that isn't a magic item.

These are all temporary or one-time effects, excluding the resistance. Permanently being able to cast all of his spells at will would be way too powerful; refreshing all of the Wizard's expended spell slots, on the other hand, would be more balanced.

If you want to deny his Wish, you could twist his wording and make it so that he can cast all his spells at-will - but only at some poor bloke named Will.

Alternatively, you can simply interpret it so that the Wish has (mostly) no effect at all, if you say that "he can cast all his spells at will" means that he's able to cast all his spells at Will. Since he presumably could already do that before, it changes nothing. This interpretation would also not include any at-will casting.

Another interpretation is that he can target Will with all of his spells, even those that normally only have a range of self or require a willing target (for example). I would, however, be very careful with this interpretation, especially concerning the willing target - many spells become significantly more powerful if their target doesn't have to be willing (although I can't think of an example off the top of my head).