What should Wish, Miracle, and Reality Revision cost?

[Endarire]

3.5 as of Now
Miracle is famous for trumping wish in accessibility.  It can easily reproduce spells and undo maladies which require miracle to undo.  And there's no XP cost.

Then again, it seems Wizards are expected to use planar binding to get 'em some free Genie wishes to mitigate that XP cost.  Maybe an Erudite can get free reality revisions pre-epic.  Don't know that one off-hand.

Proposal
Cut out the middle man.  Stop trying to cheat the system by changing the system.

Wish, miracle, and reality revision have no GP or XP cost except when reproducing abilities that do, or if the ability is trying to get something beyond the limits of the ability.

These abilities can still make and enhance items, but can't create anything worth more than 25,000G market nor enhance anything to be worth more than 25,000G market.  (No GP or XP cost here.)  This means casting spells and manifesting powers to directly create wealth and items, but they're level 9s and I'm not sure how valuable 25,000G items are at that point.  Doesn't seem very valuable, but such level 9 abilities are already GM fiat.

What about you?
Maybe you have a better solution!

[Mooncrow]

Yes, all three (and limited wish as well) follow the miracle rules in my campaigns.

[Libertad]

Don't forget that Miracle is granted by a deity.  Pelor ain't going to grant a request to make Drow raiders raze a village.

[veekie]

Personally I'd go the opposite way and drop these effects entirely. These spells breaks the limiting factor of spell knowledge/preparation, and presents no mythic role(classic wish granters are basically things that can be done by a fast, strong and sometimes invisible creature with access to transmutation and conjuraton magic).

[JaronK]

I'd just make wish fast creation... so give it a cost in Exp appropriate to what you're wishing for as though you were crafting it.  GP cost as well.

And I'd remove the ability of all but the highest level creatures (read: stuff you can't just Planar Bind at lower levels) to cast Wish.  Stuff like Efreetis should have a permanent Major Creation abilities, resulting in permanent (non magical, dispellable) goods.

JaronK

[oslecamo]

Tackle exp costs in miracle. No exp-bypassing tricks allowed (creatures that have them as SLAs have basically been hunted down to extinction except for some named high-level individuals that thus cannot be called). Those magics are suposed to be the supreme tools of converting your own essence into power, not utility tools to  regularly farm from.

Personally I'd go the opposite way and drop these effects entirely. These spells breaks the limiting factor of spell knowledge/preparation, and presents no mythic role(classic wish granters are basically things that can be done by a fast, strong and sometimes invisible creature with access to transmutation and conjuraton magic).

Honestly, that's nitpicking. "Oh, no, that wasn't a miracle, it was just me twisting the laws of reality at my whim to rain fiery insects in our enemy, totally diferent things!" Any sufficiently advanced transmutation+conjuration is indistinguishable from wish/miracle.

[veekie]

Its better for game balance however, these "one spell known/prepared represents a hundred possible effects" is inherently less balanced than discrete abilities used in combination. Most mythic ones are basically outsiders with integrated sorc casting or SLAs, and there are limits to what they can grant. Really, PAO alone would have done just about anything they could, if you wanted an army slain a powerful outsider would do that just fine, barring heroes.

[oslecamo]

You're... Saying Pao is good for game balance and doesn't have hundreds of possible effects?

Anyway, let me just pick the bible:
-Turning the waters of one of the biggest rivers in existence in blood.
-People coming back to life.
-Giant fire tornados.
-Self-ressurection three days later.
-Bleeding holy water while still alive.
-Raining fishes and frogs and fire and whatnot.
-Dividing a sea in half (and then make it close over the pursuing enemy).

I guess if you mixed insane CLs with enough preparation, you could pull those up with "normal" magic... But they're completely suposed to be single effects, not Moises or some other Saint actualy being a completely cheesed out dual-caster with a dozen actions per round.

Anyway, if you stick an exp cost, and make sure it cannot be bypassed, wish/miracle will have built-in limits. More than Polymorphy ANY Object at least, that's for sure.

[veekie]

I'm saying all such effects are inherently imbalanced(PAO in its Inanimate->Inanimate function alone would have done most of it already), and that such feats should be discrete spells rather than one catch all spell..

[StreamOfTheSky]

I agree with the OP that all 3 should be basically identically.  But, I'd nerf them all down to the lowest common denominator, not buff them up to Miracle's ridiculousness.  Wish is still a good, albeit not everyday, spell to use yourself and casters don't need more help, blah blah blah blah blah...

[Psyren]

The balancing factor for Miracle is that it's supposed to be limited by your deity. In other words, it doesn't cost you XP because even the listed effects can simply be refused, and then you've blown a 9th on nothing.

You don’t so much cast a miracle as request one. You state what you would like to have happen and request that your deity (or the power you pray to for spells) intercede.

So for instance, you couldn't Miracle Pelor for a fireball to torch some innocents with (Burning Hate jokes aside.) Or you couldn't Miracle Lathander to Animate Dead unless you had a really good reason.

Wish isn't subject to those rules. If you try and ask for something too powerful you could get screwed, but the listed effects are guaranteed; aligned spells, reanimation spells even if you worship an undead-hating deity, remedy spells even if you worship a deity of disease etc, Wish can do all that. Furthermore, even the supposedly "too powerful" stuff can happen; your DM isn't forced to screw you over if you, say, Wish for two Wishes, even if that is pretty clearly out of bounds.

So that at least is a reason why Miracle is free; depending on what you ask for, you could end up blowing a 9th for nothing. Nature deities especially could say "lolbalance" and deny whatever you were asking for, or just plain give you something completely different.

[snakeman830]

Which would be all fine and dandy, but who is there to deny a Cleric of an ideal getting what he wants?

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

As is. There are bigger 9th level fish to fry.

[veekie]

Which would be all fine and dandy, but who is there to deny a Cleric of an ideal getting what he wants?

Direct restriction, the cleric of an ideal can only be granted miracles within the domain of the ideal.

[Mooncrow]

Which would be all fine and dandy, but who is there to deny a Cleric of an ideal getting what he wants?

Direct restriction, the cleric of an ideal can only be granted miracles within the domain of the ideal.

And when the ideal is something like "Good"?  Or when you worship something like the god(dess) of "Magic"?  All that really does is make choosing a deity an even worse idea than it already is, or at best, limits the deities chosen to a handful. 

[veekie]

^^
That was for Miracles of an Ideal specifically.
Still constrained(if not all that effectively, but then none of these really are effectively limited), a Good miracle can only do directly and unambigiously Good actions like healing, returning to life, and smiting pure evils.
A Magic miracle can be hideously narrow(only affecting Magic alone) or hilariously broad(only replicating spells).

[Lycanthromancer]

^^
That was for Miracles of an Ideal specifically.
Still constrained(if not all that effectively, but then none of these really are effectively limited), a Good miracle can only do directly and unambigiously Good actions like healing, returning to life, and smiting pure evils.
A Magic miracle can be hideously narrow(only affecting Magic alone) or hilariously broad(only replicating spells).

A Good miracle would be any action that is furthering the cause of Good.

Which, if you really are a Good character, is nearly anything.

[Psyren]

^^
That was for Miracles of an Ideal specifically.
Still constrained(if not all that effectively, but then none of these really are effectively limited), a Good miracle can only do directly and unambigiously Good actions like healing, returning to life, and smiting pure evils.
A Magic miracle can be hideously narrow(only affecting Magic alone) or hilariously broad(only replicating spells).

A Good miracle would be any action that is furthering the cause of Good.

Which, if you really are a Good character, is nearly anything.

That doesn't mean you'll get exactly what you want. Even without being personified in the form of a deity, a mystic force of good could easily take the long view, or balance your request against those of every other cleric of good asking or who has asked for miracles, and come up with something that most effectively advances the cause of good while not specifically being the thing you asked for.

For example, you could ask for a particular magic item, at which point the Miracle will deposit you in the oppressed city-state of a tyrant who possesses it and require that you vanquish that person. You get what you want if you succeed, and his demise or removal advances the cause of Good. But this requires more effort on your part than a simple "ask and receive."

[cjosephs1s]

While Wish/Miracle are extremely powerful the true balance point of these spells is the DM.  I'm not sure about the rest of the gaming community, but we almost fear using these spells and try to find an alternate way of getting what we want as there are hundreds of things that can go wrong.  "I wish for a scroll of Wish"  Poof there's a Devil in front of you with a scroll and a faustian pact ready to sign.  I ask my diety for a miracle that we win this battle and he sends a few solars to tip the scales only to find out these solars want us to join with them in exchange for their help and now we are stuck on some Geas/quest that will probably kill at least half the party on some other plane trying to rescue one of their bretheren. 

In 5 years we've used 1 Wish spell and that was only to undo a Limited Wish spell the archvillain of our campaign used on my character in one campaign and even then it took us nearly an hour of Communing with deities, player discussions, and very careful wording and even then we were surprised it worked with no ill consequenses. 

I'd say if you're "casually" using Wish/Limited wish/Miracle that you need a new set of rules just for them, then the DM should remove them from the game. 

[Bozwevial]

While Wish/Miracle are extremely powerful the true balance point of these spells is the DM.  I'm not sure about the rest of the gaming community, but we almost fear using these spells and try to find an alternate way of getting what we want as there are hundreds of things that can go wrong.  "I wish for a scroll of Wish"  Poof there's a Devil in front of you with a scroll and a faustian pact ready to sign.  I ask my diety for a miracle that we win this battle and he sends a few solars to tip the scales only to find out these solars want us to join with them in exchange for their help and now we are stuck on some Geas/quest that will probably kill at least half the party on some other plane trying to rescue one of their bretheren.

The problem with that is then you are essentially playing Mother May I with the DM to see what he'll let you get away with. At the very least, all three need to have clearly defined effects such that you can always do this, this, or this with one. See Wish, where you have a list of possible effects that are guaranteed to work and then the possibility of getting more potent effects if you choose to go for it.

Ideally you'd remove any DM fiat at all, but some people like to keep the panic button around.