D&D 5E Curse of Strahd Luck Blade use.

[TrueBagelMan]

So I heard there is a luck blade roaming around in CoS. Luck Blades can grant wishes, so what is the best use of the wish? I think wishing for an iron golem would work best with how my party works since I have the frontline fighters Fire immune. Echo Knight is playing a homebrew race with immunity to fire, and the monk has evasion. This means that the wizard can cast fireball, heal the iron golem and the party is fine with the fire. Is there a better use of the wish?

 

[Mistwell]

My party would wish for a portal back to their home world to get the F out of there!

 

[Raduin711]

I don't know if spoiler tags are necessary, since the Luck Blade is technically a spoiler already, but in case TrueBagelMan is currently a player in a COS or some such...

You can't wish yourself out of Barovia. The dark powers won't allow it.

 

[Coroc]

My party would wish for a portal back to their home world to get the F out of there!

Yea, yea you would be in for some nasty surprise at every table the DM is worth his salt.
That is one of the examples of what I love not about modern players assumptions and expectations.

You see, @Mistwell well you are trolling, you are in this forum since 2002 aren't you? Have you ever played in a Ravenloft campaign? If not then I beg your pardon, but I give you a slight example as a hint so not to spoil other players:

If someone e.g. no matter what edition would cast the mage spell vampiric touch or the cleric inflict wounds
in a Ravenloft campaign with me as the DM, there are good chances he gets a scaly arm, or a claw like hand or some similar body modification. Repetition of such things, or other morally questionable behavior e.g. torturing innocents for info, might make an interesting NPC out of a player character quite fast, in 2e there were very explicit rules for that, and a real Ravenloft campaign is bland without adaption of these rules to whatever edition you are playing.

Raise dead obviously also might have drawbacks of all kinds etc.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yea, yea you would be in for some nasty surprise at every table the DM is worth his salt.
That is one of the examples of what I love not about modern players assumptions and expectations.

I have never played Ravenloft, nor read any of the materials for it (although I did play the AD&D Strahd adventure).

I'd like to think that, as a player, I would know the rules about what can and cannot be done safely in the campaign that I am playing in. If I were playing in a game where taking the most logical course of action "Hey, we finally have access to the most powerful magic we are going to get in our life, lets try to get out of this horrible place we we're trapped in" resulted in seemingly arbitrary smack-downs by the GM i'd probably just want to stop playing that game.

I've always thought that the "turning wishes into curses" trope was only appropriate when dealing with devils or other known evil sources where the player/character knows that they are in a very Buyer Beware situation. Finding a non-evil item that communicates to you that it can fulfill your wishes shouldn't have to be treated with the same kid gloves. Of course the item may not be able to fulfill the wish, but in that case I think it would be more appropriate for the item to let you know that "A wish that grand is well beyond my power, pick something else" rather than trying to hose the player.

Maybe in Ravenloft literally everything in evil and nothing can be trusted? If that is the case the players should be made aware of the fact that everything is Buyer Beware in the entire world in Session 0.

I don't see how expecting a wish to be a powerful boon is some sort of "modern players different expectations". A wish is literally the most powerful magic available to most characters in their lifetime.

 

[jaelis]

I wish I had a hamburger.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I wish I had a hamburger.

A wish that grand is well beyond my power, have an upvote instead.

TAKE THAT PLAYER BEING GREEDY!!!

 

[Coroc]

I have never played Ravenloft, nor read any of the materials for it (although I did play the AD&D Strahd adventure).

I'd like to think that, as a player, I would know the rules about what can and cannot be done safely in the campaign that I am playing in. If I were playing in a game where taking the most logical course of action "Hey, we finally have access to the most powerful magic we are going to get in our life, lets try to get out of this horrible place we we're trapped in" resulted in seemingly arbitrary smack-downs by the GM i'd probably just want to stop playing that game.

I've always thought that the "turning wishes into curses" trope was only appropriate when dealing with devils or other known evil sources where the player/character knows that they are in a very Buyer Beware situation. Finding a non-evil item that communicates to you that it can fulfill your wishes shouldn't have to be treated with the same kid gloves. Of course the item may not be able to fulfill the wish, but in that case I think it would be more appropriate for the item to let you know that "A wish that grand is well beyond my power, pick something else" rather than trying to hose the player.

Maybe in Ravenloft literally everything in evil and nothing can be trusted? If that is the case the players should be made aware of the fact that everything is Buyer Beware in the entire world in Session 0.

I don't see how expecting a wish to be a powerful boon is some sort of "modern players different expectations". A wish is literally the most powerful magic available to most characters in their lifetime.

well one prominent defining feature is that it is far more difficult to escape a domain than to get into.
Ravenloft is not d&d with vampires werewolves and ghosts instead of orcs goblins and dragons.
the issue has nothing to do with wishes being cursed or not, the same failure would apply to planeshift spells and some other stuff.
usually, not always though, the means of escaping a domain is killing the domain lord nothing less.
think nightmare on elm street, to make the caught in a nightmare go away no praying or running away helps, but only killing Freddy.
sorry that I had to spoil a bit but it's the only way to give you an explanation in short words

 

[Coroc]

I have never played Ravenloft, nor read any of the materials for it (although I did play the AD&D Strahd adventure).

I'd like to think that, as a player, I would know the rules about what can and cannot be done safely in the campaign that I am playing in. If I were playing in a game where taking the most logical course of action "Hey, we finally have access to the most powerful magic we are going to get in our life, lets try to get out of this horrible place we we're trapped in" resulted in seemingly arbitrary smack-downs by the GM i'd probably just want to stop playing that game.

I've always thought that the "turning wishes into curses" trope was only appropriate when dealing with devils or other known evil sources where the player/character knows that they are in a very Buyer Beware situation. Finding a non-evil item that communicates to you that it can fulfill your wishes shouldn't have to be treated with the same kid gloves. Of course the item may not be able to fulfill the wish, but in that case I think it would be more appropriate for the item to let you know that "A wish that grand is well beyond my power, pick something else" rather than trying to hose the player.

Maybe in Ravenloft literally everything in evil and nothing can be trusted? If that is the case the players should be made aware of the fact that everything is Buyer Beware in the entire world in Session 0.

I don't see how expecting a wish to be a powerful boon is some sort of "modern players different expectations". A wish is literally the most powerful magic available to most characters in their lifetime.

additionally making the player aware of everything nasty that can happen to him takes away all the fun.
imagine the dm saying to you in session 0 ...beware when you are level 17 I intend to throw a mob at you who can only be hurt by this and that powerful weapon, it is immune to everything else...
that is no fun I would not want to play or dm a campaign like that

 

[JiffyPopTart]

additionally making the player aware of everything nasty that can happen to him takes away all the fun.
imagine the dm saying to you in session 0 ...beware when you are level 17 I intend to throw a mob at you who can only be hurt by this and that powerful weapon, it is immune to everything else...
that is no fun I would not want to play or dm a campaign like that

I wouldn't expect specifics but I would expect to hear things like the following in Session 0.

Doing things that are considered Evil may come back to hurt you.
Magic that does things involving Necromancy may come back to haunt you.
Interdimensional magic rarely if ever will work and may come back to haunt you.

I get that part of Ravenloft is learning the hows and why of the world laws, but it is, at its heart, a Dungeons and Dragons game and there is a certain expectation when using the system. I wouldn't run a Cthulhu style adventure where just encountering a single humanoid monster is going to be suicide in D&D because 80% of the rules are designed to allow the characters to fight monsters. In D&D the expectation is that you will kill the monsters. In Cthulhu the expectation is that the monsters will kill you.