D&D General Can a Wish spell move a moon to cause an eclipse?

pawsplay · Tuesday at 3:32 PM

TiQuinn said:
I don't know - can a God do that in your game?

My confusion comes from the original portion of your post that I quoted. If a wish can alter reality, how is that different from what a God, i.e. Zeus in your example, can do?

Can Zeus make Moradin a halfling thief of middling experience? Can Zeus shorten the year by two days?

Can Zeus make Morain a halfling thief of middling experience? Depending on the cosmology, probably "no" or "Yes, if he got the drop on him." But in no case would I allow that as a Wish. If you Wish that in my game, some halfling out there somewhere, who is a middling thief, now happens to be named Moradin. Moradin is still Moradin.

Can Zeus shorten the year by two days? Depends on your cosmology. In my games, probably not in a routine basis, but if he were determined and got some help, and expended significant divine resources, quit possibly. Can a Wish do this in my game? No. If you Wish this, you disappear two days into the future, making YOUR year shorter by two days.

I never said a god can do all those things. I questioned whether EVEN a god can do those things. In my mind, a Wish cannot do those things. Not straightforward. A wish is not, as was said upthread, "being the GM." Quite the opposite, it's an attempt to alter reality, and the GM is encouraged, even obligated, to curtail what that does. I know in previous editions of D&D, like the BECMI series, wishing blue dragons can't breathe lightning was given as an example of something a Wish can't do. Explicitly, it cannot change any macro conditions of the game world.

In my mind, altering the game world cosmology, even by just a few astronomical minutes, is outside the bounds of what a Wish can do. If you Wish for something like that, it alters events locally to produce a similar result. Period.

TiQuinn · Tuesday at 4:11 PM

pawsplay said:
I never said a god can do all those things. I questioned whether EVEN a god can do those things. In my mind, a Wish cannot do those things. Not straightforward. A wish is not, as was said upthread, "being the GM." Quite the opposite, it's an attempt to alter reality, and the GM is encouraged, even obligated, to curtail what that does. I know in previous editions of D&D, like the BECMI series, wishing blue dragons can't breathe lightning was given as an example of something a Wish can't do. Explicitly, it cannot change any macro conditions of the game world.

In my opinion, a wish is not much different from invoking the power of a God in the respect that it can alter reality.

Here's what that means to me in practical terms:

The DM has the latitude to mess around with the enactment of the Wish at their choosing because of its power to alter, or break, reality. If the DM wants to let the wish work, they can let it work according to the spirit and desire of what the player wants. The DM has to decide how much work they want to put into changing the reality of the setting. Realistically, that's no different than the DM saying that a God alters the reality of the setting. If the DM wants a God to send a mountain down on top of a capital city because their rulers offended the God, then it happens. If the DM wants the wish to allow the PCs to send a mountain down on top of the villain's secret lair, then it happens.

All that matters is how much does the DM want to break their setting. The "out" that the DM has is that a wish has an arbitrary limit on its power, and the DM is given license to mess with how the spell's effect is carried out. So, if the DM doesn't want the moon to shift its orbit and cause tsunamis and alter the coastline of their campaign, they don't have to. However, if the DM is cool with doing this, then the spell can do exactly that.

To me, it takes a long enough time to set up a campaign setting that deciding to massively alter it is something I wouldn't want to do in the space of a game session or two, so I'd be unlikely to let that happen. But maybe another DM is totally cool with doing this!

Stalker0 · Tuesday at 4:18 PM

If your going to mess around with celestial objects, the gods are almost certainly going to step in (unless they want it to happen for some reason).

Likely a more limited wish that will get you the core results, lets say that an epic monster can only be killed under the light of an eclipse. I would just have the wish stay "for the next hour in this area, it is considered to be under the light of an eclipse". Far less invasive than shifting heavenly bodies.

Kobold Avenger · Tuesday at 4:53 PM

Sepulchrave II said:
Many of these replies seem to regard celestial bodies in their proper, astrophysical sense rather than in their mythic sense (which might be completely different). The question might be better posed as "Do the characters inhabit a world where celestial phenomena follow the same rules as ours, or do they inhabit a world with mythic rules about such things?"

I'm going to go with celestial bodies are generally astrophysical ones based on the fact there's Spelljamming ships that go into Wildspace and can go to all those places, and that they're generally planets and moons and other things.

Clint_L · Tuesday at 5:42 PM

In my campaign, gods are just things that are worshipped, some of which are also powerful entities - none of them could just alter the position of the moon, either. It's too big a can of worms, IMO.

MarkB · Tuesday at 5:42 PM

I saw this and thought of you.

billd91 · Tuesday at 6:13 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
I think you are vastly overestimating how difficult an eclipse is. A tennis ball can cause an eclipse if it is close enough to the observer. There is no need to move any moons.

That's not an eclipse, though. That's just a shadow. What's the difference between an eclipse and a passing cloud? Or a parasol? Or stepping under into a tree's shadow?

An eclipse is when one celestial body obscures another celestial body. Stepping under a parasol doesn't mean you've experienced an eclipse.

Paul Farquhar · Tuesday at 6:31 PM

billd91 said:
That's not an eclipse, though. That's just a shadow. What's the difference between an eclipse and a passing cloud? Or a parasol? Or stepping under into a tree's shadow

None.

billd91 said:
An eclipse is when one celestial body obscures another celestial body

You know what you can’t see during an eclipse? The moon. Could be anything. Mandragora swallowing the Sun is as good an explanation as any.

TiQuinn · Tuesday at 6:38 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
None.

You know what you can’t see during an eclipse? The moon. Could be anything. Mandragora swallowing the Sun is as good an explanation as any.

This is where in-game reasoning does not need to map to real world definitions of things.

billd91 · Tuesday at 6:44 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
None.

You know what you can’t see during an eclipse? The moon. Could be anything. Mandragora swallowing the Sun is as good an explanation as any.

Then what would be the significance of a ritual needing to be performed during an eclipse when you could just do it under the awning at the corner pub?

Nope. Eclipses are supposed to mean something, particularly given the context of the OP. A minor shadow doesn't really mean something, certainly not as far as limiting the performance of a ritual.

D&D General Can a Wish spell move a moon to cause an eclipse?

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