Why do Efreet/Djinni want wishes?

[User3]

This question got buried in one of the other threads about the wish economy and didn't get answered.

After the first 30-50 or so wishes that they grant (to get all of their attributes +5 and whatever cash money they need), why are they still willing to trade wishes with PCs who summon them?

Since I can't carry anything all that heavy when I teleport anyway (cash), and I can't get uber magic items (more than 15K), and I already have my abilities maxed out, why do I want wishes? Unless there happens to be a specific thing that I want done - a spell I don't have at the moment, etc. . . it just seems like I'd be all full up on wishes. And if PCs kept summoning me hoping to trade wishes that I give them for some for themselves, I'd have to pass. Especially if they were low level types just playing wheel of genie. And if they were very powerful and just threatened me into giving up my wishes, and this happened a lot, wouldn't I band together with my friends (who might be efreeti with class levels) and go kick their ass and make them stop extorting wishes?


I guess there are infinite genies/efreeti so not all of them have their attributes maxed, but there are probably infinite adventurers looking to scam their wishes. So I don't know if the infinity issue helps.

Just wondering if anyone had thought about this. . .

[AlphaNerd]

Unfortunately, this does at some point come down to us not knowing really anything about Genies. I mean, do they love, raise children, party, gossip, plot, belong to paramilitary organizaitions? I mean, what do they do with their time? What are their goals?

Genies are humanlike beings who dwell on the elemental planes. They are famous for their strength, guile, and skill with illusion magic.

That's not much to go on. We can pretend that they are like adventurers, commoners, BBEG, or whatever, but the fact is we don't know what makes them tick, so we can't really decide if they want wishes. Hell, maybe it takes a wish to change their hair color, which they want to do all the time or something.

[tzor]

Or it could just be a desire for "Turkish Delight."

[Judging__Eagle]

They wish for either magical items or bling.

You can never have enough of either.

[Ramnza]

I don't know that it is in our nature to ever get tired of wanting what we don't or can't have. I don't think that we actually get tired of wishing for something, because it's easier than working to get it. If Efreet/Djinnis are modeled after human desires then this idea could apply.

[MrWaeseL]

Since when can't you wish for >15k items any more? I didn't think Frank and K's material changed this.

[User3]

Free Wishes – the following wishes have no XP cost:
[...]
– Magic Item: A character can wish for a magic item that costs 15,000 gp or less.
[...]
Wishes that aren't Free – the following wishes cost XP or gp or both:
– Add to the Powers of a Magic Item: A character can increase the powers of a magic item to anything she could enhance it to with her own item creation feats. This requires 1 XP for every 10 gp increase in magic item value.
[...]
Creatures with spell-like abilities that grant wishes may only grant wishes that have no XP cost.
[...]
Magic items with wish on them can be used to cast wishes with an XP cost of at most 5,000 XP, and are produced as items using spells with a cost of 5,000 XP. As a result, you can't wish for an item that has wish on it.
[...]

Taken together, you CAN wish for 15k+ items, or at least wish for 15k Items then make them 15k+ items, but only if you're willing to pay the experience for them.

[MrWaeseL]

But as a spell-like ability, it doesn't cost the Efreet any XP.

[AlphaNerd]

But as a spell-like ability, it doesn't cost the Efreet any XP.

Ah, a good question:

Creatures with spell-like abilities that grant wishes may only grant wishes that have no XP cost.

Edit: Of course, that means you can still get truly awesome items by conning a Solar or Pit Fiend (or maybe a Glabrezu).

[micah]

1178906301[/unixtime]]

But as a spell-like ability, it doesn't cost the Efreet any XP.

Ah, a good question:

Creatures with spell-like abilities that grant wishes may only grant wishes that have no XP cost.

Edit: Of course, that means you can still get truly awesome items by conning a Solar or Pit Fiend (or maybe a Glabrezu).

That seems ambiguous to me: it depends on whether the subject of the sentence is to be parsed as "(Creatures with spell-like abilities) that grant wishes" or "Creatures with (spell-like abilities that grant wishes)".

Not that it matters for most purposes (any solar or pit fiend that's dumb enough to be conned into wishing for something game-breaking isn't being played properly). On the other hand, there's always gate, not to mention high-level spellthieves...

[Brobdingnagian]

You can never have enough cool shit.

[User3]

"Efreet are infamous for their hatred of servitude, desire of revenge, cruel nature and ability to beguile and mislead"

Given an Efreet has 3 wishes/day since they are... well, wherever they grow up to get that power. My guess is the first 1000 wishes or so were given to one of his non-geni slaves and the slave asked for all the cool toys, stat increases and riches the Efreet need. Given they are LE, I am pretty sure they do this in groups so they get a +5 to all abilities fast.

The next billion wishes probably would go to ensure horrible, hideous deaths to anyone that tries to call or charm them with a low-level spell (they hate servitude) or to gain cruel revenge of anyone that dared to call them using very high level magic (the kind that can't be outright negated by a precast Wish).

They aren't nice guys, those Efreet.

[Judging__Eagle]

But, Noble Djinni are Good and could easily cut deals with pallys and/or good clerics, couldn't they?

[JonSetanta]

Maybe the spirits desire items made by other races due to the auric 'flavor' they have.

Items made by wishes would feel like more djinn/efreeti.
Too much of that would be like plain potatoes every day, all day. Needs some flavor.

So, they don't tend to fill their own treasuries with djinn-style crap cuz it's culturally gaudy and distasteful, a sign of low influence and isolationism!

[User3]

How about this. Efreet are immortal and stuff so most punishments don't work on them. The one thing they can't stand, however, is servitude. So this is the punishment handed down by the Sultan to all Efreet who break his laws: To stand around and grant Wishes. The number of Wishes to be granted before release depends on the crime and the bribe. At least that's how I would play it should it ever come up.

[shirak]

Last guest was me. Damn it...

[the_taken]

How about:
Noble Djinni will wish to loose the ability to grant wishes so that they may never have to be summoned again.
Efreet will usualy make malevolent wishes to harm he who summoned him or another, more hated person. Or they may wish to obtain the ability to reside apon the material plane so that they may cause bad things, and never be summoned again.

[shau]

Efreeti are Cr 8 monsters in a world where it is totally acceptable to form yourself into a roving gang and go around killing monsters for their stuff. Wish is, according to the SRD, the most powerful spell a wizard or sorceror could cast. I fail to see how an efreeti could reach the point where they do not want wishes anymore. Everytime an adventuring party reaches 8th level, there exists a group that can kill them by merely expending a quarter of the resources they had that day. And the group is willing to murder them for essentially that reason. Having another layer of defenses granted by a Wish spell seems like it would never go out of style.