Wishes and Ability scores

What is the general consensus when it comes to using a wish to raise ability scores?   Most groups I have played in we went with the standard rule that 1 wish could raise an ability by one point up to a score of 16, after that it was 10 wishes to go up one point (i.e. 16 to 17 would be 10 wishes, 17 to 18 also 10 wishes.).  Not that this happened very often, but there is the occasional ring of wishes in a treasure.  Generally it was accepted that this was ok without the normal contorting of wishes.  I was curious what other GMs did in this case.  

Also remember that a wish will age the caster as well.  To prevent abuse in your campaign it is helpful to utilize all consequences involved.

I am actually curious how players worded their woshes exactly.

Well for starters, I base it all on how the player words the wish. If they say 'I want a +1 to my Strength' or something along the lines, then I'm going to say that the spell failed and in the case of the Ring, that one use was just wasted. You're character doesn't know this concept of '+1' to an attribute. You'd have to word it based on the skill itself say like 'I wish to become more strong physically', even then, you'd still need to word it properly, or something is going to happen. An example of what I've heard. Someone said they wished to be smart, so the DM had the character teleported away from the party, into an extraplanar dimension that was filled with bookcases. Even after that, in terms of the spell, you'd have to wait a full in-game calendar year before it could be used again and in the case of the Ring, I'd put a restriction of one wish per in-game two days. I've only ever had to deal with Wish once and that was in the form of scroll that the player had to use to save his life. I didn't have any plans to try and find a way to destroy the scroll but what they ended doing to trap themself ended up working perfectly. So beyond that, I don't have much experience with Wishes, but that is my two cents.

You can get a magic-belt, put it on and BOOM.... STR 25. I never understood the need to be nerfy on this.... 

Well, a Str of 25 from a belt would be boarding on artifact status and would be something created by you (as the DM) or by your DM because from memory, there is no item in the DMG that confers a Str of 25. 24 is highest that I can recall.

Yea 24 for Storm Giant.... Point remains. Lots of ways less powerful than a wish to raise stats (and by a whole bunch.) I have STR of 9.... find some ugly gloves.... 18/100 .... that is 9+ stat raise.... but I get a whish.. I can only get to STR 10? The problem with wishes isn't to the wish... it the giving away wishes too often. Like most here I have played a long time, I have never had a character get wish, been around them but have never gotten on myself.

24 str is artifact enough imo :D Anyway,I do not understand this concern about nerfing wishes all along the way. first of all, whishes are purposedely designed to break the rules of the game in a fun way. Thus said,  let people use them once in a while to get something special or save their hides. they will remember it as something out of ordinary for a long time! Of course, greediness and/or permanent unbalancing of the game is something iI would never allow. Also,people tend to forget that wishes, if not casted from an object (that was DM responsability to let it to be found) age the caster. Magical aging is deterrent enough imo because , well , you get old, and , as stated on PHB  page 21 in the constitution entry (that almost everyone tend to forget) System Shock states the percentage chance a character has to survive magical effects that reshape or age his body : petrification (and reversing petrification), polymorph, magical aging, etc.  So you cast wish? get the effect then a nice System shock to see if you survive! Fair enough imo. (on a sidenote: spectres are even more scarier than most people realize if you apply this rule.....)

Stephen S. said: Lots of ways less powerful than a wish to raise stats (and by a whole bunch.) I have STR of 9.... find some ugly gloves.... 18/100 .... that is 9+ stat raise.... but I get a whish.. I can only get to STR 10? The problem with wishes isn't to the wish... it the giving away wishes too often. I suppose I see your point now, never thought of it that way before and now that I think about, there certainly are, and are way more common than a Wish. Although, I don't know why any DM would give wishes out often, that's just asking for trouble. Domenico P. said: Magical aging is deterrent enough imo because , well , you get old, and , as stated in the constitution entry (that almost everyone tend to forget) System Shock states the percentage chance a character has to survive magical effects that reshape or age his body : petrification (and reversing petrification), polymorph, magical aging, etc.  So you cast wish? get the effect then a nice System shock to see if you survive! I think most people forget about that portion of the System Shock because most DMs, those that I've played under and have witnessed this for anyway, use it only for resurrection, in conjunction with Res Check, or when taking more than 50 or whatever it is hit points in one hit.

i don't think cliff was talking about the wish spell but wishes granted as per ring of wishes, deck of many things or genies.

I have had some experience not only with wishes from magic items, but also monsters who granted wishes or limited wishes. I find it is always best to review the spell/item/monster in question and use published material as a guideline as written. If a person says "I wish for str+1", I ask for clarification "Yes, but how do you SAY it?". Also, if improperly worded, I change something about the character to make it canon. "I wish for infravision" POOF "You're an elf now". Or "I wish To be a longsword grandmaster." POOF "All your xp are taken out of your current class(es) and placed into fighter. It's as if you've been a single-classed fighter all along and you lose all your former class abilities."

I get that, but I'm speaking to just ability scores and primarily wishes just from magic items.  A genie will obviously try to twist the words.  A wish spell from a spell book has way too much baggage to really use.   most of the groups I played in through my time in the military came to the same conclusion.  Since there were no other permanent ways to raise certain ability scores short of the 6 various books that do it, wishes could be used for the purpose without the typical word twists.  Again, it rarely happened.  I have one character that ever had a wish granted in this manner and that was at the end of the module series The Five Shall Be One.   

I totally agree.  Like I said, it's best to review the material and use it as a guideline as written.  In the case of wishes used to raise stats, I believe the published material says that each stat point up to 16 is 1 wish each, thereafter each wish is 1/10th of a stat point and should be recorded on the character sheet in decimal form i.e. STR 16.1, 16.2, 16.3 and so on and so forth.  Not much need to change published material in most cases, I always say.  The only strange part of this is the "11 wishes getting from STR 18 to STR 19."  I believe the author means you add 10 percentile strength for each wish and then after the 10th wish at STR 18/00, it takes another (11th) wish to get to STR 19. DMing is too easy (and more fun) when you don't change the published rules much, as house rules tend to just piss people off. I can't tell you how many arguments I have heard because some goofy DM wanted to re-invent the wheel by adding arbitrary crap rules to an AD&D game.  Generally, house rules are just that IMHO: goofy. As far as the "word twists", the character must use the wish in character for it to actually be activated, IMHO.  There can be no "I wish for STR+1".  Though given the rarity of wishes, I consider wasting a wish because someone used their wish out of character to be a bit mean-spirited.  In the case where someone forgot to stay in-character when using the wish, I would simply ask for clarification by saying "Yes, but how do you SAY it?".  According to the actual spell listing, "word twists" i.e. as if cast by a genie aren't supposed to occur.  However "The exact terminology" should be used literally.  In this case, it may be best to have the player propose the wish in written form, which is something I have done in the past.