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The Candle of Invocation exploit is pretty cheesy. Basically, a player uses a candle to gate in an extra-planar being that grants more than one wish per summoning. One wish is used to get another candle, and the other(s) can be used to do whatever you want (after all, they're wishes).

Is there any way, using RAW, to disallow this in D&D 3.5 and/or Pathfinder (where the item also exists in the same form)? If not, is there a setting or something similar in which it won't work?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes: RAW says the DM can change or ignore rules. Done. \$\endgroup\$ May 31, 2013 at 14:45

9 Answers 9

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Just ban it or change it

The Candle of Invocation is a broken item. It should not exist, at least not at that price. The rules as written make it the single fastest way to break a campaign into itty bitty pieces.

So in short, no, the Candle of Invocation cannot be allowed to work as written without becoming an exploit.

I don't like the retribution angle, either: it just seems like a passive-aggressive ban, particularly if your players expect it to be cost-free, so you'd have to warn them. Which means you might as well just take a stand and ban it rather than hide behind nebulous threats to discourage it. Particularly since creative players will find situations to use it where retribution won't make sense, but will still be exploitive.

The obvious example is gating in efreet: offer to make whatever wish the efreet wants with the third wish provided it supplies the first two satisfactorily. Efreet really like getting the opportunity to make wishes, and as Lawful Outsiders there is every reason to expect them to uphold and appreciate the bargain. So you get one wish for whatever you want (within the safe limits of the spell, of course!), one wish to get another candle of invocation, and the third for the efreet (don't welch on the deal; you have more wishes coming and seriously do not want to piss off the efreet!). Rinse and repeat as desired. Obviously, they are Evil as well, so care should be taken both to enact rules about the kind of wishes that the efreet cannot demand you make for the third wish, and whatever other wishes you make should be things you can concretely verify were not corrupted (i.e. have strong divinations available that will cover the results of the wish).

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    \$\begingroup\$ Better get some Gold Bond Medicated powder for those "efeet", sounds like they're burning up. Heh heh. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sandwich
    Aug 23, 2014 at 3:49
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No, by RAW the Candle of Invocation is irrevocably broken. The rules linking the Candle of Invocation to the Gate spell, and the Gate spell to the unrestricted calling and controlling of creatures, are all clear and written out.

There are ways to combat this abuse without resorting to changing the rules text, such as metagame agreements. I suggest you look through the answers to this recent question on preventing abuse of the Gate spell for ideas on how to do so.

In any case, a solution is going to involve external factors (custom settings, threat of NPC retaliation, et cetera), not a reading of the item's rules text.

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"If not, is there a setting or something similar in which it won't work?"

Sure. Any setting you invent can do this. "Hey, my world has no such candles. And not only that, it has no Gate spell. Nor Wish."

There's also an established setting which has them, but is going to make the exploit virtually impossible: a gothic horror setting that PCs can enter / be drawn into from about any other official world (but to leave it is... very, very hard, to put it mildly):

Ravenloft

In Ravenloft 3.5 (an officially licensed publication published by White Wolf, practically), the working of most spells and magic items are altered... to the worse.

Gate (Ravenloft: Player's Handbook, p112), for example, is one-way only. Whatever you call through a Gate, won't be able to leave Ravenloft (also known as The Demiplane of Dread.) Your implicit pact with the summoned creature will be broken by definition, and even the "most good" outsiders won't love you for that in the long run, and chances are you simply won't be able to summon such kind-hearted creatures anyway. (See Conjuration, RPHB, p105) As for evil creatures... they'll be rather pissed, as you might guess.

Wish: (RPHB, p117, and, consequently, p113) Let me just quote the RAW: "This spell functions only if the Dark Powers allow it to." The Dark Powers are the unknowable, totally enigmatic, yet definitely gothic horror loving entity/entities that practically run Ravenloft, trapping most everyone in their tormented realm, for example. Yes, you're right, The Dark Powers are, in fact, no-one else but the DM. So... what was it exactly you're wishing for?

Combine these spell effects, add all the other dark quirks of Ravenloft, and trying the Candle exploit will be the last thing the players will wish to do. (Pun intended.)

And, again, Ravenloft comes in very handy to stop the exploit in any, already running campaign. Simply have the Mists descend upon the mischievous party and transport them all to Ravenloft, then... see above. ;)

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    \$\begingroup\$ You don't even need to be semi-joking about it: "It doesn't exist in this universe," is a good serious answer! \$\endgroup\$ May 31, 2013 at 17:50
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Wish cannot be used to create magic items in Pathfinder, so that part is a non-issue in the system.

Also, in Pathfinder, the candle of invocation actually violates the RAW. A magical item that replicates a spell with expensive material components is supposed to have its cost increased accordingly:

In addition, some items cast or replicate spells with costly material components. For these items, the market price equals the base price plus an extra price for the spell component costs. The cost to create these items is the magic supplies cost plus the costs for the components. Descriptions of these items include an entry that gives the total cost of creating the item.

However, the candle of invocation does not take this into account, and it does not specifically note that it is an exception to the rule. This is, of course, because gate did not have a cost in 3.5, and they forgot to update the price of the candle. It would be very much within the spirit of the rules to increase the cost of the candle by 10000gp. Or, better yet, just remove the ability that the price doesn't take into account.

As others have noted, the ultimate issue is more with Gate being too powerful; a scroll of it is cheaper than a scroll of wish. When something is just clearly, self-evidently broken, you shouldn't feel you need "permission" from the RAW to fix it. It is absolutely a valid goal to stick to the rules as closely as possible, but this is exactly the sort of issue where you draw the line. If there's a player in your group who would actually object to you banning infinite wish loops, that's a whole other issue. :)

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The way I deal with rule-exploiting, and that was wonderfully summed up by someone else here is:

"If you can break it, NPCs can break it better than you."

If players start using this exploit, give a Candle of Invocation to every NPC. Have them meet clerics with hordes of undead, each carrying a lit on Candle of Invocation.

Or play with what PCs love even more than exploits:

"With great power comes a great price tag."

Merchants realizing the potential - and the demand! - of the object might increase the price dramatically. Or more RAW oriented, argue that the standard cost of the object is for a single use 9th spell: using it to cast at will a 9th spell with a 25000 material component... would require you to reevaluate the price.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This doesn't seem to address the original question, which is about in-manual rules that would limit the item's power. Can you cite a rule source for either of these options? \$\endgroup\$
    – BESW
    May 31, 2013 at 14:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SevenSidedDie Market prices for magic items survived two editions and over 12 years. I don't see anything inherently wrong with them – magic item markets work fine mechanically and thematically in other games (eg Shadowrun). \$\endgroup\$ Aug 23, 2014 at 1:37
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Using RAW, the creature who just granted you wishes and/or a bunch of its close relatives, visit(s) you again, some time later, and wish(es) something bad happen to you...

So, while by RAW the effect is still going to be technically allowed by DM, it's not necessarily allowed by those in the game.

EDIT:

If you choose to exact a longer or more involved form of service from a called creature, you must offer some fair trade in return for that service. The service exacted must be reasonable with respect to the promised favor or reward; see the lesser planar ally spell for appropriate rewards. (Some creatures may want their payment in “livestock” rather than in coin, which could involve complications.) Immediately upon completion of the service, the being is transported to your vicinity, and you must then and there turn over the promised reward. After this is done, the creature is instantly freed to return to its own plane.

Failure to fulfill the promise to the letter results in your being subjected to service by the creature or by its liege and master, at the very least. At worst, the creature or its kin may attack you.

(as per SRD)

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Short answer: Using a Candle of Invocation to Call a creature involves more than just the candle, so there is no broken infinite cycle.

Warning: This answer relies on rules interpretations with which not everyone agrees. Unless proven otherwise, I do not believe that Paizo or Wizards have given authoritative answers that directly contradict these interpretations.

Long answer:

Part One: The candle is not sufficient to call a creature.

The cost of the Candle of Invocation at 8,400 gp is in the neighborhood of what a potion of a 9th-level spell would be (9 x 17 x 50 = 7,650). The difference would be due to the additional benefits of the candle, and the 7,650 gp may be somewhat discounted because of the alignment restriction. This pricing seems to pretty clearly leave out Gate's 10,000 gp material component from Pathfinder or 1000 XP component of D&D (which translates into 5,000 gp). I take this to be a clear indication that the optional XP or costly material component are not included in the item.

A Gate spell can be used either for Planar Travel or for Calling Creatures. Calling Creatures is an optional use of the spell, and the use that requires the extra component. Given my rationale above, the user of a Candle of Invocation to call a creature would have to provide the "10,000 gp in rare incense and offerings" (Pathfinder) or 1000 XP (D&D) in order to use the Gate spell to Call a creature. While I grant that the general rule is that a magic item includes the XP or costly material component, this is an additional cost that is not required if you use Gate for Planar Travel. As such, given the pricing, I think it is reasonable to require the gold or XP from the user of the candle.

Part Two: The creature may require expensive or unusual payment.

I would say that providing wishes is a "more involved form of service," and thus "you must offer some fair trade in return for that service" over and above the incense and offerings.

Some would argue that the timeframe of providing wishes is short enough that you do not need to bargain for them. Pathfinder does not give a precise timeframe for a non-negotiable command, which opens the door up for my interpretation. D&D, sadly, spells out that "other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help." 17 rounds is 102 seconds. That's actually not a whole lot of time. Saying, "grant me three wishes!" and the actual casting of the spell may only take a single round, but fully explaining what you wish for can take more time.

Regardless of the exact time required (which not everyone would be willing to disregard), I think the precise phrase, "longer or more involved," indicates that a task may require additional compensation even if the task isn't longer, otherwise the clause "or more involved" is pointless.

So, if you grant that, for example, an Efreeti using his only daily opportunity to grant a non-genie three wishes is "more involved" than fighting a battle or playing Minute-to-Win-It, then the user of the candle must also make a deal with the creature as per the Planar Ally spells. This involves additional costs based on the power of the creature and the kind of service to be rendered. I have always understood the "100 gp per HD of the creature called" price to be a guideline for the minimum. Since a Wish spell can create a single non-magical item worth up to 25,000gp, I would assume that the wish-granter would desire something even more valuable than that (either magic, rare, or straight-up more costly).

There is also this great tidbit in the Gate spell: "Some creatures may want their payment in 'livestock' rather than in coin, which could involve complications." I would have to imagine that whatever the creature would want in exchange for a Wish spell would be something that could not be wished into existence. Livestock is actually a great little example, as Wish spells cannot create creatures. Don't Efreet like slaves?

Part Three: Pick one.

Regardless of the price you put on the Wish spells from the called creature, or the optional component for the candle, as long as the price is something that cannot be paid trivially by using the second of three Wish spells, you do not have an infinite cycle. Honestly, I'm not sure that a Wish spell can even generate 10,000 gp in rare incense and offerings, unless a single giant block of incense meets the need of the spell.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Incorrect RAW abounds in this answer. Gate or wish cost more than the amount listed due to XP components. The "more involved" clause directly follows a description of a certain type of action taking place in a certain period of time: it has to be "more involved" than that, which the use of a single Standard-action SLA is not. Using gate to get an SLA wish does not invoke any of the negotiation or barter rules, which basically eliminates this entire answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    May 31, 2013 at 22:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ Citation please. I can, of course, clarify that the lack of XP is specific to the Pathfinder version of Gate: d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/gate \$\endgroup\$
    – Dane
    May 31, 2013 at 23:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also, actually, the XP requirement for Calling a creature with Gate puts a nice little cap on the Candle of Invocation cycle, since those 1000 XP are neither built into the candle, nor wishable. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dane
    May 31, 2013 at 23:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes, they are, by 3.5's rules of XP components. Pathfinder removed XP components and replaced them with expensive material components (10,000 gp in the case of gate used to call another creature), and Pathfinder also maintains the rules of items that replicate spells: costly components are paid for by the crafter, not the user. So you need to add 10,000 gp to the cost of casting a 9th-level spell to get the cost of getting a casting of gate. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    May 31, 2013 at 23:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Pathfinder Magic Item Gold Piece Value, note the "Spell has material component cost: Add directly into price of item per charge" entry at the bottom of the table. By those rules, a single-use, use-activated wondrous item (such as Candle of Invocation) to cast a 9th-level spell at CL 17 with a 10,000 gp material component (such as gate) is supposed to cost 17*9*50+10,000=17,650: almost 10,000 gp more than it does, and 10,000 more than you think. And let's not forget that the Candle has another (potent) use. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    May 31, 2013 at 23:24
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The SRD states that "You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous."

Since the object of this exploit is to produce an effect much greater than the normal wish spell's power, the DM is free to do whatever s/he feels about or to the greedy PC commensurate with the level of abuse they are attempting on the magic system.

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I'm a little late to the party, but there are several simple solutions which come to mind and don't require eliminating the Candle of Invocation from your game.


The easiest would be to act as others suggest, and rule granting of wishes a "more involved" task for which the summoned creature may demand payment. Since the candle's third effect is to cast a gate spell, those rules govern the encounter. From the linked description:

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.

If you choose to exact a longer or more involved form of service from a called creature, you must offer some fair trade in return for that service. The service exacted must be reasonable with respect to the promised favor or reward; see the lesser planar ally spell for appropriate rewards. Immediately upon completion of the service, the being is transported to your vicinity, and you must then and there turn over the promised reward. After this is done, the creature is instantly freed to return to its own plane.

If your players or personal sensitives object to ruling the use of three spell-like abilities as a "more involved task", I'd suggest breaking out a stop-watch and roleplaying the encounter. (Rounds in D&D are six-seconds, and the Candle of Invocation has a CL of 17; if your player can't get through his commands in 102 seconds, payment would be expected.)


A bit more complicated option, but one that could serve as a means to negate the exploit should your players exclude it, is to use GM fiat and provide a summoned creature of the correct species and alignment, but one whom is either too advanced for the spell to compel or who has already exhausted their allotment of wishes.

  • An Effrit can be advanced as high as 30 HD directly, and could be given character levels on top of that. So long as their HD+level total is at least 35 (1 more than twice 17), the compulsion simply doesn't attach and the Effrit can grant or not grant wishes as they see fit.

    This would not work, of course, if the player conjures the same Effrit a second time.

  • Instead of advancing a monster to an epic level, you could instead produce an Effrit who has exhausted their daily allotment of grantable wishes. (This works especially well if the players have taken to summoning the same Effrit, to avoid a potential advancement.)

    Should your players attempt some particular timing shenanigans, you would need to determine exactly when a per-day spell-like ability recuperates. The rules, at least in the SRD, are no explicit on that account.


As a last option, before resorting to simply banning or house-ruling either the Candle of Invocation, Effrit, Gate, or Wish spells, would be to treat an attempt at using the exploit as either a roleplaying encounter or a story-hook.

  • Wish and creatures which grant it for another have fairly wide leeway in a GM interpreting them so as to prevent abuse. (Specific details on how may be best as a seperate question.)

  • Repeated use of the cycle requires summoning creatures of an identical (Lawful Evil, or Effrit) alignment, and for the most fool-proof means a particular cycle on an individual creature. Even if they are following the letter of the spell, it's possible and entirely within the rules for a creature summoned to resent their repeated and non-remunerated service. (A player of Lawful Evil alingment can obtain much the same exploit by way of the fairly cheap Planar Ally spell, albeit as a minor XP cost.)

  • Use of multiple wishes may offend some other NPC, such as the local council of archmages or the gods the player owes alliegance to.

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    \$\begingroup\$ 1, 3, and 4 are all invalid by RAW and require changing rules from their written state. 2 is valid, but it is thwarted by sufficiently clever players (use the candle just before the "day" changes and they get their daily use back, for instance) and is hardly foolproof if you're not changing the rules (having gate never get one with a remaining wish would be a change -- the spell should get one at random; what are the odds that the random one you gate has used its wish today?). \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Aug 22, 2014 at 21:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KRyan: I revised the answer, with citations. \$\endgroup\$
    – Bleep
    Aug 23, 2014 at 0:47

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