Can Wish Negate Antimagic Field?

Question

On page 213 of the PHB for Antimagic Field:

Spells. Any active spell or other magical effect on a creature or an object in the sphere is suppressed while the creature or object is in it.

And on page 289 for Wish:

• You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours.

This creates a paradox where Antimagic Field shuts down the active spell effect of Wish while Wish makes the caster immune to the effects of Antimagic Field.

Would Wish come out on top due to it being 9th level while Antimagic Field is 8th level?

Answer 1

Specific Beats General

PHB 7 states,

If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins.

In this case, the Wish specifically states that the target is immune to the Antimagic Field, whereas the text of Antimagic Field is more general. Thus, the Wish wins out.

Note that I think the wish only applies to the creature(s) it's cast on, though. You'd probably have to word the Wish quite carefully to allow casters to cast spells on other creatures inside the field, for example. Additionally, I wonder if such a wish would make that creature vulnerable to magic when they otherwise wouldn't be...

Careful Wordings

Note that any usage of wish besides the ones listed in the text gives the GM latitude to mess up your wish, and a sufficiently crafty DM could probably poke holes in nearly any wording. Depending on your particular situation, you could word your wish in several ways:

• "I wish that any spell that I cast will not be suppressed by an antimagic field"
• "I wish that my magic items would still function in an antimagic field"
• "I wish for the ability to selectively un-suppress magical effects in an antimagic field"
• "I wish that any beneficial magical effect targeted on myself will not be suppressed by an antimagic field"
• "I wish that only spells cast by [hostile creature] are affected by this antimagic field"

Answer 2

Wish 's Immunity trumps Anti Magic Field 's suppression

There's no paradox. Wish has to be affected by Anti Magic Field to be suppressed. That suppression can't happen because the Wish is immune, so the Wish functions as normal.

Let's consider a fabricated analogy:

You're wearing the Armor of Protection From Sundering. It keeps you safe from giant hammers and stuff, and also grants you and your equipment immunity against effects that would specifically destroy them.

Your opponent is wielding the Axe of Sundering. It destroys the armor of anyone it hits. He hits you.

What happens is that your armor doesn't break. If the armor was already broken, then the axe could affect it, true, but as long as the armor isn't already rendered ineffective the axe can't do anything. Your armor is immune to the effects of the axe, but nothing makes the axe immune to the effects of your armor. The same thing is true in your question proper: Wish is immune to the effects of Anti Magic Field, but Anti Magic Field is not immune to the effects of Wish.

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N.B. This answer assumes that the immunity to antimagic field you postulate in your question is relevant, viz. that the immunity will in fact protect the Wish spell. This may not be the case! It is reasonable for a GM to rule, as you seem inclined to, that a character who is by nature 'immune to Anti Magic Field' who wields, for example, a +2 flaming longsword would be able to employ the sword's magic powers within such a field. It would also be reasonable to rule, however, that it is the sword and not the character who must be immune for the sword to function. In the latter case you will have some difficulty making Wish's immunity relevant, although it may still be possible to do so. In any case, as long as the immunity is relevant, this answer stands, and the best way to discern if it's relevant or not is going to be to ask your GM.

Answer 3

Depends. Is it possible to stop some kinds of magic in your world?

Let me explain.

If someone uses magic on a place that has magic restrictions that limit the kind of magic used, then that person is subject to the effect of said magic, even if this person formulates a more specific landing point than the area of effect of the magic.

This would be in RAW, because the specific over general rule is interpreted as to only apply to what is written in the description of the effect and not to how the player formulates its use.

The description of anti-magic field is comparable generic about it's effects on wish's immunity function as wish's immunity function is about it's protection.

If teleportation blocking magic doesn't work in your world it implies that the wording of the player is also effecting the specific over generic rule.

Answer 4

Yes. Specific trumps general (PHB 7). However, I would argue that if you are standing inside an antimagic field when you attempt to cast your Wish spell, the antimagic field wins out, since you are not immune to the antimagic field at the time of spell casting, before the Wish magic takes effect.

I would further argue that making someone immune to Antimagic Field doesn't really do much, unless the target is an inherently magical or summoned creature, or it's planning to cast touch spells on itself or one of the other targeted creatures. The spell wouldn't stop, for instance, an eldritch blast from dissipating the instant it leaves the target's finger. You would need to phrase the wish as "I wish I, and any spells I cast, are immune to Antimagic Field," which is no longer one of the pre-designed wishes built into the spell and therefore subject to a 1d3 roll that could burn you out forever.

Sure, this is kind of a narrow interpretation that doesn't help the players very much, but no one said the spell had to be useful. You could cast Wish to make you immune to Prestidigitation, and that wouldn't stop someone else from using Prestidigitation to clean clothing that you could then wear, or light a candle that you could use to see, since you're not the target of the spell. Similarly, being immune to Guidance doesn't mean someone else can't use the spell to help them pick your pocket because the pickpocket is the target of the Guidance spell, not you. It's not WotC's job to make spells that always work without any tweaking; it's the players' job to use the tools they've been given to solve problems.

Answer 5

Probably. There used to be an 8th level spell that allowed the caster to cast 1 single additional spell within the bounds of an anti-magic field. If you're playing with whatever source material includes that spell (it isn't core, and I couldn't find it when I searched just now because I don't remember the name), then the effects of wish should be equally limited since wish can duplicate 8th level spells. If you're not playing with whatever book that obscure spell is from then it's probably fine to use the rule you quoted (but your DM might get annoyed at his players going yeah, we'd rather not anti magic field today and put some tighter limits on it and that's probably okay too).

That said, in any case if you're using Wish to negate/overcome an antimagic field, THAT is what you're using it for. It's not, as another said, ubiquitously immune to antimagic fields when cast for another purpose. EG: You couldn't use a single casting of wish you cast spells inside the antimagic field AND replicate teleport to get away in a single action / casting.

Answer 6

Yes, but it would not affect any creature not affected by the wish, so you could stack yourself with resist energy and other buff spells, but sending for example fireball won't do anything to creatures effected by the same effect, since the effected in that case is not immune to it. You could even argue that a fireball spell wouldn't work against an immune creature, since it's not a direct effect on the creature, but a general magical effect.