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PC in the need of cash? Are you or somone in your party at least a 7th level cleric, or can afford to hire a cleric to cast a 4th lvl spell? Have someone with good diplomacy to do some haggling?
If this is true then you can be rich too!
Here are some calculations using Lesser Planar Ally to summon a Lantern archon (2hd) to create continual flame rocks, it is an at will ability.
Assuming the archon has to rest and is not 100% efficient due to needing to pick up rocks and stack them, plus selling in huge quantities you will not get full value. To get a 3rd level mage to cast a 2nd lvl continual flame costs 2*3*12.5+50= 125gp. The following assumptions are made.
An archon can only make 5 per minute, 225 per hour (15 minute break each hour), and 1800 per day (will only work 8 hour days) Union rules you know.
Selling a small quantity made in minutes you get 50gp each 40% value
Medium quantity made in hours you get 20gp each 16% value (Make a deal with midsized city or many small cities to provide continual flames on every street corner)
Large quantity made over days you get 10gp each 8% value. (Make a deal with a large city to provide continual flames on every street corner for below material cost for the spells)
If these are ‘worst case’ save values and if a 7th level guy is able to work with merchants to make this deal below is the money he makes per casting!
duration Cost to Cast, Total made, sale value, Profit
7 minutes, 700gp, 35, 1750gp, 1050gp
7 hours, 1500gp, 225, 31500gp, 30000gp
7 days, 2500gp,1800,126000gp, 123500gp
Caster lvl 7
That is with union prices. Just think if you can make that sucker work non-stop! If he worked non-stop making 5 a minute in 7 days he could make 50,400. If your PC could get 50% value 62.5gp per each one you would make 3,147,500gp! Not bad for a 4th level spell.
Anybody have better money making schemes?
*Meanwhile on the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus*
Primus: I sense waves of chaos from the material plane
Nonaton: I will arm the troops immediately!
*A gateway opens to the material plane, very close to the PCs*
*Several thousand modrons appear*
Pentadrone leader: Primus has detected money aquired through questionable means. Please forfeit that gold or face the consequences of your actions.
It's clever :)
However, there are two possibilities that prevent this, either one of which must be true.
Either A.) archons don't sell themselves out like this in cheap commercial endeavors, or B.) every 7th level cleric can do this, so continual flame rocks should be a dime a dozen, so the price would plummet and barely be worth the time.
Anybody have better money making schemes?
No, I don't. I'm just really good at breaking down any money-making schemes that are within the letter, but certainly not the spirit, of the game.
Your model doesn't take into account the fee to be paid to the archon, nor the wealth levels of communities. Now the fee for the archon is going to be mild compared to the payoff, but there are other factors to consider.
Admittedly, that chart didn't make it into the PF core, but since the rules are backwards compatible, going back to the old charts indicates that if you're starting your everburning rock business in a large city, there are only going to be 40,000gp of available liquid assets for residents of the city to buy up your goods. Then you'll have to pack up and move to another community. If you don't have access to teleport, that'll take time. At least your little lantern buddy can continue to work while you travel. Let's hope you're willing to take the time to calculate encumbrance while you travel, because you're going to be hauling a lot of rocks...
Of course, before you reach the point where you have to leave the city, you're going to be in for some trouble. The wizards and clerics that normally supply these goods--in order to fill the poor boxes or fund research for new spells--are going to be miffed at the sudden influx of goods that are undercutting their prices and interfering with business. They may handle things legally. In a lawful city they'll probably file an injunction against you, a cease-and-desist order that you'll likely have to follow unless you want to be fined, removed from the city, and/or imprisoned. In a less structured city, you may find yourself being muscled into stopping. Perhaps someone might be miffed enough to even send an assassin or two after you and your little lantern buddy in order to stop you.
But then, at least you'd be back to the adventuring lifestyle again...which is what you're supposed to be doing in the first place, right?
Prices in RPG books are guidelines provided assuming people aren't doing what you describe. If someone floods the market, prices will drop rapidly. Simulating exact outcomes is beyond our most powerful computers and greatest minds in the real world; do you really expect an RPG book to pull it off?
That said, I'm glad 10 ft poles no longer cost more than 10ft ladders. :-)
Let me cover some of the issues brought up plus fix a few errors in my post.
Somehow I put the per hour and per day creation number. So the actual gold numbers were right, but the numbers created were not. I had used a detailed spreadsheet to do the calculations and then trimmed it up for posting and ended up trimming the wrong columns.
Number of continual flame objects made in:
7 minutes: 35
7 hours: 1,575
7 days: 12,600
Encumberance was brought up. So let's deal with lugging all these around.
If we get rocks the weight of an average marble (5 grams) given 453.6 grams in a pound there are about 90.6 marbles in a pound.
This is pretty much pea gravel, which should be pretty easy to come by.
Weight of rocks created in:
7 minutes: 35 = .38 pounds
7 hours: 1,575 = 17 pounds
7 days: 12,600 = 140 pounds
Even the large stash of rocks is less then 5 suits of scale mail(150lbs). A very common thing for a party to lug around to sell off back in town.
Encumberance not really an issue.
Archons Selling Themselves Out:
They wouldn't be... he gets to take breaks, rest, walk around. If he were to sell himself out you would be able to get a lot more out of him. If he worked without breaks (he is an archon no need to sleep)
Still with only 5 per minute due to moving stuff around
7 hours: 2,100
7 days: 50,400
Plus tell him you are just trying to bring the light of justice into the world.
Flooding the Market:
I took that into account by reducing the amount you can sell the flaming rock for. Even if you get someone to cast the spell for free it still costs you 50gp in ruby dust. While since the archon has it as a spell like ability he does not need the material component.
For a mere 562.5gp you can pay someone to teleport you to the next big city. Since they will need to teleport back they will charge you double of course, so it costs 1,125gp per city you visit. Minor cost of doing business. Once you have sold to all the major cities on that world and you have millions of gold I am sure you can get someone to whisk you away to another dimension of the prime material to continue your money making scheme.
Other Merchants:
Also taken into account by the reduced cost. When selling the 12,600 and getting 10gp each, that woudl not be the real sale price, you may actually sell them for 15gp each, then have to pay off the teamster union 5gp each sale.
Plus they pay 5k to an assassin to kill you, offer him double to go kill them. Then one less merchant to deal with.
The local government coming down on you:
In cities like that you do not sell to shops, you sell to the local government, you get a contract to provide cheap lighting for its citizens. Lights on every street corner make it much safer in the city, so the cite has to pay less on guards. Selling at 10gp for 20'radius of light is a pretty good deal for the city. Maybe have to bargain down to 8gp per street corner. Oh and throw in free continual flames for the kings throne room, beach house, etc.
So the local government is not your enemy but your customer. The citizen will love you, since there is now abundant light at night and no more shadows for those filthy rogues to hide him.
But then, at least you'd be back to the adventuring lifestyle again...which is what you're supposed to be doing in the first place, right?
It should would make adventuring safter if you could have 500k in gear at 7th level. Full Plate +5 Heavy fortification, Large Steel Shield +5, Ring of Prot +5, Cloak of Resistance +5, Amulet of Natural Armor +5, a +5 holy mace, Staff of healing, Scrolls of true res, Scrolls of heal, etc.
Might as well equip out your whole party while your at it.
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Is your character, or any character really, that hard up for gold that they couldn't come up with some other sort of plot, or maybe, I dunno, adventure for it?
Rules exploits like this are great for NPC's and the like, but hardly what I think a cleric who is an adventurer is going to come up with to "set himself up" or anything.
Just my 2cp.
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But then, at least you'd be back to the adventuring lifestyle again...which is what you're supposed to be doing in the first place, right?It should would make adventuring safter if you could have 500k in gear at 7th level. Full Plate +5 Heavy fortification, Large Steel Shield +5, Ring of Prot +5, Cloak of Resistance +5, Amulet of Natural Armor +5, a +5 holy mace, Staff of healing, Scrolls of true res, Scrolls of heal, etc.
Might as well equip out your whole party while your at it.
To what point? So that you can "win"?
In that case, as the GM, I would pretty much have a group of 20th lvl rogues come and steal your stuff, since thats the kind of loots an elite group is going to be interested in. +5 plate mail is the sort of thing small fiefdoms would go to war for, champions and the like searching for it. I would imagine that you would be constantly under assault for your gear. In my game, you would be.
I don't see the fun in constantly raping every encounter because of gear solely.
"well, once again, my lvl 7 Paladin slays the dragon with my +5 Holy Sword of Dragon Slaying. I hit it for 125 damage with my crit, hurr hurr derp derp."
I hope you do have fun making all that gold and having all that gear.
You're screwed, man, because the "Protection from GM" item always costs 1 cp more than you can scrape together.
So unless you're dating the GM or otherwise bribing/ extorting him (or he just doesn't give a damn), you won't pull it off.
Since you asked: I do have a better money making scheme. I mentioned in my last post:
Bribe or extort the GM! Suddenly, your character will inherent stuff like the demiplane of gold or something. It all depends on what you have on the GM or what you're willing to give away.
My favorite money making scheme was a dragon orb. We got 1 as part of the plot and were supposed to destroy it. Instead, one of the players mastered it and went over to the ancient black dragon and told him "give me your hoard," and he had to agree. That orb got broken so quickly...
That was in a campaign where money didn't matter though. When your players are offering to pay 500,000 gp for a single item, to the other party memebers, and they refuse, money just doesn't matter. I then picked it up off the guy they sold it to for free.
Once again: If someone floods the market, prices will drop rapidly. You will not get rich doing this. D&D is not an economics simulation, nor is it intended to be. That said, if you enjoy this sort of exercise, have at it...just don't try it if I'm the DM. :P
One could make a living at it, meaning there would be tons of continual light sources everywhere. Yet another example of why a pseudo-medieval setting makes no sense in a D&D context, especially if you adhere to the DMG's sociological assumptions. Eberron at least paid this lip-service, but truly predicting what society would look like is pretty much impossible.
Once again: If someone floods the market, prices will drop rapidly. You will not get rich doing this. D&D is not an economics simulation, nor is it intended to be. That said, if you enjoy this sort of exercise, have at it...just don't try it if I'm the DM. :P
One could make a living at it, meaning there would be tons of continual light sources everywhere. Yet another example of why a pseudo-medieval setting makes no sense in a D&D context, especially if you adhere to the DMG's sociological assumptions. Eberron at least paid this lip-service, but truly predicting what society would look like is pretty much impossible.
Did you once again fail to read the part where he says that for a magic item that costs 125 gp he is assuming the sale value will be 10 gp?
That said, one of the easiest ways to counter this is to have it, and many other money making schemes, already been done in your campaign world. If every major city already has thousands of continual lights, not much sense in them buying more.
Yes Yes, no DM worth his salt would allow his players to get away with this.
Yes it is not good role playing, and what fun is it just making gold.
Yes you could bribe/threaten/date the GM and have him or her give you all the goodies in game.
Yes if you were low level and had these resources high level bad guys will gank you and take your lunch money.
That's not the point. I was pointing out a pretty silly and fun loop hole in the spell casting system. Normally it balances out since you would need the 50gp of ruby dust. With an at will power that creates a permanate item of value that costs nothing to make, that you can break the economic system of the realms.
It was just a "dang that's funny" exercise.
Still does not beat what was doable in 2nd edition.
From the tome of magic Metaphrosis liquids (turn any liquid into another no magical liquid, had to consume target liquid)
At first level you could make a cubic foot of ink (sells for 8 gold a vial, and by weight 10 vials make a pound, 64 pounds per cubic foot, 50% value of 2,560gp of ink per level of caster)
Then with that spell and flame walk you turned buckets of water into liquid platinum. Instant wealth.
The spell got banned from Living City back in the day because people were doing just that, cannot take full credit.
Let's see how long it takes before the continual flame rock trick gets banned from The Pathfinder Society
Also it would be an ecological nightmare.
Go around putting the continual flame rocks through out a forest. Our nocturnal friends will not be able to hunt well in the light. Some will start dying off, causing a cascade effect throughout the ecosystem.
I am sure this will piss off some high level druids and they will hunt you down and kill you, and stop you from having continual light cast on every tree on a forest.
Or toss the rocks in a lake so now the lake radiates light at night. Ahhh what a pretty Lake.
Another possible use for the pile of continual flame rocks.
Assumption: Continual flame gives off light that plants can use to grow.
Fill the underdark with the rocks to increase crop production underground. Turning the dingy messy underground into a lush forrest.
I am sure that will piss off many of the underground dwellers.
It was just a "dang that's funny" exercise.
Nurse! Inject this man with 1000mg of hobby, stat! ;-P
*snaps latex gloves*
Per needle or ... the other method, Doctor?
*smiles innocently*
Problem is with these "Everburning Rocks" is that supply will quickly outstrip demand.
It doesnt matter if theres a certain amount of assets GP wise in the city itself...exactly how many of the populace can afford or even want these things?
A merchant might buy a few to see how well they sell, but after selling a small bunch supply will dry up. Its just not that useful or economical for people to want to buy.
As a result, overflooding the marketplace/economy with these "Everburning Rocks" is going to see their value plummet.
Just like with real world stocks, oil prices are high when in short supply, plenty of oil however and prices become cheap.
Same goes with this method. Whats to stop dozens of people getting the same idea?, pretty soon everyone will be flooding the marketplace with this pap and they'll have to sell it in bunches for the price of one to make it appealing.
So in short, no. I wouldnt let this fly for long, you'd have to move FAR each and every time the marketplace became saturated by these things to a community that hasnt seen them before but then be realistic that the more bigger the community is you move to, the more likely you'll bump into someone pulling this same gimmick.
That and as others have said, higher level bad guys or even Rogues will come out their way to rob you of everything you own of significant value.
AND, where do you buy these items from?, the biggest metropolises perhaps?, and even then it wont be easy to track down items of that significant value.
End result = Already probably been done before, overstimulated marketplace, too much product, going to be robbed blind frequently.
Problem. Two things control luminescense, one greater and the other lesser. The lesser is the composition of the emitter and the greater is the size of the emitter. At only the size of a marble you continual flame rocks would be an everlasting candle. 10gp for permanent candle seems a little steep to me. And this flame, is it hot? Will it burn down my hovel? I am thinking more like 2 gp and something to make it safe, so that I can get some sleep.
Princess of Canada, Robbing the blind is a classic scheme in itself. Cheating old ladies is harder than it sounds and hiring dogs goes nowhere. Threatening to overrun a city with rabid monkeys can make a landslide too, depends on your means. One of my charcters (actually an NPC taken as a retainer) would turn gold into copper or back into lead! For he who no longer has any gold at all doesn't have much that he is going to do. Those were the bad old days. Starting cults and polymorphing others!
KaeYoss, your nurse has much to be desired for...
I agree. My last nurse knew the answer to this question.
It's "the needles - using the other method"
Cheating old ladies is harder than it sounds
Pfft. Easiest thing in the world.
Or so I have been told <_<
Well, that's why Pathfinder gives us Craft and Profession skills. A Barbarian with a Craft (Trap-Making) skill can build a bunch of traps, go out and get some pelts to help make ends meet (Dire Bear fur rugs for the bordellos, nod nod wink wink nudge nudge), as can the Wizard hiring himself out to the local library to copy some of the ancient texts into new books and scrolls to keep the old lore from fading, the Bard singing for his supper while he and the Sorcerer throw in some illusions to help the story-telling along, the Fighter offering to help train the Militia in how to take someone down without killing them via the Subduing Strike Feat, while none of these are massive gold-raking operations, they're small enough the local Guilds might pick up and take notice, maybe offer the PCs membership and perhaps even wages if the PCs will just work under the Guild's banner.
Another thing to consider is that the PCs can easily walk up to a high-level character and say "Okay, we need gold. Is there anything you need doing, that you don't have time to do yourself, that we can handle?" The NPCs might go indeed have a minor problem they can't handle themselves, be it cleaning out their basement of dire rats (actually a nest of Wererats in hiding after their nest was destroyed by the Thieves Guild) while the Paladin goes out to try and reason with the local High Clerics about why Kord and Heironeous don't actually want their followers killing each other in the street.
PCs might encounter a ruined Inn on their travels after a particularly hard fight. Stopping overnight to recover, muttering about how the Goblins only had copper coins painted yellow and not actual gold coins, the PCs stumble across a cellar in which they find the wine-cellar, stocked with vintage beverages and even a few rare casks of Dwarven Grave Ale. They could easily take the stuff back to town, or they could rebuild the Inn, buy the land and staff it.
Hiring six commoners to serve the tables and clean the place, six level 2 warriors to keep the peace, 1 expert (or possibly an old adventuring companion who cannot or doesn't want to keep adventuring) to run the place to run the place and 2 experts to cook the food, they expend perhaps a few hundred gold to rebuild if the PCs have the right skills (engineering, carpentry could handle most of it) and a two hundred gold to hire the people and keep enough coin to keep paying them for a few months, plus a few hundred more for supplies to keep the tavern going, the PCs have pooled anywhere from 1-2 thousand gold on a building that they own, and that they can return to for sanctuary and shelter.
As time goes buy, and with a bit of coin towards the local Bard colleages to spread the good word, the tavern picks up business as a safe place to stay, the PCs might pop back every few months to take their share of the earnings, reinforce the building now they're a little bit higher level and can cast Wall of Iron or have polished their Craft skill a bit more to make the place a ltitle bit fancy.
I did this myself in a game a year or so ago. My Half-Orc Rogue litterally found an abandoned Inn populated by Goblins along a road that had once linked an Gnome town to a series of Human Villages. A bit of honest work and calling in a few favours I was owed, the Inn was rebuilt and surrounded by a log palisade wall with watch-towers at either end. Offered a crippled friend from one of the villages a part share if he'd run it for me and hired a half-dozen men to provide muscle. My crippled friend brought his family to run the Inn (we'd agreed a 50/50 split, even though I'd found it and paid to get it up and running, because he was my character's friend) and after the party had finished dealing with the Drow raiding party that had been bedeviling the region, and us for the past three levels, we reached level 5 and the gold started to roll in, a good fifty gold a month for me, fifty gold a month for my friend and the rest was rolled back into the Inn to keep it in the black. By 10th level, it was a two-storey Inn with stables, an on-staff Cleric to handle injuries and we were being partially subsidised by the Gnomes and Humans who led their communities with 40 mixed warriors on fast mounts, able to go to any village or town that needed the muscle, and I was raking in 300 gold a month. Eventually sold my share to my friend for a good 5000 gold and left with a smile on my face.
The problem is that not only can the DM actively deny you to do this, but he must actually specifically allow it. The rules don't guarantee you too get a lantern archon, or guarantee that it will work for you for money.
By casting this spell, you request your deity to send you an outsider (of 6 HD or less) of the deity's choice.
As you can see, the spell REQUESTS an outsider of the DEITY'S choice. As such, it isn't in your hands if you get a lantern archon or not.
The creature called requires a payment for its services. This payment can take a variety of forms, from donating gold or magic items to an allied temple, to a gift given directly to the creature, to some other action on your part that matches the creature's alignment and goals.
As you see, the payment might as well be a service that you have to do first for the archon to agree with it. Since the archon knows how much his service is worth to you, he'll probably require something equally worth. He might say that if he should cast the spell 20 times, you have to kill the local Orc overlord.
Also, lantern archons are lawful good and may very well object to something that can be seen as unfair. Remember that this is a planar ally, not a planar binding. Also, you can't be evil or chaotic and cast the spell, and I can't see a lawful or good character do this. So you have to be true neutral, and disrupting the economic order is probably a chaotic act so you have to be careful.
Stringburka raises a good point. Who's to say the Lantern Archon might do it, but only so long as you're willing to donate half the money to charity? Try and swindle, the Gods have just lent you a servant, I think they'll be keeping an eye on you.
Swindle the Archon, next time you cast the spell, *POOF*, there's an avatar of Heironeous with a very angry expression on his face, tapping his foot on your summoning circle, saying "Little one, we need to have a long, long talk about 'honesty'."
That said, I think if your character is that way inclined, there are also Glabrezu who would be perfectly willing to grant you a Wish every month so long as you're willing to keep causing chaos with the stock-markets. Nothing is stopping the PC/Glabrezu pair from turning a small mountain of coal into diamonds and flooding the market through several independant merchants at once, promising each one they'll be the only ones to be selling these 'high quality' stones. Meanwhile the local diamond market goes balls-up and the Mortal and Demon give each other high-fives, adopt new disguises and wait a month before moving on to something else.
Alternatively, a morally corrupt PC might summon a Succubi to use suggestion certain people to get their gold. The Player gets a mountain of loot, several rich merchants have a pile of blackmail on their heads that could litterally send them to Hell (well, the Abss but you know what I mean) and again, the Mortal and Demon ride off into the sunset with their hearts' desires.
A more orderly summoner could call up an Imp and use it's Augury and Commune abilities to help the Summoner get the drop on his competitors in all manner of business deals, shady or legal as the case may be.
A diplomatic or otherwise persuasive character could bring a Fallen Deva to the party. No longer good but not quite evil just yet, the Deva could be convinced to help spread Light in a more physical sense, and likely more than willing to try and find a place in the Mortal Realm to gather it's thoughts. Continual Flame at will, just like the Archon and if given enough time and support, the Astral Deva might just get used to living a lavish and lavicious lifestyle amongst mortals. Hey-Ho Cult Time!
Well, that's all I can think of for now, but there's nothing to say the players might not stumble upon the method of turning a Fire Elemental's remains into an alchemical powder that once allied to a Sunrod will burn indefinitely, leading them to open a permanent portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire to draw out Small Elementals for them to slaughter for gold, up until they accidentally draw the ire of an Elder Elemental or worse....
I'm with the create water gig.
Go to the desert, make a well, and constantly fill it. People will come. Some will stay.
First level cleric? Sure, you can be mayor of a town.
This discussion has been done to death. Yes, you could create enough drinking water for a fair bunch of people. You couldn't possibly get anywhere near the amounts needed to irregate the land though.
A diplomatic or otherwise persuasive character could bring a Fallen Deva to the party. No longer good but not quite evil just yet, the Deva could be convinced to help spread Light in a more physical sense, and likely more than willing to try and find a place in the Mortal Realm to...
I'm not so sure fallen devas would even exist in PFRPG. I've been under the impression that alignments are more restricted now, so that Always Good means Always Good. Not in any way sure on this, but that's the impression I've gotten.
Also, by the time you could summon glabrezus and devas, the gold piece economy has already losts it's value to you. By that time, any amount of gold pieces aren't worth that much since the things you need are far higher than can be bought for money.
Elementals serve, any contract to do something within that elemental sphere might be a way binding that elemental to that particular service permanently. I agree that summoning a specific variety of elemental could be difficult or unlikely. There are random tables in the old monster manuals for summonings and occurance. For the most part it is a good scheme. But there is the part about ruby dust that makes me wonder if it couldn't be even better.
create water + presidigitation + high bluff
"magic tonic, 1gp"
Screw the bluff! Create water + prestidigitation = Full Taste Zero Calories! Coke Zero can go home.
Either that or use prestidigitation on healthy stuff. "Eat your vegetables, child." "But I don't wanna!" "Why not? It tastes like chocolate?" "You're lying! Let me tr...NOMNOMNOMNOM!"