By RAW how could a caster make diamonds?


Rules Questions


Question is in the title. Is there a way? The only thing that immediately comes to mind is to cast fabricate on a crap ton of coal.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Fabricate only allows you to make crafted goods. Diamonds in the raw state are not crafted items, they are the raw material.

I suppose you could use Polymorph Any Object on a high carbon rock, but it could just get dispelled.

==Aelryinth


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Limited Wish ?


Aelryinth wrote:

Fabricate only allows you to make crafted goods. Diamonds in the raw state are not crafted items, they are the raw material.

==Aelryinth

Cut diamonds are a crafted good.


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Immortality, a good understanding of geology, and lots of patience.


Research a spell that allows you to turn carbon into diamond.

If I were the GM the spell would have a hefty material component cost... :)


Fabricate makes a product of the same quality as the material used. I would not agree that coal is equal to diamonds in quality.

Suggestions:
- A short term solution is plain old major creation. Makes diamonds, no problem (however existing a few hours is no enough, I expect).

- Make a rod of wonder, which can create gems, the kind not being specified, it is reasonably random. Thus once in a while it will make a diamond worth 1 gp (quite small, I presume). Fabricate could then be used, to craft those together to larger diamonds. Probably not a useful suggestion, though, given that it is going to take a long, long time..

Dark Archive

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Research a spell that allows you to turn carbon into diamond.

If I were the GM the spell would have a hefty material component cost... :)

Perhaps something like a large diamond..


Take a piece of coal and squeeze it realy hard:)

Liberty's Edge

Rod of rulership, lots of kobolds and an old dwarven mine. Maybe one of those rods tbat detects minerals too. I guess craft rod and a decent spellcraft skill would be the ticket.


Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
cast fabricate on a crap ton of coal.

Coal's not the same material as diamond though.

Maybe you can create a Simulacrum of a diamond Golem, and chip pieces off?

Liberty's Edge

You can also use Major Creation to make diamonds that last 10 min/level.


mounds of coal, one of those force sphere spells, delayed blast fireball x as many as you can.


So basically there's no way to make non-duration diamonds. Just checking to see if I missed anything. Thanks guys.

The Exchange

VRMH wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
cast fabricate on a crap ton of coal.

Coal's not the same material as diamond though.

Maybe you can create a Simulacrum of a diamond Golem, and chip pieces off?

sure they are. they're both carbon.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm not entirely sure that the scientific knowledge assumed in the Pathfinder game equals or exceeds that of the late 18th century.

The apparent physical properties of a lump of coal and a diamond are so vastly different that I wouldn't imagine that someone would ever guess that they were both carbon.


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Carbon's not a material anyway, it's an atom, an element. Pathfinder worlds have no atoms, they have the four classical elements instead: Earth, Water, Fire and Air.
Coal exists. Diamond exists. But Carbon does not.

(Which is also why you can't build atomic bombs in Pathfinder.)


VRMH wrote:

Carbon's not a material anyway, it's an atom, an element. Pathfinder worlds have no atoms, they have the four classical elements instead: Earth, Water, Fire and Air.

Coal exists. Diamond exists. But Carbon does not.

(Which is also why you can't build atomic bombs in Pathfinder.)

You are most certainly wrong that there are no atoms. Several spells require an element to cast(fireball, halt undead, fiery shuriken, and probably some more all require sulfur, an element, as part of the material components needed to cast it). We also have copper coins, gold, silver, platinum, Iron Golems and several other things.

Also check out the spell Magic Weapon, Greater.

Components V, S, M/DF (powdered lime and carbon)

So yes, Carbon would exist.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Re-flavor the alchemist Grand Discovery (Philosopher's Stone). Instead of the standard philosopher's stone transmuting 1,000 lbs of lead into 50,000 gp worth of gold, have the alchemist turn 1,000 lbs of coal into 50,000 gp worth of diamonds.

Scarab Sages

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
So basically there's no way to make non-duration diamonds. Just checking to see if I missed anything. Thanks guys.

Polymorph any Object on coal should last until hit with a fairly powerful dispel magic.

That could be a very long time.


Dragonchess Player wrote:
Re-flavor the alchemist Grand Discovery (Philosopher's Stone). Instead of the standard philosopher's stone transmuting 1,000 lbs of lead into 50,000 gp worth of gold, have the alchemist turn 1,000 lbs of coal into 50,000 gp worth of diamonds.

That's useful. Thank you.


Travel to a plane where diamond is abundant, researched with knowledge planes (dc 40?), and a lot of locate item spells? Like the deserts of Namibia...


False Focus allows you to use a Focus instead of a material component for a spell up to 100 gp. If you have a 100 gp Focus, you can avoid up to 100 gp of material components for a spell.

Use False Focus to cast Fabricate and *poof* you have a 100 gp diamond for free.

Keep casting Fabricate until you feel you have the amount you desire, this could take several days, then cast Fabricate and merge all of those diamonds together into one big diamond.


Making Diamonds too hard

throwing your magical might into cracking a planet down to its molten core and extracting chunks of diamond from the surrounding molten rock would get you what you seek ;)


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Use major creation to creat the diamonds and the dunk them in Psionic Quintessence to make them immune to their duration


I feel a little bad coming a bit late to the game here (and necro-ing the thread), but if you DM rules out simply researching a spell to crystallize carbon (if you even know the relationship between carbon and diamond)a little creative use of wall of force/ring of force shields and some big ass weights would let you (with some practice)physically crush carbon into diamonds. Of course it will tkae you weeks of work with nmerous fabricate spells and walls of stone spell and many other things (like a small forest) to construct the device that will allow you to ease on and ease off a few hundred/thousand tons of weight or more to a very small point. But if you actually did it you could literally manufacture crude diamonds...

If you want a really simple way to make lots of money, sitting in a streambed near an appropriate mountain range with a hammer and prestidigitation will let you make a s*@$ ton of gems.

Quartz, when all prettied up is a real gemstone. In a lot of mountain streams >70% of the stones are just chunks of really rough quartz, of a variety of different colors.

Just smash the rocks with a hammer, use prestidigitation to give all the chunks a nice polish, and pick outall the little chunks that are free of defects enough to be jewels.

From my experience of smashing apart rocks in streams to look for 'cool' quartz, you will find a LOT of high quality quartz stones.

You could make tens of thousands of GP worth of gems in a days work doing this.

Trade the quartz for diamonds.


Pharasma is known to frown upon those who seek to cheat death, or otherwise try to corner the market on magical means to cheat death. But what most grinds her gears, are those who think she DOESN'T keep track of those things (gods are prideful beings).

Still...there is a legend of a great and powerful beast who lives deep in the forests of the Mwangi Expanse who eats coal and excretes glittering raw diamonds. Such a thing is likely only a fable though...

Liberty's Edge

Tels wrote:

False Focus allows you to use a Focus instead of a material component for a spell up to 100 gp. If you have a 100 gp Focus, you can avoid up to 100 gp of material components for a spell.

Use False Focus to cast Fabricate and *poof* you have a 100 gp diamond for free.

Keep casting Fabricate until you feel you have the amount you desire, this could take several days, then cast Fabricate and merge all of those diamonds together into one big diamond.

PRD wrote:

Fabricate

School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5

Casting Time see text

Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)

Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)

Target up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text

Duration instantaneous

Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.

You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.

Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet of material to be affected by the spell.

The target is the same thing as the material component. So either your sacred symbol worth up to 100 gp is turned into a diamond of the same value or the spell fail.

Either way you don't get a diamond for free.

JTibbs wrote:


If you want a really simple way to make lots of money, sitting in a streambed near an appropriate mountain range with a hammer and prestidigitation will let you make a s~++ ton of gems.

Quartz, when all prettied up is a real gemstone. In a lot of mountain streams >70% of the stones are just chunks of really rough quartz, of a variety of different colors.

Just smash the rocks with a hammer, use prestidigitation to give all the chunks a nice polish, and pick outall the little chunks that are free of defects enough to be jewels.

From my experience of smashing apart rocks in streams to look for 'cool' quartz, you will find a LOT of high quality quartz stones.

You could make tens of thousands of GP worth of gems in a days work doing this.

Trade the quartz for diamonds.

Nice, this is a good suggestion.


You can also use the spell Blood Money to make a ton of diamonds for free. The reason being because of this line:

Blood Money wrote:
Material components created by blood money transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component.

Since the blood is being used as a material component, it doesn't change back into blood. What your result in is a diamond made of blood. Still useful as a material component, but probably worth more to Vampires for the novelty if nothing else of having jewelry forged out of actual blood.

Sczarni

If I were a caster and wanted diamonds I wouldn't bother creating them.

I would steal them, via magic.

Sovereign Court

Mine them in the elemental plane of earth? I've heard people talk about mining your own demiplanes, too.

Liberty's Edge

Tels wrote:

You can also use the spell Blood Money to make a ton of diamonds for free. The reason being because of this line:

Blood Money wrote:
Material components created by blood money transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component.
Since the blood is being used as a material component, it doesn't change back into blood. What your result in is a diamond made of blood. Still useful as a material component, but probably worth more to Vampires for the novelty if nothing else of having jewelry forged out of actual blood.

Again, no.

The blood is the target, and fabricate "convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material", so you don't get a blood diamond as diamond aren't made by blood.


Chernobyl wrote:
VRMH wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
cast fabricate on a crap ton of coal.

Coal's not the same material as diamond though.

Maybe you can create a Simulacrum of a diamond Golem, and chip pieces off?

sure they are. they're both carbon.

Actually coal isn't just carbon, it has all sorts of impurities in it. What you want is graphite.


Vod Canockers wrote:
Chernobyl wrote:
VRMH wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
cast fabricate on a crap ton of coal.

Coal's not the same material as diamond though.

Maybe you can create a Simulacrum of a diamond Golem, and chip pieces off?

sure they are. they're both carbon.

Actually coal isn't just carbon, it has all sorts of impurities in it. What you want is graphite.

coke or high quality charcoal will work.

Charcoal made from sugar is one of the best sources for ultra-pure carbon you can find.

A decent quality charcoal made from something like bamboo will still have impurities in it, but it will be pure enough that the resulting diamonds will probably just be colored diamonds. Probably yellow diamonds.

Charcoal made from coconut shells, palm shells, oil, husks, and sawdust will also work.


Diego Rossi wrote:
Tels wrote:

You can also use the spell Blood Money to make a ton of diamonds for free. The reason being because of this line:

Blood Money wrote:
Material components created by blood money transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component.
Since the blood is being used as a material component, it doesn't change back into blood. What your result in is a diamond made of blood. Still useful as a material component, but probably worth more to Vampires for the novelty if nothing else of having jewelry forged out of actual blood.

Again, no.

The blood is the target, and fabricate "convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material", so you don't get a blood diamond as diamond aren't made by blood.

May want to read Blood Magic again. The spell very specifically says it creates a material component out of your blood. You are actually creating the component, not just sacrificing blood. A material made from the spell is actually the material, not just a substitute.

That means you use it to create a 500 gp diamond, for example, then cast Fabricate to turn it into a 500 gp diamond of a different shape. Since the 'blood diamond' was used as a material component, it doesn't transform back into blood. You have now created a diamond, essentially, for free.


Tels wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Tels wrote:

You can also use the spell Blood Money to make a ton of diamonds for free. The reason being because of this line:

Blood Money wrote:
Material components created by blood money transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component.
Since the blood is being used as a material component, it doesn't change back into blood. What your result in is a diamond made of blood. Still useful as a material component, but probably worth more to Vampires for the novelty if nothing else of having jewelry forged out of actual blood.

Again, no.

The blood is the target, and fabricate "convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material", so you don't get a blood diamond as diamond aren't made by blood.

May want to read Blood Magic again. The spell very specifically says it creates a material component out of your blood. You are actually creating the component, not just sacrificing blood. A material made from the spell is actually the material, not just a substitute.

That means you use it to create a 500 gp diamond, for example, then cast Fabricate to turn it into a 500 gp diamond of a different shape. Since the 'blood diamond' was used as a material component, it doesn't transform back into blood. You have now created a diamond, essentially, for free.

My understanding of the intent of the spell is this:

It turns your blood into a material component that substitutes for another component. The blood is still blood, but as far as another spell is concerned, it works just as well as a diamond.

It doesn't turn the blood into anything. Just allows it, gained through temporary personal sacrifice of HP and Strength, to have enough innate meaning that its just as good as whatever else you needed.

Actually allowing it to be used to manufacture valuable materials is going against the intention of the spell, if not the unfortunate wording.
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tl:dr

the spell charges your blood with enough magic that it becomes a temporary magical catalyst, easily substituted for anything that acts as a spells catalyst, such as a diamond, or ruby dust, etc..

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