With Instant Alchemy, why bother with Philosopher's Stone?

[Rudy2]

So, with Instant Alchemy, you can make a alchemical creation as a full-round action. That's 6 seconds, mind you.

Take, say, Soul Stimulant, which has a base price of 300gp. If I'm understanding this correctly, you can make one of those in 6 seconds for the price of 100gp, and then sell it for 150gp? 50gp/6 seconds, it turns out, is 30,000gp in an hour. (Let's give our alchemist a break after an hour, shall we?) Provided you have someone to be handing you the materials. Philosopher's Stone gives you 50,000gp per month.

Now, of course, a reasonable DM is going to limit the materials that are available to craft these things, or limit the demand for them. But, still, there are an awful lot of different alchemical items to do this with, and an awful lot of places for a character to sell them.

Is there some other inherent limiting factor I'm missing here?

[Bizbag]

Not as I can see it, other than the rules for how much money any given economy can spare (which technically, you slide under anyway because it only says the Purchase Limit is for any single item).

On the other hand, any GM capable of handling level 18 characters can easily rule "no selling alchemicals at profit unless made the normal way".

[MordredofFairy]

The same limiting factor as with similar stunts:

Living economy.
Sale price being half of purchase price applies to a normal setting.

This stunt could easily be remedied by a sudden price drop on the sale(and possible buy) side, with the crafting price remaining the same.

After all, you ARE swamping the market. Aside, others may feel inspired after your initial success and do the same, saturating the market beyond all reasonable demand.

Making it "cost 100" to make, but only earn less than that on a sale is the easiest and most logical remedy, and representative of a living world as the DM should provide.

After all, the world SHOULD react to your actions, and the partys actions not be in a static vacuum.

So yeah, initially, i'd let you earn money with that, but soon after, rewards will diminish until they are all but gone.

Philosophers stone is pretty straighforward in generating genuine "wealth" without resorting to market economy.

But again, inflationary crashes may occur if some timeless being(or extremely long-lived one) decides to create an demiplane with flowing time and spend a couple years there while only a couple rounds pass on the material plane, bringing back 20+ years of wealth from philosophers stones....

All in all, there's always ways to try and "break" the system. It's the DM's job to react to that in a way that slaps the players back in-line while rewarding creative thinking.

my 2 cents.

[Bizbag]

I once heard a story of players who decided to use Plane Shift or some such to set up a mining operation on one of the Elemental Planes to harvest salt. They planned to hire cheap labor, put in a few weeks' worth, then shift everyone back.

The DM's response was to have the players be attacked - there was an interplanar syndicate that controlled the salt market, and they didn't want competition...

[IQuarent]

MordredofFairy wrote:

All in all, there's always ways to try and "break" the system. It's the DM's job to react to that in a way that slaps the players back in-line while rewarding creative thinking.

This. Yes. Well said.

However, players should recognize that fact that GMing isn't easy and put some effort into making his job easier, or rather, not harder, by not trying their hardest to constantly break the game.

[Scavion]

IQuarent wrote:

MordredofFairy wrote:

All in all, there's always ways to try and "break" the system. It's the DM's job to react to that in a way that slaps the players back in-line while rewarding creative thinking.

This. Yes. Well said.

However, players should recognize that fact that GMing isn't easy and put some effort into making his job easier, or rather, not harder, by not trying their hardest to constantly break the game.

Or coming to a cool agreement like your business sends money to you occasionally for funding it's start. Would be a nice way to gear up characters if they were undergeared.

[Cheapy]

Because the philosopher's stone is the quintessential alchemist item?

[IQuarent]

Cheapy wrote:

Because the philosopher's stone is the quintessential alchemist item?

Well, personally I would think the sun orchid elixir is the quintessential alchemist item. :P

[aceDiamond]

Bizbag wrote:

I once heard a story of players who decided to use Plane Shift or some such to set up a mining operation on one of the Elemental Planes to harvest salt. They planned to hire cheap labor, put in a few weeks' worth, then shift everyone back.

The DM's response was to have the players be attacked - there was an interplanar syndicate that controlled the salt market, and they didn't want competition...

I believe the story can be found here. Though it could be a useful standard of measurement for the effect of supply and demand on an economy.

[Alchemaic]

I think the general handwave response is "you don't own a store and you aren't a merchant, you can't sell for more than what you paid for it."

[Dorian 'Grey']

You could, but yes the market would quickly become saturated and your 'golden goose' would dry up...eventually!

(Shame on you for even thinking of it...lol!)

[Bizbag]

aceDiamond wrote:

Bizbag wrote:

I once heard a story of players who decided to use Plane Shift or some such to set up a mining operation on one of the Elemental Planes to harvest salt. They planned to hire cheap labor, put in a few weeks' worth, then shift everyone back.

The DM's response was to have the players be attacked - there was an interplanar syndicate that controlled the salt market, and they didn't want competition...

I believe the story can be found here. Though it could be a useful standard of measurement for the effect of supply and demand on an economy.

Oh fun! I didn't know it was an actual story. I thought it was a friend-of-a-friend thing. /tg/ does good work preserving these things.

Edit; wait, no. This is from 2009. I heard the story about five years before that. Oh well, I'm sure plenty of gamers have tried to mine extra planar salt, but unlike the rest, this one's written down.

[Pupsocket]

"The economy" is probably breakable for a level 1 starting character; beyond level 9, it's made entirely of "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain."