Wall of Iron as metal source


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Patterson wrote:
i go an idea... remove the "Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold." and say the use of this spell is only used by royal decree...

Or just have it made of crystal that is only suitable for use as a building material, but not for crafting items. Maybe even let it be manipulated like Wall of Stone when cast, with Wall of Iron's easier placement.

Or have a line about how it isn't suitable for crafting items without additional materials and work costing as much as iron is to buy.


Diego Rossi wrote:
Weirdo wrote:

Wall of Iron is instantaneous, which means it creates a large chunk of essentially normal iron - a minimum of 39600 cubic inches, or 11,259.1 lbs, or 1,125.91 gp worth of iron.

Do you think the spell would be a decent source of iron for a metal-poor region?

We had a similar discussion about Wall of Iron (in the forum) about a year ago.

The simplest solution we found is to say that the iron in the wall of iron spell has impurities that make it not better than iron ore when used to make stuff, so you had to purify it first (using the normal methods used when purifying iron ore). That cut the value of the iron in a wall of iron to 1/3 as you need a lot of work to turn it into iron ingots.

It is questionable if Fabricate can turn the iron in a wall of iron (or iron ore) into iron ingots.
It say: "You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material."
Iron ore isn't the same material as iron ingots. It contain iron plus other impurities that you want removed. The spell turn A into B, not A into B (iron) + C (impurities) in two separate piles.

Even worse if you are speaking of steel. Basically it is iron with a specific amount of carbon in it. If you have iron ore and carbon you can produce steel by hand, but if the take Fabricate RAW you can't produce steel with it, as you can't take 2 materials and fuse them in a different product.

Yeah, we talked about this once in this thread:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q0on?How-to-corner-the-pig-iron-market#1

At the very least you should be able to retrieve 250 gp worth of usable iron out of it, since that's what the material components cost. In an area with little iron but a decent supply of gold this might be viable. 250 gp buys more than a ton of iron.

The funny part is that the iron made by the spell can't be made into anything... except walls. Obviously they work fine as a wall so it's not clear why they can't be used for something else.

If they had just made the spell not permanent that would have solved the whole thing.

Peet


Peet wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Weirdo wrote:

Wall of Iron is instantaneous, which means it creates a large chunk of essentially normal iron - a minimum of 39600 cubic inches, or 11,259.1 lbs, or 1,125.91 gp worth of iron.

Do you think the spell would be a decent source of iron for a metal-poor region?

We had a similar discussion about Wall of Iron (in the forum) about a year ago.

The simplest solution we found is to say that the iron in the wall of iron spell has impurities that make it not better than iron ore when used to make stuff, so you had to purify it first (using the normal methods used when purifying iron ore). That cut the value of the iron in a wall of iron to 1/3 as you need a lot of work to turn it into iron ingots.

It is questionable if Fabricate can turn the iron in a wall of iron (or iron ore) into iron ingots.
It say: "You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material."
Iron ore isn't the same material as iron ingots. It contain iron plus other impurities that you want removed. The spell turn A into B, not A into B (iron) + C (impurities) in two separate piles.

Even worse if you are speaking of steel. Basically it is iron with a specific amount of carbon in it. If you have iron ore and carbon you can produce steel by hand, but if the take Fabricate RAW you can't produce steel with it, as you can't take 2 materials and fuse them in a different product.

Yeah, we talked about this once in this thread:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q0on?How-to-corner-the-pig-iron-market#1

At the very least you should be able to retrieve 250 gp worth of usable iron out of it, since that's what the material components cost. In an area with little iron but a decent supply of gold this might be viable. 250 gp buys more than a ton of iron.

The funny part is that the iron made by the spell can't be made into anything... except walls. Obviously they work fine...

Eh, I only see the material component as being worth 50gp.

Not being permanent doesn't make too much sense, imho, given Wall of Force.

Really, if they didn't want people selling it they should have just not have it made of iron. Problem solved.


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Claxon wrote:
Why not just have the spell have a material component cost equal to the value of the metal generated by the spell and get rid of that last line in the spell? Did someone already suggest that?

Alternatively, you could also make an Alchemical Power Component that can be added to the casting to purify the wall and make it a useable source of iron. You can then make the cost of the component rather high and thus make it so that it works when plot demands an area overcome an iron shortage without allowing too many shenanigans by players.


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Polymorph Any Object could turn the iron that can't be sold into iron that can.


Poldaran wrote:
Claxon wrote:
Why not just have the spell have a material component cost equal to the value of the metal generated by the spell and get rid of that last line in the spell? Did someone already suggest that?
Alternatively, you could also make an Alchemical Power Component that can be added to the casting to purify the wall and make it a useable source of iron. You can then make the cost of the component rather high and thus make it so that it works when plot demands an area overcome an iron shortage without allowing too many shenanigans by players.

1 lb of iron is 1 silver. So 10 lb is a gold.....

hmm, so that's about 25.6 gold times Caster Level squared -- caster level increases both area and thickness. So that's about 3686 gold at 12th level for instance.


Drachasor wrote:
Compared to the existing Wall of Iron and Wall of Stone, the above is NOT a 6th level spell. It should be the same level as Wall of Stone at most.

Huh? The only differences are:

+ Can be used for construction, crafting etc as long as there are no fine details
- 200 gp extra material component
- Two less hardness

Compared to wall of stone, it costs 250 gp more and cannot be used to make bridges automatically, but has _twice_ the hit points, 10 higher DC to break through, can be used as a material for crafting, and can be tipped.

My change slightly nerfs in-combat usage but enhances out of combat usage. I don't see how it becomes so much weaker as to compare to wall of stone. Unless you mass out the spell over and over and over, the material cost is neglible at the point you have access to it.


Ilja wrote:
Drachasor wrote:
Compared to the existing Wall of Iron and Wall of Stone, the above is NOT a 6th level spell. It should be the same level as Wall of Stone at most.

Huh? The only differences are:

+ Can be used for construction, crafting etc as long as there are no fine details
- 200 gp extra material component
- Two less hardness

Compared to wall of stone, it costs 250 gp more and cannot be used to make bridges automatically, but has _twice_ the hit points, 10 higher DC to break through, can be used as a material for crafting, and can be tipped.

My change slightly nerfs in-combat usage but enhances out of combat usage. I don't see how it becomes so much weaker as to compare to wall of stone. Unless you mass out the spell over and over and over, the material cost is neglible at the point you have access to it.

Less Hardness does matter a fair bit, imho. Though looking at how much iron costs, it is probably still problematic.

You also have to figure that it is like Wall of Stone. Has more hitpoints, a bit easier to put down, but far more limited in how it can be shaped (so a bit of a wash there). Harder to break through. But all that together just doesn't seem to be worth a whole spell level to me. Though, honestly, I have to say I don't think Wall of Iron is quite up to snuff as a 6th level spell. Making it weaker and cost more doesn't really help.

That said, I do revise my view given that a Wall of Iron that's usable is worth lots of money. But that's an inherent balance problem more than anything else and so should be avoided. I don't think "make the spell less useful generally, but break the economy" is a good way to go.

I think the Power Component idea is best. Value of the component limits how much iron is made, but makes it all just as good as normal iron.


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Mojorat wrote:
So the folding process used in japan existed because the native iron is poor. Europeans had no use for the process.

Europeans folded their swords as well. The average long sword was folded and the blade core was tempered at a lower temperature just like a katana was.


I don't really understand the line stating that it can't be sold. Is how this works explained somewhere? It seems like a salesman would at the very least have to fail an appraise skill to recognize it as worthless junk, and even then, why wouldn't it at least be worth something to the right person in the right circumstance?


Captain Wacky wrote:
Mojorat wrote:
So the folding process used in japan existed because the native iron is poor. Europeans had no use for the process.
Europeans folded their swords as well. The average long sword was folded and the blade core was tempered at a lower temperature just like a katana was.

Thank you for knowing actual history. Have an internet cookie.


If memory serves, European steel's better quality meant it didn't need to be folded nearly as much compared to Japanese steel.


Farastu wrote:
I don't really understand the line stating that it can't be sold. Is how this works explained somewhere? It seems like a salesman would at the very least have to fail an appraise skill to recognize it as worthless junk, and even then, why wouldn't it at least be worth something to the right person in the right circumstance?

Maybe it's rusty pig iron? Maybe it has a structural flaw that makes it crumble when worked but not when left as a solid wall? Maybe it sprouts a mouth and insults any prospective buyer's mother? If a GM is looking for in-game justification for the rule, her imagination is the limit. If a player is looking for such justification, ask the GM.


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The problem is... there is very little to work with here. If it's a wall of iron, then supposedly there was someone who thought it was sort of iron-y to begin with. If it's metallic, looks like iron, behaves like iron when struck, is permanent, rusts when touched by a rust monster... then yes. You should be able to use it like iron. Even if it's rusty, you can still melt it down. You would still be at the magic mouth level of stupid to explain why something that works like iron can't be used for iron stuff, and thus also be sold.


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We need a new spell: Wall of Irony. :)


Sissyl wrote:
The problem is... there is very little to work with here. If it's a wall of iron, then supposedly there was someone who thought it was sort of iron-y to begin with. If it's metallic, looks like iron, behaves like iron when struck, is permanent, rusts when touched by a rust monster... then yes. You should be able to use it like iron. Even if it's rusty, you can still melt it down. You would still be at the magic mouth level of stupid to explain why something that works like iron can't be used for iron stuff, and thus also be sold.

Yeah, that's why I think they should have just changed it to be made out of crystal or some sort of ceramic. Have it LOOK like iron and be as strong (in wall form) as iron. It would make more sense then if they said it wasn't suitable to make tools out of -- just walls.

I also like the power component idea.


Wall of metal is still my suggestion.


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Sissyl wrote:
Wall of metal is still my suggestion.

I like "Wall of Metal-Ceramic Composite"


Let's just have "Wall".


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Yes! We really should make things more generic. You could simplify things a lot: The Wall spell, the Damage spell, the Detection spell... not to mention fighting Monsters.


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Drachasor wrote:
If memory serves, European steel's better quality meant it didn't need to be folded nearly as much compared to Japanese steel.

True, but it was also a matter of economics. Europe didn't have the restrictions on who could buy weapons that japan had (depending on the region). They could make swords in higher quantity and taking 8 monthes to a year to make a sword didn't make sense... unless it was for some noble who dropped extra coin on it.

Also, not all katanas were made equal, there were some pretty crappy ones out there given to samuri in low standing. So not all of them were folded and re-folded to the same degree.

I think we're starting to get off subject.


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Just ignore it. it's a 5th level spell, which is still potent stuff. That end tid bit about not being useable or sellable looks... arbitrary.

You also have to think of who is going to need that much iron at once. You are going to have to seperate it out into usable ingots (fabricate may work on that). And your average black smith isn't going to have the money on hand to purchase that amount of iron anyways.

So you would end up running around the country side selling iron bits to every black smith in the county. Meanwhile your adventuring group is killing monsters and looting their bodies.

If you're doing it as a RP thing out of the kindness of your heart to help the iron poor people of *where ever*, than I don't see a problem with just making it normal iron. If you're trying to turn a profit... you're better off killing and looting. Besides, did the magic user struggle to control the magic whitin him/her self, only to turn around and become a glorified iron monger?


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Rynjin wrote:

Doubtful.

"Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold."

"That magic iron of yours is crap. Far too many impurities in it to make it worth anything. It's impossible to heat up to forge temperatures and when you do it tends to shatter the first time you hit it with a hammer. And smelting it to remove all the slag and dross and what have you is much harder than just smelting the same amount of iron from ore. Takes much more fuel, too, on account of something in the alloy just don't want to heat up. So it's a good trick for closing up a hole in a fortification or something but as a source of iron it's worse than useless - More work than just mining the real thing and smelting it properly." - Ningol Ironwright, Dwarven Foundryman


FrankManic wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Doubtful.

"Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold."

"That magic iron of yours is crap. Far too many impurities in it to make it worth anything. It's impossible to heat up to forge temperatures and when you do it tends to shatter the first time you hit it with a hammer. And smelting it to remove all the slag and dross and what have you is much harder than just smelting the same amount of iron from ore. Takes much more fuel, too, on account of something in the alloy just don't want to heat up. So it's a good trick for closing up a hole in a fortification or something but as a source of iron it's worse than useless - More work than just mining the real thing and smelting it properly." - Ningol Ironwright, Dwarven Foundryman

Takes too much fuel? What are you talking about? I only use permanent Walls of Fire, bound Fire Elementals, or Animated Objects with BURNBURNBURNBURNBURN in my forges.

What the heck do you use?


If you want a magical way to get Iron I suggest using a summoning spell of some sort and bargaining with a creature from the elemental plane of earth. Off the top of my head lesser planar ally seems like it would work. This would be considered a nonhazardous task so it would probably be around 50 GP per HD. I would probably say that the payment gets a 1 to 1 trade value for iron. This would mean that lesser planar ally can get you 600 GP or iron for 1100 GP. Normally this is a horrible way to use the spell, but in a truly iron poor area it may be worth it. This could also be used to get any other rare material like adamantine, or mithiral.


A friend's game uses the Wish spell's mechanism, requiring a 1:1 swap in value...for any of these silly things. Mend suddenly stopped being fum.


Smelt the Iron and combine it with Carbon from Coal/Charcoal Dust to make Steel?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Weirdo wrote:

What I'm trying to do is tell a story, not make money. The gp value was only there to illustrate the fact that a wall of iron would, minus the balance factor, make a lot of longswords (~3,000gp worth or 825).

There's nothing stopping you from telling a story. Stories existed long before people made game mechanics and will continue to exist long after paper roleplaying games go out of fashion.

The only problem is trying to make your story into rules mechanics. The restrictions put on the Wall of Iron spell are designed specifically to make it useless for anything else. If it had any other use, than that use would acquire a monetary value.


Maybe make it a higher/older version of the spell?

Silver Crusade

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I have had this working foundry for the past 12 years now and its worked so far so good. Multiple characters have built "copies" but the original I took with my companions with Klokk as a PC, before he became a DMPC.

We found an abandoned mountain giant tower.. or so we thought. it led into a complex where fire giants had enslaved earth elementals and fire salamanders to mine and run a forge that took up a huge cavern. Free'd them Helped them both back to their home planes.

Those earth elementals liked the taste of the wall of iron, belive it or not they has some rust monsters they traded with.. liked the iron as we do potato chips. It was a good trade.

Some Mechanical creatures showed up a few months later, having heard of the kindness of my companions and self, they wanted to study the magics of our forge.

There was a lake of lava with a wall of force over the top that it was safe to walk upon. In the midst of this a portal to the plane of fire was created. Just a small one, like fire lance needed to function and continual fire supplied. There was a place where the salamanders could come and visit if they wanted, and also eat the metal from the wall of iron.

How it worked was like this.

Wall of Iron
Fabricate - Turn iron into small ingots of crude iron 10# triangles.
Route A: Trade the triangles to the elemntals for random gems 1 per triangle.
Rouee B: Unseen Servants and Dwarves would move the crude iron into the vary large iron smelter that giants had built there. It would refine, but at a 10:1 ratio.

While it was a stable income it was not exceptional as could only run it three times a day. Klokk was not powerful enough then to make it at will and at this point when he can duplicate an item with wishes and miracles moneys irrelevant.

Fabricate was a dream though. its the best spell ive come across. We were able to use it and turn some demonic doors of mithral and a couple old adamantine ones into ten pound things we could carry. :)

Shadow Lodge

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Oh wow, I get busy for a few days and my thread keeps going. Some great suggestions here. A bit more of an explanation of my specific idea:

The iron shortage is regional, not worldwide. One nation has little or no natural iron resources, and is isolated enough (and on hostile enough terms with its neighbours) not to be able to easily trade for it. It is not necessarily poor in other metals.

I'm seeing the region as being unaware of iron's existence until one of its neighbours invades with iron weapons. Realizing that these weapons are superior to their bone / stone / obsidian / bronze weapons, they seek to obtain iron and steel. They are able to scavenge some from their invaders, but not enough to meet their needs. Eventually a powerful caster or small group of casters discovers that iron can be magically produced. The end result is the creation of an important role in this culture: the “Metal Maker,” whose job is essentially to travel the region conjuring iron (Fake Healer mentioned this idea). Since iron made in this manner is more costly, it would be used more sparingly and so things like obsidian arrowheads would be common and some warriors might still use bone / stone spears.

I don't want this to be as big a deal in the world as Dark Sun - the campaign world has major defining traits and minor quirks and I want this to be the latter.

For my needs the expensive power component ( suggested by Poldaran) fits and I like the idea of it being something not just expensive but morally questionable (though not as drastic as the innocence of a child as Mark Hoover suggested). A costly refining process (first mentioned by Mojorat) would also work. I also like the idea of a rust effect (suggested by Pizza Lord) because it meshes well with the fact that the region in question has a few magical quirks that make invasion difficult, and allows me to bleed iron out of the region faster, preventing it from accumulating (any idea how fast iron rusts / wears down mundane terms?). I might combine that with the costly refining process by having the region's local, magic-made iron resistant to rust at the end of the process.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
If you want a magical way to get Iron I suggest using a summoning spell of some sort and bargaining with a creature from the elemental plane of earth. Off the top of my head lesser planar ally seems like it would work. This would be considered a nonhazardous task so it would probably be around 50 GP per HD. I would probably say that the payment gets a 1 to 1 trade value for iron. This would mean that lesser planar ally can get you 600 GP or iron for 1100 GP. Normally this is a horrible way to use the spell, but in a truly iron poor area it may be worth it. This could also be used to get any other rare material like adamantine, or mithiral.

Also a good suggestion.

Pizza Lord wrote:
If you've made an iron-poor world or region. Work with it. It's like making an adventure based on a world with a poisonous atmosphere but then giving everyone special lungs to breathe and function in it. Why have gone to the effort?

Because the method of production of iron is supposed to be interesting - again, see Mark Hoover's creepy example where the magical forging of iron requires the sacrifice of children.

LazarX wrote:

There's nothing stopping you from telling a story. Stories existed long before people made game mechanics and will continue to exist long after paper roleplaying games go out of fashion.

The only problem is trying to make your story into rules mechanics. The restrictions put on the Wall of Iron spell are designed specifically to make it useless for anything else. If it had any other use, than that use would acquire a monetary value.

Which is why I like the suggestions made for houseruling a new balanced (or underpowered but flavourful) mechanic that works with the story.


Weirdo wrote:
For my needs the expensive power component ( suggested by Poldaran) fits and I like the idea of it being something not just expensive but morally questionable (though not as drastic as the innocence of a child as Mark Hoover suggested). A costly refining process (first mentioned by Mojorat) would also work.

If you need morally questionable while not going as far as powering it with the soul of a forsaken child, you could always go with an environmental aesop by having it require an extract from the bones of some furry critter that is now being hunted to extinction. This could have a domino effect on the local ecology.

Then, of course, there's always the "citizens must sacrifice a bit of their life force to fuel the transformation" route. Every 100 pounds costs someone 5 years of their life or some such.

And then again, you could also have it powered by love.


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Drachasor wrote:
FrankManic wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Doubtful.

"Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold."

"That magic iron of yours is crap. Far too many impurities in it to make it worth anything. It's impossible to heat up to forge temperatures and when you do it tends to shatter the first time you hit it with a hammer. And smelting it to remove all the slag and dross and what have you is much harder than just smelting the same amount of iron from ore. Takes much more fuel, too, on account of something in the alloy just don't want to heat up. So it's a good trick for closing up a hole in a fortification or something but as a source of iron it's worse than useless - More work than just mining the real thing and smelting it properly." - Ningol Ironwright, Dwarven Foundryman

Takes too much fuel? What are you talking about? I only use permanent Walls of Fire, bound Fire Elementals, or Animated Objects with BURNBURNBURNBURNBURN in my forges.

What the heck do you use?

The Wall of Fire isn't hot enough, and some impurity in the Wall of Iron makes the Fire Elementals sneeze. Ever seen a Fire Elemental sneeze? You are lucky if you don't need a Regeneration spell to get your eyebrows back.


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Vod Canockers wrote:
Drachasor wrote:
FrankManic wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Doubtful.

"Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold."

"That magic iron of yours is crap. Far too many impurities in it to make it worth anything. It's impossible to heat up to forge temperatures and when you do it tends to shatter the first time you hit it with a hammer. And smelting it to remove all the slag and dross and what have you is much harder than just smelting the same amount of iron from ore. Takes much more fuel, too, on account of something in the alloy just don't want to heat up. So it's a good trick for closing up a hole in a fortification or something but as a source of iron it's worse than useless - More work than just mining the real thing and smelting it properly." - Ningol Ironwright, Dwarven Foundryman

Takes too much fuel? What are you talking about? I only use permanent Walls of Fire, bound Fire Elementals, or Animated Objects with BURNBURNBURNBURNBURN in my forges.

What the heck do you use?

The Wall of Fire isn't hot enough, and some impurity in the Wall of Iron makes the Fire Elementals sneeze. Ever seen a Fire Elemental sneeze? You are lucky if you don't need a Regeneration spell to get your eyebrows back.

WoF gets plenna hot, Vod. If ye has a 10th level caster, that'll de ye (2d6 damage to the iron per round).

Ach, lad! Ye don' have tha fire el'mental near tha iron! Ya use a heat pump to move tha warmth of the el'mental to tha iron! Adamantine walls can handle the pressurized water and get ye so tha iron gets nice and hot! Now, back in tha ol' days they used to channel the sneezes to produce moar heat, but us civ'lized folk aren't party to any torture like tha'. Our fire el'mentals be paid fer der efforts.


At the risk of being accused of practicing necromancy, most of the value in forged iron (like your swords example) is not the metal itself, it's the labor involved in making it. Iron is cheap, melting it down and forging it into useful items is not.

The real reason it can't be sold should be the "too many impurities to make it worth trying to melt down and reforge" - in other words, it's not really Iron, it's 90% Dross, and would require far more effort than it was worth to smelt it and remove the usable iron. And even in a metal-poor area where the effort could be theoretically worth it, it would still require a lot more effort than most smiths would be willing to put up with.

Of course, it would still make a yummy treat for a pack of rust monsters.


Drachasor wrote:


Takes too much fuel? What are you talking about? I only use permanent Walls of Fire, bound Fire Elementals, or Animated Objects with BURNBURNBURNBURNBURN in my forges.

What the heck do you use?

How does that work? Wall of Fire only affects creatures, and even an elder fire elemental only deals 2d10 fire damage, which can't bypass the 10 hardness of iron (considering elemental damage is halved vs objects).

With animated objects I don't know, that's basically GM fiat whether it works, but when an elder fire elemental doesn't burn hot enough, I assume Lumiere won't do better.


Drachasor wrote:


WoF gets plenna hot, Vod. If ye has a 10th level caster, that'll de ye (2d6 damage to the iron per round).

Even IF wall of fire could affect objects (which it doesn't seem to be able to as it consistently refers only to creatures), the damage at 10th caster level would be (2d6+10)/2-10, so it has like an average DPR of 0.1, taking an average of half an hour to smelt an inch. But again, the spell doesn't work on objects.


That's ridiculous. The wall of fire somehow doesn't burn things that are not alive? wtf.....

The Exchange

if you need a spell to do something different. Just make one up, if the PCs are lucky maybe they will find a scroll of it or the creator's spell book.

The Exchange

they should just say that iron removed from the wall disappears.


The opening post reminds me of the first Baldur's Gate game. Specifically, one of the generic NPCs you can talk to who comments on how he asked a wizard why they don't just magic up "walls of iron" and use that to make stuff, since all the mundane iron is rusting away, only to have the wizard look him in the eye and ask how comfortable he'd feel with soldiers armed with weapons & armor that would vanish into nothingness if hit with Dispel Magic.

Just wanted to mention that.


Trogdar wrote:
That's ridiculous. The wall of fire somehow doesn't burn things that are not alive? wtf.....

Well, it burns things that aren't alive. Just not objects. Undead, golems etc burn just fine.

Liberty's Edge

Ilja wrote:
Trogdar wrote:
That's ridiculous. The wall of fire somehow doesn't burn things that are not alive? wtf.....
Well, it burns things that aren't alive. Just not objects. Undead, golems etc burn just fine.

It speak of creatures because that is what interest us. The Wall of Fire deal fire damage, and that work normally.

It is not possible to melt a wall of iron with a wall of fire because the Wall of fire will not appear in solid items. It appear above/around them, so the Wall of fire will only deal 2d4 of fire damage to the Wall of Iron, the damage he deal to items within 10' from it. Not enough to melt the Wall of Iron.


Diego: Are you sure? Fireball states it deals damage to unattended objects, Flaming Sphere that it ignites flammable objects. It's also evocation, not conjuration (creation), so the flames are magical. To me it seems a very possible reading that because other spells specify that they work against objects, the lack of specification here means that it doesn't. And it's magic fire, so it's not like it's unexplainable. I mean, I don't know how "that's ridiculous" (to quote Trogdar) doesn't apply to "take a piece of phosphor and say some weird words and you get a 60 meter wall of fire" but applies to "but the fire doesn't hurt inanimate objects".

Though I'm not sure about your second point; what happens if you topple a wall of iron on top of a wall of fire? I think that would be the tactic regardless, as Drachasor mentioned permanent wall of fire.

Liberty's Edge

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As you need to have the affected piece of iron in the wall, you have to move slowly, a piece at a time. Hard to do (the Wall of Fire as no width). Simply toppling it in the WoF would melt only a small area.

"Are you sure." No.
Re readying the spell the "creature only" is a perfectly valid interpretation. Not one I will use, but perfectly within the text of the spell.


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Patterson wrote:
i go an idea... remove the "Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold." and say the use of this spell is only used by royal decree...

Yes, because nothing says "adventurer" like making sure you have the correct permits to avoid upsetting the status quo.


Though I must say I like QuitBrowser's mention of how they talk about it in Baldur's Gate - that gives me a very simple idea for a house rule that solves it all.

The duration of wall of iron changes from instantaneous to permanent. Done. That way it can be dispelled, and goes away (temporarily) in an antimagic field. It could be worked just fine, but would have a far lower market value since it's so easily destroyed.

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