| Khurgen |
I'm playing in a game where my character is a merchant, and we're in a town that is recovering from an major disaster (an undead horde that our group is in fact still clearing out). Currently this town has been taken under the wing of a benevolent wizard who is spending all his time brining in food and basic goods to support the town, since right now it has no means to support itself. It will take months before this town becomes self-sufficient, and this wizard is looking for someone to take over the role of providing for this town.
We've found that currently the wizard is using treasure stitching & greater teleport to bring in 6 10x10x10 pallets of materials each and every day. I am looking for the most cost effective way to reproduce this job (given that I am an investigator with mercantile skills, and not a wizard that can cast those spells).
I need to reproduce this using magic items that can be created by a wizard of no higher than 13th level (i.e. I can't use a pair of permanent teleport circles). The wizard is also buying these goods from a distant land, so mundane trade routes are not viable in the near term.
So, I've looked into simply making magic items to replicate what he's doing, and the cost is prohibitive:
item of spell stitching 6/day:
craft wonderous item - 48600gp cost & 97 days to create
item of greater teleport 2/day:
craft wonderous item (?) - 32760gp cost & 65 days to create
Can anyone suggest some other ways to get this done? I basically need a way to move ~6000 cubic feet of goods over several thousand miles once per day. I am pretty desperate, this wizard, while a nice guy, is losing his patience, since this is eating up his entire life while he's doing it (many spell slots & time). But I just can't figure a way within our means to reproduce what he's doing.willing to break even if needed.
Help?
p.s. Divine spells are not available to us unless they are on a non-traditional class spell list (witch, alchemist, etc...). This solution needs to be based on mundane and/or arcane abilities.
p.s.s. outside the box solutions are welcome, I just need a way to keep this city fed and with fuel (water is not a problem). While there are no druids in our party, I believe we might be able to find a druid or two if we looked (although I don't know if they would be willing to help this city...weird politics going on in this world).
| Scott Wilhelm |
As to the Fabrication of the magic items, the obvious choice is the Master Craftsman Feat. It requires 5 Ranks in some Craft Skill, and it serves as the prerequisite for both Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Arms and Armor. And it allows for the Craft Skill Roll to be used to determine failure or progress of the project and allows for not having the spells you need to count as mere increase in the DC.
| Dave Justus |
Presuming your GM is very open to custom magic items, and you have the craft wondrous feat the cheapest way to solve the food problem is an at-will goodberry item. Theoretically a caster level one use-actived goodberry item would only cost 1000 gp (although I would personally probably not allow the 1/2 price for 24 hour duration for this spell.) Even an arcane caster without access to the spell can make it with just a +5 to the spellcraft DC.
For the fuel, it depends what precisely the fuel needs are. Is it inclement weather? Power for machinery?
| cyandb |
MAGE'S MAGNIFICENT MANSION says "The place is furnished and contains sufficient foodstuffs to serve a nine-course banquet to a dozen people per caster level". That's 156 people assuming not rationing. I'm sure that a nine-course banquet can feed at least twice that if rationed.
Sustaining Spoon will feed 4 humans/day @ a creation cost of 2700 gp
and 3 days
Shrink Item, a bag of holding, and standard teleport. Shrink the pallets down and put them in the bag. Just don't drop anything heavy on the shrunk items.
How many people are we looking at?
| Scott Wilhelm |
So, for carrying large amounts of goods, how about Boots of Teleportation: 49000gp and a Portable Hole, 20,000gp?
Cheaper than Boots of Teleportation would involve actual travelling. A Broom of Flying costs 17000gp. A small Carpet of Flying is comparably priced and faster: 40' instead of 30'. Wings of Flying have a Speed of 60', but cost 54000gp.
Another option to using a magic item for flying might be to obtain the services of a flying animal, such as a Brass Dragon or a Pegasus.
Another way to support the community would be with a Lyre of Building: 1/week, it can perform 300 man-days of labor for re-establishing farms, roads, and buildings.
| Movin |
As your wizard friend seems to be the type with phenomenal cosmic power.
Here is a method to free up his spells and reduce costs to a smaller stream of gold and favors to outsiders.
Cast Lesser planar binding and summon a Trio of Lantern Archons.
The key here is the Lantern archons At will greater teleport of self +50 pounds of material.
They can't carry neary anything with their own carry capacity but that can be skipped over with rapid cast use of teleport.
Assuming that everything you need can be divided into 50 pound blocks then you can just have these three creatures constantly warping into and out of town.
Assuming they are informed of the nature of the aid they are required for the Archons are likely to give you a break on summoning them.
In addition summoning three means they can teleport in shifts and/or get your loads of materials in a steady stream.
A single Hound Archon (also able to be summoned with lesser planar binding) would also be capable of such actions.
Assuming large wolf form said Archon would be able to carry 1100 pounds using greater teleport.
(as the spell allows one to carry a heavy load.)
Outfitting said hound archon with muleback cords (1000gp) and a casting of ant haul would allow the Archon to carry
9360 pounds of material per trip.
The downside is that Hound archons are more important in the schema of heaven and much more likely to be missed or called away for other duties. (Mechanics wise they also have better will saves and would be harder to bind)
| Khurgen |
Thanks for all the replies!
@Scott Willhelm
That...is awesome! I hadn't know about that feat (I've been grumbling since I started playing that an investigator doesn't quality for magic crafting feats). It doesn't entirely solve my current problem but it will help, and it is invaluable knowledge for me for the campaign. Thanks!
Boots of teleportation would definitely help us, if we have to emulate what the wizard is casting we will probably need some kind of teleport item. Its just their cost. A broom is not viable because we're told his source is on another continent, and we need to be making this run everyday (uness we can arrange to move even larger amounts per trip)
I like the idea of a lyre of building though. Our end goal is to get the town back up and running. Our GM gave me an estimate of how many acres of working farmland we need to get back to self-sustaining, but its a daunting amount. And at the moment we are still clearing undead, so we can't even plant yet, and once we did plant it would be a whole season before it started feeding us. The Lyre is a good idea to help us rebuild in general though.
@Dave Justus
A goodberry item would help and is within our means to produce. But I can see our GM being a stickler for the requirement that we need 'freshly picked berries' to cast it. Also, we're trying to feed ~6000 survivors in this town (dying off slowly, but currently around that). So this idea is probably not scaleable enough. As for fuel, we just need wood & tinder. The undead hoarde that overran the town slashed and burned all the wood nearby, currently the town is salvaging wood and cloth from the destroyed part of town, but its not very safe (about half the peasants that go out trying to gather get killed by the remaining undead), and its not a long term solution. Luckily its just the tail end of winter moving into spring, so the fuel problem will become less critical soon
@cyandb
Mage's magnificent mansion is not a bad idea. I believe our GM would let us stretch a 9 course banquet for 156 people out quite a bit. I'd guess he'd let us stretch it out to ~500, maybe more. But I still think we'd need multiples per day (likely 12 castings per day @500 people each), So it unfortunately doesn't scale. It would preclude the need for our wizard benefactor from teleporting and bartering for food at his source each day, but I don't think he can cast it enough times per day. But it might be good if we can come up with part of the food via other means. This wizards whole life at the moment is pulling off this scheme (teleporting to his source, bartering for goods, treasure stitching them down & teleporting back to distribute goods). Any way to lessen part of that will help him.
Sustaining spoon just can't feed enough per day without making hundreds of them. And shrink item only can handle 2 cubic ft/caster level. This is why he's been using treasure stitching, which is basically a higher level shrink item. And we need to be moving 6 pallets of size 10x10x10 feet per day (6k cubic feet per day) to support our 6000 people.
@Movin
This is a very promising idea. I haven't done much in the way of binding entities, but I imagine setting up a contract with an entity with at-will teleport to do this kind of thing could be done! And we actually have another wizardy-type NPC who is a summoner. He's less powerful than our benefactor, and in fact he specializes in summoning horses (I know its weird, but it is what it is). But maybe our benefactor could get him setup with spells from his book to make this work. This might be our golden ticket!
I'd still love to hear more ideas. I can see our GM causing grief when we try and give a hound archon items to increase its carrying capacity. He may say its inherent teleport won't work with extra burden. But even with a hound archon moving its normal carrying capacity, if it can do it non-stop that might supply a significant portion of what we need. So a couple on the job might be enough!
| Dave Justus |
The undead hoarde that overran the town slashed and burned all the wood nearby, currently the town is salvaging wood and cloth from the destroyed part of town, but its not very safe (about half the peasants that go out trying to gather get killed by the remaining undead), and its not a long term solution.
There you go. Problem will become more manageable in just a few days.
| Scott Wilhelm |
Boots of teleportation would definitely help us, if we have to emulate what the wizard is casting we will probably need some kind of teleport item. Its just their cost.
So Boots of Teleportation cost 49,000gp, and the Portable Hole costs 20,000, so the price tag on the combination is lower than what you posted in your OP. But if you are fabricating your own magic items, you have a cost-cutting option.
According to Magic Item Cost in Gold Pieces, the cost of the Boots of Teleportation is lower by 3/5 because it only allows 3 Teleports/day. If you made Teleport Boots that could be used every round as a Standard Action, then the cost would be 49,000 X 5/3 = 81,666gp, 6sp and 7cp (Sure, they follow their own rules!). If you made Boots of Teleportation that only worked 1/day, the cost would be 81666.67 /5 = 16,333gp, 3sp and 3 cp.
Teleporting 1/day is probably adequate. Teleport to the big market. Purchase your supplies, stack them up in your Portable Hole, 3'radius, 10'deep, so Volume = about 270 Cubic Feet. Then Teleport back the next day. Both magic items together cost under 37K.
A broom is not viable
Then other flying contrivances would also be unviable, and so would flying creatures.
because we're told his source is on another continent, and we need to be making this run everyday (uness we can arrange to move even larger amounts per trip)
So lets say we wanted to build a magic barge that floats in the air that would be towed by a team of flying beasts. I am thinking the spell Floating Disk would be the thing. the dweomer is permanent so the cost would be 2000gp X the caster level, and each caster level allows for 100#. But Floating Disk has limitations: It never goes more than 3' above ground. So, Levitate: 2000gp X 2(Lv) and has the same weight limit, so 4000gp/100#, or about 80,000gp/ton. That sounds prohibitive.
The Portable Hole has no weight limit, just a volume limit, but lets just use water as a standard: an ounce of water weighs an ounce, so 270 cubic feet X 12"X12"X12"/16oz/pound = 29,160 pounds or about 14 and a half tons. But at 20,000gp each, that's a little under 1gp/pound, well under either cost for a levitated barge. And, as I said, Portable holes don't weigh anything and have no other weight limit, so there is no limit as to how many you can carry, so no limit on the size of the shipments, but it costs whatever your flying means: magic, beast, or machine costs + 1gp/pound. I guess the question is how quickly do you have to ship tonnage, and how expensive are your flying means?