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In another thread Raving Dork described creating ten foot deep pits filled with spikes using marvelous pigments and paper placed on the ground. In that same thread another poster suggested painting poisonous spikes.
How far are most GMs willing to go with this stuff?
4,000 gold pieces and a DC 15 craft (painting) check is all that is needed to use it, so by level four or five a Marvelous Pigment focused character can be carrying buckets of this stuff around, and with a trivial investment of skill points can be taking 10 on creating just about anything. Permanently. The only stated restriction is that it can't be used to create magic items or gems or precious metals, or any items valued more than 2,000 gp.
But if I can make a pit, then I can use these pigments to circumvent just about any defenses. 10 pots of it will create a 100 foot long permanent tunnel through adamantine.
What restrictions do people place on this? Due to the obvious potential abuse of having a 4,000g permanent "passwall" spell, I don't think I will allow it to be used to create pits. But that also means it can't be used to create a door on a wall which can then be opened for the same reason.
Has there been any errata on this subject?
Our party got one of these and painted a set of ladders and a door.
The ladders got us down a pit and back up without falling in, and the door got us out of a room with no exits.
As a GM, I would not have allowed the door to create a tunnel behind it, but as it was on a normal wall, the door replaced that section of wall.
I'm not sure how I would rule on using pigments to create "negative space". Holes, pits, tunnels, etc. It works in Roadrunner cartoons, but I'm playing Kingmaker, not Toon.
My opinion right now is that I'd rule that the pigments can create positive items, but not empty space. Or if empty space were argued convincingly enough, that it would have to be a) small and b) higher DC. drawing a realistic tunnel on a page is hard. Just look at deviant art...
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While the GM has to set obvious limitations on them, like you can't paint 100 20,000gp diamonds or something, this particular item relies on your player's ingenuity to be effective. For myself as a GM, I would try hard to to stifle any creativity they might come up with for using these unless it bordered on the absurd
Whenever I gave these out as treasure, there were a decent amount, so the party could experiment, etc. If they wanted to do anything complex, I told them up front to take at least a rank or two in painting. That way, you can set the DC of the perform (paint) or profession (painter) check to match how hard you think it might be to pull off. In the example RD gave with 20' pits and poisoned spikes, I would make them do a moderate check, mostly for the depth of the pits.
Just my 2 cents...
As a GM, I note that the marvelous pigments have a specific limitation that all valuables created with them are actually cheap imitations: gold will be brass, silver will be tin, jewels will be paste, etc.
Basically, the paints create theatrical props. You paint a fancy crystal flask etched with HEALING POTION, you've got a prop from a stage play filled with water with a bit of food coloring and glitter--impressive to look at but harmless. The bottle marked POISON with the skull and cross bones? Dangerous looking, but similarly harmless.
I'd probably follow this logic and make the spikes at the bottom of the pit be harmless foam rubber so the actors who jump into it will have a safe landing.
The passwall effect? More problematic. I can also see savvy characters painting peepholes on all the doors in a dungeon to safely check things out.
The best limitation I've found to put on it is to limit it not to square footage--because clever characters would do perspective tricks--but value. Once you paint up 4000 GP of stuff, the pot is done.
Then it's just a matter of pricing how much it would cost to dig the tunnel. Tunneling through dirt is easier and cheaper than granite, and granite is easier and cheaper than adamantine.
Following that logic, you could put real spikes on the bottom of the pit, but it would take more paint than the cheap foam rubber.
We used it in a game I was in to do stuff like this. Rather than make tunnels, we'd paint 2 inch wide 'lines' in things to represent grooves in it. If it was more than 6 inches thick, we'd have to paint a second 'groove' on the bottom of the first, to continue the opening. Then we counted up how many square inches of paint we used (including any 'extra long' brushes we painted up.
Then we'd push on the block to move it if we needed to. Or we'd push the wall over, leaving an arch (we'd use extra paint in that case, to generate an archway to hold the rest of the wall up).
The GM had a giant alter in the top of a tower that we were supposed to have a hard time destroying. Every time we hit it with a weapon we took damage.
So we drew a hole in the floor in a big circle around it, and let it crash down through 6 floors (destroying it nicely). :) He never let us refill the pigments again after that.
I agree that the pigments are additive in nature. (Think The Sword of Truth books).
You can make stuff that have a set limited value. But you cannot make "Negative" stuff. You can make a door on the wall... but when you open the door the wall is still there behind the door. You can make a drawing of a pit like THIS... but the pit is not really there as it does not disintegrate the earth.
You could make a shovel with the pigments and then dig your own pit.
I paint a door on the wall. The door is a created object. It makes a hole in the wall.
I see no reason why one works and the other doesn't. The paint is still used up by the activity.
If you don't feel that way, that's fine. Do whatever works in your own games.
You can create a door, but the door doesn't displace anything. So paint a door in a hallway, to get a hallway with a door in it.The reason one works and the other doesn't is because creating matter is different from destroying matter.
Fine, my Disintegrate spell can put a stone block in the hallway. Right? Right? I mean, it can destroy matter. Why can't it create it?
Because it can't create it.
Neither can Marvelous Pigments destroy matter. It can only create matter. If you try to create the door in the stone, it will simply fail, or the door will be created in the nearest available empty space.
That you fail to see that creation does not mean destruction does not mean that there is no difference.
Wow, seem to have touched a nerve somehow.
It all depends on the GM and the game and how it works in that world. Outlook is something as well, especially with magic. Creating a doorway absolutely does destroy something, stone is much denser than wood. Additionally, a holistic approach says that painting an archway is creating something, it's creating an entrance. An entrance is a specific thing, as opposed to a wall (which you could paint on paper hung up in the doorway).
That you fail to understand that painting a change onto anything destroys something in some way does not mean that it doesn't happen.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Wow, seem to have touched a nerve somehow.
It all depends on the GM and the game and how it works in that world. Outlook is something as well, especially with magic. Creating a doorway absolutely does destroy something, stone is much denser than wood. Additionally, a holistic approach says that painting an archway is creating something, it's creating an entrance. An entrance is a specific thing, as opposed to a wall (which you could paint on paper hung up in the doorway).
That you fail to understand that painting a change onto anything destroys something in some way does not mean that it doesn't happen.
:)
I don't think he's saying you can paint a door through the wall of a hallway. I think he's saying you could paint a door, and in doing so seal the open end of a hallway. You'd have to paint the door on a surface, true, but you could easily paint the door in the 'open' position on the wall by the hallways mouth, and then shut it once it comes into being.
So in his example, he's not really displacing any stone.
I don't think he's saying you can paint a door through the wall of a hallway. I think he's saying you could paint a door, and in doing so seal the open end of a hallway. You'd have to paint the door on a surface, true, but you could easily paint the door in the 'open' position on the wall by the hallways mouth, and then shut it once it comes into being.So in his example, he's not really displacing any stone.
If the door is connected to the wall, then he's displacing stone. You can't connect a door to an existing wall without displacing something. You also have to displace stone to make the matching latch catch.
Even if you draw in stone to try to avoid this, unless you draw the stone you are adding as being merged into the stone of the wall, the whole thing can just be pushed over. Either way, you have to displace stone to add a doorway.
You do not need to have displaced something for it to be attached. Does applying Universal Glue displace anything? No. The door you are creating is not one that was made separately and then fitted. It was made to fit, and created attached. Absolutely no displacement has occurred.No, you do not have to displace stone to add a doorway. This is demonstrably false.
If you draw a door on stone, then you are displacing stone. The stone is less dense than wood (please confirm this yourself, check the internet or just pick up two similar size pieces of wood and stone).
If you draw a door on the wall that opens into the hallway and closes it off completely, you must paint a latch receptical on the other wall to latch it closed, that is a negative space. If you draw hinges on the stone, those must be attached by nails or brads.
You cannot draw sovereign glue, it is a magical item, and the pigments cannot draw magical items.
Back on topic.
MW items. I've always been torn on this one. The pigments can't make more than 2,000gp worth of stuff. However, MW items are less than that (obviously). Would you allow someone to make a MW item if they managed to hit a DC 20 (MW DC) on their painting check?
If you draw a door in an empty hallway, with stone around it, you are not displacing stone. Have you even been reading my posts? I've constantly said that you cannot destroy matter in place of one you create.I'm talking about drawing a door in an empty hallway.
You can't draw on empty air, you have to draw on a surface.
I'm not talking about putting it on a wall to bypass the wall. I'm talking about drawing in an open space, but attached to an existing structure.
Unless you paint the new wall (and again, on what?) so that it is merged into the old wall, then all you have is a stand alone wall segment that is not anchored to the existing wall. It is easy to push over. You can paint it as attached to the existing wall, but the only way to do that is to merge it into the existing wall. That means displacing some of the existing wall to merge them, plus adding mortar, etc.
Also, you do not need to have the latch on the existing substance. It can be part of the door frame that you draw around the door, within the empty hallway.
Back to needing to merge that door frame with the existing wall. I'm being 100% serious here, if the frame is not drawn as merged with the other wall, then it won't hold up to a good push. It would work to trick someone into thinking a hallway was sealed off, which would be a good way of hiding (again though, the empty air thing). But attaching it to an existing wall means you have to paint in how it's connected, which means merging something into it, which means displacing something already there with something you painted.
Finally, I was using Sovereign Glue as an example, not suggesting that it is created with the Marvelous Pigments. If your door's frame is flush with the hallway's stone, and there is tension holding it in place, it will hold well enough. Maybe not as well as a really nicely anchored door frame, but well enough.
Ok, now we're getting to something. Your strategem would work if you had no interest in it being at all secure. However, as the only reason I can think of to put a door in the middle of a hallway would be to lock something out and away from you, not having it attached to the existing walls would be useless as they'd knock it over or pull it down.
Now, if you wanted to paint a wall so that you had a 10 by 10 room at the end of a hallway to hide, that would work better, and you wouldn't care if the wall couldn't stand up to a good strong push. However, we're still back to the need for something to draw on.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I don't think he's saying you can paint a door through the wall of a hallway. I think he's saying you could paint a door, and in doing so seal the open end of a hallway. You'd have to paint the door on a surface, true, but you could easily paint the door in the 'open' position on the wall by the hallways mouth, and then shut it once it comes into being.So in his example, he's not really displacing any stone.
If the door is connected to the wall, then he's displacing stone. You can't connect a door to an existing wall without displacing something. You also have to displace stone to make the matching latch catch.
Even if you draw in stone to try to avoid this, unless you draw the stone you are adding as being merged into the stone of the wall, the whole thing can just be pushed over. Either way, you have to displace stone to add a doorway.
Oh well now you're just nitpicking :)
A door is bad example, and not one I would have chosen. As you point out, it's got too many bits that attach or stick into the frame. Honestly, I wouldn't allow the pigments to work that way.
While it's tempting to treat the pigments like Loony Toons paint, I think the intent is that they be purely additive. They create 'objects' and in the context of the game 'object' has a fairly specific meaning. Holes, in the terms of the game, are not objects. They have no hitpoints, no weight, no hardness, and you can't target them with spells that affect 'objects'. Therefore, I'd say you can't create them with marvelous pigments.
Oh well now you're just nitpicking :)
Isn't that what rules forums are for?
A door is bad example, and not one I would have chosen. As you point out, it's got too many bits that attach or stick into the frame. Honestly, I wouldn't allow the pigments to work that way.
Agreed.
While it's tempting to treat the pigments like Loony Toons paint, I think the intent is that they be purely additive. They create 'objects' and in the context of the game 'object' has a fairly specific meaning. Holes, in the terms of the game, are not objects. They have no hitpoints, no weight, no hardness, and you can't target them with spells that affect 'objects'. Therefore, I'd say you can't create them with marvelous pigments.
And if that's how you prefer in your game, I'm all 100% for it. If I was a player in your game, I'd be 100% fine with it. Would you be ok with painting something to be something different? For example, painting a wooden wall to be stone, or vice versa? Or painting acid onto something to eat through it?
Let's look at the full item description.
Marvelous PigmentsAura strong conjuration; CL 15th
Slot —; Price 4,000 gp; Weight —
Description
These pigments enable their possessor to create actual, permanent objects simply by depicting their form in two dimensions. The pigments are applied by a stick tipped with bristles, hair, or fur. The emulsion flows from the application to form the desired object as the artist concentrates on the image. One pot of marvelous pigments is sufficient to create a 1,000-cubic-foot object by depicting it two-dimensionally over a 100-square-foot surface.
Only normal, inanimate objects can be created. Creatures can't be created. The pigments must be applied to a surface. It takes 10 minutes and a DC 15 Craft (painting) check to depict an object with the pigments. Marvelous pigments cannot create magic items. Objects of value depicted by the pigments—precious metals, gems, jewelry, ivory, and so on—appear to be valuable but are really made of tin, lead, glass, brass, bone, and other such inexpensive materials. The user can create normal weapons, armor, and any other mundane item (including foodstuffs) whose value does not exceed 2,000 gp. The effect is instantaneous.
If you draw the door on the floor, then you are drawing it laying down, or you are drawing it from above, which doesn't give you 2 dimensions to specify the door in, just the stone frame on top of it, which may come out as a stone wall a few inches high.
No you can't create it smaller. You are mixing up 2d and 3d. 1,000 cubic feet is 10x10x10. So, to make a 10x10x10 cubic foot object, you need a 10x10 foot square surface. So you must draw it at the proper scale.
So you'd need a piece of paper 10 foot by 10 foot square (for a 10x10 foot hallway).
You never specified earlier you had paper, you specified drawing it on the hallway. If you drew it on the wall, you'd have a wall sitting next to the existing wall. Nothing in the item description says it will move to where you want it when it is expanding. It just says you paint it on a surface and it appears there.
I cleaned up some posts.
Some advice, in no particular order:
Flag it and move on.
Learn to walk away.
People who disagree with you are not automatically trolls.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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And if that's how you prefer in your game, I'm all 100% for it. If I was a player in your game, I'd be 100% fine with it. Would you be ok with painting something to be something different? For example, painting a wooden wall to be stone, or vice versa? Or painting acid onto something to eat through it?
Painting something to be something different - No. The item doesn't say it can do that, so I would say it doesn't.
Painting acid to eat through something - Not changing a surface into acid, but I'd say you could paint acid into existence (since its a mundane substance that conceivably fits within the pigment's price limit) and use it to eat through something. I might require it be created in flask form (or otherwise in a container), since there's a bit of a gray area in the rules with regard to loose fluids and how they interact with object rules, but in theory it all works out the same.
And if that's how you prefer in your game, I'm all 100% for it. If I was a player in your game, I'd be 100% fine with it. Would you be ok with painting something to be something different? For example, painting a wooden wall to be stone, or vice versa? Or painting acid onto something to eat through it?Painting something to be something different - No. The item doesn't say it can do that, so I would say it doesn't.
Painting acid to eat through something - Not changing a surface into acid, but I'd say you could paint acid into existence (since its a mundane substance that conceivably fits within the pigment's price limit) and use it to eat through something. I might require it be created in flask form (or otherwise in a container), since there's a bit of a gray area in the rules with regard to loose fluids and how they interact with object rules, but in theory it all works out the same.
What about MW items (granted they'll take up the GP allowance of the pigments pretty quickly). But requiring a MW painting to make them.
Stuff.Nothing about Marvelous Pigments demands that the surface you draw on is the surface it appears on. You merely must apply them to a surface. Since the emulsion flows from the application to form the object, as you paint the image, you run into the problem of painting while in the object you're actually painting, and that interpretation is just too silly to accept.
No sillier than the idea that you paint it flat on the floor but it appears vertically in front of the picture instead. Nor that you paint it on the wall in 2D and it somehow appears to your left or right at a 90 degree angle.
I notice you didn't respond to the requirement that it be painted at the size you want, or requires a 10x10 foot surface to make a 10x10x10 3d object.
Actually, there's a difference. If it flows from the painting, the orientation is not the problem. If it's created while you're in it, there is a problem.
Now who is adding to the item? You are saying that it is ok for the paint to flow out anywhere you want? It doesn't say that, it simply says it flows out to make the item. I read that as if you paint a 2D sword on a wall, the paint flows up out of the wall to fill the 3rd dimension, it doesn't appear on the opposite wall, or on the ground. The sword would then fall to the ground.
Twisting sizes and volumes around
It is only smaller in that it is a 2D representation of a 3D object. The item clearly states that you must use a 100 square foot area to paint a 1,000 cubic foot object. That is a ratio. You must maintain the ratio (which is, 1 to 1 between the 2D portion). For example, if you want to paint a 10x10x10 cubic foot stone, you require a 10x10 square foot surface to paint it on. If you want a 10x10x1 foot slab of stone, you still require either a 10x10 or a 10x1 surface. In both cases, the surface size must be the same size as one axis of the 3d object.
If you want a 1000x1x1 stone column, you must have a 1000x1 surface to paint it on, or you must have a 1x1 surface to put it on. In both cases, you must paint it to scale. In no way does the item describe being able to create a 1/10th scale item and have it grow.
Nor can you create a 10x10x1 thick slab of stone on a 5x2x1 surface.
When I say 'you must paint it at scale', I mean (as I explained) that the scale must be 1 to 1.
*sigh*
It appears we are at the end here. You may run it however you wish, of course. I believe you are as guilty of reading things into the description as you claim I am. I was very clear in my post that the scale I was talking about was 1 to 1, so the fact you are twisting that to say I am agreeing that you can do 1000 to 1 scale is a bit offputting. Good day.
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I cleaned up some posts.
Some advice, in no particular order:
Flag it and move on.
Learn to walk away.
People who disagree with you are not automatically trolls.
Ross makes an excellent point.
If someone disagrees with you, hack them up with an axe.
If they start to regenerate, they were probably a troll.