Is not ridiculous that a cleric can create water at will, as standard action, and at rate of more than 9 liters per round? At level 1?
Must be because I work in a small aqueduct, but is sounds crazy to me (it means that a level 10 cleric can create 9x level 10= 90 liters in 1 round; 90x10= 900 in 1 min, 900x60= 54000 liters of water per hour?)
One word: nasty!
I was writing kind of a new campaign for my group, based on some notes of mine I found from old d&d mastering, and since it would be in a desert setting, i will surely house rule this spell!
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Try talking for an hour without stopping and get back to me.
I've.. Never really had a problem with this.
That doesn't seem like a useful excuse. Let's leave aside the fact there are no mechanics for vocal fatigue. Talking for an hour can be hard on your voice, yeah, but it's still a huge amount of water even if you take a couple of five minute breaks.
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It would be easy enough to modify in a desert based game,
a. Perhaps the intense heat evaporates the water unless it is in a suitable closed container.
b. Perhaps the local gods consider it an affront, and make it fatiguing to cast it.
c. Perhaps a local guild is in charge of creating water, and casting it without guild approval carries the death penalty.
d. Or make it a 1st level spell that creates 2 gallons/level.
e. Make the duration of the created water 1 minute. Thus is can be used immediately, but not stored.
Remember the water does go away after 2 hours if not used.
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Try talking for an hour without stopping and get back to me.
You've obviously never met my mother. :p
I agree with the above, but you, OP, do have a good point. It is a lot of water for a 0-level spell. If you were to make any other substance (in any quanitity), you'd need at least a fourth level spell (minor creation). and the casting time for THAT is one minute. If you allow this spell, there will never be any threat from thirst, and you're looking at a significant reduction in the risk of environmental heat; Players can just pour water on themselves continuously to keep cool.
I don't see the point in outlawing it in your desert campaign. Your players will just get rings of sustenance or a decanter of endless water.
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At which point they too get houseruled. Really, if you want dehydration to be a consideration, you have to. As a solution to the OP complaint about create water, eventually give the player a note: Due to cleric-caused water emissions, the Elemental plane of Water is now empty.
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You could introduce a material component and make them track it. Something simple like a clear quartz crystal worth 5sp, or even 1 sp/ liter created, rather than per casting(with the usual upper limits based off caster level).
Increasing the casting time to 1 minute or maybe longer would reduce abuse as well.
There are alot of low level magical effects that negate natural threats. Endure elements, create water, eventually create food and water, purify food and drink, the shelter spells, if you want to make the environment threatening you need to take a look at more then just creat water.
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Your players will just get rings of sustenance or a decanter of endless water.
What desert-dweller in his right mind would sell those?
What reasonably intelligent wizard (all of them) WOULDN'T? You could jack up the price due to necessity, and make a fortune. If I was a wizard with item creation feats in a desert setting, that's business plan #1.
Is not ridiculous that a cleric can create water at will, as standard action, and at rate of more than 9 liters per round? At level 1?
Must be because I work in a small aqueduct, but is sounds crazy to me (it means that a level 10 cleric can create 9x level 10= 90 liters in 1 round; 90x10= 900 in 1 min, 900x60= 54000 liters of water per hour?)
One word: nasty!I was writing kind of a new campaign for my group, based on some notes of mine I found from old d&d mastering, and since it would be in a desert setting, i will surely house rule this spell!
The balance is the fact the cleric's god may take away his spell casting abilities for abusing them.
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Is not ridiculous that a cleric can create water at will, as standard action, and at rate of more than 9 liters per round? At level 1?
Those are US gallons not imperial gallons so 7.5 liters per level per round.
Must be because I work in a small aqueduct, but is sounds crazy to me (it means that a level 10 cleric can create 9x level 10= 90 liters in 1 round; 90x10= 900 in 1 min, 900x60= 54000 liters of water per hour?)
One word: nasty!
45000 liters/hour
= 13.5 5ft cubes per hour, 100 five foot cubes per 8 hour day. Hmm, that's a lot.
I was writing kind of a new campaign for my group, based on some notes of mine I found from old d&d mastering, and since it would be in a desert setting, i will surely house rule this spell!
House rule it to pints per minute? or ten minutes casting time?
Note the caster can't move during the casting time, though he could be carried/ride - with a concentration check.
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There are ways this could work as-is as well. A region could be ruled by an evil theocracy that has strict control over water production and distribution. They would closely monitor water use and ration it to the public. There could also be an underground ring of secret priests who provide water to the needy.
Just note, that if you're worried about deserts, then you have to worry about purify food and water as well. If you have access to that one, you can ignore the issue with water for a LONG time.
Urinate in water skin, cast purify on it, bamph! Pure clean clear water again. Ultimate in recycling.
Just note, that if you're worried about deserts, then you have to worry about purify food and water as well. If you have access to that one, you can ignore the issue with water for a LONG time.
Urinate in water skin, cast purify on it, bamph! Pure clean clear water again. Ultimate in recycling.
Even purifying urine, you'd still lose some of it to sweat. Granted, there are no mechanics for that, but I don't think there are any for how much urine you produce either.
LOL. He's going to have to outlaw spellcasters in order to get his campaign idea to work.
Never underestimate the creativity of players.
"Oh no! We're dying of thirst!" *summons and drinks water elemental* "Ah, that's better!"
It's a lot of water if the only thing you need to is drink and possibly bathe. It's utterly inadequate quantities for crop irrigation, as previous discussion threads have gone into extensive detail about. Photosynthesis consumes huge amounts of water.
So, yes, it lets people cross deserts and make ocean voyages more easily than they can normally, since they don't have to carry their water with them. But anywhere with enough water to grow enough food to support the local population already has enough water for drinking and then some.
"Those are US gallons not imperial gallons so 7.5 liters per level per round" thanks for the info, this reduces a bit the amount even if it's still huge for me...
Also, note that the caster can move while casting all of this create water, and is not always speaking, because it's just a standard action so it's like 3 seconds, not the whole 6 sec of the round. Am I wrong? You can move and cast in one round...
I was thinking of putting a cap to the amount of water created by a cleric per day, (like 2 gallons per level in a day) or make it a level 1 spell... I don't want to push it too hard with mage guilds or sindacates governing the creation of water, it would look like I want to force my players to suffer thirsty and it would distort a bit the "ancient", "abandoned" and "merchant oriented" flavor of the setting!
The desert setting just made me notice this, it's not that I want to change it in order to give harder times to my party, but because I feel that as it's written it's too easy to get unlimited and so abundant amount of a vital resource like water... I mean, in a world where getting water is so easy, there would be no Sahara desert, no berber civilization, no tuareg, no casbahs, no Timbuktu and so on!
ps: I'm very proud to completly agree with mr James Jacobs, it makes me feel a good role player ^_^
well, 7-8 liters of water per second is considered a "weak stream" (I live in Italy and I don't know if "stream" is the proper translation of the concept I'm referring to, 'weak' is most probably wrong, but I think you get the Idea, like a very small river), I mean a 5th cleric can put out this amount of water per second, it could create an ecosystem 'stream' if he casts the spell each day for some hours, in theory...
Not that it would be so easy, also considering that in desert this water would just penetrate down the sand to be wasted, but to give the Idea of the output!
Even purifying urine, you'd still lose some of it to sweat. Granted, there are no mechanics for that, but I don't think there are any for how much urine you produce either.Just note, that if you're worried about deserts, then you have to worry about purify food and water as well. If you have access to that one, you can ignore the issue with water for a LONG time.
Urinate in water skin, cast purify on it, bamph! Pure clean clear water again. Ultimate in recycling.
Yep, which is why I said you can ignore the issue for a LONG time. Which is, note, not forever. The amount lost to sweating will eventually catch up with you. But you can extend yourself probably 10 times what you could without it.
Also, note that said caster is casting for at most 8 hours. Then he's having to make fatigue checks, even if he's wearing a ring of sustenance or something. Best he could do is, with a ring, casting 20 hours a day. He'd need 4 hours of sleep, and he'd be making fatigue rolls for 2 hours before sleeping.
Honestly, anyone who wants to do that is not wanting to actually play a game. Add to the fact that you lose it after 24 hours, and it's not all that much of a problem.
That's not to say it couldn't be useful in limited circumstances. For example, you could set up a water trap if you had a dozen casters and 8 hours warning, where you could dump a few thousand gallons down a streetway or into a square you'd set up to hold it ahead of time, and drown a bunch of people, then wait until it disappeared to go loot the bodies. :)
But that sort of thing is strictly a corner case, and something you could do with a decanter of water.
LOL. He's going to have to outlaw spellcasters in order to get his campaign idea to work.
Never underestimate the creativity of players.
"Oh no! We're dying of thirst!" *summons and drinks water elemental* "Ah, that's better!"
Lol, an interesting idea, but you'd just be thirsty/dehydrated again in 6/12/18etc. seconds when your drink goes back to the Plane of Water :p
don't worry I don't want to make them die thirsty, it was not my point : )
Lol, an interesting idea, but you'd just be thirsty/dehydrated again in 6/12/18etc. seconds when your drink goes back to the Plane of Water :pLOL. He's going to have to outlaw spellcasters in order to get his campaign idea to work.
Never underestimate the creativity of players.
"Oh no! We're dying of thirst!" *summons and drinks water elemental* "Ah, that's better!"
Once it is in your system, mixed with your other fluids, it is no longer a water elemental (or even water). It is a part of you, and therefore, stays right where it is. :P
I don't know if you are right Ravingdork, a water elemental is made of water in the end, so the water you drank is just The water elemental... Is not like a deer for example, that has organs and so on and once digested becomes proteins (LOL), is pure water... Is not so clear the matter :D
As for the casting of 20 hours, I don't think any player would like to do that, well maybe it would be a good source of money (you sell it, than who knows the water is conjured just for 24h?); my point was, more than the single player creating continuously water, how the easiness in creating water would influence the 'living' world of the campaign!
I think that house rule create water as a 1st or 2nd level spell just suits me perfectly.
I mean, in a world where getting water is so easy, there would be no Sahara desert
Yes, there would. Create water does not create enough water to irrigate the Sahara. You are vastly underestimating the actual water demands of plants, which run in the tens of thousands of liters per per day per hectare.
Your cleric in your OP was producing some 54,000 liters per hour, right? Then you need ten million of him working sixteen hours a day, every single day of the year, to turn the whole Sahara into grassland.
Now, I can think of a lot better ways for ten million 10th-level clerics to spend their time than watering the Sahara, can't you? I'm pretty sure they can, and their deities can, too. So the Sahara will still be there.
The spell as written just plain doesn't create enough water per casting to make it a practical form of irrigation.
EDIT: To visualize, ten millimeters of rainfall, over an area of one hectare, is 100 cubic meters of water. Rainfall in Rome accordingly averages 87,600 cubic meters of water per hectare a year.
my point was, more than the single player creating continuously water, how the easiness in creating water would influence the 'living' world of the campaign!
I think that house rule create water as a 1st or 2nd level spell just suits me perfectly.
Rather than house rule it, simply let any player that has it know that the gods have spoken on this, centuries past, and they do not appreciate any of their worshippers abusing their deity given powers this way.
I simply add in that if they cast it again before the previous casting is drunk/used, the previous casting vanished and the new casting appears wherever the caster has chosen. Avoids flooding etc issues and the caster can still keep a group hydrated on overland travel.
Sure a cleric travelling with a caravan is a...(heh heh) godsend...but a caravan owner will not go without his own water supplies. What if the cleric blackmails the owner? What if the cleric dies? Gets a holy vision and runs off? etc etc.
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It's easy to misinterpret the amount of water a person can create with create water, actually. Easy enough that, in hindsight, we should have made the spell a 1st or 2nd level spell, not an at-will cantrip for sure.
Please don't.
Try talking for an hour without stopping and get back to me.
Try to stop my girlfriend from talking for an hour and get back to me
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It's easy to misinterpret the amount of water a person can create with create water, actually. Easy enough that, in hindsight, we should have made the spell a 1st or 2nd level spell, not an at-will cantrip for sure.Please don't.
Agreed. The fact that it sticks around for only 24 hours is balance enough.
I don't see the point in outlawing it in your desert campaign. Your players will just get rings of sustenance or a decanter of endless water.Not every campaign has a MagicMart that delivers.
No, but Craft Woundrous Item is a Core Feat.
Check of the Sandstorm book. It has a lot of good rules for making Create Water and other spells manageable in a desert themed game.
Agreed. The fact that it sticks around for only 24 hours is balance enough.It's easy to misinterpret the amount of water a person can create with create water, actually. Easy enough that, in hindsight, we should have made the spell a 1st or 2nd level spell, not an at-will cantrip for sure.Please don't.
I dont see why it shouldnt be a 1st level spell, you usually keep enough water and rations with you in the case you are short on water you prepare the spell the next day after making some checks and inconvenience.
It makes terrain at least a little challenging, an at will ability gives too much high fantasy for a low level campaign, I guess more to the point it would be nice to have some houseruling guidelines for low magic to high fantasy campaigns since this is a frequent discussion on the board, though I still think starting out with an at will create water ability at 1st level is out off place in the typical campaign.
No, but Craft Woundrous Item is a Core Feat.I don't see the point in outlawing it in your desert campaign. Your players will just get rings of sustenance or a decanter of endless water.Not every campaign has a MagicMart that delivers.
It is spelled Wonderous. :-)
... Sorry.
hay, try this on for a adventure hook.
Holy site in the mountains, small river running thru the desert to the sea. players make their way by small boat up the river of Ommm, past the little farming villages (picture Egypt) - to its head and find a religious order Tasked by thier god to "keep the river flowing", cluster of clerics, all gathered at the top of a cliff edge chanting-chanting-chanting as the waters flow to form the stream.... which supports the desert land of Ommm....
Oh I like this. I have a feeling I may use this for some less than wholesome advesary group in the future. Like say demon worshipers of Dagon or such...
I know a GM who wants to limit create water and whatnot "in order to make desert/jungle campaigns work".
My solution: I don't play with that GM.
Who the f-bomb wants to FOCUS on the tedium of dealing with thirst and exposure? You are supposed to be world-shaking heroes, with manly men able to shrug off a blast of fire capable of turning a mountain into glass, and then beat the stuffing out of the dragon who breathed said fire. And they pale in comparison with the awe-inspiring magic-users, who takes reality by the scruff of it's neck and tells it to settle down and bloody well do what it is told.
Thirst is easily dealt with because it is a nuisance. There are no mechanics for bladder infections when you don't pee, for tooth-ache when you don't brush your teeth, for back-pain when you carry too heavy loads, for menstrual cramps once a month, for allergies to kittens, for autoimmune and hereditary/genetic diseases, etc etc etc ad infinitum.
Because this is nonsense that SHOULD take a backseat to heroism. The heroes in your desert campaign should be allowed to focus on killing monsters, solving ancient puzzles, curing the magical plague incurred by the Pharaoh's curse, and stopping the cabal of evil genies that is turning the rest of the land into an uninhabitable desert. You know, HERO stuff.
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I don't know if you are right Ravingdork, a water elemental is made of water in the end, so the water you drank is just The water elemental... Is not like a deer for example, that has organs and so on and once digested becomes proteins (LOL), is pure water... Is not so clear the matter :D
As for the casting of 20 hours, I don't think any player would like to do that, well maybe it would be a good source of money (you sell it, than who knows the water is conjured just for 24h?); my point was, more than the single player creating continuously water, how the easiness in creating water would influence the 'living' world of the campaign!
I think that house rule create water as a 1st or 2nd level spell just suits me perfectly.
Actually it is irrelevant if the water stay or not when it is part of your body.
As long as the elemental is "alive" you can't drink it (unless you have some very weird form of special attack, drinking straw attack for the win LOL), after it is dead it disappear immediately as it is a summoned creature.