Hello all. I'm playing a 5th level wizard in a kingmaker campaign. Our sorcerer has taken Blood Money and Masterwork Transformation using the trick to amass great wealth for himself.
The DM only deemed that he could use this trick once every 3 months (in game time) and is ok with the trick since it isn't against the rules.
So, I come here to ask if there are any other pathfinder legal tricks besides Blood Money that will help me keep up with the sorcerer in terms of wealth and therefore power. I've read over the downtime rules that I could exploit, but just in case the DM doesn't want to use the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign, some other options would be nice.
I ask for alternatives to blood money, because while I could easily enough do the trick, I don't want to steal another players thunder, no matter how much cheese that thunder leaves in its rumbling wake.
What is the blood money trick?
Basically one uses the spell Blood Money, then casts the Masterwork Transformation spell, basically allow one to sell masterwork items for full profit by only hurting yourself just a little bit. A dagger that once cost 2gp can now sell for 302gp. Get a bunch of regular armor and weapons and you have quite the pile of cash when you sell.
Well, you sell it for half price.
Very true. It can still add up when you have months of in game downtime to heal and constantly cast the spell though.
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Well, there's always Horse Fraud (selling horses conjured with the Mount spell).
You know you could also take craft wonderous items feat and get an initial investment from your party. Then have your face sell the items you create. You'll be able to make them for half the price, then sell them for 90% under book price enabling you to undercut any competition. Be sure to make cheap things though expensive items will be much harder to sell.
This is a possibility. I already have Craft Wondrous Items, but I was under the impression that you always have to sell at 50% the cost of the item. Although, they could have meant that only when selling to merchants and not the general public. If you can sell to the public / citizens at any price, this might be the way I go.
Use Prestidigitation to clean, then walk around town, using Prestidigitation to soil things.
A possibility. How much would one charge for such a marvelous service?
Well, there's always Horse Fraud (selling horses conjured with the Mount spell).
While a good idea, since I am one of the leaders of the city / kingdom this would probably come back to bite me in the rear.
Depending on your GM's interpretation of "intrinsic" value you can go pretty far with a scroll of Polymorph Any Object. I'm sure you can find something that 50 cubic feet is worth more than the scroll. (Salt or chocolate come to mind.)
Hello all. I'm playing a 5th level wizard in a kingmaker campaign. Our sorcerer has taken Blood Money and Masterwork Transformation using the trick to amass great wealth for himself.
If he's only masterwork transforming something once every three months, he's making what, 50g a month from that? That's nice and all, but doesn't seem too imbalancing. It's when you reach Fabricate(depending on whether your GM falls on the side of it working with Blood Money or not), where the potential for ridiculous profits really rears its head.
Anyway, my suggestion is to take Extra Traits and Hedge Magician if you can since you already have CWI. With months of craft time, you should be able to easily keep up, I would think. Even selling only at 50%, you'd still make a reasonable profit. And you could use the second trait on something you could use in other situations.
Fabricate to make raw gems into cut ones.
False focus feat: Create as many everburning / Ioun torches as the market will bear.
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Animate objects + Permanency. It's a higher level trick, but basically for 15000 GP you can have a bunch of halfling sized automotons (1 per CL) to rent/sell as ever-loyal never tiring laborers. Or mix it up and sell construct horses for a large sum to whomever can afford it.
At minimum CL that's 11 halfling constructs. If you sell them for a mere 2000 GP (cheap for a construct) you're making over 600 Net profit on each for about 10 seconds of work. You could probably get a lot more per construct, but you get the idea.
Adventures and anyone who doesn't trust their own staff would love it.
I'm sure you can net more than the sale price.
Where is the Blood Money spell? I can't find it in the PRD.
I use Blood Money all the time, because the party is usually traipsing about in the trackless wilderness where shops selling multiple thousand gold piece diamonds are few and far between. I don't use it for money-making schemes, because then you end up with DMs like Psyren, above.
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I use Blood Money all the time, because the party is usually traipsing about in the trackless wilderness where shops selling multiple thousand gold piece diamonds are few and far between. I don't use it for money-making schemes, because then you end up with DMs like Psyren, above.
If you're at the levels where you can afford multiple thousand gold piece diamonds in the first place, you can teleport home to buy one. So I have no qualms about being a "DM like me."
I use Blood Money all the time, because the party is usually traipsing about in the trackless wilderness where shops selling multiple thousand gold piece diamonds are few and far between. I don't use it for money-making schemes, because then you end up with DMs like Psyren, above.
The funny thing is, a true conversion of the 3.5 version of the spell would have made it useful to you while also satisfying Psyren. It would have done something similar to the following:
Pay 1 Strength damage to convert any amount of coins into the appropriate material component for the spell you cast that round of the same value.
I actually converted all the Thassilon spells myself before the AE came out, and that's what I had for blood money. My PCs used it sparingly, but it did its job.
I reflexively ban it, along with other forms of money abuse (e.g. ladders -> 10ft. poles.)
Would you un-ban it for a player who promised not to abuse it (even going so far as to ask you if a given casting was "abusive" prior to said casting)?
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Remembering it's limited by the str of the caster. Typically not something wizards have in abundance.
You're an adventurer, you get funds by adventuring.
Anything else is done by rolling your Profession skill.
And in any case, your wealth should not get much beyond the WBL charts so more money earned means less money found.
You're an adventurer, you get funds by adventuring.
Anything else is done by rolling your Profession skill.
And in any case, your wealth should not get much beyond the WBL charts so more money earned means less money found.
Unless you are using the downtime system...
Bull's Strength and Lesser Restoration go a long way.
Bull's strength is a temporary bonus. Does that even work?
Lesser resto, sure. Items of + Str worn longer than 24 hrs, sure. But just casting Bulls Str?
FYI: Not sarcasm. I really would like to know if that works RAW .
Normally I'd agree with the adventurer getting funds through adventuring argument, however Kingmaker (at least thus far) is very low wealth.
Poldararn - I can see what you mean. But since he's a sorcerer he tends to do quite a few pieces per day, heal up then do it again the next day. This isn't to say I have a problem with him using the trick, it's just I'd like to keep up with him is all. The DM may allow me to retrain a trait I have still yet to use to Hedge Magician. If so, this may be a good alternative.
Tiny Coffee Golem - I love the construct idea. I was actually planning on taking Craft Construct in the far future (probably 10th level) so this is a really good possibility. The fabricate and false focus feat are also possibilities, though not until later since I have my next few feats pretty much set the way I like them.
Xorran - I will definitely look into that, especially if I ever get a high component spell such as Wish. I will need to read into that more.
Thanks everyone for the help so far!
FYI: Not sarcasm. I really would like to know if that works RAW .It works long enough for your cleric buddy to restore the ability damage.
Good point. I can see a staff of restoration/lesser resto being put to good use. Sure, it costs a lot up front, but once you reach a certain point it pays for itself.
This is no worse than abusing the trap creation system for financial gain (or other, more efficient, money-making scheme).
All it takes is a GM to stand his ground and there are no problems here.
This is no worse than abusing the trap creation system for financial gain...
One can "abuse" the trap creation system for financial gain you say? How? If I may be so bold to ask.
Mind you, I plan on making magic items and weapons for my fellow players (Minus sorcerer) so as to avoid the same feeling I get from the sorcerer amassing wealth specifically for himself.
Thanks again everyone. Plenty to mull over.
Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread or anything, but just a few things to point out here.
1. Blood Money does NOT work on spells with a longer casting time than 1 Standard action, since Blood Money is a swift action to cast, and the next spell needs to be cast in the same round.
This is probably best solved by simply taking the player aside and reminding him of what I've heard termed Wheaton's Law, rather than nerfing spells or crashing economies.
What I would like to hear is someone tell me how playing a compulsive wealth-seeking merchant is more fun than playing an adventurer.
No decent GM is going to allow any wealth making scheme to unbalance the game anyway. What possible "fun" does playing these get-rich-quick schemes accomplish?
Hey! Let's play a fantasy role playing game!
I wanna be Gandalf!
Cool! I wanna be Elric!
Wow, can I be Batman?
Heh, I got you all beat, I'm gonna be John D Rockefeller!
Rockefeller?
He still doesn't beat Batman.
Well, I shouldn't have used Batman, but I meant "Batman" not "Bruce Wayne" anyway.
I really don't get it. Are there GMs out there that are so unable to control the game that a single player can turn the game into a game of Monopoly? Are there players who actually allow other players to turn the game into a bank account race?
I have to believe that the vast, vast majority of these money-making builds are pure unadulterated theory crafting and never see an actual game table.
I can tell you this, I wouldn't put up with that garbage as a GM or player. If you want to play Monopoly, go play Monopoly.
Normally vast wealth isn't my goal. However in Kingmaker, an adventure where you use money to build your kingdom (in the thousands of gold at that) and where you rarely actually get any real wealth for yourself, gold is in fact a major part of gameplay. Can't make an arcane academy until you have the moolah.
Realistically I'm intending to use whatever wealth I make towards making magic items for myself and my party as well as add spells to my spell book. There are also ideas I'd like to implement as far as magic items for the kingdom itself, which of course takes gold.
I don't intend however to go overboard with the wealth (if I can at all). I don't like taking advantage of a merciful DM and I would expect the same courtesy when I DM. If the DM wants me to stop I will happily stop, hell I may even stop before that. I really just want to meet a few goals and make my magic item creation feats usable.
Third, I've played in a lot of campaigns where a lot of gold was needed to accomplish certain goals. This was especially true back in 2e when characters were expected to build kingdoms. But it was expected that the adventurer would gain wealth through adventuring, not through becoming a glorified merchant.
I suspect that is the goal the writers of Kingmaker intended too, that characters would build wealth through strength of arms and heroic acts. But I could be wrong, they may have intended to encourage characters to sit around town making stuff and exploit odd trait/feat combinations.
Just not my style I suppose. If that's what churns your butter, and it's not bothering the rest of your table, then knock yourself out.
Poldararn - I can see what you mean. But since he's a sorcerer he tends to do quite a few pieces per day, heal up then do it again the next day.
The DM only deemed that he could use this trick once every 3 months (in game time) and is ok with the trick since it isn't against the rules.
Now I'm confused.
Poldaran - Well... I thought I had done an edit about that. Apparently it was eaten or I mis-pressed a button. Sorry.
What I had meant was that he could only sell the masterwork items he created (however much the DM allowed him to transform) once every 3 months.
Once again, apologies for not being clear.
Adamantine Dragon - And normally I would be happy to go adventuring and earn said wealth, however I'm lv. 5 and I think at most I've amassed 2 - 3,000gp that's been used for potions, rations and adding some spells to my book. That's with exploring a very large part of the map already.
Although, perhaps we just haven't found the wealth the developers intend in the map just yet. For all I know, this point may be moot and my DM may shoot down each idea, which is fine. In any case, we'll always adventure but I've learned not to count on worgs to be filled with gold coins like a obscure pinata.
Poldaran - Well... I thought I had done an edit about that. Apparently it was eaten or I mis-pressed a button. Sorry.
What I had meant was that he could only sell the masterwork items he created (however much the DM allowed him to transform) once every 3 months.
Once again, apologies for not being clear.
Ah, that makes more sense.