Doubtful.
"Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold."
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Missed that line.
Think there's any way to get around that, or any other way to conjure / transmute something into useable iron or steel?
Not looking at turning this into a money-making venture, just trying to salvage a world-building idea.
As GM for this one, fiat is an option but I prefer to work within the rules.
Hrm.
Well it flat out says it can't be sold, and isn't suitable for creating things out of.
So you're left with maybe a few options.
Anything raw iron filings or raw hunks of iron can be used for are good. Maybe, uh...
Yeah I got nothin'.
Of course it makes no sense what so ever as far as I can see.
Hrm.
Well it flat out says it can't be sold, and isn't suitable for creating things out of.
So you're left with maybe a few options.
Anything raw iron filings or raw hunks of iron can be used for are good. Maybe, uh...
Yeah I got nothin'.
Anchors, at least until they rust apart.
The whole point of the spell description saying the iron created isn't suitable for making stuff and can't be sold is to preempt exactly what you are trying to do here.
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^^This. Players used the equipment section on materials and devised ways to make gold rain from the heavens. Wall of Iron was one of those ways.
:)
I remember at a Norwescon I asked a panel of game designers what was one of the biggest mistakes they ever made when creating an encounter as a GM.
Erik Mona replied that he was not sure if it was the worst but it stuck out in his mind:
He had put in a trap that created a pool of metal spheres to crush the characters, but the players decided instead of continuing on to the rest of the adventure they would milk the trap for income.
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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).
Since I missed the restriction on actually using the iron for anything other than a wall, I'm wondering if there's, say, a Masterwork Transformation-like spell that says "you convert a material that is not iron into an amount of iron of equal value" or burns an equal-value material component to the same effect.
More a resource transmuation deal.
I'm perfectly happy to throw 10gp worth of material components at creating 1gp worth of useable iron. In fact it fits the story better because the whole point is "iron is valuable in this region because they can only get it using spell X."
Well, there's Major Creation, but sadly it only last for an hour per level.
Does Fabricate work on Wall of Iron? Perhaps bypassing the restriction?
It still COSTS the same, gold-wise ("Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)"), but could work.
Baseline to work from, anyway.
The intent of the spell is clear, but as the GM you can do whatever you want. Just create a variant of the spell that allows what you want, if you dont want to alter the original version.
It's a 3.5 source, but in the Eberron campaign setting there is an eighth level spell, True Creation, which functions as Major Creation but is permanent. The material component is the gp value of the item being created. Maybe something like that is what you're looking for?
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One problem is that if I recall correctly, elementally pure iron isn't useful for much. Small amounts of impurities are generally desirable for strengthening the metal- steel and such. As an example, historical Celts had to make their swords out of pure iron and they had to straighten out their blades after heavy blows because they would bend.
I suspect that's the in-universe justification for having walls of iron be worthless for crafting.
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If you wanted to use it for story purposes assume there is a process that is slow and time consuming to turn the iron from the wall into a usable source. This makes it wholly only viable in an area where iron is poor.
So the folding process used in japan existed because the native iron is poor. Europeans had no use for the process.
Or a more modern example the oil sands in canada becomeviable after the price of oil hits a certain point due to the cost of extraction.
You really don't need to explain your iron wapl procesd just emphasize slow and expensive.
One problem is that if I recall correctly, elementally pure iron isn't useful for much. Small amounts of impurities are generally desirable for strengthening the metal- steel and such. As an example, historical Celts had to make their swords out of pure iron and they had to straighten out their blades after heavy blows because they would bend.
I suspect that's the in-universe justification for having walls of iron be worthless for crafting.
Wall of Iron has the same stats as Steel (hardness 10, 30 HP/inch). So it's plenty useful. You just somehow can actually use it for anything except a wall. Floor or roof works too. Doors, walkways, etc, it is somehow not good for.
They should have just had it be some sort of crystal or something and have it work like Wall of Stone with better stats. Instead they added that really bizarre line to it.
I think it is there to stop players from "gaming the system".
I find it a bit odd that the designers are so worried about players using wall of iron for money. By the time you can cast it you make more money on one adventure then then you could make casting wall of iron every day for a year and that's without the market being gluted. I always just remove that line and say that iron is as cheep as dirt from thousands of years of wall of iron.
I find it a bit odd that the designers are so worried about players using wall of iron for money. By the time you can cast it you make more money on one adventure then then you could make casting wall of iron every day for a year and that's without the market being gluted. I always just remove that line and say that iron is as cheep as dirt from thousands of years of wall of iron.
But if you have to adjust the spell that kinda proves their point, and the game has no build in marketing rules. Having your cohort from leadership work the wall is also possible, and the wall could be used to make swords and other items worth more than the raw poundage rate of the wall. I am too lazy to try to figure all of this out, but somewhere I am sure someone has too much free time on their hands and would do it.
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There is using it to feed one's pet rust monsters of course.
That's more of a problem with fabricate.
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The ground in Sigil was like that. Stone material, but crumbled and was extremely brittle once removed from the main mass. I would say the problem with WoI is that if it is permanent and consists of iron, it should be useful. If nothing else, it can be melted down. Even if it is completely rusted through, you can make new, fresh, iron by melting it. My fix would be to call it Wall of Metal instead.
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RAW, there's no way to make the Wall of Iron spell into a renewable resource. Now...let's get creative.
Long ago we lived in a stone age and we would still today children, if not for the League of Eldritch Alchemy. You see, in the ancient days of our lands vile aberrant overlords unleashed hordes of powerful, burrowing creatures called Rust Monsters to consume the veins of iron ore in the very strata beneath our feet. However the League, then primitive dissidents within the ranks of the hive slaves of the inhuman overlords, began experimenting.
It was discovered that beings called elementals existed. Indeed there were whole planes where these creatures hailed from. Bargains were struck with these creatures to travel to our world and bring with them the raw stuff of creation itself.
Still other conjurers learned to summon the ore themselves in massive walls. These creations however would not bend to the will of the spellcasters and the iron was inferior; once heat was applied to re-forge something new of it by hand it would dissolve into slag. Undeterred alchemical processes were created to introduce new, supportive metals to these walls where they stood. Once so modified, the walls could then be transformed and utilized by our forefathers.
In time huge engines, which we refer to as the Eldritch Foundries were created. Each day they spontaneously create several walls while the League's alchemists constantly craft mass quantities of the chemical alloys. These are combined and the enriched ore is broken down into manageable units to be distributed to the four corners of our lands. Thanks to the league of Eldritch Alchemy all the free people have access to renewable iron for our daily lives.
But there is a cost children. You see, it was found that one of the substances needed for the process is the distilled innocence of children, such as yourselves. Once puberty has begun and body chemistry changes, you are no longer a value to the state. Fortunately not ALL of you will be selected to give yourselves to the Foundries. Those of you who do however will be doing your families, your neighbors, your whole world a great service. For those who volunteer themselves before the lottery you are guaranteeing that your immediate family will be removed from the roll and that they will also be compensated much more than if you were to be drawn for service.
Come forth children. Help your land by giving of yourselves for the greater good. Be heroes!
- Taken from the propaganda film "The Iron Contests"
Essentially it's a dystopian world where the "aberrant threat" is long past but a cruel, ancient custom of draining children's essences out of their souls to add to the process of making pure iron from Wall of Iron spells. This has the added benefit of lobotomizing the children. Their bodies continue to grow and they retain just enough brain function to serve as slaves. Thus they are sent to the Foundries, drained, and then used as a docile workforce until their bodies give out.
The PCs then know that, every time they buy a sword, a child somewhere had to suffer for it.
Or, we could just say no because of RAW. It's your call Weirdo.
If you wanted to use it for story purposes assume there is a process that is slow and time consuming to turn the iron from the wall into a usable source. This makes it wholly only viable in an area where iron is poor.
So the folding process used in japan existed because the native iron is poor. Europeans had no use for the process.
Well, they had use for it, but they also had enough iron to just make better processes (while the Japanese had to stick with rather closely a single design since they had so little to waste on experimentation). Just look at Damascus steel, which comes from twisting the steel. (most of my knowledge of metallurgy comes from random articles and videos, so I am an unreliable source). But that is the high end stuff, many different kinds of forging techniques existed for different purposes, and folding was just one of them. So it was just not the mystical crafting technique that could let you cut down God you see in films, but just another day at the forge throughout Europe.
Heck, look at the dozens of polearms that are in the martial weapons section. We all know of the infamous Glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive. That comes from the fact that polearms were the medieval weapon of choice, and people had to time and resources to invent new types for different purposes.
Anyway, using the walls as walls still has a place for monetary gain. I mean, if iron is as rare as gold in this region, then you are basically the ones who install walls made of pure gold. Even if it can't be used for anything else, that still seems like a huge status symbol.
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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.
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Just wanted to add that theres been examples of this befpre in D&D; in Sigil of the planescape setting, buildings are generally made out metal and stone "because tose can be made by magic" while wood is a semi-luxury that has to be imported from other planes (mostly Arborea iirc).
While this doesnt add anything to the rules question, just wanted to say its been done before.
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?
Because that would make the spell too expensive to be useful on a regular basis, and would require more preparation to make sure you had a constant supply of material.
The aim of this discussion is not to make the spell useless.
Because that would make the spell too expensive to be useful on a regular basis, and would require more preparation to make sure you had a constant supply of material.
The aim of this discussion is not to make the spell useless.
Wall of Force or Wall of Stone. Wall of Iron could be allowed to create a Wall of Iron you could then use to make things with without worrying about having to add a line that says you can't manipulate it or sell it.
Wall of Force or Wall of Stone. Wall of Iron could be allowed to create a Wall of Iron you could then use to make things with without worrying about having to add a line that says you can't manipulate it or sell it.Because that would make the spell too expensive to be useful on a regular basis, and would require more preparation to make sure you had a constant supply of material.
The aim of this discussion is not to make the spell useless.
Your point? The existence of alternatives just makes Wall of Iron even more useless if there's a material component. Wall of Iron's current use is battlefield control. It's not an utility spell. You use it when you need something to separate you from the bad guys, NOW. It's used for its convenience- burn an action, some gold dust everyone already either bought or already has in the form of 1 pound of gold and a slot, and hey presto, wall of iron! If you need to start remembering to buy, track, and use even more material components, Wall of Iron quickly becomes useless. People will just use Wall of Force, Stone, and Fire instead.
You want to make Wall of Iron completely useless as a battlefield control spell and downgrade it into an utility spell. That's a terrible idea. If you want iron, summon an earth elemental, a xorn, or similar and make it find you some iron ore, use expeditious excavation as desired, then magic it into iron. Problem solved.
Wierdo, what's this world building idea? I think the original post has been answered, including the GM fiat route. Maybe we can offer some suggestions.
Your point?
My point is with wall of force and wall of stone, wall of iron is pretty much already obsolete. Sure, it can do some things the other can't. But for the most part the other two will cover you, and they're lower level.
But I guess to each their own. I was only trying to make a suggesiton to Wierdo on how he could alter the spell to achieve his desired end without worrying about PCs abusing it.
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As a compromise between the two methods, what about this as a house-ruled version?
Wall of Iron
School conjuration (creation); Level magus 6, sorcerer/wizard 6, summoner 5; Domain artifice 7, metal 6
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a small iron sheet plus gold dust worth 250 gp)
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect iron wall whose area is up to one 5-ft. square/level; see text
Duration instantenous
Saving Throw see text; Spell Resistance no
You cause a flat, vertical iron wall to spring into being. The wall inserts itself into any surrounding nonliving material if its area is sufficient to do so. The wall cannot be conjured so that it occupies the same space as a creature or another object. It must always be a flat plane, though you can shape its edges to fit the available space.
A wall of iron is 1 inch thick per four caster levels. You can double the wall's area by halving its thickness. Each 5-foot square of the wall has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 8. A section of wall whose hit points drop to 0 is breached. If a creature tries to break through the wall with a single attack, the DC for the Strength check is 25 + 2 per inch of thickness.
If you desire, the wall can be created vertically resting on a flat surface but not attached to the surface, so that it can be tipped over to fall on and crush creatures beneath it. The wall is 50% likely to tip in either direction if left unpushed. Creatures can push the wall in one direction rather than letting it fall randomly. A creature must make a DC 40 Strength check to push the wall over. Creatures with room to flee the falling wall may do so by making successful Reflex saves. Any Large or smaller creature that fails takes 10d6 points of damage while fleeing from the wall. The wall cannot crush Huge and larger creatures.
Like any iron wall, this wall is subject to rust, perforation, and other natural phenomena. The iron is very impure and brittle; while it can be worked, it cannot hold an edge or be used for fine instruments. It has lower hardness than most iron and it's market value is just 1/5th that of normal iron.
Your point?My point is with wall of force and wall of stone, wall of iron is pretty much already obsolete. Sure, it can do some things the other can't. But for the most part the other two will cover you, and they're lower level.
But I guess to each their own. I was only trying to make a suggesiton to Wierdo on how he could alter the spell to achieve his desired end without worrying about PCs abusing it.
Reasonable point, and now that I think about it, it does sound like a good alternative to the strangely worthless iron if you dislike handwaving that. Apologies if I was too harsh.
And Ijia, that does help, but it still has value. I suppose you could try saying that the wall as a whole only has 50gp value, equal to the gold dust required, but that's still somewhat odd.
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If a group of people didn't have access a resource they usually use a different resource to achieve the same goal.
If you are wanting to limit iron there are better ways than milking a spell. Maybe all ore. Is highly toxic and/or requires a time comsuming method to puritfy.
If your story is tied to metal coming from a spell and i'm not sure where you want to go with this. People being sacrificed to make the iron usable, not available w/o a nod from a local noble. So many ways to go with it.
Not sure why their area just doesn't have iron resources. Is it country wide, world wide?
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If I was doing what the OP was trying to accomplish here I would rule that with some smelting/refining that added up to the basic cost of raw iron when the added cost of the spell is added in (whatever a npc caster would charge for the spell), you could use the iron wall to make actual iron.
Same cost as iron more or less. Balance is preserved. Iron-deficient regions can have an iron source if the casters are there to provide services.
This is all the realm of GM rulings but I don't see why you couldn't rule that this works. Heck I could even see a whole cultural thing where people who can cast these spells hold positions of honor and esteem in the community and wield great influence in the area.
I don't really understand why people are worried about wall of iron being used for crafting. It's a sixth level spell, you can charge an NPC a minimum of 660 GP for casting the spell. How is using it for a bunch of cheap low-grade iron unbalancing?
I don't really understand why people are worried about wall of iron being used for crafting. It's a sixth level spell, you can charge an NPC a minimum of 660 GP for casting the spell. How is using it for a bunch of cheap low-grade iron unbalancing?
It was unbalancing in the past when you could smelt it down and cast it into weapon which you then sold. The material component cost was much less than the amount of money you could make by selling the items. It effectively allowed you to have an unlimited amount of wealth by casting the spell and crafting items out of it.
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I don't really understand why people are worried about wall of iron being used for crafting. It's a sixth level spell, you can charge an NPC a minimum of 660 GP for casting the spell. How is using it for a bunch of cheap low-grade iron unbalancing?It was unbalancing in the past when you could smelt it down and cast it into weapon which you then sold. The material component cost was much less than the amount of money you could make by selling the items. It effectively allowed you to have an unlimited amount of wealth by casting the spell and crafting items out of it.
You know what would be great for the next edition?
A line at the beginning of the spells section saying "No items, objects, materials, etc created by spells can be sold for more than the material components and cost of casting the spell unless specifically stated in the spell's text."I would like to see a quick list of rules like that for each section, common sense rules that are placed there just to prevent abuse.
I don't really understand why people are worried about wall of iron being used for crafting. It's a sixth level spell, you can charge an NPC a minimum of 660 GP for casting the spell. How is using it for a bunch of cheap low-grade iron unbalancing?It was unbalancing in the past when you could smelt it down and cast it into weapon which you then sold. The material component cost was much less than the amount of money you could make by selling the items. It effectively allowed you to have an unlimited amount of wealth by casting the spell and crafting items out of it.You know what would be great for the next edition?
A line at the beginning of the spells section saying "No items, objects, materials, etc created by spells can be sold for more than the material components and cost of casting the spell unless specifically stated in the spell's text."
I would like to see a quick list of rules like that for each section, common sense rules that are placed there just to prevent abuse.
Thats what they tried to do (or at least something like it), but you end up with 11,000 lbs of pig iron that the rules say is worth 50 gp no matter what you do to it. It almost as non-sensical as it being worthless.
And Ijia, that does help, but it still has value. I suppose you could try saying that the wall as a whole only has 50gp value, equal to the gold dust required, but that's still somewhat odd.
I see no issue with it having value; so does the stone from a wall of stone or the ability to quickly clean plates of prestidigitation. It is only when the value vastly surpasses the effort that I think there's an issue.
As you see in my version, the material component costs 250 gp. At the lowest possible caster level, according to Weird, you'd get 225gp worth of bad iron. Even at the highest level the surplus would be small enough that you'd get much more cash from doing other stuff. Earning a few hundreds per casting is nothing to just popping onto some elemental demiplane of really nice diamonds and getting a few or killing the demon lord of ultra lootz.
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...