So what's the best way of going about this? Do you get a high strength character (at least 32 Strength so that he never has to worry about botching the Strength check) to carry around an arbitrary number of them and have him be a 20ft range turret of if my opponent has no DR then they're screwed otherwise I'm completely useless death, or use a ring of telekinesis to float a group of them around the battlefield for better mobility but only having a maximum of fifteen operable (and likely substantially less)?
I mean, since aiming the decanter doesn't look like it requires any kind of action, if you strapped half a dozen to the fighter's chest he could theoretically get an extra 6d4 (12d4 if the opponent has the fire subtype) damage in per round for "free." Yes, it would look ridiculous, and if you had a modicum of respect for real world physics or didn't want to break everyone else's immersion, then you wouldn't even consider the idea. However, free damage is free damage, so I'm curious to see what people can come up with for ways of turning this into an even remotely plausible tactic.
For reference:Decanter of Endless Water and Ring of Telekinesis
While you don't need to make an attack roll, it doesn't mean you don't need to spend an action to aim the decanter. It's probably a standard action to aim the decanter at an enemy. The part in the description that says you don't need to make an attack roll just means that you automatically succeed in hitting, not that it doesn't take an action to do so.
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So, my first thought is do you need a player character to do this? How about an animal: a horse and wagon or an elephant? You'd have to rig up some kind of mount for the weapon like a swivel on a tripod or something.
Another problem is that each Decanter is command word activated. It requires a Standard Action to turn one on and to turn one off. So, could you mount your elephant with a battery of Decanters of Endless water, ride into battle, turn each one on in turn, and each round build up another 1d4/per round? Yeah, I guess, but you've got to be able to think of ways to inflict damage faster. And the Decanter of Endless Water is an expensive item: 9000gp.
What do you think of this? A Decanter of Endless Water, a Handy Haversack full of Alchemal Components, and a Fabricate Spell. Use the Fabricate Spell to turn the Geyser of Water into a Geyser of Acid or Alchemal Ice, maybe. Both do 1d6 points of damage per PINT, and the Decanter of Endless Water puts out 30 GALLONS/round, for 240d6 points of cold or acid damage every round until your HH is out of components. What Tarrasque?
Scott Wilhelm wrote: So, my first thought is do you need a player character to do this? How about an animal: a horse and wagon or an elephant? You'd have to rig up some kind of mount for the weapon like a swivel on a tripod or something.
Another problem is that each Decanter is command word activated. It requires a Standard Action to turn one on and to turn one off. So, could you mount your elephant with a battery of Decanters of Endless water, ride into battle, turn each one on in turn, and each round build up another 1d4/per round? Yeah, I guess, but you've got to be able to think of ways to inflict damage faster. And the Decanter of Endless Water is an expensive item: 9000gp.
What do you think of this? A Decanter of Endless Water, a Handy Haversack full of Alchemal Components, and a Fabricate Spell. Use the Fabricate Spell to turn the Geyser of Water into a Geyser of Acid or Alchemal Ice, maybe. Both do 1d6 points of damage per PINT, and the Decanter of Endless Water puts out 30 GALLONS/round, for 240d6 points of cold or acid damage every round until your HH is out of components. What Tarrasque?
1. A Water artillery battery is an awesome image. Seriously.
2. You could make them all with the same Command Word, or divide them into sections-- if your Decanter battery consists of 24 of them, tie, say, eight to each Command Word. I'd probably go all or nothing, myself-- who needs to moderate firepower?
3. Hilariously cheesy. I'd have to cross-check the rules to see if it works though.
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Scott Wilhelm wrote: So, my first thought is do you need a player character to do this? How about an animal: a horse and wagon or an elephant? You'd have to rig up some kind of mount for the weapon like a swivel on a tripod or something. Largely for the strength prereq to make sure that you don't fall over from the water pressure. An elephant wouldn't quite cut it since they only have 30 strength, but a mastodon would work I suppose.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: Another problem is that each Decanter is command word activated. It requires a Standard Action to turn one on and to turn one off. So, could you mount your elephant with a battery of Decanters of Endless water, ride into battle, turn each one on in turn, and each round build up another 1d4/per round? Yeah, I guess, but you've got to be able to think of ways to inflict damage faster. And the Decanter of Endless Water is an expensive item: 9000gp. As kestral pointed out, one utterance of the command word should suffice for multiple decanters so it shouldn't take any longer to start a hundred than just one.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: What do you think of this? A Decanter of Endless Water, a Handy Haversack full of Alchemal Components, and a Fabricate Spell. Use the Fabricate Spell to turn the Geyser of Water into a Geyser of Acid or Alchemal Ice, maybe. Both do 1d6 points of damage per PINT, and the Decanter of Endless Water puts out 30 GALLONS/round, for 240d6 points of cold or acid damage every round until your HH is out of components. What Tarrasque?
You sir, just made my day XD. Checking to see whether or not that actually could work right now.
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Eh, it's kind of dubious at best, plus I couldn't see it affecting more water than what was currently coming out of the decanter, meaning that you'd have to cast fabricate every round that you wanted uber damage (mind you, turning a 5th level spell into no save, no SR, target creature within 20 feet of you dies for a full round casting time is still stupidly powerful).
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You can't use one command word to turn on all of the decanters. Even if they have the same command word, it's a standard action for each item, period. "Activating a command word magic item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity." It's a standard action for each decanter.
So yes, it looks like you could build a slowly ramping firehose of death. The problem is that you either turn it off (and start ramping it up next time) or you leave it running and people hear you coming a mile away.
Also, it could lead to hilarity if the creature carrying them is killed and all of the decanters just start spraying randomly all over the place.
johnnythexxxiv wrote: As kestral pointed out, one utterance of the command word should suffice for multiple decanters so it shouldn't take any longer to start a hundred than just one. In principle, that should be fine, but the RAW describes 1 Decanter of Endless Water being Command Word Activated, and that requires a Standard Action. Multiple Decanters would require multiple Standard Actions, even if it were the same command word.
What you are talking about is a single magic item consisting of multiple Decanters all linked together, which is like a bunch of individual Decanters, but not quite the same thing, and would be a customized magic item. I'm sure that is the way a Pathfinder Society DM would interpret it. Some other DM you can ask. Since you are talking about multiple Decanters having all the same command word, it sounds like you are talking about creating multiple bottles, anyway.
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johnnythexxxiv wrote: Eh, it's kind of dubious at best, plus I couldn't see it affecting more water than what was currently coming out of the decanter, meaning that you'd have to cast fabricate every round that you wanted uber damage (mind you, turning a 5th level spell into no save, no SR, target creature within 20 feet of you dies for a full round casting time is still stupidly powerful). What makes it dubious? You have the raw materials, the spell turns the raw materials into finished goods.
The amount of water coming out of the Decanter is HUGE, that's the whole point. The area affected by the spell is even bigger: 1 cubic foot/level is 9 cubic feet for a level 9 wizard. That is much more than 30 gallons/round.
You might have to cast Fabricate and spend the gold every round, but it will inflict an average of 840 points of damage every time. So yeah, the word of the day is "broken."
Scott Wilhelm wrote: johnnythexxxiv wrote: Eh, it's kind of dubious at best, plus I couldn't see it affecting more water than what was currently coming out of the decanter, meaning that you'd have to cast fabricate every round that you wanted uber damage (mind you, turning a 5th level spell into no save, no SR, target creature within 20 feet of you dies for a full round casting time is still stupidly powerful). What makes it dubious? You have the raw materials, the spell turns the raw materials into finished goods.
The amount of water coming out of the Decanter is HUGE, that's the whole point. The area affected by the spell is even bigger: 1 cubic foot/level is 9 cubic feet for a level 9 wizard. That is much more than 30 gallons/round.
You might have to cast Fabricate and spend the gold every round, but it will inflict an average of 840 points of damage every time. So yeah, the word of the day is "broken." The part where you're assuming that the decanter can automatically spray the acid that you created with fabricate. Nowhere in the description of the spell does it say that you can turn one thing into a different alchemical compound, just a finished product, so you'd just end up with ~67 gallons of acid just sitting around somewhere without any indication that you could directly create it within the stream of water.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: johnnythexxxiv wrote: Eh, it's kind of dubious at best, plus I couldn't see it affecting more water than what was currently coming out of the decanter, meaning that you'd have to cast fabricate every round that you wanted uber damage (mind you, turning a 5th level spell into no save, no SR, target creature within 20 feet of you dies for a full round casting time is still stupidly powerful). What makes it dubious? You have the raw materials, the spell turns the raw materials into finished goods.
The amount of water coming out of the Decanter is HUGE, that's the whole point. The area affected by the spell is even bigger: 1 cubic foot/level is 9 cubic feet for a level 9 wizard. That is much more than 30 gallons/round.
You might have to cast Fabricate and spend the gold every round, but it will inflict an average of 840 points of damage every time. So yeah, the word of the day is "broken." The fact that the material for Fabricate is also the material component of the spell? You need to have it in hand (presumably all of the water you're changing). Also the water better be worth 10/3 gold a pint (for acid) and then you need to make the DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check. Seriously, it's in the spell: "M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)". Right now, to the best of my knowledge, that water has a value of zero.
If your acid is dealing damage as an acid flask, it has a set cost which you must meet 1/3 of. If it's not, then it doesn't have rules on dealing damage.
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Acid doesn't deal damage on a damage/pint basis. If it did, you would have much more prevalent problems, such as filling a bag of holding with acid and inverting it, or just dumping a bucket of acid on someone. Instead, acid uses the rules from page 442 of the core rulebook, and I'm fairly certain alchemist's ice would work the same way:
"Corrosive acid deals 1d6 points of damage per round of exposure except in the case of total immersion (such as in a vat of acid) which deals 10d6 points of damage per round. An attack with acid, such as from a hurled vial or a monster's spittle, counts as a round of exposure."
Just increasing the acid doesn't increase the damage.
Other interesting non-combat uses for the decanter:
Someone with a Ring of Water Walking carrying it behind them while running along the blast of water that it creates. Permanent 3-dimensional transport system! (Yes, it breaks the laws of physics, but it's magic, so you can do that.)
A socially awkward ranger with the favored terrain of water who carries one with him at all times, activated and pointing downward.
That could work fairly well, plus it would be substantially cheaper than most permanent fly effects. It'd be a late game strategy though since you wouldn't want to botch a roll and fall from the sky, unless you were using a ring of telekinesis or something similar to hold the decanter in place. At which point it might just be easier to cast feather fall or reduce person on yourself and use the decanter's thrust to magic broom you around everywhere (I think the general consensus was that the decanters produce around 100-150lbs of force if not modified to be more efficient)
Any other ideas on weaponizing the decanters? Would you allow it to work with clustered shots since it's a ranged attack?
You can activate multiple items with the same command word. The same way you can put fire, shock, and frost on a sword and turn them all on or off with the same command word if you please.
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So.......no.
See here
Sean K Reynolds wrote: 1. Activating an item's command word is a standard action. If your command word is "fire," and you're in initiative, you have to spend your standard action saying the word AT the sword with the proper inflection, you can't activate it for free (without spending an action).
2. You can give several actions the same command word, but that doesn't get around the standard-action-to-activate-each. It just means you only have to remember one word, not multiple words (which means your allies have an easier time using those items to save your life if you're bleeding to death).
3. Activating flaming doesn't deactivate any other abilities on the weapon. If your sword has three different command words, you can spend three standard actions activating each to have them all active at the same time. If the sword has the same command word for all three special abilities, you can spend three standard actions speaking that command word to activate the three special abilities, and have them activated at the same time.
"Until another command is given" means "... specifically to turn off that weapon special ability with the 'off' command." It doesn't mean "any command directed at the weapon turns off this ability" or "any command you speak turns off this ability" or "any command anyone in the world speaks at any time turns off this ability."
Activating each decanter is a standard action.
Walking on water from the decanter would still work at low levels out of combat, because you could take 10 on the strength check. At higher levels, it has the advantage that you could easily hover in midair, just by not moving and holding the jet of water beneath you, spraying sideways.
There's probably some way around the Strength check problem that I'm just not seeing.
Telekinesis is one easy way around the Strength check since the Strength check should either be negated entirely or replaced with a caster level check (which is substantially easier to get a +11 on) but for mundane means I'm drawing a blank too.
Claxon wrote: So.......no.
See here
Sean K Reynolds wrote: 1. Activating an item's command word is a standard action. If your command word is "fire," and you're in initiative, you have to spend your standard action saying the word AT the sword with the proper inflection, you can't activate it for free (without spending an action).
2. You can give several actions the same command word, but that doesn't get around the standard-action-to-activate-each. It just means you only have to remember one word, not multiple words (which means your allies have an easier time using those items to save your life if you're bleeding to death).
3. Activating flaming doesn't deactivate any other abilities on the weapon. If your sword has three different command words, you can spend three standard actions activating each to have them all active at the same time. If the sword has the same command word for all three special abilities, you can spend three standard actions speaking that command word to activate the three special abilities, and have them activated at the same time.
"Until another command is given" means "... specifically to turn off that weapon special ability with the 'off' command." It doesn't mean "any command directed at the weapon turns off this ability" or "any command you speak turns off this ability" or "any command anyone in the world speaks at any time turns off this ability."
Activating each decanter is a standard action.
Touche. Was this a recent ruling or was I just oblivious?
I will say that in a home game I designed a submarine, "The Scudding Duck", using 4 Decanters under the AD&D rules circa 1982. Each chair detached providing a jet ski. Not much has changed. You just need to know a bit of physics as the flow rate is "magically" set but not the pressure. Hello Mr. Newton!
Are there any rules for channeling lightning spells through the jet of water?
Nope, only fire spells are affected by casting them in water. I'd be down for a house rule for conductivity of lightning spells through water, but the rules are unfortunately silent and intentionally so (yes I know that that is an old quote and from JJ who isn't a rules guy, but as far as I can tell there hasn't been a change to underwater spellcasting since so it still stands).
Have you looked in the kineticist general discussion for how many cubes of water a hydrokineticist can move around? With a ready supply of water it is nuts.
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I don't expect that they'll still be able to move that much water at once in the final product (I would be AMAZED if they still could), so I don't think they'll matter as much as far as water combat goes shortly. Also, while dropping two and a half million tonnes of water on something sounds like it would do insane damage, it would just fall under falling object rules, which for a colossal object that isn't super dense would mean 3ish-d6 for falls under 30 ft, 5d6 if the water fell between 30 and 150ft and 10d6 if it fell from higher than that.
Having said that, the strength of their ability lies not in crushing opponents under the weight of the water, but in being able to manipulate enough water to easily fill entire rooms or even entire floors of dungeons to the brim with water, drowning everyone within. So yeah, giving one of these guys a decanter would probably be a bad (or great) idea.
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This is what happends if you are selective about when you go with RAW and when you are a bit more laid back about it.
Never be laid back with the magic rules.
That's how things get out of control in this game.
30 gallons of water is approximately 4 cubic feet. In order to fill a standard 5x5x5 foot cube you would need 31.25 rounds, or 187.5 seconds, or just over three minutes. It sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. It'd take over an hour to fill even a small 20x20x10 foot room.
I would say that Pathfinder, like any RPG, is an adult version of the child's game "Let's Pretend". The rules exist to create a sense of balance and create a level playing field that everyone can agree on. It is more about having fun, storytelling, and playing something fantastical than accurately modeling reality(that's physics) and throwing magic in.
Part of the GM's job is to make sure that things are balanced for the players and sensical to his taste (as THIS is a game). Things are never out of control as this is Imaginary(as opposed to Real). Sometimes people do make decisions with unforeseen consequences and consistency in the rules is desirable. So, if things don't make sense to the GM or a majority of the players; have a meeting, talk about it, change things so they fit your tastes.
One of the great things about home games is the ability to express your creativity and sometimes make silly things. It is not a wise position for the GM to squash player creativity and input or to be a rule nazi. Have the player write up the idea and then a list of rules/spells affected and what the impact would be (aka have him play GM). Often the downside of a change is missed and this helps to highlight where the idea is going.
Magic trumps the rules of physics in RPGs and there are some silly consequences if you have the expertise to find AND exploit them. One of the other things is you must consider is metagaming. The character's concept of the world is set by the game world and that does not include modern ideas or generally science and math past Newton's time. So a valid question is always, "How does your character know this or what is his line of reasoning to get here".
Bob Bob Bob wrote: 30 gallons of water is approximately 4 cubic feet. In order to fill a standard 5x5x5 foot cube you would need 31.25 rounds, or 187.5 seconds, or just over three minutes. It sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. It'd take over an hour to fill even a small 20x20x10 foot room. True, but as a hydrokineticist you would be able to leave the decanter running for a day and then scoop up all that water and carry it around with you indefinitely (if you don't cast spells you technically don't ever need to sleep). You don't even really need the decanter, it's just there as a backup water supply in case you know water won't be readily available.
Azothath wrote: <snip>
Magic trumps the rules of physics in RPGs and there are some silly consequences if you have the expertise to find AND exploit them. One of the other things is you must consider is metagaming. The character's concept of the world is set by the game world and that does not include modern ideas or generally science and math past Newton's time. So a valid question is always, "How does your character know this or what is his line of reasoning to get here".
Oh absolutely, that's extremely important for any game, but it's not a huge stretch of the mind to go "I can manipulate nigh infinite water and I have access to nigh infinite water thanks to a magic item. Therefore if I carry around my nigh infinite water I can probably figure out a way to deal with challenges or beings that want to deal me bodily harm. Oh wait, most of those beings can't breathe in water and I can control enough water to basically fill an entire castle to the brim, therefore if I did so they would have a hard time continuing to be a threat to me."
I started the thread looking for ways to up the combat potential of a decanter of endless water and have been shown that by far the best use of the water would be as a hydrokineticist. If their sixth level ability is too powerful (I imagine that it will still be strong enough for dungeon wrecking after they nerf it) then let's try to come up with other ways of turning a decanter of endless water into a practical weapon instead of an "I win" button. Using it as your aerial mount for a mounted charger could be entertaining, but that would definitely only be doable in a home game and I'd like to find a solution that could potentially work in any game, regardless of how strict to RAW they adhere.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
It's annoying that they left in the "accidental activation" paragraph for Command Word activation: "A command word can be a real word, but when this is the case, the holder of the item runs the risk of activating the item accidentally by speaking the word in normal conversation." So what, your magic sword is a parasite that sucks away a standard action each time you say the word "heat"? Imagine the fun you could have if Magic Mouth could activate them - as is, you'd need a group of tiny creature to manage it (a battalion of Nixie artillery - The Sprayin' Fey).
The Decanter would be more useful in traps (Cast silence on a decanter after starting it up, tossing it next to enemies then trapping them in a Sphere, for example, or Silence/Pit/Wall on top), or maybe combo effects. It'd be up to the GM, but I could see directing a geyser through a Flaming Sphere/Aggressive Thundercloud or Acid Fog adding some elemental damage, or tossing a Freezing Sphere into the mix. Or perhaps it could be used to aid with summoning water creatures (summon/launch a fiendish octopus or electric eel at someone's face)?
RAW, that command word activation kills mass use and weaponization. Anything I can think of involves some level of house-ruling or GM permissioning - changing command word activation or enhancing it via custom magic item rules. Hydrokineticist seems to be the way to go.
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I'd like to add that it never specifically says it has any kind of knockback power on the target. It can push you down, but not them. If you DM houseruled a Bullrush or trip maneuver into it, that's a way to make this functional. But right now, for 1D4 damage, my barbarian walks directly towards you in a straight line and sunders your clay pot. What do?
So multiple decanters, and/or a very high move speed, are going to be needed here.
With that in mind, you could have the whole party speak the command word for a half dozen jars at once. I'm picturing a jar as about 1 foot by 1 foot, and maybe 2 feet tall. Tip it on it's side, and put it in a wine rack set up. Six per row, six rows. 36D4. Mount the Artillery Platform to a swivelling, mobile base with spikes at corners you can set down into the ground to brace the apparatus. Your platform now deals 6D4 with a 6D4 increase each round, so long as each party member hides back to speak the word. Now, of course if you take the Leadership feat, this makes more sense. Because now you can, in theory, have 36 NPC allies crying "Bring the RAIN!!!" as a command phrase. Turret Botting has never been so much fun.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Just had an idea - is there a feasible way to set up a bunch of decanters within that framework then "seal" it, with a movable wall of force or similar? Perhaps a large container with arcane lock or similar spells that you could undo, so that they're already shooting when you pull away the cover?
You'd need ring gates, or a portal of some sort, at the bottom to let the excess water drain out, but that could be one way to get around the activation limitation.
In theory you could put as many as you could safely fit and protect from transportation inside an adamantium box, find the pressure with which water is coming from the decanters, and build a hatch or sliding door capable of withstanding the maximum pressure these decanters can output into the box. If the decanters pour that much water, regardless of pressure, then this makes a *ridiculously powerful* bomb. If they have a pressure limit, then you don't need to bother with a way to drain the water, they'll eventually pressurize the vessel and be stuck "trying" to pour water. When you open the door, the pressure drains and all of them are now firing from a single location. I'm uncertain what magic could be used to prevent the Bomb scenario if they do not have a maximum PSI. Some sort of drain assembly feels needed in that case, but you'll be flooding local farms on the way through at that point. A hole in the bottom small enough to keep the block pressurized but large enough to keep them from exceeding the burst strength of the block could be placed just above some form of planar gate, (to the elemental plane of fire is you wanna really tick off the next Elder Elemental you meet) to prevent a global flood warning.
I think I found a way around the "holding/moving an activated decanter without being knocked over" problem. This would mainly help for water walking, but it could also be useful for other things:
Encase the decanter in an ordinary small iron cage, weighing a couple of pounds. Move the cage, and thus the decanter, with mage hand. No strength check necessary. This would be a tremendous waste of resources if a person did it, but luckily there are a couple of better options.
1. Somehow get an intelligent decanter that can cast mage hand at will. Only 1,000 gp more!
2. Get the Evolved Familiar (basic magic) feat so your hedgehog or whatever can concentrate all day on moving the cage for you.
johnnythexxxiv wrote: The part where you're assuming that the decanter can automatically spray the acid that you created with fabricate... so you'd just end up with ~67 gallons of acid just sitting around somewhere That's not a big problem. Let's take a classic example of how the Fabricate Spell is meant to be used. The party is cutting its way through the woods, and it comes to a broad, swift river between them and the the other wooded bank. The wizard casts a Fabricate Spell, turning the wood from the surrounding trees into a bridge, and the party crosses safely. The spell does indeed make the assumption that you have broad liberty to place the finished product where you want it when you make the spell, otherwise you would only be able to build a bridge that was next to the river, useless. I assert that using the Fabricate Spell to transform the stream of water into a stream of acid is just as valid. Even more so: You aren't even using the spell to transport the finished goods. The Decanter itself is transporting. The Wizard's spell is transforming.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: The fact that the material for Fabricate is also the material component of the spell? You need to have it in hand (presumably all of the water you're changing). Also the water better be worth 10/3 gold a pint (for acid) and then you need to make the DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check. Seriously, it's in the spell: That's a problem, but that's why the strategy I proposed included a Handy Haversack full of Alchemal components
me wrote: What do you think of this? A Decanter of Endless Water, a Handy Haversack full of Alchemal Components, and a Fabricate Spell. I did not specify that you needed to pack sufficient quantity of components measured by the value of 240 flasks of acid.
me wrote: You might have to cast Fabricate and spend the gold every round, Actually, I did. But I already considered that in the plan, as you see.
Avoron wrote: Acid doesn't deal damage on a damage/pint basis.... Instead, acid uses the rules from page 442 of the core rulebook, and I'm fairly certain alchemist's ice would work the same way:
"Corrosive acid deals 1d6 points of damage per round of exposure except in the case of total immersion (such as in a vat of acid) which deals 10d6 points of damage per round. An attack with acid, such as from a hurled vial or a monster's spittle, counts as a round of exposure."
Well, that's a problem. Crap! A geyser of acid wouldn't do more damage than immersion in acid, would it? 10d6 is a respectable amount of damage, comparable to a Fireball cast by a level 10 wizard.
I'm having trouble finding your quote on the PRD. Can you tell me what the name of the chapter in the Core Rulebook is on page 442? I want to be able to cite it online later.
Avoron wrote: Other interesting non-combat uses for the decanter:
Someone with a Ring of Water Walking carrying it behind them while running along the blast of water that it creates. Permanent 3-dimensional transport system! (Yes, it breaks the laws of physics, but it's magic, so you can do that.)
If you were Levitating, you could use the Decanter as a sort of rocket thruster to propel you.
An Eversmoking Bottle combined with Slippers of Cloud walking is a cheaper option that accomplish much the same thing.
Another use for a Decanter would be for a Cleric with the Flotsam (subdomain of water) Domain. They carry around a portable bathtub, and fill it with water upon command. The Sift ability lets them find just about any item they want floating in enough water to immerse themselves in, up to a value of 50 gp/level. Of course, you don't need an expensive item like a Decanter' to do that. Create Water is a 0 level cleric spell, and a high level cleric should be able to fill a bathtub in 1 round.
You can't use the fabricate spell to convert water and alchemical reagents into acid. That isn't how it works. The spell converts material of one sort into a product of the same material. You can make steel into a shield. You can't make iron and charcoal into steel.
Dave Justus wrote: You can't use the fabricate spell to convert water and alchemical reagents into acid. That isn't how it works. The spell converts material of one sort into a product of the same material. You can make steel into a shield. You can't make iron and charcoal into steel.
Why not? If you have the carbon and the iron, why can't you make a steel weapon?
What do you think the craft check is for?
Alchemy is a Craft check, too.
You can't make a steel weapon from carbon and iron because the fabricate spell says you convert one material into a finished product of the same material. That is what the spell does. It doesn't combine two materials to make a finished product of a third material.
It is like asking why you don't need to roll to hit with a magic missile. The spell does what the spell says it does.
Are you also saying you can't build a house with Fabricate if it combines wood with nails? that you can't combine wood and nails to make a carpentry check?
Yes. You can make a house that is just wood. You can't make a house that is wood and metal or wood and stone.
That's, uh new.
How do you make weapons and armor, that contain different materials?
It is possible to make things without using the fabricate spell. That is why there are blacksmiths. Fabricate is really cool, but limited as well.
bbt, I guess you can't. And you can't bake a cake with Fabricate, because it contains both flour and eggs.
You'd be able to make a log cabin, but not a brick house, because you couldn't use mortar. You wouldn't be able to thatch the roof of your wooden house, because reeds are a different material from wood.
Presumably, you couldn't build a stone house with Fabricate because most stones are composed of both silicone AND oxygen.
You could weave cloth with a Fabricate Spell, but you couldn't make a cotton/poly blend, so no t-shirts.
I'm pretty sure you could use fabricate to create acid. As far as I can tell, the intent is to do anything you could do with the craft skill, but faster. And at the molecular level, you're not creating a new material any more than you would be by mixing sand and salt.
The quote is from the environmental rules section of the environment chapter. Here's the chapter from the prd, and here's the section from d20pfsrd.
You can't make a stone house out of silicon and oxygen. You can of course make a stone house out of stone.
If you have cotton/poly fabric, you can make a a t-shirt from that material. You can't make cotton blend from cotton and polyester.
It really isn't that difficult. Given one material, you can make it into something else of that same material. What you can't do is transmute one material, or several materials, into another material and you can only work with one material with a single casting.
I am not advocating the water to acid thing.
I have a real hard time with being unable to make something as simple as a spear, or even and arrow.
That sure as hell don't sit right with me.
How the hell does one read it to work that way?
Seriously, break that down, because I have a hard time actually believing that anyone really thinks it works that way.
I have a hard time believing anyone thinks otherwise. Here is what the spell says: "You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material."
I don't see how that could confuse anyone.
So, Sand to Glass, Carbon to Diamond, Apples to Apple Jack, but if you have a piece of iron and a piece of wood, you can't make an iron-tipped spear?
Carbon to Diamond would probably be an impossibly high craft check, but pretty much yes.
You could fabricate a spear shaft with wood. You could fabricate a iron spearhead from iron. Doing both would mean casting the spell twice.
I think we have derailed this thread enough. I am honestly surprised anyone has a different understanding. It probably doesn't break anything if you houserule how fabricate works in your games.
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