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There's no justification for having this spell bypass spell resistance, and in fact the only reason it does is so that it can target golems.
Honestly in general I think the spells that bypass spell resistance are too good, not just that one. Disable Construct doesn't exactly bother me because there's an opportunity cost to picking it -- you just might not run into a construct that day if you're a prepared caster, or you sacrificed a slot for it if you're spontaneous. But, like, Glitterdust? That's good for almost everything.
In the groups that I play with, the casters just naturally gravitate towards loading heavy on spells (when they pick something offensive) like Glitterdust and Create Pit. It's totally common for the party to encounter a golem or something with atrocious SR and just not even notice, because there are a ton of SR: No spells that are also just plain great for their level besides it.
I think most of the SR: No spells should probably be a level or two higher than current, so there's actually a tough choice to make more often between the most effective spell of your level or something that's a hedge against SR.
There's no justification for having this spell bypass spell resistance, and in fact the only reason it does is so that it can target golems.
Honestly in general I think the spells that bypass spell resistance are too good, not just that one. Disable Construct doesn't exactly bother me because there's an opportunity cost to picking it -- you just might not run into a construct that day if you're a prepared caster, or you sacrificed a slot for it if you're spontaneous. But, like, Glitterdust? That's good for almost everything.
In the groups that I play with, the casters just naturally gravitate towards loading heavy on spells (when they pick something offensive) like Glitterdust and Create Pit. It's totally common for the party to encounter a golem or something with atrocious SR and just not even notice, because there are a ton of SR: No spells that are also just plain great for their level besides it.
I think most of the SR: No spells should probably be a level or two higher than current, so there's actually a tough choice to make more often between the most effective spell of your level or something that's a hedge against SR.
Unfortunately SR really isn't the solution to making a wider range of spells get played.
Everyone just ends up either getting greater spell penetration or playing an elf.
SR is in this weird position where if you don't care about it due to casting SR:No or buff spells, it doesn't really matter much, and if you do care you cross off 2 feat slots, maybe play an elf instead of a human, and bring along a piercing rod/dweomer essence for the hard stuff, in which case it doesn't really matter much. The casters that actually get screwed the most by it are the unoptimized ones that don't have the tools to beat through or circumvent SR.
Many of my players have tried to use Blood Money to generate infinite money.
I've usually tried to handle it in world; The local blacksmith guild is pissed off about your Masterwork Transformation schemes, so they hire an assassin.
But recently, I've had to set the rationale on the table, and just say: "What is the point of playing Pathfinder after you have that? You want to skip to having +5 Vorpal Scimitars, +5 Adamantine Fullplate w/ Spell resistance, and filling every magic item slot with powerful wonderous items? At lvl 3?
What's the point after that? Where's the journey, and overcoming trials?
It can be really frustrating as a GM..
Unfortunately SR really isn't the solution to making a wider range of spells get played.Everyone just ends up either getting greater spell penetration or playing an elf.
What I'm getting at is: this was true at one point with people I played with, now nobody bothers anymore -- because there's so many great SR: No spells that it's pretty easy to just give up on trying to beat SR without an appreciable loss of offensive power.
Why let SR pick your race and two of your feats and one of your magic items when you don't even need to bother?
In Core the SR situation isn't great, but basically every book after adds more and more power and versatility to what you can do without any investment in beating SR. Create Pit, for example, feels too good for a level 2 spell even if it had to contend with SR. Fly beats it, of course, but at the levels you're deploying it you're basically guaranteed to find a ridiculously great use for it at some point in the day.
I've often thought that Teleport and Greater Teleport should be 6th and 8th level spells, respectively.
You get D.Door at 4th. It just makes sense.
Blood Money fo sho.
Str damage for limited wishes? And you can fix that str damage?
But remember,at its core Dark Sun is a low magic setting. As the DM, you decide how low you gob
Endure Elements (starting at FIRST LEVEL any plots having to do with enduring the elements, ala Dark Sun style stuff or whatever, gone. Even for non-casters. 50 gp for 24 hours of nope in potion form.)
I had overlooked this spell. 24 hours of "F**@ you desert" is not going to allow me to run this Dark Sun campaign like I want to. I might have to nix thi
s spell.
It still has full casters, but magic items are hard to come by. I dont really call that low magic, but instead low wealth.
Meh... I don't think any of them are all that game breaking. I'm sure some of them can be problematic if you don't limit them in some fashion, but all spells in my game are aloud with the caveat that I have the right to change things about them if they cause any problems. Therefor my players almost never try to abuse the way spells work without the fear of repercussion.
Honestly in general I think the spells that bypass spell resistance are too good, not just that one. Disable Construct doesn't exactly bother me because there's an opportunity cost to picking it -- you just might not run into a construct that day if you're a prepared caster, or you sacrificed a slot for it if you're spontaneous. But, like, Glitterdust? That's good for almost everything.
In the groups that I play with, the casters just naturally gravitate towards loading heavy on spells (when they pick something offensive) like Glitterdust and Create Pit. It's totally common for the party to encounter a golem or something with atrocious SR and just not even notice, because there are a ton of SR: No spells that are also just plain great for their level besides it.
I think most of the SR: No spells should probably be a level or two higher than current, so there's actually a tough choice to make more often between the most effective spell of your level or something that's a hedge against SR.
For me it's more about internal consistency than pure spell power. For example, Create Pit is something I think logically would ignore SR, after all you're not actually targeting a creature with it. Furthermore, if it was subject to SR how would you adjudicate it? A creature whose SR you fail to penetrate just floats above the pit?
There are spells besides Disable Construct that shouldn't ignore SR that do, in my opinion, but then again if I were to start making wholesale changes to the spell list I'd be doing more than just changing which spells are affected by SR.
I find it funny that endure elements came up, but no one has mentioned life bubble. It is a level 4 spell for druids, level 5 for the rest, which means from level 7 onwards you can generally say f!+* you to any environmental effect.
In a vacuum? No Problem.
Underwater? No Problem.
Cloudkill or any other harmful gas or vapour (any!)? No problem.
It basically invalidates any environmental effect, plus any magic fog you could possibly think of. Oh and it lasts 2 hours per level, so 14 hours as soon as you have access to it. Or just buff your entire party for 3 hours. My GM for RotRL added it to his list of banned spells, because there is no reason not to use it and nearly every adventuring day something comes up where you profit from its effects.
I find it funny that endure elements came up, but no one has mentioned life bubble. It is a level 4 spell for druids, level 5 for the rest, which means from level 7 onwards you can generally say f+#& you to any environmental effect.
In a vacuum? No Problem.
Underwater? No Problem.
Cloudkill or any other harmful gas or vapour (any!)? No problem.It basically invalidates any environmental effect, plus any magic fog you could possibly think of. Oh and it lasts 2 hours per level, so 14 hours as soon as you have access to it. Or just buff your entire party for 3 hours. My GM for RotRL added it to his list of banned spells, because there is no reason not to use it and nearly every adventuring day something comes up where you profit from its effects.
I had forgotten about the spell and while it is useful, I have seen the things it protects against rarely come up, but if I get to run a certain campaign I will have to get rid of it because it does stop most of the things I plan to include.
For me it's more about internal consistency than pure spell power. For example, Create Pit is something I think logically would ignore SR, after all you're not actually targeting a creature with it. Furthermore, if it was subject to SR how would you adjudicate it? A creature whose SR you fail to penetrate just floats above the pit?
I don't disagree with that, but if we decide the spell has to be built that way, maybe it isn't a 2nd level spell.
A level 3 version of Create Pit which somehow allowed SR would still see heavy rotation in my prepared spell list -- so maybe it's actually something like a level 4 spell. Glitterdust, same thing. It's when a bunch of spells are among the best for its level without SR being considered AND also happen to ignore SR that the whole balance of SR just falls apart.
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"Blood Money! It's a gas. Grab your fabricate scrolls with both hands and make a stash."
I hate everything teleport related...
I feel timestop is pretty OP, but disagree with Mages Disjunction (more useful for npcs than it is for pcs...)
Fireball is too good for its level I think.
Fly...
Fireball is not even all that great until you get into metamagic feats and reducing the spell slot they actually take up, but you can do that to other spells to make them more useful than they normally are, which is really the goal of metamagic feats.
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Mage's disjunction is ridiculous. Removes every buff with no check, turns off all your items and has a chance to destroy them? it turns anyone into a joe, considering that at 19th level you can have upwards of 10 buffs running at a time, conceivably more
It's more an annoyance factor than actually game breaking. Like walking into an anti-magic field and having to recalculate all of your modifiers, you now have to recalculate all of your gear that was disenchanted. Other than that it is a balanced late game spell, one which several enemies who don't have magical gear or use SLAs won't be affected by.
IIRC, my group put a bit of a nerf on mage's disjunction. No chance for item destruction unless deliberately single-targeted. However, suppression lasts (1d4) minutes and keys off a single dispel check by the caster.
Anything that makes the game play faster is good for us. I'm hoping that Unchained will provide some viable options for doing so without feat taxes.
IIRC, my group put a bit of a nerf on mage's disjunction. No chance for item destruction unless deliberately single-targeted. However, suppression lasts (1d4) minutes and keys off a single dispel check by the caster.
Anything that makes the game play faster is good for us. I'm hoping that Unchained will provide some viable options for doing so without feat taxes.
Not a bad idea. I might borrow this for my next campaign.
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Not a bad idea. I might borrow this for my next campaign.IIRC, my group put a bit of a nerf on mage's disjunction. No chance for item destruction unless deliberately single-targeted. However, suppression lasts (1d4) minutes and keys off a single dispel check by the caster.
Anything that makes the game play faster is good for us. I'm hoping that Unchained will provide some viable options for doing so without feat taxes.
The upside is that this allows the just-nuked-from-orbit PCs to beat a hasty retreat (unless they're in a giant dimensional anchor) to wait out the suppression and reslather the buffs rather than having most/all of the low Will save characters' gear blown to kingdom come.
Granted, one can nuke most gear into ash via chain lightning, but that's a different discussion. ;)
Blood Money. Because you can make the effective cost 0.
Fabricate. Because it reduces months of labor to an instant, and makes craft skills stupid choices to take.
Most of the Summon Line. For overall versatility and complete lack of investment in any of the summoned creatures, i.e. no consequences.
The Planar Ally Line. For the same reasons as summons, except you get a stronger creature and the costs are usually hand-waved.
Wish and Lesser Wish, for the ability to subvert casting times.
Gate. For more Summons abuse.
The charms/dominate lines, all of them. Takes a character and does more then indispose them, turns them completely against the party. If you believe Prot/Evil defense against these spells is too strong, then you've never been subjected to what these spells actually do when they succeed against you...or a wizard abuses them. i.e. no consequences, once again.
Aroden's Spellbane, as a spell with no solution to getting rid of it, except itself.
Simulacarum, for much the same reason as Summons, except you can pick a wider variety of what to abuse. Poor wording doesn't help.
The teleport/plane travel line, because there are no defenses against it. Seriously, why does it take a 4th level spell to stop a dimensional specialist from using his level 0 ability to pop 10'? It should be easier to STOP someone from playing dimensional/ethereal/incorporeal games then it should be to play the games. While it may be cool, it should be HARD to get around 3 dimensions, and EASY to stop someone from doing so.
Ditto just conjuring/summoning creatures in anywhere you want to without consequence. It totally blows believability that this is so easy and there's no massive defense against it.
Ditto stopping magical flying. It should be easier to stop something from flying magically then it should be to fly magically. Again, strains creditability.
On a side note, the lack of non-magical ways and means that either are straight up better then magic, or shut it down completely. I.e. the reason making something by hand is better then Fabrication.
==Aelryinth
Fireball is not even all that great until you get into metamagic feats and reducing the spell slot they actually take up, but you can do that to other spells to make them more useful than they normally are, which is really the goal of metamagic feats.
Best range, good area effect, I just feel it should be level four, not three.
I guess that isn't TOO overpowered, but still...
I mean, what other damage spell at level three is as popular? Lightning bolt? pfffff....
It all depends on what you are fighting.
In 3.5, there was an acid cone level 3 attack, too. Otherwise, the first cone effect you had to wait until level 5, with Cone of Cold.
Re: See Invisibility vs Glitterdust: See Invis is a precast detection spell with a long duration. It's meant to detect invisible people who are shadowing you, ahead of you, or such. It's meant to find invisible people who you do not know are there.
Glitter dust is a combat spell. It's meant to reveal hidden and invisible things that MIGHT be around you. It's a completely different effect.
See Invisibility is the spell you have up so you know exactly when it's right to cast Glitterdust in combat. The fact that Glitterdust is also perfectly effective on its own as a blinding agent is just extra.
Glitterdust is basically a hopped-up Faerie Fire with an offensive use.
==Aelryinth
people must play Fabricate differently than I would rule it - I would say that without a high Craft skill you can only make relatively crude things. And remember that it doesn't actually make things worth more (in terms of raw materials - as the value of the materials has to be the same as the value of the objects created.
That said it is certainly faster than crafting by hand - but it is actually most costly - as I would use the VALUE of the goods as the basis for what you need to use with the fabricate spell not the CRAFTING cost of those objects (which is always lower). And I would still as the spell notes require a high enough level of Craft skill to make a higher quality object.
(using Blood Money to power Fabricate does create value out nothing - but that's why I would generally make Blood Money a rare spell not commonly known and only available as a reward for lots of research and quests - i.e. only available at a fairly high level and given as part of party loot - I might further restrict it for the case of Fabricate to creating a more limited range of materials (at least in terms of volume). Or for most home games I would probably just outright ban the spell.
Fabricate seems less abusive (w/o Blood Money) In that it requires you to have the materials needed to make the good ahead of time and the craft skill to know how to make the object (I would also say you need that craft skill to know ALL of the materials you need to make a given object - i.e. wood, metal for nails, rope or reeds for rope etc if you want to craft a wagon. I think in the right campaign it is a really nifty spell and very in keeping with higher level magic.
You would be correct about Fabricate requiring Craft skill, it says so right in the spell:
"You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship."
Wanna make a wooden fence that looks like crap? No problem.
Wanna make a nice wooden statue? Roll the die...
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people must play Fabricate differently than I would rule it - I would say that without a high Craft skill you can only make relatively crude things. And remember that it doesn't actually make things worth more (in terms of raw materials - as the value of the materials has to be the same as the value of the objects created.
That said it is certainly faster than crafting by hand - but it is actually most costly - as I would use the VALUE of the goods as the basis for what you need to use with the fabricate spell not the CRAFTING cost of those objects (which is always lower). And I would still as the spell notes require a high enough level of Craft skill to make a higher quality object.
(using Blood Money to power Fabricate does create value out nothing - but that's why I would generally make Blood Money a rare spell not commonly known and only available as a reward for lots of research and quests - i.e. only available at a fairly high level and given as part of party loot - I might further restrict it for the case of Fabricate to creating a more limited range of materials (at least in terms of volume). Or for most home games I would probably just outright ban the spell.
Fabricate seems less abusive (w/o Blood Money) In that it requires you to have the materials needed to make the good ahead of time and the craft skill to know how to make the object (I would also say you need that craft skill to know ALL of the materials you need to make a given object - i.e. wood, metal for nails, rope or reeds for rope etc if you want to craft a wagon. I think in the right campaign it is a really nifty spell and very in keeping with higher level magic.
You would be correct about Fabricate requiring Craft skill, it says so right in the spell:
"You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship."
Wanna make a wooden fence that looks like crap? No problem.
Wanna make a nice wooden statue? Roll the die...
Oh no! A class that will have 9+ skill points in short order is called on to make an INT based check. However will they hit the flat 20 masterwork craft DC? If only they had a spell that say added +5 to their craft check. At say.... 1st level. But there's no way such a class exists that can cast both Blood Money and Fabricate.
(The above is sarcasm.)
Not a bad idea. I might borrow this for my next campaign.IIRC, my group put a bit of a nerf on mage's disjunction. No chance for item destruction unless deliberately single-targeted. However, suppression lasts (1d4) minutes and keys off a single dispel check by the caster.
Anything that makes the game play faster is good for us. I'm hoping that Unchained will provide some viable options for doing so without feat taxes.
Ditto, I'm borrowing this for the SerpSkull campaign I'm currently running.
Rycaut,
You are houseruling Fabricate away from what it is, which means you acknowledge it has a problem.
Fabricate is basically the skill process of creating an item, accomplished in a ten minute casting time. Ys, you need all the raw materials. no, you don't need a skill rank...you need a list or a recipe.
Yes, you need ranks in the skill to take 10 on it. However, there is no Craft skill that has a DC higher then 20, and 20 is, of course, the Masterwork roll.
A human wizard, starting with a 16, adding +2 for human and +2 for levels 4 and 8,with a +2 Int head band, hits a 22 Int for +6 on crafting rolls. By investing ONE RANK in any Craft skill, which is a class skill, he gains another +4 and can take 10 to reach 20.
Ding, automatic success as soon as he gets the spell, for one skill rank.
Even cheesier, he swaps off his headband of +2 Int(stealth) and puts on his 'crafting headband' of +2 Int (Craft Armor), and suddenly has 9 ranks in the skill after 24 hours, and can hit a 28. At high levels, he probably owns half a dozen headbands like this for the skills he wants, if need be and he doesn't want to use his own skill ranks.
With a 20 Int, your 9th level wizard has a bonus 5th level spell, and can make two suits of adamantine full plate armor in twenty minutes, a task that would take a 10th level armorsmith with even more bonuses from helpers, masterwork tools, and the like, six months to accomplish, at least. The Raw Materials cost will be exactly the same as the armorsmith, but the wizard doesn't have to invest six months of labor, he has to invest TWENTY MINUTES.
And that's how Fabricate works.
Any sort of crafter who has this spell is literally saving themselves days, weeks, or even months of labor to accomplish what can be done in mere seconds. A simple item that cast Fabricate 1/day would massively accelerate the production capability of any crafter, and is the only sensible investment they should make once they can afford it. Need a custom masterwork sword? It'll be ready tomorrow. Suits of armor? I can have thirty suits of full plate for you in a month, if you like. Special materials? Not a problem. Cut the most valuable gem for you? Done, come back tomorrow to see perfection.
The spell should have been rewritten to replace exactly one day's crafting rolls. This would allow you to make cheap, easily produced stuff practically instantaneously, while providing little benefit for hugely valuable stuff other then a time accelerant.
It also should have expressly denied the ability to make masterwork, and made it plain that these are the equivalent of rubber-stamped, mass-produced items that cannot be customized, being the crafted equivalent of summoned monsters and totally identifiable as being products of Fabrication.
I mean, just imagine stuff like this in our own world. You wouldn't have a production line. You'd just gather the stuff all in one place and POOF, new car. No need for a foundry or machine shop. Gather the metal, POOF, all the parts you want. No labor required.
Ugh.
===Aelryinth
You'd need a caster level of 50-100+ (depending on the make and model) to make a car with Fabricate! 1 cubic foot per level when working with minerals, after all.
Technically, you'd just need a Widened Fabricate (which would be level 15, for 8x the area of effect = effective CL 120). Which drives up the cost some, but since you'd have no labor cost, why would you care?
Alternatively, just use multiple Fabricates...one for the engine, which is the most labor intensive, a couple for parts of the frame, another for the under carriage, another couple for the inside, another for the wiring...
After all, you're going to computerized processing lines to remove labor. Now let's just remove time with multiple fabrication lines. As long as you can get the average time/car down to under ten minutes by using multiple lines, you're good to go.
==Aelryinth
Well, that brings us to the real reason fabricate isn't especially broken, IMO: surely these level 9+ wizards have better things to do with their time than sit around making random consumer goods - if you're requiring a separate fabricate for each component, you're talking about a lot of spells being cast for any kind of complicated item. In most games there probably aren't enough of them, barring an Eberron-like society that takes them into account, to provide all this 'free' labor anyway. It's a convenience for PCs, but it won't derail a setting.
No, the reason it's not broken is because it is willfully ignored in the setting.
There's no way any intelligent person worth their salt would fail to pick up on the immense utility value of this spell. Every 9th level caster alive would use this spell to save tens of thousands of gold in costs. Like efreeti wish binding, simulacra slave labor, and Planar Allies, they ignore the problems with the spell because if you use it like it would be used in a real world, it breaks the setting.
Planar Ally, you ask? Sure, call in a Torch Archon. Spell like ability, Continual Flame at will. In one night, you can light up an entire city with ONE of these little guys. There's no city with a 6th level priest that shouldn't have street lights everywhere.
Etc etc.
==Aelryinth
I think you're wrong, for basically the same reason that the classic article in PF#8 has for remove disease not ending plagues. There just aren't going to be enough level 9+ casters to have a significant effect on the volume of stuff in the world. It might make a difference in the ease of making high end luxury items that don't also require any artistic quality, sure - but supply constraints on things like fancy metal that fell from the sky will take care of most of that issue. And the rest of it seems fine for what you see in most fantasy novels or whatever anyway. Hey, that wizard has a fancy tower with lots of amazing stuff in it! Well... yeah.
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and you're wrong.
Look at adamantine full plate.
13,500 gp to make. By the rules, making a set of adamantine full plate will take a VERY skilled armorsmith more then six months to churn out.
In that same time period, a mage can make 360 suits of adamantine armor.
In short, no smiths are going to be making adamantine armor. They can't afford to invest the time into something, and one mage can meet the demand of an entire nation.
Second, plagues are a problem because the demands spikes to a need for thousands in a very short period of time, and then falls off.
The solution to a plague is very simple. You make a magic item that casts Resist Disease one/person/day.
The plague victims line up, get cured, and go home. No dental problems, mental health deterioration, arthritis, liver ailments, cancer, etc for the ENTIRE POPULATION. Health care savings = massive.
If it fails to work because of a high DC, come back tomorrow and try again.
And that magic item? It can potentially be around FOREVER.
But there is a HUGE difference between a plague, and crafted items.
Let's use something simpler, like masterwork chainmail, value 300 gp. Note that the wizard does not need Masterwork Transformation to make the chainmail, since he'll automatically pass the check.
Let's give a 5th level smith with the right feats, tools and helpers like +20 to the crafting roll. With a DC 10, he gets 30, x the Craft DC of 20, = 600 silver per week, or 60 gp. It will take him 5 weeks to craft Masterwork Chainmail if he doesn't rush things.
5 weeks is 35 days. In that same time period, our wizard could make 70 suits of Masterwork Chainmail (2/day), costing him 7000 gp (1/3 the 300 gp sale value), selling for 21,000 gp, for a net gain of 14,000 gp, and 20 minutes of his time each day.
At 60 gp/week, it will take our level 5 smith 225 weeks, or more then 4 years, to complete that Adamantine full plate armor. If he raises the DC to 30 to accelerate his work, his pace is now 90 gp/week, and it takes him 150 weeks. 3 years. 1095 days.
The wizard replaces 70 Armorsmiths worth of production for high end chainmail. He replaces 2,190 of them if we're talking Adamantine Full Plate.
Note: I'm using a 5th level smith as the 'average' smith. Sure, a 15th level smith with magic items can work faster. The Fabricator is only going to be replacing HUNDREDS of such magnificently, 1/kingdom smiths, instead of thousands of them. Do you really believe that even a Mythic Crafter could compete with someone who can churn out 27,000 gp worth of armor every day? And that's a fresh, wet-behind the ears level 9 wizard, not some level 18 Archmage casting 7 of these spells a day before Pearls.
A magic item that casts Fabricate 1/day at 9th level using the craft mods of whoever uses the item costs 9th level x 5th level spell x 2000 gp, divided by 5 for 1 use/day, = 18,000 gp.
It pays for itself in two days of making adamantine full plate, and from then on is pure profit. If you can get an order for tens sets of adamantine full plate from the hellknights, you can afford to upgrade your Fabricate Toy to 5 times/day. Hilarity would then ensue as you put 2190 smiths worth of production to work, wiping out the high end work department for smiths across the entire country. Yes, you could very, very easily keep an entire kingdom supplied with masterwork armor and weapons BY YOURSELF. Remember, all this masterwork stuff you are making is going to be around for years and years. You've got time to build up a freaking arsenal at a fraction of the cost in time and labor of any other smith.
And we won't even get into the destruction of high end jewelers and gemcrafting. By the rules, that is.
Oh, and one more thing. You have to have the raw materials on hand. You don't need tools, which aren't involved in the making.
So those extremely rare forges that can actually reach heats high enough to work adamantine? Maybe 3, 4 of them on the continent? Nope, don't need to work at them. Just wave your hands and done.
Fabrication is realistically totally broken, and so avoided like the plague in all things. It's a 'fun spell', there to help PC's make something they want right now, and totally avoids the realism of what havoc it would wreak in the high end Craft market.
That's why Fabrication should have either an a) time limit on how much Crafting it replaces (I favor 1 day) or b) an absolute limit on how much GP work it can do (I again favor 1 day's worth of GP production, or maybe 1 gp/level, or what have you). Not having either of these limitations, with no cap, is what breaks this spell.
Fabricate destroys time investment in labor. It should be brought back down to earth.
When does it break? when it's doing the work of ten crafters? 20? 30? Sure, it's a complete waste if you're dealing with stuff a Crafter can churn out in one day...in our example above, that would be anything worth less then about 6.5 gp, as two Fabricates/day would basically be around 90 gp of production.
Where's your cut off? Ten crafters? Everything 65 gp or higher is best done by Fabricate. 20? 50?
What happens when a Wizard who can make masterwork items faster then a smith can make normal ones has saturated the masterwork market? He starts lowering the price and shrinking the normal market, because he's still making money, so why not?
That's how realistic economics work.
This kind of thing is why writers prefer to work with fighters, rogues, and classes with severely constrained spellcasting. Because if you actually use the spell list like a wise or intelligent person would, you very quickly start to break things.
==Aelryinth
Using fabricate to make low-grade junk is a waste of effort and material. All it does is convert the unfinished material into finished material in a hurry.
If you want so-so to decent items, using this untrained is all fine and dandy (taking 10 resulting in 15 or less). However, the casters are 9th level or higher. They're going to need fabricate for such things as a whole gob of acid flasks or whathaveyou, items that require use of the better aspects of the Craft skill at a much higher DC. The really good stuff that gets outrageous amounts of money doesn't come from a 10-15 DC check.
fabricate encourages one to take sufficient Craft to make whatever kind of item you want to be able to use (especially Alchemy, both for the usual alchemical items as well as assorted poisons) or enchant (everything else). Your masterwork tools don't help as you're not using the tools to aid your check - the spell is making the object(s), not the tools in your hands. Taking 10 is fine unless you're doing this during a storm at sea aboard ship for some bizarre reason (or some similarly disruptive circumstance). Excepting alchemical items, very high Strength composite longbows or certain construct bodies you won't normally require better than +10 Craft bonus.
2 ranks per skill with a 20 Intelligence gives an item crafting wizard a substantial repertoire, especially a construct crafting wizard.
One could carry [insert value] gp worth of "alchemical raw materials" in a bag of holding, then use those materials with a bit of a rest in a dungeon to take advantage of magical or mundane reconnaissance. Or, ya know, whip up a nasty multiple-dose satchel of inhaled poison, or a batch of pellet grenades, or anything else you can think of.
I think the biggest mistake being made is applying a modern mindset to most campaigns. At the same level a wizard is able to fabricate, they can also learn teleport. What does one *care* about the masses' desires for TV dinners when you and 3 of your closest friends can instantaneously appear on a beach in the Caribbean?
You want to make a blessed book? 2 ranks Craft (books), 1 casting of fabricate and the raw materials of "masterwork book" (call it 100 gp for the typical raw materials cost), take 10 on the Craft check and *pouf*, you can start enchanting it immediately.
Or, you can take a month and a half to two months to make it by hand. *Shrugs*.
The rules are not realistic. They assume proper materials, tools, and time. Call if fluff all you want, but expecting those things in every scenario is far from realistic. Basically, the rules only work if the assumptions the rules are based on apply to the situation at hand. The second you apply them to a setting, they are automatically constrained. It's no different than working with mathematical infinities and then trying to apply those theories to real world needs.
How many people have 13,500 gp lying around to spend on a non-magical suit of armor? Very very few, even amongst the wealthy. Quite a few of the people that have that kind of money will be just as happy to pay an assassin to grease the wizard after getting the goody to get their money back from his corpse.
Supply and demand has to first be considered. How much demand IS there for body armor of that cost, when for nearly a tenth of the cost of that one suit you can equip ten warriors with fitted suits of full plate.
And that's the other rub - full plate has to be properly fitted, or its borderline worthless.
Lastly, where are you getting the adamantine from? It isn't typically considered commonly available...
Using fabricate to make low-grade junk is a waste of effort and material. All it does is convert the unfinished material into finished material in a hurry.
If you want so-so to decent items, using this untrained is all fine and dandy (taking 10 resulting in 15 or less). However, the casters are 9th level or higher. They're going to need fabricate for such things as a whole gob of acid flasks or whathaveyou, items that require use of the better aspects of the Craft skill at a much higher DC. The really good stuff that gets outrageous amounts of money doesn't come from a 10-15 DC check.
fabricate encourages one to take sufficient Craft to make whatever kind of item you want to be able to use (especially Alchemy, both for the usual alchemical items as well as assorted poisons) or enchant (everything else). Your masterwork tools don't help as you're not using the tools to aid your check - the spell is making the object(s), not the tools in your hands. Taking 10 is fine unless you're doing this during a storm at sea aboard ship for some bizarre reason (or some similarly disruptive circumstance). Excepting alchemical items, very high Strength composite longbows or certain construct bodies you won't normally require better than +10 Craft bonus.
2 ranks per skill with a 20 Intelligence gives an item crafting wizard a substantial repertoire, especially a construct crafting wizard.
One could carry [insert value] gp worth of "alchemical raw materials" in a bag of holding, then use those materials with a bit of a rest in a dungeon to take advantage of magical or mundane reconnaissance. Or, ya know, whip up a nasty multiple-dose satchel of inhaled poison, or a batch of pellet grenades, or anything else you can think of.
I think the biggest mistake being made is applying a modern mindset to most campaigns. At the same level a wizard is able to fabricate, they can also learn teleport. What does one *care* about the masses' desires for TV dinners when you and 3 of...
As I noted above, that 9th level wizard needs ONE RANK in the appropriate skill to hit a 20 DC.
If he has the spell that grants +5 to a skill check, there is literally no non-magical item he cannot make with a simple 1 skill rank. He doesn't need to 'invest ranks' in a skill.He is a money-making machine with just this one spell. All he has to do is find a market for his goods.
=+Aelryinth