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....
That makes fireball the best damage spell for its level, and it is in the school designed to do damage, so it should be better than the other spells, and lightening bolt is there as another way to harm people. Once a group drops out of "fireball formation" it puts them into lightening bolt formation. Somebody is likely to be in a direct line with someone else.
The spell's naked damage is not impressive unless you really really high, and then if they make the reflex save you have almost wasted a spell slot.
It is definitely not worth a level 4 slot. I would just use something like one of the fog spells to slow an advancing enemy down or summon monsters etc etc.
However I guess this is a style of play issue so I will agree to disagree.
edit: That should say "direct damage spell" because haste still has the ability to give the party more damage.
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...
The only limit for the wizard is having someone to buy his stuff.
however, if it's known he can INSTANTLY (or, one day delay) get you what you want, why in the world would any nobleman wait 6 months to 3 years for a suit of armor?
In short, every crafter who would be potentially working on high end stuff is suddenly very out of business. If the wizard wants to do other high end stuff, like alchemical items, or jewelry, or gemstones, or ANYTHING...one skill rank is all he needs.
And if it's known that you'll murder the people who craft for you instead of paying you, nobody is going to work for you. Period. There's also the fact you're killing a wizard, who likely has money, and friends who are going to come after you. And the 13,500 gp you might have saved isn't going to hire enough muscle to stop them. realistically, it's not going to happen.
It's masterwork adamantine armor, and you've got the skill rank. You can either fit it to the appropriate person, or get the measurements and make it appropriately. or they can spend a few hundred gp to resize it. If it's going to be enhanced magically (and for 1000 gp, why not?), you don't even really have to worry about that!
Fabricate breaks economic reality, it's as simple as that.
1) There's no limit on the GP amount of work it can instantly accomplish.
2) Corollary: There's no top limit to the time value/amount of labor it can accomplish in ten minutes.
3) It has no dependence on tools, which by themselves can be incredibly expensive or situational.
4) It does not have, nor need to, scale with skill ranks. 1 skill rank is all you need to get what you want done. No further investment is required, and magical Intelligence headbands can waive even that.
5) The only restriction is SIZE. And 9 cubic feet covers all sorts of insanely expensive things that can be accomplished with a pass of your hands.
The problem, Turin, isn't that there isn't enough market to sell the stuff, or enough raw material to make the stuff.
It's that realistically, no Crafter but a wizard is going to bother to put multiple skill ranks, feats, invest in tools and apprentices, to do what the wizard can do hundreds of times faster then they can with a wave of his hands.
Broken.
==Aelryinth
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, Aelryinth, fabricate doesn't break the economy. Your theorycrafting does.
No, fabricate breaks it. It's just totally ignored what it would do, along with other stuff. "We'll agree to ignore this spell's effects as doing anything other then making something the party will use without having to go through the time of actually making it" and implications thereof.
Which is quite standard for game worlds, really.
==Aelryinth
No, fabricate breaks it. It's just totally ignored what it would do, along with other stuff. "We'll agree to ignore this spell's effects as doing anything other then making something the party will use without having to go through the time of actually making it" and implications thereof.
Which is quite standard for game worlds, really.
==Aelryinth
- Not every wizard who can cast it will know about fabricate
- Not every wizard will have the required materials
- Not every wizard will want to use it as you describe
- Not every wizard will have the freedom to use it as you describe
- Not every wizard will who can cast it and know about it will be in every city
- Not every wizard is a capitalist
- Not every wizard who is a capitalist will live long enough to do what you describe
... so forth and so on
So, it's your theorycrafting at work that makes your scenario plausible. Everything we've seen about Golarion makes it incredibly improbable. If your setting works like that, great. It takes a lot of assumptions for it to have the effects you describe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Kestral: you're also making the assumption that you can treat the magic item costing guidelines as a hard and fast rule, which they explicitly say they are not. Continuously usable fabricate gloves pretty obviously fall under the same "DM says hell no" clause as the continuously true striking mace in the example of magic item costing that they give.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
tl;dr: The world breaks if the Wizard has nothing to do but sit in his tower. Even if there's only one such Wizard in the world. The world stays intact only under the assumption that every 9th level Wizard in the world is too busy to make money.
This is probably why every time, yes, every time, I've seen someone ask questions like this in the James Jacobs thread the answer is invariably "they have better things to do."
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
As others have pointed out, there are an awful lot of assumptions behind this theory. That there is demand for the product is one of them , perhaps even chiefest of them.
Aristocrats aren't generally known for "DC 20, just made the check" *anything* at that price range. It should look as awesome as its price tag.
Kestral: you're also making the assumption that you can treat the magic item costing guidelines as a hard and fast rule, which they explicitly say they are not. Continuously usable fabricate gloves pretty obviously fall under the same "DM says hell no" clause as the continuously true striking mace in the example of magic item costing that they give.
To be fair, the constant true strike mace is impossible per true strike. Once they make a hit, the effect is used up. You'd need use activated which is a standard before every attack. That's not too useful.
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
As others have pointed out, there are an awful lot of assumptions behind this theory. That there is demand for the product is one of them , perhaps even chiefest of them.
Aristocrats aren't generally known for "DC 20, just made the check" *anything* at that price range. It should look as awesome as its price tag.
No, there's not.
There's demand, because basically it applies to EVERY craft with an end result over, say, 100 gp. Any wizard can just start making money.
==Aelryinth
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
As others have pointed out, there are an awful lot of assumptions behind this theory. That there is demand for the product is one of them , perhaps even chiefest of them.
Aristocrats aren't generally known for "DC 20, just made the check" *anything* at that price range. It should look as awesome as its price tag.
No, there's not.
There's demand, because basically it applies to EVERY craft with an end result over, say, 100 gp. Any wizard can just start making money.
==Aelryinth
Then you run against the ultimate determinant: the GM.
Then you run against the ultimate determinant: the GM.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
As others have pointed out, there are an awful lot of assumptions behind this theory. That there is demand for the product is one of them , perhaps even chiefest of them.
Aristocrats aren't generally known for "DC 20, just made the check" *anything* at that price range. It should look as awesome as its price tag.
No, there's not.
There's demand, because basically it applies to EVERY craft with an end result over, say, 100 gp. Any wizard can just start making money.
==Aelryinth
And they would say no because it's broken, then? So Fabricate belongs in this thread.
No, fabricate breaks it. It's just totally ignored what it would do, along with other stuff. "We'll agree to ignore this spell's effects as doing anything other then making something the party will use without having to go through the time of actually making it" and implications thereof.
Which is quite standard for game worlds, really.
==Aelryinth
- Not every wizard who can cast it will know about fabricate
- Not every wizard will have the required materials
- Not every wizard will want to use it as you describe
- Not every wizard will have the freedom to use it as you describe
- Not every wizard will who can cast it and know about it will be in every city
- Not every wizard is a capitalist
- Not every wizard who is a capitalist will live long enough to do what you describe
... so forth and so on
So, it's your theorycrafting at work that makes your scenario plausible. Everything we've seen about Golarion makes it incredibly improbable. If your setting works like that, great. It takes a lot of assumptions for it to have the effects you describe.
1) wrong. Spellcraft says they ALL know about it. DC 11 Arcane Knowledge check.
2) What required materials? It all depends on what they want to craft. Unlimited adamantine? Sure. What about masterwork plate for 1650 gp? 550 gp raw materials you can conceivably get ANYWHERE. If they can't get it, no smith can get it.3) While this is true, it only takes one caster to drive dozens of crafters out of the high end market.
4) It only takes one. I'm not talking about ALL of them. It only takes ONE in an area to hugely affect things. IF it were ALL of them...Gods help the Crafters.
5) It doesn't have to be every city. It takes one to put dozens of crafters out of work, which can extend to cities hundreds of miles away. If we're talking adamantine armor, any place where crafters converge to operate the few forges that can work adamantine are going to be impacted by wizards making everything they can hundreds of times quicker.
6) Wizards don't need to ALL BE capitalists. You need ONE in a region. And once the sheer amount of money he can earn for ten minutes of work becomes obvious, others will do the same.
You're honestly saying that an entire Guild of wizards, of which several exist in just the inner sea, will be completely ignorant of the economic implications of using one spell, when they are organized just to get economic leverage for use of their skills?
That's just denial in all forms.
7) Only takes one, again.
It's not theorycrafting...it's acknowledging the spell is broken, and the implications thereof are being totally ignored.
That's all it is.
Your list of unrealistic expectations fly in the face of what the actions of just one wizard using this spell could accomplish, let alone an organization who would naturally have the power of the spell spread and proliferate.
So the counter examples are far more believable then your arguments, because it really only takes one...and in a world with thousands of years of spellcasting, you're trying to argue that none of these fantastically intelligent and organized spellcasters understood something which was figured out by people far less smart on our world in mere months?
==Aelryinth
The "uppity wizard" is going to make a LOT of very wealthy people with very wealthy, socially influential friends very, VERY mad. A 9th level wizard cannot begin to handle the for-hire heavy hitters he's likely to be on the receiving end of. Not with the kind of money that wizard's desired clientele have at their disposal to hire.
If nothing else, self preservation keeps him from doing something that upset a very large number of apple carts.
The "uppity wizard" is going to make a LOT of very wealthy people with very wealthy, socially influential friends very, VERY mad. A 9th level wizard cannot begin to handle the for-hire heavy hitters he's likely to be on the receiving end of. Not with the kind of money that wizard's desired clientele have at their disposal to hire.
If nothing else, self preservation keeps him from doing something that upset a very large number of apple carts.
And the wizard can't hire their own band of assassin bodyguards with the money they made from 10 minute work days because?
The 'uppity wizards' have, combined, enough firepower to make it very, very bad for people who just think they can get together and eliminate them.
That, after all, is why guilds of wizards exist in the first place.
So, the first one who tried this might succeed, and then this bunch of hideously intelligent people with access to divination magic, otherworldly intelligences, and with major chips on their shoulder show why you don't piss off the bunch of local spellcasters who know how to feed your soul to demons directly.
Ergo, the money and power thing goes both ways. You're also considerably downplaying the fact that these influential and wealthy people are also going to absolutely loving having nigh-instant access to high end craft. This goes especially true for governments. After all, little people wait to have their wishes fulfilled. Fabricate gets you in very, very easily to the instant wish fulfillment crowd.
==Aelryinth
And the wizard can't hire their own band of assassin bodyguards with the money they made from 10 minute work days because?The "uppity wizard" is going to make a LOT of very wealthy people with very wealthy, socially influential friends very, VERY mad. A 9th level wizard cannot begin to handle the for-hire heavy hitters he's likely to be on the receiving end of. Not with the kind of money that wizard's desired clientele have at their disposal to hire.
If nothing else, self preservation keeps him from doing something that upset a very large number of apple carts.
Again, GM rule applies.
Consideration for the campaign as a PLAYER applies.
This wizard can hire a band. The multiple cities' worth of economically interconnected similar level and higher level NPCs can hire the best of the best. Using the best of the best. Before this wizard's economic muscle builds too fast. A few dozen darts coated with tears of death WILL kill him, in all likelihood.
Demand for the goods applies. Just because he can *make* a suit worth 13,500 gp in one day doesn't necessitate that he has a paying customer every day. At best he's selling one or maybe two suits a year. If the wizard is a PC, his profit margin is much, much lower than it is for an NPC.
Fabricate can only be abused if the GM allows it to happen.
The 'uppity wizards' have, combined, enough firepower to make it very, very bad for people who just think they can get together and eliminate them.
That, after all, is why guilds of wizards exist in the first place.
So, the first one who tried this might succeed, and then this bunch of hideously intelligent people with access to divination magic, otherworldly intelligences, and with major chips on their shoulder show why you don't piss off the bunch of local spellcasters who know how to feed your soul to demons directly.
Ergo, the money and power thing goes both ways. You're also considerably downplaying the fact that these influential and wealthy people are also going to absolutely loving having nigh-instant access to high end craft. This goes especially true for governments. After all, little people wait to have their wishes fulfilled. Fabricate gets you in very, very easily to the instant wish fulfillment crowd.
==Aelryinth
Your earlier point was about one of these, not an entire guild. Which puts it under GM purview.
And the wizard can't hire their own band of assassin bodyguards with the money they made from 10 minute work days because?The "uppity wizard" is going to make a LOT of very wealthy people with very wealthy, socially influential friends very, VERY mad. A 9th level wizard cannot begin to handle the for-hire heavy hitters he's likely to be on the receiving end of. Not with the kind of money that wizard's desired clientele have at their disposal to hire.
If nothing else, self preservation keeps him from doing something that upset a very large number of apple carts.
Again, GM rule applies.
Consideration for the campaign as a PLAYER applies.
This wizard can hire a band. The multiple cities' worth of economically interconnected similar level and higher level NPCs can hire the best of the best. Using the best of the best. Before this wizard's economic muscle builds too fast. A few dozen darts coated with tears of death WILL kill him, in all likelihood.
Demand for the goods applies. Just because he can *make* a suit worth 13,500 gp in one day doesn't necessitate that he has a paying customer every day. At best he's selling one or maybe two suits a year. If the wizard is a PC, his profit margin is much, much lower than it is for an NPC.
Fabricate can only be abused if the GM allows it to happen.
Isn't "This spell requires the GM to control" literally the definition of an overpowered spell?
And really, if nobody wants a 13,500 gp suit of adamantine armor and the Wizard wants to use his spell slots, offer to make the local farmer a new plow for 50% over cost. You don't need a high-value item every day. You just need volume.
At the lower gp for services here, it's no ticket to massive wealth either. ;)
Not that hard to subvert, especially not for a strong willed, evil type.
It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for certain powerful, evil types to believe that "your best interests" are best served by any and all other servants being eliminated, because you can't trust any of those others.
The thing about having a tiger by the tail is that you can never let go....
"But master, I know that I acted in your best interests. Your wife and children were merely a lever by which your enemies could work against you. With them gone, you are now more powerful and more free to pursue your goals. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt you will come to know this for the truth that it is. Believe in me, master; I am the only one you can trust."
I can't see how that doesn't breaks several of the commands I suggested. Depending on what screwy logic you use which ones it is exactly vary, but it does break them.
Act and think as you believe I would want you to think is the big one, though.
Interpreting what it thinks you want may be difficult if you're thrall is a sociopath. It will love you...to death.
*ba bum baaaaaaa*
Blood Money and Simulacrum are no-question broken. A GM shutting down a custom magic item that's costed funny is literally part of the rules in the magic item chapter, though. They're not really comparable, to me.
Now the fabricate spell on it's own without magic item shenanigans is maybe another question; I'm not really convinced, mostly because no game I run has a terribly large supply of 9th+ level wizards sitting around with nothing else demanding their time and resources, nor infinite supplies of special materials. I can see an argument that if you're playing a Forgotten Realms-like game where there's a 17th level wizard retired in every podunk village there might be an issue.
Using fabricate as a player to solve a problem in the relative short-term is one thing, and what the spell seems likely to have been intended to accomplish. " Aw crud, we need [insert special item here], and we need it in 11 minutes! " Assembling a barricade from the piled up remains from a feast hall that had Grendel show up and smash the furnishings into scraps and chunks. A vat of acid to dissolve trolls in. Etc.
Even using fabricate and a bevy of 1 or 2 ranks-per-Craft-skill to allocate a decent portion of party wealth into "oh poop, we died, but our contingency plan kicked in and brought us back. And we've got backup gear cached to go with our newly resurrected bodies, so we're not going back in naked and dealing with permanent negative level penalties" I have no problem with as the GM.
Pimping it to pay for phylacteries and generally break the bank falls under the wizard's player being reasonable so that the GM doesn't have to force the issue to a close.
|
Fabricate used as suggested is a good way to elimate the 9th level casters. Such a scheme will upset the local economy, the local business leaders, local boss, local madman, local evil genius. They will demand wizard works for them or enact punishment. Wizard will be punished. He hires thugs to protect him, one gets a big above himself and decides to take profits and run, take bounty on wizards head, help others for a price. Hired goons are just that, hired by the highest bidder. In the end such a wizard will die or be driven out of business. It happens a few times then the high INT class realises a change is needed and adopts a different strategy. End result fabricate settles into a stable, manageable me this for making items that doesn't upset every other market. You can't make that kind of....money?..without attracting potentially fatal attention. Only a high int lunatic would try, since he insane a party of adventurers will be hired to end his reign of terror. Hell a party of adventurers would be the quick and easy way to deal with him anyway, not all adventures are driven by a good cause.
Fabricate used as suggested is a good way to elimate the 9th level casters. Such a scheme will upset the local economy, the local business leaders, local boss, local madman, local evil genius. They will demand wizard works for them or enact punishment. Wizard will be punished. He hires thugs to protect him, one gets a big above himself and decides to take profits and run, take bounty on wizards head, help others for a price. Hired goons are just that, hired by the highest bidder. In the end such a wizard will die or be driven out of business. It happens a few times then the high INT class realises a change is needed and adopts a different strategy. End result fabricate settles into a stable, manageable me this for making items that doesn't upset every other market. You can't make that kind of....money?..without attracting potentially fatal attention. Only a high int lunatic would try, since he insane a party of adventurers will be hired to end his reign of terror. Hell a party of adventurers would be the quick and easy way to deal with him anyway, not all adventures are driven by a good cause.The "end result" there is either the Wizard working for somebody that can protect him or the Wizards working together.
And really... do you want to try to go toe-to-toe with a group that specializes in such abilities as seeing the future and summoning demons? Aelryinth said it earlier, but trying to beat down the Wizards en masse is one of the stupidest things that you can do.
As a rule if you screw with hyper intelligent paranoid people who can bend physics/metaphysics you're going to have a bad time. More so when they band together for protection.
Edit: Oh, and they have no direct supervision like clerics. They have to seriously screw up to get the attention of the supervisory board (aka gods).
My favourite part of the spells aren't broken crowd is in the end, they all turn to MURDER
And HOBOS!!1!!
Never said fabricate wasn't abusable. Players need to recognize that what's good for them is just as good for the rest of the game world/universe.
Why, they'll wind up geas-bound to a limited wish-using lunatic's will fabricating diamonds from his coal mine. Forever. Because he/she/it can. And there's not a thing they could do to stop it. ;)
My favourite part of the spells aren't broken crowd is in the end, they all turn to MURDER
Happens all the time for baser reasons than greed. ;)
Never said fabricate wasn't abusable. Players need to recognize that what's good for them is just as good for the rest of the game world/universe.
Why, they'll wind up geas-bound to a limited wish-using lunatic's will fabricating diamonds from his coal mine. Forever. Because he/she/it can. And there's not a thing they could do to stop it. ;)
Might explain where all the diamond dust in the world comes from.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think you seriously over value the Wizards power. If he's 9th level and doing this he will always be 9 th level, no xp in item making. Wizards do not have god like power and can not predict everything going on around them. Seriously paranoid people do not develop groups or collectives that work together. The games history tells us 9th level or higher wizards in their lairs die all the time to heroes. plus if you draw other classes in I'm certain Abadar would like to get involved for his share, so in come the clerics of tax, no wizard will ever beat the taxation beurocracy.
If I was a powerful meglmaniac who employed just such a wizard I would certainly see him dead and buried for fear he would just do the same for a potential rival, after all he clearly shows no scruples for what and how he manufactures. As a good leader I would want his engine of destruction put down. Sure it benefits my kingdom, but uncontrolled he's a menace.
Using fabricate as a player to solve a problem in the relative short-term is one thing, and what the spell seems likely to have been intended to accomplish. " Aw crud, we need [insert special item here], and we need it in 11 minutes! " Assembling a barricade from the piled up remains from a feast hall that had Grendel show up and smash the furnishings into scraps and chunks. A vat of acid to dissolve trolls in. Etc.
Even using fabricate and a bevy of 1 or 2 ranks-per-Craft-skill to allocate a decent portion of party wealth into "oh poop, we died, but our contingency plan kicked in and brought us back. And we've got backup gear cached to go with our newly resurrected bodies, so we're not going back in naked and dealing with permanent negative level penalties" I have no problem with as the GM.
Pimping it to pay for phylacteries and generally break the bank falls under the wizard's player being reasonable so that the GM doesn't have to force the issue to a close.
You keep assuming he's only making adamantine full plate. That's merely the fastest and most abusive thing I could quickly think of.
If you read my previous examples, you'll know I went down to something as prosaic as Masterwork Chainmail, and put 70 Smiths out of business. That's right, 70x the production rate. At TWO FABRICATES A DAY.
Without serious investment. 2800 gp clear profit per week.
Fabricate 1/day item is 18,000 gp. You make all that money back with two sets of adamantine full plate sold. Or 5 suits of mithral full plate. Pure profit. Or 90 sets of Masterwork chainmail.
Fabricate works to generate profit on anything over 50 gp EASILY.
And you don't have to be a specialist. 'SPend all your time crafting?'?!
Come on, you need TEN MINUTES A DAY PER SPELL. And you can make 10,20, fifty times the amount of money you can earn Enchanting Magic Items (limited to 1000 gp/day, Fabricate has no built in limit).
at 9th level, you easily have the capital, even if you are an NPC, to get this ball rolling.
All of your means of controlling this amount to DM Fiat, i.e. the DM tries to remove the offending character by one method or another, because by the logic and rules of the game, there's no way for the wizard NOT to succeed.
And then infer that because it hasn't been done for thousands of years, nobody stumbled across it.
The spell is broken. Just like Blood Money, it lets you make money from NOTHING. You need a twitch to get the ball rolling, that's it.
The Spell and its implications are ignored in the game. That's basically Paizo fiat, saying "It's not a problem because we're not going to write it up as a problem."
It does NOT make the spell any less broken. It's as broken as blood money, and for all the same reasons. Only this is a money generator, and blood money is an "Ignore Money Spender" effect whose upper limit is defined by a strength score. NOT having to spend 5,000 gp a day is the exact same thing as being able to EARN 5,000 Gp/day. Fabricate lets you do the latter, Blood Money the Former.
==Aelryinth
Speaking of Abadar, clerics of Torag can get Fabricate as a domain spell on level 9 via the artifice domain.
Don't worry though, they were all strong-armed by the local carpentry guild to stop performing miracles of creation. Same goes for clerics of Apsu, Brigh, Khepri, Neith, Ptah, Daikitsu, Findeladlara, Yuelral, Bharnarol, Eldas, and Soralyon. Yessiree, they were all beaten into submission by the local craftsman guilds, who apparently spend a truly stupendous amount of money and influence to stand in the way of progress. Boy, those leg-breakers must have a busy schedule.
Well, on the bright side, it's usually not that hard to stop progress right?
Aye, a 10th level priest making a hundred suits of masterwork plate mail a month for sale to outsiders completely escapes the grasp of gold-hungry dwarves. Why would they ever do such a thing?
Or maybe just equipping all the elite dwarves of their citadel with adamantine armor for 1/3 the cost. Sell one to outsiders, make two for yourselves with the profit.
Or use mithral, or maybe any other metal you care to name. Don't even need to fire up the forge. just bring up the metal and the leather, pray for ten minutes, spend the rest of the day sermonizing to the smiths about how they need to keep working hard at making armor and hope they don't call you on it.
==Aelryinth
Never said fabricate wasn't abusable. Players need to recognize that what's good for them is just as good for the rest of the game world/universe.
Why, they'll wind up geas-bound to a limited wish-using lunatic's will fabricating diamonds from his coal mine. Forever. Because he/she/it can. And there's not a thing they could do to stop it. ;)
Since there's no skill that will make coal dust into diamonds, this isn't going to be productive.
And even with today's technology, you could say the DC to make something like this is...high. And probably involves multiple skills, which Fabricate can't duplicate.
just as there's no skill that makes diamond dust into diamonds.n Not a raw material, they are 'what remains behind' after you make a diamond.
A simple prot/evil stops the geas, break enchantment removes it, and then the geas'er is going to die.
There's no such easy solution to a problem with Fabricate.
==Aelryinth
I think you seriously over value the Wizards power. If he's 9th level and doing this he will always be 9 th level, no xp in item making. Wizards do not have god like power and can not predict everything going on around them. Seriously paranoid people do not develop groups or collectives that work together. The games history tells us 9th level or higher wizards in their lairs die all the time to heroes. plus if you draw other classes in I'm certain Abadar would like to get involved for his share, so in come the clerics of tax, no wizard will ever beat the taxation beurocracy.
If I was a powerful meglmaniac who employed just such a wizard I would certainly see him dead and buried for fear he would just do the same for a potential rival, after all he clearly shows no scruples for what and how he manufactures. As a good leader I would want his engine of destruction put down. Sure it benefits my kingdom, but uncontrolled he's a menace.
Which is basically another word for 'DM Fiat." i.e., if you abuse this spell or make me confront the fact it's broken, I will kill you.
The spell is broken.
==Aelryinth
Never said fabricate wasn't abusable. Players need to recognize that what's good for them is just as good for the rest of the game world/universe.
Why, they'll wind up geas-bound to a limited wish-using lunatic's will fabricating diamonds from his coal mine. Forever. Because he/she/it can. And there's not a thing they could do to stop it. ;)
Since there's no skill that will make coal dust into diamonds, this isn't going to be productive.
And even with today's technology, you could say the DC to make something like this is...high. And probably involves multiple skills, which Fabricate can't duplicate.
just as there's no skill that makes diamond dust into diamonds.n Not a raw material, they are 'what remains behind' after you make a diamond.
A simple prot/evil stops the geas, break enchantment removes it, and then the geas'er is going to die.
There's no such easy solution to a problem with Fabricate.
==Aelryinth
You can make artificial diamonds with carbon. Effectively refined coal.
Per JJ the easy solution is "wizards have better things to do." Its up to the DM to decide what those better things are.
Edit: Supply and demand / Market forces is another easy solution.
Some combination of the above and/or DM Fiat hand wave is another.
Not liking them is one thing, but they do exist.
Of course when you build your world you can change that up however you see fit.