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The problem with Remove Disease solving so many problems is this: how does the Cleric know he needs to cast Remove Disease on John Black the Farmer with bone cancer?
Diagnose Disease, it's is a level 1 cleric spell.
The best quick'n'dirty fix I've seen is that Fabricate is inherently wasteful and inefficient, and requires the full monetary cost of the item in base materials. The excess material is consumed as part of the spellcasting.
So if a wizard is hired to fabricate a mithral full plate he's paid for the materials (which would be 10 500 GP) and for his services as a spellcaster (9*5*10 = 450 GP), bringing the total cost to 10 950 GP. Conversely, if you're not in a rush, you could instead have the mithral full plate made at a local smith, who'd need a few days to make it but would only charge 10 500 GP - meaning you save 450 GP. Not a big deal for high-level adventurers, but a decent bit of savings for a noble family who don't immediately need the full plate.
But Fabrication is only a 5% boost in costs, right? That's the nice thing - since you'd still be paying for spellcasting services, the cheaper and easier the item is to make the less demand there is for it to be Fabricated. No one's going to be willing to pay 550 GP for a fabrication-made steel chain shirt when the smith down the street sells the same thing for 100 GP.
Fabricate becomes an indispensable tool for royalty, high level adventurers, uber-wealthy merchants, high-end nobility, and powerful divine organisations. For anything that's not incredibly expensive yet relatively small (Fabricate has a fairly stringent volume limitation) and/or needed right goddamn now, there's normal crafters.
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.
Okay, so where would you price the item?
'Cause I guarantee that wherever it is, a Wizard with a decent life expectancy can profit if he really wants to. It's just a question of whether or not he has better options for investment and how many investors he needs to wind up.
And even casting it himself-- okay, he has to be a bit higher leveled. Call it level 12, that gives him three slots of 5th level spells, plus Int (we'll figure another +1), plus his two sixth-level spells, plus one sixth-level spell from Int. This is not a Wizard specced to use Fabricate or he'd also be using his school slots and probably have some Pearls of Power.
He can cast Fabricate seven times per day then.
Since he's far more limited in customers, and thus more discriminating, we'll figure he can get decent value out of each one. Call it what, 500 gp profit per item made? Less than half of Aelryinth's assumption. What happens in a year:
500*7*365=1,277,500
Let's bring it down. Maybe he can only make 250 per item. 638,750
Or, since demand was raised as an issue: one spell slot per day is devoted to Teleport, and this Wizard isn't specialized in Conjuration either. 250 gp per item. 547,500.
That's a mere five times his WBL. And will go up if he decides to invest in Pearls and the like.
I'd price it as "you can't make this item" much as I probably would for any item that could infinitely use an effect with expensive material components without cost. That's in the artifact zone. Where would you set the price of an item that could cast Raise Dead, another 5th level spell, over and over again at no cost? You're doing the same thing if you allow command-activated, no-limit Fabricate.
As for the guy himself - he can indeed make a lot of expensive stuff. Actually increasing his WBL requires him to have a market for it all, though, and while we hand-wave away those sorts of things for ease of play when it comes to players selling loot, there's no reason to do so for theory exercises involving NPCs. Good luck to this guy finding a market with enough demand and liquidity for his mass produced <whatever>.
He should be using his 5th level slots to dominate kings and mayors and guild masters, there's going to be way more 'value' per spell slot with a kingdom's economy at his fingertips that way.
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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.
Continual true-strike is not a legal option because true strike only lasts until your next attack. If you priced it as a continuous item, it would very quickly become the most expensive paperweight you've ever made.
At-will true strike or even quickened true strike are totally doable though (and not broken).
Aelryinth is pretty on the mark in this case. Fabricate is awesome. Having materials is pretty irrelevant too since trade goods are a thing. You can purchase trade goods and then fabricate them into art objects to triple their monetary value as per the Craft rules.
For example, I want to make a silver statue worth 3,000 gp. I must acquire 1/3rd the finished item's value in materials, which in this case is 1,000 gp worth of silver (10,000 silver pieces). I cast fabricate. It is now an art object that can be traded as though it were 3,000 gp.
I can take some gold and uncut gems, do the same thing. All of these things are trade goods. Craft turns them into more valuable trade goods. Fabricate cuts the craft time down from "years from now" (Craft sucks donkey butt) to "now" (fabricate is awesome).
That said, having lots of wealth isn't that big a deal later in the game. At least, there's nothing worth buying at high levels that isn't already pocket change. You basically have to craft everything that's going to be useful for you at that point (or find it).
You don't need all of them to be, you only need like, two
OK, so, the first authoritarian nation that doesn't like this free wheelin' wizard just giving magic out sends assassins. There's a dead wizard.
It's not theorycrafting...it's acknowledging the spell is broken, and the implications thereof are being totally ignored.
You have to ask why. And, no, not all wizards know about fabricate. Any Golarion setting material makes it abundantly clear that any meaningful acquisition of magic is either done through years of study, lucky happenstance over forgotten ruins, etc. It is the realm of artifacts that grant wide reaching magical knowledge. Look at the Anathema Archive. It's only PCs who, more specifically, players, who feel they should get to have access to "all the things." You can call my list unrealistic all you want, yet no where do we see the abuse you speak of. That doesn't mean the spell is ignored by Paizo. That's a non sequitur.
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.
The current mythos of the official setting creates an environment where there are more powers invested in keeping powerful magic hidden or strictly controlled. Look at all the crap APs make adventurers do to find them.
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You have to ask why. And, no, not all wizards know about fabricate. Any Golarion setting material makes it abundantly clear that any meaningful acquisition of magic is either done through years of study, lucky happenstance over forgotten ruins, etc. It is the realm of artifacts that grant wide reaching magical knowledge. Look at the Anathema Archive. It's only PCs who, more specifically, players, who feel they should get to have access to "all the things." You can call my list unrealistic all you want, yet no where do we see the abuse you speak of. That doesn't mean the spell is ignored by Paizo. That's a non sequitur.
Ael and I tend to butt heads over what is and isn't acceptable pretty regularly, but I agree he's on the mark here.
In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.
In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more.
If you haven't opted to take fabricate as one of your spells that you get naturally from 11th+ level, you can probably find it by going to a big city and just paying someone to learn it. And if it is a spell that you can reasonably find but other wizards are being stingy about sharing it at the usual cost, then obviously it's valuable, so you'll spell research it yourself because it will quickly pay for the investment.
I don't have a problem with fabricate myself. Not nearly the amount of hate for it or similar world-altering spells (I love continual flame). But it is true that yes, these spells exist, no they are not uncommon or hard to get by default, and yes they do change the world and the way that we should look at what is and isn't possible.
In my campaign, yes, most major cities do in fact have things like continual flame lighting. Even small settlements generally have some sort of cantrip-level support for their communities. This is actually a great opener for having settelements in fantastic places. Historically, settlements had to be near water to work well but create water is so cheap for a magic item and so common as an orison (0 level for adepts, clerics, druids, oracles) that you can have little communities in some pretty out of the way and interesting places.
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Something like Fabricate 'breaks' the economy, rather than breaking normal gameplay. But the economy as written is broken right from the start because it doesn't contain any concept of supply and demand. Mass famine? Doesn't matter! Food always costs the same amount, and profession checks always bring in money, so you can always afford to buy food.
RAW suggests that most high-grade items would be made by extremely wealthy mid- to high-level wizards, perhaps belonging to rival guilds - unless there is a powerful force that has both the capability and the desire to crush such wizards. I don't see either of those as breaking the game world as a place where adventures can happen. Interesting plot hooks, if anything.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Yep, actually accounting for demand breaks the fabricate=unlimited wealth plan pretty quickly. Sure, you can make a 13k gp item multiple times a day. Hope you have some storage space because they probably only actually have a buyer once a year or so.
Economically, it makes no sense to fabricate anything with a profit of less than 450gp - the money a 9th level wizard can make by selling his 5th level spell slot. But even that is out of the range of the average person - your normal expert/commoner with Craft or Profession(so a skilled individual) is making a few hundred gp a year. That suit of full plate might as well be a luxury yacht with a helipad for how often a normal person can buy it. Adventurers are fabulously wealthy.
So yeah, go to the wizard when you need a custom set of adamantine gear made right now. That's fine. But when you need a nail, horseshoe, or pot you go to the blacksmith who will happily sell it to you for a few copper pieces. Fabricate really only makes sense when crafting high end things, which by their very nature don't sell very often.
If a wizard opens a business selling magically created goods, he makes about the same profit as anyone else. Yes, he can produce goods more quickly but that doesn't mean they sell that quickly. Especially for oddball items like adventuring gear.
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Well you can always fabricate trade goods. Trade goods are essentially money. So you can always create more money with fabricate. The amount of money you want to create is only limited by how much you want to make and the raw materials.
For example, a diamond is considered a grand jewel (5,000+ gp). Using that as the materials, you can fabricate it into a cut gem is a 15,000 gp trade good with a successful craft check. Now the DC for a masterwork cut to the diamond is DC 20 (for complex or superior quality item) which any wizard with a 1st level spell and a +5 Int can take-10 on to do.
Since trade goods are traded as coins are, in any situation you wanted to trade something coins are good for, your enhanced diamond is also good for. So you don't really need a buyer so much as you need something to buy. You could even just trade it for three more diamonds and repeat the process and have 45,000 gp worth of liquid wealth.
But again, money at the level that you can typically do this is usually not that big of a deal. Since the core rules assume that the upper limit for stuff you can expect to buy is a mere 16,000 gp, all the good shwag either needs to be crafted yourself or found on an adventure or something.
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No, Matthew has the right of it. Fabricate only 'breaks' the economy because the economy is already broken to begin with. Trying to make the argument that fabricate breaks [the economy] and therefore the spell is broken is disingenuous.
Take Ashiel's scenario for example. If we're trying to argue using realistic economic principles it fails because as soon as Alice the 9th level wizard tries to profit from turning a 5000gp gem into a 15,000gp gem she fails because Bob the wizard undercuts her by selling it for 14,000gp. And then Charlie the wizard undercuts them both by selling it for 13,000gp. And so on and so forth. In the end the price of the '15,000gp' diamond will settle at 5000gp plus whatever the cost of casting fabricate is.
Saying "wizards don't use fabricate that way" is not merely GM fiat. The entire structure of the game requires necessary compromises in order to function as a narrative device and gaming framework. If you're going to start demanding real-world logic in every aspect the entire thing falls apart.
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No, Matthew has the right of it. Fabricate only 'breaks' the economy because the economy is already broken to begin with. Trying to make the argument that fabricate breaks [the economy] and therefore the spell is broken is disingenuous.
Take Ashiel's scenario for example. If we're trying to argue using realistic economic principles it fails because as soon as Alice the 9th level wizard tries to profit from turning a 5000gp gem into a 15,000gp gem she fails because Bob the wizard undercuts her by selling it for 14,000gp. And then Charlie the wizard undercuts them both by selling it for 13,000gp. And so on and so forth. In the end the price of the '15,000gp' diamond will settle at 5000gp plus whatever the cost of casting fabricate is.
Saying "wizards don't use fabricate that way" is not merely GM fiat. The entire structure of the game requires necessary compromises in order to function as a narrative device and gaming framework. If you're going to start demanding real-world logic in every aspect the entire thing falls apart.
I didn't say anything about breaking the economy. Merely that fabricate works. Also there is no undercutting. If you're making a trade good you are making something traded as coin. You are not undercutting or being undercut by anyone or anything unless the same is also happening for your coins.
New technologies do not destroy businesses they destroy business models.
Ael and I tend to butt heads over what is and isn't acceptable pretty regularly, but I agree he's on the mark here.
OK? That doesn't change anything I've said, nor does it change or add to the example of the material given to us.
They can't undercut one another with most items. They are trade goods. It's like selling a dollar for fifty cents. It's not going to happen.
What would happen is the normal crafter would stop making those items, as he can't compete and its not worth his time to do so. He'd make horseshoes and pans.
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Diamonds from coal is impossible.
1) Coal is to diamonds as rotted, waterlogged and fungi-ridden birch is to making a masterwork oak table. Bad raw materials, bad results.
2) Name the skill(s) that you would use to do this.
3) Name the DC to do this.
4) Justify the fact that people know that diamonds are pure carbon, and they can be created by heat and pressure.
5) Point out the existing process in the game that Fabricate can replace to do this.
6) Kindly note that Fabricate calls for A craft check. If a Crafting check requires multiple disciplines, Fabricate can't emulate it.
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450 gp or Fabricate is worthless? What?
How many 5th level spells did you sell today? Yesterday? the day before?
None, eh? Selling spells is a buyer's market...that's the price you pay when you go looking for someone else to cast a spell.
You're a seller. You can't make people buy your spells.
Fabricate allows you to store the value of your spellcasting. I spend two Fabricate slots every day, and build up an inventory. I make it known I have that inventory, and I solicit orders if at all possible so I know what to make.
The fact I can make such stuff rapidly will get around, and when it comes time for people to order such stuff, they will come to me. Some will come for my inventory, and some to place orders.
In the mean time, my 2 level 5 slots a day is making me money. The guy over there waiting for someone to walk up and request a teleport to and from Absalom can cool his heels while I keep making money.
Saying unless you get 450 gp for the slot is a waste of time, is akin to saying that unless someone bought your suit of plate mail, you're not going to do any smithing today and just wait around earning no money and doing no work until it is sold.
Taxes are not an issue. The price is the price, and craftsmen have to pay the same taxes.
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Fabricate's problems I've already gone over.
1) It costs nothing to the wizard to cast it.
2) It has no upper limit save size on what it can make.
3) It has no upper limit on the time and amount of labor it saves.
4) It is a store of value to the wizard, allowing him to make something every day he can later sell for money, instead of letting those slots sit and make nothing.
The way to Fix Fabricate is:
1) Like Masterwork Transformation, institute a cost to use. Note that Fabricate allows you to make a masterwork item for LESS MONEY then Masterwork Transformation...from raw materials, not a finished object!
2) Fabricate either replaces a day of crafting work, or a day/caster level of work. Which makes it an accelerator, but not a game breaker.
3) Institute a cap on the gold value of what can be Fabricated per spell, so making super high value items as easily as nails is not possible.
4) Make it permanent instead of instantaneous, so if it gets dispelled, it reverts back to raw materials. Making it vulnerable and so NEVER getting used for anything important. This also works best if every Fabricated item, even if masterwork, is totally generic and a template item that will be recognized by any crafter for what it is.
All of these are easy fixes that would solve the problems this spell presents, while retaining its value of 'I need stuff quickly.'
==Aelryinth
Fixing Blood Money would similarly be easy.
1) Cap the gp value it can sub for with caster level.
2) have it affect your lowest ability score, which stops body-jumping shenanigans and puts an instant cap on it.
3) Have it unable to be healed magically, which stops use of Restoration to keep employing it. If it is healed magically, the effects of the spell it was used for are undone...which could be very problematic.
Which turns it into a spell to be used for emergencies, not a way to avoid massive spell component costs as you deem fit.
==Aelryinth
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What if wizards were not total idiots?
So far the only solutions as to why the world of golarion is not very different is MURDER(???) and "Well they would undercut each other because"(???)
These are not compelling reasons imo
What? That makes no sense whatsoever. Do you understand how competition works? How is Bob an idiot if, seeing that Alice is trying to sell her fabricated diamonds for 15k sells his for 14k? Since they're both the same, his are going to sell because why would anyone buy a diamond from Alice when they can get the exact same diamond from Bob for 1000gp less?
If you want to argue that they both sell their diamonds for 15k because there's an unlimited demand whose price is static you're only proving my point - it's the economy of Pathfinder that's broken, not the fabricate spell.
Wall stone is a permanent some thing from nothing spell as well. At 12th level it makes more stone then it costs to hire the caster.
I am not saying this one is OP but it would change the world.
How magic would change the world is probably where I find the most of my attention in these sorts of threads.
For example, in my campaign setting, bricks are an incredibly common building material for several reasons. One of the primary reasons is because they're flame resistant (kind of like stone) and very plentiful (mostly made of mud). In a world where some idiot with a fireball wand might start lighting up everything, having buildings that are resistant to burning is a plus.
Likewise, there are small oasis-like settlements in some interesting places in the setting because of minor magics like create water which can be used for drinking, bathing, etc. Even if the water doesn't last that long when unconsumed, building inexpensive wondrous fountains as a hub for locals and travelers to gather around is a good deal and makes it possible to have little communities even in the middle of arid areas. Purify food and drink has similar practical uses for normal people and these are just adept orisons.
It's not even just with magic. Using oozes as garbage disposals is a time honored tradition and makes for a really gnarly trap in the right context. For example, if the orcs have a gelatinous cube in a pit trap and they just throw executed prisoners - or prisoners to be executed - into the pit, along with their garbage, the pit and the cube serve a practical purpose and serve as a wicked stage hazard if someone decides to get...pushy. >_>
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If you could snap your fingers and generate any number of oreos that you wanted, would you be enticed by a deal where you give something you have away for some oreos?
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Of course the cube eventually gets bigger. Eventually it becomes 2 cubes. The orcs may not want a second cube. Once they get one they may need to find a new home.
Mainly I would just like to see magic reflected in the world.
Also why are wizards not interested in money?
Just poke it with a spear until the 2nd cube dies. It's an ooze. It's like cutting back the kudzu.
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What? That makes no sense whatsoever. Do you understand how competition works? How is Bob an idiot if, seeing that Alice is trying to sell her fabricated diamonds for 15k sells his for 14k? Since they're both the same, his are going to sell because why would anyone buy a diamond from Alice when they can get the exact same diamond from Bob for 1000gp less?
If Bob isn't an idiot he'd see that any price cut he made would be matched by Alice almost immediately, reducing both their profits and not increasing his sales at all.
Because they have no reason not to collude.
If Bob isn't an idiot he'd see that any price cut he made would be matched by Alice almost immediately, reducing both their profits and not increasing his sales at all.
Ok, so let's go in the other direction. Why don't Alice & Bob then collude to sell their fabricated diamonds for 20,000gp then? If we're going to pretend supply and demand don't exist.
Or, let's take this in a totally different direction. The argument is that fabricate is overpowered. From my perspective in order for something to be overpowered it has to have a negative effect on my game such that I find the need to change/nerf it. So far none of my players have expressed any interest in learning fabricate, and even if they did I'm willing to bet they'd want to use it for adventuring purposes since they want to play a heroic fantasy game, not Simulationfinder.
So, given the above, please explain to me how fabricate is broken and is ruining my game.
If Bob isn't an idiot he'd see that any price cut he made would be matched by Alice almost immediately, reducing both their profits and not increasing his sales at all.Ok, so let's go in the other direction. Why don't Alice & Bob then collude to sell their fabricated diamonds for 20,000gp then? If we're going to pretend supply and demand don't exist.
Because naturally occurring diamonds already exist and are cheaper than that?
Or, let's take this in a totally different direction. The argument is that fabricate is overpowered. From my perspective in order for something to be overpowered it has to have a negative effect on my game such that I find the need to change/nerf it. So far none of my players have expressed any interest in learning fabricate, and even if they did I'm willing to bet they'd want to use it for adventuring purposes since they want to play a heroic fantasy game, not Simulationfinder.
So, given the above, please explain to me how fabricate is broken and is ruining my game.
Obviously, it isn't ruining your game. A spell that did infinite damage to all enemies wouldn't ruin your game if no-one ever cast it, but would still be a broken spell.
However, if you were playing a Kingmaker-style campaign with years of downtime, and one of your players attempted to use the spell in a way that would by RAW give him an income of 500,000gp a year, you would probably want to either house-rule the spell or house-rule the economy.
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Because they have no reason not to collude.If Bob isn't an idiot he'd see that any price cut he made would be matched by Alice almost immediately, reducing both their profits and not increasing his sales at all.Ok, so let's go in the other direction. Why don't Alice & Bob then collude to sell their fabricated diamonds for 20,000gp then? If we're going to pretend supply and demand don't exist.
My guess is because, somehow, one can actually ascertain an items true value based on what you can do with it. In D&D/Pathfinder, a diamond that is worth a certain amount of gold pieces can be used as a material component while a lesser valued diamond cannot.
In the same sense, if you pay 20,000 gp for a 15,000 gp diamond, you'll definitely know you got ripped off when you try to use it to cast spells requiring 20,000 gp worth of diamonds. Or use that diamond as part of the materials to make a magic item (as gems are frequently used in the creation of magical doodads).
However, if you were playing a Kingmaker-style campaign with years of downtime, and one of your players attempted to use the spell in a way that would by RAW give him an income of 500,000gp a year, you would probably want to either house-rule the spell or house-rule the economy.
Actually, I'd do neither - I'd tell the player to simply not do that, and if he persisted in trying I'd kick him out of the game. Here's why: The economy in pathfinder is sufficiently broken that simply changing the fabricate spell would be a band-aid fix at best. Doubtless the player would find some other spell or rule to exploit in order to make unlimited money. It's simply not worth the effort changing/fixing every spell, rule, guideline, and system in order to prevent a player from exploiting the loopholes in the game.
Regarding the fabricate spell, in the context in which we're discussing spells here, I remain unconvinced. It still seems to me the arguments for its brokenness are being constructed by selectively choosing which real-world/'logical' actions/principles to apply in order to make their case.
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My guess is because, somehow, one can actually ascertain an items true value based on what you can do with it. In D&D/Pathfinder, a diamond that is worth a certain amount of gold pieces can be used as a material component while a lesser valued diamond cannot.
In the same sense, if you pay 20,000 gp for a 15,000 gp diamond, you'll definitely know you got ripped off when you try to use it to cast spells requiring 20,000 gp worth of diamonds. Or use that diamond as part of the materials to make a magic item (as gems are frequently used in the creation of magical doodads).
I think you're probably right, but if you are then your original scenario doesn't work. If diamonds truly are trade goods then you can't take a 5000gp diamond and use fabricate to create a 15000gp diamond; that would mean you somehow ended up with 200% more diamond, which is obviously outside of the scope of the spell. If your assumption is that you've used fabricate to increase the value by giving it a more valuable cut then by definition diamonds cease to be trade goods.
I think we can both agree that diamonds & gems are one of those fuzzy areas in the game it's best not to think about because of the conflict over how gems are valued in real life and how gems are valued for the purposes of spell components.
However, if you were playing a Kingmaker-style campaign with years of downtime, and one of your players attempted to use the spell in a way that would by RAW give him an income of 500,000gp a year, you would probably want to either house-rule the spell or house-rule the economy.Actually, I'd do neither - I'd tell the player to simply not do that, and if he persisted in trying I'd kick him out of the game. Here's why: The economy in pathfinder is sufficiently broken that simply changing the fabricate spell would be a band-aid fix at best. Doubtless the player would find some other spell or rule to exploit in order to make unlimited money. It's simply not worth the effort changing/fixing every spell, rule, guideline, and system in order to prevent a player from exploiting the loopholes in the game.
Regarding the fabricate spell, in the context in which we're discussing spells here, I remain unconvinced. It still seems to me the arguments for its brokenness are being constructed by selectively choosing which real-world/'logical' actions/principles to apply in order to make their case.
I'd let the player but i'd cap what he actually makes to whatever is says in the kingmaker handbook the kingdom generates. Basically instead of farming or whatever you make a suit of adamantine every X months. If you make more there's no one to buy it. The end result is that you have the same amount as the other players, but can roleplay being a raging alcoholic as he spends his copious free time drinking at the local tavern.
Fly and its cousins. Breaks a lot of wonderful tactics and shuts down too many options.
Mirror Image. Make it level 3 at least.
Invisivilities should have more available counters (spell wise).
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My guess is because, somehow, one can actually ascertain an items true value based on what you can do with it. In D&D/Pathfinder, a diamond that is worth a certain amount of gold pieces can be used as a material component while a lesser valued diamond cannot.
In the same sense, if you pay 20,000 gp for a 15,000 gp diamond, you'll definitely know you got ripped off when you try to use it to cast spells requiring 20,000 gp worth of diamonds. Or use that diamond as part of the materials to make a magic item (as gems are frequently used in the creation of magical doodads).
I think you're probably right, but if you are then your original scenario doesn't work. If diamonds truly are trade goods then you can't take a 5000gp diamond and use fabricate to create a 15000gp diamond; that would mean you somehow ended up with 200% more diamond, which is obviously outside of the scope of the spell. If your assumption is that you've used fabricate to increase the value by giving it a more valuable cut then by definition diamonds cease to be trade goods.
I think we can both agree that diamonds & gems are one of those fuzzy areas in the game it's best not to think about because of the conflict over how gems are valued in real life and how gems are valued for the purposes of spell components.
I think you're failing to get my point. The Craft skill explicitly increases the value of the gem by three times the cost of the materials. This means that cut gems are worth more than uncut gems. This likewise makes sense given that most magic items and the like that are described as having gems are likewise depicted as being worked gems rather than unworked gems.
So you could take a large diamond (5,000 gp), use it as the materials for a Craft (gemcutting) check and create a 15,000 gp diamond. The item's new value is now 15,000 gp. You cannot however reasonably sell it for 20,000 gp because it's only worth 15,000 gp.
That's just how the Craft skill (and thus fabricate) works. The final value of the created item is three times the cost of the material used to create it.
EDIT: It also indirectly accounts for flawed cuts. If you fail your Craft check by a certain amount you ruin 1/2 the raw materials. Thus if your raw materials is a 5,000 gp diamond you just reduced its value down to a 2500 gp diamond, so now all you can do with the same materials is either try to start over or attempt to make a cut diamond worth 7,500 gp instead.
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You could totally sell it for more with enough Bluff, as long as they dint see through your game with enough Sense Motive to tell you're lying, or enough Appraise to know the gem isn't really worth that much.
You might have a pissed off wizard hunting you down, but it *is* doable. Some folks just try and cheat the wrong people.
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You could totally sell it for more with enough Bluff, as long as they dint see through your game with enough Sense Motive to tell you're lying, or enough Appraise to know the gem isn't really worth that much.
You might have a pissed off wizard hunting you down, but it *is* doable. Some folks just try and cheat the wrong people.
True that. :|
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Detect Magic – I’m one of those grognards that liked needing to figure out what an item does and how to use it
Glitterdust
Mad Monkeys
Haste
Greater Invisibility
Fly (and similar) – makes a lot of supposed difficulties (like castle walls) too easy to bypass
Teleport – ditto
Another that I almost never see mentioned is Pilfering Hand.
It’s only second level (eventually you always have 2nd level spells to burn). No save. It scales almost perfectly since it uses your caster level and casting stat. Most casters try to keep those max’d. Works with all those buffs that raise your attack roll. It can make use of Improved Disarm (which usually isn’t worth it for a caster, but with this spell, it can be). One of those semi-rare situations when true strike is worthwhile. Works well with a reach meta-rod or feat. Even with no shenanigans, 2 casting will almost always disarm the bad guy.
I’ve lost track of the number of ‘tough’ fights that became trivial after a use of this. “Oh, it took a while to finish him off since he was such a high level fighter. But we were in no danger with him using a mundane hand axe.”
In one campaign I remember:
A caster that dual wields wands. He had some power that let him use both in 1 round along with staff like wand power. But every time he would pull one out, I had a readied action to pilfer it. His CMD was awful so I almost never failed.
An antipaladin with some +3 sword that every hit bestowed a negative level, poison, disease, and a curse. Yes, you got a save for each, but 4 saves for every hit with 3 attacks each round when full attacking. Most characters would have failed a few and rapidly been in trouble. Potion of true strike. He attacked and almost killed our tank in one round. Pilfering hand and then move away. He was almost zero threat with his +2 dagger or shield bash.
Bad guy has rod that controls the iron golem. Nope, now I have it.
Bad guy is a cleric that is variant negative energy channeling focused. But without his unholy symbol…
I will admit, it didn’t help much against the vampire monk. ;)
I’ve had several GM’s ask me to stop taking that spell. It has wrecked a lot more combats at a lot of levels than I’ve ever seen with any other single spell that is usually mentioned.