cheese pops, preferably.
==Aelryinth
So Paizo's outage ate my last post. Awesome.
Eh, no. He's clearly making a line between RAW and RAI, and graphically demonstrating that a Gentlemen's Agreement (i.e. Rule 0) is in effect to stop the shenanigans from taking place.
So, it is inevitable...but you're GA'ing to ignore it/downplay it/behind the screens it, which is Rule 0.
Just because an exploit is (often questionably) legal within the Rules As Written does not mean it is intentional. My argument was drawing the line between RAW and RAI because the rules as written do not exist in a vacuum: They require the interpretation and judgement of those at the table, and as such are not written to be perfect, only concise. In lieu of endlessly chasing down every possible exploit and writing errata to nix them, and then more errata to fix what they accidentally broke, Paizo instead rely on those using the system to apply judgement and common sense.
You have continued to maintain that RAW mandates that a tech/magical revolution "Is Inevitable" and have continued to be dismissive of any justification of why such an event might not occur as being "Rule 0"/"Gentleman Agreement"/"House Rules"/"GM Fiat" etc, and that the fact that it has never been implemented is because "It's been ignored"... and in that you are wrong. It hasn't been ignored - I'm sure many thousands of people are perfectly aware of what exploits (such as Pun Pun in 3.5) are possible per RAW, but it hasn't been (ab)used on mass or in published settings because such something-for-nothing exploits are not intentional aspects of the system, but rather, unintentional interaction between different mechanisms within the system. Bugs. Glitches. Not RAI.
Given that the system as a whole expects the players and GM to show some judgement about how to apply the RAW as RAI, the entire argument that "BY RAW you could change the world with exploit X!" is... well... irrelevant. The rules aren't perfect. Everyone knows this. Including Paizo. Arguing that the game worlds cannot make sense because the RAW aren't a perfect world simulation tool and glitches exist is... redundant.
His Fabricate trick wouldn't work either. The material component is also the target of the spell. With no material component, i.e. no target, there's nothing there to be turned into a finished product. So he'd Fabricate nothing and end up with nothing. Creating something out of nothing is Creation, not Fabricate. All the DM has to ask is "What's the value of the raw materials you are Fabricating?" and his Wish triples the zero and ends at zero.
Plus, it only creates one object at a time, and you do have to make the crafting check. I don't see that skill on an Efreet. What IS the DC of a 30k single piece of jewelry, anyways?
RAI: You are absolutely correct.
RAW: I'm afraid you need to reread your sources. Fabricate gives a target of a volume, but not a volume of anything, and the material component of the spell is the raw material to be transformed. Thus, the wish-fabricate is CL17, targets a volume of 17 ten-ft cubes or 17 cu-ft if using minerals or metals, and replaces 10,000gp of raw material. The Craft check is required for items requiring a high degree of workmanship, however the craft rules are vague about what that needs to be - the DC could well be 10. You can also make almost anything that fits within that volume and 10,000gp raw material cost.It also ignores the fact that negotiating with Efreet for Wishes is, by RAW and RAI, a rather perilous task, not an obedient handing over of the most powerful magic in the game. Only house-ruling this to be a painless process advances the agenda of Wish-abusers.
RAI: Again, yes.
RAW:Really? Mind quoting your source? Because RAW the efreeti description says nothing about it being perilous, and the wish spell only invokes the "danger" clause if you wish for something not on the list, which duplicating fabricate is. Thus, a CL17 gate gives you command over the efreeti, who grants you three wishes which (by sticking within the limits) work perfectly every time, by RAW.Which is not to say Candle of Invocation abuse has not been around since the very start of 3e, since you could use one of the Wishes to get another Candle of Invocation and make an infinite loop of wishes.
Pathfinder removed the ability to wish for magic items, which toned down the silliness a lot.
Also, I believe the latest iteration of Pun-Pun was based on having early access to Pazuzu wishes (and being a level 1 paladin) and that horrendously overpowered Serpent Folk spell from FR. If Pazuzu doesn't grant the wish...or it hasn't been countered already by divine fiat...blah blah blah.
There's a bunch of iterations of Pun Pun. The point wasn't what the latest flavor of silly was, merely that it exists and such things are permissible in the "RAW and only RAW" argument you've been making.
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Personally, I'm nowhere near as heavy handed as you are with my players. I mostly let them play with magic to try and help out their local community or themselves: But I do not (nor let them) hand-wave time, cost, slots or NPC spellcasting costs (the PCs can be charitable, but most others aren't).
And for the most part, they manage themselves just fine. The worst of the abuse is when you start trying to find ways to wrangle monster abilities under PC control, and my players don't do that for two reasons:
- 1) For most, it's because it's creepy, or disrespectful, generally distasteful, or because they fear the consequences.
2) For some, it's because monsters are under the GM's control and that is granting the GM leverage to dismantle their plans almost at whim.
Thought experiments can rely on "They'll do X because it make sense", but at the table, when wealth, time and sometimes lives are on the line? I find players tend to be a lot more conservative.
As a side note: Wall of stone is actually not very good as a construction spell. What you actually want is transmute mud to rock which not only lets you turn mud into foundations (or 180ft deep 10ft square piles at the min caster level, for building in swamps), but if you use wall of stone to form an outer shell or fabricate or peasant labor to build form-work, you can have it filled with mud (and rocks, and steel reinforcing) and then transmute it into massive concrete strcutures. Although the stone produced is weaker, it affects a vastly greater volume of it, which is crucial for any construction job as it saves time.
So yes. I let my high level casters build castles, houses, roads, wells, city walls etc. They can do that, but they need to do it personally and no one pays them for it (meaning that any costs need to come out of their own wealth). The overall impact is... on the minute scale, profound, but not really significant in the big picture.
RAI is irrelevant to the topic of whether "RAW mandates that a tech/magical revolution "Is Inevitable"".
I personally disagree that RAW mandates it, but RAI is 100% irrelevant to that topic.
Craft checks are made from raw materials.
Raw materials need to have a value. The end result is based upon how much raw materials you have, or conversely, you need 1/3 the value of the final item in raw materials to make the check.
If you start with raw materials of 0, you get a crafted result of 0. Them's is the rules. A failed check uses up half of them. Nowhere does it note that Wish creates raw materials out of thin air. Waiving the requirement for spell components does not waive the crafting requirement for raw materials, after all.
So your Fabricate from Wish doesn't work because of the crafting rules, NOT because of the Wish spell.
As I noted, Creation creates something from nothing. Fabricate does not. Wish does not duplicate Creation when duping Fabricate.
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You may have control of the Efreet, but he can still misinterpret your Wish to his heart's extent if he so desires. They have Profession (lawyer) for a reason, and it's right in their description that foiling people who want to exploit them for Wishes is one of their favorite pastimes. They TRAIN for it!
It's RAW. Bargaining with an Efreet for Wishes is a perilous process. The 'reliability' for wording and spell duplication is if you cast the spell YOURSELF. In prior editions, the DM could get nasty and misinterpret things on even the most routine Wishes. An efreet still can, which is the price you pay for involving a LE fickle genie in your Wishmaking.
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And actually you want Transmute Rock to Mud; transport the mud and shape/pour it as you want, and then Dispel it, getting actual decent stone instead of the poor grade of sandstone you get with normal mud. If you actually seperate it into bricks or blocks, then it counts as 'worked', and a hostile Rock to Mud will often fail against it. You also probably want to fill the interior with an alternate material to forestall Passwall attempts and similar things. Pea gravel is good. So would be sand.
Wall of Stone does indeed make a good inner and outer wall for molds. However, if you don't have access to good stone, repeated castings can eventually get to the mass of a decent wall, and certainly you can make a long, low one in virtually no time at all (with a Widen metamagic rod multiplying the area by eightfold!). Since there's no expensive material components, it is mainly a function of time.
Generally, since you want the foundations of your wall to be built on stone, the proper procedure is to excavate the below ground tunnels, moats and similar things with Transmute rock to mud, then pump/manhandle the mud up to your above ground fortifications, and dispel the magic to rapidly make your walls, buildings, or even lots of shaped blocks from mud molds. What's nicer is that anyone with Dispel Magic can help on the second part, making it much more flexible in application.
You could easily make a business out of rock to mudding a vast expanse of stone, having the mud pour down off the hillside/mountainside down into molds, dispelling the magic, and then shipping off the resultant bricks and blocks, preformed to your custom order.
==Aelryinth
I think the basic intent that the rules are for an adventuring game not a world simulation is 100% relevant to the topic.RAI is irrelevant to the topic of whether "RAW mandates that a tech/magical revolution "Is Inevitable"".
I personally disagree that RAW mandates it, but RAI is 100% irrelevant to that topic.
Agreed. Because the RAW doesn't make the kind of world that RAI obviously want to.
==Aelryinth
Because the rules aren't interested in defining the world. The rules are for adventuring, not world building.
Yes, because this game totally doesn't have rules that have nothing to do with adventuring... Like crafting, profession, bartering, investment, kingdom ruling, owning businesses, training NPC's, prices for getting your things magically cleaned, non-adventuring spells, building castles, opium, NPC classes, ... cost for magic streetlights..., etc.
Because the rules aren't interested in defining the world. The rules are for adventuring, not world building.Yes, because this game totally doesn't have rules that have nothing to do with adventuring... Like crafting, profession, bartering, investment, kingdom ruling, owning businesses, training NPC's, prices for getting your things magically cleaned, non-adventuring spells, building castles, opium, NPC classes, ... cost for magic streetlights..., etc.It does have those rules, but they're a side line and most of them are structured to support adventuring rather than provide a realistic world. The profession and crafting rules for example: all professions pay the same, based only on the skill roll. A porter makes just as much as an architect, if he's got the same skill. All mundane crafted items sell for 3 times their cost in raw materials, but that's got essentially nothing to do with how much you make per week - a jeweler makes as much as a cobbler, which is again the same as that porter.
Because item prices are set by utility for adventurers, not by any kind of modelling of supply and demand or anything that actually goes on in a real economy.
Correct, and given that my argument is chiefly that arguments founded on the strict application of RAW for world-building is a futile and useless endeavor, extremely pertinent to the discussion at hand.
To use an analogy (as I am fond of them), Pathfinder is akin to the road rules - they instruct a driver on how to drive and what they can and cannot legally do with their vehicle (mostly), but they don't cover actual design and construction of vehicles, or roads, or bridges and so on, even though they do talk a lot about them. Such things are simply beyond the scope of that rule set, and applying them to purposes they're not written to fulfill is complete wankery a waste of time.
For example: There are no rules in Pathfinder RAW for reproduction (of anything), crop productivity, agriculture of any kind, how to turn a tree into a house... and the list goes on. If one really wanted to extrapolate upon the strict application of RAW, the only inevitable thing is the extinction of all non-ageless life in the cosmos, because nothing could reproduce and everything that ages would simply die out. This is, obviously, completely stupid, so it tends to be ignored and historical/real world mechanisms substituted in, but that's not strict adherence to RAW, and opening the GM Fiat can of worms right from the get go. Pretty much all "RAW says X" arguments rely upon focusing on a single aspect of the rules and applying for a purpose it's not intended for, and ignoring all the other holes that appear when doing so.
Craft checks are made from raw materials.
Raw materials need to have a value. The end result is based upon how much raw materials you have, or conversely, you need 1/3 the value of the final item in raw materials to make the check.
If you start with raw materials of 0, you get a crafted result of 0. Them's is the rules. A failed check uses up half of them. Nowhere does it note that Wish creates raw materials out of thin air. Waiving the requirement for spell components does not waive the crafting requirement for raw materials, after all.
So your Fabricate from Wish doesn't work because of the crafting rules, NOT because of the Wish spell.
As I noted, Creation creates something from nothing. Fabricate does not. Wish does not duplicate Creation when duping Fabricate.
You are partially correct. That is how the craft rules work.
That is not, however, how fabricate works by the RAW, as it does not state it follows the crafting rules, it only requires a Craft check to fabricate (not craft) items requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
You do (unintentionally) raise a good point though. Because fabricate does not explicitly follow the crafting rules, it cannot benefit from the one-third-market-value rule for material costs, thus it would default back to requiring an equal value in materials as the finished product, for a net value gain of zero. That's fine (though it debunks the fabricate-manufacturing empire models), as in this instance we don't need the x3 multiplier for the model to work...
Fabricate does not explicitly target the raw material: It targets a volume. The raw material is the material component required to cast the spell. Wish can duplicate a spell with material components up to 10,000gp in value without you needing to provide them. Thus, if you wish for the Efreeti to fabricate a 20 lb platinum brick (albeit a small brick) - as crude and simple as possible to eliminate the need for a Craft check, or have a DC of merely 5 - it has a material component of 20 lbs of platinum, worth 10,000gp which is within the wish limit and thus you do not need to provide. Thus the spell creates a 10,000gp brick of platinum at no cost to you except the wish.
This is no different to not needing to provide the 10,000gp of diamonds to use wish to duplicate resurrection. It's just a complete waste of money unless the wish is free, so not actually an issue unless one is using the candle of invocation.
Your rules-lawyer-fu needs some work.
(1) You may have control of the Efreet, but he can still misinterpret your Wish to his heart's extent if he so desires. (2) They have Profession (lawyer) for a reason, and (3) it's right in their description that foiling people who want to exploit them for Wishes is one of their favorite pastimes. They TRAIN for it!
(4)It's RAW. Bargaining with an Efreet for Wishes is a perilous process. (5) The 'reliability' for wording and spell duplication is if you cast the spell YOURSELF. (6) In prior editions, the DM could get nasty and misinterpret things on even the most routine Wishes. (7) An efreet still can, which is the price you pay for involving a LE fickle genie in your Wishmaking.
Numbering mine, as there are a few points here.
- 1) Here is the description of an Efreeti, here is the description of wish. Please provide reference/link to where in the rules it explicitly states that an Efreeti is permitted to misinterpret your wording. (Don't get me wrong, I agree they should, but as you keep insisting on talking RAW, we can't go using common sense now, can we?).
2) They do not have Profession (lawyer). Here is their skill list:
Skills Bluff +19, Craft (any one) +14, Disguise +10, Fly +13, Intimidate +15, Perception +15, Sense Motive +15, Spellcraft +14, Stealth +8
- 3) Please provide a link where in the rules their description is as you describe. What is published in the bestiary and PRD is as follows:
The efreet (singular efreeti) are genies from the Plane of Fire. An efreeti stands about 12 feet tall and weighs about 2,000 pounds.
Efreet have few allies among geniekind. They certainly hate djinn, and attack them on sight. They hold an equally strong enmity for marids, and view the jann as frail and weak. Efreet often work closely with shaitans, yet even then alliances are temporary at best.
A small percentage of efreet are noble. Noble efreet, often called maliks, have 13 Hit Dice and gain the following spell-like abilities: 3/day—fireball, heat metal; 1/day—greater invisibility, pyroclastic storm (as ice storm, with fire instead of cold damage). A noble efreeti's caster level for its spell-like abilities is 15th. Noble efreet are CR 10.
- 4) Please provide links to where this is published within the Rules As Written. *Dons Lawyer wig* Note also that the Efreeti does not cast the wish, it grants the wish, which is the same wording used by non-sentient magic items (typically artifacts), such as the talisman of reluctant wishes and the deck of many things. If a non-intelligent item can grant a wish, it cannot require judgement or interpretation by the granter, and must function as if cast by the grantee.
5) Here is a link to wish. Please explain where in the RAW it specifies that the list of applications which do not incur chance of misinterpretation is exclusive to when the user of the wish cast it themselves, and the wish does not come from another creature or item.
6) Not relevant. Prior editions do not factor into RAW.
7) Please provide the reference for where this is stated in RAW. Sourcebook and page numbers, please.
Don't get me wrong. I think the entire concept of exploiting the candle of invocation is ludicrous and I would gladly annihilate any player who tried with the fury of the elemental plane of fire (which, by RAW, I can as the GM to stop any exploit, actually)... but as you and others keep raising the "RAW" banner, I'd actually try to argue on your terms.
The problem is that as far as I can find, you aren't talking RAW, you're talking your recollection and interpretation of RAW, which is a very, very different beast. It also makes your arguments using RAW very unconvincing when you do not actually adhere to RAW in them.
And... as mentioned earlier... it really isn't that relevant anyway, as the adventuring rules are not intended for, nor suited to, world-building.
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I did warn you they'd ignore your argument in favour of rule zero or focusing on specifics.
Still since I've given up on this topic here's a fun bit of silliness RAW each gold coin is worth about .32 ounces of pure gold and 0.01 ounce of other materials. A standard coin is a third of an ounce, 50 GP is 1 pound of gold, 50 GP is 16/2/3 ounces, 1 pound is 16 ounces therefore each gold coin is 0.32 ounces of pure gold. That means a cow 10GP costs around 3.2 ounces of pure gold to buy roughly $4,000 in modern money. An average english herd is around 130 cows. A profession check is generally 2 to 20 gold pieces for a weeks work. A cow is worth 5 to 1/2 that check value. Therefore the english herd of 130 cows would retail for 520,000 dollars and support the farmer for anywhere between 5 and 130 odd years. RAW all farmers must raise a decent herd, sell them and live off the proceeds rather than working hard.
Of course that all makes sense since RAW they would retrain from commoner to mages using the proceeds from that herd to fund the change and sell their spells at a rate of caster level * spell Level * 10 GP. Afterall a first level mage selling a single first level spell makes the same amount of money as he'd earn per cow sold or an average (10) profession check result. If he manages to sell 2 spells that week its the equivalent of 20 profession farmer and a roll of 20 on the dice. Should he manage to somehow sell THREE first level spells he's earnt more than he could with 20 ranks of profession farmer and a natural 20 on the dice.
You're right RAW everyone retrains to be a mage, sells first level . . . wait everyone's a first level mage no one's buying the spells the economy just collapsed, there were no other classes but mage there's only one logical result as per RAW. Every single person starves to death atop piles of gold coins.
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I did warn you they'd ignore your argument in favour of rule zero or focusing on specifics.
Still since I've given up on this topic here's a fun bit of silliness RAW each gold coin is worth about .32 ounces of pure gold and 0.01 ounce of other materials. A standard coin is a third of an ounce, 50 GP is 1 pound of gold, 50 GP is 16/2/3 ounces, 1 pound is 16 ounces therefore each gold coin is 0.32 ounces of pure gold. That means a cow 10GP costs around 3.2 ounces of pure gold to buy roughly $4,000 in modern money. An average english herd is around 130 cows. A profession check is generally 2 to 20 gold pieces for a weeks work. A cow is worth 5 to 1/2 that check value. Therefore the english herd of 130 cows would retail for 520,000 dollars and support the farmer for anywhere between 5 and 130 odd years. RAW all farmers must raise a decent herd, sell them and live off the proceeds rather than working hard.
Of course that all makes sense since RAW they would retrain from commoner to mages using the proceeds from that herd to fund the change and sell their spells at a rate of caster level * spell Level * 10 GP. Afterall a first level mage selling a single first level spell makes the same amount of money as he'd earn per cow sold or an average (10) profession check result. If he manages to sell 2 spells that week its the equivalent of 20 profession farmer and a roll of 20 on the dice. Should he manage to somehow sell THREE first level spells he's earnt more than he could with 20 ranks of profession farmer and a natural 20 on the dice.
You're right RAW everyone retrains to be a mage, sells first level . . . wait everyone's a first level mage no one's buying the spells the economy just collapsed, even worse there were no other classes but mage so no more farming there's only one logical result as per RAW. Every single person starves to death atop piles of gold coins wondering where it all went wrong.
On the other hand, given how much higher Golarion's standard of living is than the world actually was four to six hundred years ago, maybe we're already looking at the result of a magic-as-technology revolution. Sure, it's not magitech/steampunk-ey like Eberron, but the life expectancy and literacy rate beat the hell out of any real world preindustrial society I've ever heard of.
The Volume from Fabricate targets the area of raw materials you can use, and/or the size of the end result you can come up with. Thus, its nigh impossible to fabricate a House, even if you have all the materials handy, because the volume of the spell won't handle it.
So, you are misinterpreting the spell to suit your argument.
If you want to form a brick of pure platinum, that is Major Creation, creating something from nothing, not Fabricate, which refines something from something, i.e. you are attempting to make the Wish cast two spells at once. It won't work.
Subbing for raw materials/material components is absolutely useless if you actually require those components for the end result of the spell. WHile you can certainly cast the spell via Wish without them, ending up with nothing defeats the entire purpose of the casting. Fabricate differs from other spells that require components because in other spells those things are costs that are consumed, so subbing for them does nothing to the spell. For Fabricate, without them, the spell is pointless.
i.e. you are talking around the spell and bending the mechanics to support the argument, making the spell into something it is not. Classic Fabrication abuse.
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As for Efreeti, Paizo goes into great detail with this during the Legacy of Fire adventure path, with the back of one book (the last one, I believe) actually devoted exclusively to Wishcrafting and its abuse. To put it bluntly, the efreet is not an object, and can grant your Wish as it chooses to. For instance, the End Boss of that AP had women wish for eternal beauty, and transformed them into erinyes for a harem, hardly their desire. Its Fire Giant servants wished for magic weapons, and it granted them intelligent weapons with egos that ended up dominating them.
The same AP has the City of Brass, which goes into much more detail on efreeti psyches, including that some of them go for training in Hell to learn better how to subvert contracts and the like.
So, it is most certainly up to the Efreet as to how your wish is granted...or if it grants it at all.
Furthermore, it is RAW that genies are proud and capricious, and Efreeti are Lawful EVIL. Your manner of them granting Wishes has them acting at best LN, which is completely avoiding the fact that Efreeti are neither obedient nor nice. They are intelligent, Evil outsiders with great egos, and they are going to act accordingly. Whimsicial cruelty is basically a byproduct of who and what they are, and they are going to act according to their nature, not the desires of PC's.
As for the profession (lawyer), I have definitely seen a stat block in the past that included it instead of the Craft (any). I believe it was simply substituted as one of the viable options...certainly not all efreeti are craftsmen, and Profession was put in as an alternate.
==Aelryinth
Still since I've given up on this topic here's a fun bit of silliness RAW each gold coin is worth about .32 ounces of pure gold and 0.01 ounce of other materials. A standard coin is a third of an ounce, 50 GP is 1 pound of gold, 50 GP is 16/2/3 ounces, 1 pound is 16 ounces therefore each gold coin is 0.32 ounces of pure gold. That means a cow 10GP costs around 3.2 ounces of pure gold to buy roughly $4,000 in modern money.
By this, 1cp = $4USD, which is a little generous.
Given that in the current era gold is not the basis of currency and thus not an ideal equivalent. Comparing the price of ale (by quirk of human nature, one of the few things that tends to be consistently priced proportionate to average income), that translates to a flagon of ale (4cp) being $16USD, which is a tad high. Using the Ale price, we wind up with it closer to being 1cp = $2USD, with the average laborer earning $600/month.
So your comparison is pretty close, and definitely vastly superior to the the "1sp = 1 dollar" I've seen bandied around the forums an awful lot.
That said, in D&D all precious metals are worth about 1/10th what they were in medieval times, primarily because they wanted the coins big and chunky, and the gold coin being the standard (which it never was - people traded in silver or barter, typically. Gold was a trade coin for massive purchases). Basically Gygax/Arneson wanted players to rake in big armfuls of GOOOOLD, so the rules were made to suit and to hell with simulationism.
As for Efreeti, Paizo goes into great detail with this during the Legacy of Fire adventure path, ...
Legacy of Fire is 3.5. Not Pathfinder.
As a reminder: I agree with you in principle regarding the abuse of wish and the candle of invocation - it should have drawbacks that make it not such a ludicrous exploit. But as the RAW banner had been raised, I'm rules lawyering per the RAW, not RAI, because when I talk about RAI my arguments get dismissed as "Rule 0" etc.
The Volume from Fabricate targets the area of raw materials you can use, and/or the size of the end result you can come up with. Thus, its nigh impossible to fabricate a House, even if you have all the materials handy, because the volume of the spell won't handle it.
So, you are misinterpreting the spell to suit your argument.
No. I am reading the spell literally per the RAW. See below.
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time see text
Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet of material to be affected by the spell.
And yes, returning to my previous post, I see that I actually made an error. The 1/3rd cost does apply as it states so in the Components description. So you can multiply by 3, and the efreeti can have craft. [sarcasm] Hurrah! [/sarcasm]
A) Please point out where it explicitly states that the target volume is specifically of the material component. Hint: It doesn't. It's strongly implied but not explicitly stated, and so doesn't fly in RAW arguments.
B) Wish explicitly states you do not need to provide the material component if it is worth 10,000gp or less, so you do not need to provide the material component.
C) This isn't a problem if you have to pay 25,000gp to cast wish, because it's more expensive than just casting fabricate on the raw material. It is only abusable if one can get wishes without paying the material cost, and it is merely one of the many abuses that can result from doing so.
And. It's still irrelevant for world-building, because it's a tool for PCs to make stuff quickly, not to define society and economy.
Communication would be a good step forward. Involve the players and find out why they want to do whatever it is and/or want a more technologically advanced world. Maybe people are hankering for a Shadowrun game rather than Pathfinder.
Stuff!
And to repeat...if there is no raw material, there is nothing to convert. READ THE SPELL. Text trumps table. You are converting material from one form to another. Without there actually being material, there is nothing to convert. Value has nothing to do with it at this point, being a material component means nothing.
Wish does not 'provide' the desired material component appear out of thin air. It 'takes the place of it' for purposes of casting. That is a subtle but key difference.
The target IS the material affected. NOT the material result. As there are only two targets, and the latter is an impossible target as it doesn't exist yet, the material is the only viable target, and without it, you don't even have a spell.
So...the spell fails because there is no material to convert, and because there's no target of the spell. It's a closed loophole. (Which is hardly a bad thing, right?)
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Legacy of Fire was done by Paizo and is set in Golarion. It is canon until specifically overruled, otherwise. The fact the stat blocks are in 3.5 is irrelevant to the fluff articles, and what you are arguing is the fluff. They provide it for you, and none of it has been overruled.
By your argument, Rise of the Runelords was not valid either, despite TWO other PF AP's being run off of events that started in it.
i.e. Legacy of Fire is very much a canon event in GOlarion.
(Actually, I believe it was the very last AP done in 3.5 rules.)
And while the efreet can have Craft (and probably Profession!), we still don't know the DC of a single piece of jewelry with a 30k value. However, the odds of that efreet having craft (jewelry) is probably along the lines of 5% or less, unless you got the specific name of an efreet known for that skill.
==Aelryinth
Oh, and Fabricate abuse is definitely a thing, because any Wizard with the Craft Ranks (i.e. a +2 Int Headband with the required skill), can make expensive high-end items literally hundreds of days faster then the best craftsmen alive, which will drive them out of the high-end Craft business.
The classic examples are the mithral and adamantine armors. A standard craftsman could take six months or longer to make something a level 9 wizard can make with a literal wave of his hand.
You can argue that level 9 casters are rare...but demand for admantine armor is fairly rare, too, and 365 suits a year is probably enough to satisfy the market for the entire continent, and then some!
The same would apply to any kind of monstrously expensive final product. Poisons, drugs, gems and jewelry all come to mind...a single Caster with the Fabricate spell can basically create on demand these things, instead of waiting interminable amounts of time for a crafter to accomplish them.
==Aelryinth
By your argument, Rise of the Runelords was not valid either, despite TWO other PF AP's being run off of events that started in it.
not... exactly a good example since Rise of the Runelord's Anniversary is PFRPG not 3.5e.
This thread doesn't seem to have gone anywhere but in circles, with mostly Aelryinth on one side and most everyone else on the other of the argument/debate.
Can we move forward, instead of in circles?
I don't find that much fault with Aelryinth's arguments. I just think his premises are a bit off-kilter, especially since he makes assumptions such as how easy it is to turn commoners into wizards, which is not supported by RAW.
I dunno...only taking 3 days and some spare change to retrain a commoner level into a wizard level (and you only need one!) seems pretty easy, and it is RAW.
==Aelryinth
By your argument, Rise of the Runelords was not valid either, despite TWO other PF AP's being run off of events that started in it.not... exactly a good example since Rise of the Runelord's Anniversary is PFRPG not 3.5e.
I used that example because both AP's that were 'successors' to it were published before the updated Rise of the Runelords to PF...which naturally didn't change ANY of the fluff of the storyline, just some stat blocks. So if RotR wasn't valid, those AP's couldn't have referenced it, either!
:)
==Aelryinth
Oh, and Fabricate abuse is definitely a thing, because any Wizard with the Craft Ranks (i.e. a +2 Int Headband with the required skill), can make expensive high-end items literally hundreds of days faster then the best craftsmen alive, which will drive them out of the high-end Craft business.
The classic examples are the mithral and adamantine armors. A standard craftsman could take six months or longer to make something a level 9 wizard can make with a literal wave of his hand.
You can argue that level 9 casters are rare...but demand for admantine armor is fairly rare, too, and 365 suits a year is probably enough to satisfy the market for the entire continent, and then some!
The same would apply to any kind of monstrously expensive final product. Poisons, drugs, gems and jewelry all come to mind...a single Caster with the Fabricate spell can basically create on demand these things, instead of waiting interminable amounts of time for a crafter to accomplish them.
==Aelryinth
Given that such items are readily available in any major city without much of a wait time (if any), it is quite likely that such high end goods are made by casters - much the same way magic items are. So I wouldn't really call it "abuse" so much as "a decent rationalization of why item availability is as convenient for adventurers as it is".
That said, (as you've pointed out) as it can only create a single item of a limited volume, there isn't great scope for a get-rich-quick scheme (talking in-game logic, not RAW), as any one caster has limited spell slots and high-end items typically don't have the biggest market. Larger scale production of small things is still best left to the tradesmen. But for high level wizards, it's a living :)
Stuff!And to repeat...Stuff
I was rules lawyering because, ultimately, that is what arguments of RAW vs Judgement amount to, not because I actually believed or want that interpretation of wish+fabricate to be true. And I still don't think you've actually rules-lawyered your way to an ironclad case... I just can't be bothered arguing the specific point further, because it really, really isn't important :)
Legacy of Fire was done by Paizo and is set in Golarion. It is canon until specifically overruled, otherwise. The fact the stat blocks are in 3.5 is irrelevant to the fluff articles, and what you are arguing is the fluff. They provide it for you, and none of it has been overruled.
By your argument, Rise of the Runelords was not valid either, despite TWO other PF AP's being run off of events that started in it.
i.e. Legacy of Fire is very much a canon event in GOlarion.
This isn't exactly the best argument against the stupidity I was proposing. A better argument would be to use the Glabrezu as precedent, who also can grant wishes, but whose write up specifically calls up that it will interpret the wishes in the most destructive fashion possible.
Arguing that material from past editions is still RAW within a setting is swimming in very muddy waters. I own AD&D 2nd edition books for the Forgotten Realms, and were your argument true, they and every sourcebook published (regardless of edition) for Forgotten Realms would be Cannon, and by implication of how you used it, RAW. Let's... just not go there, shall we. It gets very silly.
This thread doesn't seem to have gone anywhere but in circles, with mostly Aelryinth on one side and most everyone else on the other of the argument/debate.
Can we move forward, instead of in circles?
Argumentum ad populum, and a flat-out lie since both the OP and I also support Aelryinth's position.
But since you want to talk, what's "forward" for the GM fiat side? Say "no" louder and slower? Tattoo it on your chest? Do an interpretive dance? I think we've agreed that it's better to say "no don't do that" rather than making up a bunch of reasons that would come with unintended consequences. Again, what's "forward" from "no don't do that"? Add "because I said so"? "because I'm the GM"? "because rule 0 says so"? What?
Bit antagonistic there, BBB.
Also, while it is possible that could be correct regarding the OP agreeing with you, but given they've never said such, it is highly presumptuous of you to assume so. If they feel like chiming in at some point to go "Hey, I agree with Aelyrinth and Bob Bob Bob", that's fine... but you shouldn't go putting words in their mouth.
On the topic of the OP: I don't think they ever actually asked for a RAW-Only solution, just a better explanation than "NO BECAUSE I SAY SO!". While you (BBB) like making the case that anything that isn't RAW is just saying "NO!", this is an extreme oversimplification and missing the point of this being a roleplaying game, not a table-top wargame. Indeed, part of the entire OP was comparing a misuse (not to RAW) of wall of iron against the historical iron production of England, which itself has absolutely no place in Pathfinder or its RAW.
As a reminder of a more recent post:
The premise of the question is wrong really. Worlds don't change on their own... Technology, magic, doesn't evolve on their own. Worlds rise and fall when authors deem it so.
That's the thing about being a DM. You get to be the ultimate decider. And if you can find a reason to do so, all the better.
If you want everyone to become a wizard with a bit of education, that's an authorial choice. If you decide that only those rare precious few with a Gift can wield any kind of magic, that's another authorial choice. And both are are valid!
When people create worlds it's not like they're subject to fate, It's not a "lets create a Mystra, a Rao, an Iuz etc...and whatnot and roll dice to see what happen.
Creators create backstories to justify the present they've already decided on.
So the answer to the OP's question... is not to have the desire for a technological/divine/arcane/psychic/psionic explosion in the first place. Or to have one and work out the details afterward.
I don't think you understood the point of my question. Suppose I made a world, with great backstory and an interesting campaign in it, which looks like your everyday fantasy+magic world-1500-s england, but some people can into magic. Then I introduce the players into this world and one of them(let's call him John) asks
-Why aren't there continuous lights on every corner? With one light archon summoning you get thousands of those, and lighting up the streets has too many benefits to not do it.
Can I say "Shut up John, stop thinking, you are ruining my world with your logic. Roll your barbarian already"? Sure, I can, but that is a very lazy answer. It breaks immersion because players don't have a good reason to believe this world would function like that. If it's a minor point players might ignore it and recover their immersion later on, but if inconsistencies like that would keep popping up it's not going to end pretty.
Can you have a world where after WW2 USSR and USA united into one nation and declared war on south africa? Sure, but you need an explanation as to why. Can you have a modern world where some people are mages who can do all sorts of things with magical wands? Sure, but you need to explain why it doesn't have any effects on the world at large. J. K. Rowling, for example, understood this.
Now, suppose you don't want to spend hours and hours trying to figure out how magic would affect society and making a consistent world, because you have 747s to build/laws to pass/people to heal. You want a quick way to fix any major effects(e.g. teleportation not being used for communication and centralised goverment control.), counting on your GM powers to fix any minor inconsistencies on the spot.
How would you do that?
I hope this clarifies my question a little.
The OP never asked for rules lawyering, or how the world should be, or to be told that until the adventuring rules are fixed to remove all exploits there is nothing that can be discussed, they asked for a means of explaining why the world is the way it is. And that is an interesting topic and bears discussion, because it is dealing with the actual creative side of the hobby; world building and story-telling.
The beef I, and others, have had with the "It is inevitable per RAW" is that the statement is... well, preposterous as it stands. If it was instead: "If you take a world that is a work of creativity as there is no ruleset to mandate its form, and then permit characters within it to utilize the adventuring rules exactly as written, there are exploits that can wreak massive changes upon it." then it would be actually true... but that's not as dramatic sounding.
Similarly, while there is no one scenario that the RAW mandates a 100% chance of occurring, the RAW cannot create the world - it exists only because the GM said so - GM fiat, if you will, thus there is absolutely no grounds by which to claim that an in-universe roleplay solution is somehow disqualified or inferior.
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When putting a world together, some effort is needed in pinning down the what's and why's. For example: Are there archons in your world? Are they numerous? Do they mingle with humanity or remain apart? In either case, why? Are there societies where mortals and archons coexist? Do the archons have some form of greater duty, such as preventing the demons of the abyss from rampaging through the cosmos? Do they avoid meddling in mortal affairs because they have a greater duty to defend their plane of existence? Do they avoid meddling because they believe mortals must be self-sufficient to thrive? Do they actively meddle - and if so how do the influence mortal society?
Through a series of asking questions and forming rational answers, one can put together the pieces of the puzzle, and add depth and coherence to the world they tell stories in.
For example: The default setting is one where humanoid late-medieval style civilizations sprawl over the world, and while powerful agents of good and evil exist, they tend to mostly leave the mortals to do their thing, except where heroes (PCs) need something to do.
These aren't the only possible answers (people are creative, and there are likely thousands more than work), but they are some answers to such questions. All of which are as equally valid in the game as the world existing in the first place.
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Argumentum ad populum, and a flat-out lie since both the OP and I also support Aelryinth's position.
But since you want to talk, what's "forward" for the GM fiat side? Say "no" louder and slower? Tattoo it on your chest? Do an interpretive dance? I think we've agreed that it's better to say "no don't do that" rather than making up a bunch of reasons that would come with unintended consequences. Again, what's "forward" from "no don't do that"? Add "because I said so"? "because I'm the GM"? "because rule 0 says so"? What?
You can count yourself on his side but not the OP, since they have not come in and shown agreement. Also note how I used the words 'mostly' and 'most', while not dealing in absolutes. Through those words being there in the post my statement before was true or at least wasn't a 'flat-out lie'.
Personally, I take issue with how often he tries preventing others arguments by saying 'GM fiat' while doing the very same thing with his arguments at times and trying to get away with it. Also in the cases it may be true, trying to make 'DM fiat' and Rule 0 into a bad thing. A DM can discuss with the players where they want a campaign to go, in how the world works without it being DM fiat, even say no at times while maybe explaining why when appropriate.
Time and again, Aelryinth posts mostly seem to come off as unhelpful and just brings the arguments full circle without going anywhere... repeating the same thing over and over again. Others have shown their disagreement, many others, yet he stubbornly dismissed them and holds on to his often narrow view of how things work while not always being consistent.
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That is my two cents on the situation... and all I would like to say on it. I would rather not get dragged into this debate. Instead I would like to see the discussion go onto how and when a technological/magic technological explosion can or should happen. Not arguing RAW or retraining rules, fabricate or wish, but actual world building and when or where it is appropriate.
There is a lot of potential for this thread without repeating itself time and again, which it has mostly for the last 8 pages or so.
My position (and I think Aelryinth's, though feel free to correct that if it's wrong) is that the game as written does not result in the world written. Furthermore, you have to ignore a lot of what the rules let you do if you want to get the world presented.
Exactly so.
As for infrastructure for technology...that's the biggest impediment to a tech explosion in a magical world, because it is so very easy for a powerful individual to strike out at key elements of the infrastructure and stop technology in its tracks. It takes an immense amount of communal effort at the low broad level to get tech moving, and magic excels at butchering the low level.
That's why the broad, low power to spread magic via unlimited usage is so powerful...it has the exact same power and appeal of broad, low technology, but it is people-focused instead of machine-focused. Unlimited archon lights and cantrips are the tip of the iceberg. Magical items with continuous or infinite use can change the game, too. A decanter of endless water can't water fields, but can certainly do window boxes and take care of the daily water needs for a very large town, giving you freedom from rain or wells and no worries about purity. It arguably could run a hydroponics garden, too, if you recycle the water.
I like to write, and I've got a storyline dealing with 'magical infrastructure.' The biggest thing starting from 0 is 'where are all the magical comps worth x 000's of gp' for making magical items?
They don't exist yet. The last leaf to fall from a tree on the winter equinox. A shield that defied a thousand arrows. Ice from the tears of a nymph who has lost a lover. One thousand four leaf clovers. The magical components of the magical world, things that people without magic can gather and have real worth/need in magical and alchemical uses.
Establishing that infrastructure is one of the things they desperately need to do, otherwise, they are physically burning through precious metals and gemstones to power the making of magical items, and once those are gone, they are in trouble. So I like to think that one of the great 'unseen occupations' in a magical world is 'magical components gatherer'. And by that standard, there's thousands of folk supporting the magical economy and keeping it going. Heck, one of the things they are doing is urgently training people to be jewelers so they can triple the value of precious metals and gems for Crafting! Also, I made a fiat rule that non-magical crafters can do post-masterwork DC stuff that increases the value of it for purposes of making magic items. So, they can make a DC 30 sword with an intrinsic value of 5500 gp for purposes of magic item construction.
All Rule 0, however. ;)
==Aelryinth
Here's my thing: When you're talking about RPG settings "no" is always "no for made-up reasons," and "yes" is always "yes for made-up reasons." All the reasons are made up. It's fine say the made-up reasons don't match your expectations, but once you've got expectations that specific, the onus is on you to detail your own setting.
However, as I've said before, I don't think world building and Rule 0 have all that much to do with each other. Rule 0 applies specifically to the GM's role when playing at the table, whereas world building usually happens away from the table, and can be collaborative. I'm not speaking hypothetically, I've run games in settings I've created with other people, and Rule 0 was irrelevant during the process.
There are two elements to World-building: The people and places, and the rules of the setting.
You can hugely change the flavor of the setting by moving the focus of the campaign to elves, dwarves, goblins or a desperate struggle against the tyranny of the kobolds. You can change the landscape to a skyscape, waterscape, pink fluffy ponyland, whatever.
BUT...that doesn't change the rules.
When you say "tech doesn't work because electricity isn't obligated to follow the path of least resistance" you have now changed the RULES of the game, and Rule 0 is in effect.
See the difference? when you say, IMC, things WORK DIFFERENT...that's Rule 0 being roped into your world-building. Changing the humanocentric, eurocentric, pseudo-Medieval assumptions of GOlarion to something else has nothing to do with the rules.
I.e. Golarion is a world that did nothing with the rules, because it is supposedly based on the core rules. No Rule 0 needed (technically). The fact it isn't the world that should be there with the rules is another topic of discussion.
==Aelryinth
Honestly, no, I don't see the difference. Why not? Because for the times electricity has defined mechanically in the PF rules, I don't remember any mention of conductivity. I don't think electricity is required to follow the path of least resistance by the rules so much as by real world natural laws, which are (yet another) separate subject. Given that you can travel from Golarion to Earth to defeat (or not!) Rasputin, it's a pretty safe assumption that the same natural laws are in effect, but the rules mechanics just don't account for that.
Not to be a dingus, but I'm curious as to why you think the rules of the setting are an element of world building. PF models a heroic fantasy version of early 20th century earth in Reign of Winter, but couldn't any other ruleset model WWI Russia?
Edit: ninja'd by TheJeff, but it took me the better part of an hour to notice, just 'cause I'm slow on the uptake.
You do know what IMC means, right?
I never said, hinted or alluded that it was a Rule of Golarion. It was an example of a rule you institute to explain why technology doesn't develop. Golarion specifically allows technology to function just fine (they have a Super science AP, remember?), they, like the core rules, don't have a rule like that.
Another such rule is 'that which is most combustible is most likely to spontaneously combust', which means volatile chemicals and gunpowder variants are incredibly unstable. Ergo, no gun developments. Concentrated masses of coal would be likely to do the same, which precludes development of non-magical steam power.
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Golarion ignores what is possible with the rules entirely. It effectively was made ignoring the implications of easy access to broad, low magical effects, despite magic having been around for 40k+ years and stuff. That's much different then imagining the social implications, etc. It's basically earth-style civilizations and governments given a veneer of magic to keep everything 'fantastic', and some special magical locations.
==Aelryinth
Golarion ignores what is possible with the rules entirely. It effectively was made ignoring the implications of easy access to broad, low magical effects, despite magic having been around for 40k+ years and stuff. That's much different then imagining the social implications, etc. It's basically earth-style civilizations and governments given a veneer of magic to keep everything 'fantastic', and some special magical locations.
Golarion is literally many clashing settings all shoved into one planet/solar system, with nearly every single one basically ignoring the fact they have magic at their disposal.
I actually don't know what IMC means, please explain.
IMC on this board can also mean "In My Campaign". :)
IMC magic favors living things. So, nerves aren't a problem, the same magic which frees electricity from metal keeps in running smoothly in our nerves. Probably why things can get so bloody smart so easily, and get Dex scores with no limit.
For spon combustion, alchemy gets around a lot of stuff, since alchemy deals with intrinsic magic. Alchemical Fire IS the spon combustion thing harnessed.
Trying to take advantage of spon combustion chemically is asking for all kinds of trouble. :) IMC, non-alchemical, non-natural chemicals are very unstable, and tend to degrade into corrosive goop rather quickly. Gotta have that living or elemental nature intact!
==Aelryinth
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Still since I've given up on this topic here's a fun bit of silliness RAW each gold coin is worth about .32 ounces of pure gold and 0.01 ounce of other materials. A standard coin is a third of an ounce, 50 GP is 1 pound of gold, 50 GP is 16/2/3 ounces, 1 pound is 16 ounces therefore each gold coin is 0.32 ounces of pure gold. That means a cow 10GP costs around 3.2 ounces of pure gold to buy roughly $4,000 in modern money.By this, 1cp = $4USD, which is a little generous.
Given that in the current era gold is not the basis of currency and thus not an ideal equivalent. Comparing the price of ale (by quirk of human nature, one of the few things that tends to be consistently priced proportionate to average income), that translates to a flagon of ale (4cp) being $16USD, which is a tad high. Using the Ale price, we wind up with it closer to being 1cp = $2USD, with the average laborer earning $600/month.
So your comparison is pretty close, and definitely vastly superior to the the "1sp = 1 dollar" I've seen bandied around the forums an awful lot.
That said, in D&D all precious metals are worth about 1/10th what they were in medieval times, primarily because they wanted the coins big and chunky, and the gold coin being the standard (which it never was - people traded in silver or barter, typically. Gold was a trade coin for massive purchases). Basically Gygax/Arneson wanted players to rake in big armfuls of GOOOOLD, so the rules were made to suit and to hell with simulationism.
Actually because the gold piece is no longer valid currency I worked out my prices on the current value for an ounce of gold and the amount in a coin. 50 GP = 16 ounces of gold purchased therefore 50 GP contain 16 Ounces of gold and as they are 16/2/3 ounces in weight they are mostly pure gold. Rather ridiculous since that would make them too soft to use but since some people insist RAW is the be all and end all for the argument that is what they are.
If you want the value of silver/copper/platinum you'd need to look those up rather than just converting 10-1. As I think I said (it ate my first post) this is just a bit of silliness to show you can't apply RAW in this game without rule zero/common sense being used to get it to work for any specific situation. Speaking personally I've looked into multiple other coinage systems because I dislike the gold coin standard but there's no point in using that for a discussion of how the rules aren't going to trigger an industrial revolution.
Of course as I proved in my post they'd trigger the collapse of society as everyone would retrain to a spellcaster for the better pay and with no more farmers everyone would starve to death. Any arguments otherwise rely on simple common sense and thus must be ignored as that's rule zero.
EDIT
For others electricity might function exactly the same as the real world i.e. a lightning bolt will take the easiest path to earth but a LIGHTNING BOLT (Spell) is encased in magical power to keep it from diverting away from the target or all those creatures violating square cube law are actually using magic to do it in an innate sense and would collapse under the own weight if they entered an antimagic zone (one GM I know did this to a player who was annoying them by constant rules lawyering).
So since Aelryinth seems to have come around going by the fact they specified in their campaign in the most recent post maybe we can all agree to shut up about RAW and instead debate theory as in why and how a magical society might develop either to a technology bomb or a graveyard.
I know Netheril for example caused a magic collapse by overusing it and not leaving enough free magic to power its constructs. However saying "rule zero, rule zero, rule zero" any time someone suggests a world building explanation as to why it wont happen is just going to make it impossible to get anywhere.
Look, I'm not trying to argue with anyone, but I really feel like IMC was just introduced to the conversation as a term. I'll post on the thread again once the back and forth has settled down a bit. :)
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Look, I'm not trying to argue with anyone, but I really feel like IMC was just introduced to the conversation as a term. I'll post on the thread again once the back and forth has settled down a bit. :)
I believe it was as well at least I don't recall seeing it before (ever actually) but since it was I'm hoping we can maybe move away from the "You're rule zeroing it" to an actual productive discussion of way's to answer the original poster i.e. how do you keep a technology explosion/implosion from happening.
No, Netheril bombed because Karsus? (can't remember the idiot's name) was stupid enough to use a 12th level spell to try and replace Mystra as deity of magic so he could defeat the phaerimm. She was the only holding the Weave of Magic together which Netheril's magic was straining, and when he tried to replace her, it all came undone.
So, all the magic active in the Realms kind of got dispelled, and all the Netherese flying cities fell down out of the sky. Goodbye, Netheril.
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For gold pieces, I simply moved away from weight and coin size and whatever, and moved to a more universal constant.
Magic Item construction.
The monetary standard is built on what the value of something is for inclusion into a magic item by value.
So, one gp is 1/1000 the daily value of what the average mage can work into constructing a magic item before his brain starts to melt. This daily value is a 'goldweight'. It represents a fixed amount of gold, sure, but I never bothered to actually 'measure' the value, since pure gold used in item construction is horrifically wasteful if you have renewable resources available.
Anyone with the ability to make magical items can accurately judge the value of objects to include in that process, it is a necessity.
Gold coins are just worth 1 gp. This can be by amount of precious metal, by the skill of the engraver, by the historical value, by residual magic imbuing. It makes no difference...it's worth one gp. Certain cases, like being an antique, or bearing a trace amount of the aura of an ancient Empire, could make them 'collector's items', at which point they could jump in value as the price and aura attached to them become more valuable for magical item construction ('A thousand coins from an Empire lost five millenia to the mists of time').
Gold coins actually tend to have little gold in them, and it actually isn't neccessary, it's mostly for tradition. It's far more efficient to have 2/3 of the value come from the crafting that goes into them.
This is also why most profession and crafting checks result in pretty much exactly the same levels of income. By simply producing items to be used in magical item construction at the rate of Craft or Profession checks, items accrue 'magical value' at the pace of the checks, and can be sold to component supply shops for that level of value as needed. For Crafters, this involves making items. For Profession checks, this involves using items in a successful manner. (The cravat of a lawyer who has won a hundred cases, the gavel of a judge who sentenced a thousand men fairly, etc). By imbuing excellence into items by successful checks, people can literally 'make money', transforming items into things usable in the fields of magic.
This also results in 'traditional' modes of thought, as items that can accrue value become known and people will wear them to 'value them up.' All the lawyers end up wearing cravats. All the judges use a gavel. Crafters make items usable as material components in spells or magic item components, or the raw form of the magic items themselves.
In short, the entire economy spins around the absolute value of a goldweight, and how much an item is worth viz the demands of magic. 'Gold coins' are simple means of measuring what the renewable resources are worth, vs. consuming destroying precious metal and gems forever.
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Of course, I had to severely change Fabricate to reflect this reality. Fabricated items, as the product of magic, have no goldweight value for magic items, and are thus only good for mundane use. You can't fabricate a 30k necklace and use it to power a Wish, for example. And you can't make a Fabricated adamantine armor magical, anymore then you could Enhance a Wall of Force.
Secondly, a Fabricate spell was changed to simply do one day of crafting per casting, in other words, saving 8 hours of time, instead of saving anywhere from minutes to months of time like the original spell. This is much more inline with a 'standard' for magic. It's still MUCH faster then doing something by hand...but doing it by hand puts an artisan's soul into the work, and raises the value of the item accordingly.
The sole exception to this is 'refinement'. A wizard with the appropriate skill ranks can raise the DC of a created item via using Fabricate, instead of having to work it manually. This doesn't raise the magical 'value' of the item at all, but does make it eligible for higher level spell effects. Since he can still only do a day of work at a time, this naturally still takes some time to accomplish.
As a result of all this, Fabricated items sell for half the price or less of hand-constructed items, and aren't an economic issue.
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All IMC, of course. All of this solidifies the role of skilled craftsmen in society, creates an ongoing demand for them, and renders the role of mechanization and mass-production via magic or science severely unattractive. Only the lowest, most basic goods would possibly be made that way, and would be signs of being poor.
==Aelryinth