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I, for one, am sick of Paizo Devs setting a seemingly arbitrary price on the life of my character. I mean who are they to determine how much my character's life is worth?! I mean at least if it were a price adjusted by level it wouldn't appear so arbitrary! Are we going to put up with this kind of blatant player abuse?! Fight the power!
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"Diamonds can be melted down and poured into molds." Source for that piece of information?
Diamonds can be made artificially, but you don't take existing diamond, melt them down and poor them in a mold. The process is way more complicated.
http://www.livescience.com/4303-scientists-melt-diamond.html
Wasn't talking about melting them with fire, if that's what you were thinking. It's an involved process. Linked article just melted diamonds into a puddle (which is an alternate shape), so a mold could work too.
Though with magic, would be much easier, since the spell ignores the technology needed.
No, fabricate don't ignore the technology needed.
What is the DC for that feat? Some hundred thousand done with a machine that give a skill bonus of some hundred thousand point.And that scientist hasn't fused together several smaller diamonds after melting them, as you implied in your post.
So, no, your idea of using fabricate to join together smaller diamonds is totally wrong.
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The fabricate spell can be used to combine multiple smaller diamonds into one larger one with the same overall value. Or turn a costly one into a bunch of dust.Can't. A larger diamond isn't something that you can produce.
That spell don't glue together random item, it make a product. What is the craft skill used to produce a larger diamond? What is the DC?
A cut larger diamond could certainly be a product. And it is the same material as smaller diamonds. I see no reason why fabricate would not work.
DC 20 would seem appropriate as this is the DC for a "superior" product. A 5,000 gp diamond would probably be considered a superior product.
A single cut diamond is made from a larger uncut diamond. Fabricate don't craft things that can't be made.
It can cut a uncut diamond and make it more valuable if you make your crafting check, but it will not fuse smaller diamonds together.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I, for one, am sick of Paizo Devs setting a seemingly arbitrary price on the life of my character. I mean who are they to determine how much my character's life is worth?! I mean at least if it were a price adjusted by level it wouldn't appear so arbitrary! Are we going to put up with this kind of blatant player abuse?! Fight the power!
Lune was last seen being evicted from St. Charles Place after refusing to pay her $140 rent. Word has it she took the Reading Railroad out of town.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I typically just say "spell components eat gold right out of your pocket", because it's far easier than forcing people to carry the diamond around or go to town to bring back the player who died at the start of the session and now has nothing to do for the rest of the session if we can't rez him.
Dying is the game's way of telling you that you bit off more than you can chew and it's time to go back to town.
I typically just say "spell components eat gold right out of your pocket", because it's far easier than forcing people to carry the diamond around or go to town to bring back the player who died at the start of the session and now has nothing to do for the rest of the session if we can't rez him.
I strictly enforce material component rules because it's one of the biggest, most clear-cut constraints on casters. The martial/caster disparity is already big enough without making it even easier on casters to throw around whatever big, giant spell they want whenever they want it without having to plan ahead.
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I think the intention is that the 5k is the amount you paid for it, not some system of current market value.
OOTS jokes aside, I'm pretty sure the intention is that it's a diamond you could normally sell for 5K. If you get it for 10% off, it still works. If you stole it, it still works. If you bought a tiny grain of diamond dust for 5000gp, it doesn't work.
In any realistic economy (not that this is one), the ability of an item to raise the dead impacts its value. If diamonds worth $500 in our world are what it takes to bring someone back to life, then it makes sense that people would be willing to pay 5000gp each, even if they doesn't look like much.
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The fabricate spell can be used to combine multiple smaller diamonds into one larger one with the same overall value. Or turn a costly one into a bunch of dust.Can't. A larger diamond isn't something that you can produce.
That spell don't glue together random item, it make a product. What is the craft skill used to produce a larger diamond? What is the DC?
A cut larger diamond could certainly be a product. And it is the same material as smaller diamonds. I see no reason why fabricate would not work.
DC 20 would seem appropriate as this is the DC for a "superior" product. A 5,000 gp diamond would probably be considered a superior product.
A single cut diamond is made from a larger uncut diamond. Fabricate don't craft things that can't be made.
It can cut a uncut diamond and make it more valuable if you make your crafting check, but it will not fuse smaller diamonds together.
Here is the spell. Nothing in the spell says anything to prevent the spell from converting many small diamonds into a larger one.
FABRICATE
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.
The spell requires three things:
The material component must be the same material as the end product.The value of the material component must be the same as the value of the raw material needed to make the end product.
If a high degree of craftsmanship is required to make the end product generally, a skill check is needed to make the end product.
Nothing in the spell states that you must start with the material component fused together.
Nor does the spell state that the material component must be the raw material normally used to create the product. The material component must only be the same type of material and the same value as the raw material used to create the end product.
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*His.
I understand drow males look slightly androgynous to the human eye so I forgive the mistake.
Fight the power. Don't buy into the diamond mine propaganda machine! Let players determine the price of character lives!
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"You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship."
To me that means you must make the same Craft check to Fabricate it that you would to do it without magic - the spell just makes it instant. So work out the DC you'd need to combine two diamonds seamlessly using only mundane tools - around DC 60? - and that's the roll you need to make.
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Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Out of curiosity... what do you imagine the cost of the raw materials to "craft" a 10,000 gp diamond to be? And what Craft skill do you think would be "appropriate" for such a procedure?
Basically... fabricate allows you to use magic to instantly perform normal crafting. It does not allow you to create things which would be impossible to craft.
*His.
I understand drow males look slightly androgynous to the human eye so I forgive the mistake.Fight the power. Don't buy into the diamond mine propaganda machine! Let players determine the price of character lives!
You can determine the value of your life but if the value is less than 5,000 gold the multiverse is going to disagree (or at least raise dead won't work without the required component).
In a philosophical sense you can set any value on your life. But that value is largely irrelevant to anyone/anything else. Death cares not whether you are a king or pauper. The cost of life saving (or in this case reviving) treatment is the same whether you are rich or poor.
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But we aren't setting the price, only the value of the material component. The economy isn't even doing it. Even if you bicker endlessly about the economics of how much a diamond is worth or if you can use diamond dust you are still talking about the value of that component. Price is determined by the oppressive Paizo Devs. Can't you see that they are winning by making you fight with each other?! That is what they want! Turn your pitchforks on the true enemy and deny the oppressive Paizo spin machine their pleasure in watching you fight each other!
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Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Out of curiosity... what do you imagine the cost of the raw materials to "craft" a 10,000 gp diamond to be? And what Craft skill do you think would be "appropriate" for such a procedure?
Basically... fabricate allows you to use magic to instantly perform normal crafting. It does not allow you to create things which would be impossible to craft.
Well technically a gems worth would be based on crafting measures getting the right cut and such. So in fact a raw uncut diamond does require skill to be worth its full value. Though whether or not that is applicable to fabricate is the real question. Though maybe you could use 5k gold worth of coal for the fabricate check?
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So Clerics ought never invest in the Appraise skill? That way when someone presents a diamond and says it's worth 5k, they will be likely to fail the check and it'll be worth 5k to the best of their knowledge...
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So the human market system has influence over the return of dead souls from the cosmos? How did they figure this out? Wizards must be hella rich.
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So the human market system has influence over the return of dead souls from the cosmos? How did they figure this out? Wizards must be hella rich.
Everything has a price ;)
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So the human market system has influence over the return of dead souls from the cosmos? How did they figure this out? Wizards must be hella rich.
Daggum, does it ever. You ever seen planar ally?!
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Well technically a gems worth would be based on crafting measures getting the right cut and such. So in fact a raw uncut diamond does require skill to be worth its full value. Though whether or not that is applicable to fabricate is the real question. Though maybe you could use 5k gold worth of coal for the fabricate check?
That would be a LOT of coal :)
Yeah. craft(jewelry) is ridiculously "broken". Not in "i can game it" kind of way, but in "gp doesn't really translate well to the intricacies of jewelry-making" kind of way. You could have a really complicated setting for a very mundane stone, with a final result in the tens of gp, or you could have a really mundane setting and an already flawless diamond, with the final result being in the tens of thousands of gp. How do you adjudicate that? Is the skill in knowing which setting makes the jewel the most pleasing or is it in competently creating the setting or is it both?
It ought to be simplified such that it's all in diamond dust, because diamond dust is almost a unit-weight - you can set a price for that. Then you can assume that when fabricated, the dust self-organizes into such a way that its idealized.
There's probably a cottage industry in Golarion devoted entirely to this. lol
(edited to add) apparently you can make technological items with craft(mechanical). Presumably you could fabricate the same. So maybe stitching a diamond together requires two checks?
As a GM I wouldn't even demand the diamond, just the gold. Because the whole time the party is looking for a diamond, the dead player(s) can only watch. Well, a few ways to allow them to act exist, but usually they are worse than simply allowing them to play their characters again. There are times where it can be an interesting quest to get a spell component, but this is none of them.
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I've always thought of gems as trade goods, along with other items of similarly standardised pricing, like spices and precious metals. I know they're not listed on the table, but it's not extensive. The game treats certain things as having inherent worth, with spell components being an example of this. Rather than a wizard insisting they pay 5k for a tiny stone, I can see them bemoaning that market forces making it much more expensive to use high level spells.
As to whether you can use several dimonds as the component, I've always read it as one but that could just be a hold over. Honestly, I would probably still rule as much; if the designers had ment to open it up I'd have thought they'd change it to 'dimond(s)' rather than just remove the 'a', and being without components on hand is supposed to be a major disadvantage for casters, like a ranger losing their quiver. Still though, if they couldn't conveniently just retreat and return to town I might allow it just so I didn't have a player sitting out for most of a session or more.
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well good luck ever finding one of that sizeSize isn't an issue.
if they want to do it in the field
Uhm... phrasing? O_o :P
Okay, seriously now:
Diamonds are objectively worthless in our world.
Prior to the 20th century, engagement rings were strictly luxury items, and they rarely contained diamonds. But in 1939, the De Beers diamond company changed all of that when it hired ad agency N.W. Ayer & Son. The industry had taken a nosedive in the 1870s, after massive diamond deposits were discovered in South Africa. But the ad agency came to the rescue by introducing the diamond engagement ring and quietly spreading the trend through fashion magazines. The rings didn't become de rigueur for marriage proposals until 1948, when the company launched the crafty "A Diamond is Forever" campaign. By sentimentalizing the gems, De Beers ensured that people wouldn't resell them, allowing the company to retain control of the market. In 1999, De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer confessed, "Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill."
In addition to diamond engagement rings, De Beers also promoted surprise proposals. The company learned that when women were involved in the selection process, they picked cheaper rings. By encouraging surprise proposals, De Beers shifted the purchasing power to men, the less-cautious spenders.
Diamonds are not particularly rare in our world. Unfortunately what drives the price up to a ludicrous markup is that one diamond cartel (De Beers) has muscled its way into a monopoly, and sits on the supply, creating an artificial shortage by only allowing a small percentage to be sold each year (again for absolutely no reason other than to unethically increase their profits).
So knowing this, we must ask ourselves - is there equivalent anticompetitive dickery going on in Golarion (*cough* Aspis Consortium), and if so, how does these diamond robber-barons artificially manipulating prices affect the return of souls to the mortal plane?
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How many GP worth of diamonds do I need to build a killer SPACE-LAZOR? :P
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Where do "used up" diamonds...go?
What about opening up planar trade from the Elemental Plane of Earth? BOOM! Infinite minable resources!
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I've always thought of gems as trade goods, along with other items of similarly standardised pricing, like spices and precious metals. I know they're not listed on the table, but it's not extensive. The game treats certain things as having inherent worth, with spell components being an example of this.
You are correct. From ultimate equipement: "Gems and jewelry can be bought or sold at their total value, and are sometimes used as currency."
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Okay, I just looked at the text of the resurrection spell in the d20pfsrd.
Components V, S, M (diamond worth 10,000 gp), DF
It just says "diamond", not "a diamond". Diamond is a substance, and can come in a big chunk, smaller pieces, powder, etc - it's all "diamond".
It's like if it asked for a material component that was "pie worth 10,000 gp" - is that one big pie, or a bunch of smaller ones?
mmmm... I wanna get rezzed to a 10,000 gp pie... :P
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No, fabricate don't ignore the technology needed.
What is the DC for that feat? Some hundred thousand done with a machine that give a skill bonus of some hundred thousand point.And that scientist hasn't fused together several smaller diamonds after melting them, as you implied in your post.
So, no, your idea of using fabricate to join together smaller diamonds is totally wrong.
If you read the linked article, they took many small sections of diamonds and made them into a puddle.
Anyway, with the original comment, I was mostly assuming based on a james bond movie plot and an old textbook I have which lists a melting point for diamonds. I've sure never tried to melt diamonds down, but if they have a melting point, seems reasonable to assume that they'd melt.
I do know that artifical diamonds are created with small pieces of diamonds that are then grown into larger diamonds in a lengthy process.
As for Fabricate, it does ignore the Technology required. Otherwise you'd require the tools and conditions for the process, ignoring those is ignoring the required technology. Fabricate bypasses the technology, as does just about every spell in pathfinder.
As for diamond dust and diamonds worth a set value. I think you are being petty with this one. In this fictional setting of pathfinder, using magic to convert small diamonds into bigger diamonds seems pretty reasonable. If this is a game breaking concept, the GM is free to restrict or ban any such element from their table.
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Want to make it more complicated? Somewhere in the Silver Mount, or in 1920s Russia or in any of a bunch of other places is the actual information that, elementally, diamonds are the same thing as coal.
How long until that knowledge passes into the hands of a high level wizard? How many weeks / months until you see the 6th level spell transmute coal to diamond?
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"Things are worth what you could sell them for" is a better guideline than "things are worth what you pay for them". If I pay too much for something, it doesn't mean I now own something valuable. If I fool you into thinking your diamond is of low quality and buy it for a fraction of what a reputable jeweller would have given you, that doesn't mean it's less valuable.
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Here's a question for GMs: If I grind up a diamond worth 5000gp into dust, what is the value of the dust?
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At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Either your GM is going to say "'k you get a gem, cross off 5k gold and you are good to go", or he's going to make it a PITA to get, or worse, try to trick you somehow with these value games and basically waste time with inconsequential rubbish.
(I know, I'm showing my bias - is it less biased if I replace that last bit with "...or your GM feels death needs to be more relevant and makes it harder in some way" - ok thats not working either is it/. Feel free to edit that in your heads to something appropriately less one sided)
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So Clerics ought never invest in the Appraise skill?
Funny you mention that one, that and sense motive seem to be the two skills I get the most funny looks when I try to actually use in PFS sessions.
Anyway, when I was talking about what a character paid for the diamond is what it is worth, I hadn't really thought about stealing it. Yeah, a stolen 5k diamond is still worth 5k, at least for this spell.
I think the Pathfinder system of using GP values for spell materials is easier on the GM and the players, but I think in game mechanics, the old D&D system of charging XP was more balanced. Using GP value of items is kinda arbitrary if you start getting into economics related discussions.
Though, a point of note regarding Fabricate and Gems, bigger doesn't mean more expensive. The spell could just be carving more intricate cuts into the existing gems.
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Or 'diamond' could be referring to the mineral diamond as opposed to a singular diamond.
Imagine if the cost of a spell was "Copper worth 5000gp".
Isn't English fun?
But where will we find a city with civil servants that hard to buy?
Also, while I'm doing obvious jokes:
Size isn't an issue.
heehee
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Going to toss my two coppers in on this.
are you sure you don't mean "copper worth 2 cp"
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Diamond is a substance
ftfy
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"You're a gem, KC," they say "a real diamond in the rough" they say
I bet
when I'm not around probably
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So Clerics ought never invest in the Appraise skill?Funny you mention that one, that and sense motive seem to be the two skills I get the most funny looks when I try to actually use in PFS sessions.
Anyway, when I was talking about what a character paid for the diamond is what it is worth, I hadn't really thought about stealing it. Yeah, a stolen 5k diamond is still worth 5k, at least for this spell.
I think the Pathfinder system of using GP values for spell materials is easier on the GM and the players, but I think in game mechanics, the old D&D system of charging XP was more balanced. Using GP value of items is kinda arbitrary if you start getting into economics related discussions.
Though, a point of note regarding Fabricate and Gems, bigger doesn't mean more expensive. The spell could just be carving more intricate cuts into the existing gems.
In all the years I've been a DM, I've never once had cause to call for an Appraise roll. Sense Motive though, that's a regular fixture.
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In all the years I've been a DM, I've never once had cause to call for an Appraise roll. Sense Motive though, that's a regular fixture.So Clerics ought never invest in the Appraise skill?Funny you mention that one, that and sense motive seem to be the two skills I get the most funny looks when I try to actually use in PFS sessions.
Anyway, when I was talking about what a character paid for the diamond is what it is worth, I hadn't really thought about stealing it. Yeah, a stolen 5k diamond is still worth 5k, at least for this spell.
I think the Pathfinder system of using GP values for spell materials is easier on the GM and the players, but I think in game mechanics, the old D&D system of charging XP was more balanced. Using GP value of items is kinda arbitrary if you start getting into economics related discussions.
Though, a point of note regarding Fabricate and Gems, bigger doesn't mean more expensive. The spell could just be carving more intricate cuts into the existing gems.
I GM PFS, and have called for both types of rolls.
More amusing, Friday in my online RotRL game, was my 5 Star GM didn't know why I was rolling 2d4 as part of my Disable Device checks, as no one had ever done that before.... Updated my macro to include that the 2d4 was rounds needed for difficult and intricate devices...