| Jigma |
Hello, this is my first post, but I made an account solely to get people's opinion on this.
Backgroud Info: Evil campaign. Playing a (currently) 18th level elf Arcanist, holds fast to the "power is the only thing that matters" philosophy. The party has basically inherited a kingdom after a quest for an ancestral crown, and he is currently the court Archmage, overseeing the magical studies and forces of the realm when he's not out on missions for the queen. There is a particular city's populace and culture rubbed him the wrong way. He has decided to sow chaos in said city by attacking their cultural beliefs. They basically worship "light", "enlightenment", and other things like that while belittling other races as inferior.
Spell Concept: Curse that causes unnatural weather (similar to curse of fell seasons) that spreads the material component used for it instead of normal rain, dust storms, hail, etc. For this particular application it would be Caphorite, but I'd like for the material component to be used as a deciding factor for what the weather will spread on an area, as it could be used to do things such as ensuring a particular area has their fields salted periodically, and other fun stuff like that.
Givens/Must Haves: 9th Level Spell; Curse Descriptor; minimum 1 mile area of effect, preferably 2 miles
Main Issue: I'm having issues coming up with a way to balance the cost or amount of material component needed to account for stuff like "this large area now has a chance of raining adamantite until the curse is removed". Ideas I have are to turn it into dust storms only, making the particles useless for anything other than mass spreading of a material, or scaling the material cost based on scarcity but as far as I know that would be up to GM's discretion.
| GM Rednal |
Yeah, "produce tons of rare material" is a little much at any level. It might be better to create a specific list of blighting materials - salt, acid, et cetera - for the spell to use. Maybe add a line about how other materials can be used "at the GM's discretion", but can't be "especially valuable materials, such as precious metals or holy/unholy water".
| DM Shade |
As GM Rednal stated, something in the game's economy is kicked out of order when a spell makes a great amount of conjured material.
A simple solution is to make the spell redistribute existing materials instead of conjuring it out of nowhere.
The spell doesn't even have to be 9th level in this case, and can be a variant of the existing control weather and secret vault (pathfinder player companion: black markets) spells.
Control Weather
Add this line after the "You control the general tendencies of the weather" paragraph:
Special: If the weather is precipitation (such as a blizzard, thunderstorm, torrential rain, etc.), it can rain another object instead of the original water, sleet, snow, etc., but only the object(s) and quantities present in any existing secret vault spell you are attuned to. When the weather precipitates, it instead draws upon the contents stored in the secret vault, causing them to rain in the weather instead until the vault is empty or the spell ends.
Secret Vault
Add this line at the end of the spell:
Special: This spell can be attuned to a control weather spell, to cause any weather to precipitate the contents of the vault in random in the area of effect until the vault is emptied. The contents are dropped randomly, usually at a rate of 1 cubic feet of goods per round (or according to GM's discretion, if large).
This means that with the two spells, you can easily cause a Biblical rain of frogs (by storing a metric ton of frogs in your secret vault and casting it in tune with your control weather spell), or cause a hail of adamantine shards or caphorite.
However, this means that the total sum of material is what you paid (so stack up on caphorite). There will be no profiting from this spell, since it draws from a secret vault spell your player casts (and fills).
| Jigma |
Both are very valid points, and part of my concerns. The intent however is to create an ongoing issue for the affected area, and a limited supply would soon become prohibitively expensive. But what if I limited the weather to dust of the material, or falling as a light snowfall would (thus regardless of the material composition dealing no damage), and adding a line similar to Minor Creation. Along the lines of "The materials created by this spell exibit the same qualities as the original material, but are of particularly poor quality, they cannot be used as spell material components. Any spell cast in such a way immediately fails. Additionally, attempting to trade or craft using said material causes it to disappear." That last line feels like something a curse would do as well.
| Meirril |
Generally speaking curses change the target in superficial ways. Some do transformations but each of those curses are defined by the spell, not something chosen by the caster. Having to provide the material being spread seems like a reasonable default. I would probably only require 1 ton per square mile and throw in a bit where the material fades after an hour, and the material being dropped has to be something simple. No alchemical mixtures or anything that requires processing. But stuff like 'salt', 'ashes', 'hair' or 'blood' are certainly possible.
Anyone wanting to create some sort of chemical reaction is going to get hard stares and a firm 'no'. This is magic we're talking about, if you want something to happen use magic not some sort of horrid hybrid step child of magic and science.
Also curses have conditions on them on how to break them. If some village priest can cast a Remove Curse miles away and break your entire spell its going to be hilarious. The more involved breaking a curse is the more obvious it becomes who cast the spell...
...and a Legend Lore cast that mentions the incident should include the caster's name, especially if he developed the spell himself. You ready for that?
| Jigma |
I've added the bit about naturally occurring materials, good catch. Currently I have this as the effect description.
By touching the ground, you drastically change the weather in the area. The area will randomly (but no less often than once a week) have a light dust of the material component used fall from the sky in a manner much like snow. The material created by this spell possesses all the properties of the original but is of particularly poor quality, making it unusable as a material component. Any spell cast with such material will immediately fail. As part of the magics that power this curse, any attempt to use the material created by this curse to trade or craft will cause that portion of material to vanish.
The focus merges into the cursed area as part of the spell and can only be retrieved if the curse is lifted. The cursed weather can be returned to normal only by casting Remove Curse at the center of the affected area, followed by Control Weather.