Marvelous Pigments: "Objects of value depicted by the pigments—precious metals, gems, jewelry, ivory, and so on—appear to be valuable but are really made of tin, lead, glass, brass, bone, and other such inexpensive materials. The user can create normal weapons, armor, and any other mundane item (including foodstuffs) whose value does not exceed 2,000 gp. The effect is instantaneous."
Does anyone think the above is a little wierd?
Objects of value end up being just junk... but you can make stuff who's value doesn't exceed 2k gp.
Is the junk disclaimer only if someone tried making more than 2k worth of high value stuff?
I was considering if marvelous pigments could be used to replenish diminishing/finite quantities of expensive material components, like diamond, ruby, onyx, etc.
No, it specifically calls out items such as Gems to actually be made of glass.
This clause is to prevent a character from "drawing" a 100,000 GP gem and getting the coin value from it (or other similar exploit).
You can make 2,000gp worth of fanciful feast for an entire army, but you can't make a 2,000gp gem.
That's what sounds contradictory to me.
I would consider 2k gp worth of anything to be "Objects of value".
I'm pretty sure that what the author meant is that you can't create anything where the raw material is what makes the object valuable. Which that does describe most valuable material components.
I'm pretty sure that what the author meant is that you can't create anything where the raw material is what makes the object valuable. Which that does describe most valuable material components.
I think the GP clause is basically just so you can look through the equipment list and be able to make anything that's 10'x10'x10' or less, whose cost listed is 2000GP or less. So telescope x10 - yes, telescope x50 - no, etc.
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I'm pretty sure that what the author meant is that you can't create anything where the raw material is what makes the object valuable. Which that does describe most valuable material components.I think the GP clause is basically just so you can look through the equipment list and be able to make anything that's 10'x10'x10' or less, whose cost listed is 2000GP or less. So telescope x10 - yes, telescope x50 - no, etc.
Or a full plate.
Essentially, you can produce stuff whose price is 2,000 gp or less, but not stuff whose sell price is 2,000 gp, like jewels, that are sold at full price instead of 50%.
While I don't think it was considered when creating the magic item description, this way you can't "make money" by taking one of the magic item crafting cost reduction feat or ability and paint valuable stuff to sell.
That's what sounds contradictory to me.
I would consider 2k gp worth of anything to be "Objects of value".
It is "objects with a purchase price of 2K", not a value of 2K.
And they are a Acme product used by Wile E. Coyote. I wouldn't trust the final product too much. ;-)
In the examples given, it includes "foodstuffs"... so you should be able to paint 2k gp worth of bushels of various fruits, vegitables, cheeses, snausages, etc. Food is a trade good so can be sold at full price.
In that case, it's just convering 2k in crafting reagents from one form to another which is kind of what I wanted (just with a 2k diamond, ruby or onyx).
Food in general is not trade goods, only certain ingredients, albeit your overall point still stands. Well, one might argue that the description of trade goods as given in UE, "Trade goods are(...) valuable enough to be exchanged almost as if they were cash itself." matches the phrase used by the item, "Objects of value", well enough, and thus Marvelous Pigments don't allow creating trade goods. I do think that's the intend, although the item was written for D&D 3.0, which I still assert was written on drugs, so who knows.
In any case, as written, the item doesn't allow creating typical expensive material spell components. Does that make sense? No. Would I allow it as a GM? Kinda - requiring specific materials is actually nice for a GM in that it limits usage of those spells, and the materials are perfect quest reward/incentive, but in a game where I'm interested in such methodss, I wouldn't allow magic item creation anyway.
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I wouldn't allow making components for spells and especially magic items.
The main problem is that when making another dose of the pigments you consume exactly 2,000 gp of materials. If the crafter gets any of the traits that reduce the crafting price of magic items, the pigments become a perpetual motion machine to produce crafting components.
Besides that, using items created by magic to produce magic items seems off to me.
What if you use the pigments to produce a painting worth 2,000 gp?
But one could argue that if you draw a painting worth 2,000 gp with the marvelous pigments but don't activate it, and the painting of the painting itself is very well done, you could sell the painting of the unactivated painting for 2,000 gp plus whatever the value of your painting skills are worth. [/s]