Post/Author/DateTime	Post
underpantsgnome 07-19-07, 01:00 AM	Quick Senario: Large chat based community, plays in FR. One of the higher level characters recently picked up the Fabricate spell (See below) and is using it to undercut any crafter in the city (both in price and time) as he can do the same job in 6 seconds compared to thier 2 weeks, a month, or more. Does that seem right to you all? The craft DC is only 20, and with some good INT and items, is no problem hitting. The site allows taking 10s on craft rolls and with Fabricate, the character can pump out 3 suits of mithril full plate a day so long he has materials for it; and given that character can also cast teleport, getting most any material on the open market takes a few days tops. Thoughts? Need more info on site house rules/proceedures? Note: I'm impartial to the situation both IC and OOC, but just thought I'd take a total 3rd party poll. Copied From the SRD: Fabricate Transmutation Level: Sor/Wiz 5 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: See text 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 (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell. Material Component The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created.
DX2052 07-19-07, 01:05 AM	Craft can only be used trained, but yeah fabricate is broken.
underpantsgnome 07-19-07, 01:11 AM	I'm not seeing that in any of my materials... where does it say Craft is trained only?
DX2052 07-19-07, 01:12 AM	I'm not seeing that in any of my materials... where does it say Craft is trained only? Huh I could have sworn...
BilopTheFleshwarper 07-19-07, 01:52 AM	craft isn't trained only but for somethings like... weapons and armor, I wouldn't want any made by someone with no real training in it. Also if he's chunking around 5th level spells to make some money let him. eventually he'll run out of materials and people will notice the relativly shoddy condition of everything. also if he's undercutting price he's not making as much money as the real crafts would. Finally I would suggest the merchants guild, and or thieves guild have some serious talks with him to have him stop messing up the economy. additionally I had a dwarven cleric/battlesmith with some items could churn over 120 DC craft checks, enough to equip a garrison in a week with masterwork equipment.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 07-19-07, 03:21 AM	Easy solution: organize the tradesfolk. If he's putting the local armorer out of business by undercutting him, make it so that the butcher, the baker, the fishwife and everyone else who knows the local armorer simply won't sell to the jerk who's wrecking the economy with his spells. Annoying Mage: "I'd like to buy a gingerbreadman please." Baker's Wife: "Oh, you wouldn't want one of these, sir. I dare say you could whip up a much finer one yourself with that fancy FABRICATE spell of yours." Annoying Mage: "But...it's just a gingerbreadman. It's not worth wasting a spell on. And I don't know how to bake anyway." Baker's Wife: "Oh, I'm certain you're clever enough to find away around that. Now move along, deary--I've got customers who appreciate THE WORK OF HONEST HANDS." Rinse and repeat with every tradesman in town. After the mage goes and apologizes to the armorer and gives him his ludicrous profit or at least some reasonable share thereof, the boycott ends. If the mage decides to be a dick about things and ignores the tradefolk, let them expand the gambit to include all members of his prestige class or even just all mages in town. Enough will get annoyed at not being able to buy a damn beer that they'll go and have a chat with the instant armorsmith.
Malruhn 07-19-07, 11:18 AM	Akin to what Kevin was saying, I would through in the caveat, "Well, if you want to BUY my tasty cookie, it is only 453 gold pieces. What? You think this is too much? Well, we have to pad our coffers before somebody comes in and destroys the business through MAGIC. "By the way, if you want some milk with that, I hear the inn next door has a special price for you. Only 3500 gold pieces per glass!"
Elana 07-19-07, 11:28 AM	Fabricate can only make products out of one material. Try to find one of those that you can sell. (You can make a sword blade, but no complete sword. Not only is it made out of several components that have to put together, if it's not totally inferior, not all of those will be metal either. ) Heck you can't even make decent shoes with fabricate. If you want to make a spoon, it's a great spell. But it can't be used to make even simple things as shoes. (Those tend to be made out of leather, textils and metal) (And a full plate consists out of ten different items, even if you go just by the PHB. So happy casting. (Best case scenario uses about 60 fabricate spells and still needs manually assembly afterwards)
spamfiltre 07-19-07, 11:30 AM	As soon as he says he's going to teleport somewhere to gather materials, have the rest of the characters get involved in an adventure that takes them away from the city. Let that last 10 or 12 gaming sessions so he's out of the action, and he'll probably not bother with it in the future. Or, you could just talk to him and ask him to play an adventurer instead of a shopkeeper.
tarkin 07-19-07, 12:22 PM	1. Guild comes knocking on his door. 2. Uhm, excuse me, but what kind of Craft skill do you have? None? Well, I don't want a broken down, sorry excuse for an X, I want a well done one. no thank you. Anyone willing to buy it from a strang caster (and not have it vanish away when the Major Creation you used to make it ends) will DEMAND high quality. 3. Clients. What, he thinks people are going to come RUNNING to him? Nope. He has to ADVERTISE etc. It is called Proffession (Spell seller) check. No ranks huh? Well then, you manage to convince a single person all week to use your services. 4. He still has to pay 1/3 the cost for materials. 5. One casting of a 5th level spell, should normally sell for 5*10*10 = 500 gp. OK, so how many items can you make that sell for more than 500 gp. Whoops, don't forget the cost for materials. For him to come out ahead he can ONLY make items that normally sell for a minimum of 503 gp. That would give him a solid 2 gp profit above simply selling his 5th level slot. 6. Finally, he has Paid off the guild Got some Craft skills Got some Profession skill (or has a close friend selling his services) Bought and paid for the materials (probably takes a day to do, but hey, he still does the build in a day instead of a week) created something costs more than 503 gp Whoops, the market for that item is now totally filled. What, you think people buy expensive high end things EVERY DAY???? Nope. Have to wait at least a month for someone else to decide they want it. ============= Finally: The game is called Dungeons and Dragons. Not Clients and Shopkeepers.
underpantsgnome 07-19-07, 12:45 PM	This is where some of the site specifics become important. It is an RP heavy site with close to 70 active characters. There are no set parties or groups and many of the characters have regular jobs; in fact many of them are smiths of one sort or another or shop keepers. The point of the thread isn't how to stop this, just if it should, from a rules standpoint, be allowed. Is this what the Fabricate spell made to do, or is it poorly worded and certainly not ment for this use? One suggestion was to add a duration to the spell's products, and if they really wanted to keep and/or sell the item, they could cast Permanency on it.
tarkin 07-19-07, 12:52 PM	It pretty much IS what the fabricate spell is meant to do. The real balancing factor is the absence of people willing to pay > 500 gp for a non-magical item.
DaidojiTaidoru 07-19-07, 12:59 PM	Fabricate is a spell that was designed to allow adventurers to actually make things in addition to say adventuring, since the craft rules aren't all that great at it. The problem is that Fabricate is far to powerful a spell and Craft doesn't scale like other skills. Jump goes past current human records at level 7, Craft is slower then real life in many cases until level 10ish. Your best choice is to just ask the player to get a new spell OOC. There are parts of D&D that are just broken and he's found one. Theres no reason to start what could become a huge game altering disturbance just to try to prove that you can make core balanced. Scrub the spell and move on.
chucky 07-19-07, 01:18 PM	People put way to much crap into complaining about the fabricate spell. Just have your DM look at something called guilds in the middle ages. If you were not part of the guild and was doing their business they usually just went to the local rulers and had you dealt with peaceably or perm dirt nap. Of course if the local merchants guild is also the local thieves guild they would just deal with you themselves. The guilds were very powerful back then and ******* off the guilds was a fast track to losing your kingdom if you were a ruler. Just because you have a spell does not remove any consequences you have from using it. Spell casters don’t live in a bubble. At higher lvls everything they do effects everyone around them. Your gm;s job is to say what the consequences are to those actions. The spell is not broken. Your GM just is not paying enough attention to the caster. Oh and please stop posting that you can only fabricate one item out of 1 material per casting.
malignor 07-19-07, 01:32 PM	Ask a few questions: How many people have the kind of money to buy the item(s) being crafted? How many people want the item being crafted, and are willing to pay for it? I mean, I'd personally love a suit of full plate in my basement for kicks, but I wouldn't pay more than 100 bucks for such a novelty. Where and how are you getting the materials? How are you selling your stuff? Customers don't magically appear. Do you have a store? Are you setting up a lemonade-like stand with armor at the bazarre? What laws do the city have regarding businesses? Do you have to pay union dues or something? Maybe they only allow citizens to sell more than X amount of volume per year. Maybe there's a heavy tax for non-citizens to do private business dealings.
elondir 07-19-07, 01:35 PM	Don't worry about fabricate. It's about like buying 100 ladders, disassembling them, then selling them as 200 ten foot poles for a ludicrous profit. The D&D economy is unrealistic and utterly flawed. With charm person, fabricate, wall of iron, and flesh to salt, you can take over the whole world economy quickly (unless every other merchant scrambles to learn and use your tactics). If your DM allows the wizard version of Genesis as it is written, it's even worse since you can create a demiplane that is nothing but pure platinum or diamond with caves in it, then use some of that wealth to purchase automatons to mine it continuously. You then control 99% of the supply to the world (unless somebody figures out your trick and makes one themselves). Then platinum risks becoming worthless. An 11th level character can afford a scroll of genesis and a talisman that grants the necessary UMD bonus to use it.
calvinNhobbes 07-19-07, 01:44 PM	I've never had to deal with fabricate brokeness in game, but I was thinking about certain ways to modify it to make it less potent, you know just in case. What if it just gave bonuses to craft (like +10 per 5 levels), and you do not require tools of any kind. +10-40 to craft definitely speeds things up, but shouldn't require DM fiat to stabilize the economy. Just a thought. Ready, aim, flame!
DaidojiTaidoru 07-19-07, 02:00 PM	I've never had to deal with fabricate brokeness in game, but I was thinking about certain ways to modify it to make it less potent, you know just in case. What if it just gave bonuses to craft (like +10 per 5 levels), and you do not require tools of any kind. +10-40 to craft definitely speeds things up, but shouldn't require DM fiat to stabilize the economy. Just a thought. Ready, aim, flame! Hm... Not the master of balance but it's better then the original by a long shot. Maybe give it a standard action cast time and a 24 hour duration. If you want to encourage teamwork you could make it a touch spell. That way the Wizard still benefits from having other people help. Of course that might add social issues as well...
underpantsgnome 07-19-07, 02:02 PM	*Smites super delayed double post?*
NoldorForce 07-19-07, 02:03 PM	Part of the problem is the crafting rules. They may be realistic for most mundane things, but they still take a really long time. Plus, they're horrid with respect to stuff made out of special materials. Adamantine full plate costs 16500 gp...enough that it would take years for someone to construct normally. This is perhaps where Fabricate comes in. Sure, you're making it quicker than the regular smiths. So the regular smiths instead work on the small stuff that's too cheap for the casters to burn their spell slots on. You don't need to ban or alter Fabricate at all - simply integrate it into the economy as a whole. Let the smiths make the cheap, common stuff like longswords by the crate. And the wizards with Fabricate can make the adamantine ones.
calvinNhobbes 07-19-07, 02:15 PM	Hm... Not the master of balance but it's better then the original by a long shot. Maybe give it a standard action cast time and a 24 hour duration. Thanks! Ya, I figured a 24 hour duration. If you want to encourage teamwork you could make it a touch spell. That way the Wizard still benefits from having other people help. Of course that might add social issues as well... Hmm... never thought of it as a touch spell. That could be pretty cool for roleplaying. The powerful elven wizard teaming up and boosting the master dwarven blacksmith to create the greatest arms ever!
calvinNhobbes 07-19-07, 02:20 PM	Part of the problem is the crafting rules. They may be realistic for most mundane things, but they still take a really long time. Plus, they're horrid with respect to stuff made out of special materials. Adamantine full plate costs 16500 gp...enough that it would take years for someone to construct normally. Ya, good point. There is not much distinction between labor costs and material costs. Although with certain materials you can just say it takes that much more time to manufacture because it is a difficult material (like adamantine). But it still doesn't make any sense that it would take longer to make a simple gold ring than a silver ring just because the gold ring is worth more.
DaidojiTaidoru 07-19-07, 02:33 PM	Hmm... never thought of it as a touch spell. That could be pretty cool for roleplaying. The powerful elven wizard teaming up and boosting the master dwarven blacksmith to create the greatest arms ever! Pretty much. The idea being that if you were in an 'iconic' 4 person party it would give another person in the party something to do. Fighter forges, cleric and wizard spell spam, rogue argues with merchants to get the exotic items to enchant the thing where your done (could use a little work there but rogues get to play solo a lot anyways). The party might be a little more interested if they all have a hand in the awesome then if its just Bob the fighter burning 2 years at his forge while everyone else twiddles their thumbs. Another thing to consider is merging the crafting/enchanting times. If the PCs are going to spend a year hammering out the perfect adamantine greatsword they're probably going to want to stack some cool enchantments on it. And it's probably not going to upset ballance if it takes them one year to pull it off instead of 2 years.
JulesCARV 07-19-07, 02:41 PM	One question I have for those who propose that guilds would kill (or whatever) someone using the fabricate spell -- do the guilds also try to kill adventurers trying to unload too much loot? After all, from a guild's perspective, insofar as they are interested in limiting competition, a wizard who walks into town and tries to sell five sets of masterwork full plate that she looted from a dungeon presents exactly the same amount of competition as a wizard who tries to sell five sets of masterwork full plate that she fabricated. Heck, how would the guild even know the difference, unless she bought 250 pounds of steel from some guild steelworking shop and then returned with 5 sets of 50-pound full plate, in the same town -- i.e., making her tracks as obvious as possible? I think that actually, most of the expensive, mundane items in a non-low magic D&D setting are already fabricated. Adamantine full plate, for example, is probably never produced by non-magical armorsmiths: fabricate is probably the standard procedure for procuring it. (I'm not sure where the cutoff line is for when fabricate is used instead of non-magical crafting: if you consider a level 5, CL 9 spell to be worth 450 gp, and think that a caster can sell the fabricated product at retail prices, then the cutoff point is 675 gp -- 225 gp for raw materials, and 450 gp for the fabricate spell. If, on the other hand, the caster can only sell the fabricated product at wholesale prices (half retail prices) to a retailer, like adventurers, then the cutoff is more like 2,700 -- 900 for raw materials, 450 for the fabricate spell, to sell at 1,350 gp. The problem with all this, of course, is that once you get past the fabricate boundary, raw material costs and price should not differ by more 450 (if wizards are retailers), or raw material costs and half-price should not differ by more than 450 (if wizards are wholesalers). On approach here is to lower the price of everything over a certain price. For instance, say that adamantine full plate only costs 5,950 gp -- 5,500 for the raw materials, 450 for fabricate. The other is to say that raw materials for expensive items are much more than 1/3rd their price -- for instance, that adamantine full plate's raw materials cost 16,050 gp -- and retails for 16,500 gp thanks to the 450 gp fabricate spell.
chucky 07-19-07, 02:55 PM	Thats a cool alt version to be used in a homebrew game. But as ive said before your GM's lack of imaginationas to how to deal with a high lvl caster does not equal a broken spell. You could make a lot of money by using the monster summoning spell to create a ton of continual flame torches and then sell them at a discount. Its perfectly legal by the rules to do this. Now you have to deal with what happens when you try to sell those torches in game. Any spell can be made broken if your DM lets you make it broken.
chucky 07-19-07, 03:04 PM	One question I have for those who propose that guilds would kill (or whatever) someone using the fabricate spell -- do the guilds also try to kill adventurers trying to unload too much loot? After all, from a guild's perspective, insofar as they are interested in limiting competition, a wizard who walks into town and tries to sell five sets of masterwork full plate that she looted from a dungeon presents exactly the same amount of competition as a wizard who tries to sell five sets of masterwork full plate that she fabricated. Heck, how would the guild even know the difference, unless she bought 250 pounds of steel from some guild steelworking shop and then returned with 5 sets of 50-pound full plate, in the same town -- i.e., making her tracks as obvious as possible? I think that actually, most of the expensive, mundane items in a non-low magic D&D setting are already fabricated. Adamantine full plate, for example, is probably never produced by non-magical armorsmiths: fabricate is probably the standard procedure for procuring it. (I'm not sure where the cutoff line is for when fabricate is used instead of non-magical crafting: if you consider a level 5, CL 9 spell to be worth 450 gp, and think that a caster can sell the fabricated product at retail prices, then the cutoff point is 675 gp -- 225 gp for raw materials, and 450 gp for the fabricate spell. If, on the other hand, the caster can only sell the fabricated product at wholesale prices (half retail prices) to a retailer, like adventurers, then the cutoff is more like 2,700 -- 900 for raw materials, 450 for the fabricate spell, to sell at 1,350 gp. The problem with all this, of course, is that once you get past the fabricate boundary, raw material costs and price should not differ by more 450 (if wizards are retailers), or raw material costs and half-price should not differ by more than 450 (if wizards are wholesalers). On approach here is to lower the price of everything over a certain price. For instance, say that adamantine full plate only costs 5,950 gp -- 5,500 for the raw materials, 450 for fabricate. The other is to say that raw materials for expensive items are much more than 1/3rd their price -- for instance, that adamantine full plate's raw materials cost 16,050 gp -- and retails for 16,500 gp thanks to the 450 gp fabricate spell. There is no differance at all. And thats why its your DM's job to figure out what the side effects are of your party walking into town and flooding the market with all the loot they just got. Remember the person using fabirate is probably not the first caster on your planet to use the fabricate spell. So before you use one of the many get rich schemes to make a lota gold. You might want to do some resaerch as to what happend to the last person who used the exact scheme you are tryign to use.
DaidojiTaidoru 07-19-07, 03:22 PM	Here's the thing. In the real world people can send assassins to come shoot you in the face if you sell diamonds too cheaply. Why? Because people die when shot properly 100% of the time. There are no special powers that protect you from a good face shooting. 9th level wizards on the other hand do have abilities that keep them from being murdered by some guy with a crossbow. In addition they have 9th level fighter friends who can survive being swallowed by dinosaurs, 9th level rogue friends who are better assassins then your assassins, and 9th level cleric friends who can bring back the dead. Killing him permanently is a lot more difficult. And if he decides to start this at 15th level you're just boned. You won't be able to find his inter dimensional mansion much less get to it and bypass his traps and contingencies. I mean sure you can hire some high ranking NPC to take a shot at an assassination but hey, the guy's an adventurer. Assassinations come with the job. He'll either die and be replaced by some other wizard or kill the assassin and gain XP. Unless of course you have a vast supply of high level rogues. At which point the question is, why don't you just have your high level mages cast fabricate themselves if you have access to high level people on a regular basis? I mean, that would allow your guild to undercut the other guilds (until they start spell spamming). It's far more reasonable to either alter the spell to be a massive enhancement (for magic poor worlds) or just have fabricate be the way expensive stuff is made (for magic rich worlds) then to start a massive war between the players and the world while trying to explain why the high level people needed to challenge the players aren't doing the smart thing themselves.
Vaelan 07-19-07, 03:23 PM	You could make a lot of money by using the monster summoning spell to create a ton of continual flame torches and then sell them at a discount. Effects created by summoned monsters expire along with the monster. Called monsters, on the other hand, can create truly permanent effects.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 07-19-07, 03:40 PM	There is no differance at all. And thats why its your DM's job to figure out what the side effects are of your party walking into town and flooding the market with all the loot they just got. Remember the person using fabirate is probably not the first caster on your planet to use the fabricate spell. So before you use one of the many get rich schemes to make a lota gold. You might want to do some resaerch as to what happend to the last person who used the exact scheme you are tryign to use. Exactly. Fabricate is designed so the wizard can go into the forest, and with a little Craft Masonry or Craft Carpentry, build himself a perfectly decent wizard's cottage which wasn't there the week before. Guilds don't mind people making things for their own use. It's not like there are that many high level wizards anyway. However, unless you're a member of House Cainith--which is basically the Fabricator's Guild--you can't go around mass producing items and flooding the market. And if you are a member of House Cainith and start doing this, the family takes you in the back room and explains such things as law of supply and demand and how you're expected to do this to make the house rich, not yourself. But if you want to build yourself stuff for your personal amusement, sure, fine, knock yourself out. But don't compete with the family.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 07-19-07, 04:46 PM	Here's the thing. In the real world people can send assassins to come shoot you in the face if you sell diamonds too cheaply. Why? Because people die when shot properly 100% of the time. There are no special powers that protect you from a good face shooting. 9th level wizard on the other hand do have abilities that keep them from being murdered by some guy with a crossbow. In addition they have 9th level fighter friends who can survive being swallowed by dinosaurs, 9th level rogue friends who are better assassins then your assassins, and 9th level cleric friends who can bring back the dead. Killing him permanently is a lot more difficult. And if he decides to start this at 15th level you're just boned. You won't be able to find his inter dimensional mansion much less get to it and bypass his traps and contingencies. I mean sure you can hire some high ranking NPC to take a shot at an assassination but hey, the guy's an adventurer. Assassinations come with the job. He'll either die and be replaced by some other wizard or kill the assassin and gain XP. Unless of course you have a vast supply of high level rogue. At which point the question is, why don't you just have your high level mages cast fabricate themselves if you have access to high level people on a regular basis? I mean, that would allow your guild to undercut the other guilds (until they start spell spamming). It's far more reasonable to either alter the spell to be a massive enhancement (for magic poor worlds) or just have fabricate be the way expensive stuff is made (for magic rich worlds) then to start a massive war between the players and the world while trying to explain why the high level people needed to challenge the players aren't doing the smart thing themselves. Well, it could be that the "smart thing" isn't being done because it will upset the peasants and craftsfolk, and that's something the kings and other rulers don't really want to do. Moreover the wizards if they actually do end up having guilds and universities want the support of the trade guilds and everyone else, rather than go into competition with them. Making a giant block of salt and selling a giant block of salt are two different things anyway. If a spell has made it easily available and common, then the only possible markup on salt is boutique value: common folk use salt created by a wizard with Flesh to Salt and a geriatric cow, but the Queen uses fleur de sel hand gathered by the Sea Elves of Suitably Exotic Elven Name, and that's where the GP value listed in the book comes from. And while any Alchemist can tell you that Salt is Salt, a bard with Legend Lore can authenticate whether this box of salt was gathered by sea elves or made by a wizard out of geriatric cow. And the Queen will be peeved if you try to pass off one as the other.
DaidojiTaidoru 07-19-07, 05:12 PM	Well, it could be that the "smart thing" isn't being done because it will upset the peasants and craftsfolk, and that's something the kings and other rulers don't really want to do. Moreover the wizards if they actually do end up having guilds and universities want the support of the trade guilds and everyone else, rather than go into competition with them. The problem is that an aristocracy backed by magic can do away with those pesky guilds meaning the power is back in the hands of the aristocracy in full (well the aristocracy and the church). Then theres the issue of what happens when the LE nation decides the Crafting rules are a waste and goes on a adamantine fabrication spree. The other nations will have to follow suit to keep up. Making a giant block of salt and selling a giant block of salt are two different things anyway. If a spell has made it easily available and common, then the only possible markup on salt is boutique value: common folk use salt created by a wizard with Flesh to Salt and a geriatric cow, but the Queen uses fleur de sel hand gathered by the Sea Elves of Suitably Exotic Elven Name, and that's where the GP value listed in the book comes from. And while any Alchemist can tell you that Salt is Salt, a bard with Legend Lore can authenticate whether this box of salt was gathered by sea elves or made by a wizard out of geriatric cow. And the Queen will be peeved if you try to pass off one as the other. I can see a modern Wallmart effect kicking in actually. The wizards make cheap fabricated tools and craftsmen make status symbols. Of course you'll still need to alter base prices. Basically the problem with the Fabricate spell is as written it breaks the economy into tiny little bits. Which doesn't matter if your PCs don't care about money, but lets face it, people are greedy most of the time. Which means you as a GM need answers as to why some other person with an Int high enough to cast that spell didn't do this already. That may be because of an ancient treaty between the clerics of the gods of crafting and magic. It could be you alter the economy to fit a Fabrication based world. Or you could alter the spell itself, but changes need to be made, and the PCs need to know them. Preferably in advance.
JulesCARV 07-19-07, 05:18 PM	House Cannith does not exist in FR, which is where underpantsgnome's game takes place.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 07-19-07, 10:32 PM	The problem is that an aristocracy backed by magic can do away with those pesky guilds meaning the power is back in the hands of the aristocracy in full (well the aristocracy and the church).[/I] Know the root of the word "sabotage"? It comes from "sabot," meaning "shoe," from when unhappy weavers who didn't like losing their jobs to new-fangled automated looms started kicking wooden shoes into the gears of the loom. The same thing could be done with people who use too much Fabricate. Besides, doing away with a bunch of pesky lesser guilds means dealing with one powerful mage's guild. Moreover, it means a whole bunch of unemployed tradesmen who might do something unpleasant like become, oh, say, revolutionaries. Then theres the issue of what happens when the LE nation decides the Crafting rules are a waste and goes on a adamantine fabrication spree. The other nations will have to follow suit to keep up.[/I] Assuming an infinite supply of adamantine, yes, but the stuff is so pricy even unfabricated that only the ridiculously wealth can afford it anyway. People would go on a gold fabricating spree beforehand and more cheaply too. I can see a modern Wallmart effect kicking in actually. The wizards make cheap fabricated tools and craftsmen make status symbols. Of course you'll still need to alter base prices.[/I] Not necessarily. If you look at real-world history, there was a business going on in Scandinavia where it was thought that witches had a spell to steal butter from their neighbor's cow. Obviously a related spell to Fabricate with a really good range modifier. Anyway, there was debate over whether the stolen butter was any good. Some said yes, some said no, but the gross acid test was that if a murder weapon knife was stuck into witch-stolen butter, it would produce blood. Which really put people out of the mood for buying the butter. The peasants could easily start a whisper campaign about Fabricated items, and given the number of dark wizards out there, some of the whispers would actually be right. Basically the problem with the Fabricate spell is as written it breaks the economy into tiny little bits. Which doesn't matter if your PCs don't care about money, but lets face it, people are greedy most of the time. Which means you as a GM need answers as to why some other person with an Int high enough to cast that spell didn't do this already. That may be because of an ancient treaty between the clerics of the gods of crafting and magic. It could be you alter the economy to fit a Fabrication based world. Or you could alter the spell itself, but changes need to be made, and the PCs need to know them. Preferably in advance. Well, when the PCs get to a high enough level to learn Fabricate, they might have things explained to them by the wizard who sold them the spell, or it might be inscribed in the marginalia of the spellbook. Or someone could actually use Knowledge Nobility & Royalty for current legal codes, Knowledge History for past ones, or even Bardic Lore to figure out whether a spell is allowed or disallowed. After all, a Lawful Evil nation could have skeletons and zombies picking grapes and cotton, but you bet your sweet bippy that the good nations roundabouts would at very least be having trade bans, not to mention people being grossed out by the idea of their rotted grape juice having been smushed by skeletal undead feet (as opposed to sanitary living peasant toes). If you have any form of government worth its salt, there are going to be rules and regulations for everything, including magic. One nation uses Fabricate to harvest and bottle their wine. Another uses Animate Dead and skeletons (with warlocks and Pale Masters to get around the onyx requirement). A third has grape vines that harvest their own grapes, squash them with their own roots and bottle them, and the wine merchant is an Awakened grapevine because the druids thought this made sense and didn't realize anyone would find it peculiar. The rest have regular peasants and regular vinyards and probably move more product than the others because no one is squicked by their methods.
Elana 07-20-07, 07:40 AM	Nice to be completely ignored. Fabricate can still only work with one material per casting. there is nothing of that much value made out of one material. (The spell is worth 450gp to cast, so there is no problem if you can create an item of that value, and I seriously doubt you will find one in that price region that is made out of just one single material) One of the most used examples is the full plate. Lets look at it. Full Plate The suit includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and a thick layer of padding that is worn underneath the armor. Each suit of full plate must be individually fitted to its owner by a master armorsmith, although a captured suit can be resized to fit a new owner at a cost of 200 to 800 (2d4×100) gold pieces. Well, I don't know about you, but I count more than 1 product. So it is beyond one fabricate spell. Not too mention that it will take 3 fabricate spells and manual assembly to make just the boots. (And that includes making strange combined items that have to be cut apart) The fabricate spell isn't broken, it's just badly worded. (So it can be easily be interpreted in a broken way)
Kevin Andrew Murphy 07-20-07, 01:00 PM	Nice to be completely ignored. Wasn't ignoring you. Didn't see anything incorrect in your post. Fabricate can still only work with one material per casting. True, but it's a bit odd to have a spell that can build a bridge but not bake a cake. Most DMs will allow a little handwaving if all the necessary ingredients for a given project are present, and players will get annoyed if the DM gets completely **** and says "And you can't even make tortillas because those require flour AND water!" there is nothing of that much value made out of one material. Faceted gemstones spring to mind. Those are ridiculously valuable and used for all sorts of spells. Triple the value of any raw gem with a single spell, and with Make Whole, the "Oops!" factor flies out the window unless the DM insists that the gem is ground to powder, which is still valuable for some spells. (The spell is worth 450gp to cast, so there is no problem if you can create an item of that value, and I seriously doubt you will find one in that price region that is made out of just one single material) Worth 450 GP assuming standardized prices, which is never a good assumption. One of the most used examples is the full plate. Lets look at it. Well, I don't know about you, but I count more than 1 product. So it is beyond one fabricate spell. Not too mention that it will take 3 fabricate spells and manual assembly to make just the boots. (And that includes making strange combined items that have to be cut apart) So you annoy your player until they say "All right, will three Fabricates and an Unseen Crafter cut it?" and you have to say "Uh, yes." The fabricate spell isn't broken, it's just badly worded. (So it can be easily be interpreted in a broken way) I really don't find any of the interpretations broken. The broken part is allowing characters to skip the multiple ranks in Profession Merchant, Diplomacy, Guild Membership, protection money to the Thieves Guild and everything else it would take to run anything more profitable than a lemonade stand in a fantasy city. (There are rules in the DMG II for running a shop, but they have their own level of brokenness, with as I understand the easy twink that if you build a shack in the woods selling ridiculously expensive items, customers will beat a path to your door and fling cash through the windows.) Becoming a shopkeeper is like running a kingdom--adventurers may aspire to retire to do this, but doing it profitably requires a whole different skill set.
ravenshrike 07-20-07, 04:22 PM	Fabricate can only make products out of one material. Try to find one of those that you can sell. (You can make a sword blade, but no complete sword. Not only is it made out of several components that have to put together, if it's not totally inferior, not all of those will be metal either. ) Heck you can't even make decent shoes with fabricate. If you want to make a spoon, it's a great spell. But it can't be used to make even simple things as shoes. (Those tend to be made out of leather, textils and metal) (And a full plate consists out of ten different items, even if you go just by the PHB. So happy casting. (Best case scenario uses about 60 fabricate spells and still needs manually assembly afterwards) Um, no? Fabricate 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 (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell. Material Component The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created. A pile of odds and ends can be considered the material needed to make a pair of shoes, for instance. It never says material of the same type. However, you can't take the material needed for shoes and turn it into sayyyy, a stone fountain. edit - Not to mention that the spell mentions product(e.g. Full Plate), and "items made", note the plural, which means a single fabricate spell can make more than one item as well. So :P
Elana 07-22-07, 10:28 AM	The spell clearly states "material of one sort" So unless odds and ends made out of different materials are one material, nope. i's not a viable choice. (Leather, metal and twine come to mind as base materials) And if you consider full plate a product. What is a pair of gauntlets? And a pair of boots. etc. by your logic you could take some wood and with one casting make a wagon load of ladders. Because the product you want to sell are 100 ladders. (And by the same logic you could break the ladders apart to get 200 10' poles) And for the cake maker. Fabricate can't do cakes. You better use an unseen servant to help you with the work. (Making food with a single spell is the job of clerics) And as duration is instantanious, you can't make several things with one casting. It's one spell for each product made out of one material. (gem cutting sounds interesting, but I can't find it in the PHB entry for craft, so it clearly can't be done without introducing some splat book)
BW0222 07-22-07, 04:31 PM	underpantsgnome, Thoughts? Need more info on site house rules/proceedures? Note: I'm impartial to the situation both IC and OOC, but just thought I'd take a total 3rd party poll. First, you craft items at 1/3 their raw materials and you sell them "on the spot" at 1/2 value. Even if you made a suit of mithril full plate for say 10,000gp. It costs you 3333gp in mithril and sell it for 5,000gp. Maybe you could make 1,666gp out of it. (And that is just about the best case) Second, most cities have things called taxes, guilds, etc. Most guilds exist to facilitate monopolies of existing guild members. Even if you could enter a smithy guild to operate an armory, it might cost you. Say 10%-20% in fees, taxes, etc. You also have expenses such as buying or renting a building -- say 5,000gp or say 250gp/month for rentals -- staff, guards, your living expenses while running the business, etc. Third, in the case of special materials you need to be able to buy them. Mithril is rare. No one is going to be able to sell you more than a few dozen pounds of the mineral every few months or so. Thus, there is a limit to the number of items to want. Forth, at some point, folks won't even buy items off you at even half price. How many suits of mithril full plate does a shop need? How often do folks come around offering to pay a full 10,000gp for some armor? i.e. sell too many rare items and you flood the market. Honestly, less than 1 in 10,000 people have that kind of cash and fewer than 1% of these might need such a specialized item. It could takes months if not years for a dealer to find buyer for such items. Fifth, if you look at more common items which folks might be able to move more quickly... your profit margin per casting is pretty small. Maybe folks might be able to buy a couple of suits of normal full plate once per month, but your profit on that is only say 250gp per month. Honestly, barely enough to pay for your rent. Most shops make money in one of two ways. First, they craft a fair number of common goods, put them on a shelf and wait for days, weeks, or months necessary for folks to buy them at full price. A typical armor smithy might sell a steady number shields, suits of chain, etc. based on the size of the town. They make the items a head of time and folks come in and buy them -- at full price. Like a department store. Second, they have agreements with folks needing large numbers of items. Say a military unit, the city guard, a chain of mercantiles, a naval unit, etc. The guards put in large orders and wait the weeks or months necessary to fulfill them. Such items are usually not terrible rare or pricey, but in fair to large volumes. Making specialty items is insanely profitable -- but it is so rare that it isn't really considered. IMO, you'd need to roleplay finding a source of mithril and finding a buyer for a suit of mithril full plate.
JulesCARV 07-22-07, 10:17 PM	Elena, perhaps you're right that fabricate can't make full plate armor in one casting. It is rather explicitly implied in the text, however, that it can make a sword (and not just a blade). Personally, I'd go with integrating spells like fabricate into the economy rather than saying that social customs and interest groups have blocked its usage, except in some circumstances. (e.g., most societies have a few fabricators who make the really expensive items, but there are a few countries which have banned the spell, but they're a minority) I mean, a few countries have tried to halt industrialization, labor-saving devices, the mechanization of labor, etc, like Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, modern Bhutan, etc, but most countries would rather the process accelerated, rather than be stopped or reversed. Of course, having a 1-in-10,000 level 9+ wizard (or level 7+ shaper, level 10+ sorcerer, level 9+ cleric with the artifice domain, level 11+ artificer, etc) cast/manifest/infuse fabricate twice a day or something isn't going to have as big an economic impact as industrialization, but still, I think the majority of states would embrace it, not discourage it (albeit possibly coopting wizards into the guild, both coercing them to work for The Man and encouraging them to learn fabrication by having guild spellbooks with Fabricate, Magecraft, etc, in them to be copied free of charge in they agree to work for the guild. My approach here, of course, is that in non-autarkic, non-fabricate-prohibitng states, there simply isn't a difference of more than about 450 gp between raw materials cost and retail price. For instance, adamantine full plate has materials that cost about 16,100 gp, and has a retail price of about 16,500 gp. (you might reduce the materials cost if multiple fabricate castings are needed.) Of course, the argument that you can't fabricate full plate because it includes boots which are made of leather can be circumvented by fabricating the other parts and buying a pair of fine boots at a local shop for... what, 10 gp? Of course, it's all a matter of personal preference. You might say that most D&D economies have cartels which intentionally suppress more efficient methods, but personally, I'd guess that would be an exception to the rule. It does, of course, make it easier for the DM if the world is somehow arranged in a contrived manner so as to make normal adventuring profitable, but using fabricate unprofitable. (For example, if they walk into town and try to sell off a masterwork greatsword that they just got from a dungeon, then they eventually, after some searching and haggling, find someone who buys it at half-price for approximately 175 gp, but if they go out of town with some 117 gp worth of raw materials and cast fabricate on it to create a masterwork greatsword and walk into town, the weaponsmith's guild mysteriously knows that they've been fabricating and confiscates their greatsword with a stern warning not to try it again on pain of death.)
JulesCARV 07-22-07, 10:32 PM	your profit on that is only say 250gp per month. Honestly, barely enough to pay for your rent. 250 gp per month is barely enough to pay for your rent? That's almost six times the income of a fairly skilled commoner/expert crafter! (if a skilled commoner/expert crafter makes about 533 gp/year, from having a +10 craft modifier (4 ranks, +3 skill focus, +1 int, +2 masterwork tools), and rolling 10 (modifier) + 1d20/2 for income, making an average of 10.25 gp/week, working 52 weeks/year, that's about 44 gp/month). 250 gp is enough to buy a grand house within a year and 2/3rds..
BW0222 07-23-07, 12:03 AM	JulesCARV 250 gp per month is barely enough to pay for your rent? A grand house runs 5,000gp to purchase. This is about what a smithy would go for, considering that of the 4-10 rooms, you'd need a large area for the forge, storage rooms, a small office, plus a few rooms for the family running the place, etc. This is even less than the strongholder builder's guide says it is worth to build and certainly doesn't include the cost of the land, taxes, etc. On a 5,000gp+ property, 250gp/month would be about what a short term rental on the place would be. A longer term lease or morgage (if such things existed) might get it down to say 100-150gp per month (buy out in 5 years with interest). That's almost six times the income of a fairly skilled commoner/expert crafter! (if a skilled commoner/expert crafter makes about 533 gp/year, from having a +10 craft modifier (4 ranks, +3 skill focus, +1 int, +2 masterwork tools), and rolling 10 (modifier) + 1d20/2 for income, making an average of 10.25 gp/week, working 52 weeks/year, that's about 44 gp/month). 250 gp is enough to buy a grand house within a year and 2/3rds.. Correct. A typical crafts person didn't own his own smithy. It was either owned by a noble and the commoner was allowed to work in exchange for goods produced, or it was owned by an entire (reasonably wealthy) family where a half dozen or more folks worked there (for next to nothing). A typical smithy would need an entire family say 6-10 people working their to stay in business. A senior craftman (say expert/5), several appentices or son-in-laws (expert/1 or 2, who work for next to nothing), children who work the fires (and don't get paid), women who work (cook, clean, to laundry, etc. and don't get paid), etc. All these folks contribute to the running of the smithy. Their total salaries (if you hired and paid them all) might run 250gp or so per month. Feed, cloth, equip, etc. them and their total income is something like 200gp/month. In a long term lease, maybe a good family could earn a smithy in five years. Of course is some daughter gets married to a non-smith, you might have to buy a few cows and that year's profit is gone.