Question: Craft and Special Materials [Archive] - Wizards Community

Question: Craft and Special Materials [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sulacu
06-18-07, 02:44 PM My question concerns the added price and attached DC of crafting weapons, armor or shields made out of special materials that are costly. Adamantine for instance.

Ammunition: +60 gp
Light Armor: +5,000 gp
Medium Armor: +10,000 gp
Heavy Armor: +15,000 gp
Weapon: +3,000 gp
Shield: +2,000 gp

Masterwork cost included in the cost above.

If I were to want to craft an item made out of adamantine; say, a heavy adamantine shield (20 + 2,000 gp), Do I need to craft a masterwork component costing 2,000 gp with the same masterwork DC 20 in addition to the craft check required for a heavy steel shield?

It would seem logical, but I'm a bit at a loss due to the fact that my books don't give me this information more clearly.
Sulacu
06-18-07, 05:27 PM I'm sure somebody knows...
KurenaiYami
06-18-07, 05:38 PM Calculate craft DC and cost of materials based on the total cost of the item to be made. The item itself does not require a masterwork component, the material already makes it so.
SALDAR
06-18-07, 06:31 PM The item itself does not require a masterwork component, the material already makes it so.

Actually it does have a masterwork component, it is just that the price for the masterwork component is included in the special material's price. You will still need to make the masterwork component of the item at DC 20. The problem is the rules do not specify whether or not the craft DC for masterwork must be used to meet the total extra cost for such materials or just the masterwork component.

In our game we use the masterwork DC for the total of the special material costs because the listed costs include the masterwork component cost. This suggests that special materials are as hard to work with as making a masterwork component itself. If Nob the Blacksmith can make an adamantine sword just as easily as he can a steel sword then it kind of takes the special out of special materials.
risner
06-18-07, 08:47 PM adamantine; say, a heavy adamantine shield (20 + 2,000 gp), Do I need to craft a masterwork component costing 2,000 gp with the same masterwork DC 20 in addition to the craft check required for a heavy steel shield?

Craft 20+2,000-150 gp at DC X where X is the DC of a Heavy Steel Shield.
&
Craft 150 gp at DC 20 for the masterwork portion.

I think this is consistent with the rules (and the fairest way.)

An alternate interpretation (that could also be considered consistent with the rules because the rules don't say which way is right) is to craft the whole 20+2,000 gp as DC 20 (or higher if the DC of the item is higher.)
Sulacu
06-19-07, 12:49 AM I'd rather treat the whole 2,000 gp as a masterwork element and craft it with DC 20. Else it's going to take even more entirely too long. Plus, the tables kind of say that the masterwork cost is subsumed in the cost modifiers for the item type, so...
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-19-07, 02:56 AM Honestly I treat the special materials as trade goods. It takes X worth of adamantine to make a mace, for example. You break the adamantine mace, you still have X worth of adamantine that can be forged into a new weapon.

The trouble with special materials isn't that Nob the Blacksmith couldn't conceivably forge if he's good enough to make masterwork weapons but that Nob the Blacksmith probably doesn't have access to the zealously guarded dwarven crafthall secrets it takes to forge mithril or the ridiculously hot fires needed to smelt adamantine, which would need dragonfire, demonfire or something equivalent. Of course, if Olga the Druid summoned a fire elemental to sit in his forge, or Zippie the Wizard polymorphed him into a salamander, that would probably work too.
risner
06-19-07, 12:04 PM Honestly I treat the special materials as trade goods. It takes X worth of adamantine to make a mace, for example. You break the adamantine mace, you still have X worth of adamantine that can be forged into a new weapon.

Which I will point out is not supported in the rules. Adamantine is 100 gp a pound, but weapons made of Adamantine often cost more than 100 gp a pound.

This means your 8 lb weapon is only worth 800 gp of the material cost if you "melt it down" to pay for the new weapon.
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-19-07, 06:42 PM Which I will point out is not supported in the rules. Adamantine is 100 gp a pound, but weapons made of Adamantine often cost more than 100 gp a pound.

This means your 8 lb weapon is only worth 800 gp of the material cost if you "melt it down" to pay for the new weapon.

You're also forgetting that every time you Craft something, you triple the value of the raw ingredients. The 800 gp of Adamantine scrap triples in value to 2400 gp of finished weapon, assuming your using a single process for an 8 lb weapon, such as using a mold to make a heavy mace. Add in multiple processes? You triple your value each time.

By the RAW, let's take Bob, a 9th level Wizard. Bob has taken the 5th level spell Fabricate, and for a modest outlay of 1000 GP, has bought the Third Eye Improvise from p. 141 of the Magic Items Compendium, because Bob is lazy and hasn't spent any Skill points on Craft and it's great getting a +5 competence bonus and the ability to use any Craft skill (or any other skill for that matter) for just 1000 gp. Bob is also very smart, with a 20 Int, not this is unusual for a 9th level wizard, giving him another +5. Without any trouble, once per day, Bob can use Fabricate with the Third Eye Improvise, and by taking 10, can get an automatic 20, sufficient to make masterwork or whatever else his little wizardly heart desires.

Of course Bob is also poor and has only 100 gp left to his name, aside from the Third Eye Improvise and his 5th level spellbook and he needs to get all the rest of his gear from the goblin pawnbrokers before they sell it in a week.

So Bob takes his Third Eye Improvise and his Fabricate spell and uses Craft Goldbeating to beat the gold pieces into 300 GP worth of gold leaf. The next day he uses the gold leaf and an unraveled sock (worth 0 gp) with Craft Spinning to make 900 gp worth of gold thread. On day 3, he uses Craft Weaving to make the gold thread into 2700 gp worth of cloth of gold. On day 4, he uses Craft Embroidery to make the cloth of gold into gold damask worth 8100. On day 5, he uses an obscure medieval craft called Cutwork to pull threads to make beautiful patterns in fabric and makes gold damask cutwork lace worth 24,300. On day 6 he takes the gold damask cutwork lace and uses Craft Braiding to tie all the loose threads and fringes into even more exquisite braids and tassels making it worth 72,900 of fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace. On day 7, he uses Craft Tailoring to turn the fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace into a bridal gown fit for an extremely decadent empress since by the RAW, it's worth 218,700. He takes this and his pawn ticket to the goblin pawnbrokers to see if they'll give him anything for it and if it's enough to get the rest of his gear out of hock. The goblins, buying things as merchants do by the RAW, say it's only worth 109,350 but that's enough for Bob to get his stuff out of hock.

A week later, a dragon burns down the pawn shop and in place of the ridiculously pricey bridal gown, all that's left is a lump of gold worth 100 gp.

That's all legal by the letter of the RAW. Bob never exceeds his Fabricate volume of 9 cubic feet of metal.

Meanwhile in Eberron, a Dragonmarked heir of House Cainith can do the same trick at level 8, and doesn't even need the Third Eye, being able to make do with Magecraft, a bag of assorted artisan tools, the Jack of all Trades feat and a 13 INT if the assorted artisans tools are Masterwork, 16 INT if not. Stack in a bunch of ranks of Appraise, Knowledge Nature and Knowledge Architecture and Engineering. Who needs Leomund's Tiny Hut when you can turn the landscape into architecture? Add a Sky Forge and you can build palaces with a thought.

Given this sort of idiocy just using the magic as designed, I can see no trouble with the DM handwaving away the RAW's dictates of outlandishly long crafting times in favor of ones that are either more realistic or more dramatic and suit the needs of the characters and the story.
risner
06-19-07, 10:49 PM 1) 800 gp of Adamantine scrap triples in value to 2400 gp of finished weapon ... You triple your value each time.

2) Fabricate spell and uses Craft Goldbeating to beat the gold pieces into 300 GP worth of gold leaf.

3) Craft Spinning to make 900 gp worth of gold thread

4) Craft Weaving to make the gold thread into 2700 gp worth of cloth of gold

5) Craft Embroidery to make the cloth of gold into gold damask worth 8100

6) craft called Cutwork to pull threads to make beautiful patterns in fabric and makes gold damask cutwork lace worth 24,300.

7) Craft Braiding to tie all the loose threads and fringes into even more exquisite braids and tassels making it worth 72,900 of fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace

8) Craft Tailoring to turn the fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace into a bridal gown fit for an extremely decadent empress since by the RAW, it's worth 218,700

9) That's all legal by the letter of the RAW.

1) It doesn't triple in value for one thing. Raw materials worth 1/3 of the result.

2) You have a leaf of gold worth 300 gp to someone that needs a leaf of gold, but the raw materials is still 100 gp value.

3) No, 300 gp, since the raw materials you started with is worth only 100 gp.

4) Again, 300 gp since the raw materials is just 100 gp value (remember it is based on weight and the craft skill doesn't create gold ounces from thin air.)

5) 300 gp by weight... starting to see a pattern?

6) Woo, 300 gp now.

7) Wow, 300 gp, I am rich.

8) Awesome, 300 gp, woot.

9) So in then end, he sells the item for 300 gp and the dragon melts it to end up with 100 gp of gold.

All 100 % consistent with both RAW and RAI.
SALDAR
06-19-07, 11:18 PM Don't forget, he also took a single sock and turned it into enough material for a full wedding gown.
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-20-07, 01:56 AM Don't forget, he also took a single sock and turned it into enough material for a full wedding gown.

Well he is a wizard after all.

As for the rest, I believe Risner is saying that most labor has 0 added value in D&D society. Once you shear the sheep, the raw wool is worth the same whether it's thread, fabric or clothing, and weavers and tailors apparently work for free since no one will stand for any additional mark-up once the spinner has spun the wool. Bread and flour are worth the same by weight since it's all grain, and once you've milled it, there's no additional profit for anyone.

This is patently silly. And not even borne out by the commodities, since 1 lb of wheat is 1 cp but 1 lb. of flour is 2 cp. Is bread 3 cp per lb. then?
risner
06-20-07, 02:57 AM As for the rest, I believe Risner is saying that most labor has 0 added value in D&D society. Once you shear the sheep, the raw wool is worth the same whether it's thread, fabric or clothing

That isn't quite what I said. I said that if you keep using the same raw materials in a Fabricate spell, you gain nothing more than 3x the raw materials for the result. All your examples were silly examples designed to get as many "upgrades" as possible in a post.

Thread, Fabric, and Clothing may have different values and different requirements of raw materials.

It is absurdly silly to suggest one can take 100 gold and make it 200,000 gp in 7 days. Pure silliness that isn't possible with the rules (especially with the current rules for Fabricate.)

In other words if you use a 50 pound beautiful statue (of iron so worth 5 gp in raw materials) that is worth 5,000 gp due to the art value and melt it down in a forge, your suggestion is that you end up with 50,000 pounds of iron that can be used to make some expensive large iron fortress. The same thing happens with your Fabricate spell, it "melts" the pretty statue to get the 5 gp in raw materials and poof goes 4,995 gp in value.
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-20-07, 04:02 AM In other words if you use a 50 pound beautiful statue (of iron so worth 5 gp in raw materials) that is worth 5,000 gp due to the art value and melt it down in a forge, your suggestion is that you end up with 50,000 pounds of iron that can be used to make some expensive large iron fortress. The same thing happens with your Fabricate spell, it "melts" the pretty statue to get the 5 gp in raw materials and poof goes 4,995 gp in value.

My question for you then is how do you, using the RAW, take 5 gp in raw materials and use them to make a 5000 gp art object? Yes, I know something about metal casting, and I know a clay or wax statue would need to be made first, and then a mold made, and then depending on the type of mold the mold broken, and the statue burnished and polished and patinaed and bits and bobs welded if need be.

To give a slightly less wild example than the cloth-of-gold wedding gown, let's say Bob wants to make a tapestry. I think we can agree that that's a pretty expensive art object? To make one, you need wool and you need dye. Making the dye would be a Craft Alchemy check. Dying the wool would be a Craft Dyer. Spinning the dyed wool would be a Craft Spinning check. Weaving the tapestry would be either Craft Weaver or Craft Carpetmaker.

If you look at the RAW for Fabricate, there's obviously some handwaving going on with turning flax into clothes. After all, in reality you have to cut the stalks, rot them in urine, wash the fibers clean, spin them, dye them, weave them, and finally make the cloth into clothes. And since linen is 4 GP a square yard, we're talking some reasonably pricy clothes too.
risner
06-20-07, 11:06 AM My question for you then is how do you, using the RAW, take 5 gp in raw materials and use them to make a 5000 gp art object?

You don't do that and can't do that via RAW.

You can take 5 gp in raw materials and 1,661 gp in inspirational mood music and turn the both of them into a 5,000 gp art object.

If you did it via Fabricate (where you need raw materials to make it), then you would need 1,666 gp of raw materials to make that art object (provided fabricate didn't have a prohibition on pretty things.)

But sadly, if the art object melts, you are left with 5 gp of raw materials (if you used 1,661 gp of music.) If you made it with fabricate, then the other raw materials vanishes and you are left with melted art worth the trade goods value of the raw materials based on the weight of the art object that melted.
tarkin
06-20-07, 12:13 PM Risner is correct.

Fabricate is clera you are required to supply 1/3 the value of the end result in raw materials.
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-20-07, 12:29 PM You don't do that and can't do that via RAW.

You can take 5 gp in raw materials and 1,661 gp in inspirational mood music and turn the both of them into a 5,000 gp art object.

If you did it via Fabricate (where you need raw materials to make it), then you would need 1,666 gp of raw materials to make that art object (provided fabricate didn't have a prohibition on pretty things.)

But sadly, if the art object melts, you are left with 5 gp of raw materials (if you used 1,661 gp of music.) If you made it with fabricate, then the other raw materials vanishes and you are left with melted art worth the trade goods value of the raw materials based on the weight of the art object that melted.

Ah, gotcha, artistic value. That's usually phrased in the books as "This beautiful iron statue of Lolth is worth 15 gp for workmanship alone, but 5000 gp to a collector of Underdark folk art. Appraise check DC 30 to differentiate this from the average Drow lawn ornament and Knowledge History check DC 30 to recognize the rune on the back as the signature of Blood Priestess Mumat, a minor artist from the 'Ilithid Revival' period."

The artistic value and the Appraise DCs are of course set by the DM, and I have no trouble (and actively support) the idea that Fabricate cannot produce any actual aesthetic value, except possibly via a very good Forgery check (and even that would be defeated by a Legend Lore spell as the Loremaster tells you "Yep, this is another Fabricate knock-off made by 'Bob the Wizard.' Nicely done though. You should be able to sell it for more than it's worth to a noble with more money than sense.")

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sulacu 06-18-07, 02:44 PM	My question concerns the added price and attached DC of crafting weapons, armor or shields made out of special materials that are costly. Adamantine for instance. Ammunition: +60 gp Light Armor: +5,000 gp Medium Armor: +10,000 gp Heavy Armor: +15,000 gp Weapon: +3,000 gp Shield: +2,000 gp Masterwork cost included in the cost above. If I were to want to craft an item made out of adamantine; say, a heavy adamantine shield (20 + 2,000 gp), Do I need to craft a masterwork component costing 2,000 gp with the same masterwork DC 20 in addition to the craft check required for a heavy steel shield? It would seem logical, but I'm a bit at a loss due to the fact that my books don't give me this information more clearly.
Sulacu 06-18-07, 05:27 PM	I'm sure somebody knows...
KurenaiYami 06-18-07, 05:38 PM	Calculate craft DC and cost of materials based on the total cost of the item to be made. The item itself does not require a masterwork component, the material already makes it so.
SALDAR 06-18-07, 06:31 PM	The item itself does not require a masterwork component, the material already makes it so. Actually it does have a masterwork component, it is just that the price for the masterwork component is included in the special material's price. You will still need to make the masterwork component of the item at DC 20. The problem is the rules do not specify whether or not the craft DC for masterwork must be used to meet the total extra cost for such materials or just the masterwork component. In our game we use the masterwork DC for the total of the special material costs because the listed costs include the masterwork component cost. This suggests that special materials are as hard to work with as making a masterwork component itself. If Nob the Blacksmith can make an adamantine sword just as easily as he can a steel sword then it kind of takes the special out of special materials.
risner 06-18-07, 08:47 PM	adamantine; say, a heavy adamantine shield (20 + 2,000 gp), Do I need to craft a masterwork component costing 2,000 gp with the same masterwork DC 20 in addition to the craft check required for a heavy steel shield? Craft 20+2,000-150 gp at DC X where X is the DC of a Heavy Steel Shield. & Craft 150 gp at DC 20 for the masterwork portion. I think this is consistent with the rules (and the fairest way.) An alternate interpretation (that could also be considered consistent with the rules because the rules don't say which way is right) is to craft the whole 20+2,000 gp as DC 20 (or higher if the DC of the item is higher.)
Sulacu 06-19-07, 12:49 AM	I'd rather treat the whole 2,000 gp as a masterwork element and craft it with DC 20. Else it's going to take even more entirely too long. Plus, the tables kind of say that the masterwork cost is subsumed in the cost modifiers for the item type, so...
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-19-07, 02:56 AM	Honestly I treat the special materials as trade goods. It takes X worth of adamantine to make a mace, for example. You break the adamantine mace, you still have X worth of adamantine that can be forged into a new weapon. The trouble with special materials isn't that Nob the Blacksmith couldn't conceivably forge if he's good enough to make masterwork weapons but that Nob the Blacksmith probably doesn't have access to the zealously guarded dwarven crafthall secrets it takes to forge mithril or the ridiculously hot fires needed to smelt adamantine, which would need dragonfire, demonfire or something equivalent. Of course, if Olga the Druid summoned a fire elemental to sit in his forge, or Zippie the Wizard polymorphed him into a salamander, that would probably work too.
risner 06-19-07, 12:04 PM	Honestly I treat the special materials as trade goods. It takes X worth of adamantine to make a mace, for example. You break the adamantine mace, you still have X worth of adamantine that can be forged into a new weapon. Which I will point out is not supported in the rules. Adamantine is 100 gp a pound, but weapons made of Adamantine often cost more than 100 gp a pound. This means your 8 lb weapon is only worth 800 gp of the material cost if you "melt it down" to pay for the new weapon.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-19-07, 06:42 PM	Which I will point out is not supported in the rules. Adamantine is 100 gp a pound, but weapons made of Adamantine often cost more than 100 gp a pound. This means your 8 lb weapon is only worth 800 gp of the material cost if you "melt it down" to pay for the new weapon. You're also forgetting that every time you Craft something, you triple the value of the raw ingredients. The 800 gp of Adamantine scrap triples in value to 2400 gp of finished weapon, assuming your using a single process for an 8 lb weapon, such as using a mold to make a heavy mace. Add in multiple processes? You triple your value each time. By the RAW, let's take Bob, a 9th level Wizard. Bob has taken the 5th level spell Fabricate, and for a modest outlay of 1000 GP, has bought the Third Eye Improvise from p. 141 of the Magic Items Compendium, because Bob is lazy and hasn't spent any Skill points on Craft and it's great getting a +5 competence bonus and the ability to use any Craft skill (or any other skill for that matter) for just 1000 gp. Bob is also very smart, with a 20 Int, not this is unusual for a 9th level wizard, giving him another +5. Without any trouble, once per day, Bob can use Fabricate with the Third Eye Improvise, and by taking 10, can get an automatic 20, sufficient to make masterwork or whatever else his little wizardly heart desires. Of course Bob is also poor and has only 100 gp left to his name, aside from the Third Eye Improvise and his 5th level spellbook and he needs to get all the rest of his gear from the goblin pawnbrokers before they sell it in a week. So Bob takes his Third Eye Improvise and his Fabricate spell and uses Craft Goldbeating to beat the gold pieces into 300 GP worth of gold leaf. The next day he uses the gold leaf and an unraveled sock (worth 0 gp) with Craft Spinning to make 900 gp worth of gold thread. On day 3, he uses Craft Weaving to make the gold thread into 2700 gp worth of cloth of gold. On day 4, he uses Craft Embroidery to make the cloth of gold into gold damask worth 8100. On day 5, he uses an obscure medieval craft called Cutwork to pull threads to make beautiful patterns in fabric and makes gold damask cutwork lace worth 24,300. On day 6 he takes the gold damask cutwork lace and uses Craft Braiding to tie all the loose threads and fringes into even more exquisite braids and tassels making it worth 72,900 of fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace. On day 7, he uses Craft Tailoring to turn the fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace into a bridal gown fit for an extremely decadent empress since by the RAW, it's worth 218,700. He takes this and his pawn ticket to the goblin pawnbrokers to see if they'll give him anything for it and if it's enough to get the rest of his gear out of hock. The goblins, buying things as merchants do by the RAW, say it's only worth 109,350 but that's enough for Bob to get his stuff out of hock. A week later, a dragon burns down the pawn shop and in place of the ridiculously pricey bridal gown, all that's left is a lump of gold worth 100 gp. That's all legal by the letter of the RAW. Bob never exceeds his Fabricate volume of 9 cubic feet of metal. Meanwhile in Eberron, a Dragonmarked heir of House Cainith can do the same trick at level 8, and doesn't even need the Third Eye, being able to make do with Magecraft, a bag of assorted artisan tools, the Jack of all Trades feat and a 13 INT if the assorted artisans tools are Masterwork, 16 INT if not. Stack in a bunch of ranks of Appraise, Knowledge Nature and Knowledge Architecture and Engineering. Who needs Leomund's Tiny Hut when you can turn the landscape into architecture? Add a Sky Forge and you can build palaces with a thought. Given this sort of idiocy just using the magic as designed, I can see no trouble with the DM handwaving away the RAW's dictates of outlandishly long crafting times in favor of ones that are either more realistic or more dramatic and suit the needs of the characters and the story.
risner 06-19-07, 10:49 PM	1) 800 gp of Adamantine scrap triples in value to 2400 gp of finished weapon ... You triple your value each time. 2) Fabricate spell and uses Craft Goldbeating to beat the gold pieces into 300 GP worth of gold leaf. 3) Craft Spinning to make 900 gp worth of gold thread 4) Craft Weaving to make the gold thread into 2700 gp worth of cloth of gold 5) Craft Embroidery to make the cloth of gold into gold damask worth 8100 6) craft called Cutwork to pull threads to make beautiful patterns in fabric and makes gold damask cutwork lace worth 24,300. 7) Craft Braiding to tie all the loose threads and fringes into even more exquisite braids and tassels making it worth 72,900 of fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace 8) Craft Tailoring to turn the fringed and tasseled gold damask cutwork lace into a bridal gown fit for an extremely decadent empress since by the RAW, it's worth 218,700 9) That's all legal by the letter of the RAW. 1) It doesn't triple in value for one thing. Raw materials worth 1/3 of the result. 2) You have a leaf of gold worth 300 gp to someone that needs a leaf of gold, but the raw materials is still 100 gp value. 3) No, 300 gp, since the raw materials you started with is worth only 100 gp. 4) Again, 300 gp since the raw materials is just 100 gp value (remember it is based on weight and the craft skill doesn't create gold ounces from thin air.) 5) 300 gp by weight... starting to see a pattern? 6) Woo, 300 gp now. 7) Wow, 300 gp, I am rich. 8) Awesome, 300 gp, woot. 9) So in then end, he sells the item for 300 gp and the dragon melts it to end up with 100 gp of gold. All 100 % consistent with both RAW and RAI.
SALDAR 06-19-07, 11:18 PM	Don't forget, he also took a single sock and turned it into enough material for a full wedding gown.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-20-07, 01:56 AM	Don't forget, he also took a single sock and turned it into enough material for a full wedding gown. Well he is a wizard after all. As for the rest, I believe Risner is saying that most labor has 0 added value in D&D society. Once you shear the sheep, the raw wool is worth the same whether it's thread, fabric or clothing, and weavers and tailors apparently work for free since no one will stand for any additional mark-up once the spinner has spun the wool. Bread and flour are worth the same by weight since it's all grain, and once you've milled it, there's no additional profit for anyone. This is patently silly. And not even borne out by the commodities, since 1 lb of wheat is 1 cp but 1 lb. of flour is 2 cp. Is bread 3 cp per lb. then?
risner 06-20-07, 02:57 AM	As for the rest, I believe Risner is saying that most labor has 0 added value in D&D society. Once you shear the sheep, the raw wool is worth the same whether it's thread, fabric or clothing That isn't quite what I said. I said that if you keep using the same raw materials in a Fabricate spell, you gain nothing more than 3x the raw materials for the result. All your examples were silly examples designed to get as many "upgrades" as possible in a post. Thread, Fabric, and Clothing may have different values and different requirements of raw materials. It is absurdly silly to suggest one can take 100 gold and make it 200,000 gp in 7 days. Pure silliness that isn't possible with the rules (especially with the current rules for Fabricate.) In other words if you use a 50 pound beautiful statue (of iron so worth 5 gp in raw materials) that is worth 5,000 gp due to the art value and melt it down in a forge, your suggestion is that you end up with 50,000 pounds of iron that can be used to make some expensive large iron fortress. The same thing happens with your Fabricate spell, it "melts" the pretty statue to get the 5 gp in raw materials and poof goes 4,995 gp in value.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-20-07, 04:02 AM	In other words if you use a 50 pound beautiful statue (of iron so worth 5 gp in raw materials) that is worth 5,000 gp due to the art value and melt it down in a forge, your suggestion is that you end up with 50,000 pounds of iron that can be used to make some expensive large iron fortress. The same thing happens with your Fabricate spell, it "melts" the pretty statue to get the 5 gp in raw materials and poof goes 4,995 gp in value. My question for you then is how do you, using the RAW, take 5 gp in raw materials and use them to make a 5000 gp art object? Yes, I know something about metal casting, and I know a clay or wax statue would need to be made first, and then a mold made, and then depending on the type of mold the mold broken, and the statue burnished and polished and patinaed and bits and bobs welded if need be. To give a slightly less wild example than the cloth-of-gold wedding gown, let's say Bob wants to make a tapestry. I think we can agree that that's a pretty expensive art object? To make one, you need wool and you need dye. Making the dye would be a Craft Alchemy check. Dying the wool would be a Craft Dyer. Spinning the dyed wool would be a Craft Spinning check. Weaving the tapestry would be either Craft Weaver or Craft Carpetmaker. If you look at the RAW for Fabricate, there's obviously some handwaving going on with turning flax into clothes. After all, in reality you have to cut the stalks, rot them in urine, wash the fibers clean, spin them, dye them, weave them, and finally make the cloth into clothes. And since linen is 4 GP a square yard, we're talking some reasonably pricy clothes too.
risner 06-20-07, 11:06 AM	My question for you then is how do you, using the RAW, take 5 gp in raw materials and use them to make a 5000 gp art object? You don't do that and can't do that via RAW. You can take 5 gp in raw materials and 1,661 gp in inspirational mood music and turn the both of them into a 5,000 gp art object. If you did it via Fabricate (where you need raw materials to make it), then you would need 1,666 gp of raw materials to make that art object (provided fabricate didn't have a prohibition on pretty things.) But sadly, if the art object melts, you are left with 5 gp of raw materials (if you used 1,661 gp of music.) If you made it with fabricate, then the other raw materials vanishes and you are left with melted art worth the trade goods value of the raw materials based on the weight of the art object that melted.
tarkin 06-20-07, 12:13 PM	Risner is correct. Fabricate is clera you are required to supply 1/3 the value of the end result in raw materials.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-20-07, 12:29 PM	You don't do that and can't do that via RAW. You can take 5 gp in raw materials and 1,661 gp in inspirational mood music and turn the both of them into a 5,000 gp art object. If you did it via Fabricate (where you need raw materials to make it), then you would need 1,666 gp of raw materials to make that art object (provided fabricate didn't have a prohibition on pretty things.) But sadly, if the art object melts, you are left with 5 gp of raw materials (if you used 1,661 gp of music.) If you made it with fabricate, then the other raw materials vanishes and you are left with melted art worth the trade goods value of the raw materials based on the weight of the art object that melted. Ah, gotcha, artistic value. That's usually phrased in the books as "This beautiful iron statue of Lolth is worth 15 gp for workmanship alone, but 5000 gp to a collector of Underdark folk art. Appraise check DC 30 to differentiate this from the average Drow lawn ornament and Knowledge History check DC 30 to recognize the rune on the back as the signature of Blood Priestess Mumat, a minor artist from the 'Ilithid Revival' period." The artistic value and the Appraise DCs are of course set by the DM, and I have no trouble (and actively support) the idea that Fabricate cannot produce any actual aesthetic value, except possibly via a very good Forgery check (and even that would be defeated by a Legend Lore spell as the Loremaster tells you "Yep, this is another Fabricate knock-off made by 'Bob the Wizard.' Nicely done though. You should be able to sell it for more than it's worth to a noble with more money than sense.")