Conjured creature mischief

[winter92]

I'm looking into some rather unconventional money-making techniques for a caster party. In particular, I (a focused conjurer) am looking into shady incidents of selling summoned entities then leaving town quickly. I'll probably be selling some regal processions with magical auras suppressed, but I just happened to notice an interesting part of the hippogriff entry. Young hippogriffs sell for 3,000 gp, but no price for adults is offered.

Two questions:
First, do you have power to control the age of the creature you get on summoned monster spells far enough to get young hippogriffs (as a side note, can you summon them riding-trained)?
Second, are there other well-known money-making tricks for low level characters? We have most of the wizard list, all of cleric, and Time Hop to play around with.

[Deophaun]

I'll probably be selling some regal processions with magical auras suppressed...
Assuming you intend to use magic aura, do note:

Target: One touched object weighing up to 5 lb./level
So, the question becomes: what are you doing to turn these creatures into objects?

Low level money making? I prefer unseen crafter using a haversack or BoH as a portable workshop. It doesn't have as ripe a smell of gorgonzola as other options.

[winter92]

So, the question becomes: what are you doing to turn these creatures into objects?



I'm going to read the rules more closely and thank you for the correction: we'd have to magic aura weapons and sell horses with the hope that no one bothers to detect magic on them.

The unseen crafter is interesting - the two hurdles at present are that my craft checks are nonexistent and we're on the move under time pressure a great deal. In the future it may become worthwhile though.

[Bullet06320]

First, do you have power to control the age of the creature you get on summoned monster spells far enough to get young hippogriffs (as a side note, can you summon them riding-trained)?


I don't recall seeing anything that specifically says yes or no.
I would allow it with maybe a spellcraft check of some sort, DC+10+spell level+2 per change in age cattagory or specific skill per creature summoned, failure means the spell fails totally and the slot is used for the day(basically you tried to craft the spell a specific way and botched the effort)

[winter92]

I don't recall seeing anything that specifically says yes or no.
I would allow it with maybe a spellcraft check of some sort, DC+10+spell level+2 per change in age cattagory or specific skill per creature summoned, failure means the spell fails totally and the slot is used for the day(basically you tried to craft the spell a specific way and botched the effort)

I'm going to run this by my DM - I'm aiming for Malconvoker, so making checks regarding my summoned creatures is very much my cup of tea.

In other news, I just read through instant fort - a quick estimate indicates that it can be bought and sold off for metal for at least an order of magnitude profit. That's accounting for sales losses, crafting, and disassembly costs.

[nyjastul69]

...

Two questions:
First, do you have power to control the age of the creature you get on summoned monster spells far enough to get young hippogriffs (as a side note, can you summon them riding-trained)?...


No. Spells give the caster exactly what they say they give. Summon Monster has no language indicating the caster can modify the summoned creature. The caster summons the creature as described in it's stat block.

[Deophaun]

The unseen crafter is interesting - the two hurdles at present are that my craft checks are nonexistent and we're on the move under time pressure a great deal. In the future it may become worthwhile though.
As a focused conjurer, I'm assuming you have a good Int score, at least starting at 16. With masterwork tools, that would give your UCs a +5 to their craft checks. They take 10 and can hit a DC of 15 no problem. As you are a wizard, there's really not much to spend skill points on outside of spellcraft and knowledge skills, so you should be able to build up a single craft skill fairly quickly. (one that produces trade goods, like gem-cutting or sculpture, so you sell for full value instead of half). Starting out, you will make 15 gp per week per casting producing trade goods, but it ramps up quickly. Keep in mind that you can add an arbitrary number of +10s to the DC, which increases the amount of money you make.

Being on the move is handled with extra-dimensional storage; that's where you leave the tools, crafting materials, and cast the UC. The UC works in your haversack while you're busy saving kingdoms and breaking realities.

Furthermore, you do not prepare unseen crafter at the start of the day. Rather, you leave a number of spell slots open and, if you haven't had need to fill them throughout the day, you spend the 15-or-so minutes at the end of the day to prepare UC in your unused and unfilled slots.