DM created a homebrewed Lv1 just-for-fun spell. Help me break the economy with it?

[AnonymousPepper]

It's a very simple spell. It can create up to 1 scoop of ice cream per caster level, no costly material components. A silly little thing, at the prompting of our Ranger, who has an incessant hunger for ice cream (we're using Pathfinder's cost for ice cream, of course). He said, and I quote (emphasis mine), "It's only one scoop per caster level; you're not gonna break the economy with it."

Challenge accepted.

It's Bard/Cleric/Druid 1. I'm a 7th level Athasian human druid (Drd5/PShep2) right now. Composite/homebrew setting with all 3.5 and 3.0 material allowed, including Dragon Mag. Party comp is myself, 7th level kender rogue, 7th level human paladin/greyguard of Hieroneous, 7th level human wildshape ranger, 7th level dwarf monk, 7th level bard. Go.

[The Grue]

If I may paraphrase Craig Ferguson:

Does this need to be done?
Does this need to be done by you?
Does this need to be done by you in this campaign?

[AnonymousPepper]

If I may paraphrase Craig Ferguson:

Does this need to be done?
Does this need to be done by you?
Does this need to be done by you in this campaign?

With our group and our laid-back focus on general hilarity?

Yes. Yes, it does.

[The Grue]

With our group and our laid-back focus on general hilarity?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Fair enough. I thought it could use posing the question, as it's typically a coin flip in threads like these as to whether the poster is asking for the amusement of the group or to irritate the DM.

My first thought, and this has probably occurred to you already, is to set up a self-resetting switch/button/lever trap that uses the spell, and go into business selling ice cream machines. You might not get fabulously wealthy, but you'd crash the local frozen dessert economy by driving the value of ice cream into the ground. :smallbiggrin:

[Gavinfoxx]

So... can it create things that aren't normal flavors of ice cream?

Ice cream with valuable minerals? With things that are useful oils? With valuable spices in it? Things that can be simply picked out of the ice cream, or recovered when it melts?

Gold flavored ice cream! Saffron flavored ice cream! With large saffron chunks!

[otakumick]

My first thought is to make it a war spell.

[AnonymousPepper]

DM RPG (GM): Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 0 ft
Effect: 1 scoop of ice cream/cl
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
DM RPG (GM):
You create one scoop of ice cream per Caster Level. The ice cream can be any flavor. Unless properly frozen, the ice cream will melt in 1 hour.
Material Components: An ounce of sugar, and a small vial of milk. (non-costly)

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea. Platinum / Silver / Gold flavored ice cream comes to mind.

[Shalist]

I wonder what flavor of ice cream a rust monster would like best?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

but you'd crash the local frozen dessert economy by driving the value of ice cream into the ground. :smallbiggrin:

He mentioned being an Athasian Human, if he's actually on Athas there should be an effectively limitless market for icecream. Of course this posits the question "why are they using the Pathfider price for Icecream on Athas?"

If it is Athas, this spell is truly valuable since I'm pretty sure create food and water and such are blocked in that world.

More conventional means like boosting your caster level don't seem like they'd be helpful. Caster level 40 would only generate 2gp a casting. A nice boon, but it's not going to break the game unless you have months of down time.

[Gavinfoxx]

Anyway, I sorta have a handbook on economy breaking...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

Mine it for ideas?

[Alex12]

Hm. Okay, 1 sp/scoop, 1 scoop per caster level. The most obvious way is to get a way to cast a first-level spell at-will and go to town. I'll assume you can figure out a way to do that (Undead Tainted Scholar shenanigans are what come to my mind first, but I feel like that wouldn't mesh well with your party composition as-is).
The real trick is figuring out how to use ice cream to break the economy faster than other level 1 spells can do so. That's less easy.

[Gavinfoxx]

There's LOTS of valuable things that can be added to flavors, even if you are limited to 'things people put in their mouths to consume in general'. Medicinal drugs... recreational drugs.. lots of stuff...

[AnonymousPepper]

...we're not on Athas, I just used the race from Dragon... 362, I think.

I don't think "special" materials will fly, but I can ask. >_>

[Magdela]

Wait. The ice cream melts if not frozen properly? I can totally think of a way to break the physics of it: make tungsten flavored ice cream and watch the tungsten heat up very very quickly . Boom. "Free energy." Bonus points if you make a trap of it.

You could even weaponize it like a incendiary grenade. That tungsten has to get to melting point in an hour, its got to get white hot.

Someone do the math (I would but I'm on my phone) and see how quickly this would heat up.

[dextercorvia]

Wait. The ice cream melts if not frozen properly? I can totally think of a way to break the physics of it: make tungsten flavored ice cream and watch the tungsten heat up very very quickly . Boom. "Free energy." Bonus points if you make a trap of it.

You could even weaponize it like a incendiary grenade. That tungsten has to get to melting point in an hour, its got to get white hot.

Someone do the math (I would but I'm on my phone) and see how quickly this would heat up.

Nah, Tungsten is frozen properly at ambient temperature.

[RPGaddict28]

DM here. It's just flavoring. Not made of the material. Sure, you can have tungsten flavored ice cream. It's still ice cream. Casting prestidigitation on a a piece of meat to taste like like diamonds doesn't make the meat diamonds.

[AnonymousPepper]

DM here. It's just flavoring. Not made of the material. Sure, you can have tungsten flavored ice cream. It's still ice cream. Casting prestidigitation on a a piece of meat to taste like like diamonds doesn't make the meat diamonds.

get out of my topic rpg :smallyuk:

[GameSultan]

I am the ice cream ranger.

[AnonymousPepper]

It's a veritable party reunion up in here.

[Sith_Happens]

Hm. Okay, 1 sp/scoop, 1 scoop per caster level. The most obvious way is to get a way to cast a first-level spell at-will and go to town. I'll assume you can figure out a way to do that (Undead Tainted Scholar shenanigans are what come to my mind first, but I feel like that wouldn't mesh well with your party composition as-is).

Add Echoing Spell using Sacred Geometry (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?363930-Sacred-Geometry-and-Arithmancy).


I am the ice cream ranger.

This is your new battle cry. Don't argue, just accept it.

[Oneris]

If you know what an object tastes like, are you considered to have familiar knowledge of the object for purposes of Scrying?

[yoshi67]

Your rogue is a Kinder, that might be a problem. Max Bluff (or Diplomacy) and convince people it's insanely rare and expensive, it only lasts for a short time before it melts, and you only have one left. Profit, make more, repeat. Trade ice cream for items. Buy a Bag of Holding, fill it with ice cream in your spare time, and threaten to unleash a wave of diabetes on anyone who tries to stop you.

[Vhaidara]

Take Leadership, and get as many level 1 sorcerers as possible. You can end up getting like 6 castings a day per sorcerer.

[One Step Two]

You can use Circle Magic with the Leadership feat. Have can use your cohorts pump your CL to 40, and use all of your castings to generate 40 scoops of ice-cream per casting. As an example, a 7th level sorcerer, even with a Cha bonus of +3 can net arouind 19 castings, for a total of 760 scoops per day.

[Inevitability]

World's most expensive ice cream:

http://www.ealuxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/frozen_hsute1.jpg

[Khedrac]

As the DM pointed out, this spell is defined as creating flavoured ice-cream - and not any of the toppings or inclusions that raise the value, nor any of the material that defines the flavour.

This means we can forget trying to break the rules for material creation (otherwise it could have been a source for ice assassin components).
On the wealth side we are just limited to the value of ice-cream itself.

So - what can we do with ice-cream and not at range?

First two options I can think of are attempting to use it like grease or throwing at fire-based creatures.

On the sillier side, have a snow-ball fight using ice-cream for the snowballs. Hmm, fantasy paintball for practicing combat and tactics?

[Cruiser1]

Unless properly frozen, the ice cream will melt in 1 hour.
Here's an exploit: The above means that if not properly frozen, the ice cream is guaranteed to last for 1 hour. By RAW that means regardless of external conditions. Cover yourself in ice cream, and you're immune to heat conditions and even fire damage for the next hour. Ice cream that hasn't melted yet is near freezing in temperature, so if it hasn't melted you definitely can't yet have been adversely affected by heat. Not bad for a level 1 spell! :smallwink:

[With a box]

Can i make chemical weapon flavor ice cream witch will kill people who smell it?
How about some kind of nerve agents?

[Alex12]

Can i make chemical weapon flavor ice cream witch will kill people who smell it?
How about some kind of nerve agents?

I think if Prestidigitation's flavoring ability can't do it, you can't do it with this spell.

Melted ice cream is pretty sticky, maybe you could use that somehow.

[With a box]

make some disgusting thing for Nauseated?
throw it to them

[Darrin]

I think if Prestidigitation's flavoring ability can't do it, you can't do it with this spell.


Actually, it's the other way around. Prestidigitation can't do anything already covered by another spell effect. So if this spell can create certain flavors, then prestidigitation can't do that.

As far as abuse goes... the best I can come up with is ice cream = snow, use it for Snowcasting + Flash Frost Spell.

[Khedrac]

If you can make it taste of a poison can you exploit that? - Create a panic perhaps?

Or, once people get used to it and like the novelty of tasting "poisons" - now slip the real poison in un-noticed...

[Magdela]

If you can make it taste of a poison can you exploit that? - Create a panic perhaps?

Or, once people get used to it and like the novelty of tasting "poisons" - now slip the real poison in un-noticed...
Oh....oh this one is so evil that you're probably on a watchlist.

Well, if the ice cream is only tungsten flavored then my idea is out.

What about ice cream that tastes like the dead? Or something otherwise...abhorrent? Could be a great gag item to sell to royalty.

[Alex12]

Actually, it's the other way around. Prestidigitation can't do anything already covered by another spell effect. So if this spell can create certain flavors, then prestidigitation can't do that.

I don't think it works that way. After all, Prestidigitation is explicitly capable of lifting small objects, Mage Hand moves small objects, so by that logic Prestidigitation can't do that. For that matter, everything Prestidigitation can do can be done by Wish (I'm not sure why you'd want to, but you could, which is another spell effect.

Besides, Prestidigitation can flavor anything, but is a temporary effect. I'd assume that if I put my summoned strawberry ice cream into a freezer for a week or so, I'd still have strawberry ice cream.

[Bronk]

My first thought, and this has probably occurred to you already, is to set up a self-resetting switch/button/lever trap that uses the spell

Seems to me this was a plot to a Piers Anthony book...

[Halbaradkenafin]

How big is the scoop? With a big enough scoop you could have the fun of fly + this to drop very large balls of ice cream on people/towns/cities. An alternate way to break the economy.

[nedz]

You'll need a lot of scoops, but you could make a flavoured Simulacrum or Ice Assassin. The ice cream should last longer at any rate.

[Inevitability]

Also possible, first summon some ice cream, then cast Reduce Person on the people who're going to eat it. Their stomach volume should decrease to it's cube root. So if a normal human's stomach can hold 1 litre of ice cream, that of a Reduced human contains only... 0.125 litres? Am I right on that? If so, your ice cream shop would suddenly require only two spells to feed eight humans, as opposed to one spell for one human.

[GameSultan]

Add Echoing Spell using Sacred Geometry (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?363930-Sacred-Geometry-and-Arithmancy).



This is your new battle cry. Don't argue, just accept it.

I accept.

Last night we went to a Church of Hextor, and I stole several handfuls of holy wafers to use as ice cream toppings.

[AvatarVecna]

Forget breaking the economy. Try breaking THE WORLD.

So it's a PF character that can use 3.5/3.0/Dragon Mag material? Of, this should be fun.

Be back in a little while...

[Hecuba]

Ultimately, I think the DM is right.

This is effectively just a low level instantaneous conjuration: you can't do much with it that you can't do with other such spells, and there are plenty.

You can, of course, make self resetting traps or spell clocks.
In that case, however, I would generally consider the spell clocks or traps the things that are broken.


If you want to ditch a 9th level slot for it, you can take innate spell and cast it once/round as an SLA.
Even with a 16 hour work day, however, that's still short of 10,000 scoops/day: or less than 1000 gold per day if you can sell all of the scoops.

[malonkey1]

Make an ice cream with an flavor that's otherwise impossible, like "blue" or "surprised". Make craptons of Gold off the novelty. Create a chain of Impossilicious™ (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tradesnark) Synesthetic Ice Cream shops, make all the money.

[Khosan]

One thing you could potentially capitalize on is that a scoop isn't a defined measurement. The size of a scoop of ice cream varies from spoon to spoon and technique to technique.

You could create an arbitrarily large scoop. It still sells for one silver, technically, but now you can crush enemies with it.

Granted, the easy fix for the DM is to just change the spell so it conjures 1 ounce of ice cream per CL. Think that's about the same size as an average scoop.

[Hazrond]

Make an ice cream with an flavor that's otherwise impossible, like "blue" or "surprised". Make craptons of Gold off the novelty. Create a chain of Impossilicious™ (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tradesnark) Synesthetic Ice Cream shops, make all the money.

Make sure to add an Agony flavor for those pranksters out there

[daremetoidareyo]

Craft wand?

Wand of icecream + ranger + baby magical mammal + 1 hour melting time = easily trained and imprinted pegasuses. First steel a bunch of pegasus colts, once they can fly after imprinting on human parents, you can start a breeding program and only sell mares and charge bunches to stud out your bulls.

Eternal? Wand of icecream + 1 hour melting time + connections to the kings harem/church that takes in orphans = A cheap as all hell wetnurse.

[Nightraiderx]

I accept.

Last night we went to a Church of Hextor, and I stole several handfuls of holy wafers to use as ice cream toppings.

"mmm, tastes like tyranny!"

[Hamste]

Make your ice cream taste like the best thing every and then mix it with a second casting of the spell with the taste of depression when people eat it they get depressed and then eat more ice cream because of the amazing taste in the hopes that will make them feel better. Eventually they either commit suicide or die from too much ice cream. You then loot their pockets or forge their will to make it look like they left everything to you.

You can also make murders appear natural with it. Stuff the ice cream down some one's throat until they suffocate from it. One hour later it melts and so does the evidence of what killed them. No wounds on the body, no bruises showing strangulation, no evidence of a spell and no poison in the system. Covering up the magical ways to detect how someone died would be much harder but if it looks natural enough people might only do a preliminary investigation.

You can also make the spell invisible with metamagic for spooky ice cream. Let it melt and now you have invisible melted icecream, surely there is something fun you can do with that.

[esbear42]

If I recall corectly, it is posible to cast a spell in a higher spell slot, this gives 10 castings per day with casting as a 7th level druid. bonus spells from a high wisdom would of course increase this number.

With no boost to caster level you could most likely create ice cream with a value of about 10 gp.
In D&D this is a lot of money to a commonor, but to a level 7 adventure, this is most likely not worth the effort.

Now lets use the previously discussed way of boosting caster level to 40, and boost your wisdom to about 26, this gives you 20 castings, resulting in 8000 cups of ice cream, to a value of 800gp. ofcource this is in ice cream, and unless you can find buyers for your about 2 cubic meters. If your DM allows you to just sell all the ice cream, then you may end up with enough gold to disrupt the economy. The economy breaking would however be because your DM allowed you to sell ridiculus ammounts of ice cream you conjured up with questionable means, not the spell itself.

Edit: (there must however be a way to weaponise a ton (literal) of ice cream)

[Secret Wizard]

I am pretty sure there are many people and creatures out there that would pay a pretty penny for a Tarrasque or Solar Archon flavored ice-cream.

[StoneCipher]

If you can use energy substitution, make the ice cream into flavored acid.

[Fax Celestis]

Forget breaking the economy.

You should waterboard interrogation targets with it.

"TALK DAMN YOU TALK"

"But I don't knwhaaargarbl" *ice cream in the face*

[nedz]

Or just launch some from a sling the next time you are fighting Fire Elementals.

[Hazrond]

Forget breaking the economy.

You should waterboard interrogation targets with it.

"TALK DAMN YOU TALK"

"But I don't knwhaaargarbl" *ice cream in the face*

Don't forget to make it sewage and chamberpot flavor :smallbiggrin:

[Krobar]

Go to a cold place, cast it lots of times, and then make an ice cream golem.

[r2d2go]

I think the easiest way to break the game is the giant ice cream scoop thing. Make your definition of a scoop the size of a continent. Threaten to cast if your demands aren't met (maybe make it Contingent somehow?). Even better, it's SR: No and Saving Throw: None, so you could say they aren't allowed SR or a save to dodge or survive the falling ice cream.

Edit: If he limits the weight, make it giant anyway and have a enormous floating icecream scoop. Make a floating ice-cream colony on it :smallbiggrin: charge admission!

If he limits the size, make it weigh a stupidly high amount and drop it on something, instantly creating a enormous hole, or just make it black-hole density and break everything. Then to break the economy ask for money in exchange for not destroying the world.

If he limits both, create the scoop inside someone else. If he argues the range is 0 feet, say that that would mean it either has to be inside your body or touching your body. If it's inside your body it's basically a useless spell (unless it's in your mouth, in which case you can bite people and cast it so that it's embedded into people's flesh). If it's touching your body, use it as a touch attack to put icecream inside people's brains and kill or incapacitate them. I can't think of any way to make that work for making money, but it's still a no-save no-sr touch attack of death :smalltongue:

If he says it can't be created inside an existing object, and that air doesn't count... eat the icecream and ask for a morale bonus, then if he gives it to you, sell it is a lower-powered version of Heroism :smallbiggrin: and if he doesn't let you do that, say it should be a cantrip. Since you're using Pathfinder for the cost, ask for infinite cantrip use as Pathfinder. Infinite icecream accompished.

Or just make a spell trap to spit out a scoop every round. Make lots of them, they're cheap. Sell the icecream at 240 gp a day per trap or just dump them on things.

[Sartharina]

Actually, it's the other way around. Prestidigitation can't do anything already covered by another spell effect. So if this spell can create certain flavors, then prestidigitation can't do that.Actually, this spell will not step on Presdigitation's field - Presdigitation can merely flavor existing things. This spell actually creates ice cream of the flavors Presdigitation can emphasize. After all, Presdigitation can also emulate minor effects of other cantrips and spells, such as 1-lb of motion (As opposed to the full 5 lbs of Mage hand, or 30+ of Telekinesis), or cheesy background music (As opposed to the full range caused by illusions like Ghost Sound), faintly-glowing glitter (As opposed to actual light, Dancing Lights, or the concealment-breaking illumination of Faerie Fire), and cheap parlor items (As opposed to functional items from the Creation line of spells)

The 'problem' with the spell is that it might be able to replace 'create food and water" - then again, a pure ice-cream diet is terrible on digestion, and might stave off starvation for a while, at the cost of sickening. I figure it can make nuts, toffee, gummy bears, maraschino cherries, and other flavoring garnishes. That said - if it's a flavor of an exotic material, it's an artificial flavor. Gold-flavored ice cream contains 0 gold.

However, if you can produce enough ice cream scoops, you can easily form Angry Mobs.

[AvatarVecna]

It's ready! All shall tremble before Boldar, the mighty Ice Cream Mage!

(This is 3.P)
Venerable Elan Sorcerer 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5

Attributes (before adjustments 32 pb): 8/8/17/13/9/17
Attributes (after racial/age/level/item adjustments): 2/2/13/16/12/36

All High Arcana are Spell Power.

Skills:
Knowledge (Arcana) 20
Knowledge (Engineering) ?
Knowledge (Planes) 20
Spellcraft 20

2 Flaws

Feats
Arcane Thesis (Create Ice Cream)
Extend Spell
Frozen Magic
Leadership
Magical Aptitude
Repeat Spell
Sacred Geometry
Scribe Scroll
Silent Spell
Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
Snowcasting
Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Spell Focus (Enchantment)
Spell Perfection (Create Ice Cream)
Still Spell
Twin Spell
Versatile Spellcaster
Wild Talent



Boldar's Cohort is exactly like him, minus 2 levels of Archmage and Leadership; he has caster level of ?.

Interesting RAW notes
-Versatile Spellcaster has no per round limit.
-PF casters have infinite 0th level spells per day.
-The RAW for Versatile Spellcaster seems to frown heavily on it using 4 level X spells to count as 2 level X+1 spells to cast a level X+2 spell. Besides, given the above points, any DM allowing PF casters to take Versatile Spellcaster would probably draw the line at effectively infinite 1st level spells per day. Don't abuse your DM's trust.
-What this does mean is that you can convert all existing 1st level spells into 2nd level spells, since you have infinite 1st levels spells and don't need those 1st level spell slots for actual 1st level casting.
-Boldar is effectively immortal: he can be killed, but he can't die from age.
-Boldar's caster level when casting Create Ice Cream is 27 without items, assuming this spell has the Cold descriptor usually (if not, it's 2 lower). Let's stick with that for now. The cohort's caster level is 23 (or 21).

Tactics:
All spells should be performed in the frozen tundra demiplane Boldar created for himself.

Every round, Boldar can do the following. Assuming the Sacred Geometry rolls work out (which they should), you get 12 effective castings of Create Ice Cream per round spent casting like this. This combo has no per day limit, by RAW, but Elans need to sleep; that said, by taking advantage of a Ring of Sustenance, each character can spend 20 hours a day doing this.
-Use VS to cast Create Ice Cream. Add Quicken Spell via Spell Perfection. Add Silent/Still Spell via Arcane Thesis. Add Twin Spell/Repeat Spell (at their reduced level increases of 2 and 1 respectively) for free via Sacred Geometry (effective spell level would be 4). This takes up a swift action.
-Use VS to cast Create Ice Cream. Add Quicken Spell via Spell Perfection. Add Silent/Still Spell via Arcane Thesis. Add Twin Spell/Repeat Spell (at their reduced level increases of 2 and 1 respectively) for free via Sacred Geometry (effective spell level would be 4). This takes up a move action.
-Use VS to cast Create Ice Cream. Add Twin Spell via Spell Perfection. Add Silent/Still Spell via Arcane Thesis. Add Repeat Spell (at its reduced level increase of 1) for free via Sacred Geometry (effective spell level would be 2). This takes up a swift action.


So, in summary:
Neither Boldar nor his cohort has any CL-boosting items. Neither can die of old age, and they can spend as long as they want casting these spell continuously. By casting on Boldar's demiplane, they can both bump their CL by 2, and have a way to freeze an infinite amount of ice cream.

In a single day of solid casting by both of them, assuming they both wear a Ring of Sustenance, they can collectively create 7,200,000 scoops of ice cream. Assuming each scoop in an ounce of ice cream (by volume), they can spend a year casting like this to create a total of 20,531,250 gallons. According to Wikipedia, this is about double what Blue Bell Creamery was producing in 1980. This is two guys.

If two guys casting for 10 hours a day can match that of a real world late 20th century company, I have confidence that they could take over any ice cream market they want. Of course, if that's the only think a 20th and 18th level wizard is taking over, I'm sure everyone'll be quite thankful.

[malonkey1]

You should have tried to fit Circle Magic in there, so you could get your followers can pump your (and your cohort's) CL through the roof.

[AvatarVecna]

You should have tried to fit Circle Magic in there, so you could get your followers can pump your (and your cohort's) CL through the roof.

Circle Magic is a pretty commonly known cheese. There are some downsides to it.

-Firstly, the bonuses only apply to the circle leader, so I'd need two circles total, which is more effort.
-The CL bonus maxes out at 40 from Circle Magic; that's not max bonus from circle magic, just max it'll give you. Items can accomplish that, and I can't exactly buy feats.
-It takes an hour to perform circle magic, which'll cut down on production.

Still, it could be worked in (via a third flaw, which is a roleplaying option). If I did so, the gallons per year jumps to 31,207,500. Of course, if your cohort was, instead, a Planar Shepherd pulling similar shenanigans, it could get even worse when your frozen plane is running on bullet time. Multiplies production by 5.

[Chronos]

Note that, to break the economy, it's not enough to just make a profit on it. That's not breaking the economy; that's just the economy. To break it, you need to make more profit than the standard price for selling spellcasting services.

[Promises Kept]

But in ordinary circumstances, Spellcasting Services are limited by spell slots, not time or demand. With infinite spells, demand becomes the limiting factor for selling spells - you aren't going to find enough people who need level 1 spells to make this useful for that purpose. On the other hand, taking this method, your limiting factor is time, which you can expand on through action economy shenanigans (and have a whole lot to start with!).

A couple possibilities for expanding production: You can break the Action Economy even harder by Shapechanging into a Chronotyryn and using Ability Rip (Serpent Kingdoms) to grab Quickness from a Choker (and possibly a couple equivalent abilities from more obscure sources; as I recall, you can get 5 standard actions/round, if you try). You can also drop a couple feats to grab 3.5 Persistent Spell, grab a Staff of Greater Consumptive Field and a Wand of Consumptive Field, and boost your Caster Level to the stratosphere by bouncing between them, then Metamagic Effect Persist the last two. The combination of the two allows for an infinite loop, limited by castings and lives to devour for the creation of ice cream.

Dang. That got sorta dark.

[Fax Celestis]

Could you also use your standard Sanctum Spell (or other spell level lowering mechanism) on Arcane Fusion shenanigans? Use Arcane Fusion to cast Arcane Fusion and another spell, which you use to cast Arcane Fusion and another spell, which...

[StoneCipher]

But in ordinary circumstances, Spellcasting Services are limited by spell slots, not time or demand. With infinite spells, demand becomes the limiting factor for selling spells - you aren't going to find enough people who need level 1 spells to make this useful for that purpose. On the other hand, taking this method, your limiting factor is time, which you can expand on through action economy shenanigans (and have a whole lot to start with!).

A couple possibilities for expanding production: You can break the Action Economy even harder by Shapechanging into a Chronotyryn and using Ability Rip (Serpent Kingdoms) to grab Quickness from a Choker (and possibly a couple equivalent abilities from more obscure sources; as I recall, you can get 5 standard actions/round, if you try). You can also drop a couple feats to grab 3.5 Persistent Spell, grab a Staff of Greater Consumptive Field and a Wand of Consumptive Field, and boost your Caster Level to the stratosphere by bouncing between them, then Metamagic Effect Persist the last two. The combination of the two allows for an infinite loop, limited by castings and lives to devour for the creation of ice cream.

Dang. That got sorta dark.

Did you just make a build around this spell?

[Promises Kept]

Did you just make a build around this spell?

Nope! AvatarVecna did, and I suggested some borderline-TO modifications to it, because when you're already breaking the economy, why not break the game while you're at it?

[AvatarVecna]

The build I made can be used for more than monopoly-building. These two have infinite time and infinite ice cream. They could spend a year making a pile of ice cream iceballs, then put a Gate at the bottom over a town or fortress.

Or Hell. We could test the odds of a snowball's chance in hell.

[Phelix-Mu]

Note that it melts, not disappears. This means that it is also a good way to make both sugar and cream (and ostensibly a few other ingredients) from nothing. Anything that reliably makes something permanent from nothing with essentially no cost (except for daily-renewable spell slots) is pretty much bound to break at some point.

Personally, I'd turn it around and make it a way to sell baby formula, as baby's would love cream and sugar (especially if you could make it breast-milk flavored). You might have to add some vitamins, but at the very least it would drive down infant mortality due to starvation (this was, and is, actually disturbingly common in areas without refrigeration or ready supply of normal milk, as a fair number of mothers have more than one child to breastfeed or have problems with milk production).

Thus, I propose an indirect way to break the economy: birth rates rise and childhood mortality rates drop, perhaps dramatically. Within the scope of a properly-extended lifespan of a successful adventurer, population booms and the cost of labor plummets. Increased size of population leads to more spellcasters. More spellcasters leads to more magic, which, as we've illustrated, almost always breaks the economy.

[AvatarVecna]

Note that it melts, not disappears. This means that it is also a good way to make both sugar and cream (and ostensibly a few other ingredients) from nothing. Anything that reliably makes something permanent from nothing with essentially no cost (except for daily-renewable spell slots) is pretty much bound to break at some point.

Personally, I'd turn it around and make it a way to sell baby formula, as baby's would love cream and sugar (especially if you could make it breast-milk flavored). You might have to add some vitamins, but at the very least it would drive down infant mortality due to starvation (this was, and is, actually disturbingly common in areas without refrigeration or ready supply of normal milk, as a fair number of mothers have more than one child to breastfeed or have problems with milk production).

Thus, I propose an indirect way to break the economy: birth rates rise and childhood mortality rates drop, perhaps dramatically. Within the scope of a properly-extended lifespan of a successful adventurer, population booms and the cost of labor plummets. Increased size of population leads to more spellcasters. More spellcasters leads to more magic, which, as we've illustrated, almost always breaks the economy.

Keep the material component in mind. It's not a 'something for nothing' deal.

[Phelix-Mu]

Keep the material component in mind. It's not a 'something for nothing' deal.

The spell quoted stipulated non-costly, and thus the quantity of sugar and milk must be quite small. And non-costly material components are not exactly the biggest hurdle to overcome in the game, with several effects (at least in 3.5) removing their relevance entirely.

Conceptually, if the DM was making you count the cost of sugar as the ounces add up, this does create a price point that you'd have to leverage against.

Still, it's one ounce of sugar for potentially many quarts worth of ice cream (given enough CL inflation, which is up to the op/hilarity level that the table tolerates). I think you are at least undercutting actual amounts of sugar needed by CL 10 or so (depending on the actual volume of a scoop of ice cream), which should lead to a pretty hefty payout.

Coincidentally, is there a rule in PF where you can prepare spells of level x in the level x slots, or in slots of any level higher than x? I'm pretty sure there is a rule such as this in 3e (damn you, Exalted, making me forget D&D rules, lol), and would make the day-to-day amounts of ice cream created much greater.

Also, combine with extract drug spell for slightly darker hilarity. I believe there is even a drug in 3e that has "milk" in the name. See if the DM let's you make ice cream using [not quite the same as cocaine]-milk as the material component, lol.

[Chronos]

Heck, you could just cast the spell once, then use the melt from that first casting to provide the material components for subsequent castings. I'm pretty sure that even a single scoop will contain more sugar and milk than one ounce and a small vial, and if not, just increase the caster level (by a modest amount, such as by leveling up to 2nd or 3rd) until it is.

[Kornaki]

But in ordinary circumstances, Spellcasting Services are limited by spell slots, not time or demand. With infinite spells, demand becomes the limiting factor for selling spells - you aren't going to find enough people who need level 1 spells to make this useful for that purpose. On the other hand, taking this method, your limiting factor is time, which you can expand on through action economy shenanigans (and have a whole lot to start with!).

Why doesn't this same argument hold for ice cream?