Oh so you want to make some? Sure that will be 100 days

[CyberThread]

Just to see how out of wack this current system is.

Three characters, with the proper skills and supplies to make it, take 100 day to make a set of plate armor.


Damn....

[Sartharina]

... Sounds about right, maybe.

[Human Paragon 3]

Just get helpers to speed it up if you're in that big a hurry to get plate armor. It's supposed to be hard to get.

[Fable Wright]

Just to see how out of wack this current system is.

Three characters, with the proper skills and supplies to make it, take 100 day to make a set of plate armor.


Damn....

This is not, really, out of wack. Keep in mind that getting a suit of plate armor made is literally more expensive than bringing the dead back to life. And really, it's not that far-fetched. According to this (http://www.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=10&tn=320346&st=4#post5) guy, custom suits of plate armor can actually take up to three months on the upper end, for specialists in the modern day. Roughly 100 days, with the advantage of modern-day supply lines and consolidated techniques. (He does say that he uses tools and techniques from back in the day, but I believe that the fact that the furnace doesn't need to be tended by apprentices severely cuts down on the amount of time/manpower it takes; almost as if he had trained assistants helping him cut down on time...) I could definitely see an armorsmith and his two apprentices in a small town, rely on the age-old techniques of their line, buckle down and spending three and a half months to make a quality suit of plate that won't fail the their patron. I could also see an industrial forge in the city with nearly a dozen apprentices churn out a new piece of plate armor in roughly three weeks. Sure, in the real world, people could probably make plate a bit faster, but the time it takes isn't flagrantly unrealistic, and it serves as an in-universe indicator of being a total badass.

[Falka]

That, and also we no longer have WallMagic. The fact that we don't need magic items at all really adds a nice touch to the game.

[PinkysBrain]

Armour smiths must be loaded.

[Yuki Akuma]

Armour smiths must be loaded.

Well.

Three craftsmen spending 100 days to make a suit of plate mail have to spend 750gp on raw materials, meaning they only make 750gp in profit - 2 gp, 5 sp each per day. They can live at a modest lifestyle for free, or spend 1 gp per day to upgrade to a comfortable lifestyle.

2.5 gp a day is okay, but you're not going to become fabulously wealthy any time soon.

[da_chicken]

Armour smiths must be loaded.

Armor smiths probably have a commission with the local lord, and even then probably only produce plate on demand.

[Sidmen]

Armour smiths must be loaded.

Historically, yes, they were. Being an armor smith is a bit like being an electrical engineer. You're a specialist in a very skill-intensive and valuable field, doing something that lots of people are willing to pour lots of money into. If you are able to make an entire suit of plate armor - you're in the elite doing something that maybe only a dozen other smiths in the kingdom are capable of. A breastplate is easy compared to the joints of full plate, and even then most smiths were unable to successfully make them - that's why they came up with all the other nearly plate armors - like brigandine.

[ibtfu]

Did they nerf Fabricate in the final PHB? If you have proficiency with the tools, it only takes 10 minutes.

Wizards ftw!

[Millennium]

In what way is this out of whack?

In 3.5e, full plate has an AC bonus of +8, meaning a Craft DC of 18, and it costs 1500 GP. That means a Craft total of 15,000 to create. A single expert who can generally average about a 20 on his Craft (armorsmithing) check can earn an average of 360 points (20 * 18) toward the total per week, and would therefore take about 42 weeks (or about 294 days) from start to finish.

Put three armorsmiths on the project, and it's a total of 98 days to finish. If it takes them 100 days in 5e, that's only a 2% increase. I can't call that out of whack.

[Millennium]

Did they nerf Fabricate in the final PHB? If you have proficiency with the tools, it only takes 10 minutes.

Wizards ftw!
Really? I was under the impression that when Fabricate required you to make a Craft check, it would only let you make as much progress toward an object as the Craft check would allow. That would still let you proceed much faster than normal: as a Level 13 Sorcerer, you could cast the spell repeatedly to make six checks a day and thus finish the armor in only one week. But that's still more than ten minutes.

[Chambers]

ibtfu is right, and there's no check involved. 10 minutes, raw material, a 4th level spell, and Wizard (or Bard via Magical Secrets) that is proficient with armorsmithing tools and you've got a suit of plate mail.

[obryn]

In what way is this out of whack?

In 3.5e, full plate has an AC bonus of +8, meaning a Craft DC of 18, and it costs 1500 GP. That means a Craft total of 15,000 to create. A single expert who can generally average about a 20 on his Craft (armorsmithing) check can earn an average of 360 points (20 * 18) toward the total per week, and would therefore take about 42 weeks (or about 294 days) from start to finish.

Put three armorsmiths on the project, and it's a total of 98 days to finish. If it takes them 100 days in 5e, that's only a 2% increase. I can't call that out of whack.
As others are mentioning, your crew of trained craftsman takes a hundred days to make plate armor, while A Wizard Did It in a few minutes.

[Cibulan]

As others are mentioning, your crew of trained craftsman takes a hundred days to make plate armor, while A Wizard Did It in a few minutes.Magic shortcuts reality!?! Whaaaa? Sorry for the sarcasm but that's why it's magic, it does stuff that non-magic can't.

[obryn]

Magic shortcuts reality!?! Whaaaa? Sorry for the sarcasm but that's why it's magic, it does stuff that non-magic can't.
Which is basically the problem. Magic does way too much in D&D. This is just one example.

[Millennium]

As others are mentioning, your crew of trained craftsman takes a hundred days to make plate armor, while A Wizard Did It in a few minutes.
The original post doesn't mention the fabricate spell at all: it seemed to be concerned only with how long it takes to make plate armor, without taking into account how long it would take a wizard to do the same thing.

[obryn]

The original post doesn't mention the fabricate spell at all: it seemed to be concerned only with how long it takes to make plate armor, without taking into account how long it would take a wizard to do the same thing.
ibtfu mentioned it upthread, which is what I referred to.

I think it's germane to the OP, though, since he expressed exasperation with how long it takes for mundane means to create plate armor. The fact that it takes a team of skilled craftsman 100 days vs. 10 minutes for a wizard's ritual (or, 1/14,400 the time) is pretty crazy.

[Yuki Akuma]

*ahem*

Quothe the Fabricate spell:


Creatures or magic items can't be created or transmuted by this spell. You also can't use it to create items that ordinarily require a high degree of craftsmanship, such as jewelry, weapons, glass, or armor, unless you have proficiency with the type or artisan's tools used to craft such objects.

Any Wizard using Fabricate to craft plate armour is already a trained craftsman anyway. This isn't so much 'Wizards beat out mundanely trained crasftmen' so much as 'magically trained craftsmen craft things faster'. Which is, you know... fairly standard fantasy?

[obryn]

*ahem*

Quothe the Fabricate spell:

Any Wizard using Fabricate to craft plate armour is already a trained craftsman anyway. This isn't so much 'Wizards beat out mundanely trained crasftmen' so much as 'magically trained craftsmen craft things faster'. Which is, you know... fairly standard fantasy?
No, it's pretty much not fairly standard fantasy. "Wizard churning out thousands of suits of plate armor" is the opposite of standard fantasy.

Craftsmen making magic or exceptional armor? Yep, standard fantasy. Terry the Transmuter poking some ritual components around and making plate armor in the time it'd take for a long bathroom break? Nope.

[hawklost]

No, it's pretty much not fairly standard fantasy. "Wizard churning out thousands of suits of plate armor" is the opposite of standard fantasy.

Craftsmen making magic or exceptional armor? Yep, standard fantasy. Terry the Transmuter poking some ritual components around and making plate armor in the time it'd take for a long bathroom break? Nope.

Standard Fantasy.... you mean the Fantasy Genre that was effectively created by Tolkien and also by a large part DnD (when related to Roleplaying)? Because to the best of my knowledge, if that is the case and Fabricate always worked this way, then your claim of it being opposite of 'standard fantasy' doesn't make much sense.

EDIT: And yes, a Wizard could take his time from his studies, learn to craft Armor, gain enough levels to be able to cast Frabicate (who says that kind of Wizard is common? Oh yea, the DM decides that) and then Finally spend his days trying to make mundane money which really doesn't even make sense for him (unless he is a PC) spending his cosmic knowledge and power for those mundane people.

[obryn]

Standard Fantasy.... you mean the Fantasy Genre that was effectively created by Tolkien and also by a large part DnD (when related to Roleplaying)? Because to the best of my knowledge, if that is the case and Fabricate always worked this way, then your claim of it being opposite of 'standard fantasy' doesn't make much sense.
Tolkien's full of elves and maiar - heck, even valar, when you include Aule - working over forges for years, though. :smallconfused:


EDIT: And yes, a Wizard could take his time from his studies, learn to craft Armor, gain enough levels to be able to cast Frabicate (who says that kind of Wizard is common? Oh yea, the DM decides that) and then Finally spend his days trying to make mundane money which really doesn't even make sense for him (unless he is a PC) spending his cosmic knowledge and power for those mundane people.
Crafting 1 suit of armor is a long poop break for a wizard. It's a ritual, so it doesn't even take a prepared spell.

And, just like other folks are over in the skeleton thread, you're basically making excuses for dysfunctional rules by quibbling over the setting details. "OF COURSE Terry the Transmuter wouldn't make a dozen suits of armor in two hours, putting every armorer in the city out of work! Why not? REASONS, OKAY?!" :smallsmile:

[Yuki Akuma]

Fabricate isn't a ritual spell. Where are you getting that? It's a regular spell with a casting time of ten minutes. Terry the 7th level Transmuter can cast it once a day. Twice if he uses Arcane Recovery to get back his single 4th level slot.

Please actually read the book before arguing about how bad and broken it is.

[hawklost]

Tolkien's full of elves and maiar - heck, even valar, when you include Aule - working over forges for years, though. :smallconfused:


Crafting 1 suit of armor is a long poop break for a wizard. It's a ritual, so it doesn't even take a prepared spell.

And, just like other folks are over in the skeleton thread, you're basically making excuses for dysfunctional rules by quibbling over the setting details. "OF COURSE Terry the Transmuter wouldn't make a dozen suits of armor in two hours, putting every armorer in the city out of work! Why not? REASONS, OKAY?!" :smallsmile:

Quibbling over the rules? I am not the one saying if I combine this and add this and read a rule specifically this way and twist logic that way then this is allowable.

Why would a wizard do this anyways? They get exactly 0 value from it other than wasted time. With a crafter, they pay half the value in materials and spend lots of time to make something more valuable. With the Transmuter they spend the full value of the item to Transmute something to EQUAL value.

[MadBear]

Quibbling over the rules? I am not the one saying if I combine this and add this and read a rule specifically this way and twist logic that way then this is allowable.

Why would a wizard do this anyways? They get exactly 0 value from it other than wasted time. With a crafter, they pay half the value in materials and spend lots of time to make something more valuable. With the Transmuter they spend the full value of the item to Transmute something to EQUAL value.

well.... Terry the Transmuter could always charge double the price tag, and wonder why bob the builders suits are selling and his aren't.

(yes, I know he could charge slightly over the regular price tag and hope people run out of non-magically made armors so they have to buy from him.)

[Yuki Akuma]

Why would a wizard do this anyways? They get exactly 0 value from it other than wasted time. With a crafter, they pay half the value in materials and spend lots of time to make something more valuable. With the Transmuter they spend the full value of the item to Transmute something to EQUAL value.

I'm not entirely sure that's correct. The spell doesn't mention cost, simply 'raw materials'. Going by the crafting rules, the raw materials for any object is half the object's market cost.

[obryn]

Fabricate isn't a ritual spell. Where are you getting that? It's a regular spell with a casting time of ten minutes. Terry the 7th level Transmuter can cast it once a day. Twice if he uses Arcane Recovery to get back his single 4th level slot.

Please actually read the book before arguing about how bad and broken it is.
Oh! Terry's time savings are merely 600x then if he's just 7th level (and he still gets to do a bunch more stuff that day)! :smallbiggrin:

A spell shouldn't be able to bypass skilled craftspeople this easily, ritual or no. And this isn't the first time this has come up. (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p71k?How-fast-can-you-craft-a-Mithral-Full-Plate)


Quibbling over the rules? I am not the one saying if I combine this and add this and read a rule specifically this way and twist logic that way then this is allowable.

Why would a wizard do this anyways? They get exactly 0 value from it other than wasted time. With a crafter, they pay half the value in materials and spend lots of time to make something more valuable. With the Transmuter they spend the full value of the item to Transmute something to EQUAL value.
Who's twisting the rules? It says right in the description you can do this. :smallconfused: And why are we worrying about Terry's motives, again? The spell exists, so presumably it's there to be cast?

[Human Paragon 3]

So is this a problem with any item other than full plate? Chain mail, say?

You could rule that every section of the plate mail armor requires a separate check (one for the helm, one for the visor, one for the breast plate, one for the each shoulder plate, each thigh plate, shin guard, each part of the gauntlet, and so on). They'd also have to make fabricate checks for the padding that goes on the inside of the suit, the leather straps (you didn't think plate male was made of JUST metal, did you?) and any ornamentation you add to it. In this case, the process would take weeks for most wizards. I think this would actually be a valid interpretation of the rules without resorting to house rules.

If you DID want to house rules things, you could add a material component to the casting requirements equal to the cost of the raw materials.

[obryn]

So is this a problem with any item other than full plate? Chain mail, say?

You could rule that every section of the plate mail armor requires a separate check (one for the helm, one for the visor, one for the breast plate, one for the each shoulder plate, each thigh plate, shin guard, each part of the gauntlet, and so on). They'd also have to make fabricate checks for the padding that goes on the inside of the suit, the leather straps (you didn't think plate male was made of JUST metal, did you?) and any ornamentation you add to it. In this case, the process would take weeks for most wizards. I think this would actually be a valid interpretation of the rules without resorting to house rules.

If you DID want to house rules things, you could add a material component to the casting requirements equal to the cost of the raw materials.
No, that's making excuses for the rules again by making non-intuitive rulings. There's no reason whatsoever to treat "suit of platemail" as anything other than a single "item" in the rules except for the sole purpose of nerfing this spell.

[Human Paragon 3]

Maybe. But it'd work.

[hawklost]

No, that's making excuses for the rules again by making non-intuitive rulings. There's no reason whatsoever to treat "suit of platemail" as anything other than a single "item" in the rules except for the sole purpose of nerfing this spell.

Sorry, rules are rules, you don't get to argue that the book has this rule in it this way one time and then argue again that 'your using non-intuitive rulings' about a rule the next. You either get the rules as-is and get all your little tricks but take the negatives with it, or your tricks don't get to work exactly that way.

[Human Paragon 3]

Sorry, rules are rules, you don't get to argue that the book has this rule in it this way one time and then argue again that 'your using non-intuitive rulings' about a rule the next. You either get the rules as-is and get all your little tricks but take the negatives with it, or your tricks don't get to work exactly that way.

Is a disguise kit a single item? What about a quiver of arrows? A bag of 10,000 gold coins? What about a 3 piece suit (jacket, vest, and pants)? Would that include the belt and shoes if you fabricated it? And the neck tie? What about the hat? What makes an "item" an "item" as far as fabricate is concerned?

If you look at the description of plate armor in the book, it lists a variety of "items" that make up the suit.

[hawklost]

Is a disguise kit a single item? What about a quiver of arrows? What makes an "item" an "item" as far as fabricate is concerned?

I don't know, is a giant mechanical contraption a single object? Can a Wizard effectively fabricate a miniature of Big Ben? Or how about a working miniature tank? Can he duplicate a Gnomes ability but without the 1 hour limitation? Why would those be any more challenging/complex than Plate armor?

EDIT: Yes, I know the Tank is more complex, although the one designed by da vinci was not by much.

EDIT 2: Are you arguing for or against a Suit of Plate armor for Fabricate, because I am saying it doesn't work the way obryn pretends it does and it appears you are agreeing with me at the same time as attacking my argument.......

[Human Paragon 3]

I don't know, is a giant mechanical contraption a single object? Can a Wizard effectively fabricate a miniature of Big Ben? Or how about a working miniature tank? Can he duplicate a Gnomes ability but without the 1 hour limitation? Why would those be any more challenging/complex than Plate armor?

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think that each section of the armor would require its own check, even by RAW. That's how I would do it, anyway. So you would need to cast the spell, most likely, 20 times.

This is still do-able, but it's a much larger investment of time and effort. Still not as much as the skilled artisan, but a 7th level wizard's time is worth more than that of a skilled artisan.

[Human Paragon 3]

EDIT 2: Are you arguing for or against a Suit of Plate armor for Fabricate, because I am saying it doesn't work the way obryn pretends it does and it appears you are agreeing with me at the same time as attacking my argument.......

I was piggybacking on your argument, not arguing against it.

[hawklost]

I was piggybacking on your argument, not arguing against it.

Ok, wasn't sure. Felt like you might have mis-read my argument (which considering my lack of sleep today, I wouldn't be surprised I wrote poorly)

[Tehnar]

I don't know, is a giant mechanical contraption a single object? Can a Wizard effectively fabricate a miniature of Big Ben? Or how about a working miniature tank? Can he duplicate a Gnomes ability but without the 1 hour limitation? Why would those be any more challenging/complex than Plate armor?

I don't know what you are so hung up about. Clear examples from the text are a bridge, clothes, and if you are proficient in the tools weapons and armor. Its spelled out that you can make weapons and armor with fabricate, as long as you are proficient.

The point is that the spell is broken, and it is the least offender, but it is still in the casters beat mundanes camp.

[Merlin the Tuna]

Even if you don't concern yourself with the magic vs. physical crafting side of the equation, it's clearly a wonky setup to have fine-grained crafting rules set up such that it is wildly impractical to ever craft anything useful. The process ends up being something along the lines of:

Determine what you want to craft
Determine the MSRP
Determine time it will take & cost to make
Oh jeez that's a lot of time
Determine number of assistants who can practically help
Determine time it will take to craft with assistants' help.
Determine amount it will cost to pay the assistants for their time
Oh jeez that's still a lot of time and I'm barely even saving any money at this point
Welp, no point crafting anything.

It's pretty much the definition of rules bloat. Not game-breaking bloat, and frankly I support the idea that a game about heroic adventuring should naturally reward heroic adventuring over learning how to operate a small business. But there are better ways to do it than to hide it behind a bunch of math that inevitably just says "LOL you wanted to craft something" anyway.

[Human Paragon 3]

Ok, wasn't sure. Felt like you might have mis-read my argument (which considering my lack of sleep today, I wouldn't be surprised I wrote poorly)

No problem. All I'm really concerned with is that the game works with me and my group. I don't need to convince anyone else of my correctness (including obryn) to have a game that works for me. I think my ruling of how fabricate works with plate armor is totally valid especially since it doesn't destroy the economy.

I'm not "making excuses" for the rules, I am interpreting them in a way that makes my game work. And I don't think the interpretation is a stretch by any means.

[obryn]

Sorry, rules are rules, you don't get to argue that the book has this rule in it this way one time and then argue again that 'your using non-intuitive rulings' about a rule the next. You either get the rules as-is and get all your little tricks but take the negatives with it, or your tricks don't get to work exactly that way.
I'm still trying to figure out what part of "cast fabricate and make a suit of armor in 10 minutes" is twisting the rules in any way.

It's pretty clearly the exact rules, both RAW and RAI. It even says so - you need to have proficiency with the sort of craftsmanship, and then can cast Fabricate to make jewelry, weapons, glass, or armor.


Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think that each section of the armor would require its own check, even by RAW. That's how I would do it, anyway. So you would need to cast the spell, most likely, 20 times.

This is still do-able, but it's a much larger investment of time and effort. Still not as much as the skilled artisan, but a 7th level wizard's time is worth more than that of a skilled artisan.
:smallconfused: That's nowhere near RAW. That's like saying you need to cast Fabricate once for the haft, bow, string, trigger, etc. to make a crossbow. Or once per brick for a brick wall. The spell even says you can make weapons and armor with it, not "but only if you cast it once per moving part."

[Human Paragon 3]

:smallconfused: That's nowhere near RAW. That's like saying you need to cast Fabricate once for the haft, bow, string, trigger, etc. to make a crossbow. Or once per brick for a brick wall. The spell even says you can make weapons and armor with it, not "but only if you cast it once per moving part."

*shrug*

Yeah, but that's broken.

[Sartharina]

Meh. I don't have a problem with high-level wizards or others being able to cast fabricate to make armor (However, it might be that the spell is too low-level - I'd make it a level 6 spell), with the possibility of those with craftsmen backgrounds being able to replicate the effect with a ritual. Of course, the time seems too little for large things, as well.

[Millennium]

When I was talking about Fabricate requiring a Craft check and all, I was citing the 3.5e rules (since I don't have the 5e PHB yet). It sounds like 5e's version got a pretty big boost if it doesn't even require a check anymore.

Yeah, that might be something I'd houserule back to 3.5e-esque. If you try to make something that requires a check, then the spell makes progress on the item as though you'd rolled a 20 on the check (not a natural 20, if that makes any difference). But if that isn't enough to finish the item, then the item still isn't finished. Additionally, the spell doesn't prevent you from rolling a "normal" check that week (or however long you have to wait between checks in 5e), so you can cast it once and make a normal check to get it done twice as fast, or even cast it again and again to make especially rapid progress.

This would mean that you could still craft items much faster with magic than by mundane means: at least 8x faster if you cast fabricate once per day (7 casts plus the normal check), and even faster if you can cast it more often than that. But you couldn't, for example, just will plate armor into existence. Does that sound more reasonable?

[Yuki Akuma]

"Craft checks" aren't a thing - you just need proficiency with a tool to be able to make stuff with it. You can make 5 gp's worth of whatever you're crafting a day. While crafting, you can live at a modest lifestyle for free, or a comfortable lifestyle for half price. Multiple people can contribute their 5 gp of work on a single project. A project requires raw materials worth half the finished item's market price.

That is the entirety of the rules for crafting in 5e.

[obryn]

*shrug*

Yeah, but that's broken.
Which was my point. Thank you.

[Millennium]

"Craft checks" aren't a thing - you just need proficiency with a tool to be able to make stuff with it. You can make 5 gp's worth of whatever you're crafting a day. While crafting, you can live at a modest lifestyle for free, or a comfortable lifestyle for half price. Multiple people can contribute their 5 gp of work on a single project. A project requires raw materials worth half the finished item's market price.

That is the entirety of the rules for crafting in 5e.
Well, that goes a little too far toward simplifying things in my taste, but it's still not too tough to houserule. Assuming that we're using FR-style tendays, then you either outright fabricate items worth 50gp or less, or make 50gp of progress on an item worth more than this.

What level of spell is fabricate in 5e?

[pwykersotz]

Which was my point. Thank you.

I'm not a hundred percent certain it IS broken though. Look at it less from the simulationist perspective and more from a gaming perspective. This spell means that a party with a level 7 wizard in it could be fairly easily outfitted with full plate armor. It also assumes adventurers are out adventuring, not opening shops. Are either of these truly bad?

I can see problems if the party believes "infinite wealth is within their grasp", but I think that outlying situations like that are always supposed to be in the purview of the GM. I dunno, maybe it will cause more problems then I'm predicting, but I don't see it right now.


Well, that goes a little too far toward simplifying things in my taste, but it's still not too tough to houserule. Assuming that we're using FR-style tendays, then you either outright fabricate items worth 50gp or less, or make 50gp of progress on an item worth more than this.

What level of spell is fabricate in 5e?

4th level

[TrexPushups]

I say if they decide to open a shop that sells plate armor then the price of plate armor drops through the floor and suddenly most of the humanoid baddies are wearing plate armor since it is so cheap.

To rub it in more the Orcs et al are wearing armor that bears the party's makers mark. :D

[ibtfu]

EDIT: And yes, a Wizard could take his time from his studies, learn to craft Armor, gain enough levels to be able to cast Frabicate (who says that kind of Wizard is common? Oh yea, the DM decides that) and then Finally spend his days trying to make mundane money which really doesn't even make sense for him (unless he is a PC) spending his cosmic knowledge and power for those mundane people.

All it takes is one 7th Wizard with craft armor tools proficiency to break the entire armor economy. He can do the job of 100 armorers working full time in 10 minutes/day and he can spend the rest of his day on the pursuit of arcane knowledge or drinking pina coladas on the beach. If nothing else this breaks verisimilitude.

[Sartharina]

It doesn't break verisimilitude for me.

Where are you getting a level 7 wizard?
I know I personally am capable of doing something in 10 minutes tinkering around with Unreal Engine 4 that would take dozens of coders months to make from scratch.

[ibtfu]

A 7th level wizard with tools proficiency can cast fabricate and create plate mail.

It breaks verisimilitude because mundane armorers are obsolete in a world with one such wizard.

[Cibulan]

A 7th level wizard with tools proficiency can cast fabricate and create plate mail.

It breaks verisimilitude because mundane armorers are obsolete in a world with one such wizard.Not if such a wizard is incredibly rare. You shouldn't find a 7th level wizard on any old street corner. There's maybe a handful of them around a country at any given point. Someone else pointed out that the PHB calls an 11th level character legendary, well 7th is definitely pushing towards legendary and its rareness.

Also, as said, if a wizard floods the market with plate-mail, the price drops.

[Durazno]

EDIT: And ninja. Or Asssassin Archetype Rogue? Anyway, I was too slow.

I don't know, doesn't that depend on the setting's assumptions? Level 7 wizards might be vanishingly rare and largely uninterested in making armor for people. I guess this wouldn't really apply to Forgotten Realms, though, would it?

[Sartharina]

I don't know, doesn't that depend on the setting's assumptions? Level 7 wizards might be vanishingly rare and largely uninterested in making armor for people. I guess this wouldn't really apply to Forgotten Realms, though, would it?Forgotten Realm's wizards that aren't Eliminster are plagued with Terminal Stupidity.

[ibtfu]

Not if such a wizard is incredibly rare. You shouldn't find a 7th level wizard on any old street corner. There's maybe a handful of them around a country at any given point. Someone else pointed out that the PHB calls an 11th level character legendary, well 7th is definitely pushing towards legendary and its rareness.


You only need one 7th level wizard with tools proficiency to put 100 armorers making plate out of business. How many armorers making plate mail do the countries in your game have?



Also, as said, if a wizard floods the market with plate-mail, the price drops.

Your example was unrealistic because the price can never drop below the cost of the materials, so mooks still can't afford it. The final price will approach the cost of the materials + the going rate for a 7th level wizard to cast a 4th level spell for you. It makes you wonder why plate mail isn't listed at this price in the first place unless the DM only plays economist when it punishes the players.

[Angelalex242]

Well, maybe the wizards aren't doing this for just anyone. Maybe mister wizard just crafts sets of full plate for the fighters/paladins/clerics he adventures with, and doesn't bother doing so thereafter. Spending your time armoring the people you work with is a good idea.

[Knaight]

And really, it's not that far-fetched. According to this (http://www.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=10&tn=320346&st=4#post5) guy, custom suits of plate armor can actually take up to three months on the upper end, for specialists in the modern day. Roughly 100 days, with the advantage of modern-day supply lines and consolidated techniques. (He does say that he uses tools and techniques from back in the day, but I believe that the fact that the furnace doesn't need to be tended by apprentices severely cuts down on the amount of time/manpower it takes; almost as if he had trained assistants helping him cut down on time...) I could definitely see an armorsmith and his two apprentices in a small town, rely on the age-old techniques of their line, buckle down and spending three and a half months to make a quality suit of plate that won't fail the their patron.

It's pretty long. Modern day specialists aren't likely to be as good as actual period armorers, who are generally much more immersed in the trade, also had fairly sophisticated operations (the lone armorer-hermit is a myth, plate was generally produced by industrial processes), and were producing tons of munition armor pretty quickly. Sure, some armor took a very long time to make. On the other hand, that's because some armor looked like this:
http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/filippo-negroli-parade-helmet.jpg

That's before getting into the weirdness of things like minting currency, jewelery (apparently making a design out of a more expensive metal makes it take way longer), or even other armors - mail is apparently way, way less labor intensive than plate by D&D rules, which is very much not the case. The craft rules are pretty screwy as a simulation - which is pretty much how it has always been with D&D, if they are there at all.

[ibtfu]

Well, maybe the wizards aren't doing this for just anyone. Maybe mister wizard just crafts sets of full plate for the fighters/paladins/clerics he adventures with, and doesn't bother doing so thereafter.

Unless wizards have no need for gold, why wouldn't they fabricate plate mail in their downtime? The money gained can be used to build castles, hire mercenary armies, buy political influence, etc... all things that hugely increase the personal power of the wizard.

[hawklost]

Unless wizards have no need for gold, why wouldn't they fabricate plate mail in their downtime? The money gained can be used to build castles, hire mercenary armies, buy political influence, etc... all things that hugely increase the personal power of the wizard.

So spend massive amount of time Not researching the mysteries of the universe. Not increasing the only Might that matters to them and not gaining the only power that is important.

I always liked the way Dragonlance had the explanation of magic, even though a Wizard might be able to cast a powerful spell, they preferred not to because it took a huge amount of personal energy (they felt exhausted afterwards). They were still able to do things and were not actually physically exhausted but it still took more out of them then they preferred doing. So casting spells just because was not something they did. Even a small spell made them feel weaker.

[Knaight]

So spend massive amount of time Not researching the mysteries of the universe. Not increasing the only Might that matters to them and not gaining the only power that is important.

Who's to say that this is even true of all wizards. There's a definite archetype which this fits to a T, and wizards that fit that archetype probably wouldn't be using the fabricate spell - though they might still use it for cash if that gets them access to research materials. Plenty of other types of wizards are likely to use it. There's a balance issue here.

[ibtfu]

So spend massive amount of time Not researching the mysteries of the universe. Not increasing the only Might that matters to them and not gaining the only power that is important.

Massive amount of time? 10 minutes/day. Done. From a game mechanics standpoint, one feat (Skilled) gives you proficiency in three tools or skills.

Who says that wizards don't care about worldly things? 10 minutes a day and they can eventually buy a tower to study in, servants to take care of their every need so they can focus on their studies, mercenaries to guard them from those who would steal their secrets.

You need to make massive logical contortions to create a world where there is not a single wizard(Saruman anyone?) who would not use fabricate to break the plate mail economy and that still wouldn't stop a PC, whose motivations you can't control.

[Angelalex242]

Well, the wizard didn't get to level 7 by fabricating plate mail...he couldn't do it back at level 6. So unless you're proposing wizards just randomly stop adventuring at level 7...well, most wizards who get to level 7 probably want to see level 8.

[ibtfu]

Well, the wizard didn't get to level 7 by fabricating plate mail...he couldn't do it back at level 6. So unless you're proposing wizards just randomly stop adventuring at level 7...well, most wizards who get to level 7 probably want to see level 8.

What does this have to do with anything? Unless he's going to be adventuring 24/7/365, he can use fabricate in his downtime.

[Knaight]

Well, the wizard didn't get to level 7 by fabricating plate mail...he couldn't do it back at level 6. So unless you're proposing wizards just randomly stop adventuring at level 7...well, most wizards who get to level 7 probably want to see level 8.

It depends on the context of the adventuring. Maybe they're in a conflict ridden city, and all the adventuring happens there - running a business on the side is entirely doable. Maybe they're traveling with a caravan, and make armor en-route when they're stopped, to help the caravan do better. So on and so forth.

[Angelalex242]

The other thing is...you can't buy magic items anymore.

Who cares if the Wizard buys a base of operations for himself, and perhaps his party too if he's good aligned? A home base to rest up in isn't game breaking. Having mercs guard it while you're gone doesn't break the game either. And, in fact, a home base actually gives the GM a point to attack. Mostly, PCs are wandering murderhobos, so they don't have ties to any specific location. But once the wizard buys a base/tower/whatever, he can throw thieves and armies at it.

[hawklost]

Massive amount of time? 10 minutes/day. Done. From a game mechanics standpoint, one feat (Skilled) gives you proficiency in three tools or skills.

Who says that wizards don't care about worldly things? 10 minutes a day and they can eventually buy a tower to study in, servants to take care of their every need so they can focus on their studies, mercenaries to guard them from those who would steal their secrets.

You need to make massive logical contortions to create a world where there is not a single wizard(Saruman anyone?) who would not use fabricate to break the plate mail economy and that still wouldn't stop a PC, whose motivations you can't control.

Massive contortions like the Dragonlance series, or Forgotten Realms series? You know, the books that these settings are supposedly based on.

You are attempting to equate a completely different series and realm (and completely different styles of Wizardry) because you want it to work the way you want.

10 minutes a day to craft an item true. Time to study the spell each day. Time to learn that spell over others that give him more arcane knowledge. Taking up skills that have no bases in magical studies.

Also, other than PCs, are you sure that NPCs get class levels? So far, none of the NPCs have levels or skills that the PCs have, therefore it is fully possible that they never can learn that spell (Because they actually might care more about Arcane things than mundane, whether you care or not). So yes, a PC might try that, course they might have problems with the Blacksmith guilds or something, but they could try.

[ibtfu]

The other thing is...you can't buy magic items anymore.

Who cares if the Wizard buys a base of operations for himself, and perhaps his party too if he's good aligned? A home base to rest up in isn't game breaking. Having mercs guard it while you're gone doesn't break the game either. And, in fact, a home base actually gives the GM a point to attack. Mostly, PCs are wandering murderhobos, so they don't have ties to any specific location. But once the wizard buys a base/tower/whatever, he can throw thieves and armies at it.

Who cares if a Wizard breaks the economy, right? Money is useless.

That's not a good thing, but to make sure it's true, the DM needs to prevent the wizards from hiring mercenaries. With bounded accuracy, a horde of mooks should be able to take down targets who have magical stuff and thereby convert monopoly money (i.e. gold) into real money (i.e. magic stuff).

[Angelalex242]

Actually...if the wizard evil, that's exactly what he'd do. A wizard with an evil army (of guys wearing plate he fabricated himself...) could well go around marauding the countryside, taking anything of value.

What prevents good guys from doing that is that good guys don't generally take stuff from innocent people. PCs kill people that do that kind of thing, they don't do it themselves.

So, yeah, the only thing stopping the wizard is his alignment.

[ibtfu]

Actually...if the wizard evil, that's exactly what he'd do. A wizard with an evil army (of guys wearing plate he fabricated himself...) could well go around marauding the countryside, taking anything of value.

What prevents good guys from doing that is that good guys don't generally take stuff from innocent people. PCs kill people that do that kind of thing, they don't do it themselves.

So, yeah, the only thing stopping the wizard is his alignment.

And what's stopping him from hiring mercenaries to take down the evil guys to get their stuff?

[Angelalex242]

Primarily, the desire to level up.

You don't get XP for hiring somebody else to take down the guys terrorizing the land.

Also, if Gandalf's arming Gondor with Fabricate spells, you better believe Sauron's doing the same over in Mordor, and the evil guy usually has a bigger army.

[hawklost]

Actually...if the wizard evil, that's exactly what he'd do. A wizard with an evil army (of guys wearing plate he fabricated himself...) could well go around marauding the countryside, taking anything of value.

What prevents good guys from doing that is that good guys don't generally take stuff from innocent people. PCs kill people that do that kind of thing, they don't do it themselves.

So, yeah, the only thing stopping the wizard is his alignment.

And the knowledge that if he does things like that, he will piss off kingdoms with even more powerful people than him. Considering the way the stories of DnD work, the big bad guy starts out like that, adventurers get called at some point and poof bad guy dies horribly.

Evil Wizards don't seem to live long, although they might enjoy their life as long as they do live.

[hawklost]

Primarily, the desire to level up.

You don't get XP for hiring somebody else to take down the guys terrorizing the land.

Also, if Gandalf's arming Gondor with Fabricate spells, you better believe Sauron's doing the same over in Mordor, and the evil guy usually has a bigger army.

Funny, in the story, Sauron's army looked like it got its butt kicked by an army that was recruited by the good guys.

[ibtfu]

Primarily, the desire to level up.

You don't get XP for hiring somebody else to take down the guys terrorizing the land.

In past editions, you definitely did get XP (reduced) for this if you go with them. Even if you get no XP, you're still converting gold into magic items which can be used to help you level up.

PCs can be motivated by "leveling up", but they can also be motivated by anything else they desire.



Also, if Gandalf's arming Gondor with Fabricate spells, you better believe Sauron's doing the same over in Mordor, and the evil guy usually has a bigger army.

So you agree with me that Fabricate is a big problem for game balance because the guy with the bigger army wins and money is important for that? :)

[Angelalex242]

Another way of thinking of it...

Suppose all the Plate Mail in the world IS made by fabricating wizards. They put normal crafters out of business ages ago, and the entire armories of the world are run by wizards.

...the economy doesn't break, because Fabricate IS the economy! At most, this might drop the price of plate to like, 1000 gp instead of 1500 gp, because it's now cheaper, and everyone's trying to undercut each other on price.

That said, if all the armies of the world are now AC 20 instead of AC 18, it doesn't fundamentally change the balance of power much.

Supply and demand is still a thing. As supply goes to infinity, demand starts to drop drastically.

[ibtfu]

Suppose all the Plate Mail in the world IS made by fabricating wizards. They put normal crafters out of business ages ago, and the entire armories of the world are run by wizards.

...the economy doesn't break, because Fabricate IS the economy! At most, this might drop the price of plate to like, 1000 gp instead of 1500 gp, because it's now cheaper, and everyone's trying to undercut each other on price.

Yes, this is the logical conclusion and it's bad for verisimilitude unless you like a campaign world where wizards have replaced regular armorers and other mundane craftsman who are undercut by fabricate. Also, it should be reflected in the price for plate mail in the rule book.

Or we could just all admit Fabricate needs errata.

[CyberThread]

Yes, this is the logical conclusion and it's bad for verisimilitude unless you like a campaign world where wizards have replaced regular armorers and other mundane craftsman who are undercut by fabricate. Also, it should be reflected in the price for plate mail in the rule book.

Or we could just all admit Fabricate needs errata.


No because, I started a business that does things the old fashion way, crafted by hand. The way your old man use to do it, the long lost art of hard work. Sure it may cost more but you get to show it off as a thing of pride instead of the mass produced version that the wizards make.

[Angelalex242]

Unless that handmade armor confers bonuses of some kind, well...nobody's going to buy it except particularly snobby nobles, which is a limited niche market.

So...yeah. Wizardly Wal Mart is going to put the mom and pop armorers out of business, because supply and demand, and efficiency, is a competitive edge the mom and pop stores can't begin to match.

[hawklost]

Unless that handmade armor confers bonuses of some kind, well...nobody's going to buy it except particularly snobby nobles, which is a limited niche market.

So...yeah. Wizardly Wal Mart is going to put the mom and pop armorers out of business, because supply and demand, and efficiency, is a competitive edge the mom and pop stores can't begin to match.

Also, even if you are claiming all that, how do you know the price of the Armor isn't already counting that? If you are claiming the world is that way, then the prices for the world already calculate all that in, the cost is the same.

And how much demand is that? How many people actually can use Heavy Armor? You put a great deal of faith in your 'knowledge' of the world that you play in, but you like to hand wave it. Can you give any details on this special place? How many people live in it, how many are of different levels? How many can use Heavy Armor?

If you can't give those details, your hand waves are pretty much just you saying 'because I say so' and as worthless as you try to claim others are.

[CyberThread]

Unless that handmade armor confers bonuses of some kind, well...nobody's going to buy it except particularly snobby nobles, which is a limited niche market.

So...yeah. Wizardly Wal Mart is going to put the mom and pop armorers out of business, because supply and demand, and efficiency, is a competitive edge the mom and pop stores can't begin to match.

Hipster Nobels are a thing.....

[Angelalex242]

Hmmm. That's a reasonable point. If wizardly wal mart is already in effect, then the game assumes that Fabricated Plate costs 1500 after materials and such.

How many use Heavy Armor? Pretty much entire religious orders. Paladins and Clerics are the big buyers, along with fighters in people's armies. So most of that Plate is going to temples, the rest to mundane armies. If there were equal numbers of Paladins, Clerics, and Fighters in the world, Temples would account for 2/3 of the demand. Of course, that's not the case, so it's probably more like half and half, but even so.

"We Knighted Sir Lancelot the other day in the Temple of Torm, better put in an order of Plate for him." "Righto!"

[archaeo]

Why is the price of plate armour always 1500gp anyway? Is this a command economy? Does the king set the prices? Does a consortium? Couldn't either of those hire an adventuring party to go kill that obnoxious fabricating Wizard who's getting rich and cutting into their taxes/profits?

This all sounds like much ado about elf games. It's called Dungeons & Dragons, not Adam Smith: The Roleplaying Game.

Actually, scratch that, why is 5e not the Adam Smith RPG we've all been waiting for?

[Falka]

The vast majority of people can't aspire to use something like Fabricate. And I fail to see it as "being breaking" as it clearly states two conditions in order to work.

A) The item you want to make needs raw materials of a certain quality (so it's safe to assume that a Plate Armor will roughly cost its market value).

B) You need proficiency with some Artisan tools (so you need to spend a Feat or get an apropriate Background for it).

An item worth 1500 gp will need a similar cost in materials, so you will not make a huge profit. And good luck trying to sell Plate massively. :p

[Falka]

Why is the price of plate armour always 1500gp anyway? Is this a command economy? Does the king set the prices? Does a consortium? Couldn't either of those hire an adventuring party to go kill that obnoxious fabricating Wizard who's getting rich and cutting into their taxes/profits?

This all sounds like much ado about elf games. It's called Dungeons & Dragons, not Adam Smith: The Roleplaying Game.

Actually, scratch that, why is 5e not the Adam Smith RPG we've all been waiting for?

It offers the best protection available. They are handmade and tailored to a user. You cannot use someone else's Plate - it will probably need some adjustments. It has also high maintainance costs.

That extra AC point is sure to cost a lot. You are basically paying for a masterwork Split Mail.

[archaeo]

It offers the best protection available. They are handmade and tailored to a user. You cannot use someone else's Plate - it will probably need some adjustments. It has also high maintainance costs.

That extra AC point is sure to cost a lot. You are basically paying for a masterwork Split Mail.

No, I understand why it's expensive for a PC to buy. But that doesn't explain why the price is always 1500 gp, everywhere you go, on every plane. From Waterdeep to Sigil, plate is 1500 gold pieces. Anything else, as far as I can tell, is DM fiat, and we both know how dangerous that can be!!

[Falka]

No, I understand why it's expensive for a PC to buy. But that doesn't explain why the price is always 1500 gp, everywhere you go, on every plane. From Waterdeep to Sigil, plate is 1500 gold pieces. Anything else, as far as I can tell, is DM fiat, and we both know how dangerous that can be!!

I guess it's just a matter of simplification. A Longsword costs the same, it doesn't matter where you buy it. The DM could start building alternative tables but I think it's a bit pointless. :p

[Knaight]

This all sounds like much ado about elf games. It's called Dungeons & Dragons, not Adam Smith: The Roleplaying Game.

Some level of sense in the economy is really helpful for immersion and verisimilitude purposes. I'm not asking for full on economic simulation (though ACKS actually comes pretty close to economy focused games, so it's not like RPGs don't have it), but fabricate as written has problems. If it was somehow an inferior product by necessity, or was inherently temporary, or whatever it would be fine. If it were some sort of super restricted spell that very few had and it had a substantially longer casting time, it would be fine. As is, it's a bit awkward.

I'd say that's true of the economic system in the game in general, really. Prices are wonky, the craft rules are screwy, elephants cost half as much as a warhorse, and fabricate is weird in how it applies once the rest of these are in effect. It's a more minor, easily house ruled problem that isn't exceptionally glaring - it's not nearly as obviously wonky as the relative elephant-horse pricing (though that's also pretty easy to house rule, and it involves adding another zero somewhere), but it's still off.

In my case, I plan on stripping out the entire economic system for 5e. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be substituting it with, but there are several major contenders (ACKS and REIGN, mostly).

[pwykersotz]

For those who believe Fabricate is broken, it can be patched fairly easily. Just make the required materials 2x what is needed to produce it. Then the benefit is having it now, not in making money. The justification can be that the magic is inefficient and destroys half of what is needed.

Keep in mind, I'm not trying to justify the system is fine because it can be patched, I'm saying that this one has a pretty quick and simple fix.

[Grac]

I think a lot of people are looking at this from the perspective of... Well, a modern person in a capitalist economy. The traditional setting of elfgames, in a vaguely iron age-medieval period with renaissance trinkets thrown in, well wealth wasn't in the form of money which was used to make more money. Wealth was in land which was used to produce a luxurious lifestyle and, if necessary, outfit you for war. A noble ruling a region with a few villages, some minor trade, and an accessible iron mine is able to get the raw materials for, and the food to maintain the craftment for, plate armour as understood in the game. A wizard could fabricate it, but:
*If the noble wore it, he would be looked down upon by all the other nobles who wear hand crafted armour.
*therefore it might be made for combat suits, but not show armour.
*finally, the nobles might very well fear the possibility that anyone could wear plate.

Changing any of that would require generations, and still be subject to reversals in the future, for those worlds with mediaeval stasis. It would take a major shock from outside to change it, and so fabricated plate equipped armies would be a major plot point. But even then, if those armies can be defeated, then it might not be enough to force a change of equipment.

That's just plate, though. More important is how an army led or assisted by appropriate level mages may fabricate the parts of siege engines, letting them be set up in a day or two without the need for a siege train.

[hawklost]

Here is some things that hasn't come up with Fabricate and Armors

- Where is the Wizard finding a huge amount of STEEL? A Blacksmith is fully capable of taking Iron and making steel with it, but it is considered two different types of metal
---- Blacksmith Raw material is Iron + other parts... blacksmith makes steel Armor pieces
---- Wizards Raw material is Steel to use Fabricate on, much more expensive to begin with
---- How much does Steel cost vs Iron?

- If the Wizard Fabricates the armor, does it come in pieces or did he just successfully made a full armor with joints that work perfectly (unlike Full plate)?
---- Does it still have to be put together even if the Wizard can cast and create all metal pieces with a single Fabricate spell.
---- Does he have to cut the pieces apart because the Spell only created a single object (think of the plastic pieces for models sometimes)

- Is he required to cast another Fabricate spell for all the non-steel pieces?
---- Did the non-metal pieces just somehow get rolled up in that steel ball earlier and get used or does he have to get those pieces still?
---- Does he have to spend the money and time to finish the crafting of all this?

So Assuming the Wizard can get all metal pieces of the Armor in one casting, but all pieces are attached together. The Wizard must commission a Blacksmith to make a large bit of steel, otherwise he is crafting Iron armor which would be heavier and less strong than steel. The Cost of commissioning a Blacksmith to create Steel (which is harder to do with larger materials) would be expensive and time consuming. The Wizard still needs to use a second casting (at least) to get all of the 'fiddly bits' of armor that is not metal (assuming they are all of the same material). After that, the Wizard needs to spend the time and effort to put all those pieces together (not as long as the Blacksmith creating from scratch possibly but still longer than just 10 minutes).

Note that supposedly Full Plate was custom made for the individual. A Blacksmith could quickly (within a few days) modify a piece for it to fit someone but a caster would either have to work with his hands or cast another spell to do it.

[Angelalex242]

I believe 'magic is just better' means that when the wizard has the necessary material, he fabricates a suit of full plate on the body of his customer that fits perfectly in every way. Handwavium ahoy!

[Sartharina]

I believe 'magic is just better' means that when the wizard has the necessary material, he fabricates a suit of full plate on the body of his customer that fits perfectly in every way. Handwavium ahoy!

Which I find to be actually pretty badass.

[hawklost]

I believe 'magic is just better' means that when the wizard has the necessary material, he fabricates a suit of full plate on the body of his customer that fits perfectly in every way. Handwavium ahoy!

Ummm, I messed up the spell just a teeny bit. Don't worry though the armor was created perfectly!..... its just.... you see.... well... the placement on your body was just a taaaaaad bit off sir...... don't worry though sir, I am sure there is a cleric who can heal that right up.....

[Angelalex242]

...Spells that don't have saving throws tend not to screw up like that. Armor being 'created wrong' like that sort of violates 'magic does what it's supposed to do unless opposed by an outside force.'

[Knaight]

Here is some things that hasn't come up with Fabricate and Armors

- Where is the Wizard finding a huge amount of STEEL? A Blacksmith is fully capable of taking Iron and making steel with it, but it is considered two different types of metal
---- Blacksmith Raw material is Iron + other parts... blacksmith makes steel Armor pieces
---- Wizards Raw material is Steel to use Fabricate on, much more expensive to begin with
---- How much does Steel cost vs Iron?


Generally speaking, by the time plate armor was seeing any real use the armorers were usually working with existing steel billets produced by someone else. Armor was seriously industrialized, with a lot of different people doing different parts, from the production of steel billets for later use, to the use of non-blacksmith cottage industries for padding, to dividing up the individual pieces of armor within a workshop between the master armorer and several apprentices. Also there's no reason to think that fabricate can't produce things with multiple materials in them, and starting with a heap of charcoal and a heap of iron should still work.

[hawklost]

...Spells that don't have saving throws tend not to screw up like that. Armor being 'created wrong' like that sort of violates 'magic does what it's supposed to do unless opposed by an outside force.'

Actually spells go wrong all the time. Just PC spells don't seem to. There are many instances in most stories with Wizards where a spell was cast wrong somehow and caused some issues with the world. And who said it is a PC who is casting these spells, maybe it is a Wizard who wants some quick cash but is kinda absentminded.

[rlc]

The vast majority of people can't aspire to use something like Fabricate. And I fail to see it as "being breaking" as it clearly states two conditions in order to work.

A) The item you want to make needs raw materials of a certain quality (so it's safe to assume that a Plate Armor will roughly cost its market value).

B) You need proficiency with some Artisan tools (so you need to spend a Feat or get an apropriate Background for it).

An item worth 1500 gp will need a similar cost in materials, so you will not make a huge profit. And good luck trying to sell Plate massively. :p

A) Okay, I'm going to make up some numbers for easy math, but anyone who knows all of the real numbers can fix this.
Let's say that the wizard and blacksmith both need the same raw materials, which I'll say costs 700 gp, so anyone who wants to make plate mail will have to make that investment.
Then, the blacksmith has to pay his helpers, while the wizard doesn't. The wizard doesn't evenjoy need a forge, so that's even less overhead. The wizard's average costs of production are now significantly lower.
But, notice I said average costs of production? The wizard can make a suit every day, which also means that if he can get his hands on 70000 gp worth of raw material, then he can make 100 suits in 100 days to the blacksmith's one. This is a shift in supply, rather than just moving up and down the curve. Because he has much less overhead, he gets a much higher profit per sale, if he's making it to sell and keeping the price at the same price as the blacksmith. Or, he can always use the modern strategy of setting your sales price to just below your competition's costs. He can also do this with anything else that he can craft and, unless a mundane specialist (blacksmith or other) can do it in ten minutes or less, the wizard does it faster and cheaper. So, yes, as it's written, this is overpowered.
B) So he takes it. Small price to pay, really.

[TrexPushups]

No need to spend background stuff tool profficincy can be learned in 250 days of downtime if you have the gold.

[tzar1990]

So, I think I'll houserule that in my game, items created via Fabricate last a number of days equal to the caster's level. That way, you can be awesome and make stuff from nothing, but you're not gonna ruin the economy or anything. Sounds reasonable?

[da_chicken]

No need to spend background stuff tool profficincy can be learned in 250 days of downtime if you have the gold.

Nonsense. Just take Tool Proficiency Teacher's Editions and use Fabricate to give yourself all the other tool proficiencies in 10 minutes!

[Sartharina]

So, I think I'll houserule that in my game, items created via Fabricate last a number of days equal to the caster's level. That way, you can be awesome and make stuff from nothing, but you're not gonna ruin the economy or anything. Sounds reasonable?I like this suggestion! Or even just have it last one day+enough time to cast again to maintain.

[Angelalex242]

Problem:

If the items created by fabricate aren't permanent, the first dude with a dispel magic who comes along will make it disappear. Or possibly return it to the raw materials used to make the armor in the first place.

Wizard:*Casts dispel magic on fighter*
Fighter:*Watches armor turn into raw bits of steel and fall to the ground randomly. He is now wearing an undershirt of no value.

[Sartharina]

It doesn't need to be dispellable.

[Angelalex242]

Any sustained spell is dispelable.

I can think of no examples that aren't.

Only permanent spells (Wall of Stone) cannot be dispelled, because once made, they're a solid, permanent, nonmagical object.

[VeliciaL]

Any sustained spell is dispelable.

I can think of no examples that aren't.

Only permanent spells (Wall of Stone) cannot be dispelled, because once made, they're a solid, permanent, nonmagical object.

Fabricate isn't sustained though.

[tzar1990]

Problem:

If the items created by fabricate aren't permanent, the first dude with a dispel magic who comes along will make it disappear. Or possibly return it to the raw materials used to make the armor in the first place.

Wizard:*Casts dispel magic on fighter*
Fighter:*Watches armor turn into raw bits of steel and fall to the ground randomly. He is now wearing an undershirt of no value.

Well, yes. Making it so that it wasn't better to just Fabricate an item was kinda, y'know, the whole point of this rule.

If Fabricated items are temporary and vulnerable to being dispelled, they're still useful - you can make bridges, weapons, whatever - but you're gonna want to have real, solid stuff for the long run. Which is, in my opinion, a good balance - magic is convenient, but not strictly reliable.

[hawklost]

Personally, I would say that anything that the Fabricate spell creates is crudely crafted. For anything that gives bonuses like weapons or armor, it is a -1 from the normal (Full Plate is AC 17 instead of 18), Swords and weapons do xdy -1 damage. Think of cheap mass produced items. Some people still might want them for their cheapness but for most people, they prefer buying quality goods.

I would even allow a Wizard to then spend 50% extra in cost of materials (making total cost 75% of the materials) to be able to 'refine' the item to the normal quality. This of course requires time of the gold cost. This would allow the Wizard to mass produce his junk but it would never look as good as the hand made stuff even if it worked as well.

[Sartharina]

I'd rather have it be non-permanent, or require the full cost of whatever's being made provided to make it permanent - You can turn a suit of armor into another suit of identical-stat armor permanently for free, but it costs the remaining value to turn raw materials into a permanent item.

[Durazno]

What if the fabricated equipment had a -1 penalty that could be removed by having a craftsperson work on it for some fraction of the time it would take to make it from scratch?

Personally, I like the temporary equipment better, but one or the other might be better for a given setting. Heck, "temporarily create awesome equipment" and "permanently create substandard equipment" could even be separate spells!

[Coidzor]

You need to make massive logical contortions to create a world where there is not a single wizard(Saruman anyone?) who would not use fabricate to break the plate mail economy and that still wouldn't stop a PC, whose motivations you can't control.

If there's the remotest possibility of players becoming adventuring business owners, well, it's going to happen, especially if any significant portion of 3.5/PF players take up 5e.


Massive contortions like the Dragonlance series, or Forgotten Realms series? You know, the books that these settings are supposedly based on.

Hmm. Y"know... Considering Thayan Enclaves can no longer make and sell magic items anymore due to whatever catastrophic Mystra Failure happened this time, they'll have to think pretty quickly as to what they *can* sell...

[Falka]

A) Okay, I'm going to make up some numbers for easy math, but anyone who knows all of the real numbers can fix this.
Let's say that the wizard and blacksmith both need the same raw materials, which I'll say costs 700 gp, so anyone who wants to make plate mail will have to make that investment.
Then, the blacksmith has to pay his helpers, while the wizard doesn't. The wizard doesn't evenjoy need a forge, so that's even less overhead. The wizard's average costs of production are now significantly lower.
But, notice I said average costs of production? The wizard can make a suit every day, which also means that if he can get his hands on 70000 gp worth of raw material, then he can make 100 suits in 100 days to the blacksmith's one. This is a shift in supply, rather than just moving up and down the curve. Because he has much less overhead, he gets a much higher profit per sale, if he's making it to sell and keeping the price at the same price as the blacksmith. Or, he can always use the modern strategy of setting your sales price to just below your competition's costs. He can also do this with anything else that he can craft and, unless a mundane specialist (blacksmith or other) can do it in ten minutes or less, the wizard does it faster and cheaper. So, yes, as it's written, this is overpowered.
B) So he takes it. Small price to pay, really.

Every craft skill assumes that you spend an amount of components and expenses equal to the item's gold value, so you would spend at least 1500g.

[rlc]

Every craft skill assumes that you spend an amount of components and expenses equal to the item's gold value, so you would spend at least 1500g.

apparently, everybody missed this.

[Yuki Akuma]

Every craft skill assumes that you spend an amount of components and expenses equal to the item's gold value, so you would spend at least 1500g.

Uh. No.


Crafting
You can craft nonmagical objects, including adventuring equipment and works of art. You must be proficient with tools related to the object you are trying to create (typically artisan's tools). You might also need access to special materials or locations necessary to create it. For example, someone proficient with smith's tools needs a forge in order to craft a sword or suit of armor.

For every day of downtime you spend crafting, you can craft one or more items with a total market value no exceeding 5 gp, and you must expend raw materials worth half the total market value. If something you want to craft has a market value greater than 5 gp, you make progress every day in 5-gp increments until you reach the market value of the item. For example, a suit of plate armor (market value 1,5000 gp) takes 300 days to craft by yourself.

Multiple characters can combine their efforts toward the crafting of a single item, provided that the characters all have proficiency with the requisite tools and are working together in the same place. Each character contributes 5 gp worth of effort for every day spent helping to craft the item. For example, three characters with the requisite tool proficiency and the proper facilities can craft a suit of plate armor in 100 days, at a total cost of 750 gp.


apparently, everybody missed this.

Because it's wrong.

[rlc]

i took it to mean just the wizard would spend the 1500, because obviously the blacksmith doesn't, otherwise there would be no blacksmiths. does it say anything about how much the wizard spends specifically? because otherwise, it will also be 750. so the wizard still wins out because he can produce so many more in the same amount of time and even decide to produce something else after flooding the market. the blacksmith can only stop making his armor and maybe try to sell an unfinished plate mail at a loss.

[Yuki Akuma]

Fabricate simply says 'raw materials', with no mention of any costs.

[Falka]

Raw materials do only cost half of the market price value, but you incurr in similar expenses while you are doing it. You can't just include the material costs, also the time you spend working on the item. That's basic economics. The total cost of an item doesn't just equate to the sum of it's components.

Assuming you life a Modest lifestyle, you will at least spend other 300 gp for 300 days. If you want to do it faster, then you will need hirelings (2gp day if they're experts, that's the kind of service I'd ask as a DM) which amounts to 112 per month of work.

So you and other two hirelings (224 month) would make a platesuit in 100 days, but you would roughly spend a bare minimum of 100 gp in lifestyle expenses and other 672 gp (assuming no cap) in labor alone.

So the other 750 gp is just a broad simplification to make the job easier for the DM. But you are, de facto, spending the item's market cost for it when crafting.

I however stand corrected regarding the Fabricate spell. Indeed, it just states raw materials, so a level 7 Wizard could Fabricate a platesuit with just 750 worth of materials. However, he wouldn't become rich because here's a nice quote from page 144 PHB:


Selling Treasure
Arms, Armor and Other Equipment: As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor and other equipment fetch half their cost value when sold in a market.

No net gain for the Wizard since he would sell the armor for 750gp anyways, the exact same cost he incurred into.

Arguably, a powerful country could have Wizards Fabricating cheap armor suits to quickly arm their forces. But you need to have level 7 Wizards anyways and those aren't supposed to be extremely common.

Yes, a Wizard could come to a town and sell platesuits virtually for free and bringing a blacksmith out of business. I don't see it as a gamebreaking thing, though, it's something called dumping in modern economics. And could have consequences, like an angry mob wanting to burn the Wizard because he's ruining the town's economy with his cheesy Fabrications.

[Yuki Akuma]

While crafting, you can maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay 1 gp per day, or a comfortable lifestyle at half the normal cost.

Nope, sorry, lifestyle is free.

[Falka]

Nope, sorry, lifestyle is free.

Ah, correct. That's interesting. Then, we actually can save money with crafting: 750- 672 = 78 gp.

So building a platesuit with a craft skill would allow you to get it for 1422 gp instead of the average price value.

[Yuki Akuma]

Ah, correct. That's interesting. Then, we actually can save money with crafting: 750- 672 = 78 gp.

So building a platesuit with a craft skill would allow you to get it for 1422 gp instead of the average price value.

Bargain! :smallbiggrin:

[cobaltstarfire]

I'm not actually sure a wizard would break the economy with fabricate. (note I'm not talking rules here, just in general terms).

Part of the cost behind expensive items comes from the time spent learning the skills needed. A skilled armor fabricating wizard should charge more for a suit of armor because he had to invest into being able to do such a thing the mundane way, and then he had to invest time into being able to do it the magical way.

On top of that there'd probably be an extra convenience cost for how fast it can be done. (assuming the wizard works on a first come first serve basis).


If the wizard is just fabricating and stockpiling a generic set of armor everyday with no measurements to go off of, it probably isn't going to fit anyone very well. Giving it a penalty somewhere or another. It wouldn't be worth the wizards time or effort to do this.



That's just my take on the situation though, not on the rules overall. I don't think most wizards would do this unless they just really love doing metal work. in general I'm imagining a wizard that spends just as much time doing things the mundane way just for the joy of doing it as doing it magically to get results one couldn't manage the mundane way. It's probably what I would do if I was a wizard actually.

[ibtfu]

Yes, a Wizard could come to a town and sell platesuits virtually for free and bringing a blacksmith out of business. I don't see it as a gamebreaking thing, though, it's something called dumping in modern economics. And could have consequences, like an angry mob wanting to burn the Wizard because he's ruining the town's economy with his cheesy Fabrications.

"Oh sweet, I needed some more zombie minions!"

What are the broke subsistence craftsmen going to do to a 7th level wizard who can hire 750 mercenaries with the profits of 10 minutes a labor? Wizard fabrication is like automated/robotic labor. The wizard is improving the overall economy by producing goods more efficiently. The warriors and aristocrats buying his plate mail would quickly take care of the luddite peons who're trying to artificially raise prices of their wares.

Besides "rocks fall, you die" is a horrible, backward solution to broken game mechanics.

[rlc]

I'm not actually sure a wizard would break the economy with fabricate. (note I'm not talking rules here, just in general terms).

Part of the cost behind expensive items comes from the time spent learning the skills needed. A skilled armor fabricating wizard should charge more for a suit of armor because he had to invest into being able to do such a thing the mundane way, and then he had to invest time into being able to do it the magical way.

On top of that there'd probably be an extra convenience cost for how fast it can be done. (assuming the wizard works on a first come first serve basis).


If the wizard is just fabricating and stockpiling a generic set of armor everyday with no measurements to go off of, it probably isn't going to fit anyone very well. Giving it a penalty somewhere or another. It wouldn't be worth the wizards time or effort to do this.



That's just my take on the situation though, not on the rules overall. I don't think most wizards would do this unless they just really love doing metal work. in general I'm imagining a wizard that spends just as much time doing things the mundane way just for the joy of doing it as doing it magically to get results one couldn't manage the mundane way. It's probably what I would do if I was a wizard actually.

part of it also comes from the time spent doing something. the wizard might have to learn the skills to do it both ways, but he can also offset that cost a lot more because he can make so many more in the same amount of time. the convenience fee does add to the markup, but that's still all profit.
and yeah, this is more about economics than the rules anyway. as far as i know, the rules say they have the same costs, but the wizard can make 100 in the same amount of time as a non-wizard can make 1. whether he wants to or not is up to him, same with if he wants to do it both ways.

[hawklost]

"Oh sweet, I needed some more zombie minions!"

What are the broke subsistence craftsmen going to do to a 7th level wizard who can hire 750 mercenaries with the profits of 10 minutes a labor? Wizard fabrication is like automated/robotic labor. The wizard is improving the overall economy by producing goods more efficiently. The warriors and aristocrats buying his plate mail would quickly take care of the luddite peons who're trying to artificially raise prices of their wares.

Besides "rocks fall, you die" is a horrible, backward solution to broken game mechanics.

Talk to the lord of the area who has thousands of fighters in his army. Contact the local Church for help (somehow people think all Clerics are high level here). Or request adventurers for help against an 'evil' wizard. You know.... start a whole adventure thing.

Is the lord also going to use Undead for you know, farming, building houses, castles, and everything else now that those peasants have been beaten down or killed?

[Naanomi]

I don't see it as much of a problem. First of all, how many potential customers have 750+ Gold (minimum, for materials) laying around? It's a niche market at best, and one probably driven even further down by 'ancestral armor' being passed down. Heck, magical Mending and maintenance may have just a big a role as anything; keeping those old sets of armor in working order longer despite frequent use.

Furthermore, I would guess that most 7+ wizards have better things to do with their time; including better ways of earning cash; than hitting the forge a few minutes each day.

I would wager to say the only wizards mass producing armor are doing so either as personal favors to their adventuring buddies, or to outfit their own minions.

[cobaltstarfire]

part of it also comes from the time spent doing something. the wizard might have to learn the skills to do it both ways, but he can also offset that cost a lot more because he can make so many more in the same amount of time.

The time spent doing something is worth more to the wizard because of the extra time he spent learning to do it. Just because an artist can paint you a wonderful portrait in 5 minutes doesn't mean he should only charge 50 cents for it. No he's probably going to charge you a couple hundred dollars if he values his time and skill at all, and the wizard will do the same.


And you ignored the bit about making 1-2 armor a day at a generic size would probably make for armor that most people can't wear effectively.

By the rules it's the same, but I imagine anyone who puts a lot of thought into it and wants to make any sense of it beyond the rules will probably give armor made for no one in particular a penalty because it isn't going to fit properly.

[rlc]

The time spent doing something is worth more to the wizard because of the extra time he spent learning to do it. Just because an artist can paint you a wonderful portrait in 5 minutes doesn't mean he should only charge 50 cents for it. No he's probably going to charge you a couple hundred dollars if he values his time and skill at all, and the wizard will do the same.he spent more time learning to do it, but a lot less time doing it. a tiny fraction of the time. like, 1% of the time, and that's just taking days into account, because someone said before that he can only make 1 per day.



And you ignored the bit about making 1-2 armor a day at a generic size would probably make for armor that most people can't wear effectively. no, i didn't. i might not have given it as much focus as the rest, but "whether he does that or not is up to him" addresses that.


By the rules it's the same, but I imagine anyone who puts a lot of thought into it and wants to make any sense of it beyond the rules will probably give armor made for no one in particular a penalty because it isn't going to fit properly.
well, look at it this way. munitions armor is mass produced today and that gives pretty good protection, so i imagine that plate armor could probably be mass produced just as well, without a penalty. but, the wizard doesn't necessarily have to just mass produce it if he's only able to make 1 a day. he just has to find a new customer once per day. or find a few wizards to work with him to serve more customers once per day each.
but, even if it does take a penalty, you can have your plate armor with a -1 or -2 penalty in 10 minutes, or your masterwork armor with the same ac rating in x amount of days. or the plate that takes 100 days, which won't even be done until after you even need it. there's that convenience you mentioned earlier...but again, I don't know why it would need to have the penalty in the first place.

[Coidzor]

Talk to the lord of the area who has thousands of fighters in his army. Contact the local Church for help (somehow people think all Clerics are high level here). Or request adventurers for help against an 'evil' wizard. You know.... start a whole adventure thing.

You mean the lord and church who, with their standing armies, are going to be a primary market for this guy in the first place? And then the adventurers who are buying his wares as well? :smallamused:


The time spent doing something is worth more to the wizard because of the extra time he spent learning to do it. Just because an artist can paint you a wonderful portrait in 5 minutes doesn't mean he should only charge 50 cents for it. No he's probably going to charge you a couple hundred dollars if he values his time and skill at all, and the wizard will do the same.

Art's a bad analogy.

This is more like how having a sale can lead to more profit due to increasing volume of sales. Since time is a nearly trivial investment once the wizard has the trick up and running, they clearly have the intelligence to grasp how moving more product for less cost is going to lead to more profits, at least within a certain relative value for each.

So saying that "Oh, they'd never undersell mundane crafters because of all the time they invested in the trick, despite how much more of these things they can produce in the same amount of time without anywhere near the same overhead," just doesn't make sense given the context.


And you ignored the bit about making 1-2 armor a day at a generic size would probably make for armor that most people can't wear effectively.

Do the rules say anything about full plate having to be custom fit as part of the crafting process, or are you ad-hocing? :smalltongue:


By the rules it's the same, but I imagine anyone who puts a lot of thought into it and wants to make any sense of it beyond the rules will probably give armor made for no one in particular a penalty because it isn't going to fit properly.

So that's a no.

[Sartharina]

There are two ways around the 'generic armor' problem:
1. It takes less time to refit armor than to remake it.
2. The wizard can custom-fit each suit of armor to the wearer, and work on a schedule. Having to wait a week for a new suit of armor after scheduling an armoring appointment is better than having to wait 100 days after commission.

And for shortcharging the market - The wizard can choose to make up to 700 GP per day while undercutting the Blacksmith who's working for 5 GP/day after living expenses. Honestly - I wish that the amount/day for crafting was somehow tied to proficiency bonus.

[hawklost]

You mean the lord and church who, with their standing armies, are going to be a primary market for this guy in the first place? And then the adventurers who are buying his wares as well? :smallamused:

You mean the Lord who doesn't want to spend the massive amount of time training ALL his troops to be able to use heavy armor. Or pay a years wage per suit of armor (750/2) for each person in his army? (If there are 10000 people in his army, it would cost him 7.5 MILLION gold to outfit them all using just a base cost in materials. Not counting the cost of the wizard casting the spell or the cost in years of training to get those people in his army to be able to wear the armor in the first place.) Yea, find a kingdom that has that much money lying around to spend on armor (Not weapons, just armor) and then figure this. That country could have spent that money on a lot of other things to make them powerful. Now lets have the normal blacksmiths and everyone else come up to the lord and tell him that some uppity wizard is trying to ruin his country by putting thousands of artisans out of work and trying to amass a huge amount of gold. Even hiring his own personal army to guard himself. How do you think a lord would react to that? Probably not terribly well, the wizard is destroying his land and people and taking all the profits and building an army that might one day rival the lords (and therefore might challenge the lord s




Do the rules say anything about full plate having to be custom fit as part of the crafting process, or are you ad-hocing? :smalltongue:

Not really, but considering something that expensive was made to order instead of mass produced for the most part, it was implied (using the level of technology of Cottage crafting and not mass producing).

Do the rules say that he can use more than one type of Raw Material to make an object in Fabricate? Not really.
Do the rules say he can craft things with Moving part or even that are 'unique' parts? (Helmets and Gauntlets are 2 different pieces). Again, No it does't say he can and the examples only show 1 item each.
It does say in the rules that the Full plate is made up of many parts including things that are not metal.

it doesn't say he can't but none of the examples show that he can do it, so it is possible with interpreting the rules that way means he can't and can only craft 1 item of 1 type each casting. It also doesn't specify whether the items he creates are of crappy/poor/good/excellent quality either, so again this is a DM call.

[hawklost]

You know, in all these arguments we lose track of a few things.

1) is part of the cost of the plate armor Taxes?
--- Does the armor really only cost 1350 gp but because of taxes in the realm being something 10% Tithe to the lord you pay 1500 gp?

2) Is there any restriction on casting magic in a realm?
--- Any Mage guild watching for rogue mages like in Dragonlance
--- Any forbiddence to casting from certain types because of fears? (They are pulling on the Weave of magic, so we are afraid too much will break it so we forbid 3rd level spells and higher)
--- The local lord charges a caster 10x lvl^2 in gp to cast a spell because he can and they have to pay if they want to be able to use their magic
--- They need a licence to cast spells and can only cast so many of certain type for a licence

3) Will people be willing to even touch something that has been created by magic for fear of being tainted by it?
--- There is a rumor that someones friend of a friend used a magical X once and turned into a wild beast
--- Arcane Magic is the work of Evil and therefore should not be trusted
--- You can't trust those wizards to not put a hex on their armors to control your mind (Welcome Helmed Horror rumors)

4) Do the nobles and Guild halls really want someone outside their control to gain loads of money at their expense?

(Every one of these questions were pulled from different Fantasy books that use magic and some of the restrictions that are in them)

[rlc]

i don't think most (if any) of those need to apply. a lone wizard who's managed to get to level umteen can probably risk breaking the law, especially if he's going to get a 100% profit for it. actually, he could be on faerun's most wanted. he might be into that.

[Angelalex242]

Actually, there's a simpler way to deal with paying for the armoring of his troops:

The cost of the plate armor comes out of their wages. They get half wages till the cost of the armor is paid off. The upside being that they're more likely to live to see that cost paid off.

At least, that's what I'd do in a plate armor is massively available world.

Also:Reduce, recycle, reuse!

When Soldier A dies, take him to the wizard, and have a fabricate cast to refit it to Soldier B. Continue ad infinitum.

Is it worth doing?

If you're conquering people, absolutely! All else being equal, the AC 20 army beats the AC 18 army wearing chain.

[rlc]

Congratulations, your troops just rebelled against you.

[Angelalex242]

No they didn't. Because I give them generous loot and salvage rights of enemy countries.

See the 'conquering' part, above. ;)

If you're going to set up a system like that, the army needs to keep moving.

[hawklost]

No they didn't. Because I give them generous loot and salvage rights of enemy countries.

See the 'conquering' part, above. ;)

If you're going to set up a system like that, the army needs to keep moving.

Wait, you are paying your army on Loot instead of pay rate? That is a terrible way to keep discipline. Also, most of the time you want the army to defend your borders Not attack your allies.

Most good stable kingdoms are not constantly attacking people next to them because they realize that even their own allies will figure that if they run out of things to attack then the ally is next.

Finally, you would be more likely to have most of the people in the army choose Not to wear full plate no matter the benefits if they figured it was going to cost them effectively 2 years pay (plus the cost of the weapon, plus the cost of training, plus the cost of all that maintenance DnD just hand waves, plus the cost of food, plus the cost of board, plus the cost X Y and Z) Suddenly the troop is in so far debt they pretty much have to stay in the army for 20 years to get paid full amount they were offered.

[Coidzor]

You mean the Lord who doesn't want to spend the massive amount of time training ALL his troops to be able to use heavy armor. Or pay a years wage per suit of armor (750/2) for each person in his army? (If there are 10000 people in his army, it would cost him 7.5 MILLION gold to outfit them all using just a base cost in materials. Not counting the cost of the wizard casting the spell or the cost in years of training to get those people in his army to be able to wear the armor in the first place.) Yea, find a kingdom that has that much money lying around to spend on armor (Not weapons, just armor) and then figure this. That country could have spent that money on a lot of other things to make them powerful. Now lets have the normal blacksmiths and everyone else come up to the lord and tell him that some uppity wizard is trying to ruin his country by putting thousands of artisans out of work and trying to amass a huge amount of gold. Even hiring his own personal army to guard himself. How do you think a lord would react to that? Probably not terribly well, the wizard is destroying his land and people and taking all the profits and building an army that might one day rival the lords (and therefore might challenge the lord s

Well, if the wealthy nobility isn't even able to afford the armor, what's our wizard doing hawking it to the villagers who certainly aren't more wealthy than the guy they're paying their taxes to.

Whee, continually shifting goalposts and hypotheticals. :smalltongue:

Also, 7.5 million gold loses a lot of the meaning it once had when it could be directly compared to an amount of magical power. xD


Wait, you are paying your army on Loot instead of pay rate? That is a terrible way to keep discipline. Also, most of the time you want the army to defend your borders Not attack your allies.

Enemy countries does not equate to allies.

[Angelalex242]

If they choose to get by on chain, that's their choice...

But we might set it up such that only the people who go for plate get officer training and promotions and such, and the people who wear chain are stuck being enlisted.

[Coidzor]

If they choose to get by on chain, that's their choice...

But we might set it up such that only the people who go for plate get officer training and promotions and such, and the people who wear chain are stuck being enlisted.

Elite troops makes a bit more sense. Cheaper plate just meaning one can afford more of them.

[rlc]

well, there are plenty of examples in our own history of conquerors who went around beating everybody for years on end, but it only ever lasts for so long.

[Angelalex242]

Only so long?

In Rome, it lasted a solid several hundred years. Of course, that's the best case scenario, but still!

[Tvtyrant]

well, there are plenty of examples in our own history of conquerors who went around beating everybody for years on end, but it only ever lasts for so long.

Every country only ever lasts for so long.

Personally I am fine with Fabricate as is, because it has a Magrathea effect in my mind. There is little incentive to buy an entire army plate mail, since it doesn't make a large difference in its overall functionality. It is also extremely expensive compared to daily wages, but cheap by a wealthy wizard's standards. The cases where a Wizard is going to find enough buyers to justify mass production of plate mail are not going to last long, and making a lot of plate will lower the price and so create a diminishing returns effect.

Basically a Wizard might make a bit of money 2-3 times, but they make so much already they do not benefit much unless it is mass produced and there is an insufficient market for that due to the price and niche uses for plate armor. An armorsmith has a much lower opportunity cost and is not in danger of inundating the market with armor.

[Angelalex242]

I think you're underestimating just how useful it is to have an AC 20 army vs. an AC 18 army.

Somebody should run numbers. 1000 AC 20 troops vs. 1000 AC 18 troops, run till the last man is killed on the AC 18 side...

[Tvtyrant]

I think you're underestimating just how useful it is to have an AC 20 army vs. an AC 18 army.

Somebody should run numbers. 1000 AC 20 troops vs. 1000 AC 18 troops, run till the last man is killed on the AC 18 side...

But of course it wouldn't be, because one paid 1,500,000 more than the other. So we have 1000 AC 20 troops vs. however many mercenaries that would buy (I am going to go with 10,000 over a longish period of time.) So let us run two armies with the same starting resources and find out which one would win by alternate strategies.

[pwykersotz]

I think you're underestimating just how useful it is to have an AC 20 army vs. an AC 18 army.

Somebody should run numbers. 1000 AC 20 troops vs. 1000 AC 18 troops, run till the last man is killed on the AC 18 side...

I'm not nearly as math-y as some here, but it would be pretty decisive. An extra 10% chance to hit with every engagment would quickly cause the AC 18 troops to be vastly outnumbered.

[rlc]

Every country only ever lasts for so long.

Personally I am fine with Fabricate as is, because it has a Magrathea effect in my mind. There is little incentive to buy an entire army plate mail, since it doesn't make a large difference in its overall functionality. It is also extremely expensive compared to daily wages, but cheap by a wealthy wizard's standards. The cases where a Wizard is going to find enough buyers to justify mass production of plate mail are not going to last long, and making a lot of plate will lower the price and so create a diminishing returns effect.

Basically a Wizard might make a bit of money 2-3 times, but they make so much already they do not benefit much unless it is mass produced and there is an insufficient market for that due to the price and niche uses for plate armor. An armorsmith has a much lower opportunity cost and is not in danger of inundating the market with armor.

My main problem is that it takes a wizard 10 minutes to do something that it takes a normal group of 3 people 100 days.

[archaeo]

My main problem is that it takes a wizard 10 minutes to do something that it takes a normal group of 3 people 100 days.

By RAW, fabricate requires you to be a trained craftsperson to make armor. So that Wizard gets to make armor in 10 minutes, after spending 250 days and 250 gp to gain proficiency (or whatever time it takes pre-PC commoners to learn a new craft during the period covered by the background) and 23,000 experience points to get to 7th level and grab a 4th level spell slot.

I also note that no one has really touched on the second paragraph. "If you are working with metal, stone, or another mineral substance, however, the fabricated object can be no larger than Medium (contained within a single 5-foot cube)." Full plate might fit in such a cube -- I'm imagining fabricate working sort of like a 3d printer does -- but it would be a bit of a stretch, especially if you're going to try and make plate for one of the larger races.

[Coidzor]

I also note that no one has really touched on the second paragraph. "If you are working with metal, stone, or another mineral substance, however, the fabricated object can be no larger than Medium (contained within a single 5-foot cube)." Full plate might fit in such a cube -- I'm imagining fabricate working sort of like a 3d printer does -- but it would be a bit of a stretch, especially if you're going to try and make plate for one of the larger races.

Yeah, a suit of fullplate definitely can fit inside a 5' cube. :smallconfused: At least sized for Humans and smaller creatures. Even a 7' human's full-plate would fit inside a 5' cube.

[Knaight]

I also note that no one has really touched on the second paragraph. "If you are working with metal, stone, or another mineral substance, however, the fabricated object can be no larger than Medium (contained within a single 5-foot cube)." Full plate might fit in such a cube -- I'm imagining fabricate working sort of like a 3d printer does -- but it would be a bit of a stretch, especially if you're going to try and make plate for one of the larger races.

It would fit within such a cube just fine - you just wouldn't want to start with it propped up to fully standing. You could fit the entirety of it, fully connected, around a person, in much less than a five foot by five foot cube just by having the person curl up on the ground.

[rlc]

By RAW, fabricate requires you to be a trained craftsperson to make armor. So that Wizard gets to make armor in 10 minutes, after spending 250 days and 250 gp to gain proficiency (or whatever time it takes pre-PC commoners to learn a new craft during the period covered by the background) and 23,000 experience points to get to 7th level and grab a 4th level spell slot. Doesn't really change anything. Everybody else has to spend the same amount of time and money as the wizard does and only the wizard can improve beyond an arbitrary number of production points per day.


I also note that no one has really touched on the second paragraph. "If you are working with metal, stone, or another mineral substance, however, the fabricated object can be no larger than Medium (contained within a single 5-foot cube)." Full plate might fit in such a cube -- I'm imagining fabricate working sort of like a 3d printer does -- but it would be a bit of a stretch, especially if you're going to try and make plate for one of the larger races.

Nobody has touched on that because it isn't important to the conversation. Most people play as medium races, so large races are generally not an issue for either fabricating or crafting armor. But, just for the sake of technicalities, I'm also not sure it necessarily has to be a 5' cube, since a good amount of medium sized races are taller than 5'.

[Angelalex242]

Well, having seen in the other thread that Plate generally costs as much as a high end car, I, for one, welcome price reductions by our wizardly friends :P

[Sartharina]

... how many blacksmith commoners would it take to equal the output of one fabricating wizard?

[Yuki Akuma]

Well. If you mean "one suit of mail in ten minutes", 43,200. If you mean "one a day", 300.

[Sartharina]

... derp. But now I have all sorts of quotes from 300 in my head, applied to blacksmithing.

[TripleD]

Beyond economics, Fabricate is just plain boring. *Zap* A suit of armour appears. What if we livened it up a bit?

Unseen Crafter
This spell summons into existence an invisible spirit capable of crafting mundane items. Said spirit can manipulate tools, but cannot attack in any way. Each summoned crafter has proficiency in a single craft.

Because they lack the need to eat, sleep, or rest, each crafter can contribute 15gp of work each day. However, in order to maintain the spell, you must give up a fourth level slot for each caster, each day the spell is active (excluding the day the spell is cast).

You must provide the Unseen Crafters with raw materials and the relevant tools (e.g. steel and forge for making armour, stone, mortar, and wheelbarrows for a bridge, etc.)

[rlc]

Well. If you mean "one suit of mail in ten minutes", 43,200. If you mean "one a day", 300.

and that sounds like it would be beyond the point of diminishing returns. i don't know much about smithing, but i don't think there's even anywhere near enough work for 300 people to do on one suit of armor in one day without getting in each other's way.

[hawklost]

and that sounds like it would be beyond the point of diminishing returns. i don't know much about smithing, but i don't think there's even anywhere near enough work for 300 people to do on one suit of armor in one day without getting in each other's way.

Well, you could see it more as an assembly line. Each smith works on a tiny bit of the armor. Course even then we are ignoring anything related to the fact that forging a full breast place cannot really be sped up with 10 crafters on it at once.

You could always see it this way. it still takes them 300 days to build the first suit, but after that they will have 1 suit per day. It then looks like those 300 crafters can create 1 a day but really they are each uniquely making a single armor in 300 days.

[Coidzor]

Beyond economics, Fabricate is just plain boring. *Zap* A suit of armour appears. What if we livened it up a bit?

Unseen Crafter
This spell summons into existence an invisible spirit capable of crafting mundane items. Said spirit can manipulate tools, but cannot attack in any way. Each summoned crafter has proficiency in a single craft.

Because they lack the need to eat, sleep, or rest, each crafter can contribute 15gp of work each day. However, in order to maintain the spell, you must give up a fourth level slot for each caster, each day the spell is active (excluding the day the spell is cast).

You must provide the Unseen Crafters with raw materials and the relevant tools (e.g. steel and forge for making armour, stone, mortar, and wheelbarrows for a bridge, etc.)

As long as there's still some way to get a bridge when you need a bridge right now, either a good, long duration temporary one or one with a long enough duration that it would get into semi-permanent territory.

[Sartharina]

Frankly - I don't have a problem with wizard crafting rendering commoner crafting obsolete. For every seventh level wizard in the world, there are thousands of 0th-level commoners capable of crafting stuff.

[TripleD]

As long as there's still some way to get a bridge when you need a bridge right now, either a good, long duration temporary one or one with a long enough duration that it would get into semi-permanent territory.

Rope + Grappling Hook? Give the mundanes something to do. Or just fly.

Unless you're talking about moving an army or wagon. In which case, maybe wall of stone/force etc. Although I don't have the PHB, so I don't know if these still exist.

[Knaight]

Well, you could see it more as an assembly line. Each smith works on a tiny bit of the armor. Course even then we are ignoring anything related to the fact that forging a full breast place cannot really be sped up with 10 crafters on it at once.

The assembly line breaks down pretty quickly. That said, you can easily get more than 3 people in on the job. You've got the people making the cloth components under the metal - that's quite possibly several people on several looms, and stitching could be done in shifts. There will probably be at least two padded cloth garments (pants, gambeson), so even without shifts getting half a dozen people involved on that end isn't unreasonable - it's also how armor usually was made by the high medieval period. Then you have the metal part. It's pretty routine for the armorsmiths to import pre-made steel billets, and not have to deal with refining iron, so there's one person. Different pieces could easily be done by different apprentices, and even a breast plate often has two, and might come with some limb armor. Tempering and quenching can also be done by different people than the ones doing the basic metal work. There's generally someone working on air intake, whether this is pumping billows or whether it's regulating air intake mechanically once the actual pumping has been offloaded to a mill.

Between the armorers workshop, the cottage industries behind it, and the earlier metal work there could easily be a dozen people involved in a given set of armor. That's ignoring things like mining, construction of furnaces, gathering of wood (or coal) for the furnaces, etc.

[Durazno]

So over in the homebrew forum I threw out two experimental feats to improve a character's crafting ability.

I have no idea if they're needed or even helpful, to be honest.

Here they are. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?367694-Two-Crafting-Feats-in-Dire-Need-of-Revision)

[Speaker]

I could see the wizard selling to nobles things that probably couldn't be done by mundane blacksmiths and artisans. Like a completely gold set of armor or even complete diamond armor. It'd be waaay too difficult for most mundanes to craft a pure gold armor and impossible to make a diamond suit of armor. He wouldn't even have to run people out of business, though he could. He'd just create his own niche market.

[Soular]

I could see the wizard selling to nobles things that probably couldn't be done by mundane blacksmiths and artisans. Like a completely gold set of armor or even complete diamond armor. It'd be waaay too difficult for most mundanes to craft a pure gold armor and impossible to make a diamond suit of armor. He wouldn't even have to run people out of business, though he could. He'd just create his own niche market.

Gold armor would be really easy to make as it is soft and has a low melting point. But it would not protect very well at all. An alloy of gold could be made very strong, but is not possible for the Fabricate spell to produce. As I will explain in a bit. If the alloy already existed, then Fabricate would work.

I don't see how diamond armor is even possible. The implication that the Wizard must have the tools and skills necessary beforehand prevents this. Unless there is a special Armorcrafting school that teaches one how to cut solid diamond into armor or something, as well as the tools to do so.

Unrelated to that, however, is my take on these "loopholes" in the rules that apparently prove that 5E is somehow broken. Has common sense flown right out the window?

Common sense says that Wizards, especially ones of a level high enough to be fabricating armor, are pretty rare. The NPC world is not made up of the same class combinations of adventuring parties. There isn't one Wizard for every three or four mundanes in the world. There are likely thousands of mundanes, if not tens of thousands, for every spellcaster!

On top of that, there is a curve to the level of spellcasters. Most would be at the level of a toothless soothsayer, capable of casting nothing greater than an occasional first level spell. It would be quite the learned Wizard to reach 7th level. And now this reasonably powerful wizard has nothing better to do than churn out suits of armor. Okay, how about when a player reaches seventh level, they stay at home and cast Fabricate every day. That would get old pretty quick. So why would an NPC wizard want to do it? Why wouldn't they be out congregating with other wizards, hiding in seclusion to study and perfect their art, or be out adventuring?

Regardless of what some posters here think, WoTC is not staffed by idiots. They assumed that the people playing D&D had at least a modicum of common sense. Nothing exists in a vacuum in D&D. Things have a reason for being; they have to fit the narrative of this story-telling game. Can wizards craft sh*t faster than their mundane counterparts? Hell yeah, it's magic, baby! Does this mean that they have nothing better to be doing? Of course not.

Besides, I am not entirely convinced that Wizards CAN make steel armor or weapons. The rule:

You convert raw materials into products of the same
material. For example, you can fabricate a wooden
bridge from a clump of trees, a rope from a patch of
hemp, and clothes from flax or wool.

Nothing in that rule is truly being transmuted. All the Wizard is doing is changing the shape of the raw materials. The spell is called Fabricate, not Transmute, for a reason. By the rules, in order to make something from steel you need the appropriate amount of, well... steel. So you can not take a pile of iron ore and coal and magic yourself up a brand new suit of plate mail. Smelting ore will add some time and cost to the Wizard's armor mill business. And since Fabricate is not true transmutation, a DM could argue that tempering weapons is also not part of the spell as that also affects the composition of the item in a way that merely changing its shape does not.

Does this mean that I am right? Nope. This is merely RAW. Far more important is RAI. But since I don't know what the designers wanted in this situation, I fall back on RAW + common sense. Many things that appear broken in 5E need not be house-ruled, they just need a liberal application of common sense.

[Giant2005]

I didn't read the thread so I have no idea if it has been mentioned or not but it is cheaper to hire a bunch of skilled hirelings to craft your Platemail than it is to buy it from the store.
It takes 300 days worth of many hours to create and costs 750 gold in materials.
At 2 gold per day per hireling, you could hire 300 of them for a day for 600 gold and they should be done.

Congratulations you just saved yourself 150 gold on that shiny new suit of Platemail.

[Soras Teva Gee]

So skimming this thread I see I have little reason to change my opinion that I should never mix Dungeons & Dragons with Spice+Wolf.

Seriously folks crafting goes under one of those things that really shouldn't be need sensible coverage much by the basic rules. If the DM is letting you mess around with it at all its on the DM's head whatever RAW is is simply irrelevant because why should a game about adventuring give a crap about economics.

Unless the rules are such that they allow for glutting the market with magically fabricated plate dropping the price drastically and causing massive economic turmoil across the kingdom so then you are assassinated one night asleep because you pissed off the armorers and mages guilds... they're clearly there just for show and for DMs that want some kind of quick guide. If a DM lets you use them to amass riches its the same thing as doubling the GP value of a dragon's horde because the DM is feeling nice.

[Halbaradkenafin]

I'm away from book at the moment but I'm not sure if it's clarified what raw materials actually are, like steel ingots or whatever. So in theory you could fabricate your first suit of platemail (or other armour for better sale potential) and then take half that armour to fabricate the next one since the suit as a whole has a value of its market value.

From a pure profit per casting POV it's better to make platemail but to actually see a reliable stream of income you'd prefer to be making light or medium armour for the higher demand that it has (or will have).

[Kerilstrasz]

I may be totally wrong here, but..

lets assume, said wizard gets trained the way he's supposed to, to start a fullplate craft & sell business..

in order to find buyers he has to be in a big enough city.
in order to find buyers he has to sell cheaper than ordinary craftsmen (really.. would you trust a newcomer that promises miracles, or your towns best craftsman who happens to grow in the same city as you, when it comes to the same item for the same price? )
in order to have product ready to satisfy large amount of customers he has to have a shop to store his product & to provide a fixed spot for customers to find him.

lets assume he does all that..

now he has to deal with the angry craftsmen that loosing their job cause of him.
now he has to pay taxes to the city for the shop & the sales.
now he has to deal with the head of the guard or the military which was a trusty friend of a certain craftsman.
now he has to rent or buy the mentioned shop.
now he has to be there to protect the shop or spend money for hirelings & defenses magical or otherwise.
now he has to defend himself from assassins , that the rest craftsmen hired to kill him.

now tell me...
what PC would rather do all these, and not go into adventure?
ok.. you could occasionally craft and sell 1-2 fullplates at each city for a profit of 250-500 gold per armor (IF you find buyers)
but i don't think that is too much of a big deal..

as i see it, the problem is not in the rules (maybe some of it is) but on certain DMs that don't take into account how a developed city (with politics, taxes etc etc) works, & let their players
do whatever & then blame the rules.

And to conclude let me present the far fetched example..

the wizard start that business, he manages well with taxes, angry mobs of craftsmen etc etc..
news travel and more and more visit said town to buy fulplates.. news spread more and then wizards show up to follow his example..
Then every single person on the realm has a fullplate.. even hostile npcs that killed people who had a fullplate..

Then said wizard decides he wants to go back adventuring because fullplate business is no more..

Tell me now once more... who would do all that??? really?? would you?? maybe you'd do that on a troll game just for fun.. but would anyone do all that on a standard campaign?

[Sartharina]

I'm away from book at the moment but I'm not sure if it's clarified what raw materials actually are, like steel ingots or whatever. So in theory you could fabricate your first suit of platemail (or other armour for better sale potential) and then take half that armour to fabricate the next one since the suit as a whole has a value of its market value. ... are you really saying that Fabricate makes two suits of plate armor? It doesn't work that way - while a Suit of Armor is worth 1,500 GP, only half of that value is in the raw materials. Furthermore, fabricate doesn't give a **** about value, only volume. There is only enough Plate Armor in a suit of Plate Armor to make one Plate Armor.
I may be totally wrong here, but..

lets assume, said wizard gets trained the way he's supposed to, to start a fullplate craft & sell business..

in order to find buyers he has to be in a big enough city.
in order to find buyers he has to sell cheaper than ordinary craftsmen (really.. would you trust a newcomer that promises miracles, or your towns best craftsman who happens to grow in the same city as you, when it comes to the same item for the same price? )
in order to have product ready to satisfy large amount of customers he has to have a shop to store his product & to provide a fixed spot for customers to find him.

lets assume he does all that..

now he has to deal with the angry craftsmen that loosing their job cause of him.
now he has to pay taxes to the city for the shop & the sales.
now he has to deal with the head of the guard or the military which was a trusty friend of a certain craftsman.
now he has to rent or buy the mentioned shop.
now he has to be there to protect the shop or spend money for hirelings & defenses magical or otherwise.
now he has to defend himself from assassins , that the rest craftsmen hired to kill him.

now tell me...
what PC would rather do all these, and not go into adventure?
ok.. you could occasionally craft and sell 1-2 fullplates at each city for a profit of 250-500 gold per armor (IF you find buyers)
but i don't think that is too much of a big deal..

as i see it, the problem is not in the rules (maybe some of it is) but on certain DMs that don't take into account how a developed city (with politics, taxes etc etc) works, & let their players
do whatever & then blame the rules.

And to conclude let me present the far fetched example..

the wizard start that business, he manages well with taxes, angry mobs of craftsmen etc etc..
news travel and more and more visit said town to buy fulplates.. news spread more and then wizards show up to follow his example..
Then every single person on the realm has a fullplate.. even hostile npcs that killed people who had a fullplate..

Then said wizard decides he wants to go back adventuring because fullplate business is no more..

Tell me now once more... who would do all that??? really?? would you?? maybe you'd do that on a troll game just for fun.. but would anyone do all that on a standard campaign?Dealing with angry luddites is much easier than trying to save the world. Also - he doesn't need a shop. Just a cart of supplies and a few business cards. He can get established with Nobles and others who want vanity armor on-demand. In fact - the Wizard might be able to charge more for his armor, because he can get it to you by the end of the week (Just a bit of advance notice to work the Armor-Making session around his other Armor-making appointments and ensuring he has the spell slot), instead of in three months. And, it comes out exactly as you want it!

[Soular]

Dealing with angry luddites is much easier than trying to save the world.

Perhaps. But I like to think that many of the same things that motivate my players motivates the NPCs as well. How boring would that be, carting around suits of armor or ingots of steel from city to city to peddle?

My NPC wizards are busy trying to dominate a populace, take over the world, impress their peers, win the affections of a woman (or man), defeat a powerful rival, rise to prominence in an organization, exterminate a race of creatures, become the best there is at what they do, etc..

[Cute_Riolu]

Perhaps. But I like to think that many of the same things that motivate my players motivates the NPCs as well. How boring would that be, carting around suits of armor or ingots of steel from city to city to peddle?

My NPC wizards are busy trying to dominate a populace, take over the world, impress their peers, win the affections of a woman (or man), defeat a powerful rival, rise to prominence in an organization, exterminate a race of creatures, become the best there is at what they do, etc..

It would be pretty strange if ALL wizards were like that, though. Maybe they only pursued the arcane because that was where their talent lied, but their father still wanted them to take over his blacksmithing shop when he retired?

[Coidzor]

Regardless of what some posters here think, WoTC is not staffed by idiots. They assumed that the people playing D&D had at least a modicum of common sense. Nothing exists in a vacuum in D&D. Things have a reason for being; they have to fit the narrative of this story-telling game. Can wizards craft sh*t faster than their mundane counterparts? Hell yeah, it's magic, baby! Does this mean that they have nothing better to be doing? Of course not.

You may find the Rules as Common Sense Dictates thread over on the 3.5 subforum of interest.

[Knaight]

On the whole diamond armor tangent - diamond is extremely brittle. It is somewhat flammable. It is, in short, a lousy material for armor, particularly in comparison to steel, which is a downright amazing material for it.

[Dracothius]

I gotta say the biggest problem I see is the competition. You need to be in a larger city to acquire the materials needed to fabricate the armor. At level 7 you may have a few thousand gold( maybe more, but not a lot more). Remember there is no WBL. You have to sell armor everyday to keep making armor everyday(another reason to be where there is a lot of people). After a week, assuming at least 7 people want armor, blacksmiths will notice. First they'll attack you and probably fail. Then they'll attack your supplier. If that fails, they'll unite the blacksmiths guild or even just surrounding area blacksmiths ( because after two weeks, everyone knows you're the guy for quick armor). They'll pool their money for enough guys to probably stop you or at least burn down your place. They are gonna collectively have more money then you. At which point you have to hire guards to protect you and your supplier (because unless your providing his protection why would he continue helping you). Now costs are starting to come closer because of the constant attacks on your business and because you are not adventuring( you have to be close to where you sell goods out of, so you can't go adventuring) and only level 7, they will eventually have enough people to kill you. The only option I see is working for a large force on a salary of sorts to make armor but, because you will have a fixed income it will not be game shattering wealth. Also, 100 pieces of armor need 100 people to wear it. You would almost have to work for someone with a massive army that doesn't already have armor. You will never have more wealth then what the king or organization you work for is willing to pay for armor. On top of that if your good alignment, you will not do it, because you don't want to bankrupt the local blacksmiths and if your not good, you just became the next guy to kill or bring to justice for local adventurers. Sure it sounds good but lvl 5-10 wizards(which are rare) would be taken out relatively quickly and lvl 11+ (almost non existent) would become targets for adventurers and other kingdoms weary of that kind of production.

In the end it still comes down to having to have people to buy your armor. Which means to sell 1 a day, you need to work for a Kingdom or organization, and because you're a wizard they will have better uses for you anyway. I don't see it happening.

[Lord Kristivas]

After reading through this entire thread, I'm astounded that it's caused this much of a debate.

Seriously, how many people in any D&D world can afford 1500g in Full Plate? How many could afford 100 suits, even with an enslaved fabricating wizard in the dungeon?

There doesn't seem to be a need to houserule all of this needless stuff. If you, as a GM, want to have the kind of campaign centered around business/supply and demand with adventuring being the vehicle for funding the PC's business, there are endless amounts of options for dealing with a high level wizard trying to flood the market with Fabricated plate mail (the easiest of which being the reality of economics, and that not a lot of people are going to be able to buy your goods, even if your prices are... INSAAAAANE).

And even if he changes it up.. Plate Mail Mondays, Chain Mail Tuesdays, Catapult Shell Wednesdays (my favorite!) etc. Big deal. Again, the number of people who can afford even chain isn't in the millions. And the worst case scenario is your wizard makes some money in his downtime. Compare what one can realistically sell in this system to what the character can earn after his next adventure.

There's no way he's going to sell 100 plate mails for 100 days in any kind of campaign with even a shred of a realistic economy.

This problem works itself out easily. If you're running that kind of campaign, the wizard will gain some pretty big enemies along with his fortune, in the form of guilds and criminal organizations. They wouldn't file a lawsuit, they'd send assassins to kill you at 4 am while you're in your bedclothes. Over and over again, with increasing challenge levels. If you make it to level 20 after being forced to fend off attack after attack, congratulations Woody Allen, you probably have the most paranoid character of all time. Which I think would be entertaining as hell to play out.

And if you're not running that kind of campaign, just draw the line. "Dude, you can make armor for your team, but once you try and become a millionaire with it, I will crush you because I don't want to bother with all of that noise, so please just don't."

[Sartharina]

-snip-You're making a bunch of faulty assumptions, such as:
1. Assuming that the kingdom will not pay top-dollar for a wizard able to ensure their army has armor superiority over their foes.
2. Assuming that blacksmiths will go bankrupt. Yes, a Wizard can make a suit of armor a day - giving the same output as 300 Blacksmiths. But the wizard is just making Plate armor because it gives him the best value for his time and spell slots. He dominates the heavy and vanity armorsmithing industries - but has absolutely no effect on the gunsmithing, blacksmithing, weaponsmithing, light armorsmithing, medium armorsmithing, redsmithing, fletching, boyering, poleturning, weaving, tailoring, and other production industries. Heck - the Mining and Smelting industries would love the wizard, because he dramatically increases demand for their product. Other blacksmiths might appreciate the wizard's contribution - by removing the need to craft Plate, Chain, and Splint armors, they can spend their time on more, faster projects to build larger, more reliable customer bases. And, if the Raw materials to Fabricate plate armor are less than the raw materials to craft it (You just need the steel and cloth, not the flux, fuels, coolants, and other secondary materials), the Blacksmith might appreciate the Wizard as a person, because the wizard lets him get a suit of Plate Armor for less than if he had to make it himself, leaving him ready for the Shadow/Wight/Zombie Apocalypse.

[Angelalex242]

That.

The wizard mass producing plate is probably on the king's payroll, with all the royal armies protecting him. If the Blacksmiths do succeed at killing him, the royal army will kill them right back, and then everyone's dead.

[Sartharina]

And, it's not like the Wizard isn't a blacksmith himself.

[Kerilstrasz]

That.

The wizard mass producing plate is probably on the king's payroll, with all the royal armies protecting him. If the Blacksmiths do succeed at killing him, the royal army will kill them right back, and then everyone's dead.

then, after say.. a few weeks, they need to fix their armors or buy new ones.. kingdom has no qualified/experienced craftsmen left and buy their armor from another kingdom..
they get negative numbers on national budget while the other kingdom flourishes.. economic crisis, poverty, riots, war.. then the other kingdom comes and claim the leftovers..
way to go wizard! :smalltongue:

[hawklost]

You're making a bunch of faulty assumptions, such as:
1. Assuming that the kingdom will not pay top-dollar for a wizard able to ensure their army has armor superiority over their foes.
2. Assuming that blacksmiths will go bankrupt. Yes, a Wizard can make a suit of armor a day - giving the same output as 300 Blacksmiths. But the wizard is just making Plate armor because it gives him the best value for his time and spell slots. He dominates the heavy and vanity armorsmithing industries - but has absolutely no effect on the gunsmithing, blacksmithing, weaponsmithing, light armorsmithing, medium armorsmithing, redsmithing, fletching, boyering, poleturning, weaving, tailoring, and other production industries. Heck - the Mining and Smelting industries would love the wizard, because he dramatically increases demand for their product. Other blacksmiths might appreciate the wizard's contribution - by removing the need to craft Plate, Chain, and Splint armors, they can spend their time on more, faster projects to build larger, more reliable customer bases. And, if the Raw materials to Fabricate plate armor are less than the raw materials to craft it (You just need the steel and cloth, not the flux, fuels, coolants, and other secondary materials), the Blacksmith might appreciate the Wizard as a person, because the wizard lets him get a suit of Plate Armor for less than if he had to make it himself, leaving him ready for the Shadow/Wight/Zombie Apocalypse.

In one line you talk about dramatically increasing the supply request for Iron/Steel, which makes miners happy because they have more demand, which means they can now charge more for their product (which upsets everyone who buys Iron/Steel because they are paying more for it). So now you make all the blacksmiths (not just armorsmiths) have to pay more to be able to build their products, cutting into their bottom line.

Then you somehow say that Blacksmiths would be happy to lose all the business that goes with Plate mail because it lets them aim at 'they can spend their time on more, faster projects to build, more reliable customer bases', which doesn't even make sense because if the Blacksmith did not want to build plate, he would not have been building it. It is not like he is forced by adventurers and other people to build armor and even if he was an armorsmith he might not want to build plate, which means he never did. Those who build plate and other Vanity armors would be upset because the Wizard just destroyed their business (yea, now they can go back to building those not so fancy pieces that everyone else does, yippie.) Someone who builds Plate wants to build plate, they enjoy it or they wouldn't bother spending almost a year on it and would already be doing the lower armors.

Your logic is like saying "Hey look, I found a way to make cheap wedding cakes that everyone loves, I bet all those wedding cake specialists and bakers will be happy they don't need to make these fancy cakes anymore! Now they can go make regular cakes and deserts because that is a larger customer base!"

EDIT: As for 1) Why is it you assume the army can even use heavy armor? That is a special training program in and of itself. Unless they were all trained as Fighters, which would give the kingdom a huge superiority over other kingdoms anyways, they probably are not trained in the use of Plate. Special Troops might have Heavy Armor Proficiency, but normal ones probably have at best Medium (much easier to train for). You are making a bunch of faulty assumptions it seems.

[Sartharina]

then, after say.. a few weeks, they need to fix their armors or buy new ones.. kingdom has no qualified/experienced craftsmen left and buy their armor from another kingdom..
they get negative numbers on national budget while the other kingdom flourishes.. economic crisis, poverty, riots, war.. then the other kingdom comes and claim the leftovers..
way to go wizard! :smalltongue:

Or, instead of going with that absurd situation, the Blacksmiths turn their attention to making swords+shields for the army to go with the Plate Armor the wizard's pumping out at a rate of 300 Blacksmiths, greatly enhancing this nation's ability to arm and armor its standing forces and mobilize faster.

It wasn't the wizard's fault that the blacksmiths were dumb in that first kingdom.

[rlc]

Okay, here's what you do:
1. you take some gold coins and use them to fabricate a gold bar worth double the amount of your original gold
2. it's still gold, so you use that to fabricate a bigger one worth double that amount
3. ???
4. Profit!

Infinite money. You jelly?

[hawklost]

Or, instead of going with that absurd situation, the Blacksmiths turn their attention to making swords+shields for the army to go with the Plate Armor the wizard's pumping out at a rate of 300 Blacksmiths, greatly enhancing this nation's ability to arm and armor its standing forces and mobilize faster.

It wasn't the wizard's fault that the blacksmiths were dumb in that first kingdom.

Yay, more weapons for the masses..... wait.... not sure the King is happy about that.

So lets say there are 3000 normal weapon/shield blacksmiths in the kingdom and 300 Heavy Armor Smiths. Your logic is, lets add 10% more people to the weaponsmiths and there will be not a single drop in the cost of the weapons/shields...... how does this logic work?

[hawklost]

Okay, here's what you do:
1. you take some gold coins and use them to fabricate a gold bar worth double the amount of your original gold
2. it's still gold, so you use that to fabricate a bigger one worth double that amount
3. ???
4. Profit!

Infinite money. You jelly?

Not sure you can just double the original size, but you could do something like this.

Take 1000 gold coins
Take 1000 Copper coins

Use Fabricate to make 2000 Copper Coins with Gold plating, making it look like 2000 Gold Coins

Dump them into the market using some disguise and move on.

You have just successfully made a counterfeit operation for the cost of 1010 gold and a Fabricate and Disguise spell slot. Repeat each day, or build up a huge amount first, either way you make almost double your gold every day.

[Sartharina]

Yay, more weapons for the masses..... wait.... not sure the King is happy about that.

So lets say there are 3000 normal weapon/shield blacksmiths in the kingdom and 300 Heavy Armor Smiths. Your logic is, lets add 10% more people to the weaponsmiths and there will be not a single drop in the cost of the weapons/shields...... how does this logic work?It doesn't matter if the price drops or not. If it does, it means more affordable weapons and armor across the board, meaning larger armies for the King to wave around. Of course the king's happier with more weapons and armor for his armies!

[rlc]

Not sure you can just double the original size, but you could do something like this.

Take 1000 gold coins
Take 1000 Copper coins

Use Fabricate to make 2000 Copper Coins with Gold plating, making it look like 2000 Gold Coins

Dump them into the market using some disguise and move on.

You have just successfully made a counterfeit operation for the cost of 1010 gold and a Fabricate and Disguise spell slot. Repeat each day, or build up a huge amount first, either way you make almost double your gold every day.

And by doing that, you can still adventure. win-win.

[hawklost]

It doesn't matter if the price drops or not. If it does, it means more affordable weapons and armor across the board, meaning larger armies for the King to wave around. Of course the king's happier with more weapons and armor for his armies!

And less profit for all those blacksmiths who make weapons/shields. now they are making only 1 gp a day instead of 2 because demand has dropped for the weapons. Congrats, you have started causing wage drop (which will, in time, effect Everyone since those blacksmiths will not buy as much food and goods, which will decrease the demand for those, making those prices drop which will repeat down to a base level).

Ummmm, you seem to assume that the Kingdom just wants a larger army and that they can get anyone into the army if only they have enough arms and armor for those people.

1) There is a Finite number of people in a Kingdom
2) Of those Finite number, a large percentage must be used to keep the kingdom running (Farmers, smiths, cooks ect)
3) Of those left, not all of them are suited for being in the army (Do you really want the thieves to be part of your army but not actually loyal to you?)
4) Of those that are left after 1-3, not all of them are trained (How much do you train them and if you don't is it really worth putting them into plate if they have disadvantage on everything?)

Assuming the King goes for the largest army possible:
After training all those people, how is the King paying for their wages?
If most of the population is paid by the king, where is he getting the money to pay them? (Can't really tax those you pay and expect to gain money for the kingdom that way)
Does the King really want all those peasants to be fully trained in weapons and armor when they might or might not be loyal to him?
Assuming the King sends the army out to conquer others (Making his Kingdom evil) so he can pay for it, whats makes you think the army is happy conquering others?

After he has conquered a new land, does he use the money to pay for his army for how long before he runs out? After that, does he go after another kingdom?
-- If he goes after another kingdom, where does he get his replacement troops from?
-- Where does he get the extra ones to hold what he already conquered?
-- Why do his people accept being killed just so this king can conquer more land?
-- How long before the other kingdoms band together to destroy his army with the might of multiple armies?

All you did by making an assumption that a king wants a large army and will buy lots of arms and armor for cheap is shift the cost of the army by a few months down the road. It still bankrupts a kingdom unless they somehow get more money, the army will not work for nothing you know.

[rlc]

And less profit for all those blacksmiths who make weapons/shields. now they are making only 1 gp a day instead of 2 because demand has dropped for the weapons. Congrats, you have started causing wage drop (which will, in time, effect Everyone since those blacksmiths will not buy as much food and goods, which will decrease the demand for those, making those prices drop which will repeat down to a base level).

Ummmm, you seem to assume that the Kingdom just wants a larger army and that they can get anyone into the army if only they have enough arms and armor for those people.

1) There is a Finite number of people in a Kingdom
2) Of those Finite number, a large percentage must be used to keep the kingdom running (Farmers, smiths, cooks ect)
3) Of those left, not all of them are suited for being in the army (Do you really want the thieves to be part of your army but not actually loyal to you?)
4) Of those that are left after 1-3, not all of them are trained (How much do you train them and if you don't is it really worth putting them into plate if they have disadvantage on everything?)

Assuming the King goes for the largest army possible:
After training all those people, how is the King paying for their wages?
If most of the population is paid by the king, where is he getting the money to pay them? (Can't really tax those you pay and expect to gain money for the kingdom that way)
Does the King really want all those peasants to be fully trained in weapons and armor when they might or might not be loyal to him?
Assuming the King sends the army out to conquer others (Making his Kingdom evil) so he can pay for it, whats makes you think the army is happy conquering others?

After he has conquered a new land, does he use the money to pay for his army for how long before he runs out? After that, does he go after another kingdom?
-- If he goes after another kingdom, where does he get his replacement troops from?
-- Where does he get the extra ones to hold what he already conquered?
-- Why do his people accept being killed just so this king can conquer more land?
-- How long before the other kingdoms band together to destroy his army with the might of multiple armies?

All you did by making an assumption that a king wants a large army and will buy lots of arms and armor for cheap is shift the cost of the army by a few months down the road. It still bankrupts a kingdom unless they somehow get more money, the army will not work for nothing you know.
Well, let's compare/contrast this to what happened with the industrial revolution in the real world. Craftsmen either had to differentiate themselves, go work for the guy who put them out of business or find work elsewhere. The wizard uses magic to make his stuff, so unless the blacksmiths decide to take that up, they won't be able to work for him. The wizard can also do custom work if he wants to, so they can't differentiate themselves, either. So, they can now either find something else to do or attack the wizard. This wizard also has other spells that will probably be able to kill all of these blacksmiths with no problems whatsoever and they know it. So, yes, the king will probably get upset because people are either dying or leaving, but all the wizard needs to do is fly away to another city he can screw over.

[Angelalex242]

Hmmm. Is the gold created by fabricate real gold, or counterfeit detectable by people trained in it?

In the former case, gold gets devalued, much like the Real Life Dollar. Inflation still applies. In the latter case...for every fabricating wizard, there's a cleric on the government payroll casting divination and commune to find counterfeiters.

[Sartharina]

Hmmm. Is the gold created by fabricate real gold, or counterfeit detectable by people trained in it?Fabricate cannot create anything. It doesn't work in gold values - it works in volume.

[rlc]

I'm sure you can detect it, but our wizard can probably hit at least a few towns before he gets found out.

[hawklost]

Well, let's compare/contrast this to what happened with the industrial revolution in the real world. Craftsmen either had to differentiate themselves, go work for the guy who put them out of business or find work elsewhere. The wizard uses magic to make his stuff, so unless the blacksmiths decide to take that up, they won't be able to work for him. The wizard can also do custom work if he wants to, so they can't differentiate themselves, either. So, they can now either find something else to do or attack the wizard. This wizard also has other spells that will probably be able to kill all of these blacksmiths with no problems whatsoever and they know it. So, yes, the king will probably get upset because people are either dying or leaving, but all the wizard needs to do is fly away to another city he can screw over.

They could also hire another group who can take the wizard on and defeat him. They could complain to a wizard/noble council who might have laws that stop wizards from doing this kind of thing. They could call on a Deity to smite the wizard (hey, sometimes they like to intervene, not often but still)

The King then could put a bounty on the Wizards head. He screws over enough cities or even the wrong one and he will be hunted by people for the bounty. He will live his life on the run or in his castle and now be considered a great quest for a group of adventurers. Also note, the Wizard might be able to use Fly, but there is a limit to what he can take with him. He might not be able to carry all his loot with him while he makes an escape at the last minute.

[Storm Vermin]

I don't know if it's come up in the thread, but the full plate Fabricating wizard will never make any profit. Page 144 of PHB, Selling Treasure section says:

As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor, and other equipment fetch half their cost when sold in a market.

So a wizard can take 750 gp worth of steel, spend 10 minutes and a 4th level spell slot in order to create a full plate armor, sure. He can then sell this armor for... 750 gp. Oh, if your DM is nice, he can let that count as using your profession to pay living expenses, so you don't actually lose money with this clever trick.

[EvilAnagram]

I don't know if it's come up in the thread, but the full plate Fabricating wizard will never make any profit. Page 144 of PHB, Selling Treasure section says:

As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor, and other equipment fetch half their cost when sold in a market.

So a wizard can take 750 gp worth of steel, spend 10 minutes and a 4th level spell slot in order to create a full plate armor, sure. He can then sell this armor for... 750 gp. Oh, if your DM is nice, he can let that count as using your profession to pay living expenses, so you don't actually lose money with this clever trick.

Selling it at a market means selling it to an armor dealer. Basically, selling it to someone who wants to sell it. If you are making your own armor to sell to someone who wants to use it, you get its full price.

[rlc]

Fabricate cannot create anything. It doesn't work in gold values - it works in volume.
check a couple posts above that. he was asking about the gold-plated copper coins.


They could also hire another group who can take the wizard on and defeat him. They could complain to a wizard/noble council who might have laws that stop wizards from doing this kind of thing. They could call on a Deity to smite the wizard (hey, sometimes they like to intervene, not often but still)

The King then could put a bounty on the Wizards head. He screws over enough cities or even the wrong one and he will be hunted by people for the bounty. He will live his life on the run or in his castle and now be considered a great quest for a group of adventurers. Also note, the Wizard might be able to use Fly, but there is a limit to what he can take with him. He might not be able to carry all his loot with him while he makes an escape at the last minute.
well, this is getting beyond what the thread should be about, but i'm sure he has some kind of contingency plans in place because he knows that his con will be pissing people off, if it hasn't already someplace else. he might have even set up some kind of magical just in time delivery system to avoid the need to leave his supplies behind just in case there's a mob after after (again).


I don't know if it's come up in the thread, but the full plate Fabricating wizard will never make any profit. Page 144 of PHB, Selling Treasure section says:

As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor, and other equipment fetch half their cost when sold in a market.

So a wizard can take 750 gp worth of steel, spend 10 minutes and a 4th level spell slot in order to create a full plate armor, sure. He can then sell this armor for... 750 gp. Oh, if your DM is nice, he can let that count as using your profession to pay living expenses, so you don't actually lose money with this clever trick.

it has, but it's a non-issue. it makes absolutely no sense for him to sell it to a market. chances are that he won't even get his own market stall.

[da_chicken]

Not sure you can just double the original size, but you could do something like this.

Take 1000 gold coins
Take 1000 Copper coins

Use Fabricate to make 2000 Copper Coins with Gold plating, making it look like 2000 Gold Coins

Dump them into the market using some disguise and move on.

You have just successfully made a counterfeit operation for the cost of 1010 gold and a Fabricate and Disguise spell slot. Repeat each day, or build up a huge amount first, either way you make almost double your gold every day.

There are so many ways this will not work, but a few come to mind that I don't believe you can get around.


Coins are generally stamped with a mark indicating what they are. The images on a gold coin are not going to match those on a copper coin. Furthermore, different denominations are typically different dimensions entirely. Recreating a gold coin will require proficiency not in smith's tools, but minter's tools (for die making and pressing). Good luck finding someone to teach you how to do that. Royal minters are well paid not to teach anybody except who the king says precisely because counterfeiting is a problem.
Copper has a density of ~9 g/cm3. Gold has a density of ~19 g/cm3. Any shopkeeper will notice your coins do not weigh the correct amount. Many shopkeepers will weigh your coins since counterfeit coins are not at all uncommon. If the coins are unfamiliar, most shopkeepers will verify their quality with a touchstone and weigh them. You've seen cashiers mark your $20 bill with a detector pen? This is the same thing. You could use tungsten or uranium, both of which have nearly identical density as gold... except they were both discovered in the 1780s and require knowledge of chemistry to isolate as a metal.
Plating requires not raw metal, but metallic acids. The process was not invented until the 1800s in the real world, and requires access to electricity and knowledge of chemistry. You will need proficiency in tools that do not exist and knowledge that has not been discovered. The alternative, leafing, would not pass a touchstone. The other alternative, hammer welding, would destroy the face of the coin and thus would require minter's tool proficiency to compete. (Fabricate doesn't allow you to do anything a craftsman could not; it merely eliminates the time component.)

[Bjork MGork]

Hmmmm... Here's a thought: Wand of Crafting. Is this doable in 5th? I haven't gotten a chance to delve through my PHB yet.

[ibtfu]

And less profit for all those blacksmiths who make weapons/shields. now they are making only 1 gp a day instead of 2 because demand has dropped for the weapons. Congrats, you have started causing wage drop (which will, in time, effect Everyone since those blacksmiths will not buy as much food and goods, which will decrease the demand for those, making those prices drop which will repeat down to a base level)...

All you did by making an assumption that a king wants a large army and will buy lots of arms and armor for cheap is shift the cost of the army by a few months down the road. It still bankrupts a kingdom unless they somehow get more money, the army will not work for nothing you know.

Cheaper goods are improve the economy of the kingdom. The king spends less money on equipping his army and can lower the tax rate commensurately so that everyone in the kingdom benefits from the drop in the price of goods. Only the blacksmiths suffer. The blacksmiths will have to find another way to (efficiently) allocate their labor.

[hymer]

Hmmmm... Here's a thought: Wand of Crafting. Is this doable in 5th? I haven't gotten a chance to delve through my PHB yet.

The PHB has very little on magical items or how they would work. I think you'll have to wait about 'till November for the DMG to find out how wands and crafting of magical items is to be handled.

[Soular]

Cheaper goods are improve the economy of the kingdom. The king spends less money on equipping his army and can lower the tax rate commensurately so that everyone in the kingdom benefits from the drop in the price of goods. Only the blacksmiths suffer. The blacksmiths will have to find another way to (efficiently) allocate their labor.

So you're saying that WizMart is gonna crush the local Mom & Pop businesses?

:cool:

[Angelalex242]

I already mentioned wizard walmart a few pages back. That is, magic will essentially take over the economy.

For game balance purposes, of course, it may be best to assume wizard WalMart ALREADY crushed the competition, and the prices in the book take into account the wizards doing everything more cheaply and more efficiently. Every blacksmith worth going to is a level 7 wizard (or better.)

[Sartharina]

I already mentioned wizard walmart a few pages back. That is, magic will essentially take over the economy.

For game balance purposes, of course, it may be best to assume wizard WalMart ALREADY crushed the competition, and the prices in the book take into account the wizards doing everything more cheaply and more efficiently. Every blacksmith worth going to is a level 7 wizard (or better.)This assumes WAY too many wizards in the economy.

[Angelalex242]

For some lower magic worlds, perhaps.

For higher magic worlds, why not have every blacksmith be a 7th level wizard? Maybe it's just one of those things where the kingdoms don't function without a wizard armorer busting out fabricate.

[Beige]

how dare they put realism into the game, those blaggards

honestly, full-plate armour is several tons of metal expertly shaped around a dude. most people had it ordered about a year before its completion. 3 months is nothing

[captpike]

how dare they put realism into the game, those blaggards

this is D&D, reality can be a useful source of inspiration, just as books and movies can. they should never do anything just because its more "realistic"

[Sartharina]

honestly, full-plate armour is several tons of metal expertly shaped around a dude.40-60 lbs, not 'several tons'. We're talking Medieval Knights here, not Mechwarriors. Not saying mechwarriors wouldn't be awesome in D&D, though.