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Callix
2007-07-03, 03:29 AM
This is a crazy idea I had... It involves a Wiz11 or higher with max ranks in Craft (Weaponsmithing) and the spells Fabricate and Wall of Iron.

Step 1: Cast Wall of Iron, creating a wall 55ft*5ft*2in=45.83cu ft of iron. This step costs 50gp in material components.

Step 2: Cast Fabricate, converting 11 cu ft per cast into masterwork daggers. With 14 ranks in Craft (Weaponsmithing) and a wizard's crazy Int, you can't fail. Repeat until only 1-2 cu ft of iron remains. (4 casts). This consumes your 5th-level slots for the day, and takes 4 and a half minutes.
The density of iron is 491lbs/cu ft. Thus 44 cu ft of iron weighs 21604 lbs. A dagger weighs 1 lb. Thus we create 21604 masterwork daggers, which sell for 151 gp each. That's 3,262,204 gp. Over 3 million gp. At level 11.

Step 3: Profit!

Am I missing anything?

Seffbasilisk
2007-07-03, 03:32 AM
Where can you sell 21604 masterwork daggers?
What happens when they get dispelled?
The gods of Economics will smite you.

Callix
2007-07-03, 03:39 AM
Wall of Iron and Fabricate are both instantaneous, so no dispels for you. Economics, on the other hand... Dammit! I knew there was a flaw! :smallbiggrin:

I was more just putting it out there, seeing if there was an actual rule against it. I know that any sane DM would not allow you to sell 20000 daggers each day. And I forgot to mention that this process is both repeatable each day and scales dramatically with level, as volume of iron scales quadratically.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-07-03, 03:41 AM
Where can you sell 21604 masterwork daggers?
What happens when they get dispelled?
The gods of Economics will smite you.

I think fabricate is instantaneous and therefore cannot be dispelled.

21604 masterwork daggers isn't that hard to sell. Everyone needs a dagger, you just have to convince people to pawn some stuff in order to buy one.

Callix
2007-07-03, 03:47 AM
Just to get your eyes really goggling, a 20th level wizard, without using any slots above 6th level.

Volume of Iron = 5*5*20*(5/12)=208.33cu ft.
Castings of Fabricate = 10 (use 6th level slots to fill as required)
Fabricate time = 20 minutes per day
Mass of Iron Fabricated = 200*491=98200 lbs.
Number of Mwk Daggers = 98200
Payout = 98200*151=14,828,200 gp
Profit = 14,827,700 gp. Per day. Mansion of the Planes anyone?

Aquillion
2007-07-03, 03:50 AM
Also, nothing says you can only create daggers. You'll get a bit less of other weapons, but profits will still be immense. You can vary your weaponsmithing and outfit entire armies... teleport around looking for fights, and become an arms dealer. Not too hard to sell ten thousand or so masterwork weapons to a greedy prince, if you offer a decent price. Remember, you're talking about outfitting an army entirely in masterwork weapons. That is practically priceless, far beyond the value of the individual items. There simply aren't that many masterwork weapons available through normal means.

Teleportation will solve the economic problems; by selling to the entire world instead of just the local pawnshop, you can easily find a market. And then spend your money to set up lots of local branch offices, with people capable of casting Sending or whatever to keep you informed of how business is going and what local demands are. Use this to track warfare and sell your weapons wherever they are needed. You probably won't be able to sell the maximum output of a level 20 wizard, but you'll make a very, very good profit, not to mention a lot of friends in high places if you sell at a bit below normal price.

...this could actually be a fun campaign, come to think of it. Lots of room for adventures here, with backstabbing princes and greedy competitors and so on. The only problem is how totally the WBL guidelines are broken by it...

But, wait. We're looking at this the wrong way. Why sell your weapons? That's a waste. Money is cheap and easy to get. Why not raise your own army, and give the weapons to them? An army equipped entirely with masterwork weapons would be overwhelmingly stronger than any normal opponents... major empires have been built on less.

Illiterate Scribe
2007-07-03, 03:53 AM
If you want to do this cheese (and no, even with teleport, the market will collapse), you're better off asking 17th level wizards to cast arcane Genesis, and thus create for you the elemental plane of platinum.

Aquillion
2007-07-03, 03:58 AM
If you want to do this cheese (and no, even with teleport, the market will collapse), you're better off asking 17th level wizards to cast arcane Genesis, and thus create for you the elemental plane of platinum.The market for weapons? How can the entire worldwide market for weapons collapse? What would the effects of something like that be?

...and even if that happens? Plane Shift. It'll take a while to run out of planes to sell things on. What, are you going to say that you'll reach a point where there is no longer anyone who needs any more weapons anywhere in the multiverse?

Kurald Galain
2007-07-03, 04:17 AM
The density of iron is 491lbs/cu ft. Thus 44 cu ft of iron weighs 21604 lbs. A dagger weighs 1 lb. Thus we create 21604 masterwork daggers, which sell for 151 gp each.
Meoowwaaaaarghh!


Am I missing anything?
Step four. A group of High Enforcers from the Dwarven Guild of Crafts teleport in. They are NOT amused.

Callix
2007-07-03, 04:20 AM
The market will collapse. But how long will it take? I'm getting tons (literally) of iron for 50gp. I could just sell the iron and profit. I can undercut the market price, and with Teleport and Plane Shift, I can probably amass several billion gold before the Great Dagger Crash of Whenever. And then spend it.

EDIT: Kurald. I am not killing catgirls. I am finding out how much a Wall of Iron weighs, so I can use the raw materials. There is no source I can find with a weight for a given volume of iron, so I used real-world figures as an approximation.

banjo1985
2007-07-03, 04:22 AM
Hehe my palms are exuding pints of sweat at the thought of this genius! Being a group of travelling arms dealers travelling around battles and corrupt kingdoms would be an interesting concept.

edit: Or as one guy said above, raise an army, put equip them with masterwork armour and weapons for peanuts, then go on a spree! Happy times :smallsmile:

B!shop
2007-07-03, 04:26 AM
Also, don't forget that introducing too many items (dagger in the example) in the market will dramatically inflate the prices, even if you change the item (i.e. daggers to swords).
And this will at least lower you theoretical gain.
Even if you find enoug customers to reach a 3 million body of consumers.

Reinboom
2007-07-03, 04:27 AM
Eventually, the amount of gold you will be carrying... well, really, although you will be drying up parts of the economy, the amount of platinum and gold will also dry up, raising their represented values.
The issue that I see is that eventually there will be a different backing economy. Eventually the economy will settle back into trading, since gold will be so rare that it will become unused at all, and be nearly useless. I don't see most D&D worlds developing modern electronics either... gold doesn't have much use really.

If this is done under a savvy enough GM, the world will hate you. I think that eventually, each merchant will value your head more than the iron you're selling.

[edit]
A more nifty use of this, however, is building mountains of iron from walls of iron. Forming a city of gold, and hire trapsmiths... yes... become the BBEG.

Callix
2007-07-03, 04:30 AM
Please, people, I understand it isn't really infinite, and a lot of people won't like you. Then again, when you can buy eveything in the MIC, you're probably not that worried about how merchants are going to feel in a few weeks/days/minutes. Bodyguards anyone? Hire a cleric of the god of getting rich as a CZilla guard.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-07-03, 04:32 AM
Easier and less catgirl-slaying... Iron is considered a luxery good and thus can be sold at full price. Iron is listed as costing 1sp per pound here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm). This alone is worth 2,160 gold per casting. This nets you around 2100 gold after material cost.

So how many 6th+ level spells can you get in a day?

Well, a 20th level sorcerer hs 6 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th spells per day. That's 24.

So you're looking at somewhere over 48,000 per day. Not too shabby, and less catgirl-killing.

Yechezkiel
2007-07-03, 04:35 AM
You'd be muscling in on the infinite ladder to 10 ft. pole and summoned mount selling mafias... and they don't take kindly to competition.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 04:35 AM
Can someone explain the catgirl reference to one that is a little less informed of internet lingo?

Cause I quite honestly don't know what the heck your talking about.

Callix
2007-07-03, 04:37 AM
"Every time you apply physics to a fictional world, God kills a catgirl".
I was applying mass-density-volume relations to DnD. I didn't think this was a violation, as I wasn't actually finding out something a person in the situation couldn't. I just didn't have enough Fabricates handy.

Leon
2007-07-03, 04:52 AM
watch out for Rust Monsters

Kizara
2007-07-03, 04:56 AM
"Every time you apply physics to a fictional world, God kills a catgirl".
I was applying mass-density-volume relations to DnD. I didn't think this was a violation, as I wasn't actually finding out something a person in the situation couldn't. I just didn't have enough Fabricates handy.

Ok, but what is the meaning of that saying? Why would killing a catgirl have relivance to applying real-world concepts to fictional game systems?

Callix
2007-07-03, 04:58 AM
The context of the statement is lost in the mists of the Internet. Possibly, it may have to do with overanalysis of anime on dedicated newsgroups or fora. I honestly don't know. But it gets said a lot around here.

Hamster_Ninja
2007-07-03, 05:01 AM
From what I've heard, its related to the old saying that whenever you pleasure yourself god kills a kitten. Cat-girls are the fantasy equivelent, and god slays them when we sin/apply physics to fantastical worlds that are possibly/probobly operating under totally different scientific assumptions.

Ninja Chocobo
2007-07-03, 05:08 AM
This, although a good trick, isn't new.
There's easier ways to gain massive amounts of wealth.
Such as Candle of Invocation (9k gp) -> Efreet -> 3 Wishes for 25k gp each -> Another Candle of Invocation.
Or Disguise/Alter Self -> Major Creation (flawless diamond) -> Sell for roughly 3k gp -> Repeat.

Callix
2007-07-03, 05:35 AM
Yes, but this doesn't involve:
1. Cheesy items, or obviously cheesy spells
2. Outside influences such as the efreet
3. The Wish spell, with the DM's ability to easily distort it.
4. Any XP cost, from you or anyone else.
5. Cheating anyone or breaking any laws
Thus the cycle is limited only by the mass of gold in the given universe (1lb per day used as a component) and the tolerance of the market. And being able to equip an army in high-quality gear is the sort of service a lot of people will pay for. The margins won't be quite as astronomical as my theoretical limit, but the profits will be immense.

Ethdred
2007-07-03, 05:41 AM
Heck, why bother with Fabricate - you can produce huge quantities of iron every day, so just sell the raw materials. While it is theoretically possible that the global market for all iron products will collapse at some future point, you'll be rolling in it long before. And then you can just work out how to build iron ships!

I'm in a campaign where iron is so rare it has replaced gold as the unit of currency. No, we're not going to be allowed Wall of Iron!

Ninja Chocobo
2007-07-03, 05:41 AM
Why not just take the gold, after trapping the merchant under an infinite amount of Clubs or Quarterstaffs that you crafted out of nowhere by snapping your fingers?
Also, isn't it conceivable that the merchants run out of gold? Towns, cities, etc. have less gold than you probably think. Even a Metropolis (Defined in the DMG as a city with more than 25,000 people only has a total of 100,000 gp.

Callix
2007-07-03, 05:51 AM
Ninja, why did you have to bring the rules into it? Ah well, it's not such a massive exploit, but it does skew WBL quite a bit, even if you only do one Fabricate a day and a Wall of Iron every 4, to give the market a chance to recover. Also, that upper limit does not apply in all settings. Eberron's Sharn, for example, has a population in excess of 2 million, so there's probably more than 100000 gp floating. Also, isn't that the single-item limit, and ready cash being about five times that?

Ninja Chocobo
2007-07-03, 06:02 AM
Hm.
Misread the rules for the amount of cash in a city.
Sharn, assuming a population of 2 million (don't have the ECS on hand), has...10,000,000,000gp, total.

Edit: Missed a zero.
Edit Edit: Now that I DO have the ECS on hand, Sharn has a population of 200,000. Which means my original answer was correct.
Edit Edit Edit: Or not. Whatever.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-03, 06:16 AM
Callix:
You're missing a few little itty bitty things:
1) Fabricate lists that "You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship." - but it never says what the check is. Nor does it say to use the base Craft check DC's. While most DM's won't think of it, the Craft check DC for what you're doing is arbitrary. It's perfectly reasonable to, say, use the normal Craft check DC when you're Fabricating one item, and +1 to the DC for each additional item of the same type with the same casting. At 11th, you're trying to make 5,401 Masterwork Daggers per casting. Have fun making a DC 5,420 check. And you are doing everything by way of the casting, so can't get any Aid Another bonuses.
2) There's more than Iron in a dagger/sword/shield/armor/other stuff. You'll need non-specific other materials which, when combined with the iron, make up 1/3rd the value of the finished items you're trying to craft (why yes, every masterwork dagger has a 99 gp gem in the hilt. All long-term weapon enchantments have to be anchored to one....) as per the Craft rules. They've also got a volume that'll ruin your calculations utterly.
3) You're assuming infinite granularity (or at least, on the level of an inch) on the starting volume for Fabricate. If the volume is granular on the level of 1 cubic foot (the specified volume increment) then you can't Fabricate them nearly as quickly, as the Wall of Iron isn't shapeable, and isn't a full foot thick (at least, not until caster level 48).
4) You're assuming the Iron produced by Wall of Iron is of masterwork quality. Remember, Fabricate includes the line "The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication" - This may not be the case. For that matter, if the DM wants to do so, the quality may not be up to that of a normal dagger. Remember: Anything unspecified is DM call - such as the specific quality of the iron.
5) Iron of different sorts has different density. Elemental Iron, Cast Iron, and Wrought Iron all have slightly different densities (Source, and a useful tool for this (http://www.allmeasures.com/Formulae/)). If the DM so wills, a Wall of Iron (while heavy), may be much lighter than its volume would normally indicate.
6) Stuff I missed.
7) The Flying Cows from Space fall on you to reclaim their cheese, killing you fatally. No, you don't get a save. No, Incorporeality doesn't help. No miss chance. No attack roll.


Now, it's still very likely you can make a profit just off of selling the iron as a trade good (even if you have to hire the casting of the Wall of Iron!) but you don't really want to get into such competitions with your DM.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-03, 06:17 AM
Er, 5000 gp per person? What the... isn't that a wee bit of an overstatement? Many of those people would be living in slums, after all.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-03, 06:25 AM
Er, 5000 gp per person? What the... isn't that a wee bit of an overstatement? Many of those people would be living in slums, after all.
I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that's the total wealth figure, not the ready cash figure. It includes things like houses, horses, castles, mansions, and other things people are unlikely to sell for mere money in most circumstances. All that armor and weaponry that the barons lend to their warriors. Things of that nature. And it's not distributed evenly.

How much is a car worth? How many people in the US have cars? How much is a house worth? How many people in the US have houses?

Ninja Chocobo
2007-07-03, 06:33 AM
Er, 5000 gp per person? What the... isn't that a wee bit of an overstatement? Many of those people would be living in slums, after all.

's what the DMG says.
1/10 of the population (200,000), times 1/2 the gp limit of the town type (100,000gp).
That's 20,000 * 50,000, which equals 1,000,000,000.
Which means I was off by a zero. Hate that.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-03, 06:41 AM
Aquillion is right. Make diferent weapons, and pretend you are the leader of a secret smith's guild.
Even better, instead of daggers, make full plates. The ammount of armors will be drastically less than a dagger,of course, but each armor will be worth a lot more. And it'll be easier to sell.
I know, make master work armors, and sell them to clerics and wizards that make magic armors. You could get partnership with some magic crafters, and take over the market, but without showing your face. Untill someone notices what's going on, you'll have enough money to buy yourself a small army.

The idea is to make big profits, every once in a while. Spawning a full plate each week, in a different part of the country won't attract attention as saturating the market with long swords.
And don't forget selling cheap stuff to armies from several kingdoms.

Callix
2007-07-03, 06:51 AM
Please note that as a player, I would never do this even if I could. (I never end up playing the wizard :smallfrown: ). This, like Pun-Pun, is a theoretical excercise in game-breaking, allowing the character to get whatever items they want by virtue of their vast wealth. DM fiat can and should prevent this in a normal game, just as some form of ruling breaks the Infinite Titans regress. The point is that, even with normal quality items, like chain shirts or longswords, a hefty profit can be made off each casting, and since no macroeconomic market forces are in the DMG, as per RAW there are no diminishing returns. Thus this is RAW (and core) legal.

lord_khaine
2007-07-03, 07:03 AM
as i understand this is a quite legal and quite old exploit you have found, and the only real response to it as a gm is to start throwing dice at ya :smalltongue:

Callix
2007-07-03, 07:06 AM
Sorry if it's old. I hadn't seen it anywhere before, so I thought I'd put it up. Yes, its a RFYD situation (no need to drag everyone into it), and similar things had been proposed, but all of them either involved compelling evil outsiders or cheating/robbing people. This is something you could do without risking a Lawful Good alignment.

puppyavenger
2007-07-03, 07:56 AM
To sell them all you jjust go to sigil!

all hail no gp limit!:smallcool:

OzymandiasVolt
2007-07-03, 08:16 AM
Why are people acting like this is bad? If you can create a real, nonmagical mass of iron, why wouldn't you use fabricate to make equipment? It's a perfectly logical thing to do.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-03, 08:18 AM
... Is there a variation that you can use to summon a giant wall of actual cheese?

Neek
2007-07-03, 08:31 AM
This idea rocks. :) (Yes, I realize the macroeconomic ramifications of depleting the market of their gold and resources, but it'd be a fun ride while it lasted).


If you want to do this cheese (and no, even with teleport, the market will collapse), you're better off asking 17th level wizards to cast arcane Genesis, and thus create for you the elemental plane of platinum.

You mean cleric, right?

Piccamo
2007-07-03, 08:36 AM
DnD economics don't model real-world economics. There would be no market crash. Prices in DnD do not fluctuate. That is why things in the PHB always cost the same amount no matter where you are.

Khantalas
2007-07-03, 08:40 AM
... Is there a variation that you can use to summon a giant wall of actual cheese?

http://static.tagged.com/images/user3/01/20/68/12068819-59282155.jpg

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't seem to find the cost of cheese anywhere. If I do, I'll have a better line.

Anxe
2007-07-03, 08:56 AM
Well the first problem is a DM wouldn't allow it. Fabricate doesn't work on magic items, and a Wall of Iron could easily be counted as one.

And no reason to make just daggers! Fullplate, Breastplate, Shields, Splint Mail, Longswords. You can do so many things. And who to sell it to? The army.

TheRiov
2007-07-03, 08:59 AM
Who wants iron daggers? use Steel.

Iron is compativly heavy. And I'm not sure the rules about the QUALITY of the Iron. Not all iron is pure, and there is nothing in the description of iron wall that suggests its high quality or pure iron, nor do I belive that smelting or refining are within the realm of things Fabricate will do.

Yes, this would be a cheap way to mass-produce weaponry for an army I suppose...

Inyssius Tor
2007-07-03, 09:04 AM
... you're better off asking 17th level wizards to cast arcane Genesis...
You mean cleric, right?
sarcastro is a cool name

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-03, 09:12 AM
That's no fun. I propose the Dagger Golem! On the surface, an innocuous(Yeah right!) Iron Golem. However, instead of pummelling opponents with its fists, it fires salvos of daggers every round. Distant, Returning, Daggers.:smallbiggrin:

Neek
2007-07-03, 10:01 AM
Inyssius Tor: Reading is fun! There's an arcane version? Did not know that.

lukelightning
2007-07-03, 10:22 AM
Fabricate doesn't work on magic items, and a Wall of Iron could easily be counted as one.


Not easily. A wall of iron is not in any way a magic item, nor is it magical material. It is perfectly normal, inert, mundane iron. It lacks any of the defining qualities of a magic item; it requires no craft feat to make, no caster level, no magic aura, no intrinsic gp or xp cost to make.

hewhosaysfish
2007-07-03, 10:31 AM
Summon Monster IV (min CL) summoning a lantern archon: 280 gp
7 normal torches: 7 cp

Sale price of 7 Everburning Torches: 385gp

Profit: 104.93 gp

In a small city, a party could start doing this nonsense at second level. First, if the party wizard doesn't mind pawning his spellbook. For larger cities and budgets, Extending and Empowering increase the profit, as does moving to Summon Monster V and VI.

Tallis
2007-07-03, 10:42 AM
The spells might work. If you go to a big enough city the money could be there. Most everyone can use a dagger Really though, hor many people need a masterwork dagger? Wouldn't a regular dagger be just as good for most people? You can look for an army that needs equipping, then the quality can make a difference. But how many armies use daggers as their primary weapon? Also, the more of an item there are on the market the less they're worth. If the market is flooded with masterwork daggers, then they're not really masterwork anymore (from a consumer point of view), they're just normal daggers.
So your math works, but in a realistically modeled economy this would net you a much lower profit.

Tallis
2007-07-03, 10:58 AM
Summon Monster IV (min CL) summoning a lantern archon: 280 gp
7 normal torches: 7 cp

Sale price of 7 Everburning Torches: 385gp

Profit: 104.93 gp

In a small city, a party could start doing this nonsense at second level. First, if the party wizard doesn't mind pawning his spellbook. For larger cities and budgets, Extending and Empowering increase the profit, as does moving to Summon Monster V and VI.

A second level party could cast summon monster IV? I assume you mean they'd buy scrolls, but there is still a fair chance of failure. If all other requirements are met there's still a caster level check to use a scroll of a higher level spell. In this case there'd be a 70%chance of failure. Not impossible, but not likely, and then there's the chance of mishap.

To OP: There is also the fact that this is a wall of iron. Normal daggers are made from steel. Theses daggers may be very nicely made, but they're still softer than steel and won't hold up in a fight, this severely limits their usefulness in combat against a comparably equipped opponent.

Joltz
2007-07-03, 10:58 AM
Who wants iron daggers? use Steel.

Iron is compativly heavy. And I'm not sure the rules about the QUALITY of the Iron. Not all iron is pure, and there is nothing in the description of iron wall that suggests its high quality or pure iron, nor do I belive that smelting or refining are within the realm of things Fabricate will do.

Yes, this would be a cheap way to mass-produce weaponry for an army I suppose...
I agree. Last time I checked there was a difference between iron and steel, and you want your weapons made out of steel. I don't think it'd be possible to make masterwork weapons out of iron. Just normal weapons. It's still a crazy loophole though...

horseboy
2007-07-03, 11:11 AM
Who wants iron daggers? use Steel.

Iron is compativly heavy. And I'm not sure the rules about the QUALITY of the Iron. Not all iron is pure, and there is nothing in the description of iron wall that suggests its high quality or pure iron, nor do I belive that smelting or refining are within the realm of things Fabricate will do.

Yes, this would be a cheap way to mass-produce weaponry for an army I suppose...

Because steel is beyond the technological capabilities of many game worlds.

Anxe
2007-07-03, 11:41 AM
Not easily. A wall of iron is not in any way a magic item, nor is it magical material. It is perfectly normal, inert, mundane iron. It lacks any of the defining qualities of a magic item; it requires no craft feat to make, no caster level, no magic aura, no intrinsic gp or xp cost to make.

If you tried this stuff in an actual game. That's the exact same thing a DM would use to disallow it. It's a magical creation and therefore a magical item.

lukelightning
2007-07-03, 12:17 PM
It's a magical creation and therefore a magical item.

That is a big leap. Again, there is no basis other than "the DM doesn't like it" for a wall of iron to be called a "magical item." I don't want to reiterate my point, so I'll just leave it like that.

The solution to this problem is the same as the solution to all the other money-related problems in D&D: The game is not an economy/marketplace simulator, and is not meant to be.

DMs can simply say "there isn't enough demand" and leave it at that. Or say "fine, you start a business" and use one of the many shop/business rule systems out there.

lukelightning
2007-07-03, 12:19 PM
Because steel is beyond the technological capabilities of many game worlds.

The default D&D game has steel, otherwise you wouldn't have full plate armor or steel sheilds, etc.

All you need is some carbon to add to the iron. Now if only there was some source of carbon in the D&D world...

Aquillion
2007-07-03, 12:37 PM
A second level party could cast summon monster IV? I assume you mean they'd buy scrolls, but there is still a fair chance of failure. If all other requirements are met there's still a caster level check to use a scroll of a higher level spell. In this case there'd be a 70%chance of failure. Not impossible, but not likely, and then there's the chance of mishap.
The 280 gp is the price to pay someone else to cast Summon Monster IV for you at min CL. Then you have the Lantern Archon cast Continual Flame on your torch, producing an Everburning Torch (that is literally all everburning torches are, per RAW: Just torches with Continual Flame on them.)

But the problem here is that the Lantern Archon is controlled by the guy you paid to summon it. As soon as he sees what you're doing, he'll excuse himself, quit the spellcasting-for-hire business, and set out making Everburning Torches instead.

Cobra
2007-07-03, 01:48 PM
DnD economics is a lot like the guy in wizard of Oz. It works just fine as long as you don't try poking around behind the curtain. Once you do that, you realize the horrible truth. DnD spells are balanced against their combat effectiveness, not on their potential economic abusiveness. Mount spell anybody?

So yes, the Wall of Iron trick is an old and perfectly legal exploit. No, it doesn't work. Why? Because as soon as you try it, rocks fall and everybody dies. Or the space cows come to reclaim their cheese. I like that one even better :p

Citizen Joe
2007-07-03, 02:00 PM
Here is the a major flaw in your reasoning:
Fabricate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm)


You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material.

And don't point out the s's on the rest of the text, that just means items that have been previously created using Fabricate.

With each casting of fabricate you get to make ONE thing. Being mineral that can be an object up to 1 cubic foot per level. So this essentially lets you craft stuff in rounds instead of months/years. But, you still need the appropriate skills. Now the limit is a few castings of Fabricate a day, making the most valuable thing you can (Probably full plate). But that would be iron full plate. Personally, I'd make the wall, then fabricate to create steel using iron and carbon and whatever other alloys are need. Once the wall has been converted at the rate of (Caster Level) cu.ft. per casting, then I'd start making the armour and weapons from that pile of steel (plus some leather for straps etc.)

So assuming we start at minimal level to make the walls we got Caster Level: 11 for One level 6 spell (wall of iron) and two level 5 spells (Fabricate)
So you need to start with about 50gp for the material component for wall of iron (11 5-foot squares by 2 inches thick (3 at 12th level)... so about 46 cubic feet). Now you're going to need some coal (carbon) and some other alloy materials but they are minimal compared to the iron, just remember there's some extra stuff to factor in. Now comes some assumptions with regards to crafting. Since we don't know how much steel is worth as a commodity, but we do know its made primarily from iron. So the rest of the day we cast fabricate twice to make 22 cu.ft. of steel and then another 22 cu.ft. on day 2. Day 3 we have 2 cubic feet of iron wall left (probably stuck in the ground so it didn't fall over on us) and four slabs of steel 11 cubic feet each. Which is about 5400 lbs each. If iron is 1 sp per lb, then steel would be three times that since its a crafted material so we have 4 slabs of steel worth 1620 gold each.

Full plate costs 1500 so it would take 500 gp of steel (and negligible amounts of leather and other stuff) to make. Thus day 3,4,5,6 we cast fabricate 3 times per day (using the level 6 slot to cast fabricate) to make 12 full plate armours and still have 4 chunks of steel left worth 120 gold each (probably use it for chainmail or other stuff) Day 7 we sell it to the local king at 1500 gp each for a total of 18,000 gp maybe sell off the rest of the steel to pay for the other components. So basically 18K gold per week for an 11th level wizard.

Now we compare this to the rates for casting spells... 1 level 6, 16 level 5 spells.... that's about 9500 gp when you include the 50 gp spell component.

Now if you consider that adventurers selling captured loot get HALF the value of said loot, then suddenly the wizard would be making 500 gp more if he simply hired out his services to the local lord.

Personally, if I were doing Bob's Instant Armour business, I'd stay away from the Masterwork and less expensive stuff and make sure I cleared it with the local smithy. Clearing = fireball :smallwink:

Pestlepup
2007-07-03, 02:10 PM
Wall of Abuse is a decent-enough moneymaker, but why bother with such intricacies. Here's another option.

1. Be a Druid with a rabbit for an animal companion
2. Obtain another bunny (preferably of the opposite gender)
3. Cast speak with animals, read aloud Anaïs Nin to said bunnies
4. ?????
5. Profit.

If the animals themselves won't sell, there's always a market for trail rations. Hungry lot, those adventurers. :smallsmile:

horseboy
2007-07-03, 02:22 PM
The default D&D game has steel, otherwise you wouldn't have full plate armor or steel sheilds, etc.

All you need is some carbon to add to the iron. Now if only there was some source of carbon in the D&D world...

Full plate wasn't made out of steel until after firearms came into common use.

By adding carbon, yeah you can make low steel, however you've got to have a blast furnace that can not only get hot enough to "further" refine the iron, but to withstand that heat itself. Unless you've got a magical metal that can take heat (like laen or Orachalcum) That's going to be very difficult.
To make anything close to what we think of when we think steel, you've got to know what manganese and chromium is. That level of metallurgy would only be found deep, deep, deeply buried in guild hierarchies in remote areas (Like the lowest level of a dwarven city that specializes in "abstract" theory) if it existed at all.

horseboy
2007-07-03, 02:29 PM
Wall of Abuse is a decent-enough moneymaker, but why bother with such intricacies. Here's another option.

1. Be a Druid with a rabbit for an animal companion
2. Obtain another bunny (preferably of the opposite gender)
3. Cast speak with animals, read aloud Anaïs Nin to said bunnies
4. ?????
5. Profit.

If the animals themselves won't sell, there's always a market for trail rations. Hungry lot, those adventurers. :smallsmile:

Rotflmao! I always said if I became stuck in a fantasy world, I'd develop a spell that let me freeze dry food. The amount I could make on rations would keep me in the money without the risk of dying in an adventure.

Telonius
2007-07-03, 02:34 PM
I think fabricate is instantaneous and therefore cannot be dispelled.

21604 masterwork daggers isn't that hard to sell. Everyone needs a dagger, you just have to convince people to pawn some stuff in order to buy one.

Thus were the beginnings of the CutCo company...

Jack_Simth
2007-07-03, 03:56 PM
Summon Monster IV (min CL) summoning a lantern archon: 280 gp
7 normal torches: 7 cp

Sale price of 7 Everburning Torches: 385gp

Profit: 104.93 gp

In a small city, a party could start doing this nonsense at second level. First, if the party wizard doesn't mind pawning his spellbook. For larger cities and budgets, Extending and Empowering increase the profit, as does moving to Summon Monster V and VI.

Doesn't work that way.


Summoning: A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.

When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.(Emphasis added)

And just to clairify:

Spell-Like Abilities

Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A few spell-like abilities are unique; these are explained in the text where they are described.

A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability’s use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component. A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and to being dispelled by dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled.

Some creatures are actually sorcerers of a sort. They cast arcane spells as sorcerers do, using components when required. In fact, an individual creature could have some spell-like abilities and also cast other spells as a sorcerer.(Emphasis added)

As Continual Flame is Permanent, not Instant, that doesn't work with the Summon Monster.

Lesser Planar Binding or Lesser Planar Ally, on the other hand, will do quite well.

Fawsto
2007-07-03, 04:02 PM
I liked this... Gave me a very interesting campaing idea! I shall use it!! HAHA!

CASTLEMIKE
2007-07-04, 07:02 AM
This use of the spell in this manner excedes the power of the Limited Wish, True Creation and Wish spells which do allow a PC to create wealth in game at a cost in experience points. They are good spell creation wealth guidelines despite the Genesis spell. Enormous wealth generation by spellcasting will generally not be an option in most games. If this method of creating wealth exists in your campaign you probably need to break or take over the existing monopolies and build a distribution infrastructure.

Don't forget demographically most NPCs (90%) are level 1 or 2 commoners who make 1 SP a day and live in villages, hamlets or thorps without lots of money to buy expensive things or lots of iron daggers. Most already have a knife or two in game and do not need another. Notice it wasn't the create Ale or Beer spell. Just being able to create goods does not ensure a market demand for them.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-04, 09:35 AM
Thus were the beginnings of the CutCo company...

You mean you sell people protection against being stabbed with this here dagger I'm holding? :smallsmile:

OzymandiasVolt
2007-07-04, 09:37 AM
Citizen Joe raises an excellent point. Each casting of Fabricate nets you a single item. Of course that means you'd be making masterwork full plate or something.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 10:03 AM
Citizen Joe raises an excellent point. Each casting of Fabricate nets you a single item. Of course that means you'd be making masterwork full plate or something.
Actually, I'd leave the masterwork stuff to real craftsmen. For one thing, few people could really benefit from it, thus justifying the extra price is more difficult. Also, making masterworks require an extra crafting check (DC20). Unless you sink 13 points into Craft: Armour you stand a chance of screwing up the spells. If you DO sink 13 points into craft: Armour, by all means DO make masterworks. Figure +3 from your intelligence, then take 10 on the check and poof! Actually, if you can take 10, you just need 7 points in craft with your +3 intelligence to get 20 results for Masterworks.

Tallis
2007-07-04, 10:25 AM
Actually, I'd leave the masterwork stuff to real craftsmen. For one thing, few people could really benefit from it, thus justifying the extra price is more difficult. Also, making masterworks require an extra crafting check (DC20). Unless you sink 13 points into Craft: Armour you stand a chance of screwing up the spells. If you DO sink 13 points into craft: Armour, by all means DO make masterworks. Figure +3 from your intelligence, then take 10 on the check and poof! Actually, if you can take 10, you just need 7 points in craft with your +3 intelligence to get 20 results for Masterworks.

But can you take 10 with the spell, it kind of limits the time you have to put everything together. I'm not sure.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 10:41 AM
Ok then... level 11... Craft is a class skill for wizards so maximum 14 ranks in armourer... figure +3 from intelligence (16 minimum for level 6 spells)... tools can't be used nor can aid another so just a feat in skill focus craft: armourer for another +3 gives you a total of +20 (automatically succeeds at masterwork check) Without the skill focus, you can automatically make the full plate DC 18.

Of course, you could go significantly less in the skill, but with 14 ranks in craft, none of the armourers are going to bitch at you for stealing their jobs.

Ditto
2007-07-04, 11:18 AM
Hirelings are cheap. Spend your first day's profits in getting some lackeys. Give them 10 daggers, and 10% commission. If they sell them all, give them 20 daggers the next day. It's not a bad racket for an up-and-coming hireling to get involved in.

Yakk
2007-07-04, 11:29 AM
From Craft SRD:

The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials... Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.

Which means any good whose value is more than 3 times the value of raw iron requires more than raw iron to produce. :)

As noted, D&D spells cannot be shaped infinitely. 1' cubes seem like the granularity of the craft spell.

So this reduces you to 1' by 1' by 1" section per caster level from fabricate -- about 40 lbs per caster level.

Iron is worth 1 sp per pound. So you cannot make anything that costs more than 3 sp per pound from raw iron.

So a L 11 wizard casting a single Fabricate spell cannot generate anything worth more than 132 gp out of iron from a wall of iron -- and whatever he makes, it cannot be worth more than 3 sp per pound.

There are no weapons that are worth that little -- which implies that D&D weapons are not made out of raw iron.

The weight-by-value of the raw material of D&D weapons is:
Dagger: 7 sp per lb.
Longsword: 13 sp per lb.
Flail: 5 sp per lb.

This implies that weapons contain heavily worked metal and other ingredients, not just iron. :)

As a nice DM, I might allow a chain of skill checks and "folded" fabrication (ie, fabricate HQ iron, fabricate light steel, fabricate a dagger) in one cast.

Otherwise, you would end up with raw iron weapons, which will be brittle, have rusting problems, and otherwise be not worth nearly as effective. Ie, use raw iron to fabricate a dagger, and you get a dagger worth only 3 sp -- it has a bare-iron handle, the blade chips after use, it rusts and degrades quickly, etc.

Aquillion
2007-07-04, 12:29 PM
All of this ignores the real issue with Fabricate: You don't need wall of iron cheese. Fabricate, just by itself, is entirely and totally broken from an economic standpoint. Heck, just go out and buy the materials legitimately, then craft expensive, hard-to-make things in one round (or a few, for really big stuff).

The price of an object includes the labor required to make it. Abolishing that labor already puts you obscenely far ahead in the profits department; you don't need any real cheese.

F.L.
2007-07-04, 12:34 PM
If you don't feel like working with metal, you can always use the lv2 Wood Shape spell and go for a masterwork mighty+4 composite longbow... Or fabricate up (with craft (optics)) some telescopes, or stone shape some water clocks.

Though a lv2 spell at will item of wood shape may be cheap enough of an item to make, I'd call it a space cow landing beacon.

Yakk
2007-07-04, 01:10 PM
The same rule of "raw materials take up 33% of the end cost" applies -- in order to make a Masterwork Mighty x4 Compound Longbow, you need materials worth 1/3 of that end cost.

Having materials worth 1/3 of the end cost isn't sufficient -- you need specific materials worth 1/3 of the end cost. You can take 100 gp worth of gold and make a 300 gp masterwork sword -- you need 100 gp of specific materials to make that sword.

So, you can make money doing this, but not as much as you might want.

You loot 100 gp in stuff. You sell it for 50 gp, and buy 50 gp in raw materials. You take the 50 gp in materials and shape it, producing a 150 gp item. You sell this for 75 gp.

This turns your initial asset, worth (100 gp, 50 gp liquid) into a (150 gp, 75 gp liquid) item.

If you want to earn more than 50 copper on the gold by selling loot, you have to turn yourself into an NPC merchant, and spend most of your time dealing with red tape, finding trading opportunities, bribing customs inspectors, and building a reputation.

Wehrkind
2007-07-04, 01:38 PM
The obvious, and yet subtle, way of dealing in wall of iron iron is to simply set up an "iron mine" somewhere. Cast the spell at your lesiure, export iron to some town. Helps to have a big hole and some operations that look like a mine, so any dungeon you just cleared of baddies will do. Then, when the pressure gets hot from rival traders etc., sell the "mine" to some rube, and skip town.
Get a "foreman" in on the deal, and after a week's castings, you can have him run the "opperation" while you adventure.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 01:41 PM
The same rule of "raw materials take up 33% of the end cost" applies -- in order to make a Masterwork Mighty x4 Compound Longbow, you need materials worth 1/3 of that end cost.

Although I could clearly see how a x4 compound bow would be worth more and it would be more difficult to make, I'm not sure how it would require (810/3) gp compared to (110/3) gp of materials for just a regular compound long bow.

I'm starting to wonder if the raw materials may include such things as coal to stoke the furnace and molds and wasting of impure slag, defective lumber.

I mean take a suit of full plate, it weighs 50 lbs. If you assume that is all steel, and steel is 3x the price of iron, and iron is 1 sp per pound, you're looking at 15 gp of raw steel. Since full plate is 1500 gp, it should take 500 gp in raw materials. But by weight, only 15 gp of that is actual steel... thus still another 485 gp worth of 'Other materials'.

Perhaps we're missing some steps. Like, steel may require refined iron ore... so you start with 1 sp per pound for raw iron, then craft it into refined iron worth 3 sp per pound. From that you smelt it into steel, worth 9 sp per pound. From that you need to make sheets of steel worth ~3 gp per pound... Hmm... that's still only 150 gp for 50 lbs of armour... must be one more step... maybe 3 gp is bars of steel (suitable for weapons), armour plate is another step which puts us at about 9 gp per lb of armour plate... giving us 450 gp for 50 lbs and another 50 gp for other materials needed, like leather and padding and such.

Yakk
2007-07-04, 04:37 PM
Although I could clearly see how a x4 compound bow would be worth more and it would be more difficult to make, I'm not sure how it would require (810/3) gp compared to (110/3) gp of materials for just a regular compound long bow.

Better wood, better string, better glue, better horn, etc.

The point is that the masterwork mighty compound bow needs super-strong masterwork-quality components that are not the same as a normal bow.


I'm starting to wonder if the raw materials may include such things as coal to stoke the furnace and molds and wasting of impure slag, defective lumber.

*nod* -- so if the DM was generous, they might allow a better than 3:1 ratio. ;)


I mean take a suit of full plate, it weighs 50 lbs. If you assume that is all steel, and steel is 3x the price of iron, and iron is 1 sp per pound, you're looking at 15 gp of raw steel. Since full plate is 1500 gp, it should take 500 gp in raw materials. But by weight, only 15 gp of that is actual steel... thus still another 485 gp worth of 'Other materials'.

Perhaps we're missing some steps. Like, steel may require refined iron ore... so you start with 1 sp per pound for raw iron, then craft it into refined iron worth 3 sp per pound. From that you smelt it into steel, worth 9 sp per pound. From that you need to make sheets of steel worth ~3 gp per pound... Hmm... that's still only 150 gp for 50 lbs of armour... must be one more step... maybe 3 gp is bars of steel (suitable for weapons), armour plate is another step which puts us at about 9 gp per lb of armour plate... giving us 450 gp for 50 lbs and another 50 gp for other materials needed, like leather and padding and such.

Leather padding, chain components, bolts and rivets, multiple different grades of steel for different portions, straps to hold it on the person, etc.

Take a look at Damascus swords -- newer research seems to show that the secret of these high quality swords involved micro-impurities in the ore imported from mines in northern India, together with processing tricks when the sword was actually made.

The smiths didn't know what made that particular ore better than the alternatives -- they knew that the particular ore, together with the particular processing steps, ended up with a higher quality weapon than you could get otherwise.

They experimented to improve it, naturally, but the ore came from a single source, so it was valuable. And when that source ran out, the quality of Damascus swords began to wane. The theory is that they used old slag and refolded it into other sources of metal, which generated most of the benefits of the pure stuff -- but eventually the impurities got overly diluted, and the secret of Damascus steel was lost.

Given the cost of Full Plate, I expect it requires exotic steels and materials in a D&D world to be workable. You probably can't just make it out of any old Iron -- you need particular sources of Iron in the correct mixes, turned into particularly high quality Steel.

Given that masterwork prices are small relative to Full Plate prices, I'd expect the vast majority of Full Plate will be done at Masterwork quality -- the difference in price and materials would be relatively minor compared to, say, a sword.

...

So, a DM could be generous, and say that 1/6 of the cost is in raw materials, 1/6 in expended resources -- and that Fabricate only requires 1/2 of the expended resources, or materials totaling 25% of the end value of the product.

Regardless, making a sellable weapon directly out of a wall of iron won't work -- you clearly don't have the raw materials to pull it off. I'd allow a player to make weapons that will work at nearly full function for a day or two (every 1 rolled gives them a -1 enhancement penalty to (AC, Max Dex, Armor Check, Arcane Spell Failure, Damage, To-hit), until they become useless. Expendable items (like arrows) misfire and damage either the thrower or the launching mechanism.

Now, if you walk into a Blacksmith's raw supply room, you could use it to conjure up a suit of full plate with a bit of reorganization of the raw materials, assuming you knew all of the steps to get from the current state all the way to full plate.

And yes, even as it stands, it is a very over-powered spell. It just isn't as ridiculously broken as it would be otherwise. :)

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-04, 04:57 PM
If you want to do this cheese (and no, even with teleport, the market will collapse), you're better off asking 17th level wizards to cast arcane Genesis, and thus create for you the elemental plane of platinum.

The prime material plane is infinite. There are quite a few planes that are infinite. This suggests a lot of denizens. Some of them want daggers.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-04, 05:02 PM
Don't masterwork items require a special component to be made? That component isn't liable to be made from conjured Iron. Especially since I'd expect most masterwork weapons and armor would be made of steel.

Hectonkhyres
2007-07-04, 05:08 PM
Mah. Just have a cleric teleport all over gods' creation. Do you have any idea how many goons there are out there missing limbs or dying from horrible diseases or whatnot? Imagine what happens when you have a king who is missing a leg from a boarhunting accident and you offer to make him as healthy as ever... for a price.

Especially in prime material backwaters, you could become a rich man indeed.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-04, 05:18 PM
Well, if we're talking economically broken, you can run an entire tavern with a 5th-level cleric's repertoire of Create Food spells.

enderrocksonall
2007-07-04, 05:45 PM
The same rule of "raw materials take up 33% of the end cost" applies -- in order to make a Masterwork Mighty x4 Compound Longbow, you need materials worth 1/3 of that end cost.

Having materials worth 1/3 of the end cost isn't sufficient -- you need specific materials worth 1/3 of the end cost. You can take 100 gp worth of gold and make a 300 gp masterwork sword -- you need 100 gp of specific materials to make that sword.

So, you can make money doing this, but not as much as you might want.

You loot 100 gp in stuff. You sell it for 50 gp, and buy 50 gp in raw materials. You take the 50 gp in materials and shape it, producing a 150 gp item. You sell this for 75 gp.

This turns your initial asset, worth (100 gp, 50 gp liquid) into a (150 gp, 75 gp liquid) item.

According to this, you're saying that a newly created item made by the PC's will only sell for 1/2 its listed price?

WTH????

And your saying that the PC's will always and forever get only half price on anything they find? Be it a used shortsword or a flawless 3lb diamond, they will always get, at most, half of its listed price? This is hardly the way the system works.

A newly created item should be sold for as much as someone is willing to pay for it. I can understand how a used weapon or a magic item with charges being sold used would have some reduction in value, but all magic items that the PC's ever own somehow drop in value? What kind of crazy shark math is that?

I want a refund!!!! What do you mean I can only get half-price?!?!?!

Kurald Galain
2007-07-04, 05:50 PM
I want a refund!!!! What do you mean I can only get half-price?!?!?!

Well, you voided your warranty when you used the sword to hit that orc there.

enderrocksonall
2007-07-04, 05:56 PM
You think there is an inevitable that does quality control for smiths? Why is it we never try to get a refund when a goblin sunders our swords or axes or quarterstaves. We could sue them and make millions!!!

"Your honor, Smith Bob knew that he only rolled a 12 on this armor's craft check, and deliberatly did not inform me of the inherent weakness in the item. This constitutes contributory negligeance and Smith Bob therefore owes me all the treasure I could have gotten with this sword...ever!!!"

Hectonkhyres
2007-07-04, 06:14 PM
There are a crapload of charisma-based and situational modifiers to sales which can be used if you aren't in an immense hurry to resume stabbing things randomly. If the numbers fall exactly right, you can make a fair amount more than the actual value of the item off the transaction. Yay for fast talking.

But I can no longer remember how much is in the books and how much is local homebrew. The two blur way too much together around me for me to be able to draw a line between the two.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-04, 06:46 PM
I think the financial issues of wall of iron may go away when you considerthat selling, or rather finding buyers for, over 10 tons of iron to net a ~2000gp profit wouldn't especially excite a level 11 wizard. At least, not on a regular basis. Besides the fact that this iron comes in a wall far too large and awkward for most forms of transportation.

Fabricate is more of a problem, at least for master smiths seeking work in cities.


If you don't feel like working with metal, you can always use the lv2 Wood Shape spell and go for a masterwork mighty+4 composite longbow...
Um. Do the words 'fine detail is not possible' and 'masterwork' go together, in your opinion?

Additionally, composite fairly trivially means not made from one piece of wood. In general, much of a composite bow isn't made of wood at all...

Maybe you could do shortbows, or possibly even longbows, but there are limits.

Gralamin
2007-07-04, 06:57 PM
According to this, you're saying that a newly created item made by the PC's will only sell for 1/2 its listed price?

WTH????

And your saying that the PC's will always and forever get only half price on anything they find? Be it a used shortsword or a flawless 3lb diamond, they will always get, at most, half of its listed price? This is hardly the way the system works.

A newly created item should be sold for as much as someone is willing to pay for it. I can understand how a used weapon or a magic item with charges being sold used would have some reduction in value, but all magic items that the PC's ever own somehow drop in value? What kind of crazy shark math is that?

I want a refund!!!! What do you mean I can only get half-price?!?!?!

Yes. See the SRD

Selling Loot

In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.

Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.

Hectonkhyres
2007-07-04, 07:00 PM
Transportation?

Just knock over the wall of iron and go sledding down a mountain.
Particularly fun on one of those infinitely tall mountains in the outer plains.
...
Dragons could become roadkill.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 08:35 PM
OK I went back into the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm#armorDescriptions) to find comparison armours regarding cost and weight. It should be reasonable to assume that the weight of the raw materials should scale with the weight of the armour (when dealing with similar armours). So I took a look at the breast plate (which includes greaves and a helmet) which weigh 30 lbs and compared it to Full Plate (which includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and a thick layer of padding that is worn underneath the armor) which weighs 50 lbs. So yes, there's some not metallic stuff in there but basically its the same thing only more. However Full plate costs 1500 gp compared to 200 gp for a breastplate. That's a 7.5:1 increase compared to the 5:3 increase in weight. Now I can accept that the leather and padding and such add a bit of value disproportionate to their weight, but not by THAT much...

Then it struck me *CLANG* Full plate is fitted to each person (refitting costs 200-800gp) That means that the Full plate doesn't really cost 1500 gp, it costs more like 700 gp plus an 800 gp fitting fee.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-04, 08:48 PM
The same rule of "raw materials take up 33% of the end cost" applies -- in order to make a Masterwork Mighty x4 Compound Longbow, you need materials worth 1/3 of that end cost.

Having materials worth 1/3 of the end cost isn't sufficient -- you need specific materials worth 1/3 of the end cost. You can take 100 gp worth of gold and make a 300 gp masterwork sword -- you need 100 gp of specific materials to make that sword.

So, you can make money doing this, but not as much as you might want.

You loot 100 gp in stuff. You sell it for 50 gp, and buy 50 gp in raw materials. You take the 50 gp in materials and shape it, producing a 150 gp item. You sell this for 75 gp.

This turns your initial asset, worth (100 gp, 50 gp liquid) into a (150 gp, 75 gp liquid) item.
Rinse and repeat. Sell the secondary asset for the 75 gp, and buy materials suitable for a 75*3 (225) gp item. Which you can then sell for half - 112.5 gp. There's two castings of Fabricate involved, but now the "Liquid" portion of the treasure haul exceeds the value of the initial asset. Two castings, three sales, and you've increased the value. You can do this as often as you can cast and find a buyer.

Masterwork Fullplate has a market value of 1,650 gp, costing 550 gp in materials. A quick sell for half-value is 825 gp - a profit from your initial investment of 275 gp. If you've got enough starting capital to buy the materials and craft (via Fabricate) two suits of Masterwork Fullplate, after you do so and sell them, you've got enough to buy the materials and craft (via Fabricate) three suits of Masterwork Fullplate.

One casting of a 5th level spell, Core RAW, gives you a 50% profit margin per casting.

Until someone starts playing around with Break Enchantment....

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 09:16 PM
Again, I'm saying that Full plate is really 700 gp plus an 800 gp fitting cost. So Masterwork would be 850 gp plus 800 gp fitting. Raw materials would be about 300 gp.

Now I need to point out the logic behind 'Half price for loot'. When you take stuff to a merchant (because he has money) he is not the one that will be using the object and he needs to make a profit and stocking fees to hold on to said item until it is sold. Thus you get half price when you sell loot to a merchant.

However, Full Plate is a special item. You could sell the basic suit to an armourer unfitted for half price (425 gp) but if you're fitting it to someone then that person is the end user and thus should pay full price. In that case, you gather together the (roughly 300gp) raw materials, have the person stand there, cast the fabricate and custom fit it to him while he waits (probably less than a minute). You'll need to make a DC 20 craft (armourer) check for the Masterwork and another DC 18 craft (armourer) check for the armour itself. You should be able to charge 850 gp for the armour and another 800 gp for the fitting for a total of 1650 gp. Cost: 283 gp, a 5th level spell, bunch of skill points for craft (armour). Profit: 1367 gp (Custom) or 142 gp (bulk sale to armourer).

Personally, I'm not sure the masterwork is worth it. It only lessens the HORRENDOUS armour check penalty by 1... so you still suck but a little less for an extra 150 gp. So unless the buyer is planning on enchanting the armour, don't count on making the extra 150 gp for MW.

Note that hiring someone to cast fabricate (like yourself) would be 50 gp/caster level. Since we don't need wall of iron any more, that's level 9 so 450 gp. Now, if you hired yourself out to an armourer, he could pay you 450 gp to do fabricate and fit the armour and then charge 800 gp to the customer, so he makes 350 gp, you make your 450 gp and the customer gets fitted almost instantly.

Yakk
2007-07-04, 09:28 PM
One casting of a 5th level spell, Core RAW, gives you a 50% profit margin per casting.

Ayep -- but at least it is bounded. And remember, Fabricate makes one product.

And how does that profit compare to, say, just selling the casting of spells at that level?


Again, I'm saying that Full plate is really 700 gp plus an 800 gp fitting cost. So Masterwork would be 850 gp plus 800 gp fitting. Raw materials would be about 300 gp.

No. Raw materials to make full plate are 500 gp, 1/3 of the end price.

Raw materials to make MW full plate are 600 gp, 1/3 of the end price.

The RAW is very clear on this.


Now I need to point out the logic behind 'Half price for loot'. When you take stuff to a merchant (because he has money) he is not the one that will be using the object and he needs to make a profit and stocking fees to hold on to said item until it is sold. Thus you get half price when you sell loot to a merchant.

And you aren't spending most of your life finding buyers and sellers for your goods -- instead, you are unloading your haul. Your main job is adventurer, not merchant.


However, Full Plate is a special item. You could sell the basic suit to an armourer unfitted for half price (425 gp) but if you're fitting it to someone then that person is the end user and thus should pay full price.

No, that isn't the RAW. You are getting half price from whomever you sell it to -- because you aren't a known armorer, you aren't a merchant who knows the best buyer, etc etc.

If you want to retire, spend 5 to 10 years gathering contacts, bring up your profession(merchant), and/or sell your goods at a rate determined by your profession skill -- you get full price.


In that case, you gather together the (roughly 300gp) raw materials,

No, once again, it takes 600 gp in raw materials to make masterwork full plate.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-04, 09:37 PM
Again, I'm saying that Full plate is really 700 gp plus an 800 gp fitting cost. So Masterwork would be 850 gp plus 800 gp fitting. Raw materials would be about 300 gp. Fitting costs are 2d4*100 gp. It's random, based on the current/previous owners. RAW, the initial suit of Full Plate is 1,500 + 150 gp masterwork, and comes fitted to the one who hired it. It's only when you're re-fitting armor to someone else that you can get up to the 800 gp (and it'll average 500 gp).

But full plate is just a simple example. You want to divide the cost up into other stuff? Whatever. You can do the same thing with Half Plate, Splint, Mithral Full Plate, or just about anything else Craftable. For example, an Adamantine Breastplate has a market price of 10,200 gp. At 1/3rd market for materials, and 1/2 market for a quick sale, that single casting of Fabricate for an Adamantine Breastplate nets you 1,700 gp (investment of 3,400, sale price of 5,100). And, selling for half, you don't need someone interested in a particular spell, just someone who's willing to purchase armor for later resale, and someone who will sell you the raw materials.

Edit:

Ayep -- but at least it is bounded. And remember, Fabricate makes one product.

And how does that profit compare to, say, just selling the casting of spells at that level?

Depends on what you're making. Upper boundary is about Adamantine Fullplate, at a market value of 16,500 gp. Materials cost: 5,500 gp. Quick sale price: 8,250 gp. Profit Margin: 2,750 gp. The price to hire a 5th level spell from a 9th level caster: 450 gp. The price to hire a 9th level spell from a 20th level caster: 1,800 gp.

Casting Fabricate and selling the result also has an added benefit: You don't have to wait for someone to decide that they need spell services. You can simply get the materials, make the item, and sell it at half market. No need to have your DM guess at the demand; it's all right there laid out in the existing Core ruleset.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 09:57 PM
No. Raw materials to make full plate are 500 gp, 1/3 of the end price.

Raw materials to make MW full plate are 600 gp, 1/3 of the end price.

The RAW is very clear on this.

Not as clear as you think.



Full Plate

The suit includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and a thick layer of padding that is worn underneath the armor. Each suit of full plate must be individually fitted to its owner by a master armorsmith, although a captured suit can be resized to fit a new owner at a cost of 200 to 800 (2d4×100) gold pieces.

There is some interpretation there for sure. As I see it sometimes you are close to the right fit as the person you captured the armour from (200 gp refit cost) and sometimes you're no where near the right fit (800 gp). On that assumption, an off the rack suit of Full Plate is 'no where near the right fit'. I.e. the 800 gp refitting cost. If suit costs 1500 gp, and 800 gp of that is fitting costs, then the real cost of the suit (unfitted) is 700 gp (plus another 150 gp for the Masterwork). This is where I was getting the ~300 gp raw material cost.



And you aren't spending most of your life finding buyers and sellers for your goods -- instead, you are unloading your haul. Your main job is adventurer, not merchant.

This is the difference between making something on spec and doing it as a contract. If someone comes to you and says make me a set of Full Plate, you're going to charge 1500 gp for it, because you can. They came to you. They are the end user. Full plate MUST be fitted. Thus it MUST be contracted. Thus you get FULL price.

If instead you're making a stockpile of half plate, that doesn't need to be fitted. Then you can sell all those for half price to a merchant (armourer). He's not the end user. He didn't ask for the suits. He's got to store them and find customers

In any case, here's an easier solution. Get a pile of gems and gold worth a total of X. Fabricate a piece of jewelry worth 3X. Sell jewelry to merchant for 1.5X... 50% profit. Take that money 1.5X and buy more raw materials from the same merchant. Go home, fabricated a 4.5X piece of jewelry...

Continue this process until you are making jewelry in the 6000-10,000 gp range. At this point, people simply don't have the money to invest in jewelry that valuable. You'll be making about between 1000 and 2000 gp with each casting, although its likely that the market will dry up fast.

F.L.
2007-07-04, 10:00 PM
Yes, I gather that horn, and masterwork quality may be prevented by wood shape. However, the glue may be in the materials if you use softwoods, epoxy resin is formed from pine resin approximately. However, wood shape could make normal longbows and shortbows, which aren't too cheap either. And it has no 'one casting per item' restriction, it only forms a shape. If you want to get into an argument, I suppose you could always make many items, and join them together with sprues.

On an unrelated note, could you use fabricate or stone shape to shape a pile of small stones into a larger one? E.g. diamond dust into a large, and hopefully expensive, diamond? (Alternately, diamond dust -> diamond sword)

The Demented One
2007-07-04, 10:05 PM
I think you're missing a vital point here.

Player: "Hey guys, I figured out a way to get all this gp!"
DM: "No you didn't."
Player: "But look, I have these spells, and I did the math, and..."
DM: KA-BACKHAND!
Player: "Okay..."

DMs exist for a reason, guys.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-04, 10:29 PM
Well, so long as you make money in a way comensurate with your level and the spell being cast, I don't think its a problem. So, if you're 9th level casting fabricate (450 gp spell) and make something around that much in profit, then there shouldn't be an Space Cows calling.

The DM, of course, has the final say on what will be bought. So you could make hundreds of suits of Adamantine full plate, but if nobody can afford it, you're screwed.

So you can go two routes with this. You can find something that everyone needs and can afford. Then Fabricate these items and sell them directly (200% profit). Or you can make luxury items and sell them to merchants (50% profit).

In the case of the former, you'd need to be making items in the 750 gp range to justify using the spell (500 gp profit). Unfortunately, I can't think of any 750 gp items that have universal need.
EDIT: Found something... 1 square yard of linen 4 gp (a trade good so full price). Linen is made from flax. I'll assume linen is 1/16th of an inch thick, so about 20 square yards is 1 cubic foot. At level 9, you can make 90 cubic feet of (non-mineral) object. So you make a 90 cubic foot bolt of linen cloth. That's 1800 square yards at 4 gp/yard = 7200 gp. 2400 gp of raw materials (flax) + Skill in weaving + 5th level spell + 9th level caster = 4800 gp profit -450 gp for spell cost = 4350 gp profit if you hire a caster. Note that this would be a bolt of cloth 3 yards wide and 600 yards long. The rolled up bolt of linen would be 9 feet long and almost 4 feet in diameter. Also, 2400 gp worth of flax would likely be an entire harvest of a large area. So, although you'd get a nice profit from one casting, you'd run out of raw flax immediately.


In the case of the latter, you would need to make items in the 3000 gp range to justify using the spell (same 500 gp profit). These items are likely mineral and thus need to be <10 cubic feet... oooh... wait... what's the volume of a suit of armor? 6 feet tall, 2 feet wide, 1.5 feet deep... that's 18 cubic feet (probably a bit less, maybe 15 cu. ft.) That would require a level 15 caster for a suit of medium sized full plate. Now the spell cost would be 750 gp. I think we need to back away from armours for this cheese, they are too bulky.

Callix
2007-07-05, 01:42 AM
Which was precisely why I felt masterwork weapons were more cost efficient, as they are less deep, and more expensive. Also, the target of fabricate is 1 cu ft/level, not the area. So the reagents must occupy this space, not the finished product.

enderrocksonall
2007-07-05, 01:56 AM
Yes. See the SRD

The SRD is talking about LOOT. not about something I just made and the quality is the same or better than the guy making it down the street. That is what I was commenting on. The fact that the value of some objects does not change with their use. A fully charged wand has the same price at the same number of charges no matter how many hands it passes through. In fact, depending on its age, it may GAIN value because it is an antique. The half-price rule refers to things whose value degrade over time.

An item that was just made is NOT sold for half of its listed price.

CASTLEMIKE
2007-07-05, 02:20 AM
The SRD is talking about LOOT. not about something I just made and the quality is the same or better than the guy making it down the street. That is what I was commenting on. The fact that the value of some objects does not change with their use. A fully charged wand has the same price at the same number of charges no matter how many hands it passes through. In fact, depending on its age, it may GAIN value because it is an antique. The half-price rule refers to things whose value degrade over time.

An item that was just made is NOT sold for half of its listed price.

That is incorrect according to the Sage at Wizards. Besides most DMs won't let Players do things like this that break their campaign.

A few weeks back someone asked the Sage at Wizards if his wizard PC Crafted a magic item for someone (NPC) besides the group.

What price would his PC receive for this brand new magic item? The answer was half market price without a feat like Mercantile Background. The rationale is even if the PC is custom crafting the item from scratch because the game is based on adventuring for treasure and the PC is a professional adventurer not a merchant. If you PC wants to sell goods for more than half market price you need a feat or PRC like Merchant Prince or a lenient DM.

Aquillion
2007-07-05, 02:36 AM
The SRD is talking about LOOT. not about something I just made and the quality is the same or better than the guy making it down the street. That is what I was commenting on. The fact that the value of some objects does not change with their use. A fully charged wand has the same price at the same number of charges no matter how many hands it passes through. In fact, depending on its age, it may GAIN value because it is an antique. The half-price rule refers to things whose value degrade over time.

An item that was just made is NOT sold for half of its listed price.No. That's not how it works.

The "full prices" listed in the SRD are for established merchants who can afford to hang that masterwork greatsword on their wall for ten years until someone comes along willing to pay what they consider it to be worth. Expecting a player to be able to get that kind of value in the half-hour they spend wandering around trying to sell things is silly.

Now, in theory, yes, you could run your PC exactly like a merchant, give up adventuring, and store all your loot someplace for ten years or whatever until you encounter someone willing to buy it, but at that point you're hardly an adventurer anymore. If I was DMing a game where the players really wanted to do that, though, I'd use it as a plot hook, make the players adventure (maybe deal with aggressive rival merchants and their hired thugs or something, plus greedy government officials and bandits?) Then, the increased profit the players got from their work would just be part of the "treasure" from the adventure... WBL and so on would be preserved.

You could be waiting a long time for selling typical loot at full price anyway--masterwork and better stuff is rare, and demand is actually probably fairly low as a result. Few people are willing to pay prime prices for a slightly better weapon when they're not using it every day like an adventurer is. This ends up making it more expensive to adventurers, because merchants will charge more for the difficulty of keeping it in stock for all that time; but it also makes it harder to sell it even remotely quickly, resulting in low prices when adventurers try and sell loot.

Have you ever tried selling something at an antique shop or someplace similar? You get the same effect, selling something at a low price that the merchant turns around and tries to sell for several times that amount. If anything, 50% is generous; one-third or less would be closer to reality. (Don't use eBay as a guidestick, though; the internet changed things by letting people reach many buyers easily. Before that, you really couldn't expect much return when selling things 'casually'. And no, magic can't substitute for this... even with Teleport and Plane Shift, you still have to contact individual buyers yourself, and when selling very high-value items like most of the good loot, you'll probably have to spend time earning trust and building reputation, too.)

Yakk
2007-07-05, 07:05 AM
Wood shape enables you to form one existing piece of wood into any shape that suits your purpose. While it is possible to make crude coffers, doors, and so forth, fine detail isn’t possible. There is a 30% chance that any shape that includes moving parts simply doesn’t work.

So no, you can't wood shape a compound longbow.

Why do people cite spells and don't even bother to read the descriptions of them? *sigh*

Citizen Joe
2007-07-05, 08:13 AM
That is incorrect according to the Sage at Wizards. Besides most DMs won't let Players do things like this that break their campaign.

A few weeks back someone asked the Sage at Wizards if his wizard PC Crafted a magic item for someone (NPC) besides the group.

What price would his PC receive for this brand new magic item? The answer was half market price without a feat like Mercantile Background. The rationale is even if the PC is custom crafting the item from scratch because the game is based on adventuring for treasure and the PC is a professional adventurer not a merchant. If you PC wants to sell goods for more than half market price you need a feat or PRC like Merchant Prince or a lenient DM.

:smallconfused: Someone needs to revoke his sage's license. Either that or that's only a partial generalized ruling. Trade does not work like that.

You get exactly what the other guy is willing to pay. The trick is that MOST people aren't willing to pay full market price for something that they aren't going to use. However, if someone comes to you and asks you to make something, then the maker sets the price. The buyer is the end user and reaps the benefits of item. Thus, the buyer should typically pay full market price in THAT case.

This is NOT the typical case though. Usually PC's have items but no buyers (end users). In those cases, the merchant is buying in the hopes that he can sell the items to someone else (at full market price).

Here's the stupid thing about that sage's advice. Enchanting costs HALF market value. If you then get HALF market value in sale price you may as well have done nothing. Imagine going to an NPC wizard in his tower and asking him for some magic items. He gives you some price. Then the PC's complement his tower and ask how long he's been a merchant. The wizard says "Pfft. I'm no merchant, I'm a wizard." At which point the PC's say "Oh? Well then we're only paying half, then." That's a REDICULOUS ruling.

So here's your simple rule of thumb:
End user pays full price, intermediary pays half.

enderrocksonall
2007-07-05, 12:08 PM
:smallconfused: Someone needs to revoke his sage's license. Either that or that's only a partial generalized ruling. Trade does not work like that.

You get exactly what the other guy is willing to pay. The trick is that MOST people aren't willing to pay full market price for something that they aren't going to use. However, if someone comes to you and asks you to make something, then the maker sets the price. The buyer is the end user and reaps the benefits of item. Thus, the buyer should typically pay full market price in THAT case.

This is NOT the typical case though. Usually PC's have items but no buyers (end users). In those cases, the merchant is buying in the hopes that he can sell the items to someone else (at full market price).

Here's the stupid thing about that sage's advice. Enchanting costs HALF market value. If you then get HALF market value in sale price you may as well have done nothing. Imagine going to an NPC wizard in his tower and asking him for some magic items. He gives you some price. Then the PC's complement his tower and ask how long he's been a merchant. The wizard says "Pfft. I'm no merchant, I'm a wizard." At which point the PC's say "Oh? Well then we're only paying half, then." That's a REDICULOUS ruling.

So here's your simple rule of thumb:
End user pays full price, intermediary pays half.

Thank you. That is a perfect example of what I was saying. I think you put it better than I did. And I wasn't just talking about weapons. I was talking about ANYTHING. Even things people use everyday, like hammers or chisels or any number of tools that people use all the time. Even clothing. According to that ruling, all NPC's have some feat that allows them to sell things at a higher price? That is totally rediculous, and I cant imagine that, if asked about it, the sage would not clarify his remarks on this topic.

To say that the game is meant to be an adventure game and not a merchant game is silly. Part of what makes the game great is the flexibility that it offers DM's and players to do absolutely whatever they can come up with.

If that were really the case then all the NPC merchants are level 1, since "adventuring" is the only way to gain experience, and a level 4 rogue could bluff them into believing that this piece of tile is a dragon scale from a white dragon.

Ceridan
2007-07-05, 01:28 PM
Heck, why bother with Fabricate - you can produce huge quantities of iron every day, so just sell the raw materials. While it is theoretically possible that the global market for all iron products will collapse at some future point, you'll be rolling in it long before. And then you can just work out how to build iron ships!

I'm in a campaign where iron is so rare it has replaced gold as the unit of currency. No, we're not going to be allowed Wall of Iron!

Plane shift to the dark sun setting. They use ceramic pieces as currancy. Any type of metal would be in high demand and most regimes would pay throught the nose for Iron. You could live like a king.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-05, 02:25 PM
Plane shift to the dark sun setting.
Or Dragonlance setting...

Anyway here is why that won't work:


PLANESHIFT
Focus
A small, forked metal rod. The size and metal type dictates to which plane of existence or alternate dimension the spell sends the affected creatures.

The DM controls this rod. Sure, you could make up any number of tuning rods, but the DM will dictate where each is attuned. If he doesn't have any attuned to Darksun or Dragonlance or MontyHaula, then you're not going anywhere.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-05, 03:16 PM
OK here we go...
CJ's Miracle Loom (Wondrous Item)

The Miracle Loom is about the size of a wagon and capable of being moved about as one. It has seating for two. In place of the cabin is a large hopper and mysterious mechanism. At the rear, there is a large spool about ten feet across. By adding appropriate materials into the hopper and setting various dials and levers on the control panel, the Miracle Loom can convert raw materials into various sheet goods. Once per week (7 days), the Miracle Loom will weave flax, cotton, or silk into a continuous roll of linen, cotton, or silk fabric up to 90 cubic feet in volume. About 1800 square yards of fabric can be made at one time. This requires the appropriate amount of materials to be loaded into the hopper (the Loom will produce finished products about 3 times the value of the materials loaded into the hopper). Typically a Loom is carted around to various farms after the harvest to quickly yield a finished product in exchange for a portion of the proceeds.

Level 5 spell (Fabricate), level 9 caster, command word, 1 charge per week, no space limitation. Total cost 5 x 9 x 1800 x 2 / 35 = 4629 gp value

Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Wondrous Item, fabricate.

This loom would pay for itself in one use making a full load of linen. You still need a few horses to haul it around though. And you need enough raw materials to make it work.

Aquillion
2007-07-05, 04:35 PM
Or Dragonlance setting...

Anyway here is why that won't work:

The DM controls this rod. Sure, you could make up any number of tuning rods, but the DM will dictate where each is attuned. If he doesn't have any attuned to Darksun or Dragonlance or MontyHaula, then you're not going anywhere.A Gate spell can take you to any plane you specify, though... although you might have to argue whether or not your character knows of that plane (or even whether or not that plane exists in the DM world. The DM could just say "Nope, not using Dark Sun" and that's that... which, since 3.0, is quite likely since Dark Sun was never officially updated for modern systems.)

Yakk
2007-07-05, 10:26 PM
So selling something for more than the quick price is what profession (merchant) is all about. There are rules for making money using profession rolls -- use them to generate the ability to sell goods for more than the quick-sell price (ie, more than 50% of book value).

I'd grant a circumstance bonus of +1 for every 1000 gp of stock -- if you have lots of goods, you can sell them better.

I'd then require a Profession(merchant) DC 10 roll every month, with a -1 for every 1000 gp in stock, a +1 for every 500 gp in security "capital", and a +1 for every 4 gp spent this month on security payroll/graft/etc. (graft can be "capital" or "monthly", depending on the nature of the graft).

Failure costs you 10% of your stock -- theft, extra large bribe, taxes, or loss. Note that a 1 is an automatic failure. The DM may optionally give you a challenge to prevent this from occuring. An encounter of difficulty commesurate with the value of stock lost would be appropriate.

Failure with a modified 0 or less costs you 1d10*10% of your stock (this happens when your stock is too high for your profession (merchant) skill and your security).

Stock is valued at full sale price, not quick sale price.

The result of your weekly profession(merchant) check is accumulated, and it lets you sell your goods for their full value instead of the half-price quick sale speed. This involves convincing people to come to your store and/or finding clients for your goods.

...

So now we have a RAW compliant way to sell goods for their full sale price that explains how NPCs sell their goods. It gives about 1% ROI per year for masses of goods, worse with lower profession(merchant), and better with higher profession(merchant).

Skills other than Profession(merchant) could be used -- Profession(enchanter) or even Profession(smith) are examples.

Someone with enough power and no Profession(merchant) skill should be allowed to make unskilled checks. So a reclusive Wizard could get the occasional magical item sale at full price without learning how to market herself or find customers. If her stock is low enough and her power high enough, she could even defeat the folks coming along to try to steal her stock, as the encounters would be relatively low compared to her power level.

This would, as a side effect, earn her XP and increase her power slowly. :)

Citizen Joe
2007-07-05, 11:01 PM
:smallconfused:
That description gave me a brain hemorage comparable to the IRS tax code.

There is no need to complicate things with some weird dice rolling skill point sucking mechanic.

If someone wants something you have, you can ask whatever price you want. If you ask more than market price, then they'll go elsewhere.

If nobody wants what you're selling, you can reduce the price until someone is willing to pay that price. Usually that's in the half market value range.

There's no game mechanic there, its just the way free market economies work. Now, you could posit the idea that the particular nation you're in is some sort of communist or fascist state where they require training and a license to buy and sell stuff. In that case, you're legally bound to sell your stuff at half market and buy at full market unless you have the license.

Aquillion
2007-07-06, 02:32 AM
Or rocks could fall and everyone could die for spending so much time discussing the logic behind the sale of loot. D&D is an adventuring game, not a stock trading game; the rules for loot-sale and prices serve a number of key game-mechanic purposes, none of which have anything to do with economics. Specifically:

1. They keep loot special. This is actually extremely important, probably the main reason it works the way it does. If players could just turn around and sell loot at full price, there would usually be no purpose to even describing what sort of loot you find--the DM could just say "You find generic loot worth 1000 gold. What do you want to spend it on?" An exaggeration, perhaps, but not by much... Players would almost never keep loot, instead always trading it in for exactly what they want. This is boring.

2. They make it somewhat easier to keep to WBL guidelines. Occasionally, players will be able to get things they weren't supposed to get... it happens. No DM wants to have to use DM fiat to say "no, your effort to steal that fails" or "Ok, you got a lucky critical, but the weapon he was carrying mysteriously breaks as he falls" or whatever. The 50% value rule limits the damage that these things can cause.

3. They ensure that buying equipment is an investment, making players actually make tough decisions on what to buy and when. If they could sell at full price, they'd always have as much equipment as they can afford.

4. It keeps players from trading in for "situational" equipment they need on one quest--"Oh, we're fighting werewolves today? Hold it, I'll just sell my heavily-enchanted sword, and buy a slightly-less-heavily-enchanted one that's silvered. Then I'll switch it back once the werewolves are dead."

5. It is quick and easy. This is the other main reason. RPing out bargaining is fun every once and a while for very important things. Nobody wants to have to RP out the sale of each and every piece of loot they find, or each and every healing potion they buy. The 50% rule is a quick and easy way to abstract this process out so players can get back to what the game was supposed to be about--you know, adventuring.

These reasons (and more) are the reasons why WotC was so quick and firm to shoot down any suggestion that players could sell for more than 50% value, ever. Yes, it isn't fair, and yes, it badly breaks what is usually one of the core principals of D&D, the idea that PCs and NPCs are mechanically the same in most respects. But in this case it is almost unavoidable if you want the game to run smoothly and work the way it was intended to.

The previous explainations (including the one I gave) are fine excuses. They're useful if you need a way to suspend your disbelief and get everyone to accept the 50% cludge. They're not the real reason things work the way they do, though. (Otherwise, every smart adventurer would employ a few NPC salespeople to stock and sell the things they find for them, while bargaining for things like healing potions in bulk. Given the rate at which players find loot, it could easily support a decent-sized shop, and in the long run its profits would give the players almost-full return on their loot, minus the small payment for their salespeople.)

Yakk
2007-07-06, 08:29 AM
:smallconfused:
That description gave me a brain hemorage comparable to the IRS tax code.

No, that wasn't the IRS tax code. Understanding why I picked those values might require math equivilent to the IRS tax code, but the checks are pretty easy.

A simple system, for the mathematically disenclined, is:
+1 circumstance bonus to your profession(merchant) for every 10,000 gp in stock you have.

That generates roughly a 1% return on capital. If you want to be generous, give +1 for every 5,000 gp.

Profession(merchant) lets you sell your stock for more than the quick-value price.


There is no need to complicate things with some weird dice rolling skill point sucking mechanic.

I agree! Players sell non-commodities for one half of their list price. Period. Players buy non-commodities for their full list price.

Done.


If someone wants something you have, you can ask whatever price you want. If you ask more than market price, then they'll go elsewhere.

By the RAW, nobody wants most of what the players have enough to pay more than 1/2 of the list price.


If nobody wants what you're selling, you can reduce the price until someone is willing to pay that price. Usually that's in the half market value range.

It averages at the half list price by RAW. Sometimes you'll get less, sometimes you'll get more.

If you aren't a professional who spends their life working on selling things for more, by the raw, the price you get is 1/2 of the list price.

And there are rules for using a profession to earn money. You generate (profession skill check) gp per week.

The addition of a circumstance bonus based off of capital is a concession to the fact that investment can make you richer. Hence the circumstance bonus.

The chance to lose some or all of it is an attempt to make being a merchant more dangerous and fun. :)


There's no game mechanic there, its just the way free market economies work. Now, you could posit the idea that the particular nation you're in is some sort of communist or fascist state where they require training and a license to buy and sell stuff. In that case, you're legally bound to sell your stuff at half market and buy at full market unless you have the license.

By the RAW, selling stuff at full list price is hard. Finding buyers isn't easy.

Selling stuff at half list price is relatively easy, something you can do without spending your life trying to sell your goods.

By the RAW, this isn't due to the legal situation -- the reason is up to the DM. There are, however, easy economic reasons why not spending your life trying to sell items would give you lower prices.

Even in the real world, with highly developed property law, highly developed legal systems, and highly developed transportation systems, pre eBay you where extremely lucky to get 50 cents on the dollar when you where selling goods as an amateur.

And in a world where property law is not nearly as developed, where transportation is expensive, etc etc -- 50 cents on the dollar is generous.

And, as noted by me and many others, if the character wants to spend years of their life selling goods, they can -- as I noted, there is a RAW mechanism for making money selling goods at higher prices. The profession skill.

Sajek
2007-07-06, 01:14 PM
Once the market for weapons collapses, you can try this trick.

Allow me to introduce you to Sandstorm's wall of salt. At the minimum level (7), you create seven five-foot cubes of salt, which is 875 cubic feet.

Converted to inches, that's 1,512,000 cubic inches. Convert to centimeters, that's 24,777,240 cubic centimeters. Salt weighs 2.16 grams per cubic CM, so you have just created (instantaneously) 53,518,840 grams of salt, or 53,518.84 kilograms. That, converted to pounds, is 117,741.44 pounds.

According to the player's handbook, one pound of salt is worth 5 gp. Congratualtions, you are now making (117,741.44 x 5) 588,707 gp with each casting.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-06, 02:54 PM
Someone should make the spell: Wall of Golden Coins and be done with it.

Yakk
2007-07-11, 11:36 AM
Summon Gold Coins
Conjuration [$$$, Creation, Earth]
Level: Wiz 1
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: 1 Coin
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude or N/A
Spell Resistance: Blocks

By saying the word Aloume-Emig and touching a standard sized gold coin and concentrating, you summon 1d6 identical gold coins per level of the caster. These appear in your leather bag (the spell focus). Gold coins worth more than 1 gp each are summoned in lesser numbers, but the same total value, rounded down. The spell fails if you fail to create at least 1 coin's value.

These gold coins radiate conjuration magic faintly for 1d6 days after they are summoned, but are otherwise mundane and identical to the original.

The original coin is destroyed.

If cast on a coin in someones possession, the target may make a fortitude save, and spell resistance applies. Similarly, if the coin is a magical item, it can make a fortitude save or a spell resistance roll to stop the spell.

Arbitrarity
2007-07-11, 11:38 AM
That spell sucks. You can make more money selling your services :P.

Try this on for size: Real creating stuff. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/spells/trueCreation.htm)

Yakk
2007-07-11, 11:44 AM
That takes XP, silly. Who wants to spend a L 8 spell and 120 XP to summon 120 gold coins, when you could instead cast maximized summon gold coin?

And this spell allows you to bootstrap your wealth without having to sell yourself off as a wizard. It is also somewhat impressive -- making money out of nothing is sure to impressed the mundanes.

A Wizard or Sorcerer with this spell could travel with a single gold coin, and summon money for expenses as they need it. Simply take one of the summoned coins out of the bag...

As a bonus, at level 1, it ends up being sort of funny when you roll a 1!

Arbitrarity
2007-07-11, 11:50 AM
I know :P. The amount of XP for that spell hurts.

How about the Everfull Purse? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/artifacts.htm#everfullPurse)

Only 1/day, but still funny.

CASTLEMIKE
2007-07-11, 03:48 PM
:smallconfused: Someone needs to revoke his sage's license. Either that or that's only a partial generalized ruling. Trade does not work like that.

You get exactly what the other guy is willing to pay. The trick is that MOST people aren't willing to pay full market price for something that they aren't going to use. However, if someone comes to you and asks you to make something, then the maker sets the price. The buyer is the end user and reaps the benefits of item. Thus, the buyer should typically pay full market price in THAT case.

This is NOT the typical case though. Usually PC's have items but no buyers (end users). In those cases, the merchant is buying in the hopes that he can sell the items to someone else (at full market price).

Here's the stupid thing about that sage's advice. Enchanting costs HALF market value. If you then get HALF market value in sale price you may as well have done nothing. Imagine going to an NPC wizard in his tower and asking him for some magic items. He gives you some price. Then the PC's complement his tower and ask how long he's been a merchant. The wizard says "Pfft. I'm no merchant, I'm a wizard." At which point the PC's say "Oh? Well then we're only paying half, then." That's a REDICULOUS ruling.

So here's your simple rule of thumb:
End user pays full price, intermediary pays half.

Your simple rule of thumb is to abuseable in game IMO. The game is Dungeons and Dragons not Merchants and Infinite Wealth Cheese. See Ask Wizards question and answer on 3/03/07.

This is a game not a modern economy. Generally a fantasy medieval campaign with the DM in charge of supply and demand economics.

I generally interpret Market price in game as the price a typical person pays for a Brand New, Never Used normally hand crafted item that is either custom made according to the buyer's specifications in a few days or a few weeks or already built to general specifications and standards for a completed crafted item that sees regular demand. There is normally not a lot of demand with the ability to pay for high ticket items with existing standard campaign demographics.

The local merchant or blacksmith might have a few knives which are available for immediate purchase since they are affordable to the general populace. Not lots of swords or armor which the general populace doesn't normally use or is able to afford. Most locals will buy a sword from the local blacksmith or merchant particularly a used one since they are basically certifying it as a good item. Most high level NPCs already have their gear and don't need to go out and buy new gear.

According to DMG demographics 90% of the population lives in villages, hamlets and thorps all with limited wealth. Approximately 90% of the populace are commoners. Most commoners earn about 1 SP a day. In most campaigns it would be odd to find more than one general store if that in a village, hamlet or thorp.

The larger population centers already have existing merchants and crafters in residence. Who would you buy from for a major purchase at market price all things being equal? Are you going to buy from the established local resident with the good reputation or the itinerent adventurer you don't normally know? What if there is a problem with your purchase? You can work with the local reputable merchant. The adventurer with his possibly purloined goods might not be around after the sale much less next week, next year or decade.

If you are the DM you can do whatever you want in your campaign but why reinvent the wheel? Have the PCs interested in mercantile endeavors take the right feats, domains (Commerce +10 to profession checks) and PRCs.

If you are a player just talk with your DM about taking a feat or two or talk with your DM about obtaining a Court Magist position like was described in the back of Complete Arcane. In the end the DM controls the demand for goods over and above the standard 50% without a feat or PRC.

If you want to run a merchant type PC under the existing rules.

Consider taking the Mercantile Background (75% instead of 50% plus once a month you can buy a single item for 75% of market price including expensive magical items). The idea is you are using your family connections to get those good prices.

Consider taking Magical Artisan which will allow you to make a profit using existing rules for selling items at 50% which is really nice when used in conjunction with the Mercantile background feat.

Most DMs let your PC earn money adventuring unless you are taking the right feats or a PRC like Merchant Prince.

elliott20
2007-07-11, 04:00 PM
I just don't think the D&D system is sophisticated enough to actually handle real economic system. Really, just by the various "summon material" spells out there combined with the right "fabricate" spell can easily break a number of trades and basically render creating these items moot. It'll be like water in our society where it's usage is almost trivial in price.

Said iron masterwork weapon wizard would not really be a merchant selling iron goods, he would be more like a utility firm that just provides the service of creating massive amounts of materials when needed.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-11, 04:26 PM
Did it occur to anyone that you can pretty much break the economy with charm and forget spells? "Yes, I paid you already" or "No, I never bought anything."

Elana
2007-07-12, 06:06 AM
Just make a business and sell your services as a wizard.

if you charge the same as an NPC wizard you get filthy rich in no time.
(2nd level spell, not under 60 gp, more if you are good at your job)

if you have trouble finding customers, charge the other PCs for your services.
(Works probably better for a cleric, the other players need so much healing all the time)

Jack_Simth
2007-07-12, 06:24 AM
Just make a business and sell your services as a wizard.

if you charge the same as an NPC wizard you get filthy rich in no time.
(2nd level spell, not under 60 gp, more if you are good at your job)

That is assuming you can find customers that often.

As a DM, I'd ask you to make a profession(Wizard) check, using the normal profession rules. Represents an average of how much you can arrange to earn (by way of finding customers, of course).

What, you've got a low Wisdom score, and no ranks? Sorry, not useable untrained. You spend a week finding you can't figure out how to advertise properly (or getting fined when you find out that the Illusory Wall sign/other adds you put up is in violation of local laws).


if you have trouble finding customers, charge the other PCs for your services.
(Works probably better for a cleric, the other players need so much healing all the time)
That way lies in-party fighting of one sort or another, with eventual TPK's.

Elana
2007-07-12, 07:09 AM
Well, no sense in beating the only one with healing spells.

If they don't want to pay they can either learn to do that themselfs or make some other sort of trade.

(And if you are aiming for infinite wealth, you have to target the people with lots of cash. And since a PC has a lot more cash than the average NPC of the same level, the market is small)

Roog
2007-07-12, 07:36 AM
If they don't want to pay they can either learn to do that themselfs or make some other sort of trade.

Usually I find that offering to give a stuff whether your character lives or dies in combat is a fair trade.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-12, 03:56 PM
Well, no sense in beating the only one with healing spells.

If they don't want to pay they can either learn to do that themselfs or make some other sort of trade.

(And if you are aiming for infinite wealth, you have to target the people with lots of cash. And since a PC has a lot more cash than the average NPC of the same level, the market is small)
Not all fighting is combat.

You (the Cleric) start charging for healing.

The Wizard starts charging you for spells he casts, or not giving you the benefits; Next time Melee comes up, for some odd reason, you're left out of the Haste that otherwise encompasses the entire party. When the Wizard casts Analyze Deweomer and the party is dividing loot, you're the only one who doesn't know what's what, and are forced to pick blind (unless you pay him a substantial fee). You find you need your own Rope Trick to hide in at night (again, unless you pay him a substantial fee), and so on. You have no recourse to complaint, because he's simply doing the same thing you are, in response - following your lead.

The Rogue switches from Disarming traps to Bypassing them. And undoes the bypass just before you walk through (unless you start paying him a fee of his choosing). The next time he finds a hidden cache while searching, you're left out of the loot division (unless you've been paying him to search), and so on. Again, you have no recourse to complaint, because he's simply doing the same thing you are, in response - following your lead.

The Fighter has a little less of a hold over you, but he might just stop Tripping people up who are trying to kill the comparatively fragile Cleric. Again - you can't really say anything about it.

Or maybe the rest of the party stops providing you services as above (after all, you stopped providing them services) AND pick up a few wands of Cure Light Wounds (or Lesser Vigor) for the rogue to UMD. Suddenly, not only are you missing out on the benefits of your "friends" services, but you're not getting the kickback you expected from doing so.

But then, even if your fellow PC's put up with it, and don't attempt to counter in any way, unless the DM is actively countering your tactics, you're STILL liable to lead to a TPK eventually - you're draining their wealth, and wealth is a significant portion of a character's "power". You're weakening the other characters in the party. CR ceases to match appropriately, and eventually, you're left as the only one who's up to snuff to deal with something that you can't deal with alone. Then TPK happens.

Did I forget to say "that's a really really bad idea"?

Aquillion
2007-07-12, 04:28 PM
That takes XP, silly. Who wants to spend a L 8 spell and 120 XP to summon 120 gold coins, when you could instead cast maximized summon gold coin?There was a time when one of the Heir of Siberys marks gave you True Creation as a spell-like ability once per day (CL 15) without an XP cost. They errataed that, though. I suppose you could go with the Dweoemerkeeper from the web-enhancement for the Complete Divine, which among other things lets cast spells without paying their XP cost a few times per day... but at that point, you might as well just throw around Wish spells instead.

Siegfried262
2007-07-13, 08:57 AM
Well, with all those weapons I reckon you could attempt to planeshift to somewhere in the Abyss or Baator to sell the weapons to the Tanar'ri. or Baatezu. (What with the never ending blood war :O) That would be pretty risky though.

Silentmaster101
2007-08-08, 10:52 AM
Well, with all those weapons I reckon you could attempt to planeshift to somewhere in the Abyss or Baator to sell the weapons to the Tanar'ri. or Baatezu. (What with the never ending blood war :O) That would be pretty risky though.

so why dont you just use major creation then hightail it out of there before it fades? and cast magic aura on it to hide its sig.

Hagentai
2007-08-08, 04:38 PM
Meoowwaaaaarghh!


Step four. A group of High Enforcers from the Dwarven Guild of Crafts teleport in. They are NOT amused.

I'm ammuzed by the idea, I would just make the player spend lots of game time selling this from npc to npc till he realized he would be better off looting a dungeon. Now on the other hand if your a epic cheap DM where even at a slow rate of exchange this trick would still be more profitable in the long run you deserve to have this pulled on you.

Deth Muncher
2007-08-08, 04:57 PM
I'm sorry, but this whole scheme sounds like one big broken wheel of cheese with a strap-on beard. Meaning, of course, that this scheme - because that's essentially what it is - is amusing, although not entirely useful. Now, let's say you had to, say, as part of a side-quest, equip an army, as someone mentioned earlier. THAT is an acceptable, and not incredibly bad, way to put this spell-combo to use.