Applications of Wall of Money...I mean Salt, Wall of Salt

[Kalaska'Agathas]

So I was reading this thread regarding Higher-Level currencies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?505824-Higher-level-alternative-currencies) (concerning the point at which carrying Gold Pieces becomes impractical, logistically speaking) and I was thinking about the practical consequences of Sandstorm's Wall of Salt. Given that Salt is a trade good (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm) which may be used in place of currency (at a rate of 5 GP per pound), one could easily quantify the value created by a scroll or wand of Wall of Salt. One casting of Wall of Salt at the minimum Caster Level (for Clerics, Druids, and Wizards) creates 102.1 cubic feet of salt, with a mass of 7870 pounds, equivalent to 39,350 GP. A scroll of Wall of Salt (crafted at the minimum caster level) has a market value of 700 GP, and a wand (with 50 charges) has a market value of 21,000 GP. Which means, in essence, that a minimum caster level scroll of Wall of Salt has the ability to create 38,650 GP in value (39,350 GP less the 700 GP cost of the scroll), and a fully charged wand can create 1,946,500 GP (1,967,500 less the 21,000 GP cost of the wand). Given that both wands and scrolls have negligible weight (I can't even find a listing for the weight of a scroll), carrying these items is considerably easier than their equivalent weight in gold, even before considering the value of the salt they can create. Therefore items capable of casting Wall of Salt may be the most efficient means of carrying large amounts of liquid and transferable value.

Now, of course, this assumes that the value of Salt will be constant and universal, which would not be the case in a real economy (a glut of a given good should usually reduce the value of that good, relatively speaking). But, as it stands, this could be a relatively simple, RAW way for low to mid level characters to yet again make a complete mockery of the Wealth by Level table.

Special thanks to fellow playgrounder Lestroisrois for help in running the numbers.

[Coidzor]

A 1/day or 1/week or 1/month item of Wall of Salt would allow an isolated magic item crafter to supply the gp cost component of magic item creation. Or just make a wand or scroll of it before the salt gets too low.

I believe it counts as crystal instead of stone, so it can act as part of a multi-layer, multi-material wall along with wall of stone and wall of iron.

You can use it to add salt to an environment when making and/or terraforming a world.

[GilesTheCleric]

Would a scroll (or trapsmith wand) of Fabricate to create saffron be a "denser" gp replacement than a wand of salt?

[Coidzor]

Would a scroll (or trapsmith wand) of Fabricate to create saffron be a "denser" gp replacement than a wand of salt?

By incorporating 1/3 the final cost of the saffron into the item as a material component?

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Would a scroll (or trapsmith wand) of Fabricate to create saffron be a "denser" gp replacement than a wand of salt?

I don't think that spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm) does what you think it does (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk).

[Darrin]

Would a scroll (or trapsmith wand) of Fabricate to create saffron be a "denser" gp replacement than a wand of salt?

Cloves (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/substance/spices-coma-and-blank-cloves-coma-and-blank-ground) are denser than saffron (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/Spices-coma-and-blank-saffron). But you'll want to use summon monster VII rather than fabricate. Summon a djinn, or pay 910 GP to a 13th level spellcaster to summon one, and he can use major creation as an SLA to create 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter with a permanent duration. 20 cubic feet of saffron yields about 2661 GP, while 20 cubic feet of cloves yields about triple that: 8232 GP.

[Inevitability]

Cloves (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/substance/spices-coma-and-blank-cloves-coma-and-blank-ground) are denser than saffron (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/Spices-coma-and-blank-saffron). But you'll want to use summon monster VII rather than fabricate. Summon a djinn, or pay 910 GP to a 13th level spellcaster to summon one, and he can use major creation as an SLA to create 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter with a permanent duration. 20 cubic feet of saffron yields about 2661 GP, while 20 cubic feet of cloves yields about triple that: 8232 GP.

If you want to abuse WBL with djinni, get them to create Black Lotus Extract instead. It's priced at 4500 gp an ounce, so that's a little over 85 million GP per casting.

It also happens to be more versatile than cloves.

[GilesTheCleric]

major creation

That was the one I was thinking of, sorry.

[Coidzor]

Cloves (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/substance/spices-coma-and-blank-cloves-coma-and-blank-ground) are denser than saffron (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/Spices-coma-and-blank-saffron). But you'll want to use summon monster VII rather than fabricate. Summon a djinn, or pay 910 GP to a 13th level spellcaster to summon one, and he can use major creation as an SLA to create 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter with a permanent duration. 20 cubic feet of saffron yields about 2661 GP, while 20 cubic feet of cloves yields about triple that: 8232 GP.

Doesn't summoning it mean the plant matter goes away after it blinks away, for the same reason why you can't use Summon Monster to get Lantern Archons to Continual Flame you up street lights in your cities?

[Getsugaru]

Doesn't summoning it mean the plant matter goes away after it blinks away, for the same reason why you can't use Summon Monster to get Lantern Archons to Continual Flame you up street lights in your cities?

The Djinni specifically states that vegetable matter created via its Major Creation SPA is permanent.

[Coidzor]

The Djinni specifically states that vegetable matter created via its Major Creation SPA is permanent.

As opposed to the standard duration, yes.

However, there's a clause in summoning spells about spells and SLAs of summons expiring, even if they have remaining duration.

[Inevitability]

As opposed to the standard duration, yes.

However, there's a clause in summoning spells about spells and SLAs of summons expiring, even if they have remaining duration.

Just bind it. You can literally offer the djinn a million gold pieces in exchange for six seconds of its time and still make a fortune.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Cloves (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/substance/spices-coma-and-blank-cloves-coma-and-blank-ground) are denser than saffron (http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight/Spices-coma-and-blank-saffron). But you'll want to use summon monster VII rather than fabricate. Summon a djinn, or pay 910 GP to a 13th level spellcaster to summon one, and he can use major creation as an SLA to create 20 cubic feet of vegetable matter with a permanent duration. 20 cubic feet of saffron yields about 2661 GP, while 20 cubic feet of cloves yields about triple that: 8232 GP.

13th level casters are generally neither liquid nor transferable (in the economic sense), as far as my experience goes. At that point, why not just pick up a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation and chain gate Efreet? A Genie can use Major Creation once per casting of Summon Monster VII, so that's 8232 GP per casting of Summon Monster VII. You can't (normally) pick up Summon Monster VII on a wand, and a scroll costs at minimum 2275 GP. Ten scrolls of Summon Monster VII cost a little bit more than a single wand of Wall of Salt, and (less the cost of the scrolls) yields 58,570 GP of cloves, so I think the wand of Wall of Salt still comes out ahead, as a useful currency equivalent.


If you want to abuse WBL with djinni, get them to create Black Lotus Extract instead. It's priced at 4500 gp an ounce, so that's a little over 85 million GP per casting.

It also happens to be more versatile than cloves.

Black Lotus Extract is worth more per ounce, but it is not a trade good and therefore cannot be assumed to be equivalent to GP in all cases, as (by RAW) Salt can. And Black Lotus Extract is so much less versatile than cloves - all it can do is kill people - whereas cloves can flavor innumerable cuisines and dishes. In all, I think cloves is the more broadly useful, of the two.


As opposed to the standard duration, yes.

However, there's a clause in summoning spells about spells and SLAs of summons expiring, even if they have remaining duration.

I suspect this is a case of the specific clause in the Djinn statblock trumping the general clause in the summoning spells.

[Âmesang]

As impractical as it probably is I always liked to imagine casting wall of iron on Krynn, purchase an appropriate amount of carbon (charcoal?), fabricate the wall into masterwork steel greatswords, then use Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate/charm person/what-have-you to sell the greatswords to the various knights and lands strictly for gold pieces—40 gold pieces for each steel piece, so 14,000 gp per greatsword.

Assuming CL 12 that should craft, approximately, 4,705 masterwork steel greatswords sold for 65,870,000 gp… or 32,935 tons of gold; if you can find a way to transport all of it take it Oerth, Toril, Eberron, or wherever else. :smalltongue: Maybe splurge for a wish scroll to turn the iron into adamantine (see adamantine golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/golem.htm#adamantineGolem)).

(Heck, simply fabricating the wall of iron into a "wall of steel" should produce enough to sell for 1,500,000 Krynn gp or so.)

[Coidzor]

As impractical as it probably is I always liked to imagine casting wall of iron on Krynn, purchase an appropriate amount of carbon (charcoal?), fabricate the wall into masterwork steel greatswords, then use Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate/charm person/what-have-you to sell the greatswords to the various knights and lands strictly for gold pieces—40 gold pieces for each steel piece, so 14,000 gp per greatsword.

Assuming CL 12 that should craft, approximately, 4,705 masterwork steel greatswords sold for 65,870,000 gp… or 32,935 tons of gold; if you can find a way to transport all of it take it Oerth, Toril, Eberron, or wherever else. :smalltongue: Maybe splurge for a wish scroll to turn the iron into adamantine (see adamantine golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/golem.htm#adamantineGolem)).

(Heck, simply fabricating the wall of iron into a "wall of steel" should produce enough to sell for 1,500,000 Krynn gp or so.)

I think mostly what you'd end up doing, since I don't think Krynn has much in the way of gold actually on hand anywhere, is lead to a lot of adventurers making a run on the old abandoned, largely worthless caches of ancient gold.

[Inevitability]

Black Lotus Extract is worth more per ounce, but it is not a trade good and therefore cannot be assumed to be equivalent to GP in all cases, as (by RAW) Salt can. And Black Lotus Extract is so much less versatile than cloves - all it can do is kill people - whereas cloves can flavor innumerable cuisines and dishes. In all, I think cloves is the more broadly useful, of the two.

Can you give some quotations for that? I thought the only difference between trade and regular goods was that trade goods could be directly used as money whereas regular ones first had to be traded for gold.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Can you give some quotations for that? I thought the only difference between trade and regular goods was that trade goods could be directly used as money whereas regular ones first had to be traded for gold.

Sure:



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. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)

So you first have to find a buyer for your Black Lotus Extract, which you may then sell at half its list price. But that is assuming you can find a buyer - in many contexts you may find yourself hard pressed to find anyone willing to buy even a couple doses. Whereas salt, per RAW, can be treated "as if it were cash itself."

It's sort of like the difference between 1.4 million dollars in AAA Bearer Bonds and a Pagani Huayra (http://storage.pagani.com/view/1024/2010-12-12-Pagani-07-457m92m4mm-2.jpg) - both have about the same value (give or take), but I'm going to have a much easier time using the bonds in the place of cash than I am the car. There's no guarantee that I'm going to be able to find a buyer for the Huayra (or the Black Lotus Extract*), whereas the securities are a financial instrument of a known value. And by the rules, so is salt. So an item which can create vast amounts of salt can, in and of itself, become a sort of financial instrument, suitable for replacing gold pieces when carting around literal carts of gold becomes impractical.

*It's too bad Lotus doesn't make a hypercar; this analogy would be much more amusing if they did.

[Gusmo]

Why do you need more than platinum and a bag of holding devoted to it? According to the SRD, a pound of platinum is worth 500 GP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins). A type 4 bag of holding can take 1,500 pounds of platinum, which works out to 750,000 GP. WBL for a 20th level character is 760,000 GP (edit: hey, cool, 750,000 GP in platinum plus the 10,000 GP cost of type 4 bag works out to 760,000!). In a real game (as in, not forum theorycrafting funtime) you can bet they're not going to be carrying enough of that around in coins to even be close to the limit of their bag, even factoring in other stuff they'd want to store in the bag. I just don't see this as ever being an issue. By the time you need more than that, another bag of holding or two shouldn't be much of an expense.

Edit: in fact if you were to tell me to rack and unrack the weight I'd use on leg day for 5 rep sets of squats, deadlifts, and leg presses, that'd be more than 1,500 pounds right there. As long as you break it down into manageable pieces, handing over tons of weight from extradimensional storage doesn't seem like it would take a lot of time. The bag of holding itself already weighs 60 pounds, which means your character should be able to lift 50 pound ingots. If you break down 1,300 pounds into 50 pound ingots of platinum, that's 26 ingots. You can reserve the last 200 pounds for smaller units to make change. Let's say a couple 25 pound ingots, some 10, 5, and 1 pound ingots, then 5 pounds of platinum coins. Even in scenarios where you need to count stuff out and make change, it wouldn't take much time.

As to the original thread topic somewhat, with crazy WBL breaking or even infinite wealth being thrown around as a possibility, I don't even see feel like wall of salt is worth the time, just go straight for real currency. A candle of invocation works, but there's plenty of other infinite wealth/magic item loops, in particular astral projection (obtainable as soon as you can turn afford to turn yourself into a nightmare) allows various ways to create infinite wealth (and extradimensional storage for it) that are entirely self-contained (IE not reliant on NPCs) thanks to its stupid wording which duplicates all your stuff. What DM is going to be okay with a couple wands of wall of salt being able to be worth just over the entire WBL of a 5 person party of 20th level PCs, but not okay with candles of invocation, astral projection, and other shenanigans accomplishing the same thing?

Edit: I think if you're wanting highest wealth per unit of density, it's hard to beat a bag of holding filled with rings of 3 wishes. Here's the physical description of rings from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm): "Rings have no appreciable weight. Although exceptions exist that are crafted from glass or bone, the vast majority of rings are forged from metal—usually precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. A ring has AC 13, 2 hit points, hardness 10, and a break DC of 25." Edit: wait, no, highest density would be some sort of infinite caster level loop plus hoard gullet combined with the most valuable cash equivalent you could muster, which as far as I can still think of is still a ring of 3 wishes, due to its ability to create money.

[Inevitability]

Sure:



So you first have to find a buyer for your Black Lotus Extract, which you may then sell at half its list price. But that is assuming you can find a buyer - in many contexts you may find yourself hard pressed to find anyone willing to buy even a couple doses. Whereas salt, per RAW, can be treated "as if it were cash itself."

It's sort of like the difference between 1.4 million dollars in AAA Bearer Bonds and a Pagani Huayra (http://storage.pagani.com/view/1024/2010-12-12-Pagani-07-457m92m4mm-2.jpg) - both have about the same value (give or take), but I'm going to have a much easier time using the bonds in the place of cash than I am the car. There's no guarantee that I'm going to be able to find a buyer for the Huayra (or the Black Lotus Extract*), whereas the securities are a financial instrument of a known value. And by the rules, so is salt. So an item which can create vast amounts of salt can, in and of itself, become a sort of financial instrument, suitable for replacing gold pieces when carting around literal carts of gold becomes impractical.

*It's too bad Lotus doesn't make a hypercar; this analogy would be much more amusing if they did.

That's a fair point, but I'd like to point out that finding a buyer is much, much easier when whoever is looking for one has 6th-level spells available anyway. Not only that, the market for everything is virtually infinite in D&D, if only because demons are a thing.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Why do you need more than platinum and a bag of holding devoted to it? According to the SRD, a pound of platinum is worth 500 GP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins). A type 4 bag of holding can take 1,500 pounds of platinum, which works out to 750,000 GP. WBL for a 20th level character is 760,000 GP (edit: hey, cool, 750,000 GP in platinum plus the 10,000 GP cost of type 4 bag works out to 760,000!). In a real game (as in, not forum theorycrafting funtime) you can bet they're not going to be carrying enough of that around in coins to even be close to the limit of their bag, even factoring in other stuff they'd want to store in the bag. I just don't see this as ever being an issue. By the time you need more than that, another bag of holding or two shouldn't be much of an expense.

Edit: in fact if you were to tell me to rack and unrack the weight I'd use on leg day for 5 rep sets of squats, deadlifts, and leg presses, that'd be more than 1,500 pounds right there. As long as you break it down into manageable pieces, handing over tons of weight from extradimensional storage doesn't seem like it would take a lot of time. The bag of holding itself already weighs 60 pounds, which means your character should be able to lift 50 pound ingots. If you break down 1,300 pounds into 50 pound ingots of platinum, that's 26 ingots. You can reserve the last 200 pounds for smaller units to make change. Let's say a couple 25 pound ingots, some 10, 5, and 1 pound ingots, then 5 pounds of platinum coins. Even in scenarios where you need to count stuff out and make change, it wouldn't take much time.

As to the original thread topic somewhat, with crazy WBL breaking or even infinite wealth being thrown around as a possibility, I don't even see feel like wall of salt is worth the time, just go straight for real currency. A candle of invocation works, but there's plenty of other infinite wealth/magic item loops, in particular astral projection (obtainable as soon as you can turn afford to turn yourself into a nightmare) allows various ways to create infinite wealth (and extradimensional storage for it) that are entirely self-contained (IE not reliant on NPCs) thanks to its stupid wording which duplicates all your stuff. What DM is going to be okay with a couple wands of wall of salt being able to be worth just over the entire WBL of a 5 person party of 20th level PCs, but not okay with candles of invocation, astral projection, and other shenanigans accomplishing the same thing?

Edit: I think if you're wanting highest wealth per unit of density, it's hard to beat a bag of holding filled with rings of 3 wishes. Here's the physical description of rings from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm): "Rings have no appreciable weight. Although exceptions exist that are crafted from glass or bone, the vast majority of rings are forged from metal—usually precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. A ring has AC 13, 2 hit points, hardness 10, and a break DC of 25." Edit: wait, no, highest density would be some sort of infinite caster level loop plus hoard gullet combined with the most valuable cash equivalent you could muster, which as far as I can still think of is still a ring of 3 wishes, due to its ability to create money.

Wands of Wall of Salt are still more value dense than Rings of Three Wishes - a single Ring of Three Wishes can generate up to 75,000 GP in value, but costs 97,950 GP to purchase. Wands also have negligible weight (no weight listed), and a single wand of Wall of Salt can generate almost 2,000,000 GP of value, even considering the cost of the wand.

And yes, this is all to one degree or another theoretical. A single wand breaks WBL for any character, pre-epic, and can be crafted as low as 7th level (and purchased with less than half your WBL at 10th. Platinum is also sufficiently value dense that it should work for most games. But I figured this application of the spell might be worth remarking on. Would I use it in game? Only when the power level is very high. Would I allow it in a game I'm running? I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with salt maintaining its value if you put that much of it on the market at once, but if I were running a properly high-powered campaign, I'd let it fly. But it does, in theory, provide a RAW means of transporting large amounts of value with minimum effort.


That's a fair point, but I'd like to point out that finding a buyer is much, much easier when whoever is looking for one has 6th-level spells available anyway. Not only that, the market for everything is virtually infinite in D&D, if only because demons are a thing.

The market may be virtually infinite, but the fact that you need to convert it to cash before you can use it as such lets your DM decide whether or not you're going to be able to do so. Salt is (as good as) money, per RAW, which does increase its utility quite a bit. Add to that the fact that Wall of Salt comes online a lot sooner, and, well...

Basically, if you can reliably find a buyer, yeah, Summon Monster VII for a Djinn, and then the Djinn's Major Creation to create 20 cubic feet of Black Lotus Extract may be higher yield. But a wand of Wall of Salt comes with a triple A rating from Mummy's Investors Service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moody%27s_Investors_Service), S&P (Skeleton and Phantom) Financial Services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_%26_Poor%27s#Credit_ratings), and Lich Ratings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitch_Ratings). Sometimes it's not strictly about yield, but security, you know?

[Jack_Simth]

Basically, if you can reliably find a buyer, yeah, Summon Monster VII for a Djinn, and then the Djinn's Major Creation to create 20 cubic feet of Black Lotus Extract may be higher yield. But a wand of Wall of Salt comes with a triple A rating from Mummy's Investors Service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moody%27s_Investors_Service), S&P (Skeleton and Phantom) Financial Services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_%26_Poor%27s#Credit_ratings), and Lich Ratings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitch_Ratings). Sometimes it's not strictly about yield, but security, you know?

Summon Monster VII doesn't work for this. The duration of Major Creation used for plant matter is normally 2 hours/level. The Dijinni special changes that to Permanent. Then the Summon rules (when the Dijinni is summoned, rather than called) reduce that the the remaining duration of the Summoning effect. If you Planar Bind the Dijinni, however, that's not nearly so troublesome (and as a bonus, can be done earlier).

Wine, however, works just fine from Summon Monster VII - that's based off of an Instant spell.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Summon Monster VII doesn't work for this. The duration of Major Creation used for plant matter is normally 2 hours/level. The Dijinni special changes that to Permanent. Then the Summon rules (when the Dijinni is summoned, rather than called) reduce that the the remaining duration of the Summoning effect. If you Planar Bind the Dijinni, however, that's not nearly so troublesome (and as a bonus, can be done earlier).

Wine, however, works just fine from Summon Monster VII - that's based off of an Instant spell.

That may be true (as stated above, I think this may be a case of the specific rule for Djinni trumping the general rule for summons, but your mileage may vary), but as Planar Binding doesn't have that issue and is a sixth level spell, it is preferable to Summon Monster VII regardless (as you point out).

Wine still suffers for not being a trade good, and not having nearly the value density of Salt or Black Lotus Extract.

[Zancloufer]

Another huge problem with Black Lotus Extract is it's 3.5k GP value per unit. Towns under 5k population have a lower gold limit that it's value per piece. Even selling it at half price you would be hard pressed to find cities with enough money on hand to move a decent amount of it. Ignoring the fact that most people wouldn't/couldn't afford to buy it in bulk.

Salt? Go to any commoner and he would probably trade it on a decent exchange for anything. It is literally a alternate form of currency with a low base value that is at least somewhat useful to 90% of the population. Also a single wand of Wall of Salt would buy out the ENTIRE wealth of any given town.

[Jack_Simth]

That may be true (as stated above, I think this may be a case of the specific rule for Djinni trumping the general rule for summons, but your mileage may vary), but as Planar Binding doesn't have that issue and is a sixth level spell, it is preferable to Summon Monster VII regardless (as you point out).

Wine still suffers for not being a trade good, and not having nearly the value density of Salt or Black Lotus Extract.
What case? Modifications apply in order.

Normally, Major Creation lasts 2 hours/level for plant matter. This is the innermost reference.
When cast via the spell-like of a Djinni, there's a clause that changes that to "permanent".
When the Djinni is Summoned, then anything with a duration expires when the Summoning spell ends. This is the last modification of the effect in question in line, so it rules supreme unless something else explicitly references it.

If the Djinni ability said "instant" rather than "permanent", then it'd stick around. If the Djinni ability referenced when the Djinni is summoned, then it'd stick around. Neither is the case, though, so the specific overriding general is the Summoning school rule overriding the normal Djinni mechanics, which overrode the prior mechanics of Major Creation.

And of course, Wall of Money from Sandstorm still works up until the DM starts putting in Supply & Demand.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

What case? Modifications apply in order.

Could you direct me to your source on that, please?


Normally, Major Creation lasts 2 hours/level for plant matter. This is the innermost reference.
When cast via the spell-like of a Djinni, there's a clause that changes that to "permanent".
When the Djinni is Summoned, then anything with a duration expires when the Summoning spell ends. This is the last modification of the effect in question in line, so it rules supreme unless something else explicitly references it.

If the Djinni ability said "instant" rather than "permanent", then it'd stick around. If the Djinni ability referenced when the Djinni is summoned, then it'd stick around. Neither is the case, though, so the specific overriding general is the Summoning school rule overriding the normal Djinni mechanics, which overrode the prior mechanics of Major Creation.

And of course, Wall of Money from Sandstorm still works up until the DM starts putting in Supply & Demand.

Well, as you pointed out, Planar Binding is preferable to Summon Monster VII anyway, so the point may be moot. And yes, if the DM reduces the abstraction of the in-game economy and starts applying reasonable, real world rules, Wall of Salt's utility in storing value is greatly reduced. But that's also true of duplicating items with Astral Projection, Djinn Major Creation-ing Black Lotus Extract, or even Wishing mounds of Gold Pieces into existence (as in the Spanish Price Revolution). But otherwise, it makes an excellent way to carry large amounts of cash which may be broken down into useful sub-units (extraplanar storage means you can make the salt from any given casting portable), and thus pay for anything from a night at an inn, to a decent meal, to that +1 Keen Collision Scimitar you've had your eye on, to a Soarwood Airship, or even a massive Stronghold just by forking over the correct weight of salt.

[Jack_Simth]

Could you direct me to your source on that, please?
None that I'm aware of outside of creature templates, but if they don't, then you've got a problem of 'no resolution method' when multiple things change the same target. E.g., applying both Extend and Persist to the same spell.

Well, as you pointed out, Planar Binding is preferable to Summon Monster VII anyway, so the point may be moot. And yes, if the DM reduces the abstraction of the in-game economy and starts applying reasonable, real world rules, Wall of Salt's utility in storing value is greatly reduced. But that's also true of duplicating items with Astral Projection, Djinn Major Creation-ing Black Lotus Extract, or even Wishing mounds of Gold Pieces into existence (as in the Spanish Price Revolution).
With most of those, the method used can also produce many other things of high value. Duplication via Astral Projection, for instance: Astral Project, use that scroll of Wish to create a real item, end astral projection; astral project again, use Scroll again.... those Wishes can be for arbitrary real mundane items, valued at 25k each. You don't flood the market when it's a different product with each attempt.
A Dijinni doing Major Creation for permanent plant matter, likewise - Black Lotus Extract, Saffron, Linen... there's a LOT of things made entirely out of plants. And so on. Wall of Salt just makes salt. The same product each & every time. It's significantly more vulnerable to Supply & Demand issues.

However: I did come up with a reason for campaigns I run where Trade Goods stay at fixed relative prices:
Magic item crafting. The items listed as Trade goods contain amounts of 'magical essence' that's extracted and used in magical item crafting. If one such item develops a lower price for one reason or another... all the item crafters leave off the other sources and just get that one. Demand goes down for the others, and up for that one, until prices balance again based on the underlying essence amount in the item. If one item becomes harder to get... demand vanishes for the exact same reason (the others are just as good, and cheaper, per essence unit). Requires that a fair amount of crafting is going on, but does anchor all the trade good prices relative to each other. When these trade goods include very common items (wheat, chickens, flour, cows, pigs, et cetera) along with the base minerals that everyone believes produce the value of the coins... then inflation / deflation pretty much doesn't happen (the economy can still be good or bad - wages for labor can still go up or down - but your unit of currency is tied to the exact same stabilizing force that keeps many other items at exactly the same price relative to each other, so the cost of any goods for which this applies doesn't change meaningfully for long).

This comes with a rider: Magically created items don't contain that same essence unless someone actually paid the XP cost to create it.
This also can be used to explain how Spellcraft can ID items made or shaped by magic: With practice, one can feel the lack of the underlying essence.


But otherwise, it makes an excellent way to carry large amounts of cash which may be broken down into useful sub-units (extraplanar storage means you can make the salt from any given casting portable), and thus pay for anything from a night at an inn, to a decent meal, to that +1 Keen Collision Scimitar you've had your eye on, to a Soarwood Airship, or even a massive Stronghold just by forking over the correct weight of salt.Unless you tweak magic item costs, you've got a problem: You're not so much storing the wealth, as creating it. It's not a problem from the character's perspective, but it is a meaningful one from a game balance perspective.

[Firechanter]

Considering that D&D wants to be pseudo-historical, their price for salt is _way_ off even before magic comes into play. Historically, well I'd have to look it up, but very roughly 5 grams of silver would get you a pound oft salt (in Western Europe, Middle Ages).
In a world where you can simply _make_ tons of the stuff with magickx, expect the price to plummet to something like 1CP/lb.

[Deophaun]

Considering that D&D wants to be pseudo-historical, their price for salt is _way_ off even before magic comes into play. Historically, well I'd have to look it up, but very roughly 5 grams of silver would get you a pound oft salt (in Western Europe).
That's because a wizard killed all the beaches.

[Segev]

Regarding offering the genie wealth in return for his services...why would he value wealth, if he can, on his own, make the same things you're asking him to and have that wealth right then and there? Not that you can't offer him SOMETHING to do it, but "I'll let you keep 90% of what you make for me" doesn't appeal very much when he can make it and keep 100% if you're not interfering with your binding magics.

For those who are still imagining having to sell stuff to get gp for final purchase of items, the beauty of salt as a "trade good" is that it is fungible and of known value. You can literally use it in most markets in place of gold. You're harder-pressed to use black lotus extract in such a fashion; instead, you have to sell it for a fungible trade good or currency. Which means you have to find somebody who can offer you that currency in that quantity. "There isn't that much gold in the world" is a valid comment, there. But when you use salt directly as currency, you don't need the middle-man. (And we get into economies of scale and whether the goods you want are in such supply, and whether salt retains its value, etc. etc.)

[Jack_Simth]

Regarding offering the genie wealth in return for his services...why would he value wealth, if he can, on his own, make the same things you're asking him to and have that wealth right then and there? Not that you can't offer him SOMETHING to do it, but "I'll let you keep 90% of what you make for me" doesn't appeal very much when he can make it and keep 100% if you're not interfering with your binding magics.

Which is another reason giving him fair market value cash as a hired caster using regular XP is a good idea: While yes, a Pit Fiend could eventually make that 128k or so in gold that's the fair market value for a caster Wishing up a Power Stone of True Mind Switch... via just Wishing up currency... it would take a touch over five years. If it's money the pit fiend is after for some current plan or other, the trade is better.

[Gusmo]

In thinking about it more, wall of salt isn't particularly liquid upon casting. It explicitly merges with existing surfaces, and is not made into a particularly portable shape. Fabricate could arguably used to easily process it, but either way the value of processing of the wall of salt into the trade good salt needs to be taken into account in some way.

[Segev]

Which is another reason giving him fair market value cash as a hired caster using regular XP is a good idea: While yes, a Pit Fiend could eventually make that 128k or so in gold that's the fair market value for a caster Wishing up a Power Stone of True Mind Switch... via just Wishing up currency... it would take a touch over five years. If it's money the pit fiend is after for some current plan or other, the trade is better.

I'm not following you, here. How do you propose to make a profit, yourself, if you're paying him more than he can create on his own without your involvement? Why is he suddenly capable of making more wealth when you're involved?

[Jack_Simth]

I'm not following you, here. How do you propose to make a profit, yourself, if you're paying him more than he can create on his own without your involvement? Why is he suddenly capable of making more wealth when you're involved?
The specific example was from a thread where the OP needed an item, but due to campaign constraints couldn't visit the magic mart, commission the creation of, or self-craft said item. The DM also had significant problems with free Wishes. In that scenario, it was a clean solution.

[Firechanter]

Also, the density of salt is about 2g/cm3. Whereas the density of gold is closer to 20g/cm3.
So, one cubic foot (~27 litres) -- roughly 7 gallons -- of salt weighs only ~120lbs (54kg).
Even if you retain the unrealistic and implausible value of 1:1 with silver, the same monetary value in gold would only take up 270cm³, or half a pint.
That, and the fact that gold doesn't dissolve into brine in the first rainfall, are the reasons why salt never caught on as a currency.

Historical values (England 15th cty) are closer to 1d (penny) per pound of salt, so the silver:salt ratio was actually 1:240.
A cubic foot of salt therefore should be worth something like half a pound of silver.
Or 2,5GP.

So, how much is your entire wall of salt actually worth then, generously assuming the price _doesn't_ collapse when you oversaturate the market a hundredfold?

[Coidzor]

Which is another reason giving him fair market value cash as a hired caster using regular XP is a good idea: While yes, a Pit Fiend could eventually make that 128k or so in gold that's the fair market value for a caster Wishing up a Power Stone of True Mind Switch... via just Wishing up currency... it would take a touch over five years. If it's money the pit fiend is after for some current plan or other, the trade is better.

What, paying the Djinn the market rate for a 5th level spell being cast per Spellcasting Services?

[Jack_Simth]

What, paying the Djinn the market rate for a 5th level spell being cast per Spellcasting Services?
In the specific case, it was a pit fiend, for a Wish, at full XP for the specific item being created despite it not costing the Pit Fiend such. The intention was to satisfy the DM a bit more than the rulebooks.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

In thinking about it more, wall of salt isn't particularly liquid upon casting. It explicitly merges with existing surfaces, and is not made into a particularly portable shape. Fabricate could arguably used to easily process it, but either way the value of processing of the wall of salt into the trade good salt needs to be taken into account in some way.

I suppose you have a point there, but it's relatively easy to process - fabricate will do it, or summoned monsters (with suitable appendages), or hirelings, or even just taking the time to chip away at it (3 HP/inch, Hardness 2, 1 inch of thickness per caster level or a DC 15+1/inch of thickness Strength Check). Maybe you could apply the Craft skill, or perhaps an appropriate Profession?


Also, the density of salt is about 2g/cm3. Whereas the density of gold is closer to 20g/cm3.
So, one cubic foot (~27 litres) -- roughly 7 gallons -- of salt weighs only ~120lbs (54kg).
Even if you retain the unrealistic and implausible value of 1:1 with silver, the same monetary value in gold would only take up 270cm³, or half a pint.
That, and the fact that gold doesn't dissolve into brine in the first rainfall, are the reasons why salt never caught on as a currency.

Historical values (England 15th cty) are closer to 1d (penny) per pound of salt, so the silver:salt ratio was actually 1:240.
A cubic foot of salt therefore should be worth something like half a pound of silver.
Or 2,5GP.

So, how much is your entire wall of salt actually worth then, generously assuming the price _doesn't_ collapse when you oversaturate the market a hundredfold?

This is all well and good, except for the fact that the rules as written don't follow historical values, and are not subject to price variations due to supply and demand. And the density of raw salt is not the question, but rather the amount of raw salt which can be packed into a wand of negligible weight, if the wand contains the correct spell. That is what makes it so value dense. Obviously there are real-world issues with having salt be equivalent to currency, but by RAW, this is a simple way to pack a lot of value into an easily portable container. Also, while one does have to worry about Disintigrate spells and "constant blast[s] of water...(for example, a geyser from a decanter of endless water)" it is unclear if, by the rules, normal rainfall would cause the Wall of Salt any harm.

I do like the idea that there is some sort of constant between a given volume of gold and salt because the amount of gold or salt necessary to craft a magic item is somehow fixed by the laws of physics which underpin any given 3.5 setting, though.

[Jack_Simth]

I do like the idea that there is some sort of constant between a given volume of gold and salt because the amount of gold or salt necessary to craft a magic item is somehow fixed by the laws of physics which underpin any given 3.5 setting, though.I am perfectly fine with others appropriating the idea for their own campaigns. Explains why prices are largely fixed, and why Wizards don't all retire at 9th combining Wall of Iron with Fabricate (or at 7th with Wall of Salt and Stone Shape, or...) for infinite money. The actual value unit from Wall of Iron iron isn't there, but is in mined iron. The actual value unit in salt from a Wall of Salt is again missing... but is present in mined salt or ocean salt. It also explains why farming still goes on in a world where Everful Larders exist.

[Coidzor]

I am perfectly fine with others appropriating the idea for their own campaigns. Explains why prices are largely fixed, and why Wizards don't all retire at 9th combining Wall of Iron with Fabricate (or at 7th with Wall of Salt and Stone Shape, or...) for infinite money. The actual value unit from Wall of Iron iron isn't there, but is in mined iron. The actual value unit in salt from a Wall of Salt is again missing... but is present in mined salt or ocean salt. It also explains why farming still goes on in a world where Everful Larders exist.

So the idea is less make it unable to be used for anything, and more making it lose intrinsic value as a trade good? So you could fabricate a bunch of salt cooking blocks and sell them as finished goods or use it in cooking, it just doesn't double as an innate, natural currency?

[Jack_Simth]

So the idea is less make it unable to be used for anything, and more making it lose intrinsic value as a trade good? So you could fabricate a bunch of salt cooking blocks and sell them as finished goods or use it in cooking, it just doesn't double as an innate, natural currency?Which also crashes the price, as the reason people take it as a trade good so high above the historical value for something so easy to obtain is because Wizards want it. And, of course, if you DON'T alert the untrained people where it came from, they've got a beef against you for passing off 'fools salt' or whatever you want to call it. And that, in turn, will attract the local law enforcement.

But yes, pretty much.

[Segev]

"Crashing the price" is a valid concern, and one I normally point to as to why most D&D-based "get rich quick" infinite-resource loops fall apart. However, a single wall of salt isn't going to do that any more than walking into town with that much silver will cause the silver piece to lose all value.

It's only when you start really abusing the infinite money loops that you start impacting economies of scale. One-off wall of salt? Not an issue. But the moment it becomes the go-to, "yeah I do this every day" solution, you'll saturate a market. You'd do the same if you could magically produce gold.

But unless you have "walks into town with the loot from the last dungeon" plummet the value of the gold piece, be cautious about plummeting salt's value for a single wall. Salt is, essentially, currency in and of itself: it's fungible, of high value-to-volume, and people know others will value it enough to take it as currency.

[Firechanter]

No, what crashes the price is when you try to throw that salt/silver/chewing gum/whatever on the market.

BTW. Pardon me if this has been discussed before, but since someone rebutted my comment about devaluation with "RAW doesn't say so, so it doesn't":
RAW also doesn't say you even get to keep the salt when you break down that wall. The spell description clearly states that the wall must have a foundation of rock. You destroy the wall by "breaking, chipping, disintegrating or flushing with water" (paraphrased). For all we know, any salt you break off the wall (so it is no longer connected to the foundation) might just as well disappear.

Lastly, does any of you actually play in games where "Wall of Money" would fly? I sure never have. Any DM I know would either laugh at you or excuse you from the table. If I were to DM a game, and a player brought this up, I'd go for the historical prices and be done with it; otherwise (and if I didn't happen to know the historical prices) I'd go for the "What you chip off simply vanishes" reading.

[Segev]

No, what crashes the price is when you try to throw that salt/silver/chewing gum/whatever on the market. Depends how much you're throwing on the market vs. how much is there.

If I bring 10,000 gp back from an adventure and start spending it, in a real economy, the value of the gp would go down as I spent it unless I hit a HUGE market. The same is true of 10,000 gp worth of salt being used as currency.

In practice, however, we don't expect this to be the case; where it is, we model it more with availability - the stuff you want just isn't IN Ye Olde Poduncke Towne.


Pardon me if this has been discussed before, but since someone rebutted my comment about devaluation with "RAW doesn't say so, so it doesn't":
RAW also doesn't say you even get to keep the salt when you break down that wall. The spell description clearly states that the wall must have a foundation of rock. You destroy the wall by "breaking, chipping, disintegrating or flushing with water" (paraphrased). For all we know, any salt you break off the wall (so it is no longer connected to the foundation) might just as well disappear.The RAW also don't say that gold pieces, once spent, don't turn into poisonous gas that kills your characters with no saves.

The RAW providing fixed values is, absolutely, an approximation due to what the game is meant to model. The game isn't meant to model economics; it's meant to model high wealth in an economy that can handle high wealth, particularly as it involves high-risk/high-reward ventures buying ever-better gear for higher-risk/higher-reward ventures going forward. When you go from "high wealth" to "arbitrary wealth loop," a model that isn't actually meant to model an economy necessarily breaks down.

But the RAW do provide a fixed value. It's just reasonable to step outside of the RAW when we step outside of the WBL assumed in the model that the RAW supports.


Lastly, does any of you actually play in games where "Wall of Money" would fly? I sure never have. Any DM I know would either laugh at you or excuse you from the table. If I were to DM a game, and a player brought this up, I'd go for the historical prices and be done with it; otherwise (and if I didn't happen to know the historical prices) I'd go for the "What you chip off simply vanishes" reading.I expect it would fly once or twice in a few games I've played, particularly if we were behind the wealth curve, or had a particular plot point we needed the money for. But there would be a discussion OOC about abusing it and how we want to handle avoiding said abuse.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

No, what crashes the price is when you try to throw that salt/silver/chewing gum/whatever on the market.

In a real economy, sure. But 3.5 doesn't model a real economy, so unless that is houseruled, it may be assumed that the value is fixed regardless of oversupply to a given market.


BTW. Pardon me if this has been discussed before, but since someone rebutted my comment about devaluation with "RAW doesn't say so, so it doesn't":
RAW also doesn't say you even get to keep the salt when you break down that wall. The spell description clearly states that the wall must have a foundation of rock. You destroy the wall by "breaking, chipping, disintegrating or flushing with water" (paraphrased). For all we know, any salt you break off the wall (so it is no longer connected to the foundation) might just as well disappear.

Except that RAW does say it continues to exist - the spell is a Conjuration: Creation with a duration of instantaneous, so it "lasts indefinitely" unless it is destroyed. However, destroyed items don't simply wink out of existence, unless one uses a method of damaging them which explicitly does so (such as Disintigrate, or dissolving a water-soluble wall with a geyser from a Decanter of Endless Water).

To do otherwise would do some wonky things to your setting: mining couldn't exist, since any ore chipped out of the ground "might just as well disappear", so anyone without access to sufficiently high level magic can't have anything made of metal, stone, gems, etc. Gathering fuel for fires becomes harder too, and wood for wooden items. Buildings become much more complicated to construct - you'd have to carve them out of the living rock, or shape them out of still living plant matter. Could you still tan hides under this sort of assumption, without destroying them? I don't know, but I'm a bit pessimistic. And if they can't mine it out of the ground, how are they using gold as currency?


Lastly, does any of you actually play in games where "Wall of Money" would fly? I sure never have. Any DM I know would either laugh at you or excuse you from the table. If I were to DM a game, and a player brought this up, I'd go for the historical prices and be done with it; otherwise (and if I didn't happen to know the historical prices) I'd go for the "What you chip off simply vanishes" reading.

I have done, a couple of times - high optimization games where any advantage we could glean would likely be necessary for our continued survival. But regardless of whether or not such tables exist, "Wall of Money" is directly supported by the rules. Modifying the rules to keep the spell from breaking the Wealth By Level table is an entirely reasonable course of action, but going for the "What you chip off simply vanishes" reading (which I still don't see as a reasonable interpretation of the rules, given my understanding of Conjurations) introduces some serious and far-reaching consequences, many of which may not be immediately obvious, and any of which may be detrimental to your game.

[unseenmage]

Just my two salts but please try to remember when crashing economies with infiniwealth, there's magic for destruction as well as creation.

A few Disintegrates, Spheres of Ultimate Destruction, etc will erase whole storehouses/vaults or even entire industries/settlements if used creatively.

Conjuration with a duration of Instantaneous makes a lot more sense when one realizes this in-game universe has infinity baked into the cosmology and magics/creatures which can BOTH create AND destroy matter almost instantaneously.

Edit: Oh and yeah, I too have played in a game where the point was to play out the ramifications of infinite wealth and how to spend it as well as what consequences the in-game universe has for such.

[Coidzor]

Modifying the rules to keep the spell from breaking the Wealth By Level table is an entirely reasonable course of action, but going for the "What you chip off simply vanishes" reading (which I still don't see as a reasonable interpretation of the rules, given my understanding of Conjurations) introduces some serious and far-reaching consequences, many of which may not be immediately obvious, and any of which may be detrimental to your game.

Yes, if you're going that route, it's simpler and more elegant to go with the innate magic = basis of wealth route or say something along the lines that the salt it produces isn't table salt, but is one of the toxic salts, and so has no value as a trade good.

Granted, that introduces a potential issue of having vast quantities of an ingestion poison in the hands of the PCs, but at least they have to be creative to be able to sell it to people who want to get their poison on or find a way to constructively use it as poison to their advantage.

[Firechanter]

The RAW also don't say that gold pieces, once spent, don't turn into poisonous gas that kills your characters with no saves.


Yes, exactly. A lot of things that are just common sense are not formulated by RAW.

[Segev]

Yes, exactly. A lot of things that are just common sense are not formulated by RAW.

The logical inference of what you seem to be implying based on the communication chain leading to this sentence seems to me to be, "Therefore, obviously salt from wall of salt should vanish when it's chipped out of the wall."

This is not a logical conclusion to draw, despite you seeming to imply it. (If that's not your meaning, please clarify.)

The rules don't say the salt behaves in any way different than other salt, once created. All rules that apply imply or outright state that the conjured material stays in place, and can be acted upon normally. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that the rules and common sense both say you can chip away the salt, or even fabricate it into a more convenient shape for transport.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

I am perfectly fine with others appropriating the idea for their own campaigns. Explains why prices are largely fixed, and why Wizards don't all retire at 9th combining Wall of Iron with Fabricate (or at 7th with Wall of Salt and Stone Shape, or...) for infinite money. The actual value unit from Wall of Iron iron isn't there, but is in mined iron. The actual value unit in salt from a Wall of Salt is again missing... but is present in mined salt or ocean salt. It also explains why farming still goes on in a world where Everful Larders exist.

You know, another potential reason salt prices have a fixed equivalency to GP is Wish - if you use Wish to create salt (but not to duplicate Wall of Salt) it will create 5,000 pounds of the stuff. We know this because Wish can only create up to 25,000 GP worth of any non-magical item, and the listed price for salt is 5 GP per pound. This is sort of circular, unless you fluff it as having the price set, not by the table, but by the fact that Wish is metaphysically limited in its ability to produce valuable items, but the value limit is the same no matter what the item is, rather than how many items one may produce or the physical dimensions of that item. Thus, if Wish can create 500 pounds of gold and 5,000 pounds of salt, they must be equal with respect to that metaphysical value magnitude.

Which leads to the odd situation in which Wish can only create 5,000 pounds of salt per casting, unless you use it to duplicate the effects of Wall of Salt (a spell of dramatically lower level). But quirks like this are the nature of any suitably complex rules system for simulating a universe, I guess.

[lylsyly]

You're not going to find the loophole these guys missed.

I love this, Mind if I add it (quoted to you of course) to my siggy?

[Jack_Simth]

"Crashing the price" is a valid concern, and one I normally point to as to why most D&D-based "get rich quick" infinite-resource loops fall apart. However, a single wall of salt isn't going to do that any more than walking into town with that much silver will cause the silver piece to lose all value.
Well, in the specific case of my house rule explanation for the fixed value of trade goods (I'm going to run under the assumption that you were responding to me, based on proximity of the use of Crashing the price and that you didn't seem to be addressing anyone in specific), it's crashing the price because the primary reason for that price ('magical crafting essence') isn't present with salt from a Wall of Salt, not because of supply issues. The Wizard you were trading it to for a new +5 Cloak of Resistance takes one look at it, and says "no" because he recognizes the source. The Inkeeper might (no spellcraft)... but when he later gets informed by the local temple that they're can't sell him that casting of Cure Light Wounds because the salt he's using in trade isn't fit for their use... he's going to be incensed.

[Firechanter]

The logical inference of what you seem to be implying based on the communication chain leading to this sentence seems to me to be, "Therefore, obviously salt from wall of salt should vanish when it's chipped out of the wall."


No, sorry if it came across as that -- of course anything "magic" can't be tackled with logic. I was rather thinking of "if supply goes up and demand stays the same, the offered price will go down". You may be a monopolist in a given situation, but that still doesn't mean anybody's going to exchange your salt for cash at the regular price in any quantity you desire.

[Firechanter]

I love this, Mind if I add it (quoted to you of course) to my siggy?

Oh, by all means, I'd feel flattered. ^^

[Segev]

Well, in the specific case of my house rule explanation for the fixed value of trade goods (I'm going to run under the assumption that you were responding to me, based on proximity of the use of Crashing the price and that you didn't seem to be addressing anyone in specific), it's crashing the price because the primary reason for that price ('magical crafting essence') isn't present with salt from a Wall of Salt, not because of supply issues. The Wizard you were trading it to for a new +5 Cloak of Resistance takes one look at it, and says "no" because he recognizes the source. The Inkeeper might (no spellcraft)... but when he later gets informed by the local temple that they're can't sell him that casting of Cure Light Wounds because the salt he's using in trade isn't fit for their use... he's going to be incensed.I always take issue with that because it is so artificial. In fact, it's one of the dumber things in the real world, that anybody CARES about whether a gem they're going to wear as decoration was artificially grown or mined from the ground. But various gem-mining interests pay generously to labs capable of growing diamonds and rubies to have an impurity which causes them to glow a specific color under UV lighting added to any gems they grow, so that you can tell "real" (i.e. mined-from-the-earth) gems from "fake" (i.e. grown-in-a-lab) ones.

Other than that deliberately-added impurity, the only difference is that grown gems can be bigger and even more idealized. Oh, and cost negligible amounts compared to the mined ones.

The industrial applications of these gems, however, don't care if they're mined or not, and have no pride attached to not having them glow under UV light (proving them to be grown). Which is why diamond-tipped tools, for instance, aren't terribly pricey.

Salt's value isn't as jewelry. It's as a nutritive supplement, flavorant, and preservative. Recognizing the source as being magical shouldn't change its source of value.

Which means that it can crash the salt price if introduced in large quantities, of course. I'm not saying you can't use your fix, nor that you shouldn't. I just don't like it. :smalltongue:


No, sorry if it came across as that -- of course anything "magic" can't be tackled with logic. I was rather thinking of "if supply goes up and demand stays the same, the offered price will go down". You may be a monopolist in a given situation, but that still doesn't mean anybody's going to exchange your salt for cash at the regular price in any quantity you desire.Oh, definitely.