Simple Fabricate Spell Question - Local Merchant Warfare

[kalos72]

My group is looking at ways to exert some financial pressure on a competing city for the armor and weapons market and is considering the Fabricate avenue.

I would assume that if someone uses diving or something on one of the Fabricated pieces, it would "radiate" magic? How could I "wash" the item to make sure know one could find out?

The concern is when I start selling my armor for half as much at better quality to run the other guys out of business, someone will find out its Fabricated and either not want to buy it OR worse, do it themselves.

We are also considering money lending local gold coinage via Fabricate as well, offering money to the city or the nobles to get them indebted to the group. Possibly buying all their local holdings to gain control over the city.


And that doesnt even start down the Fabricate Trap line...



Thoughts?

[noob]

Fabricate is instant.
So this means that once the spell is cast the result is no longer magical(can not be dissipated).
But it would radiate magic as a spell that ended some time ago(detect magic can detect auras left by spells that ended some time ago)
So you would just need to wait some time for the object to no longer have any magic aura(as per the detect magic table).
But you know if people are ready to cast detect magic on objects remember that spellcasting services is valued a lot: buying one casting of detect magic costs 10 gp if done by a level 1 spellcaster so it is not worth casting on a 50 gp object(since you would basically spend one fifth of the cost of the item just to know that it have been made by fabricate even through it does not makes it special)

On the other hand making your own money is probably illegal no matter which way you made it.
And importing tons of money from another plane(in the dmg there is the description of a plane where there is more gold and gems than you could possibly even want) is probably illegal too as is bringing the mountain of gold from a dungeon: all those things breaks economy(due to hypermassive inflation) and so it is logical any sane king would try to limit that(probably by forbidding the use of gold as a money: there is more gold than dirt in dnd: it makes no sense at all that gold is a form of money in dnd)

[kalos72]

Thanks noob.

So you are saying that since its instant the aura would fade after 1d6 rounds probably?

In your opinion then, if an adventurer finds a huge sum of gold coins, a Mayr of a city might not allow him to spend it? I find that, sorta odd. I understand your premise about ruining an economy but unless you ONLY take your locally produced coin, which would exclude the most common currencies from being accepted gp, sp, pp and the like, you are going to have people traveling around with other coins all the time anyways.

As far as the merchant war type scenario, how else would you do it? Lower costs, cheaper resources both make for a cheaper product. Its either cheaper in quality or production costs. If I am trying to run another local merchant out of business, I need to offer a better product at a reduced rate. Fabricate is a great answer to that no?

As for money lending, same thing. If I want the local Mayor to be in debt to me, I loan him money to rebuild the city gates and a ridiculously low rate and wait. If I am producing it via Fabricate, and can be MUCH more free giving in my loans and care little about making a profit, especially if my purpose is to gain power in the community/local government.

[noob]

Well one thing is that in fact fabricated objects are more expensive(except when crafting stuff with materials that have a high value per volume) if you factor in the wage of the caster:
You need one high level wizard and 1/3 of the cost of the object and the cost of a casting of fabricate is: 450gp(if you are not the wizard casting the spell).
For crafting an object with untrained commoners you need some commoners(which have a wage of 1pc per day each) and a third of the cost of the item.
You can hire 450 untrained commoners for 10 days with the service cost of one fabricate.

So the main reason you are going to beat the merchants is that you do not have to pay your own wage.

450 untrained commoners helping each other can in one week produce something close to 2000 gp of wealth.
So the commoners are less efficient than fabricate only when doing goods that have a high value per volume and then they are not much less efficient.
So for building city gates commoners are cheaper than fabricate(unless again you do not pay yourself a fair price)
Fabricate traps are a good way of bypassing a great portion of the wage but you can use them only if the gm allows custom traps.

For the mayor check if he have relatives that died and then propose to him to resurrect them or turn them in undying(positive energy undead that are always good) and make him pay a fair cost(you can use remorse and a whole lot of other tricks like that with ease if his family relative was evil since it means that it went in a bad place).

And it is totally not evil to use remorse to make someone pay you for doing good or else all the charity organizations would be evil aligned.

Do not forget: the more people there is the more you can sell stuff.
And since you want to break economy and that you are allowed to have resetting traps of any spell then have a resetting trap of create food for getting rid of all the farmers.
And then convince people to subscribe to your health care system which gives the following: healing of the sicknesses and wounds while alive and the transformation in an undying wizard at death(if somehow everybody becomes undying wizards then you can get lots of money selling ink and books and centralized production becomes obsolete since everybody can create his own stuff by casting unseen crafter)

[Darth Ultron]

Note that anything created by magic can be detected as such by use of the Spellcraft Skill.

You can break an economy if you have a low magic world with NPC's that don't do anything. Of course it won't work with an even average magical world or a world where NPC's do things.

[Jay R]

The D&D-implied economy cannot be made to work if you pursue it carefully. There's far too much gold out there.

If you want the game to continue, I recommend two rules:

1. Don't try to make sense of the D&D economy.
2. Don't try to break the D&D economy.

Besides, compare a month spent doing the economic tricks you're considering vs. a month spent adventuring. The adventuring month will produce more gold and far more experience for the PCs, and more fun and excitement for the players.

[noob]

Well I already told him that the economy would work only if people stopped using gold as a form of money.
Simply there is more gold than dirt.
Between the planes that contains tons of gold and the gigantic piles of treasures the monsters have Gold is present in widely excessive amounts.

[NTwAin]

I'm in agreement here. While I enjoy the sim city like thought process of tracking economic changes and accounting for them to lend a flavor of realism, the pre-packaged value system of DnD is not equipped to handle anything like that. The extent to which most Dnd societies rely on random influxes of wealth vis-a-vis discovering it via adventuring would plunge any medieval setting into chaos. Correcting for this would take a massive amount of work on the part of the DM. Best not to think about it.

[kalos72]

We are not trying to track the economic developments of the local economy, nor are we trying to destroy the economy overall. Just one merchant, or possibly that merchants market.

If I focus my traps on say plate armor, ignoring cost because I can make the traps myself, sell Master dwarvencraft plate for the price of leather and have an unlimited supply of it. If I sell this armor to counter this other merchants armor sales he will either give up and leave OR give me a plot hook for the PC Group by trying to kill the PC off or find my production facilities or something.

Once I control the market, I therefore have some power/control over the local economy. That power is either enough by itself or I would repeat the process through multiple merchants to get more local power in my hands. Later use that power to influence the political environment to put my guy in the throne or mayor seat.

Only other option would be by force...how else do you gain control over a city that wouldn't take the PC's working for years to accomplish? How many times can the PC's bring an army to the gates to save the city just in the nick of time?

Long term, the goal is setup these operations across many cities and start to gain control of the economies to later influence a united kingdom of city states.


Again if the gold coin made by a rap would always resonate magic, are there ways to nullify it permanently or does it matter?

[NTwAin]

Nystul's Magic Aura is a 1st level glamer that would accomplish that, providing someone isn't going back to check the items after an extended period. But at that point it should have worn off anyways, so problem solved.

[Darth Ultron]

Only other option would be by force...how else do you gain control over a city that wouldn't take the PC's working for years to accomplish? How many times can the PC's bring an army to the gates to save the city just in the nick of time?


If the goal here is to take over the world, then why even bother with economy?

You could just take control of whoever is in power and force them to do whatever you wanted. Or you could have them give you the power, or otherwise get yourself picked to be the person in power.

Really, if the world is full of zero level magic less NPC's, you could take over the world in a couple weeks.


Even if you do the destroy and control the economy....

Who do you think will buy all your stuff? Are you assuming there are tons of NPC's with huge piles of gold everywhere?

And how many, say suits of plate mail, do you assume everyone will want to buy? Is there a huge demand for what you have for sale?

[noob]

With create undying you can create a demand for spellbooks,ink and low level spells by turning dead people in undying wizards(which have a caster level of 3).
And since it works on any corpse you can do that with rats or whatever you want.
Those undying wizard would then probably try to get gold for buying spells so they will go around and try to find ways of getting money with 17 int.

[Telonius]

We are not trying to track the economic developments of the local economy, nor are we trying to destroy the economy overall. Just one merchant, or possibly that merchants market.

If I focus my traps on say plate armor, ignoring cost because I can make the traps myself, sell Master dwarvencraft plate for the price of leather and have an unlimited supply of it. If I sell this armor to counter this other merchants armor sales he will either give up and leave OR give me a plot hook for the PC Group by trying to kill the PC off or find my production facilities or something.

Once I control the market, I therefore have some power/control over the local economy. That power is either enough by itself or I would repeat the process through multiple merchants to get more local power in my hands. Later use that power to influence the political environment to put my guy in the throne or mayor seat.

Only other option would be by force...how else do you gain control over a city that wouldn't take the PC's working for years to accomplish? How many times can the PC's bring an army to the gates to save the city just in the nick of time?

Long term, the goal is setup these operations across many cities and start to gain control of the economies to later influence a united kingdom of city states.


Again if the gold coin made by a rap would always resonate magic, are there ways to nullify it permanently or does it matter?

I'd say that gold in D&D has value in the same way and for the same reason that paper with particular pictures has value in our world; because we (generally) all agree that it does. When you get down to it, currency (either fiat or specie) represents energy: how much energy you're willing to expend to get a particular result. D&D has a similar mechanic already in place, with the XP to GP conversion of 5 to 1.

Gold (or other items) created by magic would have that effort already baked into its existence: you had to expend some resources (daily spells) in order to get it. I think it wouldn't break the D&D economy, since the amount of available energy (measured in XP) would be relatively constant. If there are oodles of GP being created by expending few XP, the change that would happen would be in the XP to GP ratio; it wouldn't "break" the economy, just lead to a lot of inflation.

[noob]

You are not aware how in some planes or dungeons there is tons and tons of stuff that is worth thousand of gps.
if someone started going in some of the other planes and getting gold back in the material plane there would be so much gold it would cause inflation to reach a point where a goat is worth more than 30 times its mass in gold and then commoners would no longer be able to use any of the precious materials to do transactions(they can not lift enough for buying anything).
Basically goats are a more manageable form of money that is way less prone to inflation than gold,gems,precious metals and the like.
So if the setting was realistic people would start trading goats(or at least anything else than precious materials) to avoid death by over-inflation.
While adventurers and magic item crafters would keep using gold since the cost of the magic items is constant in function of gold so excessive amounts of gold is less a problem(on the other hand people would trade magic items for magic items instead of trading gold for magic items because you need time to turn magic items into gold)

So do not try to either make sense with the interaction of adventurers with the economy or do not use the precious materials as trading resources.

[kalos72]

If I control all the armor sales in the city, IE best product at the lowest price, I control a portion of the economy. Why buy leather when you can get the best dwarven plate for less?

Spread that over a region and now you control the entire market for say The Moonsea. Thats power and it comes easier and more subtlety than force.

I think you guys are thinking of this too deeply. No one is going to track the economic conditions but as GM if after 3 months of selling the best, cheapest plate armor across the region I now say that the opposing merchant brings a band of hooligans to destroy your shop, thats a hook I can use.

I dont need an economic forecast to tell me that guy is gonna get pissed, thats just common sense.

Surely other GM's have used economics as a plot device?

[Zaq]

I'd say that gold in D&D has value in the same way and for the same reason that paper with particular pictures has value in our world; because we (generally) all agree that it does. When you get down to it, currency (either fiat or specie) represents energy: how much energy you're willing to expend to get a particular result. D&D has a similar mechanic already in place, with the XP to GP conversion of 5 to 1.

Gold (or other items) created by magic would have that effort already baked into its existence: you had to expend some resources (daily spells) in order to get it. I think it wouldn't break the D&D economy, since the amount of available energy (measured in XP) would be relatively constant. If there are oodles of GP being created by expending few XP, the change that would happen would be in the XP to GP ratio; it wouldn't "break" the economy, just lead to a lot of inflation.

My headcanon, which is not entirely unrelated, is that “GP” is basically a unit of magic first and only a unit of wealth/value as a secondary or emergent property.

[Jay R]

No one is going to track the economic conditions but as GM if after 3 months of selling the best, cheapest plate armor across the region I now say that the opposing merchant brings a band of hooligans to destroy your shop, thats a hook I can use.

Yes, of course if the players just sit in one place for any length of time, dangers and threats will come to them. That's what wandering monsters are for - to stop the adventure from bogging down.


Surely other GM's have used economics as a plot device?

Yes, of course. My character once became an Earl. He found a tribe of outcast dwarves, and let them live under his mountains, as long as he got half of what they mined. He had roads built and the river widened to increase trade. This led to bad blood with other nobles, wars, and other adventures. What adventure is your plan aiming towards?

This doesn't sound like a plot device. It sounds like a plot stopper. I don't know how stopping the adventures for a few months to play Monopoly instead of D&D will make the game more exciting, but if the players want to do it, and you have a way to keep it interesting, go for it. [To be fair, I had my doubts about my county, too, when it first happened.]

My first suggestion is that wherever they are based is about to become much richer, and be a much more tempting target for raiding parties or even marauding armies. Don't let the players just sit and get obviously richer without becoming targets. And as they get more influential, they will be annoyances to any other influential people - including the local nobles who have been buying their stuff, and who can now afford a larger, better-armored army. They will attract enemies, totally apart from the armorers they're trying to put out of business.

Oh, and keep track of how much money they've added to the city, compared to how much was there - the ratio represents the level of inflation. If there's the same amount of stuff to buy, and more money to buy it, prices go up. Spain did this to themselves at one point, by bringing home a lot of New World gold and making coins instead of jewelry. You feel richer immediately, but soon the prices will adjust to match the greater demand but constant supply. This is similar to the fact that the price of armor will go down when there's a greater supply of it.

If the armor is good enough, and cheap enough, then it's a logical place for mercenaries, or even a small army, to come buy.

So there are more armed people there, about the time food prices go way up. Played right, this could get very interesting.

[unseenmage]

As far as breaking D&D economies goes remember that destructive magics exist too.

One rust monster in an enemy treasury or armory will have the same effect as your allies importing loads of gold.

Disintegrate, the Sphere of Ultimate Destruction spell, and other means all remove material wealth from the economy in a way that isn't recoverable.

[noob]

You can also just steal the gold coins instead of destroying them.(easy with enveloping pits or bottomless bags)
Anyway if the setting did make sense then they are probably not using gold.(they are more likely to use lead or goats: lead is valuable directly and is way less common: you do not spontaneously find thousand of tons of lead in treasures or dungeons unlike gold)

You should try to get a monopoly on the various forms of food before getting other monopolies: a monopoly on food is very powerful and cattle is very useful for wizards(living stuff can be used for a ton of spells).

[kalos72]

This idea came about while reading the Ravens Bluff City Guide.

The city just came out of a terrible fight, defenses are in shambles, army is beat up, lots of noble died. If my team comes along, buys a small building and set up a merchant's shop to sell armor and weapons. And another that a money lender. All funded by the party's magic.

I can resupply the armed forces, cheaper and easier than anyone else, earning prominence and taking the market over.

I can lend the city all the money it needs to rebuild, at a VERY reduced rate. Again earning prominence and favor among the court.

I can even use my traps to supply stone blocks and wood for the rebuilding efforts.

All these things make the group the saviors of Raven's Bluff and leading to our take over and placement of a cohort to run the city for us.

[kalos72]

Sorry guys, I know this is an old thread.

Would this be better to go the other way then, but everything for more than anyone else becoming the merchant's best customer and being able to control the flow of goods out of a city by buying everything?

Again, assuming gp wasn't an issue, I could manage to buy all a smiths wares for double market value and eventually win the smith over, maybe get him to leave the city.

Hell, just fanatic him and move him out of the city. :P



Looking for subtle ways to get the groups hooks into the economy/politics of independent competing cities...