Is Fabricate a good spell for an artificer to put in a wand?

[Citadel97501]

Hello all,

I was just wondering if anyone has looked at building an Artificer around using/abusing the Fabricate spell (Trap Smith level 3 not Wizard level 5)? I was thinking if you made an Eternal Wand at level 7, this could create a massive economic boon for a character or city? Outfit all of your soldiers with high end armor, for less than

It could also be used to make traps, as an entirely reasonable combat mechanic but it might be a bit hard to figure out if you actually need to spend the money to make a pit trap, as that doesn't make sense to me, and you technically would already have the resources to do it just by being in a dungeon?

[ATHATH]

I'd recommend not bringing in real-world economics into D&D- down that path lies madness (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy). The Reed Richards is Useless trope exists for a reason, y'know.

If you need an in-universe justification for why Artificers aren't using that trick, say that a god of economics/the working class smites anyone that tries to abuse Walls of Salt/Walls of Stone/Fabricate/Teleportation Circles/etc.

[Silva Stormrage]

Fabricate alone breaks the economy into little pieces. You don't even need to be an artificer with an eternal wand a regular wizard does so just casting it once a day.

It's a fairly common trick but you don't see it discussed to much because it bogs down gameplay and breaks WBL which in turn shatters game balance. It's the same reason you don't see many questions for "How to solve X problem" being answered with "Summoning 15 fiends with planar binding and win the charisma check to force them to do your bidding)

But to answer the topic, yes Fabricate is a good spell to put in a wand. A tad too good :smalltongue:

[Nifft]

Yeah the question is more like:

- Do you want to play in a silly place where D&D rules are physics, magic is technology, and the core conceits of every major setting are ignored in favor of a more plausible (yet entirely ridiculous) spell-based economy?

- Do you want to play in a setting more like the major published settings and think of a reason why spells don't do the sorts of things that they obviously would if real live greedy bastard humans got their grubby mitts on them?

Pick one or the other (or neither if you want a non-traditional setting which is not a silly spell-economy place).

[Triskavanski]

The problem with fabricate is the material component you'd need..

[Lazymancer]

I was thinking if you made an Eternal Wand at level 7, this could create a massive economic boon for a character or city?
Boon? Half of the city will be actively trying to murder you. There is a reason why medieval guilds often trashed inventions that massively increased productivity: mess caused by technological unemployment is never pretty. And you are trying to do it on a grand scale.

At best, you might export some of the trouble by turning city into colonial empire, which will be waging wars to force neighbours to open their markets to your industrial magitech exports.

[icefractal]

I think people are overestimating Fabricate a little. It's not a singularity situation like infinite-Wish loops create, it just (potentially) brings down the price of expensive items like Full Plate.


So we'll look at the simple case first - mages directly casting Fabricate. It's a 5th level spell, so that would generally cost ~450 gp to have someone cast it for you. Plus the raw materials, so we'll set the price floor at 450+V/3; you're not going to get cheaper than that unless there's a huge glut of mages desperate for cash.

For the price ceiling, I'd say at least 2x the normal cost of the item, maybe higher. You're getting it made in a few minutes rather than a few weeks after all; many adventurers would happily pay extra to have that custom-fitted adamantine full plate ready the same day.

So what I'd probably assume is a value somewhere between those two, depending on the saturation of mages in the city. If it's above the normal cost of getting it from a smith, it doesn't change things much - some master smiths will be annoyed, but the highest-value jobs going to mages is already the usual case.

If there are enough 9th+ level mages to be heavily competing and start lowering prices below what a smith would charge (which depends on the setting; in Eberron people that high level are generally becoming movers and shakers with more important things to do), then there's some friction.

Probably the first step is that the existing craft and merchant guilds start inviting the most eminent mages to their banquets and talk to them about the benefits of forming an arcane guild that would license all commercial spellcasting, and place the less experienced mages under the wise guidance of their elders - oh, and incidentally set minimum prices on various magic services such as Fabricating armor. Wouldn't do to have magic be undervalued, would it? And now you know where all those annoying mage's guilds with their high dues come from. :smalltongue: If that fails, assassins.

That's assuming that there isn't already a mage's guild intentionally trying to undercut all competition. In that case, expect lots of assassins on both sides, and a rather unstable period until things shake out.


Now then, wands -
First off, Fabricate is poorly written, and it's not clear what happens, RAW, when you make a wand of it. I think technically you get a wand that's very expensive to make and will then pop out suits of Full Plate (or whatever) with no further materials required. So in that case, an Eternal Wand would generate value from nothing over time, although at a pretty slow rate. Probably not significant on a kingdom scale compared to normal trade, although it would be a way for an isolated kingdom to continue growing.

Secondly, assuming the wand works how most people would think it would (Fabricating from raw materials that you point it at), then an Eternal Wand is basically like having one more mage in town, working on behalf of whoever owns the wand. It could be a way for an Artificer to become very rich, but it's not going to have much different effects at a large scale.

If, of course, you have a way to churn out wands for free, then that does break the setting. But Fabricate isn't really the problem in that scenario.

[Lazymancer]

I think people are overestimating Fabricate a little.
Okay.

Assuming Warlock's 2nd-level spell-like ability is being absorbed by Energy Transformation Field every round, it takes 3 rounds to power 1 Fabricate. There are 10 rounds in 1 minute, 600 rounds in one hour, and 14400 - in one day.

Assuming some time lost, 3 shifts of Warlocks (yes, 8 hour workday) can power 4,500 casting of Fabricate per one Transformation Field in one day.

Wizard 15 can spend 125,000 gold and 6,250 XP to set up 25 ETF-factories (Leadership score of 22 is sufficient to get enough Warlock followers to power them).

112,500 Fabricate cast every day.

[unseenmage]

And again I'll mention that permanent destruction magics exist as well.

Disintegrate, rust monsters, Sphere of Ultimate Destruction all remove matter not just from the world but from the economy as well.

It is quite likely that enemy guilds/nations could use these and similar means to keep their coin relevant.
The aforementioned theoretical 'god of commerce' could certainly use these means.

[weckar]

Okay.

Assuming Warlock's 2nd-level spell-like ability is being absorbed by Energy Transformation Field every round, it takes 3 rounds to power 1 Fabricate. There are 10 rounds in 1 minute, 600 rounds in one hour, and 14400 - in one day.

Assuming some time lost, 3 shifts of Warlocks (yes, 8 hour workday) can power 4,500 casting of Fabricate per one Transformation Field in one day.

Wizard 15 can spend 125,000 gold and 6,250 XP to set up 25 ETF-factories (Leadership score of 22 is sufficient to get enough Warlock followers to power them).

112,500 Fabricate cast every day.

ETF cannot be used with spells that list costly material components, and the 'thing to be transformed' is explicitly listed as a component for Fabricate.

[Lazymancer]

ETF cannot be used with spells that list costly material components, and the 'thing to be transformed' is explicitly listed as a component for Fabricate.
Yes, RAW Fabricate is a mess. Raw materials are simultaneously a target and the material components.

I've been treating raw materials as a target - doing it otherwise would make things even weirder, since it suggests that stuff would appear out of thin air, if you can deal away with components (Eschew Materials alone would allow to craft items below 3gp without any supplies).

[jdizzlean]

any of these game breaking economy tricks fail to take one thing into account.

anything is valuable when there isn't much of it around. but when you flood the market w/ 6 bajillion tons of say salt, it's now basically worthless, and all you have is a pile of salt that no one will buy at the inflated pre-spam cost.

in all the games i've ever played, that is exactly what would happen the instant i tried doing an end run around the DM and printing my own money.

that said, there are plenty of ways to abuse WBL, the only thing that matters is what you're allowed to get away with, and what is it that you're actually planning to do w/ all of Midas's Gold.

If you had a blacksmith in your employ, and you were equipping an army, i could see Wall of Iron saving you coin, but not making you coin, just for the raw materials.

otherwise, just take 1 lvl in psion, and use Psionic Minor Creation to spam out 30,000 doses of poison a day... much cheaper, and essentially free.

[Lazymancer]

any of these game breaking economy tricks fail to take one thing into account.

anything is valuable when there isn't much of it around.
It's not about breaking WBL. Those "tricks" are there to demonstrate the scale of technological unemployment.

[icefractal]

That's an interesting idea, although I think it says more about ETF than it does about Fabricate.

Given that we're talking about one of the strongest casters alive (in most settings) doing this, it's probably on the scale of ramping up their country's industrial base rather than just trying to make money, so considering it from that perspective -

It's a similar situation to setting up assembly line factories. Each ETF only produces one type of good, but it produces it fast enough that supply chain and distribution are the only limits. Over time the price of mass produced goods could fall to just a bit above the raw material cost.

In such a kingdom there wouldn't be as many craftsmen, but they would still exist. For making less popular goods that don't have a "factory" making them, for customized stuff, and for repairs. But probably a much smaller slice of the population than elsewhere.

Not what I'd call destroying the setting though.

[Lazymancer]

Given that we're talking about one of the strongest casters alive (in most settings) ...
Yes. Though Wizard 13 could pull this off too (I forgot ETF is a 7th spell level).


Not what I'd call destroying the setting though.
Well, it will be different. Suddenly, whole guilds will become obsolete. For a few years (maybe decade or two), you'll have significant parts of cities starving to death and/or moving to villages, because prices of most of their exports are too low to sustain them. In fact, even craftsmen that were not made obsolete will have a lot of trouble, since those that are will be trying to branch out somewhere they can still earn money.

[Fouredged Sword]

I actually have an evil cold/artifice cleric build based around rebuking a cold subtype field of possesion with a fabricate sla. It's a ton of fun to basically have a magic weapon/armor you can customize on the fly.

[Citadel97501]

I actually have an evil cold/artifice cleric build based around rebuking a cold subtype field of possesion with a fabricate sla. It's a ton of fun to basically have a magic weapon/armor you can customize on the fly.

What is an SLA?

[Shalist]

SLA: spell-like ability. SLA's don't have exp or material component costs, which can be pretty significant (i.e. using a wish SLA to create an expensive magic item, or in this case, fabricate without needing material components).


and you technically would already have the resources to do it just by being in a dungeon?


Material Component

The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created.

Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.
So, RAW it still cost money if you're creating anything of value. 'Raw materials' is otherwise undefined, and crafting obviously doesn't care about conserving mass, so feel free to just sprinkle piles of gold around to serve as your 'raw materials.'

Given that fabricate essentially triples the value of whatever you cast it on, if you want to make money, I'd recommend cutting out the middle men and doing so directly by using piles of coins and gems as the 'raw materials' needed to make even bigger piles of loot.

edit: Needless to say, ignoring certain aspects of RAW fabricate is practically mandatory if you want to use it without breaking the economy.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Alas, eternal wands only go up to level 3.

Are there any class lists that have (psionic) fabricate at a lower level than stated in the XPH?

Note that it doesn't have any components, so it would work just fine on a psionic eternal dorje.

[icefractal]

In Pathfinder, staffs are effectively eternal, so while expensive you can ultimately build up a sizeable industrial base just by using them. And with Staff Magus you don't need to keep high-level casters around to charge them.

The most bang for your buck (in either edition) is definitely Simulacra though. For less than the price of an eternal wand / staff, you can just have a 10th level Wizard minion to cast it several times a day, plus use all their other slots and craft things too. Easy in the PF version, since you don't need a hair from them, just knowing what they look like.

To really do the Legends & Logistics thing with Fabricate right though, there's several ambiguities with both the spell and the crafting system that should really be cleared up. Like for example, some standard on what can be crafted into what. Can you craft gold -> more gold? Can you craft uncut gems -> cut gems -> jewelry -> costume -> artwork, tripling the value each time? How much gem fabrication can you do before the market is flooded anyway? Lots of questions. It's almost easier when you're doing it on a really large scale, since then we can use a factory analogy and have it be a reasonable fit.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In Pathfinder, staffs are effectively eternal, so while expensive you can ultimately build up a sizeable industrial base just by using them. And with Staff Magus you don't need to keep high-level casters around to charge them.In 3.5, imbue a +1 quarterstaff with the Ancestral Relic feat. Give it charges as a Craft Staff staff. When it runs low on charges, sacrifice* buildings and the features you find in dungeons to replenish the charges in the staff. According to the Stronghold Builder's Guide, that stuff's expensive as hell.



*Use a hallowed portable altar.

[weckar]

any of these game breaking economy tricks fail to take one thing into account.

anything is valuable when there isn't much of it around. but when you flood the market w/ 6 bajillion tons of say salt, it's now basically worthless, and all you have is a pile of salt that no one will buy at the inflated pre-spam cost.

Meh, IRL the amount won't matter if one person controls it all. The effective supply is still equally limited.

[Citadel97501]

Alas, eternal wands only go up to level 3.

Are there any class lists that have (psionic) fabricate at a lower level than stated in the XPH?

Note that it doesn't have any components, so it would work just fine on a psionic eternal dorje.

Not a problem for an Artificer though, as the Trapsmith gets Fabricate as a level 3 spell.