Cursed Transmute Metal to Wood

[Raishoiken]

This druid spell is meant to take what is seemingly considered to be one of the most unnatural materials to druids (made apparent by their loss of class features when using the stuff) into good ole fashioned wood. Let's say someone decided to be a big meanie and curse a druid's item of transmute metal to wood, causing it to produce the opposite effect: transmute wood to metal.
As far as i can tell, transmute wood to metal in the hands of most dm's likely produces the most generic wood possible, maybe even changing depending on the caster's location. Would said cursed item also simply produce the most generic metal, or would the "opposite effect" nature of the curse cause it to create one of the most valuable metals, being even more the antithesis than just plain iron. Obviously in a real game it's dm's call, but what are we thinkin this would do the the vacuum of RAW?

[Telonius]

Well, the most valuable metal (according to a quick Google search) is Francium, at $1 billion per gram. The element happens to be extremely radioactive, so the half-life of the armor would probably be about equal to the half-life of the Druid.

[emulord]

It generally breaks D&D to include anything related to real world economics or physics.

It honestly should just generate Iron, but if you wanted most expensive metal it would probably be Platinum.
Doing some digging,
Platinum is 500gp/lb
Adamantine is per item, but its between 68 to 145.333 gp/lb.
Mithral is per item, but its between 29.333 to 176.19 gp/lb.

Other metals are probably much cheaper, so I didn't include them. Some weird planar stuff might be more expensive, but idk how to find info on that

[Thurbane]

Yeah, I'd be wary of a "cursed" item that generated vast sums of wealth. Plain old iron or similar should be fine: according to the Wealth Other Than Coins (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins) section, iron is worth 1sp/pound. Copper is worth 5 times that, silver 50 times, gold 500 times and platinum 5000 times (assuming I haven't goofed basic math...I'm very sleep deprived right now).

Is it a charged item (staff etc?), or uses/day item? If it's the latter, be even more wary of letting the player become some sort of King Midas wannabe. As much as it might pain the druid ethically to turn wood into metal, most players will find a way to justify a wealth-grab.

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, I'd be wary of a "cursed" item that generated vast sums of wealth. Plain old iron or similar should be fine: according to the Wealth Other Than Coins (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins) section, iron is worth 1sp/pound.
You can fit a LOT of wood in a 40 foot radius burst, and firewood is very cheap.

[False God]

I'd argue for generic metal "steel", "iron", but even then you've got the issue of turning say, an entire tree (40ft radius covers an 80ft tree) into iron, which is more valuable than wood by a long shot. You could certainly argue that cheaper woods might produce "worse" iron (like pyrite, which is pretty, but useless, or even the high-sulfur-content metal of the early industrial era) or some other low-grade metals.

Though it could depend on the druid, I'd probably argue a cursed item would make rotting wood. Sure, it's still metal to wood, but it's useless, filthy, disease-ridden wood.

[Thurbane]

You can fit a LOT of wood in a 40 foot radius burst, and firewood is very cheap.

True...but at least iron is a wee bit more sane than platinum, mithril or adamantine. Also, not much more broken that Wall of Salt etc. in the grand scheme of things. If people want to break WBL using magic, there is always a way...

I don't know of any other metals with a listed price in D&D less than iron? Even looking at Real-WorldTM examples, there don't really seem to be metals cheaper than iron anyway: http://cheaplanet.com/top-5-cheapest-metals-in-the-world/

[Jack_Simth]

True...but at least iron is a wee bit more sane than platinum, mithril or adamantine. Also, not much more broken that Wall of Salt etc. in the grand scheme of things. If people want to break WBL using magic, there is always a way...

I don't know of any other metals with a listed price in D&D less than iron? Even looking at Real-WorldTM examples, there don't really seem to be metals cheaper than iron anyway: http://cheaplanet.com/top-5-cheapest-metals-in-the-world/

Just to further complicate things, the spell cares about volume, prices care about weight. Which m3ans we need to figure out how density comes i when comparing.

[RatElemental]

Hydrogen is part of the first group on the periodic table, and solid hydrogen may exhibit the normal properties of metal. Of course, solid hydrogen would only exist in conditions very different from any you'd be casting the spell in, causing it to instantly sublimate into gas and dissipate.

It could also turn the wood into mercury, which then quickly seeps into the ground so the party can't just scoop it up and sell it.

Or maybe it turns into extremely rusty iron that's already crumbling at the slightest touch.

[Saint-Just]

Note that modern prices of metals may be very far from historical prices: nowadays silver costs about 1\90 of the same weight of gold. In pre-industrial times it was almost always between 1\25 and 1\10 (and 1\10 is used in D&D for all it's other economical implausibilities).

And sometimes prices vary wildly even before advent of industrialization: at the end of Bronze Age in Mediterranean tin was very, very expensive. I have not found any attemts to reconstruct the big picture, but in isolated cases I have seen estimations up to "it's weight in silver". There were constant attempts to produce bronze with less and less tin.

Fast forward to the Medieval and with the main structural metal being iron tin stops being all that valuable. In fact people make household items from (relatively) pure tin - not as display of wealth but for purely utilitarian purposes.

[Jack_Simth]

Though it could depend on the druid, I'd probably argue a cursed item would make rotting wood. Sure, it's still metal to wood, but it's useless, filthy, disease-ridden wood.

Given that Transmute Metal to Wood is a combat debuff or a wall remover, that makes it more useful for the intended application of the base spell.

[Ashtagon]

This druid spell is meant to take what is seemingly considered to be one of the most unnatural materials to druids (made apparent by their loss of class features when using the stuff) into good ole fashioned wood. Let's say someone decided to be a big meanie and curse a druid's item of transmute metal to wood, causing it to produce the opposite effect: transmute wood to metal.
As far as i can tell, transmute wood to metal in the hands of most dm's likely produces the most generic wood possible, maybe even changing depending on the caster's location. Would said cursed item also simply produce the most generic metal, or would the "opposite effect" nature of the curse cause it to create one of the most valuable metals, being even more the antithesis than just plain iron. Obviously in a real game it's dm's call, but what are we thinkin this would do the the vacuum of RAW?

The "nearest similar rule" rule would suggest that it creates a material of no particular monetary value - unrefined iron ore.

[Sereg]

It's supposed to be cursed. Make it produce mercury. Highly toxic and seeps away, make it hard to collect and easily able to cause ecological disaster.

[KillianHawkeye]

It's supposed to be cursed. Make it produce mercury. Highly toxic and seeps away, make it hard to collect and easily able to cause ecological disaster.

This would make sense if you somehow had access to liquid wood, but as wood is generally solid the spell should also produce a solid piece of metal.

[Sereg]

Why does it have to? Besides, you could rule it as frozen mercury. Add cold damage before it rapidly melts.

[emulord]

Maybe a reversed version should just be like the opposite spells Flesh to Stone and Stone to flesh. Neither is really considered cursed, they're just the opposite effect.
Any metal item -> Normal basic wood -> The same original metal item.
Any wooden item -> Normal metal (iron) -> The same original wood item.

Flesh to stone doesn't create exotic stones or gems, and exotic flesh returns to normal when the opposite version is cast.