Forge Domain Channel Divinity (Clarification)

[carrdrivesyou]

So my DM and I are hotly debating the limits of the Artisan's Blessing of the Forge Cleric. My understanding is that you can make basically anything that costs less than 100gp by offering up the ingredients for it (or its equal in coins).

The debated bits are as follows (emphasis mine):

You conduct an hour-long ritual that crafts a nonmagical item that must include some metal: a simple or martial weapon, a suit of armor, ten pieces of ammunition, a set of tools, or another metal object (see chapter 5, “Equipment,” in the Player’s Handbook for examples of these items). The creation is completed at the end of the hour, coalescing in an unoccupied space of your choice on a surface within 5 feet of you.

The thing you create can be something that is worth no more than 100 gp. As part of this ritual, you must lay out metal, which can include coins, with a value equal to the creation. The metal irretrievably coalesces and transforms into the creation at the ritual’s end, magically forming even nonmetal parts of the creation.

The ritual can create a duplicate of a nonmagical item that contains metal, such as a key, if you possess the original during the ritual.


So am I wrong to assume that the cleric player could lay out wood and gold to make a shield that incorporates that gold with a specific design? Or is the wood irrelevant, so long as the gold is offered?

[quindraco]

So my DM and I are hotly debating the limits of the Artisan's Blessing of the Forge Cleric. My understanding is that you can make basically anything that costs less than 100gp by offering up the ingredients for it (or its equal in coins).

The debated bits are as follows (emphasis mine):

You conduct an hour-long ritual that crafts a nonmagical item that must include some metal: a simple or martial weapon, a suit of armor, ten pieces of ammunition, a set of tools, or another metal object (see chapter 5, “Equipment,” in the Player’s Handbook for examples of these items). The creation is completed at the end of the hour, coalescing in an unoccupied space of your choice on a surface within 5 feet of you.

The thing you create can be something that is worth no more than 100 gp. As part of this ritual, you must lay out metal, which can include coins, with a value equal to the creation. The metal irretrievably coalesces and transforms into the creation at the ritual’s end, magically forming even nonmetal parts of the creation.

The ritual can create a duplicate of a nonmagical item that contains metal, such as a key, if you possess the original during the ritual.


So am I wrong to assume that the cleric player could lay out wood and gold to make a shield that incorporates that gold with a specific design? Or is the wood irrelevant, so long as the gold is offered?

The wood is irrelevant - the ability works like a portable shop, and lets you pay in any metal. If you lay out wood, it will ignore it. Let's suppose the shield in question has been declared by the DM to cost 20 gp (twice as much as a standard shield). You can combine different metals, but to keep things simple, I'll stick to one at a time.

Any of these will let you produce said shield:

2 platinum pieces or 0.04 pounds of platinum
20 gold pieces or 0.4 pounds of gold
40 electrum pieces or 0.8 pounds of electrum
200 silver pieces or 4 pounds of silver
2000 copper pieces or 40 pounds of copper
200 pounds of iron

If you're in Waterdeep, somehow adamantine costs 1/10 as much as platinum - 100 gp per pound! - so you could use 0.08 pounds of adamantine. Elsewhere, the metal has no listed cost per unit weight.

That's coinage and raw iron and adamantine. Any pure metal object suffices - mixed items are up to your DM; studded leather has metal in it but Druids can wear it, so I dunno. Strictly speaking, the ability does not let you overpay - you can't tip your god. Assuming you can either a) get DM permission to overpay or b) come up with a design that drives the cost of the shield up so you can legally pay more for the shield, any of the three pure metal 25 gp art objects will suffice:

1 silver ewer
1 small gold bracelet
1 copper chalice with silver filigree

And so on. You functionally have a portable shop where you pay your god in metal.

[Mud Puppy]

The wood is irrelevant - the ability works like a portable shop, and lets you pay in any metal. If you lay out wood, it will ignore it. Let's suppose the shield in question has been declared by the DM to cost 20 gp (twice as much as a standard shield). You can combine different metals, but to keep things simple, I'll stick to one at a time.

Any of these will let you produce said shield:

2 platinum pieces or 0.04 pounds of platinum
20 gold pieces or 0.4 pounds of gold
40 electrum pieces or 0.8 pounds of electrum
200 silver pieces or 4 pounds of silver
2000 copper pieces or 40 pounds of copper
200 pounds of iron

If you're in Waterdeep, somehow adamantine costs 1/10 as much as platinum - 100 gp per pound! - so you could use 0.08 pounds of adamantine. Elsewhere, the metal has no listed cost per unit weight.

That's coinage and raw iron and adamantine. Any pure metal object suffices - mixed items are up to your DM; studded leather has metal in it but Druids can wear it, so I dunno. Strictly speaking, the ability does not let you overpay - you can't tip your god. Assuming you can either a) get DM permission to overpay or b) come up with a design that drives the cost of the shield up so you can legally pay more for the shield, any of the three pure metal 25 gp art objects will suffice:

1 silver ewer
1 small gold bracelet
1 copper chalice with silver filigree

And so on. You functionally have a portable shop where you pay your god in metal.


So would the end result be a golden shield? or a Steel shield? does the metal transmute to something more standard? Does it always transmute? If you lay out 100gp worth of Adamantine, do you still get a steel shield or do you get an Adamantine one that negates crits?

I would say that, as written, you are correct that the ability ignores the wood for anything other than flavor and focuses on the metal offering. BUT the answers to the questions above are between you and your DM.

I would submit that the whole point of a Forge cleric is to make things, so if the players said "I want a shield" and offered 100gp worth of gold and any other material... the shield could be a steel shield with whatever other material included, but if they offered 100gp of adamantine or mithral, the shield would remain as those other exotic materials.

[stoutstien]

So would the end result be a golden shield? or a Steel shield? does the metal transmute to something more standard? Does it always transmute? If you lay out 100gp worth of Adamantine, do you still get a steel shield or do you get an Adamantine one that negates crits?

I would say that, as written, you are correct that the ability ignores the wood for anything other than flavor and focuses on the metal offering. BUT the answers to the questions above are between you and your DM.

I would submit that the whole point of a Forge cleric is to make things, so if the players said "I want a shield" and offered 100gp worth of gold and any other material... the shield could be a steel shield with whatever other material included, but if they offered 100gp of adamantine or mithral, the shield would remain as those other exotic materials.

Well adamantine shields don't exist without homebrewing so that is mostly DM fiat. Making say an adamantine chain shirt or mail is an interesting question though.

The problem is the forge cleric's CD doesn't necessarily give the user the ability to circumvent the magic item crafting rules. If anything it explicitly calls out non-magical as a parameter. Mithral/adamantine items are magical sadly. I probably should have opened the post with the more important rabbling...

[Seekergeek]

I believe that the intention is not that the item is made up of those materials. The materials are an offering as part of the ritual used to be blessed with the item. Think of them more as the material components for a spell which conjures the item than the materials making up the item itself.

[Emongnome777]

Making say an adamantine chain shirt or mail is an interesting question though.

Pretty sure "adamantine armor" is a magic item (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/04/10/why-is-an-adamantine-armor-a-magical-item-while-a-adamantine-weapon-is-just-one-made-with-a-diferent-material/). That said, based on that link, perhaps it could be adamantine, but not have the "magical" property of being immune to crits?

Edit: I agree with Seekergeek on this one. I suspect the intent money + 1 hour = crafted item. The CD just does it faster and without tools than normal.

[quindraco]

The ability is a shop, you don't end up with something made out of what you put in. You pay in metal and get a thing.