How to use magic to get rich in the modern world?

[Yora]

While hiding the fact that you use magic. In a medieval world it's quite easy, you just create some gold or diamonds and sell them for money. Done, you're rich now.
But in the modern world, that would be a lot more difficult. If you could make perfect counterfeit bank notes, you might get away with it, but if you create too much of them, people will notice your sudden wealth and the government will start asking questions where all the money is comming from. Even when you're in a place the bank doesn't care how you deposite tens of thousands of cash on your account every week and no official agencies monitor these suspicious transactions, your sudden inrcease of wealth might still tip people of. If you sell diamonds you will have to prove where you got them from and it probably isn't easy to sell large amount of gold without questions asked.

Basically, you would need a way to wash your "fake" magical creation into clean money. Looking into the future to predict lottery numbers could work, but that's too easy and in most works outside the power of a regular mage.

Becomming a professional poker player and using telepathy to beat the opposition? Could work, but you would have to start and build up slowly to not be suspected of cheating. That makes it a bit of a chore.

[Vaz]

Does plant growth refer to fungus? If so; you could encourage the growth of Truffles; they are meant to be more expensive than gold, I guess.

Use Mind Affecting Abilities to open a bar; use said abilities to get people to purchase outrageous up-priced drinks, alongside dehydration, as well as getting ridiculous low prices from the suppliers. Rinse and repeat.

Although it is likely to be very odd, you could possibly make immense salt pans.

Bardic Music Gangnam Style.

Although not exactly megabucks, and likely to crash the economy quicker than a Bank Trader on a champagne hangover, you could flood fake notes into circulation. Alternatively, just use fake notes to purchase your stuff; while just saving

Suggestion (Marry Self) to a Multibillionaire Heir/heiress.

Eagles Splendour or other Charisma boosting ability to put you in films/movies/catwalks (possibly helps to have beauty scores and other modifications like Alter Self to such scores from certain books). Or, use Eagles Splendour to make yourself a politician, rule the country and nearly destroy it in an orgy of self importance and stupid decision making that only benefits yourself before becoming ambassador to the middle east while selling books. Be Tony Blair.

Falsify CV with the ability to make it actually possible, become head honcho of a company through that CV, asset strip.

Create Military Tech and sell to government/third world child soldiers. I'm fairly sure the USA would have loved a Scroll of Scrying for UBL, or equipping Soldiers with Wands of Fireball. Or Missile with Implosion/disintegrate. Or less destructive tech; BDU's of Invisibility/Endure Elements, NVG's of True Seeing, Boots of Endurance/jumping/featherfall/longstrider. "Take 2 minutes off your Mile and a Half Time with these boots; guaranteed!"

Work for a mining company, strike "lucky" and hit a seam of the most priceless element in its purest form.

Up Intellect into the stratosphere; discover renewable energy/work out solution to world peace.

Invisibility and Time Stop to get into a Swiss Banks security box rooms, wait until boxes are about to be returned to the shelf, then get into the box, steal whatever has been put back in, then return to owners hand before time stop finishes. Throw in Clairvoyance and Teleport to be able to get involved in Trade Wars and espionage.

Use Divine Magic to determine presence of a god and proove it (or, you know, not). Get showered in money. Alternatively; actually be able to speak to the dead and make money off that.

Simply; divine the future for next weeks Euromillions lottery draw.

Or; Endure Elements shawl, Begging hat which is actually a disguised bag of holding, and use mass suggestions to have people emptying their wallets into said "hat".

A lot of money comes with positions of power these days; so the magic should be about getting yourself into that position of power while keeping yourself there.

[Yora]

I particularly like the truffles idea. You would first have to set yourself up as a truffles hunter so the traders get to know you, but then you could hit some big finds you grew yourself with magic and attribute it to your dogs, who turn out to be amazing naturally talented truffles dogs.
Do that for a season and you could have enough cash to set up a real gold or diamond prospecting company that just happens to make the find of the century after just a few weeks of opperation. Using magic to detect natural deposits would make the story bulletproof, as every geological investigation would conclude that the diamonds are actually from your mine and it's not just a hole in the dirt used to launder blood diamonds.

[Ravens_cry]

Evil: Use Simulacrum to replace the rich and important. eBay should get you the required material components.
Less Evil: Sell DNA Resequencing Rejuvenation Treatment* to the rich and famous.
*Reincarnation.
Not Evil but Sneaky: Use Greater Teleport to go to the Moon and Mars to get samples to sell.

[Anxe]

You could just use divination spells for lottery numbers too.

Jetpacks that function. You make up some hocuspocus about they work and then use actual hocuspocus to make them work.

A washer/dryer combo that uses presdigitation. No one looks inside their washer/dryer to see how it works, so you can lie about it just like with the jetpacks. EDIT: Upon reconsideration this one wouldn't work. Each machine would cost 200GP to produce (1 use of a 0th level spell per day) which is far too expensive.

[dojango]

I reckon using golems as labor would be even cheaper than sweatshop/prison labor. How could a non-magic using manufacturer compete? Just don't let anyone inspect the shops!

[Gavinfoxx]

My D&D 3.5e-specific handbook on breaking the economy should be pretty suitable for modern settings, too.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Je09i8KWw/edit

Remember that magic breaks conservation of energy and can get you perpetual motion machines. ;) ;)

[Arbane]

Blackmail the rich and powerful via divination spells.

The "Fake mine full of real gold/uranium/whatever" idea has already been mentioned.

Treasure hunting for old shipwrecks/ruins/etc. Just like adventuring back home, but with less monsters!

Become a linguist. Translate now-lost languages. Maybe not too lucrative, but fun.

Start your own cult.

Start preaching your religion. If you're a cleric you can work ACTUAL MIRACLES. If you can cure diseases, you'll quickly be rich. If you can bring the dead back to life, you will very quickly have ALL the money.
ALL OF IT.

Planar Binding. Start a succubus-staffed call-girl service.

Buy broken stuff at flea markets, use Make Whole on it. Resell.

Smuggling via Teleportation.

Bank Robbery via teleportation/passwall.

Pick Third-World Hellhole of your choice. Nuke local government, take over. Use magic to bring about prosperity and/or nuke troublemakers.

Go supervillain. Animate some corpses, and threaten to start the Zombie Apocalypse unless you are paid... ONE MILLION BILLION DOLLARS! (Yeah, it's a bluff, but THEY won't know that.)

(Do not mix the above two suggestions.)

Oh, yeah! Make perpetual motion machines, sell them, or sell electricity from them. Or threaten to sell them unless the oil companies pay you tribute.

Become a 'management consultant'. Use Suggestion indiscriminately.

[LordHavelock]

Rather than lottery numbers, I suggest using divination across a spectrum of different sports making incremental and diverse bets among a wide field so as not to attract notice. Vegas would be the best place to do it. Go to different casinos, bet on point spreads in various sports, horses to finish and place (not win) and whatever random happenings are in the news (in Vegas it's possible to bet on anything). Keep your bets relatively small and proportionate to your living arrangements, pay your taxes, and you will always have more disposable income and financial security (without however, achieving super wealth).

[Erik Vale]

Use divining spells to determine what numbers will win the lottery/win gambling/stocks grow best the stockmarket.

You just get considered lucky, and there is nothing illegal/evil about it.

[Dr.Epic]

Or you could use your magic to cure people. You know how useful a real D&D cleric would be in this world? Cure Wounds? Remove Disease? Regeneration? Serious medical procedures could be done in moments with no chance for error.

And the best part is you don't have to hide it. You think anyone's going to be upset you have magical powers and are healing people?

[Drakeburn]

Or you can use magic to put on a traveling magic show.

The wizard from the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon series did it, and Raistlin from the Dragonlance Chronicles did it as well.

[Ravens_cry]

Personally, I would keep that secret, Dr. Epic. Say become a (medical) doctor and try to use my powers covertly.
Even the most favourable reaction if people knew you could treat any injury, remove any disease, any poison, and perhaps even raise the dead, is profoundly scary.

[Lord Torath]

Continual Light on pebbles/rocks to replace LED's.

Gust of Wind spells at wind turbines.

Teleport Object for even faster than overnight! Or sell your services as a warhead-delivery service to the government of your choice.

Metamorphose Liquids to create rare liquid elements (mercury, whatever they're paying the most for just now-protection from poison might be a good idea before casting) out of dirty water. You can also create molten liquids (gold, platinum? What rare-metals is China currently cornering the market on? Protection from heat beforehand is a must, unless you want a burnt tongue!) A cubic foot of platinum per level per first level spell slot per day adds up to a lot in a hurry. Again, or whatever metals are trending higher than gold. Are there any perfumes that are worth their weight in gold?

[Grimsage Matt]

Enslave the World.

Or, just go on TV, use mass sugesstion and Mind Rape and build yourself a cult, then infect and repeat intill everyone is your mind controled meat puppet doing what you want them to do.

[Nepenthe]

You think anyone's going to be upset you have magical powers and are healing people?

The insurance companies would see you dead within the week. Same with vegas. If someone always wins dangerous people will notice. The way to this is day-trading -- lose more often than you win, but make sure you're up at the end of the month (or some other less obvious increment of time. Amass your fortune over the span of a few years. And always, always report your income.

[Morithias]

And the best part is you don't have to hide it. You think anyone's going to be upset you have magical powers and are healing people?

Yes. Yes a thousand times yes. No matter how good you are, and how cheap your services are. There is going to be some religious nutjob claiming you are a "false lord" and coming for your head.

You want to get rich in the modern world using magic but not get caught? Lower your standards.

The fact is once you pass a certain amount, more money doesn't make you happier. Just give you apartment lord a gold bar every month or so, use create food and water to feed yourself, and buy a videogame or two a month.

Quite frankly if you would abuse mage's power to rule the world or ruin the economy so you can live like the guy from Highlander 2, you're not worthy of magic. And quite frankly I'm quite glad that due to the HUGE lack of magical research going on in real life, that magic development is so far behind that real magic is useless.

I'm not even joking. In the time and money it would take me to cast a spell capable of making a single unappetizing meal. I could walk down to the grocery store, spend the same amount of money, and come back with 5 DAYS worth of food, instead of 1 meal.

[Grendus]

Go to an antiques roadshow style exhibit and use Identify to figure out which pieces of art are truly valuable.

Use divination to predict stocks. Less noticeable than the lottery or other forms of gambling.

Invest heavily in one company, then use magic to cause... misfortune on their competitors. How much havoc could you cause with one fireball?

[Arbane]

Invest heavily in one company, then use magic to cause... misfortune on their competitors. How much havoc could you cause with one fireball?

Enough to get Homeland Security on your butt, if you're not REALLY careful.
Stick to insider Outsider trading.

[VonDoom]

And quite frankly I'm quite glad that due to the HUGE lack of magical research going on in real life, that magic development is so far behind that real magic is useless.

I'm not even joking. In the time and money it would take me to cast a spell capable of making a single unappetizing meal. I could walk down to the grocery store, spend the same amount of money, and come back with 5 DAYS worth of food, instead of 1 meal.

Wait, what?

[Andreaz]

Fireball's really so damn tame... It's not worth giving to soldiers or using yourself. Grenades do that job better for you.
Tippy up your house, cheat a good gamble or three when you need extra cash(use disguises), mind trick inspectors. Keep it simple!

[nedz]

1. Divine location of King Cnut's lost royal horde.
2. Buy Metal Detector for Cover.
3. ???
4. Profit.

[Analytica]

Use divination to predict stocks. Less noticeable than the lottery or other forms of gambling.

This. It is really the very easiest and less morally iffy option. It also scales, so that with each successive step, you leverage what you already gained. Even better, do currency trading using Divination, Augury or some spell that gives you +20 to a knowledge check, such as Knowledge: Foreign Exchange Market.

[Sidmen]

Much easier:

Step 1: tell everyone you're going diving.
Step 2: Go diving in some random place in the Gulf.
Step 3: Magic up some "lost treasure" gold coins with Spanish markings.
Step 4: Report your claim and accept the millions in salvage rights.
Step 5: Then you can just use those millions to invest, using divinations to look into the future some 10-20 years to find the best companies to invest in.

Keep a million or so liquid to live on, and just lounge about doing whatever you want.

[Asheram]

1: Find rich guy in hospital
2: Cure Disease.
3: Get paid
4: Repeat as needed.

As simple as that.

[Morithias]

Cure Disease.

As simple as that.

Again what happens when some nutjob tries to assassinate you for being a "false idol"?

[Ravens_cry]

Again what happens when some nutjob tries to assassinate you for being a "false idol"?

Or people killing you because you didn't use your ability to cure them or their loved ones.
Or kidnapping you so you do.

[Asheram]

Again what happens when some nutjob tries to assassinate you for being a "false idol"?

Please. If you don't have the common sense to be discrete about it then you're begging for it.

[Ravens_cry]

Please. If you don't have the common sense to be discrete about it then you're begging for it.

That's not entirely in your hands. You also need other people to be discrete about it.

[snoopy13a]

How about mage hand and the Roulette Wheel?

Probably would want a confederate to bet while you sit at a slot machine or something though.