Best (non-cheese) Fabricate for gold?

[Tyger]

Okay, inspired by the "Ways to make money" thread, and in keeping with the RAW that you must supply 1/3 the value of a Fabricated item and can only sell items for 1/2 their book value, what is the most profitable item to Fabricate?

And this of course assumes that we aren't talking about cheese... no charcoal to diamonds and the like. Raw materials, spell cast, one item appears. RAW only people.

Mithril fullplate?

[Kantolin]

A large building?

Edit: I'm thinking that, the more expensive the resulting item is, the more money you make when you lose 1/3 and then 1/2ish of it.

Edit2: And by a large building, I mean a huge castle, for a whopping one million gold. Of course, that may take multiple fabricates, as by its definition it's 'a huge keep with numerous associated buildings'. It'd be worth it for the payout, though.

To stick to the armour idea, though, go with Adamantine over Mythril - it's significantly more expensive. Again, you spend more to put into it, but get a significantly larger reward.

[Tyger]

Yup... But considering the limitations of the spell, you may not have enough material for your building. 10 cubic feet per level, or 1 cubic foot if using mineral.

Lets assume level 12. So 120 cubic feet of non-mineral material, or 12 of stone, metal, gems, whatever...

[Kantolin]

Hmm... level 12. Let me crank some numbers, then.

If you can get this to work, it costs you ~333,333gp, and can then be sold for 500,000gp, for a net profit of ~166,667gp. Almost a mirror of life trapping.

Perhaps a metamagic rod would help, but you're right - there's no way you could get an entire huge castle in a single casting. Curses.

Perhaps one of the boats from the PHB, or one of the smaller buildings, then. Worst-case scenario, you get Adamantine Full Plate, sized abnormally as that's more expensive.

(Or possibly, Adamantine Full Plate with Adamanting Spikes on it. Hard to argue if that'd be one casting or not, though, but it could be the same material)

[shadow_archmagi]

I do wonder if it works both ways. That is, if raw materials are always equal to 1/3rd the cost, why not simply fabricate over and over? That is..

"iron into iron bits! Iron bits into iron gears! Iron gears into iron mechanism! Iron mechanism into large iron watch! Iron watch into small iron watch with casing! Small iron watch into enscribed and decorated with engravings iron watch! Fancy iron watch into block of iron! Repeat!"

With value tripling every cast, starting at even.. say.. 1 copper, it'd be worth MILLIONS by the end of the week. 1-3-9-27-74-222-666-1998-5994-17982-53946-161838.. that is 3 days of casting at 4 spells per day. 161838 copper. Or, if I remember how to do this properly.. 16 gold. Sixteen gold from NOTHING. And thats assuming you stop and don't continue.

Of course, my grasp of the rules is probably wrong, and rule zero completely invalidates this.

[Jack_Simth]

Flax into a roll of linen. A roll of linen is a single object, so no worries there.

Flax (and the Linen made from it) is an organic material, so no worries there.

Linen is a trade good (used as cash at value in most places) so you're not using that pesky "sell for half" limitation.

[Khanderas]

Value would not triple per casting.
Item worth: 30 gold
You must provide: 10g
You can sell it for 15g

(assuming the OP's numbers)

Then you spend 10 gold to get 15 gold, or 50% increase per casting, not 300%.

It is true though, that if for every cast of fabricate you make money, you can keep doing it and just get MAD wealth in the end.

I guess it should have to make sense in some way. Like the amount of material cannot go up (fabricating 1 ton iron into 1.5 ton of iron) and staying within the same material group (1 ton stone into 1 ton gold). Then the value for purposes of this spell, should be based on the raw material price. Otherwise you just turn X kg of iron into X+y kg of needles that you then turn into X+y+z kg of iron and so on.

Fabricate should be a way to get something up for a COST (because you win in speed / labor), not multiplying its value for every cast.



EDIT: Every kingdom should have a couple of wizards with the following deal: We train you in Wizardry, and once you get to the casterlevel you need for fabricate it will be your job so triple the kingdoms funds every week.
Show me the king who would not want this. Show me an orphan of above average int that would not take this deal.
For this reason alone, fabricate does not logically work the way it is written

[Jack_Simth]

Fabricate should be a way to get something up for a COST (because you win in speed / labor), not multiplying its value for every cast.

Well, if you want to be crazy-literal, the materials are listed both as the material component and the target. If you wanted, you could (while still technically being within the RAW) rule that you actually need twice as much stuff to make a product - want a masterwork Greatsword? Well, first, you need the 116 gp, 6 sp, 6 cp for the material components. Then you need it again for the transmutation target. Spend 233 gp, 3 sp, 2 cp and a 5th level spell slot to make your sword.

[Khanderas]

I am unfamiliar with the cost / value of a Greatsword and i am at work so how good/bad a deal that is, I cannot tell.

What I am saying though, is that Fabricate should not be a super efficient way to make money.

• If you need a specific reagent then by all means transform the ruby to a diamond and raise dead, but the value of that ruby is more then the diamond.

• If you need to build a keep and you got the rocks provided. a) Have serfs make the keep at a cost of 20 000 gp, or b)use fabricate and it is up fairly instantly but you lose 30 000 gp in materials (from the value of the rocks or in any other material component for the spell itself).

Or any other way to avoid turning a 20 gp item, into a 30 gp item, into a 45 gp item, into a 67½ gp item and so on. Fine sofar, but start with a 20 000 gp item...

[mostlyharmful]

A while ago I had an NPC Wizard settle in a little cove that nobody wanted because of the rocks off shore and the lack of anything much. He had a Golem to do the hauling and Fabricate & Wall of stone in his spell book. Over the corse of a year he turned the underwater rocks and reefs into a perfect deep water harbour, built a sewerage system, a huge city wall, a road connecting his land to the trade route just inland, a selection of warehouses, houses and a city hall, a library and a tower for himself.

It took him a while but he built a town. And then sold plots. And then hired tax collecters. and rent collecters. And he was hailed as a great man, rather than reviled for destroying the economy. He ended up legging it from demonthrall doppelgangers but that came later

[Khanderas]

Now that is a good way to use fabricate.

[Tyger]

Yeah, that's pretty nice! Well done.

For the record, some posters seem confused about the way the spell works. No, it does not create wealth. No it does not turn copper in to gold. No, it does not triple the amount of gold in one's treasury. What it does is craft items, using the normal mabe materials for that item. It just does it a lot faster. Its particularly handy in the case of very expensive items, due to the way that the Craft skills work. For example, a suit of adamantium full plate, valued at 16,650 gold, would take your average smith about 10 years to make. But a Fabricate spell, plus a pile of adamantium, some leather (for straps) and other assorted minor materials, one casting, and Shazaam! Suit of armor.

And Khanderas, that may be a good way to handle the spell in your game, but I did indicate that we'd stick to RAW here.

The only way it makes money is by selling the item for its price, and only paying 1/3 of its price in materials. That's it.

Here's the text of the spell, for those interested.

Spoiler

Show

FROM THE SRD
Fabricate
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: See text
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: Up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.

You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.

Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell.

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

Now, that aforementioned masterwork suit of adamantium full plate (at 16650 GP market price) requires that you provide 5550 GP worth of the appropriate materials. Then you cast the spell, need to make two craft checks (one at DC 18 to craft the armor, one at DC 20 for the masterwork quality). If successful, bingo. One suit of armor. Which you can now sell for 8325. Net profit of 2775 GP. Cast that 4 times a day (assuming level 12 with a bonus spell from INT) and viola, 11100 GP per day. Until you flood the market or run out of adamatium.

So, any other ideas? I like the flax to linen! Full sale price is always nice. So 4GP for one square yard of linen. Material cost is only 1.33 GP. Net profit of 2.67 GP per square yard. Only question then is how much flax you can get your hands on to mass produce this little gem.

[Hyozo]

So, any other ideas? I like the flax to linen! Full sale price is always nice. So 4GP for one square yard of linen. Material cost is only 1.33 GP. Net profit of 2.67 GP per square yard. Only question then is how much flax you can get your hands on to mass produce this little gem.

Square yards to cubic feet... If one casting at level twelve converts 120 cubic feet, each layer would be 900 square yards per cubic foot. That would be a total net profit of 2403 GP per layer, and layers are rather thin. Even assuming that a single layer was a quarter of an inch (which it wouldn't be) the total net profit off of this one spell would be 13,841,280 GP...

Good luck acquiring enough flax.

[Mewtarthio]

A while ago I had an NPC Wizard settle in a little cove that nobody wanted because of the rocks off shore and the lack of anything much. He had a Golem to do the hauling and Fabricate & Wall of stone in his spell book. Over the corse of a year he turned the underwater rocks and reefs into a perfect deep water harbour, built a sewerage system, a huge city wall, a road connecting his land to the trade route just inland, a selection of warehouses, houses and a city hall, a library and a tower for himself.

It took him a while but he built a town. And then sold plots. And then hired tax collecters. and rent collecters. And he was hailed as a great man, rather than reviled for destroying the economy. He ended up legging it from demonthrall doppelgangers but that came later

Now, that's pretty impressive. I hope he had ranks in Craft (building) or Knowledge (architecture & engineering), though. By the way, how was that supposed to destroy the economy?

[mostlyharmful]

Now, that's pretty impressive. I hope he had ranks in Craft (building) or Knowledge (architecture & engineering), though. By the way, how was that supposed to destroy the economy?

Yes, he had loads of Knowledge(engineering) and Craft skills. And the destroying the economy comment was that this doesn't destroy it. That's what makes it the best use of fabricate. Building huge quantities of unbelievably valuable stuff would have enormous consequences. Building a town and then leading it to self sufficiency, profitability and then market dominance doesn't make the DM want to kill you, it lets you make lots of small profits rather than one big score that shuts down the world and staves all the children.

[Stam]

I think the point was, instead of attempting to destroy the merchant trade of one location via fabricate, he instead created an entire new city using it.

Edit: Ninja'd.