Funny idea.

[Yvanehtnioj]

Also, I thought up something funny. It "could" be a way to finance things for me / our group. The only thing is that I am fairly certain that I probably shouldn't do it in-game. Here it is:


Spell Compendium p. 9: Amanuensis.
(cleric 0, wiz / sor 0)


This spell allows me, at 12th level, to copy 250 words per minute (a page a minute, as 250 words is ~1 page) whether I understand the language to be copied or not. Think Xerox. The spell lasts ten minutes per level for me, and as such that would be 120 mins, or 2 hours. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, I could only cast it a maximum of twelve times.

This means that with one casting I can copy 10 pages per level for a total of 120 pages per casting. If I am copying a small book with a length of ten pages, then I could effectively copy 12 booklets. Multiply this by twelve castings in a day and we have a maximum copyage of 144 booklets.


Now, using parchment would be cheaper than paper, so let's use parchment. It costs 2 sp per each page. A ten-page booklet would thus cost 20 sp, or 2 gp, in materials. If I sold them at a price of 8 gp per each booklet, there would be a 6 gp net profit per booklet.
(8 gp booklet - 2 gp cost in materials = 6 gp profit.)

And, let's say I spent a week (a Forgotten Realm week is ten days) making booklets. That would mean I'd make 1440 booklets. Thus, 1440 booklets x 6 gp = 8640 gp total profit.

As such:
1/4 of a month = 1 week = 1440 booklets = 8640 gp total profit.
2/4 of a month = 2 weeks = 2880 booklets = 17,280 gp total profit.
3/4 of a month = 3 weeks = 4320 booklets = 25,920 gp total profit.
4/4 of a month = 4 weeks = 5760 booklets = 34,560 gp total profit.


I could never achieve the high numbers above myself, as I'd need to sleep...but then again I could hire other workers as it costs 5 gp x level for a 0-level spell to be cast by an npc.
(Even a third level wiz would need to be paid 15 gp per casting, would produce only 3 booklets per casting, which would sell for only 18 gp. A net profit of 3 gp; half of the 6 gp figures listed above.)


The beauty of it is that since the spell is 0-level, it shouldn't be hard to find a cleric, wiz, or sor to work for me. Even an average 1st-level cleric or wiz could cast it 4x in a day, produce 1 booklet with each casting, and thus make 4 booklets in a day; 40 in a FR week.

If I hired a total of 36 1st-level clerics, wizards, or sorcerors (or combination thereof), then I could have them make 1440 booklets a week. (36 x 40 = 1440.)

This would mean I could earn 4320 gp a week; or 17,280 gp per month; 207,360 gp a year -- all without me doing a thing.



Then, again, why not just invent the printing press and be done with it?



What would we copy...?

Well...besides texts that already are available, stories, fables, etc., we could produce a series of mature content.

Spoiler

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[e.g. "Play-Elf." (Naked elfs? Who wouldn't buy it?)]

I blame my recent economics class for helping me think of this.

[sikyon]

fabricate.

[Ditto]

Another fine exploit of the D&D economy. Your market's going to be pretty thin and quickly sated, of course, so you'll have to be lucky enough to find some bizarre bibliophile patron to keep you in business... but there are better things for a 12th-level character to do with his time.

[Chronos]

Do note that (from your description, at least) it only lets you copy words, not pictures. And while there's always a market for written erotica, it's not nearly as large as that for the graphical form. Plus, with the other spells available by your level, there are a lot of other options for pornography, some of which aren't even available in our world. You could make Permanent or Programmed Images of those naked elves, for instance, in full 3D. Or, if you can get ahold of some toenail clippings of highly-desired folks, you could make Simulacra, which you can even interact with tactilely. Wizards have plenty of options for dominating the prurient-interests market.


While we're at it on moneymaking schemes, though, my personal favorite is the Rod of Wonder. Just keep firing it at thin air in the middle of nowhere, until you get that 88-90 result. At one use per round, you'll generate enough gems to pay for the cost of the rod in a little more than a day. After that, it's pure profit. Admittedly, you'll probably be a lovely shade of lavender by the time you're done, but that's a small price to pay.

[Tyger]

Strictly out of curiousity, how are you (or anyone else for that matter) casting 12 cantrips a day?

There are work arounds of course, such as creating a magic item to cast it x/day or at will, but those do cut into your profits.

That said, yes, this is yet another example of how magic users can destroy economies if unchecked by the DM and common sense.

[Hyozo]

Strictly out of curiousity, how are you (or anyone else for that matter) casting 12 cantrips a day?

PHB page 178, under spell slots.

[Telonius]

You still need to sleep to get the spells back. Sadly that bumps down your profit by 33%.

[Tyger]

PHB page 178, under spell slots.

D'oh! Why do I always forget that rule????

[Karsh]

I blame my recent economics class for helping me think of this.

Your recent economics class should also have taught you that just because you're willing to supply 1440 booklets per week at a cost of 8 gp each, it doesn't mean that there is sufficient demand in a market to cause 8 gp to be the equilibrium price at an equilibrium quantity of 1440 booklets per week.

Do you really think that your 10 page booklets are nearly equivalent in value to the cost of seating one person at a banquet?

Also, how do you plan to distribute them? Are you selling them on the street while making more of them? How are you going to prevent people from selling your booklets second-hand?

The DM guide actually mentions supply and demand causing shifts in equilibrium price levels under Economics in chapter 5 (page 140). Sure, casters can do well with things like Fabricate, but if they flood the market with suits of Masterwork Full Plate, the price of Full Plate is going to fall accordingly in order to move the surplus suits of full plate.

[Khanderas]

Not to mention, if a merchant has one or two Full Plates, he has a set price to sell that. He might sell it today or a week from now, doesn't matter much to him (normally).

If a wizard makes 50 Full plates, he has a whole other kind of pressure to sell them off. Room for one thing, rust another. Unless he stores them all in portable holes or something I guess, but even that is stretching it alittle (those holes could be sold or be storing something else).
The Wizard has pressure to sell and the market not in any pressure to buy, the profits would sink quite a bit.

The real question is why there are any smiths anywhere bothering with mastersmith work,given the time that has to be invested in making an item that would be made cheaper, even at lousy copper/hour wage, instantly by fairly low level Wizards.

[Skjaldbakka]

fairly low level Wizards

Even Fabricate requires you to make craft checks. Fabricate is also not castable by low-level wizards.

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

[tyckspoon]

Not to mention, if a merchant has one or two Full Plates, he has a set price to sell that. He might sell it today or a week from now, doesn't matter much to him (normally).

If a wizard makes 50 Full plates, he has a whole other kind of pressure to sell them off. Room for one thing, rust another. Unless he stores them all in portable holes or something I guess, but even that is stretching it alittle (those holes could be sold or be storing something else).
The Wizard has pressure to sell and the market not in any pressure to buy, the profits would sink quite a bit.

The real question is why there are any smiths anywhere bothering with mastersmith work,given the time that has to be invested in making an item that would be made cheaper, even at lousy copper/hour wage, instantly by fairly low level Wizards.

Teleportation and plane-shifting magic let you tap any market on the planet, if you're willing to do the work to sell to them. The most developed money-making scheme I've seen posted involved hiring people in various cities to act as your selling agents. When they got an order, they would use Sending or other magic to contact the wizard, who would then teleport out stock to fill it.

Full Plate is probably a bad idea, anyway- they have to be personalized to the wearer, so it'd be hard to shift mass-produced suits of unfitted plate. I guess they might be salable to other armorers or to lords who have a personal armorer to do the fitting and who are looking to kit out heavy troops.

[Grynning]

This actually highlights the very anachronistic nature of the overall tech-level in D&D. Given that there is, essentially, an infinitely renewable and (relatively) safe form of energy in magic, and that people have pretty much mastered it, the technology should actually be ahead of our own, rather than centuries behind. Some would argue that "mundane" technology has in fact been ignored in favor of magic, but that still doesn't explain the generally crappy quality of life that seems to be the norm for D&D folk.
Eberron somewhat addresses this in a steam-punk way with airships and monorails and such, but still doesn't explain why people don't have, say, cars instead of horses, or a power-grid for their cities, etc. Or why they still wander around whacking things with swords and axes instead of getting around to inventing firearms of some sort (yes, I know, it wouldn't be as cool, nor would it be a fantasy setting...still, it strains suspension of disbelief somewhat when you think about it).
There was an obscure OGL book published a few years back that dealt with magic-advanced technology, complete with spell-guns, can't remember the name of it ATM...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The reason? Why would the royalty care about the peasants' quality of life when, if the peasants die, they can be zombified easily at little cost. Why give them a power source?

[tyckspoon]

Eberron somewhat addresses this in a steam-punk way with airships and monorails and such, but still doesn't explain why people don't have, say, cars instead of horses, or a power-grid for their cities, etc. Or why they still wander around whacking things with swords and axes instead of getting around to inventing firearms of some sort (yes, I know, it wouldn't be as cool, nor would it be a fantasy setting...still, it strains suspension of disbelief somewhat when you think about it).
.

In Eberron, at least, one of the reasons is that the people who know how to create the fun magic stuff (the gnomes, I think?) are very careful to keep the secret and sell off examples of it at high prices. If more crafters in the setting knew how to do elemental binding, you probably would see some form of car replacing horses and other transport pretty quickly.

I think Faerun is actively being suppressed by its gods; they don't want to see Netheril happen again.

[Cuddly]

There's a problem with the weight of mithral/pound, and the cost of a mithral chain shirt. Mithral goes for 500 gp/ pound. A mithral chain shirt costs 1100gp. But it weighs 12.5 lbs.

See where this is going?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

And don't get me started on the difference between a 10-ft pole and a 10-ft ladder. Someone needed to proofread the PHB at some point.

[tyckspoon]

There's a problem with the weight of mithral/pound, and the cost of a mithral chain shirt. Mithral goes for 500 gp/ pound. A mithral chain shirt costs 1100gp. But it weighs 12.5 lbs.

See where this is going?

It gets worse. Crafting requires 1/3 of market value in 'raw materials'. Presumably the raw material for a 12.5 lb shirt of metal is at least 12.5 lbs of said metal, right? Nope. You only need about 367 gp worth of mithral to make a mithral shirt, which is around 3/4 of a pound of the metal. When you craft a mithral chain shirt, you actually create roughly 17 times as much material as you actually had. This would make some sense if mithral was described as an alloy, but it's not. And, of course, selling that mithral shirt for 1150 gp would be the least valuable thing you could do with it- it's worth far more if you break it down again and sell off the 12 and a half pounds of mithral you created as 1 lb blocks at 500 gp apiece.

Ultimately, I think this is just more proof that D&D is not actually intended to have an economy as such; it breaks if you look at it funny, nevermind actually try to get involved in it.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

oh, I don't know...kinda reminds me of the WoW economy...you can purchase a weapon, or maybe some armor crafted with some material for pretty cheap...but when you try and buy the raw materials they are at least twice as expensive as the end item.

Sometimes if an item is rare enough, the raw resource with the potential to be anything is worth more than the worked resource than now cannot be used by most people for crafting into what they want.

Still doesn't explain why in the hell the cost of the shirt is less unless they assume that the person making the shirt is the same one that sells the mithral...though...in that case...why the hell wouldn't they just sell the mithral?!?!

The mind boggles...

[Squatting_Monk]

Do note that (from your description, at least) it only lets you copy words, not pictures. And while there's always a market for written erotica, it's not nearly as large as that for the graphical form.

This is why ASCII art was invented.

Perhaps we should do a community effort at creating a new (and partially realistic) economy for D&D? This may have been tried before, but obviously it didn't catch on or we'd have all started using those rules.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The problem is the economy depends on the level of magic in your campaign. If you have lvl-10 wizards common, that is very different from lvl-5 being a kingdom's archmage. If we were making a collective world, I would do it, but this may be a bit hard.

[Roderick_BR]

Spoiler

Show

[e.g. "Play-Elf." (Naked elfs? Who wouldn't buy it?)]

Spoiler

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Male elfs Just kidding

You could make a campaign with the PCs working as journalists, and you could make a journal with it

[Inyssius Tor]

This is why ASCII art was invented.

Perhaps we should do a community effort at creating a new (and partially realistic) economy for D&D? This may have been tried before, but obviously it didn't catch on or we'd have all started using those rules.

I vaguely remember a similar effort ending in a wholly off-topic war about ladders or the power level of wizards, but I would be really interested in giving it another shot. That's a different thread, though--or more than one different thread, since that approach worked well for the Avatar people.

Also, it seems to me that the sort of people who would be interested in this hang out in here more than in the Homebrew forum, which poses a bit of a problem.

[Lady Tialait]

This kinda thing happens all the time in my Newr world..the econimy is so magic charged. The reason it doesn't take over is it's suppressed. Who wants a crappy econimy? not I said the wizard.

[Emperor Demonking]

This is why ASCII art was invented.

Perhaps we should do a community effort at creating a new (and partially realistic) economy for D&D? This may have been tried before, but obviously it didn't catch on or we'd have all started using those rules.

That seems like a good idea.

[Iku Rex]

It all sounds like a lot of work.

Get the wall of salt spell from Sandstorm instead. At level 12 you can create 12 5 ft. squares of 12 inch thick pure salt crystal. 12*5*5*1= 300 cubic feet. At 135 lbs per cubic foot, that's 300*135= 40 500 lbs of salt. The salt is real - the spell does not have a duration.

Each pound of salt has a value of 5 gp. Thus, each casting gets you 40 500*5 = 202 500 gp. If you cast the spell 10 times per day you'll get 2 025 000 gp/day, or 739 125 000 gp/year. You'll probably want to hire a few people to help you sell the salt, but profits will still be substantial.

Any cheating attempts by the DM to introduce silly stuff like "supply and demand" to the campaign should be met with resolute thumping on the RULEbook. If he insists you'll just have to accept making a few million gp less.

[Inyssius Tor]

Holy crap!

That spell is more freaking powerful than Wall of Silver Coins!

[tyckspoon]

Holy crap!

That spell is more freaking powerful than Wall of Silver Coins!

You can do the same thing with walls of Iron or Stone (although I'm not certain stone has any book value, it's got to be worth something to have a portable quarry). Salt is just more valuable and easier to break into salable chunks.

[Inyssius Tor]

Exactly! I mean, wall of iron takes some serious work to render salable, since you have to basically smelt the stuff into usable pieces before selling it (and that'll probably degrade the quality). It's probably easier to saturate the iron market, too, even if we were going to bring real-world economics into it--I think the salt market would be harder to saturate, and the demand will increase again shortly.

[sikyon]

oh, I don't know...kinda reminds me of the WoW economy...you can purchase a weapon, or maybe some armor crafted with some material for pretty cheap...but when you try and buy the raw materials they are at least twice as expensive as the end item.

Sometimes if an item is rare enough, the raw resource with the potential to be anything is worth more than the worked resource than now cannot be used by most people for crafting into what they want.

Still doesn't explain why in the hell the cost of the shirt is less unless they assume that the person making the shirt is the same one that sells the mithral...though...in that case...why the hell wouldn't they just sell the mithral?!?!

The mind boggles...

I know that in runescape raw materials cost MORE per piece if you sell them in bulk. It's because people don't want the finished item, they want to improve their crafting skill.