D&D 5E Fabricate: a world change spell

I saw a lot of topics about "overpower" spells. All of them are, basically, combat spells.

But here is a potentially powerful and game-change spell: Fabricate. It is a 4th level wizard spell. With it, the wizard (or bard, after all, on 10th level a bard can pick the spell that he wants) can create an object from a material that he has on the casting moment. If the material is stone/metal, the object can be only medium size. Complex objects need proficiency on a tool (like armors, weapons...).

First implication, player's side:
1. When wizard reaches 7th level, he has infinite money. We need money? Ok, what about a 5ft cube of gold? FOR EVERY CAST
2. Adamantine weapons? Mithril armor? Dragonleather armor? Not a problem at all, if the wizard have proficiency in smith tools. All what he need is a small amount of the original material.
3. Diamants from ressurection? Pff, all we need is a small one, I'll fabricate two diamond from each one of us.

So, this isn't a big problem... what the players will do if all the money, after all, since we can't buy magic items for default? The problem begins if the DM allows this.

Second implication, DM's side:
Now the things begins to be interesting.
1. A wizard's tower (or lich, of course) with all doors and chest being made of adamantine. Well, again, wizards are the richest people of the world.
2. Ok, you made 20 5ft. cube of diamond. Now... can you explain to me how do you'll sell it?
3. How rare is a material if a 7th level wizard can duplicate it infinitely?
4. A 7th level higher wizard will never ask from money from it's service, but, instead, we'll ask for missions or very rare materials.
5. A king that has a small number of 7th level wizard working from him (not for money... but, for what? favor? loyalty?). Can you imagine an army with adamantine full plates? Well, this can be a reality easily. How the economics will work in this way?

Fabricate always was a great spell. Creates things in a jiffy.

But I dont think its as game breaking as you think.

First it only creates material from provided material that's the same kind. So Trees->wood furniture, or stone-> building materials. You still need to have the original material on hand.

IF you intent to convert gold, silver, gems you go down to 1/10th the provided amount (going by the old spell, dont have my PHB on me to double check, but I dont see why they would change it).

So you would take 10 cubic feet of raw gold, gold coins, etc, to turn it into a 1 cubic foot ingot, or chair, or whatever else... you lose value.


I think you misunderstand the spell as it merely converts existing materials into other shapes/forms.

As Astrosicebear pointed out you need the same material for it to work. You can't plot diamonds out of nowhere.

The real problem is how quickly you can craft items with an artisan tools' proficiency (e.g. from background) compared to the normal crafting rules. Get a good supply chain for a good metal going and you can crank out Full Plate like nobody's business. Instead of taking 300 days per. Each could be sold at 100% markup.

Pretty handy for Necromancers, right?

Eejit said:

Get a good supply chain for a good metal going and you can crank out Full Plate like nobody's business. Instead of taking 300 days per. Each could be sold at 100% markup.

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A war between the Wizards' Guild and the Armourers' Guild instigated by a PC from the former horning in on the racket of the latter is a pretty good basis for a campaign, so consider that stolen.



Cheers,
Roger

Yeah, I misread the spell. You really don't create more material. Sorry for this, guys

Creating gold sounds like a nice way to destroy the economy of wherever you are.

With the wording, I tend to see it as just replacing the manual effort... As worded, it doesn't even replace the skill for anything of metal, stone, or gem... gotta know the tools.

Fun things you can do with fabricate:

• Find a field of hemp plants, poppy flowers, etc. and become a drug lord
• Quickly and secretly equip an army
• Kill someone and transmute the corpse into a meat pie

BRB, writing a campaign.

Where the spell gets tricky is if people try to leverage real-world chemistry into it. For instance, transforming a few cubic feet of graphite into the world's largest diamond - after all, it's the same material.

MarkB said:

Where the spell gets tricky is if people try to leverage real-world chemistry into it. For instance, transforming a few cubic feet of graphite into the world's largest diamond - after all, it's the same material.

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What is the conversion rate here, mass wise? I've always wondered how much coal or graphite it would take to make a diamond. Aren't diamonds more dense?