The economics of Continual flame

jayoungr said:

If there's only one place in the world where you can mine rubies,

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You don't need rubies for the spell. In a world where fabricate exists, any gemstone will do (as long as it is of reasonable quality).

The jadeite mine provides a caster with a barrel of chips of crystal. One casting of fabricate later, there is a ruby 5ft across sitting on the bench.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why there is even such a thing as diamond dust or ruby dust when a spell can combine them back into a single stone.

Greenstone.Walker said:

You don't need rubies for the spell. In a world where fabricate exists, any gemstone will do (as long as it is of reasonable quality).

The jadeite mine provides a caster with a barrel of chips of crystal. One casting of fabricate later, there is a ruby 5ft across sitting on the bench.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why there is even such a thing as diamond dust or ruby dust when a spell can combine them back into a single stone.

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A ruby or diamond is not a manufactured item. They're not things you can fabricate. The spell seems pretty clear what it's capable of.

lowkey13 said:

Anyway, the gist of all of this is that AFAIK, it really was without foundation. I don't happen to agree with S'mon that 1 to 2 SP per day was the "living wage" for thousands of years in places with a monetary economy (again, source). Wages (including in-kind contributions such as food and lodging) varied in different areas and over time; notably, issues such as war and disease (the black death, for example, was a major driver of wages in Europe, and similar population issues had similar effects throughout history) would drive wages, while relative wealth between areas also mattered a great deal.

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Yes, I was thinking of areas like the classical Mediterranean world where silver moved around fairly freely and there was a monetary economy. Not economically depressed and resource poor regions like Europe in the Dark Ages through High Medieval, when the Arab conquests and piracy had cut off Mediterranean trade. Generally this increased the value of silver but the main impact was silver (or any metal) just wasn't used much. The English economy ca 1200 AD for instance was largely not a monetary economy. Most castle staff for instance were generally not paid wages, they received food shelter clothes etc for their labour.

BTW here's a reference to a skilled Athenian labourer making 11.5 grams of silver a day, or about 3 sp at an historical 100 coins/lb. Athens had silver mines so wages tended to the high end. I've seen lots of references to Athenian rowers, Roman legionaries etc being paid 1 sp/day and wanting 2 sp/day.

Edit: Here's good stuff on ancient Rome. Like Stuart says "A Farm Laborer earned 1 Argenteus (silver) a day. A Roman Solider earned about double that (including grain). An Arithmetic Teacher earned 3 silver a day."

The 1 sp/day for unskilled labour seems remarkably consistent over time to me. I suspect this was for utility reasons. Eg in medieval Europe, when people did get paid (which was rare) it would still tend to be at 1 silver coin a day, but the coins were a lot smaller, more like 1/240 lb rather than a Classical 1/100 lb.

S'mon said:

Greenstone.Walker said:

You don't need rubies for the spell. In a world where fabricate exists, any gemstone will do (as long as it is of reasonable quality).

The jadeite mine provides a caster with a barrel of chips of crystal. One casting of fabricate later, there is a ruby 5ft across sitting on the bench.

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A ruby or diamond is not a manufactured item. They're not things you can fabricate. The spell seems pretty clear what it's capable of.

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Hmmm...The 3.5Ed version:

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.

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The 5Ed version:

You convert raw materials into products of the same material. For example, you can fabricate a wooden bridge from a clump of trees, a rope from a patch of hemp, and clothes from flax or wool.
Choose raw materials that you can see within range. You can fabricate a Large or smaller object (contained within a 10-foot cube, or eight connected 5-foot cubes), given a sufficient quantity of raw material. If you are working with metal, stone, or another mineral substance, however, the fabricated object can be no larger than Medium (contained within a single 5-foot cube). The quality of objects made by the spell is commensurate with the quality of the raw materials.
Creatures or magic items can’t be created or transmuted by this spell. You also can’t use it to create items that ordinarily require a high degree of craftsmanship, such as jewelry, weapons, glass, or armor, unless you have proficiency with the type of artisan’s tools used to craft such objects.

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I would say if you could use Fabricate to make a ball of wood from sawdust, you could make a marble of ruby from ruby dust. Maybe from corundum dust (rubies being red-colored corundum). Not from any other material, though, not even another mineral.

Thing is...the 3.5Ed and 5Ed versions of CF just require 50gp of ruby dust, so, Fabricate isn’t really needed.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Hmmm...The 3.5Ed version:

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Sorry I was going by the 5e version, like most people I keep forgetting about the merged
boards. (edit) Both versions say "Product" though the 5e examples make it clearer..

As far as Gygaxian economics goes, the problem that has plagued D&D since the beginning is Gygax created two separate incompatible economic systems.

Gygax the simulationist created a system based on historical research that was based on the living wage of roughly 1 silver coin per day. This is the NPC economy and food and other necessities, wages of unskilled labor, and taxes are valued in the NPC economy in 1e AD&D.

Gygax the gamist created a system based on what worked in his games based on a unified gold piece standard. This is the PC economy and adventuring equipment treasure, experience points, magic items, highly skilled labor, and buildings are largely valued according to the PC economy.

The two systems however are obviously not compatible. They are based on the assumption that by and large the PC's will interact only in minor ways with the NPC economy and that the game will continue to be primarily about adventuring and delving into dark places. PC income from taxes for example are priced in the NPC economy to keep the game focused on its intended gameplay and not have ruling over a territory replace adventuring as a major source of income.

Similarly, spells and magic items in D&D were balanced according to the PC economy and their utility in adventuring. They were not balanced and tend to be wildly unbalanced with respect to the NPC economy.

Whenever you try to do a holistic economy, the two things run into problems. As of at least 3.5, the legacy of this was still impacting game economics at least to some extent. I don't know if things have fully been regularized in 5e, but I would be surprised if they were and I'd guess that if 5e has removed the XP cost of spell casting or magic items that in some ways magic may even be worse balanced than 3.X from an economic perspective.

S'mon said:

Sorry I was going by the 5e version, like most people I keep forgetting about the merged
boards. (edit) Both versions say "Product" though the 5e examples make it clearer..

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Yeah, I figured I should include the 5Ed version, just in case.

I would suspect- from the examples given- that Fabricate works on more than one material at a time. Clothes are made with more than wool or cotton, for example, because of the dyes and threads. Though it’s possible to build bridges with just wood, usually there is use of metal nails and/or rope.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Yeah, I figured I should include the 5Ed version, just in case.

I would suspect- from the examples given- that Fabricate works on more than one material at a time. Clothes are made with more than wool or cotton, for example, because of the dyes and threads. Though it’s possible to build bridges with just wood, usually there is use of metal nails and/or rope.

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Oh definitely. If you have the materials you can make the product (if you have the skill).

Dannyalcatraz said:

Yeah, I figured I should include the 5Ed version, just in case.

I would suspect- from the examples given- that Fabricate works on more than one material at a time. Clothes are made with more than wool or cotton, for example, because of the dyes and threads. Though it’s possible to build bridges with just wood, usually there is use of metal nails and/or rope.

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Nails in construction is actually a fairly recent development, a lot of construction was timber framing, basically building with joints and pegs. As far as clothing, who says you can't have pre-died items or simply undied? If you're making cloth, why do you need thread. Even if you need thread, what's wrong with making thread out of the same material as the cloth?

Like a lot of things in D&D there's a lot of leeway and interpretations of how things work, so do what makes sense to you of course.

Not sure if people are interested, but just in case, this is the spell description for fabricate from D&D Basic's Player's Guide to Alphatia.

This is a catch-all spell which creates materials useful to adventurers and others. Food, drink, and clothing, and other soft goods may be so created. The spell may create food and drink, or cloth and leather, or softwoods and porcelain; hardwoods, stones, metals, etc. may not be created.

As a rule of thumb, each casting of the spell will create one person's worth of the material in question. When it is used to make food and drink, it creates one day's rations.

Therefore, one application of the spell could create:

• One day’s rations, including water and food (iron rations), but not the containers for them; or
• A good meal for up to three people (this equals three meals for one person), including main course, side dishes, wines, etc.; or
• Table settings (wood and porcelain) for up to three people; or
• A complete outfit, including belt and boots (with leather ties or wooden buckles), waterskins and sheathes, for one person; or
• A saddle and bridle for one horse; or
• One softwood staff (other types of wooden weapons cannot be created), which always breaks on a 1 in 6; and so on.

Like the clothwall spell, this spell produces materials that may not be dispelled.

It helps if this spell is used with some sort of general skill. If the caster does not know how to cook, for instance, he can still fabricate food-but it is going to be plain. If he cannot sew or tailor, the clothes he creates will be shapeless and baggy. If he knows nothing of the cobbler's arts, the shoes he creates will probably be uncomfortable. Since the caster can stretch out the casting time to one full turn (he can make it take as little as one round), if he has an expert or craftsman on hand, he can get that person's advice and do a good job with his fabrication.

This spell is not so powerful as the clerical create water or create food, but it is more versatile.

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What's interesting about it is that it is limited to soft materials. You can magic up yourself a fancy suit if you have the skill or a decent suit if you have a craftsman helping you but if you want to create a bridge or suit of armour then other magic or actual manpower is going to be needed.