Rules, revised
I thinked a little more about making the rules for the creation of demiplanes. These rules that I made are a little better than the one I made before.
With this rules makind a very small demiplane isn't much expensive (like the creation of a maior magic item) while a bigger plane could cost more.
Maybe these prices are too low and must be doubled, or even five times (I never played with high level PC and I have no idea about their effective wealth, incomes and power)
Demiplane Creation
Required Feat: Create Demiplane
Requirements: Knowledge (The Planes) + 15, Spellcaster level 17
Benefit: you can create a demiplane
Demiplane creation cost in gp (xp cost is gp/12.5 as usual)
(all this costs are creation costs and not market prices)
Geometry:
The Demiplane can be built from a few elementary blocks: cube, rectangular box, cylinder, dome (half sphere) and sphere
You can have it to be self-contained, so that crossing each margin brings you back to the other side. This feature is free.
Size:
- Cubic: 1,000gp multiplied by the side in feet
Ex: a 100x100x100 ft cube costs 100x1,000gp = 100,000gp
- Rectangular: 500gp multiplyed by the sum of the shorter and longer sides side
Ex: a box of size 100x100x50ft costs 500*(100+50) = 75,000gp
- Cylinder: 700gp multiplied by the sum of radius and height
Ex: a cylinger of 50ft radius and 50ft height costs 700*(50+50) =70,000gp
- Dome: 1,000gp multiplied by the radius (this has a lower cost, but the space is more difficoult to fit with buildings)
- Sphere: 1,500 gp multiplied by the radious
- Combined shapes: pay for each shape used
Ex: a cylinder of radious 100 ft and height 50ft with a 100ft radius dome on it's top costs 700*(100+50)+100*1,000=205,000gp
General information:
- You can have the outer side to be opaque (like a solid wall) or to resemble the sky.
- If you have a sky you can have the light to vary like if there were days and nights. This is enough for normal plants to live.
- There is no problem of oxygen: the air is always breathable.
- The temperature can be choosen in any range between natural cold (like artic) and natural hot (like desert). more extreme conditions require magic and have a higher price
- You can have any sort of common natural material (stone, soil, sand, water) to fill your demiplane: for example you can have undergound (filling with stone or soil), or sea-like filling it with water.
- Any sort of building, instead, has a separate cost
- Food and water are not automatically there. They must be created with magic or natural means (such as plants).
Open spaces:
If you have an space of at least the size of a dome of 100 ft radius not enclosed in a building you have an "Open space?. In this case you can have a small natural enviroment.
- you can have very simple weather conditions: rain, wind and snow. The weather is random like a normal climate; if you want the power to control weather at will (as per the druidic spell) you must spend other 10,000gp.
- you can have rivers, lakes, snowfield, glacier providing the climate is appropriate. Water from the river can be drinked.
- you can have any sort of natural vegetation (grass, flowers, trees) but not non-natural plants. Grass requires only a 1 ft soil, brushes and small trees 5ft, large trees 10ft (I know that in reality probably trees need much more soil, but this rules are made to keep everything simple)
- you can have very small natural animals (insects, chipmunks, ... any sort of animal of size Tiny or less); larger animals must be brought from outside, and so does everything with an intelligence of at least 3. Unless you exceed in number, food is not a problem for this animals.
Buildings:
Any building requires a cost that is one quarter of the cost you would have payed to have it built in a normal material plane. Ex: a tower costs 50,000gp / 4 = 12,500gp.
You must have at least 5 ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engeneering) for basic constructions, 10 for more difficoult ones and 15 ranks (or 10 ranks, and 5 in Knowledge (Arts)) to have artistic buildings (that usually cost twice the price). If you don't have this, you must have someone with the knowledge that helps you during the creation.
Note: the buildings can be built also normally by workers or magical servants (if you keep the portal open for them), at the standard price and time for a normal building (and not as a magical creation, with xp cost)
Other features:
Endless fountain: a fountain with ethernal drinkable water costs 1,000gp. It gives 5 gallons/round (22,5 l/round). To have wine or beer costs 5,000gp and it is only one quarter gallon/round (1,1 l/round), or more if it's of greater quality.
Endless food: to have magically created food costs 500gp multiplied by the maximum numbers of persons a time that the magic can create. This works four times a day. To have higher quality food costs twice or even more. Food for animals or horses cost half the price.
Anything brought outside the demiplane vanishes, even if the characters that have eaten of drunk don't became hungry or thirsty again.
Planar traits:
Time: for free you can have the time to flow as standard, half as fast or twice faster. To have it flow much quicker or slower (1 hour / 1 day ratio) you must spend 50,000gp, and also to have it timeless (in the latter case you need to eat and sleep on the plane, and you do regain hp, but time don't pass outside the demiplane). To have it ethernal, in the sense that the people in the demiplane don't age even if they eat, sleep and heal normally, costs another 100,000gp
Gravity: you can have normal, greater or lighter gravity. To have no gravity or directional gravity costs 20,000gp
Alterability: the standard (Alterable Morphic Traits as normal material plane) is free. To have it Static or Highly alterable requires 20,000gp; Other kinds of alterability require 50,000gp
Energy: any kind of elemental or energy trait costs 20,000gp except greater positive or negative energy that cost 50,000gp. You are not automatically protected from these hazards.
Allineament: for free you can have it neutral, or add one minor allineament trait; one other minor trait costs 10,000gp, while a maior trait costs 20,000gp. Divine casters have this cost halved if they choose the same allineament of their deity.
Magic: the standard, free, is normal magic.
- Impeded Magic, requiring a spellcraft check DC 15 costs 20,000gp, or 50,000 if you select some kind of magic to be affected (for example evil spells, or spells from the schools of necromancy and invocation)
- Wild Magic costs 10,000gp
- Limited magic or No Magic is not available (it's too much for a simple mortal to create)
- Empowered magic costs 10,000gp for each school, domain o spell descriptor choosen, multiplied by the number of levels required by the metamagic feat. For example to have all healing and good spells to be maximized requires 2 (two domains) x 3 (maximize costs +3 levels) x 10,000gp = 60,000gp
At least 10 ranks of Spellcraft are required for any magical trait to be applied.
Portals and Access:
The demiplane, begin small, cannot be accessed with planeshift from everywhere, but only through some portals.
At least one portal is required, and the first portal has one quarter the standard cost. Each portal can be closed from inside by the creator of the plane with a full round action, but a planeshift spell cast where the portal is allows to reach the demiplane even if the portal is closed.
The portal creation costs are (as from FRCS):
Base cost: 50,000gp for a standard, continuous, one way portal of a radious of 10ft or less. To have a two way portal costs 150% the price of a one way portal.
Size: Portals of greater size cost another 100% for each 300 square feet (assuming Pi = 3 for simplicity). Gargantuan creatures require a double sized portal, and Colossal a triple sized. Smaller portals cost the same price as normal ones.
Keyed portals: these portals require a key (an object, creature or activation word) to work. Their cost is as a normal portal; the key is decided at creation time and cannot be changed
Variable portals: to have a portal with variable destination cost an additional 25% for each other destination.
Limited use: a portal that can be used fewer than five time a day is cheaper: its cost is 10.000 multiplied by the number of uses a day. The minimum cost is 1,000gp for a portal usable once every ten days. Any number of creatures touching the portal can be transported in one use.
Creation: Portals can be created even by other characters, but must have the plane creator's permission, and the Craft Portal feat (or the Create Demiplane feat). Only the first portal must be built by the creator of the plane.
Amulet of Teleportation:
An amulet that brings the character back to the demiplane costs 25,000gp if it is permanent (two uses a day) or 5,000gp if its single-use. This amulet can be crafted only by the plane creator or by a character on the demiplane with the creators approval, but can be used by everyone. This requires the Craft Wonderous Feat or the Create Demiplane feat.
Comunication device and scrying:
Scrying from oustide is possible only if the scryer is aware of the existance of the plane, of the position of the portal and of the key or command word used to open it. There is also a +10 to the DC of the Scrying check and the image is a bit obfuscated (for example any written text is not readable through scrying). A mirror of mental prowess bypasses all these restrictions except the fact of being aware of the existance of the demiplane, but the ability to walk through does not work if the command word of the portal is not known.
Scrying from inside is possible but there is a +5 to the DC.
A voice-only, permanent means of communication costs 5,000gp. An example of this could be: anyone in front of a statue in the wizard's manor in the material plane can talk to anyone in front of a similar statue in the wizards palace in the demiplane.
A visual also communication (for example through a couple of mirrors that, activated with a command word, see and hear each other, placed one inside and one outside the demiplane) costs 20,000gp. This two things requires the Craft Wonderous Feat or the Create Demiplane feat.
Example one: the hidden library
Valdor, 17th level diviner, decides to create a very small demiplane where he can study and resarch without being scryed or having to fear intruders. He wants to stay low on the costs.
He chooses a rectangular box structure of 50ft x 50ft x 20ft where he can place a library, a few rooms and a small lab. He wants a constant ambient light from outside and normal temperature. He builds the demiplane house, simple (he has only 5 ranks in architecture), that would have costed 10,000gp outside the plane. He wants the time to flow at half speed (so that for every two hours spent in the demiplane only one hour passes outside); he does not change gravity or any other frills, but he wants to have all divination spells extended. He creates one single portal, that opens in a corridor of his material house. A command word must be said (?daethar lukluir?) to activate it, up to twice a day, in borth directions; he makes if of the radius of 5 ft. He chooses a voice-only communication: a picture of the wizard in his room connected to a marble head on a wall of the demiplane library, so that his assistants in the house can warn him in case of visits or problems. He creates a one-use amulet, just in case he is in trouble in the material plane and wants a way out.
The total cost is:
- 500 x (50 + 20) = 35,000gp for the size
- 10,000 / 4 = 2,500 gp for the buildings
- 1x1x10,000 = 10,000 gp for the magic trait
- (150% * 50,000 * (2 / 5)) / 4 = 7,500 gp for the portal
- 5,000 gp for the communication
- 5,000 gp for the amulet
Total: 65,000gp, 5,200 xp and 65 days.
Example two: Gimildil's palace
Gimildil, a rich 18th level elven sorceress, wants to create a palace outside this world.
She chooses a 100 ft radious dome, with a sky, normal day and night cicle and a mild weather. She makes the soil 5 ft high to have some small trees and she wants a small lake (20ft radius) in front of the palace. She creates a beautifull palace that would have costed 200,000gp outside; she also wants three fountains of unlimited water, one of good wine and food to make banquets for up to 15 persons and eventually 10 horses. She chooses normal planar traits except a minor positive energy dominance, and also a good allineament.
She creates a portal with two destinations: in his house in the material plane and on Arvandor (in the external plane of Arborea), continuous, two way and keyed to a command word. She also crafts a permanent amulet of teleportation and three one use amulets (to give them to her sister and two brothers if they are in throuble), but she builds them in a second time. She will also add later a visual communication between a the water of a small fountain in his house and a large mirror in the palace.
The cost is:
- 100 * 1,000 = 100,000 gp for the size
- 200,000/4 = 50,000 gp for the building
- 3x1,000 + 2 (quality) *5,000 + (2 (quality)*15 + 10/2)*500 = 30,500 for food and drink
- 20,000gp for the minor positive energy
- 50,000 * (1/4 + 25%) * 150% = 37,500 gp for the portals (only the first destination is at 1/4 cost)
total 238,000gp, 19,040 xp (exactly his 19th level)
Adding the amulets: 40,000gp, 3,200 xp
Adding the communication: 20,000 gp, 1,600xp
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Other things
1) In these rulings there are probably some translation errors: I have the italian version of the Manual of the Planes and I'm not sure about the english terms. (there are, of course, spelling and grammar errors, but this is natual). If you can point them out I will correct them.
2) I can't find the Genesis spell on my italian MotP (third edition). Is it in the normal chapter about spells ? Could you please post the description ?
