Decanter of Endless Water

[Doom3524]

Korimyr's mention of continual light brings up another life-changing technology equivalent from low-level magic. The infrastructural benefits of street lights on urban living are profound, diminishing crime and affecting other issues of public safety, notions of appropriate work hours, etc. There are indirect results in terms of sanitation, community health, etc.

While at 110 gp a light, it is probably not efficient to introduce streetlights to a city, again we have something that over time would revolutionize the economy of an urban centre. Still, it is a comparatively cheap way to advance a city significantly towards a post-industrial revolution (say 19th C London) economy.

All of this makes me want to attempt to build my own city. All I need to do is pick up a few magical items that are comparable inexpesive, and some other items (such as the streetlights etc..) and start cutting down trees and building .

 

[Infiniti2000]

While at 110 gp a light, it is probably not efficient to introduce streetlights to a city, again we have something that over time would revolutionize the economy of an urban centre. Still, it is a comparatively cheap way to advance a city significantly towards a post-industrial revolution (say 19th C London) economy.

It's actually much cheaper than that. Just summon a lantern archon and for 280gp (7th level caster, 4th level spell), you get 7 continual flames (40gp each). Or, use lesser planar ally or planar binding and get pretty much all the continual flames you need for a single casting.

 

[chitzk0i]

Not Chitzk0i, VirgilCaine

In a campaign I ran a little while back, this exact scenario occured. Party takes over a keep in the middle of the desert, puts in a decanter of enless water, and watched as an entire city grew around the tower. We advanced the timeline many years to where the "City of Endless Water" had become a desert oasis, utopia, and superpower. It was probably the best campaign I have ever played in and I think you should encourage your player's creativity.

Let them put in a Decanter of Endless Water, and soon the desert people will flock to the tower. After a few years maybe a few wars will be fought over the Decanter, or a cult of people worshiping it. A good D&D campaign is not about limiting the player's ambitions, it is about embracing them and reveling in the consequences!

Now see, this is what doesn't make any sense in a campaign where magic has been around for thousands of years in human hands. This would already be done, thousands of years ago. The players say,"Hey, we could do X basic thing like this!" And you come back with, "Yeah, somebody already thought of that...5000 years ago."

I have done some math, and one decanter, with it's contents fed into the city by aquifer or magically distributed via fountains conveniently placed throughout a city, could feed at least 25,000 people--the "upper limit" for D&D communities. With Move Earth, you could form a large hill with a depression in it, to form a reservoir for the excess water from the decanter.

Of course, even assuming you wanted to get high-level spellcasters to create them (to avoid them being suppressed or something), they take a tiny amount of time to make.

 

[Doom3524]

You could always just buy a bunch of everburning torches for the streetlights.

 

[VirgilCaine]

You could always just buy a bunch of everburning torches for the streetlights.

An everburning torch IS a continual flame spell!

 

[Doom3524]

I was actually responding to Kobold Stew, my computer is moving so slow right now Infinity got his in before mine, by like 10 minutes!! Damn computer.

 

[AuraSeer]

That is interesting. Relates very well to this topic not just because it is water-related, too. It is a perfect example of D&D taking an exactly backwards approach to magic in relation to societal needs. I think it is pretty obvious that a desert culture would make water-related magic a top priority, and endeavor to refine and spread such spells as much as possible.

"As much as possible" isn't necessarily very much at all. The difficulty of create water does not represent a lack of magical research, it's an effect of the innate metaphysics of that world. How that is explained in game terms is up to the DM. (My own explanation is that Al-Qadim lacks a natural connection to the Elemental Plane of Water, making it extremely difficult to manipulate that element.)

Instead, the game obscurely makes people who desperately need such spells have less access to them than people who barely need them at all.

That's circular logic. If they did have access to the spell, they wouldn't be in desperate need!

 

[darthkilmor]

Korimyr's mention of continual light brings up another life-changing technology equivalent from low-level magic. The infrastructural benefits of street lights on urban living are profound, diminishing crime and affecting other issues of public safety, notions of appropriate work hours, etc. There are indirect results in terms of sanitation, community health, etc.

While at 110 gp a light, it is probably not efficient to introduce streetlights to a city, again we have something that over time would revolutionize the economy of an urban centre. Still, it is a comparatively cheap way to advance a city significantly towards a post-industrial revolution (say 19th C London) economy.

We did that too actually in our little fief. firefighters with decantars, all the streets were lit up with continual flame in a lantarn basically, and we even paved all the roads with cobblestone. fun times.

But aside from that. You could always just say that, if you use a decantur too long there's an increasing percentage chance that a elder water elemental pops out. like say 1% per hour used, checked every hour of use. for every day of non-use %chance drops 1%.
so use it a whole day you have about 1/4 chance of pissing off some water elemental. seems fair.

Thats neatly deals with "how come there are deserts?!" problem. people got tired of getting beat up.

 

[Sledge]

Water elemental summoning should increase the cost.
For instance leave it running somewhere already wet inside your enemy's base, and just watch the daily madness.

 

[VirgilCaine]

But aside from that. You could always just say that, if you use a decanter too long there's an increasing percentage chance that a elder water elemental pops out. like say 1% per hour used, checked every hour of use. for every day of non-use %chance drops 1%.
so use it a whole day you have about 1/4 chance of pissing off some water elemental. seems fair.

Why would we want to do that?