Decanter of Endless Water

[domino]

That's about a cup (a bit less, actually) of silver per 2 cups of water.

 

[Jack Simth]

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.

Summoning wouldn't work - all durations of a Summon's powers end when the Summoning spell does - as Continual Flame is Permanent, not Instant, they'd all snuff out. Lesser Planar Binding and Lesser Planar Ally work, though.

But yes, there's lots of ways to alter the economy significantly in D&D; a 9,000 gp Decantur of Endless Water can grant basically limitless mechanical energy, by powering a water wheel, and irrigate lots of crops. For 9,000 gp, or 4,500 gp and 360 xp.

A 1,000 gp clerical Oil of Animate Dead can get you 10 HD of undead to do your bidding, for 1,000 gp or 30 xp, 250 gp in gems, and 375 gp in potion making materials. If you have a Desecrated area handy (or hire a casting of Desecrate - 2nd level spell, 3rd caster level, 50 gp in material components; 110 gp), for an extra 250 gp in material components (500 gp in gems, 375 gp in potion making materials, 30 xp, still), you get 20 HD of undead under your command. Set a couple of them running a water pump hooked into a well - they don't tire - and your crops are all irrigated. Set a couple running in a wheel and you've got mechanical energy for whatever. And you still have a couple left over for fetching and carrying, or dragging your carriage along, or keeping bandits off your back, or whatever. Okay, some maintenence will occasionally be needed (pumps break down, dogs chew on bones.....) but the undead are easy to fix (caster level 1 Inflict Light Wounds costs only 10 gp to hire) and you'd have to repair the wheels for the Decantur anyway.

 

[Musrum]

The Decanter + Boots of Levitation = cheapest flight item in the game

 

[Jack Simth]

The Decanter + Boots of Levitation = cheapest flight item in the game

Well... cheapest standard limitless use item of Fly, sure.

A decanter of endless water costs 9,000 gp, and Boots of Levitation cost 7,500, for a total of 16,500 gp.

Winged boots costs 16,000 gp, and grant flight 3/day for 5 minutes at a stretch.

An Ebony Fly costs 10,000 gp, flies, and you can ride it three times a week for up to 12 hours at a time.

A Potion of Fly costs a "scant" 750 gp for five minutes of air time. A scroll, 375 gp.

 

[helium3]

I think I am saying much the same thing as one post above: it is priced relative to usefulness for a small group of people predominantly engaged in slaying other creatures, but usually either near water or with the magical ability to create it in sufficient quantities.

The fact that a supply of that particular item, for example, could revolutionize a society, change settlement patterns, and allow a whole host of hygiene problems to be skipped over as cities modernize is not really considered at all. Such an item could easily be priceless, so regardless of the cost to produce it, you would expect it to be at the high end of the “magic market”. The idea that any sword, no matter how powerful, could possibly be of more significance than the decanter is ludicrous if you use a perspective emphasizing the impact of magic on a society. The prices, and even the bulk of the items commonly made, show zero interest in this approach, though. It is weird, I agree completely. It requires far more suspension of disbelief to me than simply accepting monsters, magic, even undead. I would guess most players don’t particularly care, though. Nobody is playing for the purpose of experiencing the free market effects of magic, after all.

Me want kill things now.

 

[MarkB]

No, but my brother once calculated the time that it would take 1 of them to flood a world the size of Earth.

Let's just say that if one was left uncapped for a while, we wouldn't have to worry about it any time soon.

I once evolved a theory that all the uncapped Endless Decanters various people have left lying around in oceans are balanced out by all the Spheres of Annihilation similarly left lying around as a result of such thought experiments, so that the average quantity of water remains the same. You still have to account for dilution of salt content, but I feel certain there are other creatures or items which could be creatively discarded to account for this.

 

[taferial]

I thought Id throw this into the mix...

When GM'ing I rarely allow creation/ destruction of matter or energy, I justify these affects as either transformations or "summons".

Dureing one campaign my players (haveing lead the survivors of several villages who, due to various player actions, had been attacked by the forces of darkness (tm) ) to an almost habbitable mountain vally. Here they set about enriching the soil, crop/ animal farming and the like. They were useing a font of water to power the mill, forge and irrigate the crops. After a few years they had a working economy and fortifications and so on, and were useing their burgeoning town as a show case to recruit for an army to defeat the forces of darkness (tm).

They recieved an urgent message from the council they had set up to run the place while they were out adventuring, and were rather suprised to find an adventuring group dungeneering in their castle. Once the players had beat the group snotless the leader of the defeated group (a Paladin) explained they were questing to find who was causeing the drought threatening their city. Aparently the spring around which her city grew had one day just dried up, and the head of the Paladins order had recieved a vission...

Any way, that story is long and messy, the point being that the water had to come from somwhere and the players learnt a valuble lesson in cause and effect. It also meant that I didnt have to worry over much about effects of weather patterns, erosion and a host of other stuff. (though the gold rush their water run-off caused was a joy to run, who dosnt ejoy roleplaying a prospecter with an outrageous fronteer accent.)

akk im rambleing, the peril of old war stories I guess.

 

[darthkilmor]

You know, I never realized it til now, but doesn't 5 pounds of crushed silver to one pint of water seem like a bit much?

Yes, i think its a bit much myself.

 

[Brain]

I'm a fan of the decanter - it's a great utility item.

My favorite use for it was in a high level game. We needed to travel through some molten lava for quite a distance, and we could cover the immunity to fire, but water breathing wasn't going to work. Since I had already cast water breathing, I just whipped out the decanter and proceeded to breathe from that while cruising through the lava.

 

[Stone Dog]

I've always made the ruling that the water just goes away after an hour and a half or so. The base spell of the item is Control Water and at 9th level Control Water lasts 90 minutes and after that, if the water isn't in somebody it just vanishes. Yah, this might bring up other problems in certain games, but for us it let the decanter serve as a source of water for certain people without it being able to change environments.