Easy Money

[Centaur]

If we ignore the fact that the Players handbook states that a NPC caster will charge 10 x Lvl x SplLvl to cast any spell, there is an easy way for a PC Wizard of 9th level to make money.

At 9th level, without any special metamagic, a Wizard can use a single Wall of Iron Spell to create 18,750 lbs. of Iron. According to the Players handbook commodities chart, Iron is 1sp per pound. This works out to 1875gp worth of iron per casting provided he can find byers for this much iron.

Of course, he may need to use a few Fabricate spells to turn the Iron into usable chunks, but still, assuming he doesn't saturate the market, Easy Money!

Should there be some sort of limitation placed on this, because by the rules I don't see one. If not, how long before the caster saturates the local Iron market. Or beter yet, How long before officials from the local Mining guild take issue with this activity...?

Thoughts!

 

[evileeyore]

If need be rule that the purity of the iron is low, and requires greater refinement, thereby lowering the price.

And as for saturation of market. That would depend on the market. A major city (like say Waterdeep) could support a vast influx of iron. A city that is more remote or in a mineral poor area would have a higher demand.

Any Mage with a high enough Profession (any) skill should be allowed a check at say DC 15 to understand this (let him take 10 this is easy). Also It would behove them to examine the market a little. What country is perhaps gearing up for war? They need iron badly, and wouldn't saturate as quickly. A savy Mage would also limit himself to a steady amount over time instead of a mass dump on the econmoy. this way although the price may drop, it is less likely to super-sat the market and upset competitors.


A Rat-Bastard method. Make the iron content so piss-poor that it costs more to cast the spell than it would to sell the iron. Just don't tell the poor fool until he trying to sell.

BTW: I use a near Rat-Bastard Method. It takes an 18th level mage in my games to break even...

TTFN--EvilE

 

[s/LaSH]

Economic mitigating factor: Rust monsters. As soon as the market gets saturated, these little fellows go on a feeding frenzy and their population doubles.

Supply mitigating factor: Where does all that iron come from, anyway? Thin air? E=mc^2, people. The energy required could vaporise a large country if used in a traditional evocation ('Seriously Improved Fireball'). I'd think it came from deep deposits, thus putting local miners out of work, and eventually making the spell impossible to cast unless you started dumping iron in deep holes.

Quality mitigating factor: It's really bad iron, mixed through with other minerals and bits of earth - you'd be lucky to get bauxite out of that mess, let alone workable materials. You'd have to invent a Wall of Coal spell to make it economically worthwhile to smelt the stuff into quality. The reason they call it a wall of iron is because that's the first metal they thought of - it's not accurate.

This doesn't stop the spell from being useful, of course. A scary wizard making an iron tower will still work - it'll just be rusty, and largely unusuable for secondary purposes.

 

[Aaron L]

I'd say that the iron comes from the elemental plane of earth.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I'd say that the iron comes from the elemental plane of earth.

And maybe someone or something from that plane wants it back.

 

[Ace]

I'd say that the iron comes from the elemental plane of earth.

As do I

Since the Elemental planes are infinite in size nothing cares how much Iron you summon --

Of course my setting is high magic so ....

 

[Saeviomagy]

Economic mitigating factor: Rust monsters. As soon as the market gets saturated, these little fellows go on a feeding frenzy and their population doubles.

Supply mitigating factor: Where does all that iron come from, anyway? Thin air? E=mc^2, people.

And that's about where you lost me on the topic of "real reasons why this doesn't work".

The energy required could vaporise a large country if used in a traditional evocation ('Seriously Improved Fireball'). I'd think it came from deep deposits, thus putting local miners out of work, and eventually making the spell impossible to cast unless you started dumping iron in deep holes.

A Rat-Bastard method. Make the iron content so piss-poor that it costs more to cast the spell than it would to sell the iron. Just don't tell the poor fool until he trying to sell.

Wow. you really are stretching here. You're trying to tell me that 45 cubic feet of wall contains slightly over 1 cubic foot of iron? Please, tell me what the material is that composes the rest of it, which has the same hardness and hitpoints as iron? But is supposedly worthless?

Here's a little hint - if it's got the same mechanical properties as iron (hardness, hitpoints and presumably density), then it's value is likely to be identical to that of iron...

 

[s/LaSH]

Here's a little hint - if it's got the same mechanical properties as iron (hardness, hitpoints and presumably density), then it's value is likely to be identical to that of iron...

Not necessarily. Is it malleable? Is it ductile? Does it possess the temperature characteristics that make iron possible to forge? What sort of alloys can you make from it (steel etc)? Does the fuel expenditure while smelting for pig iron give you better efficiancy than regular iron? What about its crystal structure (likely to be of similar value to iron in terms of hp etc, to be honest) and its nuclear characteristics? (I don't want a sword that'll give me cancer.)

While we're at it, does anyone know if rusted steel or iron are considered economically viable recycling materials? It could be something as simple as that...

Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of materials similar to iron but with different characteristics. The only one of similar density I could find was silver (which would be most attractive to casters looking to make money ), but I'm not an expert and don't have the books to make an informed guess.

My point is, you can have a shape with the approximate characteristics of iron, but changing that shape is what makes the material so valuable. It's why we have periods of global history named after iron! There's obviously something special about the mineral, and just because something is roughly the same shape and hardness doesn't mean it's easy to make stuff out of it. (How does the wizard make a wall out of it? Simple application of geometry combined with magical brute force. Write a spatial coordinate equation for a plane or dome. Now do the same for a sword. Or a car.)

I'm well aware that some of these 'anti-easy-money' measures may seem far-fetched. But Wall Of Iron isn't supposed to be a get-rich-quick spell, and the effect of nerfing one aspect of it is less than the effect of allowing that aspect at all.

 

[S'mon]

I previous editions, and IMC, the answer is simple: it's magic iron - if you chip bits off the wall, they vanish. It only lasts until Dispelled. Etc.

For some dumb reason, in 3e they changed it from a Permanent magical effect to an Instantaneous one that actually makes a wall of real, non-magical iron. That's ridiculously overpowered to me. I suggest you change it back to being a Permanent effect.

 

[K'Plah Q'Houme]

There's not a whole lot of role playing about this kind of thing. But offcourse it could work... it's not good gaming though... Makes me think about cheat codes for computer games. How about Doom: iddqd! That was fun an hour or so, then got borring...