EOM and Stronghold Builder's Guidebook/permanent Create?

[genshou]

The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook relies heavily on the idea that magic is used whenever it is cost-effective to do so. With a new magic system, I feel the need to tweak the EoM rules somewhat in order to accommodate some of the rules needs of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook.

Most of the stronghold space (hereafter referred to as SS) and wall augmentations can be converted simply. The rule about the total MP of spells active in a certain SS or on a certain wall still apply:

A single object or location can have no more than 20 MP of permanent spells.

This would apply also to wall/SS augmentations created as wondrous items.

The main question I have is about spells of the Create action type. In core fantasy d20, there are several spells (such as fabricate) which have a duration of Instantaneous. That doesn't currently exist in Elements of Magic. There are three ways to permanently create something:

1 Wondrous Items. Creating a wondrous item costs 1,000 gp per spell MP cost squared. To create an object up to the size of a stronghold space would cost 2 MP for area and the requisite 1 MP for a 10-minute duration. For a cantrip Create, that's a total of 3 MP, for a 9,000 gp wondrous item in order to permanently create something with a value of up to 20 gp

Obviously, this won't work. If we extend the MP spent on Create to the 5 required to create an item of up to 100,000 gp in value, that allows us to create an item of up to 100,000 gp in value through a magic item with a market price of 64,000 gp. Of course, there's nothing to be created short of an entire Luxury Throne Room SS which nears it in price. And since this wondrous item would count against the total number of MP that can be in effect on the SS, would take 64 days of exclusive attention to make, and could be temporarily dispelled (causing collateral damage to the surrounding SS's), this option is hardly viable.

2 Permanent Spells. As above, except the creation cost is 1/10 market price in XP. No one is insane enough to sacrifice that much XP for their stronghold.

3 Permanent Duration Enhancement. By using this costly (+30 MP) enhancement, the spell itself is made permanent. AFAIK, the spell can be dispelled just as can any normal spell (can you confirm this, RangerWickett?), though the high MP cost of the permanent duration Create spell would make this difficult. Of course, the main problem with this method is that the spell will become the province of epic-level casters, making it utterly useless for nearly all stronghold construction. Of course, the characters can always attempt a ritual, and the fact that this costs nothing to create is a boon. Of course, the difficulty and time required to do this makes the idea too far a stretch to be used.

Three possible options, all utterly useless. I’m working on homebrew Create enhancements for an Instantaneous duration, but that’ll take me a few days to get together. In the meantime, I’d appreciate any help my fellow EN Worlders with Elements of Magic (and preferably the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook) could offer.

 

[RangerWickett]

Create Nature/Earth for a mold.

Move force to pick up stones and put them in the mold.

Transform Ooze to make the stones flow into the mold like a liquid. When the spell ends, the liquid stone becomes solid again. Just make sure the mold lasts longer than the duration of the stone's being oozy.

Voila! Injection mold building techniques.

 

[Cheiromancer]

My first thought was to say that magic was not a cost effective way of building a stronghold. But then I saw RW's post. It's basically a rock to mud, shape mud as desired, mud to rock combo.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

is not this the place for the Enduring Enhancement of Create: Death?
You would need to raw materials in place already, but than a Create Nature X /Create Death2/ Move Force Y to move the raw materials in place and cement them together?

I must admit I like the injection molding idea! It could also be done by teams of caster's working together without having to go into the ritual casting as well.

Extruded from the granite bedrock on which it stands the massive wall ahead of you exhibits a humongous Portrait of Lord "My do I have an Ego" formed by the variations in color in the stone....

 

[genshou]

But it is cost-effective to use magic in stronghold construction. Consider the following spells:
Air walk, fly, or levitate would allow for easier work on tall buildings and towers.
Fabricate can produce lasting furnishings, which really helps with luxury bedroom suites, chapels, and throne rooms.
Move earth can help with site preparation and earthwork.
Stone shape provides help with various stonework (including masonry).
Telekinesis also helps with tall buildings.
Wall of stone generates lasting earthen walls without the required materials on hand, which saves a great deal of money on transportation, labor, and construction.

It's assumed in a standard D&D campaign that these spells are used whenever it would be cost-effective to do so. You only have to pay caster level x spell level x 10 + component costs to have a spell cast by an NPC spellcaster, which is almost always cheaper than the actual materials and labor.

I can duplicate the effects of air walk, fly, levitate, move earth, stone shape, telekinesis, and wood shape with EoM spells, but not fabricate, wall of stone, or any other Instantaneous core creation/transmutation spell.

[Edited out due to the post below, in which I must eat crow for a lack of understanding when this part of the post was written]

 

[genshou]

RangerWickett, your terminology has an inconsistency with regards to the Create Death enhancement "enduring object." D&D terminology between "nonliving" and "unliving" marks them as two very distinct things, and yet you use one in one place and the other elsewhere when describing the effects of an enduring object enhancement.

Now, if an enduring object (created via Create Death) can be combined with a nonliving object, but can have gp value of only up to 1 gp... what exactly would a glass of water be in gp value? Ten gallons of water? A pound of rock? A ton of rock? A solid chunk of hewn stone? That seems a bit too vague for me.

 

[RangerWickett]

I did not intend for you to have to combine objects with the undead. I meant to say "non-living," not "unliving."

The cost guideline is vague. There are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I leave it up to the GM. Basically the guideline should be, "Is it treasure?" If the answer is yes, then you can't make it. Water and rock and hewn stone and stained glass windows would all be fine, but they'd be cheap-looking stained glass windows, and not very sturdy.

Really, it can swing either way without being too unbalancing. It just depends on how magical the GM wants the world to be. Can wizards create their own towers out of magic, then furnish them with magic? Or do they have to actually have a tower built, then ship in all their belongings?

 

[genshou]

I did not intend for you to have to combine objects with the undead. I meant to say "non-living," not "unliving."

The cost guideline is vague. There are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I leave it up to the GM. Basically the guideline should be, "Is it treasure?" If the answer is yes, then you can't make it. Water and rock and hewn stone and stained glass windows would all be fine, but they'd be cheap-looking stained glass windows, and not very sturdy.

Really, it can swing either way without being too unbalancing. It just depends on how magical the GM wants the world to be. Can wizards create their own towers out of magic, then furnish them with magic? Or do they have to actually have a tower built, then ship in all their belongings?

I can do without a replication of fabricate. That core spell has no gp limit, so despite its limitations (it requires a Craft check of the appropriate type) it is quite unwieldy. It's also a Transmutation, and what I'm looking at is alterations to the Create action type, so I've no problems with avoiding the strict recreation of fabricate in its present form.

My main concern is with wall of stone. If you really think about it, most of the 600 gp required for a freestanding hewn stone wall section 10-ft. by 10-ft. by 6 ft. is not in the rock itself, but the labor required to quarry the stone, the transportation costs, and the labor required to set up the wall in the right place. If you build in the mountains, it's like having a personal water source in the modern day–the stone is essentially free. This is reflected in the rules by a 5% price break on hewn stone walls in mountain fortresses. So, it can be extrapolated that 600 cubic feet of hewn stone has a gp value of 30, or 5 cp per cubic foot. Given this kind of idea, I'd say it's fair to allow the creation of stone walls [under the present rules], but not something as expensive as adamantine (if it goes by the same 5% idea, that's 3 gp per cubic foot just for the raw materials). Iron costs 1 sp per pound, and I'm not sure what the density of an iron wall is, so I'm not sure if permanent wall creation is an option with iron.

All right, consider the following spell:

Wall of Stone
Create Earth 1/Death 14/Gen 2
Total MP: 17
Range: 30 ft.
Effect: One 10-foot by 10-foot wall section
Duration: One minute (see text)
Area: 10-foot radius
Saving Throw: None
When you cast this spell, you create a single 10-foot by 10-foot earthen wall section. This allows you to create a wall section of packed earth (3 ft. thick), masonry (2 ft. thick), superior masonry (2 ft. thick), reinforced masonry (2 ft. thick), or hewn stone (6 ft. thick). The wall merges seamlessly with any surrounding wall sections, and can include parapets, arrowslits, or any other architectural options you desire. You cannot create artwork with this spell. While any looking upon the wall can tell it was created magically, the material does not disappear when the duration ends.
Costs: 1 MP earthen wall, 2 MP enduring object death, 12 MP higher-value endure (see below), 1 MP range, 1 MP area.

And now, the spell enhancement described above:

Higher-value Endure (varies):
This enhancement can only be chosen for Create Death, and requires the Enduring Object (Death) enhancement. By paying an amount for this enhancement equal to four times the amount required to create an object of a given gp value, you can extend the maximum gp limit of the Enduring Object (Death) enhancement. For example, you could cast Create Metal 1/Death 6 (with 4 MP spent on Higher-value Endure) to create a persisting metal object of up to 100 gp in value. While the additional MP spent on Create Death increases the maximum gp value of objects you can create, either the value of the object decreases to the amount allowed by this enhancement, or some material vanishes to make the lasting object fit within the enhancement’s limit.

This enhancement allows permanent creation, but it’s not cheap. To create something with no gp limit would require 1 MP in any non-Death element as well as 26 MP spent on Create Death. Also, consider the following:
Market Price of 1-use Spell Completion Charged Item vs. gp Value of Permanently Created Object Fitting within a 5-foot Square
100 gp item (requires 7th-level caster): 490 gp
500 gp item (requires 11th-level caster): 605 gp
2,500 gp item (requires 15th-level caster): 2,250 gp
10,000 gp item (requires 19th-level caster): 3,610 gp

Assuming no x10 price multiplier for epic-level items, the following prices apply:
100,000 gp item (requires 23rd-level caster): 5,290 gp
Any gp value (requires 27th-level caster): 7,290 gp

It gets more powerful as it grows in level, and it is cost-effective to do so as a charged item once a character reaches caster level 15 (the equivalent of an 8th-level core spell scroll, nearly a wish). It has the possibility of being exploited, but the high MP cost of the enhancement prevents its use until at least caster level 7, and because even a peasant can tell the item was created magically, a clever caster cannot use magically created gold to pay their way through life. It does cut into the necessity of nonmagical crafting, so this is an option best used in high-magic campaigns.

 

[genshou]

I have ethical issues about bumping my own threads, but...

I'd really like to hear what others think of my latest idea.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't think it would work, sadly. Even if the object is clearly magical, that won't matter to most people. I certainly wouldn't mind getting new tires for half the price of real tires, even if these tires radiated magic. Heck, even if a dispel magic could get rid of my tires, I'd be willing to buy them, if they're cheaper. Because really, who goes around destroying people's tires on a whim?

When creating fake money or fake jewels, yeah, people would be miffed if they discovered the items weren't magical. You have to only value real precious metals and jewels, or else mages creating them drives the price down and devalues currency.

In my campaign, one player wished for all the unmined gold in the world; he got a mountain of gold, far too much for him to carry. After several trips back and forth, he discovered other people had found out where the mountain of gold was, and that they were taking his money. At first he was angry and greedy, but then he started hurriedly using his gold to buy vast collections of silver and jewels. Sure enough, within a few years, the sudden influx of billions of gold pieces into the world economy caused a total devaluation of the metal. Now everyone uses silver.

However, money is different from goods. People like cheap products. It lets them own more stuff. People hate low-value money. It keeps them from buying more stuff.