EOM and Stronghold Builder's Guidebook/permanent Create?

[genshou]

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.

Right, and if you conjured forth hundreds of swords for the king's army, would the soldiers have any complaints about the obvious "magicalness" of their tools? Certainly not. But I'm sure the local weaponsmiths wouldn't be very happy about it.

Perhaps some limitations are in order, then. Such as a restriction that you must make the appropriate Craft check if one is required, and rule that since this is magical creation, supernatural and spell-like effects which may grant a bonus to the Craft check would not apply. Also, I've always ruled (whenever it's not already expressly stated in the rules) that you cannot magically create anything which requires a feat or class ability using creation spells. Mostly this refers to magic items, but there are also ways to create weapons and armor of extraordinary quality in some of my campaigns, either through a smithing class or through feats. Sure you can make a thousand swords, or even a thousand masterwork swords, but any high-level adventurer can just ask their party mage to do the same thing for them. Those who want a blade of true quality, though, go to a true master (e.g. Yoshiko Takimoto, the currently reknowned master of swordsmithing techniques in my story hour).

I think it really depends on the circumstances of the campaign. By the time a character can cast spells of this nature, they have enough treasure that a lot of items are insignificant to them. And even in Forgotten Realms, I can't exactly imagine that most mages of the level required to cast these spells would have the time of day for every upstart greenie who wants cheap equipment.

 

[genshou]

Some more numbers, for informational purposes:

When you want to hire someone to cast a core rules spell, you have to pay them a commission fee of caster level * spell level * 10. (0-level spells are effectively spell level 1/2). I've listed the lowest price for each core spell level below:

0: 5gp
1: 10gp
2: 60gp
3: 150gp
4: 280gp
5: 450gp
6: 660gp
7: 910gp
8: 1,200gp
9: 1,530gp

Since there's no listed price for commissioned spellcasting in Elements of Magic, I'm inclined to use a formula which follows the same baseline price. My form of it is below:

Spell MP * (Spell MP + 1) * 5
So, a basic cantrip effect costs 3.75gp (.5 * (.5 + 1) * 5).
At 1 MP, 3 MP, 5 MP, 7 MP, 9 MP, 11 MP, 13 MP, 15 MP, and 17 MP, the cost is equal to that of the equivalent core spell. Commissioning any item of up to 100 gp in value costs 280 gp, and you must find a willing mage who may also need the appropriate Craft skill. This option becomes cost-effective at the same caster level as having a single-use charged item crafted, caster level 15. How many 15th-level mages are spending their time doing this for a living? Probably not a lot. But you can bet the country's vizier will be helping out with crafting the soldiers' equipment when the call is made for war. This is why we fear Halruaa