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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5682445" data-attributes="member: 22779">---I like tangents---On a note about wall of iron:  A 9th level caster would make a wall 2 inches thick - 1 inch thick if you double the area.  Cutting through one inch of iron isn't exactly that difficult.  You can break it up fairly easily with a large enough hammer.  My option would be to create the wall on the ground, over top of a series of break points.  Station very large steel cutters above the break points on pulleys.  Drop the cutters from a fair height and voila, you have a nice piece of workable iron.  That's infinitely cheaper than trying to dig it out of the ground, purify it, smelt it down, and then make it into ingots.  Plus, there's also the question of how pure the wall of iron is compared to the ore you dig out of the ground.  ----In my mind, there really isn't one.  It's a spectrum.  At one end, we have something like the One Ring, which I think we'll all agree is a plot point.  At the other end we have chairs which might be used as a plot point, but are mostly used for setting.My point about rarity is, again, if something is available to be utilized, why isn't it?  If something can be utilized, and it's not, then that's a pretty good sign that it's a plot device.  We have a glowy sword on Frodo so that he can foreshadow conflict quite nicely.  We have super dooper armor on Frodo so that he can take punishment and keep on going.And again, it's not inconsistent.  Using something for a plot device doesn't invalidate it.  It just makes it not to my taste.  Why doesn't Boromir have mithril armor?  If the guards in Gondor have mithril helmets, you'd think he'd requisition one before setting out.   Legolas has a knife, but, not one that glows in the presence of orcs.  As far as we know it's just a knife.  Gimli carries nothing despite being a dwarven noble.Why not?  Because the magic in LotR is a plot device not a setting element.  It's part of the Myth, not the Mundane to use KM's terminology and I think that's particularly apt.</blockquote>

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