Is this broken?

[aboyd]

From one of my players:

Since my wizard could craft 10 cubic feet of non-minerals or 1 cubic foot of minerals per round, if my wizard could make a DC 25 craft alchemy check, he could craft lots of alchemist’s fire, tanglefoot bags, and so forth with one casting of Fabricate. Now, if we assume that the density of alchemist’s fire is twice the density of water and that each alchemist’s fire weighed 1 pound, my wizard, being 9th-level, could create about 11,000 applications of alchemist’s fire per casting. When we add in the material required to make vials, too, he would only be able to create approximately 5,000 Alchemist's Fires with vials. At 20 gp per vial of Alchemist's Fire, this would be worth 100,000 gp, but the cost of raw materials would be approximately 33,000 gp. But merchants would only pay half price for alchemist's fire, so 5,000 vials of Alchemist's fire at the half price value of 10 gp would be worth 50,000 gp. A net profit of 17,000 gp would be enjoyed.

The player wants to verify that he can embark upon this when he gains the Fabricate spell at 9th level. If you're the DM, how do you respond to this player?

 

[Runestar]

To be fair, that is the least abusive thing which can be done with fabricate. I am fairly sure there are more expensive stuff to create, such as black lotus extracts.

But regardless, he is clearly trying to circumvent the wealth guidelines. If you let him get away with it once, he may be tempted to try it again. I suppose you could try to work around this ingame (like making it very hard for him to find willing buyers, or even if he does, demand is so low that he is forced to dispose them at a deep discount), but that is just too much work in my book.

Better to just nip the problem in the bud and refuse outright, IMO.

 

[Thanee]

I would point the player to the singular nature of '...a product...'.

You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material.

Bye
Thanee

 

[aboyd]

If you let him get away with it once, he may be tempted to try it again.

Once? He's pretty up front that if I allow it, he intends to do it hundreds of times in succession so that money is basically irrelevant for him and he can have any item that exists.

He has even described how, if I enact a "market glut" type of situation, he will enact a teleportation system where he travels from city to city until he has saturated every market on the planet.

My problem is that I'm a fairly by-the-book kind of guy. If RAW allows for this, then I would probably allow this to happen. I would just assume that the authors of the game intended for 9th level to be when the economy collapses and wealth-by-level guidelines grow irrelevant. If that's what they intended, then I may be willing to move forward with the game like this, expecting that D&D rules anticipate this and are somehow balanced for money becoming irrelevant.

Thanee's interpretation goes very literal. I like it, but I would like it more if I could hear from an author or someone at Wizard's that agrees. Is there an "Ask Wizards" article about this? I'll go crawl through the official FAQ and see what's there.

Also, I read in another thread that going very literal still has drawbacks -- for example, if you want to create 100 planks of wood, you could use 100 Fabricate spells to create each "product." Or, you could use 1 Fabricate casting, and declare the product to be "a bridge made of planks." And then you just disassemble the bridge to get all the planks you need. Similarly, the product for Alchemist's Fire could be "A vat of the stuff." And then the players stand around bottling it for a week and still have the same net result -- absurd amounts of Alchemist's Fire. So a literal interpretation might work, but I'd love to see someone comment on the spirit or intention behind the spell, so that I feel good about enforcing a limitation even if the players come up with an unexpected loophole.

 

[green slime]

Yes, it is broken.

But there is a safety feature. In most medieval, (preindustrial) fantasy worlds, someone will be hard put to dump 5,000 flasks of alchemist's fire on the market.

Not only will there be no single buyer (no shop on earth has 5,000 examples of any single item), where does he plan on storing all these flasks until they are bought? Consider the space required for 5,000 cups.

Lastly, remember, in a medieval universe, there are also guilds which jealously guard their methods and domains. Not only are they very concerned about their livelihoods, in many cases they are also connected to nobility and the ruling classes, and have a large degree of temporal power, due to their accumulation of wealth over generations. Some upstart wizard thinks he can corner the global market for an item through a nifty spell? The personal consequences could be very serious. Suddenly, no one sells him anything. Suddenly, he is no longer welcome into any major cities. Suddenly, his former colleagues and associates no longer speak to him.

Finally, point out that this game isn't called manufacturers and shopkeepers, but if that is the kind of game he wants...

 

[Runestar]

Well, at least he hasn't seen this yet...

The Tsuyo RegionalDex: A Ported Selection of the CO Works of Tsuyoshikentsu

More notably, the 2nd post, which describes in detail how to acquire your own vicstar.

 

[FEADIN]

When there is to much products the prices fall and the market collapse.....
Causing the ruin of merchant guilds is never a good option if you want to sleep quietly.

 

[roguerouge]

I'd have him make a knowledge history check. If successful, he'll remember the last time that wizards abused the fabricate spell, hundreds of years ago, they crashed the global economy back to the barter system and ignited a world-wide hunt for mages. It's referred to as the Dark Ages and it's what seniors in mage school learn to avoid at all costs.

 

[roguerouge]

"The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication." That sounds like you can't create gold from lead with this spell or alchemist's fire from water. That sounds like it must be of equivalent value, even if the form is altered.

 

[Herzog]

The craft rules are all kinds of broken to begin with.

it is too time consuming to use the craft rules, since it will take you months or even years to accomplish anything.

which, in turn, is turned upside down once you get access to fabricate, which allows you to do the work of years in mere seconds.

That said, you can't turn water into wine with fabricate.
It could be argued that if you have the proper base materials, you can create alchemist fire from them. in other words, you probably could turn grapes into wine.

A very strict reading of the rules would require one casting per base material, in other words, you need seperate castings for the metal and leather parts of your armor.

Even without a strict reading, you probably need to make craft checks to create anything.

also, you need proper base materials. If you tried to create a bridge using old, diseased trees as base materials, your bridge isn't going to be that sturdy.

Conclusion:
Tell the player that if he plans to follow up on this plan, he needs to retire his character. (as has been said before, this isn't merchants-and-buyers) This is the typical rule-abuse that triggers DM's to ban these kind of spells, while they can be very helpfull in a tight spot.