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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 3347625" data-attributes="member: 29252">Catches:Prestidigitation:You still need someone running it.  It's limited to a 1 foot cube per round for cleaning (and can't manipulate anything weighing over 1 pound - so you can't, say, move a lot of toys around, or make the bed, or iron clothes).In an hour, someone working with Prestidigitation can clean 600 one-foot cubes (10 rounds per minute, 60 rounds per hour).  And someone has to sit there and use it for that, for the entire hour.  If you've got a 2,000 square foot house (small, really, for a noble) you'll need four charges (at least - this calculation doesn't address the need to clean walls, dishes, doorknobs, clothes, et cetera).  You probably don't need to do this every day, though, so we'll assume for the moment that you actually need to use about 1 charge per day.A 50 charge wand of Prestidigitation runs for 350 gp.  So someone with UMD, or Prestidigitation on their class list, gets 50 days worth, at 7 gp/day for cleaning only.  If you ignore XP costs and sell at your materials costs, that's 3.5 gp/day.  Guidelines, that's about as effecient as it gets for a charged item.  Meanwhile, a trained servant (who can also make the bed, cook meals [but not flavor them as well], tend the fire, whatever) and doesn't require much work on your part, housed in a common quality inn (without even bulk rates - this is basically paying for a night at a motel and some fast-food meals every day, in modern terms) runs 11 silvers per day, market.   A third the price of a 3rd level Wizard with Craft Wand who's throwing away his XP and selling at cost.  If you find a way to get the cost of charges down to a silver or two, it might work.... but that requires some DM fiat, or an item with a limitation (under the Cursed items section of the DMG/SRD).Surgery:Yep, it is dangerous.  But then, modern surgery can kill you, too.  People have had absolute disaters with doctors on cosmetic surgery who goofed - a little missed dirt on the wand used to suck fat out, and people have found their skin sloughing off after a few weeks of intense pain.  People are put under anesthetic before such proceedures, and are Unconcious and Helpless; simple matter to take a knife to the subject's throat, or simply "accidentally" cut a very important vein, artery, or nerve if you've been bribed sufficiently that it doesn't matter if you'll never have a job again.A researched spell used to change your shape has the same issues - you are deliberately letting a caster put a spell on you that changes your body, permanently.  Polymorph Any Object will do it... but the subject can't be certain he's not going to be a slug (or a fused lump of helpless flesh, or wanted for murder, or wanted back at the brothel, or...) in six seconds (and a squished slug in 12), unless he trusts the caster.  If the spell is researched such that it can't hide identity/really hurt someone, then you still have to be able to identify it as the spell you're looking for.  If you can cast it yourself, sure... provided you didn't accidentally get a cursed scroll.  The way around all such issues is consequences - the doctor who loses an important patient in a routine operation doesn't just lose his license - the "insurance agents" assasinate him as part of the contract.  Bloodthirsty, yes, but ultimately about the only way a noble is going to be sure of such things.  Paranoia is paranoia.  The exact form doesn't matter. Insurance doesn't help if they're using the polymorph spells to replace you, rather than kill you, though.</blockquote>

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