Rituals too easy and cheap?

[Mal Malenkirk]

First of all, the disk can only move at your base speed once per round and if it spends two rounds more than five square away from you, it diappears.

So if you have to run away, you lose your loot.

Heck, if you enter a fight with the tenser's disk active, you better not move around too much on the battle field...

Secondly, at 10gp per day, it's more expensive than you think. A full plate is 50 gp. If you sell a suit of +1 armor, you only get 72 gp on average. Enough for only 7 days of tenser's floating disk.

Meanwhile, a riding horse costs 75 gp. Sadly, I have seen no price for pack mules but we can put it at maybe 20 to 30 gp. In any ase, a cart to tie to your horse is only 20 gp. All of this is much cheaper than the disk option.

I'd say you are getting close to paragon path by the time auto-casting the disk is a possibility.

Fun fact : If you cast tenser's floating disk every day for 1000 day (2 years and 9 month), you have spent the equivalent of the cost of a 4e sailing ship with a cargo of 150 tons. Heh.

 

[Kraydak]

First of all, the disk can only move at your base speed once per round and if it spends two rounds more than five square away from you, it diappears.

So if you have to run away, you lose your loot.

Heck, if you enter a fight with the tenser's disk active, you better not move around too much on the battle field...

Unless, of course, you are riding the disk! You can command the disk to move (at your speed) as a move action (no limit on the number of times, except for your number of move actions), so the only mobility you lose is the ability to take a run action.

Your other points are well taken though. On the other hand, it is still probably worth it to use a disk w/appropriate contraption as a trap-sweeper. Heck, if the traps you face detect life forces you can even strap a poor sod down on the disk, no need to "convince" him to act as a living mine-sweeper.

 

[Pbartender]

I’m sure that if you were going to design a war gondola to attach to it, you would find some way to strap it securely to the disk. Decently strong belts in an X-shape come to mind. Your only real problem at that point is worrying about dispel effects and fitting it through doors.

Or just have an enclosed, slightly concave, disk-shaped space (with a few small openings for line of sight) in the floor of your hover-chariot. Cast your Tenser's Disk into the pre-formed cavity to power up the hover-chariot, and away you go.

 

[AuraSeer]

On the other hand, it is still probably worth it to use a disk w/appropriate contraption as a trap-sweeper. Heck, if the traps you face detect life forces you can even strap a poor sod down on the disk, no need to "convince" him to act as a living mine-sweeper.

Spending 10 gp for a single-use pit detector is kind of ridiculous. Consider that a ten foot pole does the same thing, is basically free, and doesn't vanish at the very first pit. Plus the pole can locate stuff like tripwires and pressure plates, while the disc would sail right over them.

If you somehow know ahead of time that there are traps triggered by life force, hunt down a rat and tie it to the end of the pole.

 

[Kraydak]

Spending 10 gp for a single-use pit detector is kind of ridiculous. Consider that a ten foot pole does the same thing, is basically free, and doesn't vanish at the very first pit. Plus the pole can locate stuff like tripwires and pressure plates, while the disc would sail right over them.

If you somehow know ahead of time that there are traps triggered by life force, hunt down a rat and tie it to the end of the pole.

That is why you have a trap-finding contraption. A nice lever-arm w/weight for pits/pressure plates, and a broom-like thing for trip wires. All at least 5 squares ahead of you (and more if the lever-arms is any good), unlike 2 squares with a 10' pole. You can get a *lot* more weight for pit traps/pressure plates with the disk strategy than you can with a pole.

 

[essenbee]

... but I don't like that it is essentially default to have floating piles behind every party...

Floating piles sound really painful!