WhatThePhysics
First Post
I've been into D&D for a few months now, and have gobbled up almost a hundred sourcebooks' worth of information. As futile as it may seem, this was all in an attempt to know enough about the game to make a "typical" campaign setting as rationalized as possible. NPC level caps, removing high-CR creatures, you name it. Then, out of the blue, this:
Create Water + Matter Agitation + Some Metal + 2 Rounds = 2.5 megajoules of steam power, for less than 2000 GP. My god, what have I done?
I've got mixed feelings about this revelation, especially after recognizing other magic items being exploited. Free energy Create Water watermills? Cure X Wounds devices preventing most commoners' deaths? Weightless Mage Armor for soldiers and law enforcement? Charm Person for all the (il)legal mind-raping you can think of? And so on and so forth. A part of me wants to ban non-mundane item creation feats, another wants to lower the NPC level cap to 2nd, and another wants to see where all of this trickery would lead to. Without limits, there's no way these exploits could be prevented from altering a setting drastically.
Before you mention Eberron, keep in mind that this isn't about adding new concepts to a campaign setting, such as Warforged or Elemental Binding. Nor would I agree that it's the Tippyverse, since it's too low-level and doesn't rely on traps. This is simply taking the lowest-level spells from the SRD, and exploiting them via magic items to create a magipunk setting for cheap.
To those in favor of this, have you ever played/made/thought of a setting with these assumptions?
To those against this, what would be the best way to prevent/delay something like this from occurring?
Create Water + Matter Agitation + Some Metal + 2 Rounds = 2.5 megajoules of steam power, for less than 2000 GP. My god, what have I done?
I've got mixed feelings about this revelation, especially after recognizing other magic items being exploited. Free energy Create Water watermills? Cure X Wounds devices preventing most commoners' deaths? Weightless Mage Armor for soldiers and law enforcement? Charm Person for all the (il)legal mind-raping you can think of? And so on and so forth. A part of me wants to ban non-mundane item creation feats, another wants to lower the NPC level cap to 2nd, and another wants to see where all of this trickery would lead to. Without limits, there's no way these exploits could be prevented from altering a setting drastically.
Before you mention Eberron, keep in mind that this isn't about adding new concepts to a campaign setting, such as Warforged or Elemental Binding. Nor would I agree that it's the Tippyverse, since it's too low-level and doesn't rely on traps. This is simply taking the lowest-level spells from the SRD, and exploiting them via magic items to create a magipunk setting for cheap.
To those in favor of this, have you ever played/made/thought of a setting with these assumptions?
To those against this, what would be the best way to prevent/delay something like this from occurring?
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