Unsuitable spells for Dungeon Fantasy

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Is this the scheme to threaten rich people with casting Melf's Acid Arrow at their genitals unless they paid up in cold, hard cash?

Or did I just have slightly more evil get-rich-quick schemers in my gaming group?

Inefficient ones.

And people who are casting Continual Light themselves are doing it the expensive, hard way. Use Summon Monster to conjure up a lantern archon, who can cast Continual Light at will, and get it to bling everything up like crazy.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Bruno

That still doesn't explain why Very Fine weapons, in DUNGEON FANTASY, which assumes a fair amount of magic, are still 9x as expensive as regular ones. Between the ease of magical healing and the reliability of this spell, I would expect them to be cranked out relatively easily.

It's 20×. And the reason is that the Armorers' Guild and Wizards' Guild have a deal. The wizards don't *** the armorers out of big profits on nice swords, and the armorers give the wizards exclusive rights to meteoric iron wizard manacles and prisons. Upstart wizards who mess with The Arrangement get stomped by chaps with really nice swords and then put in a special prison where their powers don't work.

Plus, magically forged sword lose their keen edge after a day. That, too.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's 20×. And the reason is that the Armorers' Guild and Wizards' Guild have a deal. The wizards don't *** the armorers out of big profits on nice swords, and the armorers give the wizards exclusive rights to meteoric iron wizard manacles and prisons. Upstart wizards who mess with The Arrangement get stomped by chaps with really nice swords and then put in a special prison where their powers don't work.

Ah, but if you start down this trail you'll soon be bombarded with questions like...

Why?
The wizards could just take over, and there probably isn't that much metoric iron to justify this. And it would be a much more clever move to just hire a few "rogue" smiths into the wizards guild to do shackles and whatnot. However inconvenient dealing with smiths is, the wizards have the upper hand. Why would they not just monopolize the entire thing? Something like the convenants of Ars Magica with all sorts of servants.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

Ah, but if you start down this trail you'll soon be bombarded with questions like...

Why?

You mean, "Why are they colluding to ensure both parties gets lots of profits without profit-reducing competition from each other?"

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Inefficient ones.

Maybe so, but it's more fun to roleplay. :D

Originally Posted by Bruno

And people who are casting Continual Light themselves are doing it the expensive, hard way. Use Summon Monster to conjure up a lantern archon, who can cast Continual Light at will, and get it to bling everything up like crazy.

Back in my day, we didn't have lantern archons. Or bling. All we had was that village of Hommlet and a dinky keep on the borderlands and NPCs capable of killing off wayward PCs but not of solving their own problems.

[vitruvian]

I deliberately left some vagueness in because that's in keeping with the kind of old-school game I'm aping . . . but I think that only a dummy of a GM would let the presence or absence of the word "Create" in the spell name determine whether a spell is subject to the one-day limit for "Create" spells. :) The relevant feature is permanent goods coming out of magic. Magic can't do that in dungeon fantasy.

Actually, I didn't even really get why this was such a big deal, providing only that they were quite inexpensive goods, such that the 'metal' variation on Earth to Stone is only able to make base metals, not anything particularly valuable. So you can make some water, or some dirt, or even some crude lumps of stone or lead or something... doesn't mean that you will set up shop in town rather than continue to adventure. The more advanced Create Object spells still have that limitation of a living thing continuing to touch the item, right?

[vitruvian]

It's 20×. And the reason is that the Armorers' Guild and Wizards' Guild have a deal. The wizards don't *** the armorers out of big profits on nice swords, and the armorers give the wizards exclusive rights to meteoric iron wizard manacles and prisons. Upstart wizards who mess with The Arrangement get stomped by chaps with really nice swords and then put in a special prison where their powers don't work.

Here's a real good shorthand answer for all these questions:

"A wizard did it."

Followed closely in utility by:

"A wizard didn't do it." If they ask, "why not?", the answer is, "I don't know, but I wouldn't advise asking them, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

It's quite possible that nobody's ever thought of the Inspired Weapon/healing combo before now, and even if there's some magesmith somewhere churning out the Very Fine weapons, he sees no reason to charge less than the going rate, and doesn't do enough of them to disturb the overall market.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Actually, I didn't even really get why this was such a big deal, providing only that they were quite inexpensive goods, such that the 'metal' variation on Earth to Stone is only able to make base metals, not anything particularly valuable.

Actually, stone and lead are expensive in a medieval-style economy. All "base" metals are valuable, they're useful and involve a LOT of effort to tear out of the ground and smelt.

[vitruvian]

Actually, stone and lead are expensive in a medieval-style economy. All "base" metals are valuable, they're useful and involve a LOT of effort to tear out of the ground and smelt.

Oh, sure, in a *realistic* medieval-style economy. In DF, though, I don't much care what happens to the costs of stone and lead as long as it doesn't affect the cost of any of the adventurers' gear! If the local village or town has an 'unrealistic' number of nicely built brownstone buildings with lead casements on the windows, rather than rudely thatched huts, it's no sweat off my back. Let the rare big city have humungous stone walls and towers, etc. - it's fantasy!

[MageofMyth]

Originally Posted by Harald387

So I've been tinkering with DF magery for a while now, and I've been finding a few other spells that need modification or removal to avoid imbalance.

Flesh to Stone (M53): While Dungeon Fantasy already covers Create spells, Flesh to Stone and a few other spells have the same potential to unbalance the economy. While I feel Flesh to Stone should retain its permanent nature, I would remove the ability of this spell to turn a subject to metal at double cost; otherwise a player is liable to start up an Iron Rabbit factory. While permanent Flesh to Stone has some chilling implications for the 'cutesy stone garden animal' industry, that's enough of a niche market that the economy shouldn't break.

Earth to Stone (M51): As with Flesh to Stone, I would remove the ability of this spell to create metal, or restrict metal created with the spell to the same one-day duration imposed on Create spells.

I would leave the ability to make iron rabbits in, however, if anyone tries to melt them then they turn back to flesh. This means that smiths will melt metal before they pay for it. There are still some exploits but not good ones.