Unsuitable spells for Dungeon Fantasy

[Blood Legend]

I nominate Mortiques Eliminating Illuminating Immolation.

[Rupert]

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. 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?

If you can do lead you can do tin, and likely copper and iron. Tin is expensive. As I've noted previously on these forums, if Earth to Stone was known in the bronze age, there's no reason for the iron age to have ever come along.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

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

No, I mean "Why do the mages not grab the market that they are much more qualified at (bigger effective skill, very very low cost materials) and to defend (Eat fireballs!). And drive the smiths out of work entirely, thereby ceasing monopoly of the market."
Why would you buy a regular sword from a smith, if you can buy a very fine one with a few basic enchants from mages at the same price? How would a smith support himself until he's skilled enough to pop the odd sword that can marginally compare to mage-swords?

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

No, I mean "Why do the mages not grab the market that they are much more qualified at (bigger effective skill, very very low cost materials) and to defend (Eat fireballs!). And drive the smiths out of work entirely, thereby ceasing monopoly of the market."

Well first of all then the wizards would then be stuck making swords all day rather than conducting research or making enchantments that are useful from a wizards prospective. Then of course is the question of why should a Wizard undercut the market significantly if people are perfectly willing to spend 20x normal price for a very fine weapon already why should I sell them for less? Just as importantly why should I crank them out by the dozen cheaply when I could probably sell one or two a season for their premium price make about as much money and still have time for my magic studies and enchantments.

Then comes the question of why do I want to replace a perfectly well functioning guild of smiths? Especially since if the plan works and the mage guild effectively drives the smiths out of work then you also have to start doing all the mundane every day jobs smiths do as well. Such as cranking out horse shoes, iron nails for buildings, creating braces, repair work, etc,etc. Again wizards with the right spells could still do all of this but not without using up even more of their day. Especially since more people are going to be needing nails made far more frequently than swords of any quality.

Then you have to look at the potential of politics to muddy the waters as well. Armies which are both equipped with V.F. weapons are going to be a pain to armor effectively since the bonus to damage is going to eat through light armor as if it wasnt their and even heavy armor is likely going to have to be enchanted as well if you actually want to consistently stop damage. The alternative being higher fatality and serious injuries after a fight.

Secondly it gives commoners and militia forces potentially access to weapons equally as deadly as most high lords and knights weapons which is likely going to make said commoner and militia forces a bit more uppity than a lot of medieval lords would appreciate.

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

Why would you buy a regular sword from a smith, if you can buy a very fine one with a few basic enchants from mages at the same price?

Because the Smiths hired Bards to run a smear campaign about the dangers of using mage smithed weapons ;). Seriously though a player probably would in a heart beat if he had that option and the money to do so. Of course that same player would probably fork out the money for a V.F. weapon as well at the normal Smiths prices as well if he had it and then hire a mage to enchant it as well, creating opportunities for both guilds to fleece adventurers out of their cash.

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

How would a smith support himself until he's skilled enough to pop the odd sword that can marginally compare to mage-swords?

Making hammers, nails, horse shoes, kitchen knives etc, of course that mage doesn't get a free ride either, the smith needs to learn just a couple of skills fairly well, compared to how many spells does a mage need to know to do the inspired creation/heal combo, plus the number of spells needed to keep him safe from irrate smiths hiring fighters using very cheap Very Fine weapons to kill said wizard. Plus the normal utility/every day spells that wizards find make their lives much easier.

Remember the 250 point templated wizards are going to be exceptional wizards most mages are probably not any more points than a commoner and are in the 25-50 point range

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Remember the 250 point templated wizards are going to be exceptional wizards most mages are probably not any more points than a commoner and are in the 25-50 point range

Commoners have to be prey for house cats, remember. That isn't very many points.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Commoners have to be prey for house cats, remember.

We are all Ultharians.

Maybe that was what Fort was on about...

heh

[Xenophile]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Commoners have to be prey for house cats, remember. That isn't very many points.

The mental image this summons is aquite amusing. "Elroy! We need to leave town. I just saw a cat in the forest!" "May the gods help us."

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

No, I mean "Why do the mages not grab the market that they are much more qualified at (bigger effective skill, very very low cost materials) and to defend (Eat fireballs!). And drive the smiths out of work entirely, thereby ceasing monopoly of the market."
Why would you buy a regular sword from a smith, if you can buy a very fine one with a few basic enchants from mages at the same price?

I suspect that gear made with Inspired Creation would cost more than people think. Sure, with good magic healing around a 5HP wound can be repaired pretty quickly via Major Healing. However, it'll still hurt a lot, which is a major disincentive. Heck, for many older craftsmen that'd be a major wound. Now, while the rules don't address this, I'd be very surprised if the longterm use of this technique didn't result in chronic injuries and premature physical deterioration from not-quite-right healing, and so on. I'm certain it'd cause very considerable psychological damage, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

On top of that, you need both a craftsman and a mage, and the spell is rather time consuming (though profitable).

BTW, it's possible to read the spell's cost as having to be paid all at once (indeed, I think that's the sensible way to read it, given it's not cast until the work is completed), and that means big powerstones or ceremonial casting is required for any major project.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

No, I mean "Why do the mages not grab the market that they are much more qualified at (bigger effective skill, very very low cost materials) and to defend (Eat fireballs!). And drive the smiths out of work entirely, thereby ceasing monopoly of the market."

Nosforontu made a lot of good points - there are more downsides to forcing smiths out of the sword business than benefits from doing so. Plus politics - maybe royal charters divide up the work and its bad news to undercut the king's decrees (you can't just fireball away royal authority), etc.

Of course, the mages can wipe out everyone and take over, but then they'll end up with anti-mage rebels who'll need smiths to make VF swords to help chop up wizards. :P

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

Why would you buy a regular sword from a smith, if you can buy a very fine one with a few basic enchants from mages at the same price?

You wouldn't, but the mage would be a damn fool to sell something for 1x price when he can sell it to you for 20x price because that's the going rate.

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

How would a smith support himself until he's skilled enough to pop the odd sword that can marginally compare to mage-swords?

Presumably, if they're doing so, they've done so by making lesser quality weapons to sell to people who can't afford or don't need high quality weapons, making non-weapon implements, and so on. Meanwhile, their guild experts make the top-quality weapons. That's how guilds work, anyway, in my understanding. The masters do the hard, high-level skill work and the lower rankers do prorgessively less skilled work until you hit bottom. The folks on the bottom know if they put their time in and get better at their jobs, they'll move up in importance and wealth.

If this all destroys your suspension of disbelief, by all means wipe out all Smiths with fireballs and have mages make everything from horseshoes to very fine swords. Or divide up the work so smiths don't make weapons past a certain quality, only mages do, because they all have Inspired Creation and could undercut the price anytime a smith tried to buck the trend. But why would mages charge less than the highest price the market will bear?

If they're already doing so, why lower the price to wipe out "competition"? In my games, it always seems like there are more adventurers buying weapons than Very Fine weapons to go around. But like I said, if this doesn't fly for you, wipe it out. But I think it holds up under a bit of scrutiny.

[vitruvian]

You wouldn't, but the mage would be a damn fool to sell something for 1x price when he can sell it to you for 20x price because that's the going rate.

And the point I think some are missing is that it would take an awfully long time for the price of the mage-crafted swords to come down, if it ever did. For one thing, in most campaign worlds I've ever seen, the population of people with inborn Magery and/or the capacity to be trained in magic is usually much, much smaller than the population capable of being apprenticed to smiths. Therefore, any work done done by mages has a certain scarcity value; if it can be replaced by non-mage labor, it generally will be.

Given their rarity, I would probably have most NPC enchanters be at least Comfortable, and possibly Wealthy to Very Wealthy, and just ignore the effects that would logically have on magic item prices. Maybe the difference is made up by them actually using the Meditative Magic method of enchantment rather than the Slow and Sure, at some nice advantageous rate such as 1 CP per 100 points of energy in the enchantment.

Given that I would assume only about one working enchanter per a pretty sizeable area (county-sized or so), and that the rest of the +1 weapons and such in the magic shops are pulled out of ancient ruins, the lack of major economic dislocation pretty much explains itself; there are just too few enchanters working at any one time to have this effect, and they are careful to charge what the market will bear and maintain a nice standard of living.