Author Topic: Lowest level for two tier 1's to Destroy an entire major metropolis's Industry?  (Read 9937 times)

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Gavinfoxx

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So... Mirror Mephit trick is... uh... from the utterly obscure source, 'Expedition to the Demonweb Pits', cast a second level spell that summons a mirror mephit, a creature in that book, for 1 round a level.  Speak to it and command it to use its simulacrum (with caster level 8) ability to create something with powerful spellcasting, of a type of spellcasting where the simulacrum ability actually still lets it cast spells.  Command the simulacrum to cast powerful spells.  Is that right?
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Epimetheus

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Wait a minute... the simulacrum is instantaneous, so it doesn't go away when the summon leaves.
How does that get around the 12 hour casting time? Oh dear...
« Last Edit: October 18, 2010, 11:49:56 PM by Epimetheus »

Amechra

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My friend, there is a little feat called "Persistant Spell" which gets around that.

Of course, they might just outright refuse to do it (the mirror mephit that is). Please check the PHB for more information. It's before the spells section.
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On a strange note, would anyone be put out if we had a post about people or events we can spare a thought for, or if its within their creed, a prayer for? Just a random thought, but ... hells I wouldn't have known about either Archangels daughter or Saeomons niece if I didn't happen to be on these threads.
Sounds fine to me.
probably over on "Off-topic".
might want to put a little disclaimer in the first post.

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KellKheraptis

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My friend, there is a little feat called "Persistant Spell" which gets around that.

Of course, they might just outright refuse to do it (the mirror mephit that is). Please check the PHB for more information. It's before the spells section.

Between that and the other means an Incantatrix has to fuck with metamagic (can you say : Unresistable Geas?), convincing the little bastard that working with you is in his best interest shouldn't be too hard :)
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Cragghunter

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My friend, there is a little feat called "Persistant Spell" which gets around that.

Of course, they might just outright refuse to do it (the mirror mephit that is). Please check the PHB for more information. It's before the spells section.

Between that and the other means an Incantatrix has to fuck with metamagic (can you say : Unresistable Geas?), convincing the little bastard that working with you is in his best interest shouldn't be too hard :)

Of coarse by the time Incantrix abilities become available you can have one as a familiar .

PhaedrusXY

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This is actually still wrong, but in the reverse direction.

Oversustainable production means that you've eliminated all labor-based industries. Suddenly only casters are necessary and commoners (and maybe all noncasters too) are deemed worthless beings. We don't need farmers, hunters, miners, workers, constructors, etc. Seems like a slippery slope into caster tyranny. Congratulations, you're the new evil!

I am still surprised that all game worlds don't start out like that.
That's pretty much exactly how my "Exiled" game in the PbP section started out. :D (Except this is only in the cities. The rest of the world is a frozen wasteland of eternal night. :P )
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jojolagger

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Hi there... I was wondering what the lowest level, and with the lowest expenditure of resources, that a straight classed druid and a straight classed artificer (in a two person party, maybe with a few hireables) could work together to, uhm, annihilate the major source of industry and pollution of an extremely large and major Toril metropolis?

Cause I was looking for the 'most polluting cities on Toril', and I think I found it...

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Hiyal
1: Have the Arty spend lots on dedicated wrights.
2: Undercut the production costs, sending the other industries out of business, and making more money to make more wrights.
3: Make all other industrial businesses go broke and shut down (make sure they are so broke they can't start back up.
4: Leave, resulting in a complete shut down of all commerce in said city.
5: Place a few walls of force before leaving to ensure that there is no way to cheaply resupply the city for a while.
6: Move on to the next one.

Meanwhile, have the druid train vast numbers of monkeys to use typewriters. Once you get enough you can use them to undercut literature, eventually killing off books with the sole exception of spellbooks.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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The other way is magic items. Now, magic items are sustainable, which is nice. The problem is that manufacturing a magic item requires XP. And not just any XP - it requires a wizard's XP.

Nope!

Hm, fair enough. In that case you just have to convince them to get their workers to sacrifice their own lifeforce to fuel the machines of industry so that the trees suffer no more.

Because that's a way less evil option.

The article says that NPCs value xp at a ratio of 5 gp to 1 xp.

It's no worse than, say, hiring people to fish for Alaskan crabs.
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Gavinfoxx

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Guuyyyss... they use slave labor! Slave labor is... really really really cheap...
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jojolagger

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Guuyyyss... they use slave labor! Slave labor is... really really really cheap...
you still need to feed slaves. Also dedicated Wrights have a better bonus to craft. That means long term the wrights are far more efficient, due to the fact that they only have initial cost..
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In other words, he thinks there's a "correct" way to play D&D.  *sigh*
There is: Kill shit and loot the corpse!
When you use a tool the way it was designed for -- its intended function -- then it will work very well for you.

But it's not the tool's fault if you use it for something else and you fail utterly, such as trying to eat cereal with a butterknife, pounding nails with a screwdriver, blogging to voice your political opinions, and brushing your teeth with a hammer.
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Gavinfoxx

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But that just means that while the artificer is there, of COURSE she can craft stuff better than them.  That was never in question! Whats in question is figuring out a cheap and easy way that stops pollution (including negative energy pollution, ahem undead!) from happening...
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Negative energy does not pollute. 

The prime material plane is a balance between all energy types.  Attempting to remove all the sources of negative energy and increasing the sources of positive energy is flirting with disaster.
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jojolagger

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Whats in question is figuring out a cheap and easy way that stops pollution (including negative energy pollution, ahem undead!) from happening...
While not very cheap or very easy, my method provides a sure-fire way to remove the profit from polluting.
Don't complain about me killing motive, not opportunity, it still works.
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Quotes [spoiler]
In other words, he thinks there's a "correct" way to play D&D.  *sigh*
There is: Kill shit and loot the corpse!
When you use a tool the way it was designed for -- its intended function -- then it will work very well for you.

But it's not the tool's fault if you use it for something else and you fail utterly, such as trying to eat cereal with a butterknife, pounding nails with a screwdriver, blogging to voice your political opinions, and brushing your teeth with a hammer.
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Benly

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Negative energy does not pollute. 

The prime material plane is a balance between all energy types.  Attempting to remove all the sources of negative energy and increasing the sources of positive energy is flirting with disaster.

Mercury, lead, and other heavy-metal toxins are naturally occurring parts of the Earth and are often present in trace quantities in a biosphere normally. That doesn't mean you should dump them in the middle of your city in huge quantities at high concentrations.

Negative energy is part of the natural process of growing old, dying, and occasionally rising as a ghost or revenant. Mass-producing zombies for industrial purposes creates an unnaturally high and potentially dangerous concentration of negative energy (it is noted in the rules that high concentrations of undead can potentially create a Desecrate effect, for example.) While negative energy isn't necessarily inherently evil, it is still toxic and should be managed carefully just like any other dangerous material used in industry. It doesn't sound like the industries here have a great track record with managing their conventional pollutants, so I wouldn't assume they'd be any more careful with their arcane toxins.

jojolagger

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Negative energy is part of the natural process of growing old, dying, and occasionally rising as a ghost or revenant. Mass-producing zombies for industrial purposes creates an unnaturally high and potentially dangerous concentration of negative energy (it is noted in the rules that high concentrations of undead can potentially create a Desecrate effect, for example.) While negative energy isn't necessarily inherently evil, it is still toxic and should be managed carefully just like any other dangerous material used in industry. It doesn't sound like the industries here have a great track record with managing their conventional pollutants, so I wouldn't assume they'd be any more careful with their arcane toxins.
Get a custom magic item of create water & bless water. Combine with dust of dryness to make anti-undead nukes. 100 gallons of holy water should be enough. Removal of the undead could be done by selling the anti-undead nukes to the local church for dead cheap, and letting them deal with the massive numbers of weak undead.
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In other words, he thinks there's a "correct" way to play D&D.  *sigh*
There is: Kill shit and loot the corpse!
When you use a tool the way it was designed for -- its intended function -- then it will work very well for you.

But it's not the tool's fault if you use it for something else and you fail utterly, such as trying to eat cereal with a butterknife, pounding nails with a screwdriver, blogging to voice your political opinions, and brushing your teeth with a hammer.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Positive energy is just as harmful as negative energy (see: planar traits).  Yet, you don't see druids regulating the number of living creatures.

Stop being so racist.
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Gavinfoxx

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Guys guys, we were talking about surefire ways to adjust the economy of a D&D metropolis to permanently discourage polluting heavy industries using a Druid's and Artificer's resources?
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jojolagger

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Guys guys, we were talking about surefire ways to adjust the economy of a D&D metropolis to permanently discourage polluting heavy industries using a Druid's and Artificer's resources?
And having solve said problem, we easily got derailed.

Also You mentioned the negative energy pollution first.
Countdown to Zombie Apocalypse 97
When you see this, copy it into your sig and -1
:lovefirefox
Quotes [spoiler]
In other words, he thinks there's a "correct" way to play D&D.  *sigh*
There is: Kill shit and loot the corpse!
When you use a tool the way it was designed for -- its intended function -- then it will work very well for you.

But it's not the tool's fault if you use it for something else and you fail utterly, such as trying to eat cereal with a butterknife, pounding nails with a screwdriver, blogging to voice your political opinions, and brushing your teeth with a hammer.
[/spoiler]

Benly

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Positive energy is just as harmful as negative energy (see: planar traits).  Yet, you don't see druids regulating the number of living creatures.

Stop being so racist.

Two counterpoints to that. First, positive energy requires much greater concentrations to be harmful; even minor positive-dominant isn't enough to actually risk harm to living creatures, for example, and Inflict Light Wounds is enough to kill a peasant while Cure Light Wounds is completely harmless against mortals. Second, as you noted, natural Prime Material creatures tend to contain a balance of positive and negative energy. Living creatures aren't the counterpart of undead, deathless are. Neither undead nor deathless tend to occur in huge numbers naturally (only a tiny fraction of a percent of mortals will rise as either revenants, crypt wardens, ghosts or sacred watchers) and in this context I would expect a druid to attempt to regulate efforts to harness mass quantities of deathless for industrial purposes as well.

Gavinfoxx

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Well... I'm going to be trying and getting some practice changing political makeup and the face of FR and stuff...

What would you say is the single most polluting city in Faerun proper, not all of Toril?
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