Water Treatment Spells

[Meikle641]

Transmuting mud to rock and vice-versa would work great for paving. Or really, anything you could do with cement. You could probably even build a custom magic item that was a decanter of endless mud (there's an elemental plane of mud, right?) and have a whole masonry shop.

Not quite what you want, but Sandstorm has a bottle that spews sand instead of water. Combined the two and we get mud, I suppose.

[K]

Transmute Mud to Rock makes sandstone, a type of stone so weak you can break it with your hands. It's not an ideal building material.

Going back to the lake problem, there could be literally anything in that lake if we assume 19th century industrialization from heavy metals to complex hydrocarbons to who knows what. The mind flayer invasion then opens up invasive species and biological hazards, so at that point you want to drain the lake.

I'd probably drain the lake by disintigrating down to the Underdark or drying out the water and then blowing away the top layer with weather control magic for heatwaves and wind, then capping the holes (if needed) and then refilling with weather control magic for rain. Reintroduce native species as needed.

[DSMatticus]

infinite use miracle item

I don't think that's actually core. It's an epic level magic item, so it takes some circumvention cheese to be able to make that without an epic level feat. If you're using unmodified wish/miracle, you can just get one that way, but if that's how you're rolling you're probably chain-binding efreeti to do it anyway so why bother?

I think we can all agree that either A) chain-binding efreeti-style, or B) unmodified wish/miracle means you get anything you want. Any spell you could possibly want to cast (at least, up to level 8) you just spam infinitely. Using things like the item creation rules, planar binding (non chain), or non-core material should probably count against a strategy (ranked from most to least offensive), but they can still make interesting, quirky solutions, and as long as the actual item creation rules are being used and people are paying with their own XP, there are some tangible limits to what they're able to do (though, some spells are still non-epic affordable and break it: see limited wish). But goodberry at-will isn't exactly much of an offender. That seems to be a classic example of the item creation rules working as intended.

Of course, a less controversial solution to world hunger is the hydra. Or anything with regeneration, really. Combine some enchantment/illusion spells and daily feeding, and your supply of food is limited to "how many of these creatures do I have and how many people can I fit around them to tear parts off?"

Edit: I have the sudden urge to play a troll chef who spends a substantial amount of time trying to explain to the party how he always seems to turn up meat and organs for his stews, even when they've been out of supplies for weeks and they never see him hunting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

An unlimited-use wish/miracle item is well within non-epic bounds. All you need to do is ladle up some limitations; charged, useable once a day, and has an alignment (and/or) class along with a skill restriction.

For example, here's the base cost of a ring of unlimited miracle for commoners with the animal husbandry skill:

(27950 (caster level) + 1.25 million gp (charged)) / 5 (charges) * .7 (class restriction) * .9 Skill Feature = 162,000 gp. A cubic gate has a value of 164,000 gp by contrast.

Transmute Mud to Rock makes sandstone, a type of stone so weak you can break it with your hands. It's not an ideal building material.

As pointed out by someone else you'd be much better off by transmuting the kind of rock you actually want to build with to mud, transporting it wherever, then dropping a dispel magic on it.

[Vebyast]

Another solution for roadbuilding might be a solidly-built Ring Gate teleported down into a suitable spot in the earth's mantle. Dangerous as all fuck, given that it's effectively an always-on infinite lava gun, but effective. Just build your ditch, fill it up with lava, and wait for it to cool to your chosen hyper-durable extrusive igneous rock.

[fectin]

Transmute Mud to Rock makes sandstone, a type of stone so weak you can break it with your hands. It's not an ideal building material.

That makes me sad. But I'm not done yet!
Same plan, with wall of stone instead of mud to stone. You have to get a better foundation built, but it should still work okay You also need to find a massive stone to get started, but that should also be doable. You're now growing the road slowly forward at a rate of 4 inches/round, or .66 inches/second. That's not stellar, but not too terrible either. It's still about 11 miles/day. It interacts better with bridges too, so that's cool.

In a new direction, you could go with zombifying large birds, and use them to animate small aircraft with haunt shift so they cost you small amounts of money (for the onyx) instead of xp. pretty sure there's a way to make that useful.

Combine the two, and build the road with deep ruts and you could make trains.

Another solution for roadbuilding might be a solidly-built Ring Gate teleported down into a suitable spot in the earth's mantle. Dangerous as all fuck, given that it's effectively an always-on infinite lava gun, but effective. Just build your ditch, fill it up with lava, and wait for it to cool to your chosen hyper-durable extrusive igneous rock.

I like ring gates too, but they're limited to 100lbs/day. Though, you can run a piston through there and it doesn't count.

[Vebyast]

I like ring gates too, but they're limited to 100lbs/day. Though, you can run a piston through there and it doesn't count.

I fail again. Replace with a fire elemental bucket brigade going through a permanent Teleportation Circle to a cart?

Running the piston through it is an interesting idea, though. Makes it pretty trivial to transmit power over large distances; just hook up a great big adamantite driveshaft and go. Hmm. Now I have to hunt down a materials science person or a mechanical engineer so I can ask them how much power you can shove through it.

[fectin]

If you use long strokes, you should be to push a crapton of power through.

I'm not sure if that's helpful or not though; you could also just stick a bunch of skeletons in boxes and have them turning crankshafts. Clutch them all together, and you have as much power as you want.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

If you use long strokes, you should be to push a crapton of power through.

[Vebyast]

If you use long strokes, you should be to push a crapton of power through.

Would it be more efficient to use a reciprocating piston? You'd certainly lose more energy converting it to do useful work.

I'm not sure if that's helpful or not though; you could also just stick a bunch of skeletons in boxes and have them turning crankshafts. Clutch them all together, and you have as much power as you want.

Reminds me of the bag of shooting: bag of holding with a skeleton-crewed ballista or light catapult inside.

Moving up past the industrial revolution, is there anything we can do with electrical or fire monsters? There has to be some way to estimate how much power we can extract from a maximal-density shocker lizard farm or a bunch of salamanders or fire elementals.

[Prak]

Another solution for roadbuilding might be a solidly-built Ring Gate teleported down into a suitable spot in the earth's mantle. Dangerous as all fuck, given that it's effectively an always-on infinite lava gun, but effective. Just build your ditch, fill it up with lava, and wait for it to cool to your chosen hyper-durable extrusive igneous rock.

Actually there's a better, slightly less dangerous way to do it. You add one or two spells to the previous Mud to Rock road scheme. Dragon Magazine and Spell Compendium have Transmute Rock to Lava (sadly, nothing going the otherway). So what you do is:
1-Create a shit ton of mud through decanter nonsense, or somesuch.
2-Transmute the mud to rock
3-Transmute the rock to lava (should give you igneous rock, which I'm pretty sure is a lot more durable.)
4-Wait for it to cool, or use a spell to cool it. Running a high melting point metal (like, well, iron, apparently) rod through the lava's center, bent at a right angle to come out at the surface, would allow you to use Chill Metal to cool the lava from the center out and the surface at the same time. When you're done, turn the metal rod into a sign post, or sheer it off at the level of the road.

(edit: just looked at the area on TRtL, it's 10' at a time, so you'd want a use activated item or something.)

[angelfromanotherpin]

Transmute Mud to Rock makes sandstone, a type of stone so weak you can break it with your hands. It's not an ideal building material.

That makes me sad. But I'm not done yet!

Don't listen to K. There are sandstone structures in the real world that have lasted for hundreds of years; it's still used as a building material today. The Canadian parliament building is mostly sandstone.

Anyway by RAW, these theoretically 'soft' stones still have the same hardness and hp as any other kind. Lack of mechanical granularity is your ally!

[Endovior]

Technically, items that exactly replicate core spells are totally okay by core;

Okay, then let's have an infinite use miracle item that doesn't suck the cock of a deity unless it's Gond or Prometheus to put in whatever bullshit game effect we want. Totally allowed by core!

It's a fruitless road to go down.

Your statement is utterly meaningless. Such an item would cost far too much for anyone to make, by the core rules... and we don't even care about the epic rules, since they hardly make sense at all. We will here ignore the bits about 'item only usable by specific class'; because everyone knows that's not in any way a significant restriction on magic items the PCs make for themselves.

The discussion at hand is a question of isolating interesting spell effects that can be itemized and distributed for economic effect, since Wizards don't actually want to spend all their time casting spells for the benefit of peasants. Since there are specific guidelines listed under which this is possible, and since there is a specific amount of money that nobles and whatnot have available for purchasing magical infrastructure, there's a nice broad stretch of middle ground in which 'public works projects' can be done.

That's the point of the thread at the moment. If you don't like it, leave and don't shit all over the thread with your dislike of custom magic items, mmkay?

[Vebyast]

Melting sandstone and letting it cool to solidity looks like it would result in either quartz or feldspar. Feldspar doesn't look very useful, but a road made of solid quartz would be interesting.

[JigokuBosatsu]

As I recall, "Tales of the Outer Planes" had a submarine whose power plant were paired tanks of water/fire elementals that were released through valves to make steam/get really fucking pissed.

[tzor]

Paving? What's wrong with a good dirt road? I would say that the biggest problem with roads is making them somewhat level - rock to mud to cut through the rock and create enough mud to form a foundation for the general locations were you need fill.

Now if you want a high speed road ... use a druid because the best road surface is wood. In the early days of the automobile they built a couple of racetracks out of wood. They went out of favor only because the speeds obtained on those tracks was too fast for most of the cars to safely handle. If you are just going for a good old fashioned wooden road, try The Old Plank Road.

Extra points if you can get the druid to make the road out of living trees so they repair themselves over time. You can also have the trees act as bridges allowing for the road to be somewhat level in rough places.

[Vebyast]

Paving? What's wrong with a good dirt road? I would say that the biggest problem with roads is making them somewhat level - rock to mud to cut through the rock and create enough mud to form a foundation for the general locations were you need fill.

Now if you want a high speed road ... use a druid because the best road surface is wood. In the early days of the automobile they built a couple of racetracks out of wood. They went out of favor only because the speeds obtained on those tracks was too fast for most of the cars to safely handle. If you are just going for a good old fashioned wooden road, try The Old Plank Road.

Extra points if you can get the druid to make the road out of living trees so they repair themselves over time. You can also have the trees act as bridges allowing for the road to be somewhat level in rough places.

Dirt and wood roads went out of fashion because they require loads and loads of maintenance and they're not very smooth. Dirt roads also turn to mud. Board racetracks went out of fashion because they were too small (1/8th mile length, 120 miles per hour, no guardrails ==> lethal crashes) and too expensive to resurface every five years. In fact, note that the Old Plank Road there ended because newer roads were so much smoother. I'm pretty sure that a floated sheet of quartz would be a heck of a lot smoother than that. It also wouldn't need to be completely resurfaced every five years.

The living tree road is an interesting idea, though. It's probably require regular trimming, which is just as much maintenance as a dirt road or similar. Most woody also things I know of get angry if you grind their bark off across a large portion of their surface. On the plus side, it'd grow its own canopy and rain/sun cover. If you want to be really hardcore, you could even make sections of it into plant monsters to mess up people that try to use your road.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Your statement is utterly meaningless. Such an item would cost far too much for anyone to make, by the core rules... and we don't even care about the epic rules, since they hardly make sense at all. We will here ignore the bits about 'item only usable by specific class'; because everyone knows that's not in any way a significant restriction on magic items the PCs make for themselves.

So you get to have whatever custom item you want (saying that it's justified by the core rules) but you also get to pooh-pooh other 'core' rules whenever you feel like. Very consistent and not hypocritical. The cost reductions aren't optional. Several items in the DMG actually use that formula. If you're going to wave the 'allowed by a strict reading of core rules' then I get to use it as well. If you don't like me throwing rings of miracles in your face then ban custom items and ban your goodberry bush idea.

The discussion at hand is a question of isolating interesting spell effects that can be itemized and distributed for economic effect, since Wizards don't actually want to spend all their time casting spells for the benefit of peasants. Since there are specific guidelines listed under which this is possible, and since there is a specific amount of money that nobles and whatnot have available for purchasing magical infrastructure, there's a nice broad stretch of middle ground in which 'public works projects' can be done.

Blah blah blah no one gives a shit. One of the 5000 XP effects of Miracle is that it can stop a natural disaster like a volcano or doing a mass raise dead. Saying that they'd distribute it to commoners was a snarky strawman, but the fact remains is that wizards have an unlimited-use item that does whatever power fuckery they want. In 3.5E they don't even have to expend any experience points, they can just mind rape commoners into willingly donating the experience points.

That's the point of the thread at the moment. If you don't like it, leave and don't shit all over the thread with your dislike of custom magic items, mmkay?

So if you say ignorant shit I'm not allowed to call you on it if it'll spoil the mood? That's adorable, Endovior, go play on the WotC boards. Face it, what I'm saying is relevant and on-topic, even if it is 'your idea for this topic is stupid and leads to more stupidness and here's why'.

[DSMatticus]

An unlimited-use wish/miracle item is well within non-epic bounds. All you need to do is ladle up some limitations; charged, useable once a day, and has an alignment (and/or) class along with a skill restriction.

That isn't infinite use, that's "until it runs out of charges" or "as many days as I have," which is a very significant difference from the level of chain-binding efreeti or having as many wishes as you can cast. As far as public works projects go, that's just an extra flexible spell slot that will eventually burn out on you some day. An aspiring civil magineer would be better off with a pearl of power than this item. (You'd get more traction suggesitng limited wish at-will, which is non-epic and actually does break things.)

So you get to have whatever custom item you want (saying that it's justified by the core rules) but you also get to pooh-pooh other 'core' rules whenever you feel like.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. Everyone here is keenly aware that the core rules don't actually work, so if we want to have any goal-oriented discussion at all about D&D we have to ignore parts of them. This is exactly what we're doing, and it's exactly what you're doing because in your first post you didn't say, "chain-bind an arbitrarily large number of efreeti, evaporate the water with fire spells, put on a new lake bed with wall of stone and move dirt, then fill it with create water." If you're trying to tell us "all core or no core," and not holding yourself to the same standard, I see no reason to take you seriously.

So how about we do the intelligent thing, and care about how likely something is to fly at the table, instead of how much you personally hate a rule for occasionally leading to broken results. And yes, that is a very relative tipping point. And yes, that does mean even a strategy that uses innocuous custom magic items (goodberry at-will) is less likely to fly at a table than being able to feed people with troll flesh or something, so a strategy that doesn't use those rules has a lot more palatability.

So your point is completely noted and completely valid (even if your attempts to paint an extreme dichotomy of "no custom items or all custom items" is bullshit). A solution that uses the item creation rules will fly at less tables than a solution that doesn't, so having a solution that doesn't is better. But there are also lots of tables where a DM would allow goodberry but not limited wish, and at those tables the goodberry strategy is relevant and your bitching isn't. Let's just hear both and put a steroid asterisk next to one of them.

Now, less derail, more civil magineering!

[Chamomile]

So how about we do the intelligent thing, and care about how likely something is to fly at the table, instead of how much you personally hate a rule for occasionally leading to broken results.

Oh, come on, this is a stupid argument and you know it. Fly is a third level spell, it's pretty obvious that making things fly is not a problem at the level of play we're discussing.

[fectin]

Tome firemage is superpowerful for steampunk. He creates permanent bonfires at will, which actually produce heat. That means all you need is water (and not that much of it) to be suddenly doing whatever you want with steam: steamtanks, steam giant robots, you could probably even get steam flying ships going. Plus all that boring stuff like mass transit, cranes and construction, plumbing, and poor people not freezing to death.

So you build a custom magic item: a spherical shell with as durable walls as you can get. It's use activated, and casts create water inside itself any round it is not half-full of water(1000gp + sphere cost). There is a super-reinforced pipe coming out of it. Supply heat (tome fire mage's bonfire or planar bind a salamander), and you get high-pressure steam.

[Hicks]

Well, at my table, our DM bitches up a shit storm because our whole party can fly at level 7, but he's 15 so whatever.

[Vebyast]

So you build a custom magic item: a spherical shell with as durable walls as you can get. It's use activated, and casts create water inside itself any round it is not half-full of water(1000gp + sphere cost). There is a super-reinforced pipe coming out of it. Supply heat (tome fire mage's bonfire or planar bind a salamander), and you get high-pressure steam.

Ooh, nice idea. I've been thinking of ways to get a heat engine running between the inside of a star and a black rock floating somewhere in space, but so far it's way expensive and nowhere near as elegant as this.

---

My friends tell me that you can put about a gigawatt - the output of a really big power plant - through a ring gate. That's good enough for me. Put all of your reactors in one place for economy of scale, then transmit power to substations using ring gates and driveshafts. Economy of scale is especially useful when magic gives you the tech required to actually build a power plant that big.

---

A bit more difficult to back up, but Major Creation should be able to produce just about any rare chemical you need for industry, as long as you use it fast. Need super-pure fluorine, rubidium, xenon, etc? No problem, just conjure it right into your reactor.

[DSMatticus]

Oh, come on, this is a stupid argument and you know it. Fly is a third level spell, it's pretty obvious that making things fly is not a problem at the level of play we're discussing.

I chuckled. Hard.

and casts create water inside itself any round it is not half-full of water(1000gp + sphere cost)

You can probably make this work with a decanter of endless water and some wall of iron castings. Just saying.

Also, it's kind of amusing to realize that industrial age D&D's major pollutant could easily be magically created water and/or water vapor which is slowly flooding the entire planet. So, in preemptive preparation for the doomsday scenario of their reckless, unsustainable energy policy of polluting the world with water, what's the quickest way you can think of to dispose of their excess? (Don't say 'develop alternative energy sources, like ring gates.' That's what some pussy scientist would say. We're magicians.) Also, this would help OP's original question as well as contributing to a hypothetical BBEG's plans to dehydate the world.

[fectin]

That's a good one. One of the big thing with pharmaceutical research is tracking where the bits of compounds go. That usually means something like making a compound that has carbon-14 replacing one and only one specific regular carbon atom. You end up spending weeks to get a small vial that literally costs millions of dollars. That gets repeated a lot of times.
Cutting that cost would drive pharmaceutical research costs down pretty hard.

The disappearance part is actually a positive in some cases. For example, one of the ways you get super-pure Ethanol involves adding benzine. benzine is a carcinogen, so that makes your booze into a carcinogen. If the benzine went away after the duration, rectified spirits would be less of a hazard (you don't want to drink them anyway, but there are industrial and medical uses).

Control Water is a cheap substitute for waterlocks near dams.

Repel Wood could be set up to drive a fairly big wheel (basically like an undershot waterwheel).

Continuous Purify Food and Drink is 1000gp/ft^3/round. You could have an arguement about whether that means it purifies everything moving through that foot, or you could just spring for a bunch of them at every supermarket (goodbye, salmonella outbreaks!).