D&DLand Industrial Magic Tricks

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D&DLand Industrial Magic Tricks

Post by Prak »

I was looking through Libris Mortis to see what all it had to say about haunted houses (which is, not a lot. I don't know how you write a book about undead and only give a page to some mediocre rules for undead being haunting presences, but I digress). What I found instead is a cheap way of producing magic automobiles in D&D Land.

A haunting presence can potentially exhibit poltergeist activity, animating an object it possesses and moving a mobile object at the speed the undead could normally move at.

So, undead remain until killed, and most don't require any kind of sustenance. This makes a haunting presence a good way to provide your magitech car with its motive force, especially since all the magic involved is in the creation of the undead, not in the car.

So you make your Magitech Car Factory, and you include a killing floor with Animate Dead and Haunt Shift traps keyed to, respectively, corpses and undead creatures in the room. Then you get a bunch of eagles because they have 1 HD and an 80 ft speed and you're making mindless undead so it doesn't matter that eagles know nothing about pulling a cart. Bring the eagles in with an equal number of gearboxes, and kill the eagles. The trap triggers, animating the eagles as skeletons, then shifting them to haunt the gearboxes.

Then you put those gearboxes in your magic cars. At that point, all that's needed is some manner of controlling the shifted eagle skeleton. The clearest way to do this is to equip cars with a Steering Wheel of Command Undead, but that costs 6000 gp. Doable, but cheaper would be ideal. You could make the wheel a Command Undead trap that is triggered by putting a key in, and targets the nearest undead, and this would be 3000 for a resetting trap.

The absolute cheapest way to do it would be to command the undead at the factory. This requires another magical effect at the factory, like a CL15 Extended Command Undead that tells each eagle skeleton presence "follow the directions of a person holding this (unique key)." Then people just swing by every 30 days to have their undead re-commanded for a nominal fee.

The factory itself would cost 52,500g, and then lets say you're spending 130 gold for each magic car in raw materials (100 for something like a carriage, 25 for 1HD worth of undead raising obsidian, 5 to cover acquisition of each eagle and making the gearbox). If you sell each for a 100 gp markup, you make the cost of the factory back in 525 units, and I could see merchants and such spending 230gp for a self-propelled carriage that they recharge every 30 days.
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Post by Rawbeard »

And then some douch cleric turns undead because your cart is EVIL
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Post by Fwib »

Rawbeard wrote:And then some douch cleric turns undead because your cart is EVIL
Doesn't that need line-of-sight/effect or something? (May vary by which edition's rules you're using)
[edit] Since the gearbox has total cover, being inside the carriage, it is protected from turn undead by clerics who've not had the carriage at least partly disassembled, in 3.5, anyway... http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specia ... bukeUndead
[edit2] Based on glancing at the PFSRD, it seems that turning in PF ignores that restriction, and varies in other ways....
Last edited by Fwib on Mon Oct 31, 2016 5:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Prak »

Rawbeard wrote:And then some douch cleric turns undead because your cart is EVIL
Turning doesn't work on haunting presences
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

I, really can't recall exactly how the Haunting Presence works (I recall reading it when I first got my copy of LM, but have never used it, or re-read it since), so here's what I haphazardly recall:

The "Haunting Presences" from Libris Mortis are.... more like a "undead spawner"; than an object that counts-as an undead. The act of turning has, at most, the effects of summoning a copy of the contained undead; and then it's combat-time.

[edit]

Okay, I looked it up, hilariously, "Haunting Presences" isn't in the table of content; because it's a "totally optional" rule; which means Mister Caverns will certainly spring them on players.

So far, I believe that the 5th level Cleric/Wizard spell Haunt Shift allows up to 20d4 HD to be "shifted" into objects (wagons), and those with >5HD get one form of haunting (Poltergeist), no higher than their base speed.

So, your "Orphitech" society is going to have people bragging about the speed of their Jaguars, they're talking about the ghosts of real Jaguars. Obviously, Dog/Raven (Movement 40) make the cut for "decent" mass-producable & speedy contraptions.

Higher end products will involve hunting for or specially breeding them: Wolves/Hyena (Move 50), Sharks/Hawk (Move 60), and Porpoises/Eagle (Move 80).

Really, the trick is to control haunted wagons that are always trying to run straight forward. You don't so much "turn them off", as you do "engage the brake."
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Tue Nov 01, 2016 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Occluded Sun »

I think it would be more productive to summon miniature fire and ice elementals and putting them in a Stirling engine.
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Post by Prak »

Judging__Eagle wrote:I, really can't recall exactly how the Haunting Presence works (I recall reading it when I first got my copy of LM, but have never used it, or re-read it since), so here's what I haphazardly recall:

The "Haunting Presences" from Libris Mortis are.... more like a "undead spawner"; than an object that counts-as an undead. The act of turning has, at most, the effects of summoning a copy of the contained undead; and then it's combat-time.
Well, some haunting presences can manifest, some can just pull poltergeist shenanigans, and some are powerful enough to do both. If a cleric tries to turn a HP it will, at most, draw the HP's attention and anger it, and if the HP can manifest, it will likely do so. If it can't, it might try to indirectly hurt the cleric with poltergeist shenanigans.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Occluded Sun wrote:I think it would be more productive to summon miniature fire and ice elementals and putting them in a Stirling engine.
Honestly, you'd want more types of magical fuel in a society than less; a single type of power source isn't going to preclude the niches that other power sources could fill with their specific characteristics.

"Elemental" powered steam engines are just as valid for the large steam-powered flavours of Infernitech, as Ghost-Raven Bicycles are for small personal conveyances. Similarly, "shoving a bunch of [creatures] into a treadwheel & powering machinery" or "bloodfueled plant-trains" would be Astraltech.

In any case, that's still, nothing. The large societal upswing doesn't happen when there are cars in the streets, but when there's electricity in every home. When one starts to build extensive/massive electricity generators that are spun by a Poltergeisting Haunting Presence of a Porpoise or Eagle. Since maximum speed is capped (albeit fairly high if rotation is counted at the centre, not at the edges; movement 80 could be as many as 16 revolutions per 6 seconds {assuming 1 revolution costs 5' of movement}). It's unlikely that the power output is going to be that high; but it doesn't require the massive construction effort of building of actual dams, nor & the exhaustive engineering thoroughness required to have all the necessary redundant technical infrastructure needed for an actual hydro dam's operation.
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Post by Prak »

The problem with consumer magitech is the cost. Now of course when you're making your own game/setting, you can write whatever items for whatever cost you want, but going by the book, most magitech car schemes are multi-thousands of gold at least.

Hence why I like the idea of the haunt-shift car, all of the magic itemry is in the factory, so the product can be substantially cheaper, albeit with a large investment.

Elemental-driven motors can be good too, and at similarly low costs. In this case, you would make a Lesser Planar Binding plant, and take advantage of the low int of smaller elementals to bind a fire elemental to a boiler with the task of "When [thing happens], boil water in this chamber until [thing doesn't happen]; do this task [for long period of time that doesn't matter to an elemental/until condition you can artificially put off happens]." That could cost a similar amount to the haunt shift carriage, but you might want to include a Create Water effect.

I like the idea of there being a bunch of different makes of magitechmobile distinguished by their technique, so you have Haunt, Element, Golem, and then models distinguished by specifics, so the Haunt Raven, Haunt Shark, and so on.
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Post by Mechalich »

Prak wrote:The problem with consumer magitech is the cost. Now of course when you're making your own game/setting, you can write whatever items for whatever cost you want, but going by the book, most magitech car schemes are multi-thousands of gold at least.
Actually, I'd say the problem is not the cost, but the inherent impossibility of adjudicating the magitech industrial revolution using the economic assumptions of D&D. Everything is based around a bunch of set costs and there's really no way to handle the idea of economic change. Also, any scenario that works around industrializing D&Dland runs into the problem that it's unclear how much the 4 elements, 2 energies, vancian casting metaphysics of D&D allows of actual industry to even happen. For example, is it even possible to create an electrical circuit in D&DLand?

Other sources have explored the idea of a necrotech economic revolution in some depth. The best recent treatment I'm familiar with is The Empire of Corpses which is appropriately awesome and disturbing.
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Post by Prak »

Ok, yes, that's the broader problem, D&D's economy is predicated on adventurers, not on industry, a symptom of that is that using magic to industrialize is too expensive to be practical.

As far as the magical nature of D&DLand, I lean towards assuming things work as normally, with magic on top, in the absence of contradiction. Where things would not make sense normally, such as the elemental plane of fire (ie, it would need a constant fuel input) I'm comfortable with saying "magic makes it work" in some manner. But I prefer to have standard physical interactions at least continue to work so that you can make magitech sterling engines and steam trains and such.
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You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Mechalich wrote:
Prak wrote:The problem with consumer magitech is the cost. Now of course when you're making your own game/setting, you can write whatever items for whatever cost you want, but going by the book, most magitech car schemes are multi-thousands of gold at least.
Actually, I'd say the problem is not the cost, but the inherent impossibility of adjudicating the magitech industrial revolution using the economic assumptions of D&D. Everything is based around a bunch of set costs and there's really no way to handle the idea of economic change. Also, any scenario that works around industrializing D&Dland runs into the problem that it's unclear how much the 4 elements, 2 energies, vancian casting metaphysics of D&D allows of actual industry to even happen. For example, is it even possible to create an electrical circuit in D&DLand?

Other sources have explored the idea of a necrotech economic revolution in some depth. The best recent treatment I'm familiar with is The Empire of Corpses which is appropriately awesome and disturbing.
The focus components for the Lighting Bolt spell; a piece of fur & a chunk of amber: indicate yes. Everything about science applies to D&Dland.

The focus components for Scrying; a lemon, wires & "specially treated" 'mirror' indicate that D&D land is closer to a science fantasy than "magical history". Mostly, b/c "Dying Earth" and "The Barsoom Sagas" were more influential in its original development and first games that Gygax ran; than Tolkien's works were.


As for "Haunt Wagons", as the true cost in their creation happens at the manufacturing stage; production costs will be lower over time. Additionally, what I was proposing was vastly more dangerous vehicles than what Prak was proposing in their initial post.

Instead of 120 lbs of gold (6k gp) for a steerinwheel of Command Undead, I'd suggest the following:

-Haunted machinery (the wagon)
-Veneer or cowling material on all of the haunted material (in order to "blinker" the haunting presences awareness)
-A figurine/illustration of a living creature placed inside of the cowling, at the front of the vehicle for the vehicle to "charge" forwards towards
-Effective mundane steering controls & brakes to direct & arrest the motive power of the murder-ghost powering the haunt-carriage

Thus, the haunting presence's inclinations towards killing living creatures are stymied and controlled as a means to make haunt-carriages remotely affordable. Cost would probably be somewhere in the 100's of gp, not 1000's of gp. In the longer run, established societies would likely set up work camps in the Elemental Plane of Earth (for onyx, etc.) in order to regulate their supplies of special resources.

Honestly, it's the lack of creative applications of the existing content in D&D to create magically-based industrialization that made Eberron seem so disappointing. [Edit] Specifically, the fact that any fucking idiot can just invent a bunch of "new" magical versions of contemporary technologies (albeit, the magical rail lines being Telekinesis traps attached to a Lighitng Bolt impelled line of carriages (really, two lanes of autoroads would be most effective, even if the speed is.... 5ft per minute (10 rounds); but effectiveness has no upper cap in how ridiculous it can get {Factorio's "locomotive impelled roads" X_x}.

For an autoroad, a way to keep pulling the inertial mass of a conveyed mass constantly forward could be pulled off with a line of Immovable Rods. With regular triggering a continued track of rods could result in the intertial release from "waves" of triggered Immovable Rods could function as a means of mild mass conveyance; unless I calculated it wrong, and it's more like a hypersonic railweapon, one would have to try w/ skeletons/test dummies :C )
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Tue Nov 01, 2016 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Prak »

Well, and I added above at some point that the Command Undead effect could be done at the factory, empowered with a 15th CL, and then people drop by to renew it for 5g every 30 days. This keeps the wagon cost low, and gives Haunt Co. a steady, if minor, income stream (unless they decide to make it free, since there's no cost to the effect).

But I do like your idea, too. Unfortunately, mindless undead don't work that way.

Edit: Oh, and how does an Immovable Rod autoroad work?
Last edited by Prak on Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JonSetanta »

Prak, the Paladin's Guild would like a word with your lich lawyer about this corporation.
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Post by Occluded Sun »

What happens when this hypothetical magitech D&D world hits Peak Planar?
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Prak wrote:
Edit: Oh, and how does an Immovable Rod autoroad work?
I made a mistake in assuming that Immovable Rods apply their inertial damping effect via contact alone; and that conflicting inertial dampening (rods turning on/off in a staggered succession, producing a "wave" of inertia) could be used to move mass a rod's width at a time.

Reading the item's entry again, I'm not sure what would be the best way to make the item able to do work. Now, it's most likely that their best use is as supports to other components of industrial construction.
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Post by AndreiChekov »

Mechalich wrote:
The best recent treatment I'm familiar with is The Empire of Corpses which is appropriately awesome and disturbing.
empire of corpses? 10/10 I came.
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Post by JonSetanta »

Hory shit...
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Post by K »

Judging__Eagle wrote:
Honestly, it's the lack of creative applications of the existing content in D&D to create magically-based industrialization that made Eberron seem so disappointing.
Yes and no.

A lot of DnD spells really don't have the kinds of practical descriptions that you'd need to actually make tech. For example, if I put a permanent wall-type spell on a movable surface, does it move? For things like Wall of Stone, the answer is "yes" because it's a permanent physical object, but Wall of Fire is not so clear, and so I can't really tell you if I can make an eternal steam engine train.

That being said, a single permanent wall of fire can almost certainly produce enough steam to heat some portion of a city, so Eberron has a lot to answer for.

But not too much. The 3.X magic item and spell pricing is so pricey that any magic used to do something not completely amazing is just wildly bad from an economic standpoint. An untrained Hireling is one silver a day and can handle complex instructions, so it's going to take a long time to offset the cost of even the cheapest of magic-made servants like skeles for the quality of work you are getting.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

K wrote:
Judging__Eagle wrote:
Honestly, it's the lack of creative applications of the existing content in D&D to create magically-based industrialization that made Eberron seem so disappointing.
Yes and no.

A lot of DnD spells really don't have the kinds of practical descriptions that you'd need to actually make tech. For example, if I put a permanent wall-type spell on a movable surface, does it move? For things like Wall of Stone, the answer is "yes" because it's a permanent physical object, but Wall of Fire is not so clear, and so I can't really tell you if I can make an eternal steam engine train.

That being said, a single permanent wall of fire can almost certainly produce enough steam to heat some portion of a city, so Eberron has a lot to answer for.

But not too much. The 3.X magic item and spell pricing is so pricey that any magic used to do something not completely amazing is just wildly bad from an economic standpoint. An untrained Hireling is one silver a day and can handle complex instructions, so it's going to take a long time to offset the cost of even the cheapest of magic-made servants like skeles for the quality of work you are getting.
I dunno, 250 days isn't that long for a capital investment programme to pay off even before you get into how skeletons need no sleep nor recreation so can effectively work three times as long on particularly menial tasks.

Also, skeletons cost 0 GP, you make them with Fell Animate. :tongue:
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Post by K »

Omegonthesane wrote:
K wrote:
Judging__Eagle wrote:
Honestly, it's the lack of creative applications of the existing content in D&D to create magically-based industrialization that made Eberron seem so disappointing.
Yes and no.

A lot of DnD spells really don't have the kinds of practical descriptions that you'd need to actually make tech. For example, if I put a permanent wall-type spell on a movable surface, does it move? For things like Wall of Stone, the answer is "yes" because it's a permanent physical object, but Wall of Fire is not so clear, and so I can't really tell you if I can make an eternal steam engine train.

That being said, a single permanent wall of fire can almost certainly produce enough steam to heat some portion of a city, so Eberron has a lot to answer for.

But not too much. The 3.X magic item and spell pricing is so pricey that any magic used to do something not completely amazing is just wildly bad from an economic standpoint. An untrained Hireling is one silver a day and can handle complex instructions, so it's going to take a long time to offset the cost of even the cheapest of magic-made servants like skeles for the quality of work you are getting.
I dunno, 250 days isn't that long for a capital investment programme to pay off even before you get into how skeletons need no sleep nor recreation so can effectively work three times as long on particularly menial tasks.

Also, skeletons cost 0 GP, you make them with Fell Animate. :tongue:
Except no. There is a mid-level spellcaster with a rare feat who is sitting around telling the skele to do shit, and he needs to be paid. He doesn't work three times as long and he needs sleep.

For particularly menial tasks, you can just use animal and mechanical labor. Cutting wheat is done better and faster with a machine than with a dozen skeletons.

If magi-tech isn't exceeding the quality of work of a pile of untrained peasants at lower prices, its not worth doing.
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Post by Prak »

Ok, so Magindustropolis sets up a mid-level caster who knows Fell Animate as their executioner. Hell, they could actually just have a Rod of Fell Animate that gets used by whatever spellcaster is the state executioner, but that's a bit more expensive. Fuck, to be honest, Magindustropolis may just have a standing offer to adventurers to buy magic items they bring in for better than half value. A lot of people would take that offer.

The official death penalty is death by fireball and subsequent use of your animated corpse as industrial labor. To maximize utility, convicts are executed in batches of 44, or as close to as possible.

Mindless undead who have been controlled will follow the last order given until a new order is given, potentially even beyond the death of whoever gave the command. So either the executioner gives them an order, or the head of labor has the ability to command undead one way or another (maybe they're a cleric of Wee Jas, maybe they know Command Undead, maybe they just have a rod of Command Undead, whatever) does, and generally you can break down even complex actions into simple commands, possibly conditional. Significantly complex actions may require multiple skeletons given simple commands.
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Post by maglag »

So whatever happened to "mindless creatures are completely retarded and easily fail to simple 1st level illusions?"

Because any work enviroment will have changing factors. Maybe there's faulty materials, maybe there's a fire, maybe some animal shows up.

Either way, you need people supervising the mindless undead all the time, or sooner or later you'll return to your skeleton factory in the morning only to find out a ruin because something unexpected happen and your workforce is literally unable to cope with unexpected situations.

That's why you should use warforged or ghouls or vampires or anything else that can work 24/day while laughing at entropy but can still think on their own.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Using the undead bodies of convicted criminals as your labor force sounds like the start of a horror movie gone wrong.

Bear in mind that the existing spells aren't the sum total of possible spells. And wizard can research a new spell. The moment awaken undead enters the world, a lot of bad shit will go down.

If you can't be certain of what magic your opposition will have, you can have a lot of downside potential if you rely too much on mindless undead.

There's also the larger issue of the economy as a whole. Sure, D&D treats things as rather static, but the moment everyone who can enslaves a large undead work force, you don't have any other laborers. The ripple effects of that is that you're going to end up with cheap labor producing cheap goods, but nobody has money to buy it.
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Post by Pixels »

Libris Mortis has a copy of Awaken Undead, but it's a 7th level spell and costs 200 xp a pop. It's permanent rather than instantaneous, which means you can just dispel it. It's also dismissable, which on reflection is horrifying. "Do as I say or I turn you back into a drooling automaton, no save."
Last edited by Pixels on Fri Nov 11, 2016 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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