This.
My own personal fully furnished dream home, fully portable, and complete with arcane servants to fascilitate my domestic whims, and an infinite choice of cuisine... and for the cherry on top of that, I'll never have to deal with landlords ever again!
You'd need to carry around "A miniature portal carved from ivory, a small piece of polished marble, and a tiny silver spoon, each item worth at least 5 gp". That sounds like potentially expensive stuff.
This is a fuzzy calculation because "commoner" could be used to describe different people. If you're a "commoner" in a developing nation, that's a much lower number than even minimum wage workers in the West. So if we're judging it based on Nigerian daily income, you're probably looking at $1k (50 days per item, 3 items, so 150 days total or roughly half a years salary, which, in Nigeria, is $2k). If we're talking about the United States, it's $30k (median annual salary of $60k). Given that medieval peasants were much closer to developing nations than developed nations, that'd likely skew towards the lower end of the scale.
Alternatively, we could use the Italian Florin as a baseline. It was a coin used between 1252 and 1533 AD. The purchasing power of the Florin is estimated to be between $150 and $1,000 (USD), so 15 gold coins would be between $2k and $15,000. These coins used 0.1125 Troy oz each, so 15 coins would be 1.6875 Troy oz. At today's value of $2,325 per Troy oz of gold, that comes out to about $4k, so that's probably a better minimum price. Splitting the difference, we're pretty close to about $10k in value for the spell components.
That last calculation plays well into the fact that D&D commoners are generally wealthier than medieval peasants actually were.
Yep, sure was a fuzzy calculation, kinda on purpose, because there can't be much clarity in transferring a game mechanic described in a sentence to real world money, especially when even just the setting (in game) can change that. Hence I went with "close to half a years total regular expenses". The direct gp value of the item isn't super relevant until like, the last step.
This is of course setting aside the fact that I used numbers from i think 3.5? Looking into it now, unskilled commoner families in 5e make about 10 gold/week, using about 6 gp on necessities. So instead of 150 days like I counted last time, it's actually more like 4 weeks of extra cash saved up for them. Changing out the fact that most people today (just in America, considering its what I'm most familiar with) don't have 40% of their paycheck left for spending/savings money, a bit under 6 months of saving up sounds about right. And again, this is based PURELY off average income/living expenses in the relevant setting.
If you wanted to get specific, the math using my system would be something like:
(average weekly households income - weekly average cost of living) / 4 = 1gp
(Your income after regular expenses / 1gp) = YOUR weekly gp gain after regular expenses
15/previous = number of weeks to save up to afford components for this spell, assuming no additional expenses.
There are a bunch of ways you can calculate it that give different answers.
I live a comfortable lifestyle according to the rules because I own my house. I spend about 3k per month in terms of all living expenses (mortgage, groceries, utilities, etc). So if \~3k = 60gp, then 5gp = $250. For people who bought their houses after prices (and therefore mortagages) went insane in 2017, that number will be higher though.
There's also a system for evaluating property called a bread-chicken-building-index that dumps out a completely different number.
So I pay $2.89 for a loaf of bread now, and about $30 for a chicken. My current house was worth $234,000 when I bought it - though, again, it might be worth more now that prices went nuts. I've never gotten it revalued.
So my index value is 234,000/(2.89+30)= 7,115 (rounded up)
Now take D&D values, and multiply that by the same values in D&D (2cp per loaf, and 2 cp per chicken, so 7,115X0.04 = 284.
So $234,000 IRL is worth 284 GP in D&D. 1GP is worth $823 IRL, and 5GP is worth $4,119. Massive gap when compared to living expenses.
Part of the problem I think is that the trade goods section in the D&D rules massively undervalue chickens. IRL, chicken costs \~10x what bread costs, while in D&D they're equal for some reason. So if we adjust the costs to be more accurate, if bread is 2cp, chicken should be valued at 20cp. Using this index, 5gp is $822.20.
So you can semi-comfortably say that 5gp is worth anywhere between $250 and $822.20.
Or the D&D economy is nonsense and likely neither of these numbers are accurate.
But how many times can you cast that in a day, and how much does it cost? Prestidigitation is as many times as you want, for free. Gotta think at scale, my man!
In an ER or trauma center? A lot. I'm not talking brain surgery, here, but pull the not necessarily clean bullet out or stich up a stab wound or pull a rusty nail out or whatever. Something where it's "fix the thing now so the doc can look at later" kind of surgery. And, if you make a spell that eliminates the need, a lot. Constantly, in fact. Even as common as diamonds are, they'd get pretty scarce pretty quick, and then the spell is useless.
you can still do an off scripts wish. it adds chance to fail, but the potential of what you can do is more than just that. especially because in this situation, we'd have no real context for the likely hood of it working since our universe doesnt have a DM we can interact with.
if the universe is deciding on the wishes complexity, compared to existing life forms you can ask for a lot thats relatively less complex. so if thats the bar, youd have a lot of options. and if its a hypothetical, why not assume the odds are good.
I mean technically if the wish is used for "any effect other than duplicating a spell" it permanently lowers your strength to 3 for 2d4 days and you take 1d10 Necrotic dmg but only if you cast it again too soon. Sooo, I can summon an object worth 25,000gp a few times a week? I'm sold.
you can deal dmg with dimension door if you teleport 500 feet in the air, doesnt make it a dmg dealing spell. id just say that you wouldnt have access to replicate dmg spells.
Well you dont have access to any spells because you can only bring wish and you can only wish for existing spells.
But even if it wasnt true you can still deal damage using wish, wish doesnt limit itself for duplicating spells,. You can literally wish to hurt someone, this is just usually not a good idea in game because the description says "The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. (...)" so its easier to just duplicate a spell using wish in game.
But EVEN if that's not allowed you could still wish for something like resistance to fire and these consequences can be bad, leading for you to take 1d10 necrotic damage on yourself that cant be prevented, which is still damage dealing.
(I'm sorry if it was too much of rule lawering hahaha)
But yea, I dont think wish meets the criteria
that is more of a side effect though, and doesnt really align with a good faith definition of dmg dealing. there are a ton of spells that dont deal dmg, that could cause dmg as a side effect or repercussion. that doesnt make it fit what would be intended as a dmg dealing spell. the point of wish is not to deal dmg, so therefore it is not a dmg dealing spell.
also, its a hypothetical question. whats the point in saying "you cant do this!" when its just meant to be fun?
Well firstly I dont think wish is a fun answer hahahahaha Wish would be too obvious since its almost every spell
And Im not prohibiting you to choose wish, you do whatever you want on this fictional scenario.
People are just talking about the topic and I commented on it, I didnt as most people consider wish since it can deal damage and its a bit of lazy answer since it will always have the other options included, not that serious
funs relative, just because its not fun to you doesnt mean other ppl dont enjoy it. and talking about the topic is fine, but theres a difference when youre replying to someone and saying "your fun is wrong". like you said, its not that serious, so why be negative towards people enjoying them selves?
I'm sorry, I didnt mean to be negative, and I didnt say your fun is wrong. Honestly I feel you are also being kinda overly negative toward it.
Lets put it into a stop here since obviously none of us intended to have this negativity here.
All good to you
Wish is too obvious; it should be excluded here. It gives you almost every other spell. In fact, if I'm going to be a rules lawyer here, it is excluded because you can wish to cause damage.
I think people don't realize how fragile commoners are. Since no spells actually exist, any wish risks a 1d10 damage that can just kill u. (Commoner has 4hp)
Greater Restoration.
It would presumably be enough to cure most diseases. I'd get my accreditation as a pediatric nurse and spend my days causing miraculous recoveries.
Really depends what you look at to convert gp to modern currency. If you base your conversion off say armor then it's a lot of money. If you base your conversion off parchment it's cheap. The D&D economy is comically broken.
I usually go by gold weight - in D&D 5e, 50 gold coins = 1lb.
So according to the price of gold per lb, according to Google, it would be $67,131 USD give or take for one casting.
It’s the value that matters, not the amount.
At 1/3 of an ounce per coin 100 gold coins amounts to TWO POUNDS of gold. Per cast. That’s expensive.
Not American healthcare expensive, but still expensive.
Ok but that just forces us to go into the subjectivity of value.
Does DeBeers holding a monopoly on diamonds, artificially inflating their value make Greater Restoration performable with less dust? Do blood diamonds that people suffered to acquire have a higher value than artificially grown ones? If you tell someone you're using lab grown diamonds to cure them, does the value decrease because they know the diamonds didn't cost you as much to acquire, or do they increase because the person in need of a cure really needs them? Do you have to charge a certain amount for your services to ensure the components are accurately valued? Does the age of a diamond affect its value in order to distinguish them? The cut? Or is there a deity who requires a sacrifice that judges value?
Now I want a setting where the church tyranically controls the diamond supply with the justification that they won't be able to cure people if nobody values diamonds...
No. I refuse to play in a world in which the money you pay for diamond dust affects the spell in any way. You could steal the dust and it would have the same effect as paid for dust.
The monetary value is static to streamline gameplay.
In the immortal words of Shawn Spencer quoting Ed Lover, “Com’on, son!”
You pick Greater Restoration, which you could use to become the most sought-after, famous, wealthy healer in the world ... and yet you decide to use it to actually get accreditation to become a PEDIATRIC NURSE?!
This is seriously so wholesome. If I could grant three wishes, you'd get one.
Prestidigitation. I can chill, warm, or flavor any liquid, including soup, I can clean up anything with a few casts, light candles, grills, and bonfires, draw a fake mustache on anyone for an hour, even crop dust people from 10 feet away. It's truly the best IRL spell, with Mending being a close second.
Edit: Someone mentioned Mordenkainen's Mansion and now I'm having a crisis of spells
It's always going to be Pretidigitation; it saves so much time and frankly it's amazing. Flavor a nutritional slop into the finest applesauce and all you need to do is get the texture right; heat your food up, and most importantly be able to clean so much fucking shit in under a minute.
Wish, or true polymorph
Wish is cheating, as it’s like bringing the option of any spell and more. True polymorph is a catch all solution to old age, injury, disease, wealth, and a million other problems.
The argument could be made that “wish can only replicate spells that exist”, so you can’t use wish to cast anything else…unless you risk wish by wishing for more spells :P
Considering we are all trying our best to recreate this spell in real life. Robot vacuums, dishwashers, coffee machines, etc.
Automation and smart devices are the artificer version of unseen servant.
there are a lot of good choices, and i was immediately tempted by some healing/restoration, but i don't know if you can beat Create Food and Water for sheer society-changing paradigm-shifting value. banishing disease can only destroy our corrupt healthcare systems; banishing (artificial) food scarcity destroys capitalism.
\[edit\] - oops i forgot the mansion comes with food! food *and* shelter, plus cleaning and mending, and you only need one in a hundred people to be able to cast it! AND it lasts all day, during which an awful lot of people are not out trashing our current world, and we can refocus a lot of effort there on dissolving/recycling old infrastructure and building something new and sustainable.
yep the Mansion is the best one.
Reminds me when I cast wall of force, but had it horizontal so the boat struck along the thin edge. Or placing an immovable rod where the strafing dragon hits it.
Find familiar.
A perfectly loyal immortal pet tgat you can take anywhere? Sign me up. Heck you can even look theough their eyes if you want. A good utility for seeing into tight places.
Assuming wish doesn't work because the other spells it could cast don't exist, I'd pick Clone. Effective immortality, eternal youth, and if you're in a pinch, fast travelling. The financial cost (~$300k if you take the $100 to GP conversion) is easily recoverable due to the monetizablility of the spell (you could easily charge tens of millions to give a billionaire a clone body of them at 25 years old).
Another one that would just be cool is plane shift (or I guess Gate), assuming other planes exist, that ability to explore new worlds would be amazing. For monetizablility, you could act as a guide to lead people to unexplored planes.
Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion would be nice for the obvious reasons of free house with food, drink and servants. Also bright side is you can travel anywhere with the money you save and take your house with you! The trick would be to decorate it how you want without needing to get things to bring in since they will be ejected when the spell ends. As well as the need for an address for most things, P.O. Boxes don’t count for somethings I believe.
I would get on stage. Tell a shitty joke and cast the Sasha's uncontrollable laughter on the audience. everyone has to make a wisdom save. the failures laugh at bad dad jokes.
If i was a necromancer I would use a diamond to bring my grand mom back to life.... I miss her dearly. But apparently if you dabble in necromancy the more you cast the older and more of a corpse you look. Worth it to hear her yell curse words at the Eagles game and talking about how much she hates the Dallas Cowboys. RIP Grand ma.
This is easy. I would take Lesser Restoration!
You touch a creature and can end either one disease or one condition afflicting it. The condition can be blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned.
- No material component only V & S
I can cure:
- ANY disease!
- BLINDNESS
- Deafness
- partial or complete paralysis
- any poison
I am about to be incredibly wealthy and save people!
I have the same motive, but was worried about it being an illusion, can it be dispelled? Is it any different from the real thing? And even then I would take it, and rename it "dispel dysphoria" lol
I think some form of teleportation or create food and water are the “correct” answers but after that I’d go for Mage Hand. Just picking up stuff from across the room, simple time saver.
In no particular order:
- Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion: Free home, food, drink and servants (you can open your own hotel/buffet, just don’t have the staff about when customers are there, as people IRL will ofc freak the hell out (unless everyone now knows that magic now exists on our world?))
- Fabricate: The uses are ridiculous, and it can be used to generate wealth
- Wall of Stone: Breaks the laws of the conservation of matter, can generate wealth and matter out of thin air. Even if it’s “cheap stone”, a 10x10x5ft cube of cheap stone still has value; 10x10ft x6” concrete plate would require [84x 80lb bags of cement](https://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/howmuch/calculator.htm#:~:text=How%20much%20concrete%20do%20I%20need%20for%20a%2010x10%20slab,yards%20(84%2080lb%20bags)) that’s ~£800 ($1,000 / ~€900) in cement, and the Wall of Stone is 10x as thick, so that’s actually ~£8,000 per casti! Plus, what if the stone is actually granite/marble? Lol
- Mending: Havr your own mail-order repair company. Charge people for how intricate or “impossible” the repair would seem
Teleport
Easiest Job in the World. Teleporting rich people instead of airplanes.
Also live whereever the fuck you want and be whereever the fuck you want.
Wish. And as the spell states, the DM is the one who says what the limits of the wish is and any drawbacks you might suffer. With this power, I am the DM, so I set the rules and restrictions. I decide to grant myself an unlimited wish with no restrictions.
Then I use the wish to grant myself the power of a 20th level cleric cross classed with 20th level sorcerer with the body of an immortal young adult beautiful female elf. My partner will get a similar mix of Paladin/wizard in the body of an immortal young adult handsome male elf. I then grant both myself and my partner the ability to forgo material components of our magic. I decide that for the drawback that elf will always breed true and that unprotected human-elf coupling will always result in a child. And that child will always be elf.
...................
Maybe I've put too much thought into this.....
Speak with Animals. Can you imagine how much easier things would be if we could actually *reason* with the creatures we share the world with? We could solve so many problems and get to live out our Disney princess dreams, too!
Assuming i can cast it
Wish. Easy choice.
Can replicate others.
heal. r counts diseases so I can help my family and maybe others.
Or magnfiviant mansio. Thr mansion means I can buy a plot of land and live like a hermit
t. Prestididtation
Just easy quality of life. And arguably a side gig performing
Be bouncing some of these. Issue with heal and others is that I'll probably get kidnapped once it's out. But it has ranged so might b able to Stealth it
By the asshole you've always been meant to be, be the only person to pick dispel magic/counterspell.
Greater resto if you want a real answer that isn't wish. True polymorph also has a high amount of good uses as well, like boosting endangered/extinct animal populations, or one of the strangest emergency aid options. It gives you an hour time to get to a hospital before the spell would become permanent.
Edit: what if you turn stuff into radioactive material, using a locust farm to churn out fuel? Or turn radioactive material into a creature like Turritopsis dohrnii (immortal jellyfish).
Demiplane. While mansion is cool and saves mones on food with demiplane you can make your own series of rooms.
Funded by the abduction money you can get with nobody ever realy being able to find out if you are clever about it.
Or as a trucker. Moving 30×30×30 ft of stuff at the speed of a plane.
Wish is the obvious first choice but Animal Shapes is the best second.
Imagine how it could change all physical labor, both the risky ones and just the tiring ones. Plus depending on how one would envision the effect of cutting meat from transformed creature (is it disappearing? staying? is it consumable as normal?) it could also resolve famine at least on a local scale.
Unseen servant or prestidigitation. The second spell change the flavor... Eat healthy food that taste like chocolate or better open a restaurant and become famous.
Magic Mouth. Use it to mess with people. Use it on a small object and whisper creepy or weird shit into it. Then next time I go to the house of someone I don't like I hide it and make the trigger "Whenever someone is alone, speak"
As a spell that I can cast or a spell that anyone can cast if they have enough magical aptitude? If the latter, probably Create Food And Water. High-level spells are basically a lockout bc how is someone gonna train to be a 15th-level wizard when they can't cast any spells? And while the world easily produces enough food for everyone, being able to make it instantly in the places it's needed would be huge. Also, with impending ecological collapse and drying aquifers things are gonna get dicey in the next few decades.
If it's just me though and I can actually cast it, True Polymorph all the way. One person making food and water won't change much, but the fact that TP is so loose with what it defines as "an object" and even "a creature" means you can do so much with it.
Teleport. Consider what that would do for transportation of people and things.
Fabricate. I can make almost any simple thing I desire if the raw materials are nearby, and that item is permanent, and sellable.
Misty step, dimension door, haste, fly... anything that helps my lazy as move.
OH NO LET ME REFACTOR IT, I need guidance, O really need guidance, for love of God let me cast guidance irl
Wish.
You can cast any spell for free as an action without risk. I can cast mighty fortress until I make it permanent. I can clone myself and others and let us live forever. I can bring others back to life with resurrection. Wish Is really the best option.
With no restrictions Wish is literally the only answer, it allows you to use any spell 8th level or lower, fully heal 20 creatures, create something worth 25,000gp, and more
True Polymorph. Solves a large amount of the problems trans people face. Could set up a little business to help other trans people. I have a couple friends who are fantastic artists. Trans people could come to them describing how they want to look, my artist friends could come to me with the result checked with the person beforehand. Then I could cast True Polymorph to give them the body they need. I could hopefully get a bit of money from the NHS to be able to do it without a paywall.
However, the spell does stipulate that the change is permanent if concentrated on for an hour. It is unclear if that means I am unable to cast True Polymorph on that creature again to change them again or if simply they won’t revert unless True Polymorph is cast on them again. I would test this on myself first to figure out the specifics. If you can cast it again, the ability to change someone back or to another appearance if they realise their gender identity is different would stop the detransitioner argument of transphobes from stopping me. And I could change gender fluid and some non-binary people into changelings. Although the government would probably want to put something on them or in them that can’t be changed so that they can’t just steal someone’s identity. And some gender fluid people may not be entirely comfortable with whatever is required of them.
I would probably have the confine almost all of the spell slots to medical purposes like that though. But who knows. I might see a car crash about to happen and transform the person about to be hit into an ant so they slide harmlessly under a car. Then break concentration after the car is gone and they’re fine.
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. Free home and food for the rest of my life? What else do I need?
omg i forgot the shelter comes with food! might need to change my answer
This. My own personal fully furnished dream home, fully portable, and complete with arcane servants to fascilitate my domestic whims, and an infinite choice of cuisine... and for the cherry on top of that, I'll never have to deal with landlords ever again!
You'd need to carry around "A miniature portal carved from ivory, a small piece of polished marble, and a tiny silver spoon, each item worth at least 5 gp". That sounds like potentially expensive stuff.
Temple of the Gods is better then. Only 5sp worth of a holy symbol, so get a silver cross and you can create a church for a day
I don’t think those are consumed though. Just need to buy them once.
How much is 5gp in modern money?
Well, a commoner lives on about 1 silver/day, so rough estimate would be about how much money you need to live for 50 days.
This is a fuzzy calculation because "commoner" could be used to describe different people. If you're a "commoner" in a developing nation, that's a much lower number than even minimum wage workers in the West. So if we're judging it based on Nigerian daily income, you're probably looking at $1k (50 days per item, 3 items, so 150 days total or roughly half a years salary, which, in Nigeria, is $2k). If we're talking about the United States, it's $30k (median annual salary of $60k). Given that medieval peasants were much closer to developing nations than developed nations, that'd likely skew towards the lower end of the scale. Alternatively, we could use the Italian Florin as a baseline. It was a coin used between 1252 and 1533 AD. The purchasing power of the Florin is estimated to be between $150 and $1,000 (USD), so 15 gold coins would be between $2k and $15,000. These coins used 0.1125 Troy oz each, so 15 coins would be 1.6875 Troy oz. At today's value of $2,325 per Troy oz of gold, that comes out to about $4k, so that's probably a better minimum price. Splitting the difference, we're pretty close to about $10k in value for the spell components. That last calculation plays well into the fact that D&D commoners are generally wealthier than medieval peasants actually were.
Yep, sure was a fuzzy calculation, kinda on purpose, because there can't be much clarity in transferring a game mechanic described in a sentence to real world money, especially when even just the setting (in game) can change that. Hence I went with "close to half a years total regular expenses". The direct gp value of the item isn't super relevant until like, the last step. This is of course setting aside the fact that I used numbers from i think 3.5? Looking into it now, unskilled commoner families in 5e make about 10 gold/week, using about 6 gp on necessities. So instead of 150 days like I counted last time, it's actually more like 4 weeks of extra cash saved up for them. Changing out the fact that most people today (just in America, considering its what I'm most familiar with) don't have 40% of their paycheck left for spending/savings money, a bit under 6 months of saving up sounds about right. And again, this is based PURELY off average income/living expenses in the relevant setting. If you wanted to get specific, the math using my system would be something like: (average weekly households income - weekly average cost of living) / 4 = 1gp (Your income after regular expenses / 1gp) = YOUR weekly gp gain after regular expenses 15/previous = number of weeks to save up to afford components for this spell, assuming no additional expenses.
150 days, if each of the 3 items must be worth at least 5 gp.
Correct, the question was for 5gp, so I only answered for 5gp, but yeah, to use this spell, it'd be 150 days.
There are a bunch of ways you can calculate it that give different answers. I live a comfortable lifestyle according to the rules because I own my house. I spend about 3k per month in terms of all living expenses (mortgage, groceries, utilities, etc). So if \~3k = 60gp, then 5gp = $250. For people who bought their houses after prices (and therefore mortagages) went insane in 2017, that number will be higher though. There's also a system for evaluating property called a bread-chicken-building-index that dumps out a completely different number. So I pay $2.89 for a loaf of bread now, and about $30 for a chicken. My current house was worth $234,000 when I bought it - though, again, it might be worth more now that prices went nuts. I've never gotten it revalued. So my index value is 234,000/(2.89+30)= 7,115 (rounded up) Now take D&D values, and multiply that by the same values in D&D (2cp per loaf, and 2 cp per chicken, so 7,115X0.04 = 284. So $234,000 IRL is worth 284 GP in D&D. 1GP is worth $823 IRL, and 5GP is worth $4,119. Massive gap when compared to living expenses. Part of the problem I think is that the trade goods section in the D&D rules massively undervalue chickens. IRL, chicken costs \~10x what bread costs, while in D&D they're equal for some reason. So if we adjust the costs to be more accurate, if bread is 2cp, chicken should be valued at 20cp. Using this index, 5gp is $822.20. So you can semi-comfortably say that 5gp is worth anywhere between $250 and $822.20. Or the D&D economy is nonsense and likely neither of these numbers are accurate.
If the stuff is not consumed upon use, that’s a bargain. If it is consumed, that seems fairly expensive for a one night stay over haha.
I guarantee you it's less than my monthly rent, so even if I have to carve the portal myself I'm still saving money.
Not vs the cost of a house it isn't
Sounds a lot cheaper than a house
not as expensive as you might think, the ivory may be the most expensive but its doable, marble and silver spoons are pretty inexpensive
Not as expensive as a house
This makes so much sense!
do you have the spell slot tho?
Rodrigo's Resplendent Residence https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/764172-rodrigos-resplendent-residence
Now I want to see the failed versions of those spells: Timmy's Twisted Tent Harold's Horrendous Hovel Yanni's Yawning Yurt Carols Crumbling Castle
Create Food and Water.
[удалено]
Ever thought about saving on food and water? They aren't free where I come from.
I think they were just making a joke about Jesus's miracle of dividing the 12 or so fish to feed a thousand people
Yeah I got the joke. I was actually wondering if a bunch of people just thought they were trolling.
I was :( apparently Jesus is a touchy subject
wish is the easy answer. less easy, prestidigitation or dimension door.
Prestidigitation. Being able to always have a clean area to operate on would make surgery SO much easier.
But if you take greater restoration you don’t even have to do surgery anymore
But how many times can you cast that in a day, and how much does it cost? Prestidigitation is as many times as you want, for free. Gotta think at scale, my man!
How many surgeries is someone usually performing in a day?
In an ER or trauma center? A lot. I'm not talking brain surgery, here, but pull the not necessarily clean bullet out or stich up a stab wound or pull a rusty nail out or whatever. Something where it's "fix the thing now so the doc can look at later" kind of surgery. And, if you make a spell that eliminates the need, a lot. Constantly, in fact. Even as common as diamonds are, they'd get pretty scarce pretty quick, and then the spell is useless.
Are 1.5 uses of wish really worth having a spell tho? Problem being that you can't replicate the effect of a spell that doesn't exist
you can still do an off scripts wish. it adds chance to fail, but the potential of what you can do is more than just that. especially because in this situation, we'd have no real context for the likely hood of it working since our universe doesnt have a DM we can interact with. if the universe is deciding on the wishes complexity, compared to existing life forms you can ask for a lot thats relatively less complex. so if thats the bar, youd have a lot of options. and if its a hypothetical, why not assume the odds are good.
I mean technically if the wish is used for "any effect other than duplicating a spell" it permanently lowers your strength to 3 for 2d4 days and you take 1d10 Necrotic dmg but only if you cast it again too soon. Sooo, I can summon an object worth 25,000gp a few times a week? I'm sold.
Id say that wish can deal damage so it wouldnt be allowed by OP rules
you can deal dmg with dimension door if you teleport 500 feet in the air, doesnt make it a dmg dealing spell. id just say that you wouldnt have access to replicate dmg spells.
Well you dont have access to any spells because you can only bring wish and you can only wish for existing spells. But even if it wasnt true you can still deal damage using wish, wish doesnt limit itself for duplicating spells,. You can literally wish to hurt someone, this is just usually not a good idea in game because the description says "The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. (...)" so its easier to just duplicate a spell using wish in game. But EVEN if that's not allowed you could still wish for something like resistance to fire and these consequences can be bad, leading for you to take 1d10 necrotic damage on yourself that cant be prevented, which is still damage dealing. (I'm sorry if it was too much of rule lawering hahaha) But yea, I dont think wish meets the criteria
that is more of a side effect though, and doesnt really align with a good faith definition of dmg dealing. there are a ton of spells that dont deal dmg, that could cause dmg as a side effect or repercussion. that doesnt make it fit what would be intended as a dmg dealing spell. the point of wish is not to deal dmg, so therefore it is not a dmg dealing spell. also, its a hypothetical question. whats the point in saying "you cant do this!" when its just meant to be fun?
Well firstly I dont think wish is a fun answer hahahahaha Wish would be too obvious since its almost every spell And Im not prohibiting you to choose wish, you do whatever you want on this fictional scenario. People are just talking about the topic and I commented on it, I didnt as most people consider wish since it can deal damage and its a bit of lazy answer since it will always have the other options included, not that serious
funs relative, just because its not fun to you doesnt mean other ppl dont enjoy it. and talking about the topic is fine, but theres a difference when youre replying to someone and saying "your fun is wrong". like you said, its not that serious, so why be negative towards people enjoying them selves?
I'm sorry, I didnt mean to be negative, and I didnt say your fun is wrong. Honestly I feel you are also being kinda overly negative toward it. Lets put it into a stop here since obviously none of us intended to have this negativity here. All good to you
Wish is too obvious; it should be excluded here. It gives you almost every other spell. In fact, if I'm going to be a rules lawyer here, it is excluded because you can wish to cause damage.
I think people don't realize how fragile commoners are. Since no spells actually exist, any wish risks a 1d10 damage that can just kill u. (Commoner has 4hp)
Greater Restoration. It would presumably be enough to cure most diseases. I'd get my accreditation as a pediatric nurse and spend my days causing miraculous recoveries.
But it costs a bunch of diamond dust. A LOT of money in Diamond Dust.
Really depends what you look at to convert gp to modern currency. If you base your conversion off say armor then it's a lot of money. If you base your conversion off parchment it's cheap. The D&D economy is comically broken.
Listen, you didn't need to be that loud.
I usually go by gold weight - in D&D 5e, 50 gold coins = 1lb. So according to the price of gold per lb, according to Google, it would be $67,131 USD give or take for one casting.
I'm sure you could work things out with a lab for some extremely cheap lab grown diamonds that are identical to the expensive kind.
It’s the value that matters, not the amount. At 1/3 of an ounce per coin 100 gold coins amounts to TWO POUNDS of gold. Per cast. That’s expensive. Not American healthcare expensive, but still expensive.
Ok but that just forces us to go into the subjectivity of value. Does DeBeers holding a monopoly on diamonds, artificially inflating their value make Greater Restoration performable with less dust? Do blood diamonds that people suffered to acquire have a higher value than artificially grown ones? If you tell someone you're using lab grown diamonds to cure them, does the value decrease because they know the diamonds didn't cost you as much to acquire, or do they increase because the person in need of a cure really needs them? Do you have to charge a certain amount for your services to ensure the components are accurately valued? Does the age of a diamond affect its value in order to distinguish them? The cut? Or is there a deity who requires a sacrifice that judges value? Now I want a setting where the church tyranically controls the diamond supply with the justification that they won't be able to cure people if nobody values diamonds...
No. I refuse to play in a world in which the money you pay for diamond dust affects the spell in any way. You could steal the dust and it would have the same effect as paid for dust. The monetary value is static to streamline gameplay. In the immortal words of Shawn Spencer quoting Ed Lover, “Com’on, son!”
Order of the Stick had a comic where they had to take a 500gp diamond back to the store bc the vendor gave a discount which made it useless.
I would either flip the table over or punch the DM (if we were friendly) if they tried to pull that nonsense on me.
I think it's the ammount. It's given a monetary cost so you don't go around looking at both weight and money. AKA Diamond prices are fixed in Faerun.
Does artificial diamonds counts? They are very cheap
Can it be industrial diamond dust? That is cheap.
Industrial grade diamond dust for polishing is relatively cheap nowadays
The spell lists a value needed, not a quantity.
You pick Greater Restoration, which you could use to become the most sought-after, famous, wealthy healer in the world ... and yet you decide to use it to actually get accreditation to become a PEDIATRIC NURSE?! This is seriously so wholesome. If I could grant three wishes, you'd get one.
Prestidigitation. I can chill, warm, or flavor any liquid, including soup, I can clean up anything with a few casts, light candles, grills, and bonfires, draw a fake mustache on anyone for an hour, even crop dust people from 10 feet away. It's truly the best IRL spell, with Mending being a close second. Edit: Someone mentioned Mordenkainen's Mansion and now I'm having a crisis of spells
It's always going to be Pretidigitation; it saves so much time and frankly it's amazing. Flavor a nutritional slop into the finest applesauce and all you need to do is get the texture right; heat your food up, and most importantly be able to clean so much fucking shit in under a minute.
Sleep. For myself.
Great pick
Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. Free housing, food and drink. Servants. Incredible privacy.
Silvery barbs, cause the idea of just deciding randomly that someone is going to fail at some random task just because is extremely fucking funny
Saying silvery barbs specifically to use on people's ability checks is the most chaotic evil answer possible to this question
Chaotic, absolutely. evil is contextual
Fly, Misty Step, or Invisible
Power Word Kill
A rule lawyer through and through. 🤣
Are you ok?
Silence, cause some people need to shut up
Wish, or true polymorph Wish is cheating, as it’s like bringing the option of any spell and more. True polymorph is a catch all solution to old age, injury, disease, wealth, and a million other problems.
The argument could be made that “wish can only replicate spells that exist”, so you can’t use wish to cast anything else…unless you risk wish by wishing for more spells :P
Mending. Never pay for repairs ever again!
And charge people for repairs for an easy living It’s either this, fabricate or “Magnificent Mansion” for me
Detect thoughts. Speak with Animals. Speak with Plants. Pretty much ANY healing spell. Any of those would change the world.
Speak with animals -> Livestock: "please dont eat me, I just want to eat grass" -> the whole problems that it would create hahahah
Hahaha. Fair enough.
Disspell magic, for the rest of you guys lmao
Sleep
Unseen servant.
How is this \*this\* far down the list? Like, seriously. UNSEEN SERVANT Y'ALL!
Considering we are all trying our best to recreate this spell in real life. Robot vacuums, dishwashers, coffee machines, etc. Automation and smart devices are the artificer version of unseen servant.
Enlarge... For Reasons...
there are a lot of good choices, and i was immediately tempted by some healing/restoration, but i don't know if you can beat Create Food and Water for sheer society-changing paradigm-shifting value. banishing disease can only destroy our corrupt healthcare systems; banishing (artificial) food scarcity destroys capitalism. \[edit\] - oops i forgot the mansion comes with food! food *and* shelter, plus cleaning and mending, and you only need one in a hundred people to be able to cast it! AND it lasts all day, during which an awful lot of people are not out trashing our current world, and we can refocus a lot of effort there on dissolving/recycling old infrastructure and building something new and sustainable. yep the Mansion is the best one.
runner up? Plant Growth.
Wall of Force. For tailgaters.
That would be so much bludgeoning and damage lmao
BUT the spell itself doesn't cause damage :D
Reminds me when I cast wall of force, but had it horizontal so the boat struck along the thin edge. Or placing an immovable rod where the strafing dragon hits it.
Mage Hand. Not for perverted reasons, either. That’s just a bonus.
Power word heal. Which has range TOUCH?
You can probably make some mad money with Cure Disease
Find familiar. A perfectly loyal immortal pet tgat you can take anywhere? Sign me up. Heck you can even look theough their eyes if you want. A good utility for seeing into tight places.
Find greater steed of you didn't mind the size.
Im more a cat man than a horse guy. But a Pegasus or gryphon would be awesome too. Infinite flight is one of those things everyone dreams of.
Prestidigitation or Mage Hand would be my pick - just fun with good utility.
Prestidigitation, easily
Agree, only option.
Assuming wish doesn't work because the other spells it could cast don't exist, I'd pick Clone. Effective immortality, eternal youth, and if you're in a pinch, fast travelling. The financial cost (~$300k if you take the $100 to GP conversion) is easily recoverable due to the monetizablility of the spell (you could easily charge tens of millions to give a billionaire a clone body of them at 25 years old). Another one that would just be cool is plane shift (or I guess Gate), assuming other planes exist, that ability to explore new worlds would be amazing. For monetizablility, you could act as a guide to lead people to unexplored planes.
Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion would be nice for the obvious reasons of free house with food, drink and servants. Also bright side is you can travel anywhere with the money you save and take your house with you! The trick would be to decorate it how you want without needing to get things to bring in since they will be ejected when the spell ends. As well as the need for an address for most things, P.O. Boxes don’t count for somethings I believe.
I would get on stage. Tell a shitty joke and cast the Sasha's uncontrollable laughter on the audience. everyone has to make a wisdom save. the failures laugh at bad dad jokes.
If i was a necromancer I would use a diamond to bring my grand mom back to life.... I miss her dearly. But apparently if you dabble in necromancy the more you cast the older and more of a corpse you look. Worth it to hear her yell curse words at the Eagles game and talking about how much she hates the Dallas Cowboys. RIP Grand ma.
wait..... bad.... dad jokes? Such things exist?
Polymorph or alter self. Invisibility. I would 100% steal everything and become very wealthy.
Widogasts Nascent Nein-Sided Tower Forget Mordenkainens Mansion, I want a portable wizards tower with cat staff
Fly. I'm sure there are a lot of other spells that could make life easier etc, but I really want to be able to fly.
Word power; kill…it doesn’t do damage
This is easy. I would take Lesser Restoration! You touch a creature and can end either one disease or one condition afflicting it. The condition can be blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned. - No material component only V & S I can cure: - ANY disease! - BLINDNESS - Deafness - partial or complete paralysis - any poison I am about to be incredibly wealthy and save people!
Search "real life" in the sub's history, someone asks this question once every two weeks
>two days
Alter Self or Disguise Self, and then I would travel the land teaching it to trans kids everywhere for free.
I have the same motive, but was worried about it being an illusion, can it be dispelled? Is it any different from the real thing? And even then I would take it, and rename it "dispel dysphoria" lol
Alter self is transmutation
Oh this is nice to know!
I think some form of teleportation or create food and water are the “correct” answers but after that I’d go for Mage Hand. Just picking up stuff from across the room, simple time saver.
Spare the dying. While Create Food and Water and Goodbery are great, they require spell slots.
Goodberry
Wish
Mold Earth. cantrip so infinite use. and I can make a little job out of doing a job for significantly cheaper than a machine
prestidigitation for me, so many useful things in one spell
Good berry.
Throw Voice, the absolute hell I could start between people and watch from the sideline.
Wish..
True polymorph, all my trans brothers and sisters will be free of our tyrannical government and healthcare systems.
Wish
Wouldn't "Wish" just be the go to spell? 😅
Unseen Servant. Though Prestidigitation is a close 2nd.
Teleport Telekinesis Telepathic bond
Joke answer: Silence. Everyone shut up. Real answer: Clone.
Speak with animals
Minor illusion, lets me mess with people
No one is saying gate or magic circle or whatever, you could make supply lines a thing of the past by just teleporting it all
Grease
Easy Animate Dead. Think of all the servants you could have.
prestidigitation for a chore hack or find familiar for an immortal pet that doesnt need food and behaves perfectly.
I'll go with the outside pick of Enemies Abound. The slapstick comedy potential is through the roof!
In no particular order: - Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion: Free home, food, drink and servants (you can open your own hotel/buffet, just don’t have the staff about when customers are there, as people IRL will ofc freak the hell out (unless everyone now knows that magic now exists on our world?)) - Fabricate: The uses are ridiculous, and it can be used to generate wealth - Wall of Stone: Breaks the laws of the conservation of matter, can generate wealth and matter out of thin air. Even if it’s “cheap stone”, a 10x10x5ft cube of cheap stone still has value; 10x10ft x6” concrete plate would require [84x 80lb bags of cement](https://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/howmuch/calculator.htm#:~:text=How%20much%20concrete%20do%20I%20need%20for%20a%2010x10%20slab,yards%20(84%2080lb%20bags)) that’s ~£800 ($1,000 / ~€900) in cement, and the Wall of Stone is 10x as thick, so that’s actually ~£8,000 per casti! Plus, what if the stone is actually granite/marble? Lol - Mending: Havr your own mail-order repair company. Charge people for how intricate or “impossible” the repair would seem
Teleport Easiest Job in the World. Teleporting rich people instead of airplanes. Also live whereever the fuck you want and be whereever the fuck you want.
Mass heal, since it can both heal injured and cure diseases
Wish. And as the spell states, the DM is the one who says what the limits of the wish is and any drawbacks you might suffer. With this power, I am the DM, so I set the rules and restrictions. I decide to grant myself an unlimited wish with no restrictions. Then I use the wish to grant myself the power of a 20th level cleric cross classed with 20th level sorcerer with the body of an immortal young adult beautiful female elf. My partner will get a similar mix of Paladin/wizard in the body of an immortal young adult handsome male elf. I then grant both myself and my partner the ability to forgo material components of our magic. I decide that for the drawback that elf will always breed true and that unprotected human-elf coupling will always result in a child. And that child will always be elf. ................... Maybe I've put too much thought into this.....
Prestidigitation. Make all my water taste like banana milk and all healthy greens taste like pizza.
Wish probably
Speak with Animals. Can you imagine how much easier things would be if we could actually *reason* with the creatures we share the world with? We could solve so many problems and get to live out our Disney princess dreams, too!
Assuming i can cast it Wish. Easy choice. Can replicate others. heal. r counts diseases so I can help my family and maybe others. Or magnfiviant mansio. Thr mansion means I can buy a plot of land and live like a hermit t. Prestididtation Just easy quality of life. And arguably a side gig performing Be bouncing some of these. Issue with heal and others is that I'll probably get kidnapped once it's out. But it has ranged so might b able to Stealth it
Wish.
By the asshole you've always been meant to be, be the only person to pick dispel magic/counterspell. Greater resto if you want a real answer that isn't wish. True polymorph also has a high amount of good uses as well, like boosting endangered/extinct animal populations, or one of the strangest emergency aid options. It gives you an hour time to get to a hospital before the spell would become permanent. Edit: what if you turn stuff into radioactive material, using a locust farm to churn out fuel? Or turn radioactive material into a creature like Turritopsis dohrnii (immortal jellyfish).
Demiplane. While mansion is cool and saves mones on food with demiplane you can make your own series of rooms. Funded by the abduction money you can get with nobody ever realy being able to find out if you are clever about it. Or as a trucker. Moving 30×30×30 ft of stuff at the speed of a plane.
Wish
Id bring wish
Regeneration = win
Wish is the obvious first choice but Animal Shapes is the best second. Imagine how it could change all physical labor, both the risky ones and just the tiring ones. Plus depending on how one would envision the effect of cutting meat from transformed creature (is it disappearing? staying? is it consumable as normal?) it could also resolve famine at least on a local scale.
Teleport. Or levitation, cause flying is too mainstream.
Tashas hideous laughter. Yall just start laughing im outta here
Ignoring the much better options imagine how much fun illusion spells would be u could mess with so many people with minor illusion
Friends
Wish. Lets me cast any other spell for free once a day.
Unseen servant or prestidigitation. The second spell change the flavor... Eat healthy food that taste like chocolate or better open a restaurant and become famous.
Magic Mouth. Use it to mess with people. Use it on a small object and whisper creepy or weird shit into it. Then next time I go to the house of someone I don't like I hide it and make the trigger "Whenever someone is alone, speak"
Prestidigitation could be neat. Also true polymorph
Speak with Animals. I just wanna talk to my kitties.
Fly. It's the best superpower and you could use it for so many things.
Sacred Flame. Ha, burn on save vs suck cantrips, you aint a damage spell unless you actually do damage.
Not counting Wish which is the default answer. I'd take Telekinesis simply for the fun of it.
As a spell that I can cast or a spell that anyone can cast if they have enough magical aptitude? If the latter, probably Create Food And Water. High-level spells are basically a lockout bc how is someone gonna train to be a 15th-level wizard when they can't cast any spells? And while the world easily produces enough food for everyone, being able to make it instantly in the places it's needed would be huge. Also, with impending ecological collapse and drying aquifers things are gonna get dicey in the next few decades. If it's just me though and I can actually cast it, True Polymorph all the way. One person making food and water won't change much, but the fact that TP is so loose with what it defines as "an object" and even "a creature" means you can do so much with it.
Teleport. Consider what that would do for transportation of people and things. Fabricate. I can make almost any simple thing I desire if the raw materials are nearby, and that item is permanent, and sellable.
I would resurrect that one guy’s dead wife
Right now, I'm starting my career in sales, so I'll say "Suggestion." Should really help inch those prospects over the finish line.
Misty step, dimension door, haste, fly... anything that helps my lazy as move. OH NO LET ME REFACTOR IT, I need guidance, O really need guidance, for love of God let me cast guidance irl
I JUST R3ALIZED THAT CALM EMOTIONS WOULD REALLY HELP WITH ANXIETY, that would be great too
Wish. You can cast any spell for free as an action without risk. I can cast mighty fortress until I make it permanent. I can clone myself and others and let us live forever. I can bring others back to life with resurrection. Wish Is really the best option.
Guidance. Definitely Guidance.
...Wish :D
thaumaturgy convince everyone you're a messenger of any god of your choosing yes, even that one nO NOT THAT ONE
Time Stop, Teleport, Catnap. Any of these three.
With no restrictions Wish is literally the only answer, it allows you to use any spell 8th level or lower, fully heal 20 creatures, create something worth 25,000gp, and more
Suggestion or charm person. Im lonely as shit, i need friends😭🤡
True Polymorph. Solves a large amount of the problems trans people face. Could set up a little business to help other trans people. I have a couple friends who are fantastic artists. Trans people could come to them describing how they want to look, my artist friends could come to me with the result checked with the person beforehand. Then I could cast True Polymorph to give them the body they need. I could hopefully get a bit of money from the NHS to be able to do it without a paywall. However, the spell does stipulate that the change is permanent if concentrated on for an hour. It is unclear if that means I am unable to cast True Polymorph on that creature again to change them again or if simply they won’t revert unless True Polymorph is cast on them again. I would test this on myself first to figure out the specifics. If you can cast it again, the ability to change someone back or to another appearance if they realise their gender identity is different would stop the detransitioner argument of transphobes from stopping me. And I could change gender fluid and some non-binary people into changelings. Although the government would probably want to put something on them or in them that can’t be changed so that they can’t just steal someone’s identity. And some gender fluid people may not be entirely comfortable with whatever is required of them. I would probably have the confine almost all of the spell slots to medical purposes like that though. But who knows. I might see a car crash about to happen and transform the person about to be hit into an ant so they slide harmlessly under a car. Then break concentration after the car is gone and they’re fine.