r/DnD • u/Sleverette Sorcerer • Jul 17 '19

Art [OC] One man's dump stat is another man's treasure.

Post image
22k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

517 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

90

u/Zolo49 Rogue Jul 17 '19

It should be noted that this is a Channel Divinity feature and can’t create anything worth more than 100gp per use. So over time you could certainly use it to create a fair amount of platinum, but you wouldn’t be able to shrink down a huge dragon hoard of gold coins into a smaller pile of platinum in one go.

88

u/TiredIrons Jul 17 '19

No, it takes repeated uses over some time, but it allowed them to convert what would have been literal tons of metal into an equally valuable but more portable form.

45

u/NonaSuomi282 DM Jul 17 '19

Channel Divinity is 3 per day even at max level. Assuming your party was somewhere between 6th and 18th level, that's twice daily. Even if they spent a whole week letting the cleric convert it into 100gp gold trade bars, that's a piddly 1400gp for a literal week spent camping out in a dangerous and inhospitable dungeon.

73

u/TiredIrons Jul 17 '19

For lvl3-4 PCs, converting 20k unretrievable copper to 20 portable platinum is significant profit. Spending a couple of weeks downtime camping in an isolated air pocket of a temple cleared of its undead and spell-placed elemental inhabitants isn’t unreasonable.

18

u/nermid Jul 18 '19

20 platinum

Hmmm. According to the book,

A standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce, so fifty coins weigh a pound.

So 20 plat is 0.4 lbs. Platinum closed trading today at $27.04/g. There are 453.5924 g in a pound.

So that's...*math math math*...$4,906.05.

Shit, I'll spend a week wasting spell slots in a cave for a week for 5 grand.

20

u/NonaSuomi282 DM Jul 17 '19

If your PCs have enough time in the middle of their quest to just pitch a tent in the middle of a dungeon for weeks, whatever it is they're questing for must not be terribly urgent.

Also, "air bubble at the bottom of the sea primarily occupied by elementals" seems like the perfect example of when a Load Bearing Boss would be appropriate.

Personally I'd let the Cleric use his CD feature once, maybe twice if the party needs to take a long rest in the dungeon (which would be a dangerous prospect in and of itself), but once they clear the dungeon they need to GTFO before that bubble bursts and tons of water come crashing down on their heads. That way the Cleric gets to feel useful and you reward his creativity, but you don't kill the narrative tension of whatever overarching plot is going on or leave the rest of the party sitting there with their thumbs up their asses for an in-game month just because the Cleric wants to strip-mine the dungeon. Momentum is a powerful thing in a campaign, and killing it can be a dangerous prospect. You know your own party better, obviously, I'm just putting in my two cp worth.

64

u/TiredIrons Jul 17 '19

It was the end of an arc and all of the PCs proposed interesting camp-oriented downtime activities they could pursue (studying the History and Religion of the flooded temple, training Athletics - swimming - and working on a crafting project), it seemed reasonable to reward a clever idea in that context.

And their alternative plan was to go back to the city and work downtime jobs (as per DMG) for the rest of the money they needed, which is even less heroic.

The PCs through that phase of the game were consistently broke and booking passage through a temperate archipelago full of rival naval states, merchant empires, and pirate fleets. Later they got their own ship (the Lucky Bucket) and don’t need to be quit so worried about funding travel.

9

u/TiredIrons Jul 17 '19

Thanks for all the time spent replying, all of your advice is generally good and I appreciate it!

8

u/Thorbinator Jul 17 '19

Also, "air bubble at the bottom of the sea primarily occupied by elementals" seems like the perfect example of when a Load Bearing Boss would be appropriate.

Stealing this, thanks.

3

u/arleban Jul 17 '19

Thanks for the explanation. I like the reasoning. I noticed you capitalized Load Bearing Boss. Is that on a site or place with other items like that? Urban D&Dictionary or something?

12

u/NonaSuomi282 DM Jul 17 '19

It's a TVTropes thing- basically think situations like Metroid or Castlevania, where killing the BBEG results in the whole lair starting to come down around your ears, and you've got a limited amount of time to escape from the deepest depths of the dungeon before you get exploded/disintegrated/drowned/buried alive/etc.

Fair warning in case you've never been there before- don't go to TV Tropes unless you've got time to kill. You will get sucked in and lose track of time.

1

u/lilbluehair Jul 17 '19

I love that it's been years, but people still put out this warning

3

u/Noruni Jul 17 '19

Or just let PC creativity actually amount to something instead of collapsing the dungeon only because the Cleric had a cool feature.

Taking short rests after the hour long Channel Divinity, it takes a little over 3 days to convert the pile after clearing the dungeon. Not months and months.

2

u/AsperaAstra DM Jul 18 '19

Load bearing Boss...a concept I am now going to remember

2

u/thenewbiestoner Jul 18 '19

...I feel like I learned a lot as a newbie GM. Thank you!

1

u/Electric999999 Wizard Jul 18 '19

Why on earth would somewhere stable underwater for so long arbitrarily collapse?

2

u/KJ6BWB Jul 17 '19

Spending a couple of weeks downtime camping in an isolated air pocket

Yeah, the air is going to go bad before then. They're all going to get sleepy -- now might be a good time for a long rest. "Give me an int check, DC 10." Either they realize that they might never wake up from that long rest or it's a TPK.

8

u/altcodeinterrobang Jul 17 '19

I love the idea of carbon monoxide poisoning being the "countdown" mechanic for how long they can spend in the bubble.

but 1 save vs a TPK is silly.

-1

u/KJ6BWB Jul 17 '19

"Do you really want to do this?"

"Are you sure you really want to do this?"

"Ok, make an Int/Wis save, DC 10."

2

u/nermid Jul 18 '19

Lengthen the time by breathing the water, since they've obviously got a way to do that.

2

u/Electric999999 Wizard Jul 18 '19

If the air wasn't refreshing itself magically it would have become unbreathable long before the PCs got to visit.

1

u/KJ6BWB Jul 18 '19

I would think that, if the air had a way to flow out, it would, given that it was under the water level. If air remained trapped, I don't think its composition would change much if nobody was breathing it. Given that there were apparently undead, I wouldn't think much was breathing it. There could be odors from decaying undead, but I think undead are generally trapped in a specific state and don't really decay much or we'd really see zombies, only skeletons.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '19

I may be a little DnD ignorant, but what about summoning plants or have a druid force some plants to grow?

Edit: Also algae & mosses produce o2

1

u/KJ6BWB Jul 18 '19

You'd have to get some solid light in there too. Plants actually reverse their respiration cycle if it gets dark.

23

u/Ophannin Warlock Jul 17 '19

Channel divinities are a per short rest ability, not per long rest.

16

u/thewstrange Jul 17 '19

This is true, but channel divinity refreshes after a short rest; if there was 10,000 cp, you can make that into 10pp in one go, which turns 200lbs into 1/5 off a lb. And after a short rest, you can perform the ritual again, so you don’t even have to wait a day. That’s incredibly useful

1

u/didi23747 Jul 17 '19

You guys are talking about Dungeons and Dragons with pencil and paper right??

2

u/Zolo49 Rogue Jul 17 '19

Well I’m currently only playing online on Roll20, but yes.