[HR: Spells] Golan's Spells

Zozomir’s Stentorian Shout (ACKS conversion of a Barrowmaze II spell). This is a blast spell, doing 1d6 damage per caster level with no maximum (27 x 1 = 27), causes deafness for 2d6 rounds (10*), target 40’ by 20’ cone (x 2.5), range 0’ (x0.4), duration instantaneous (x1), saving throw reduces spell effect by half (x0.75), arcane (x1). Total 27.75 points. This is a level 3 spell.

  • Guesstimation

Zozomir’s Stentorian Shout
Arcane 3
Range 0’
Duration special (see text)

The caster emits a powerful shout from his mouth, affecting a 40’ by 20’ cone. All caught within this cone suffer 1d6 damage per caster level and are deafened for 2d6 rounds. A successful save vs. spells negates the deafness and halved the spell’s damage.

This is glorious. PC wizards, in order to take advantage of the potential for earnings, have to either get up in melee and risk their lives, or first subdue an opponent, in which case they’re losing a lot of utility of the spell in the first place (and if you’re going to be taking prisoners anyway, you may as well interrogate them). Why are Saruman’s orcs ransacking villages and taking the fat men hostage? So he can turn them into gold!

It would be a little more concerning for a Spellsword or especially a Ruinguard, who could weapon-store it for cast-on-hit, though.

You could also make the actual amount of gold vary with opponent weight or XP value or somesuch - a weaker soul might turn into less noble metals. It’d be a good way to get some treasure value out of otherwise-treasureless vermin and beasts during hex-clearing, too.

Opponent weight into gold is very problematic - a normal human would be about 120-140 pounds of gold, which is A LOT. A dragon of several tons would be worth too much. maybe it turns the victim into impure gold worth 4gp per creature xp.

Or a hollow gold statue worth that amount. But yeah, I agree that running it by straight weight is unreasonable.

If they transform into a value of gold equal to their XP value, then the statue would have the same value as their corpse’s monster parts.

Thus, no effect on economics, though it would require either shrinking statues, the statue being plated or alloyed with baser metals, or possibly both, since nothing bigger than a pixie is going to get turned into a solid gold statue worth less than thousands of GP.

Rename it to “Blood into Gold”, and only the creature’s blood (and therefore lifeforce, to still tie to XP) gets transformed, the caster has to do a bit of work to get the gold out (unless you have the flesh slough off as part of the effect)

A latticework of golden veins and arteries (and heart valves filled with gold).

Less physical gold, more gross, win-win.

LOVE THIS! THANKS!

Just transforming blood to gold would look more like a Death spell - after all, the body will eventually rot around the god arteries and veins, , unlike a petrified victim who can survive for long as a statue (until dispelled back into flesh) if not broken up.

Maybe turn the flesh into something else, and the blood into pure gold, then?

Yea, I liked the visual too much to actually think about the costing.

I would wager that a Transmogrification effect that turns you into a statue of a useful material would cost much more than a base of 15, considering you’re essentially asking for someone to come along and dismantle the target - a Death spell that requires an external secondary actor.

A single-target Death spell would be 85 * 0.4 (touch) * 0.5 (save) == 17, with no save it’s 34.

If you get an amount of gold equal to the mob’s XP as was suggested, and that equates to the “monster parts” gold value, then the fact that parts of the monster are turned into gold is essentially flavor text, and a plain Death effect is all you need.

The only other decision to make is if a ~4th level spell that makes any monster have valuable parts by transmutation is worth enough points to adjust up a level, and I’m not real sure it is in the long run.

I just want to agree that blood to gold is one of the greatest ideas I have ever read.

I am definitely including that in my next campaign.

Hmmm… So you’re saying make it a Death spell by touch and make the gold a flavour point? Could be interesting. Still, you could have the evil mage adduct children just to turn their blood into gold!

This - instead of trying to make part of the statue gold, I think the flavor of weird I’m going for would be to have them transform into a stone statue with a precious gem embedded in its forehead, with a value in gp equal to their xp. You could play with gem types corresponding to some quality of victims emergently. (Need a 3000gp sapphire for your next magic item? A little research by your friendly neighborhood sage reveals you just have to find a Neutral left-handed explorer or barbarian of at least the 3rd level.)

If this becomes central to play, rather than just an amusing spell the players stumble across but never add to their repertoires or something they lose one henchman to, point out how much caution is required to extract an already-faceted gem from the stone matrix without damaging it. Introduce the complication that de-petrified victims who have had their gems removed are affected by a fairly serious energy drain. …

This introduces some really high-value gemstones into play, which are good portable fungible wealth (more so than monster parts), but consuming a 4th level spell slot feels like it’ll at least help balance things out.

Exactly right. Aryxymaraki’s point about monster part value is what makes the whole thing work without additional rules - the fact you’re getting more fungible gold rather than specific organs or whatnot is I think a small enough deal for a 4th level spell to come out in the wash.

A campaign in ancient Greece would call it ‘The Midas Touch’. And I call dibs on a share of movie gross if Hollywood-whomever’s been doing all these Titans movies comes in and borrows my visual. :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile:

It’s actually the monster parts XP value; meaning it’s the same amount in GP that you get for defeating the monster in XP - so it’s the Monster Experience Points table on pg114.

For 3000XP you’re looking at something with between ~10~13 hit dice with multiple special abilities.

UPDATED VERSION OF GOLDEN TOUCH

Heart of Gold. This is a Death spell, target slain (85), target 1 creature (x1), range touch (x0.4*), duration instantaneus (x1), target’s heart transformed into pure gold (x1.25**), saving throw negates (x0.5), arcane (x1). Total 21.25 points. This is a level 3 spell.

  • IMHO this should subsume the requirement for touch attack on the target.
    ** Guesstimation

Heart of Gold
Arcane 3
Range: touch
Duration: instantaneous

By touching the creature (this requires a successful attack throw against a resisting target, otherwise the spell is wasted), the caster transforms the victim’s heart into pure gold, instantly slaying the creature. A successful save vs. petrification negates the effects of this spell. The heart, if pulled out of the corpse, is worth 1 GP per XP the target has - the bigger and more feroscouis the creature is, the more its golden heart is worth.

Do you mean 1 GP per XP the target has or per XP the target is worth when killed? A level 5 Fighter has at least 16,000 XP…

XP the target is worth.

Why isn’t this save vs. death?

Where did the duration for the nausea come from?