Sorcery-Changing things using scultpure

[Amy1419]

My friend wants to make a rock dwarf who makes swords with a combination of his craft skills and his sorcery. He wants to use Scultpture3 and Vision 3 with craft (he has several so whichever applies for the item).
Now the items that he wants to use are things he doesn't necessarily have to spend a lot of money on. So stone or rocks or wood.
He wants to manipulate the elements of the rock so that it turns into metal and then turn that into his sword (for example).
I know that you cannot make something from nothing, but technically isn't he using molecules and elements of that rock and just turning it into something else? There is disagreement in the players group if he should be allowed to do this.
Any thoughts??
Thanks!

[MonkeyWrench]

Although it doesn't explicitly say so I'd let him transmute various elements. Let him take a chunck of rock and make it into a chunck of iron or better yet steel. I always saw the vagaries as being fairly open and the descriptions being examples or the extreme limits of what can be done.

If he wants to create a lump of metal from rock and then fashion it into a superior blade using magic then let him. What harm can it do?

[Salamander]

Although it doesn't explicitly say so I'd let him transmute various elements. Let him take a chunck of rock and make it into a chunck of iron or better yet steel. I always saw the vagaries as being fairly open and the descriptions being examples or the extreme limits of what can be done.

If he wants to create a lump of metal from rock and then fashion it into a superior blade using magic then let him. What harm can it do?

Well to every body welse... none! He on the other hand is going to be making aging rolls an awful lot...

[MonkeyWrench]

He's a dwarf he can take a few months here and there. Besides what good is magic if you are always afraid to use it because of aging?

[Draigh]

why not just find a lump of ORE (it's alot like a rock with iron in it)  and convert it directly to a sword...  do not pass smelting, do not collect 200 carbon.

[Salamander]

why not just find a lump of ORE (it's alot like a rock with iron in it)  and convert it directly to a sword...  do not pass smelting, do not collect 200 carbon.

Getting all nitpicky here.... Youi need that carbon to make iron into steel...

[Draigh]

the carbon should be present in the dirt around the ore :-D

hahahah!

[Camillus]

Iron ore, not a problem - he's just changing the structure of the material.

If, on the other hand, he decides to use plain ordinary dirt he's going to have to fuse atoms to create the raw material. That, as I'm sure you're aware is going to release an awful lot of energy. Mushroom clouds are pretty though ;)

Mind you the plus is that he won't have to worry about ageing.

[Church13]

why not just buy a normal sword made out of steel and use that.  its pretty cheap and you don't have to worry about all the chemistry.  plus, it saves a lot of aging.  after you get the sword, then use magic to do what you want with it.

[Captain Bizarre]

You might want to suggest that your friend take a look at Steven Erikson's excellent Malazan Empire novels. One of the races therein (the T'lan Imass) uses enchanted stone swords that are superior to mundane metal weapons. No need for a forge, but stone cutting skills are a must. One of the other races uses wooden weapons that require a very special additive to be enchanted properly - read: built in quests. Just some thoughts, eh.

[Rico]

Iron ore, not a problem - he's just changing the structure of the material.

If, on the other hand, he decides to use plain ordinary dirt he's going to have to fuse atoms to create the raw material. That, as I'm sure you're aware is going to release an awful lot of energy. Mushroom clouds are pretty though ;)

So what is stopping people from making a nuclear bomb spell and becoming ultra powerful?

[Brian Leybourne]

So what is stopping people from making a nuclear bomb spell and becoming ultra powerful?

Boy, if you knew how often that particular question has come up and been debated... :-)

I say that without years of training as a physicist, the sorcerer doesn't know about uranium and splitting atoms and suchlike, so he can't really make nuclear spells. On the other hand, a simple Movement 3 spell could theoretically end the world, by crashing a boulder into the ground at the speed of light...

Brian.

[Lxndr]

Rico - three things:

1.  Other Sorcerers
2.  A Sense of Self Preservation
3.  Why Should I Destroy The World?  It's Where I Keep All My Stuff?!

That said, if a player-character sorcerer wants to make a "nuke" (or some sorcerous equivalent thereof, like the speed-of-light boulder) then, well, let him.  And then deal with the consequences of such a drastic, world-changing, getting-everyone-to-hate you act.

[Mike Holmes]

Right, let's not go there again.

Basically wizards with level 3 vagaries are, in some ways, "ultra-powerful". They're really only limited by their experience and imagination, and the power of other beings with level 3 vagaries.

Sword from dirt? Maybe. Basically look to what the other vagaries can do for limitations. If you want iron, you have to use another vagary to get it there somehow, and then you can sculpt it. If you have dirt, then you can only make a dirt sword. Given the Vision 3 vagary, I'd allow it to be molecularly arranged to make a silicon/plastic sword. I like the stone sword idea. I'd definitely allow that. Basically, if you want to think chemically, it would turn into a graphite sword (stone is mostly silicon) like a tennis raquet, which would work right nice, I'd think. Both'd probably break on armor, tho.

But if you want really cool, you can make a diamond sword from your own breath this way. I think I'd go with that option.

BTW, as to the question "why do this"? So that your friend has a weapon to deal with the guards that put you in the cell? I mean they're going to come running when you make that hole in the wall, right? Might as well make a sword out of the stone you're sculpting to get out, no? Two birds?

:-)

Mike

[Brian Leybourne]

But if you want really cool, you can make a diamond sword from your own breath this way. I think I'd go with that option.

Now that's a damn cool image. I can just see a sorcerer facing down an opponent, and breathing into and through his hand, his icy breath coagulating and forming into a long diamond sword while his hair grows in equal proportions.

Cool image. Of course, what'll probably happen is he'll pass out and his opponent will take the sword and kill him with it, but thems the breaks :-)

Brian.