I think the first part is already implied in D&D. It’s not just the diamond that brings people back. It’s also access to a highly powerful mage. The diamond is also of a specific value, but the cost I always assumed was that a mine had to have been built to extract the diamonds, the diamond then needs to be chiseled/polished, the prepared diamond needs to be transported to a place of trade, and there are a lot of costs in that supply chain.
Hell, make it part of the lore that each diamond needs to be chiseled in a specific way with specific runes/enchantments to be able to be used in specific spells. A big ol’ diamond is great! But if you want to use it as a spell component? You gotta purchase one that’s been prepared by a practiced jeweler/enchanter. You’re paying for labor in the mines, labor in the shop, and possibly labor of the mage. Now that cost makes sense & normal people would definitely not have access.
Yeah, while the diamonds are rare, finding a spellcaster of sufficient knowledge and power would be infinitely more difficult. Especially if you need True Ressurection, 9th level spellcasters are basically godlike beings.
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I do want to clarify something that I kind of alluded to, but since I was mainly commenting to discuss why normal people wouldn’t have access to diamonds I didn’t flesh out:
The monetary value of a diamond is only discussed because it is explicitly written in the PHB for certain spells. Why do you NEED to use a diamond worth 300GP? OP poses why is the diamond WORTH 300GP? We can’t argue that it is the cost of hiring a mage if we are the ones casting the spells with the diamond component. We don’t pay ourselves for labor costs, so why is the diamond worth 300GP?
I haven’t even thought about it until I wrote that comment & I’m going to now use it as my canon reasoning: diamonds alone are not worth that much gold. It is the fact that certain diamonds were crafted to be used in spells. I really like the idea of a diamond that has been magically enchanted/engraved with runes for specific spells & that’s why only a certain type of diamond can be used for those spells… solves the issue OP is posing and makes for some great worldbuilding. I’m sold.
You touch a creature that has been dead for no longer than 200 years and that died for any reason except old age. If the creature's soul is free and willing, the creature is restored to life with all its Hit Points.
This spell closes all wounds, neutralizes any poison, cures all Diseases, and lifts any Curses affecting the creature when it died. The spell replaces damaged or missing organs or limbs.
The spell can even provide a new body if the original no longer exists, in which case you must speak the creature's name. The creature then appears in an unoccupied space you choose within 10 feet of you.
Honestly, it seems fair. They spent dozens or hundreds of hours getting to that point, which deserves compensation, and they could be using the time to run a dungeon or just farm creeps, so you're also paying for opportunity cost.
It’s a common issue service industry people face in the real world - from attorneys to plumbers.
People complain about the hourly rate for something that ‘just takes an hour’. The best answer I’ve see in ‘it took me years of school/experience to be able to do that in an hour. You’re paying for access to those years of skill, not the hour.’
This does open the door for an artificer to want to turn cheaper diamonds into more expensive ones for spell components. Depending on how you want to play the game that could be fun or a nightmare
Sure! But it also doesn’t really change anything from how the game is played without that reasoning, either:
“You loot the body & find a diamond worth 300GP.”
Great. WHY is it worth that much? Because someone specifically crafted it to be used in a revivify spell. But the PHB only says “diamonds worth 300GP”! You could use 100 diamonds worth 1GP! Yes, but that’s exactly what the OP is talking about: diamonds aren’t some rare gem that should be seen as intrinsically valuable. If you want 1 diamond worth 300GP, it’s because of the runes and enchantments crafted into it. And why did it show up on that body? Because that body was once an adventurer who had the diamond prepared for such a spell or, more likely, found it on another body.
It can absolutely mean that an artificer is turning cheap diamonds into more expensive diamonds. That’s how it works! That’s what makes OP’s meme so trivial. Diamonds in D&D ARE cheap. They’ve just been crafted to be specifically more valuable for spellcasters.
My comment actually made me double down and flesh it out even further in other comments:
It’s not the diamond itself. It’s not even the mine. It’s the crafting of the diamond after it’s been mined. You have a sorcerer who is familiar with using a number of gems as spell components. These gems, instead of just being really big gems, were crafted specifically for use in spells. A rune was etched into it to add powerful amplification essence, and it was cut/polished to be completely solid except when pressure is applied at specific points where it can be turned to dust with minimal effort.
This craft and precision is a skill only a few know & your sorcerer is one of them. Someone comes to you with a big diamond they found, but it looks like a sparkly rock. Through your know-how, it can be used for 1 high level spell, or cut into a number of diamonds for lower level spells. But without your arcane knowledge, it’s nothing more than a shiny rock.
Wouldn't this also mean that some of the greater mage cities/colleges would have to be located near or even on top of a diamond mine? Or similar important resources? Or causing whatever faction controls such resources to naturally attract mages, and usually powerful ones? It could make wars over resources that much more important.
For example a king's wife died during childbirth and for whatever reason couldn't be resurrected, so in grief the kimg decides he simply didn't have enough diamonds for it to be possible. Thus deciding to invade nearby regions that have diamond mines.
It feels like a lot of spell components aren't as precious as they ought to be for being spell components, especially for the higher level stuff
I designed my West Marches game to have the starting kingdom be the largest deposit of precious gems for this exact reason. And you’ve just given me an incredible plot hook for why the neighboring kingdom will declare war
Hah glad to hear you like it. You could always make it so the king was lied to that he'd need more diamonds and make some conspiracy behind it. Depending on how deep you want it to get.
When you repair an aneurysm, you're filling it with a very, very specific platinum alloy. Expensive. But that procedure isn't expensive because of the material costs, it's the surgical staff and specifically the surgeon you're most paying for.
While I agree with this (as evidence of my comment), I think it overlooks a glaring issue in my comment: if we are the ones casting the spell, why would we pay for labor? Adding the cost of labor into the value of the diamond doesn’t make sense when we are the ones casting the spell.
But I believe creating a reason for WHY THIS SPECIFIC diamond is used for certain spells wolves this. If a diamond needs to be crafted with magical runes and precise designs for arcane or divine magic to have an effect on it, it might take a skilled tinkerer/jeweler/enchanter to craft such a gem. While the surgeon is the one performing the operation, they’re using tools that were crafted by a skilled artisan; thus the included value
I misread your comment. I thought you were suggesting it’s the cost of the mage casting the spell, as I assume healers are the same as surgeons in a fantasy setting. But you’re absolutely right. It’s the person crafting the gem into a tool to be used by healers.
It’s good in the sense that it made me “yes, and” this concept. I’m happy it did because now I have a really interesting in-game answer to what was obviously just a resource management aspect of gameplay
Well revivify is only 3rd level, and it seems like most "mage" statblocks are around a 5th level PC so it seems reasonable that there could be a handful of people capable of using revivify.
Revivify is only useful if cast within one minute of expiration. Raise Dead at 5th level is realistically the earliest one could be cast as a service for pay.
There is Gentle Repose which can extend that 1 minute window, so depending on how many level 3 wizards/clerics there are around vs number of 5th level clerics, it could potentially be standard procedure for a caster at the scene to Gentle Repose the person and bring them back to the nearest temple to be Revivified.
You need that gentle repose cast within a minute of dying though right? If someone was very lucky and someone got there within that time frame I could see a local temple having a Cleric that could cast Revifify.
People that can cast Raise Dead world wide though probably doesn't even break triple digits.
Yeah, has to be within one minute. I was picturing like a wizard hired to travel with, say, a wealthy merchant caravan so if they get attacked by bandits, the wizard would be like right there to cast the spell.
Oh that's a good idea, 3rd level Wizards likely aren't super rare. Would definitely make them a valued addition to any caravan, especially if someone important is travelling with them.
Best hope there are at least two, or you're no more than a day from a Cleric. At that point may as well just bring the Cleric with some extra diamonds for Revivifications.
High level anything in Forgotten Realms aren't rare, that's kinda what makes the setting kinda bunk. You legitimately have innkeepers that are randomly like level 15 retired Bards or some shit.
At least it used to be like that. It's been toned down a bit in 5th with the re-release of campaigns, but it's still not uncommon at all to find random, super high level NPCs out in the middle of nowhere, asking you to kill a few kobolds or something.
Because powerful people in the real world don’t pay people to do the work they can’t do or don’t want to do? I don’t see how this makes the setting “bunk”. Seems pretty spot-on to me.
It's weird to me when a super high level character is like "Hey, can you please go kill these 17 kobolds in this cave 3 miles away from town? They've been plaguing us for an entire season and no one has done anything about it"
When it would take that high level character less than a day to handle the problem themselves. It can make sense if they're like... Busy or far away or super old or whatever, but often they aren't.
People in this thread are kinda acting like FR is some low fantasy setting where magic is rare, but that's just not true at all. Random farmers have Awakened Shrubs as pets. Local clergy in tiny rural towns are equivalent to 2nd or 3rd level clerics. The nearby Druid ends up being like 9th level, which is pretty much 1 step away from a demigod.
There's a lot of weird stuff in FE that makes it a bunk setting for me, not just the weird array of magic / power when they still have NPCs perceive even basic magic or low level heroes with awe. There's just a lot of stuff that is set up in a way that doesn't make any logical sense if the world had that level of access to the kinds of spells they represent as being available. Like, a small example would just be that any kind of major shipping or transportation infrastructure of any kind shouldn't exist because major cities like Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep or Neverwinter have ample access to wizards with teleport. They would just teleport everything everywhere rather than ship something by boat or carriage for WEEKS through dangerous and untamed wilderness.
The King Priest of Istar in Dragonlance is a good argument about having super high clerics in a setting. Having a direct line to the gods can be...regrettable.
I would say that if you believed that this lie was the only thing preventing your children from dying permanently in battle, you'd keep it, but knowing people, I think someone would just blab it even harder because of that.
I mean. It's an open secret that diamonds aren't actually that rare. If you can look it up and get credible sources in 5 minutes, then it's not really a conspiracy anymore.
People also spend a years salary on some iron with wheels and a decades salary on some bricks and shingles. The point is that it's not a conspiracy. It's openly available information.
While I agree it's not a conspiracy, the other guy's point about it being weird still stands, and your counterpoint breaks down for two reasons.
One, a car and house are functional objects. A rock is not.
Two, there is a lot of manpower and time dedicated to making a car and house. While there is a lot of manpower involved in diamonds, it's involved to get more diamonds in less time, not making a better diamond, as is the case with cars and homes.
Yeah, because it's a pretty rock that looks nice and people are willing to pay that much. Not defending De Beers, but the people who just want their pretty rock.
Now all I can think of is an ancient silver dragon whose treasure hoard is all the worlds diamonds and anybody who wants one has to buy them directly from him.
I love Eberron because you can make a delusional paranoid newspaper editor as a character, and not only does it fit entirely I the world, but your wild delusions will still probably not be as insane as what actually happened.
It is worth pointing out that resurrection usually has a clause that the creature cannot be resurrected when "its time has come" or whatever (read: died of old age) - which is to say, you can use them to stave off being killed, but not dying altogether. So it is of course wise to keep a stash of diamonds for a rainy day, but if you literally depend on them, you might want to reassess your life to reduce your assassinations per day ratio.
Thats why people don't have access to chemotherapy, vaccines & co. in real life? Oh wait this isn't the case because thats not how it works. People like to make money and you become rich by selling something others desire.
Someone rich not selling something will soon be far less wealthy than the person which is selling that product/service.
-african diamond-miners would have had a crazy advantage in union negotiations as you can't hold their chains with threats of death.
-the dynamics of slavery would have shifted like crazy as kidnapped children fight their enslaver, deploying horde-tactics with practically infinite respawns.
-divorces that lead to murder finally give that stupid stone a reason to be on your finger.
eat the rich and all that, but imagine how different actual history would be if diamonds functioned like that
More likely than saying they ran out the wealthy would say they are very rare and only people born into certain families had the right to access them. Then they would make sure their children married within those families to stop common people getting access
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '21 edited Nov 13 '21
If that was the case, normal people would not have access to them, and the wealthly would say the supply ran out years ago.