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FaerieKnight79 said:
There's powerful and rare rituals that can change someone from one race into another one. These are one way transformations, and it requires another ritual if you ever decide you were wrong about wanting to be a dragon, troll, or whatever you turned yourself into.
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Elven high magic, I think. But yeah, and even then you need to be an elven archmage.
 
TaliesinSkye said:
Elven high magic, I think. But yeah, and even then you need to be an elven archmage.
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According to Savage Species, the rituals needed are hard to find and harder to preform. Also, they probably can't be done by the person undergoing the ritual. But they aren't restricted to a specific race's magics. They're just rare and powerful arcane rituals.
 
Byzantine said:
Strangely Resurrection and True Resurrection have the same time restriction - 10 years/caster level. Which, again, is quite a long time and was clearly added purely as a restriction against trying to revive long-dead arch mages or something.

Willing is true... but do you really think Taylor's mother, who died tragically and young, would say no?
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It would be ironic if the spell had to be cast within the time restriction before the "Target" died, but that limitation is not mentioned.... Basically setting your "Re-Spawn" point. Primary cost is Storage Rental on the "Coffin," and regular Checking on such.

Ferretshock said:
A salient point that you're all forgetting is that without True Resurrection, you need the body. Are you suggesting that Taylor dig up her mother's grave?
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That's the time limit I was talking about. You need an intact Body with all its parts properly attached. No Can-optic jars full of Organs. No preservatives. With Serious penalties and difficulty increases for "Missing" and/or "Destroyed" parts.

May your Gods forgive you if you walk into a Temple with a box full of Ashes and expect not to be "Laughed" out of the temple.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
It's not easy to make it permanent, though.
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Casting it twice is all it takes.

TaliesinSkye said:
Or grant built in shapeshifting for a human form. I'm not sure much of anything can do the latter short of divine intervention.
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There's an amulet in the Arms & Equipment Guide that grants 1/day polymorph that lasts 24 hours.

There's also the psychoactive skin of proteus for built-in, permanent shapeshifting for any 7 HD creature or below.
 
First off, at this point in time, Taylor can honestly say her ability to call back the dead has a rather strict time limit if asked. So, even if others Want her to bring back Hero, she can tell them that at this time, she can't.

Second, when she can bring her Mother back, there is no guarantee this will result in yet another Dragon.

Third, even if Annette did come back as a Dragon, it will be no easier or harder to arrange to turn Danny into one as well; all Taylor has to do is ask Aunt Tia and her Brother if they can make the change for her. Since this is literally what casting a divine spell does anyway, being able to ask directly for Divine Intervention in this manner, possibly while or after performing a favor for one or both of her patron deities, makes this a perfectly viable option with no spellcasting ability of her own needed. Yes, they will have her wait until she is capable of casting Resurrection to bring Annette back, but pointing out to the Dragon Gods an individual that would be perfectly willing to become a Dragon when they are already handing out Draconic Transformations makes it likely that they will grant such a boon, since it is one they want to grant anyway.

On a side note, for any Dragon that can cast Miracle, turning another into a Dragon is easy, for the same reason it was for Taylor and Amy to be changed in here; when the Gods granting a spell are bringing another into their domain, then the Gods benefit, and are acting entirely within their domain. Win-Win.
 
Jacen1 said:
On a side note, for any Dragon that can cast Miracle, turning another into a Dragon is easy, for the same reason it was for Taylor and Amy to be changed in here; when the Gods granting a spell are bringing another into their domain, then the Gods benefit, and are acting entirely within their domain. Win-Win.
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The gods are already active in this story (as, in person), and still need a dragon soul for the transformation. In case of the more good aligned gods, a willing one.
 
Know what would be amusing? A VR Beat Saber dance off between Uber, L33t, Tia, and Taylor. And I'm not just saying that cause I enjoy that game, and just realized I've been exercising for the last hour and a half playing it.

Holy shit, after only 2 weeks my stamina has improved that much?!
 
Itsune said:
That's the time limit I was talking about. You need an intact Body with all its parts properly attached. No Can-optic jars full of Organs. No preservatives. With Serious penalties and difficulty increases for "Missing" and/or "Destroyed" parts.
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Uh, no. That's the requirement for raise dead, which timed out long ago due to being 1 day/caster level. Resurrection just requires any part of the body that was part of it at the time of their death. A pinch of ash works fine.

You've been playing under significant houserule changes to increase the difficulty. I'm assuming your DM was annoyed by the "Death is a revolving door" trope the official rules lead to. There's also the opposite, where the houserule is instead that any body part from any point of time will work. That's usually reserved for campaigns where everyone is gonna die. A lot.

Jacen1 said:
First off, at this point in time, Taylor can honestly say her ability to call back the dead has a rather strict time limit if asked. So, even if others Want her to bring back Hero, she can tell them that at this time, she can't.
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Of course. I'm just expecting her or Amy to volunteer the information, or for someone to work it out and ask to be told if she does gain such an ability given they apparently have D&D in world, and resurrection is a well known cleric spell. Taylor has no reason not to admit this to the PRT.
 
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Kryslin said:
@FaerieKnight79 @Vyrexuviel Thank you very much for the information. Hmm, looks like I gotta look up Pathfinder, too, now. :)

So...
Code: 
    Base + Adj = Total
Str 12   + 19  = 31  +10
Dex 11         = 11    0
Con 12   + 11  = 23  + 6
Int 13   +  8  = 20  + 5
Wis  7   +  9  = 16  + 3
Cha 10   +  8  = 18  + 4

Size H
Hp   250 (20d12 + 120)
AC   27 (-2 Size, +19 Natural)(Touch 8, Flat footed 27)

Now, on to how to handle levels as a dragon...
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I think it should be:
Int 13 + 8 = 21 + 5
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Casting it twice is all it takes.

There's an amulet in the Arms & Equipment Guide that grants 1/day polymorph that lasts 24 hours.

There's also the psychoactive skin of proteus for built-in, permanent shapeshifting for any 7 HD creature or below.
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Looks like you're using 3.5 or Pathfinder stuff. It's possible to do basically anything in those games, and proven by the infamous Pun-Pun build.

In 5e to get a permanent change you'll need True Polymorph, which is 9th level. Which is about where that power should be.

A 7 HD dragon would make for a very small dragon.
 
As fun as all the speculation about whether or not Taylor would Rez her mother and what she would come back as is...

If it does happen, it will probably happen in the end game or epilogue of the story, because reasons.

WRT the material cost of Raise Dead - The 500gp diamond required probably got taken from her hoard, kind of like EFT and automatic payments today. Ironically, considering where gem quality diamonds start on the treasure tables, a "500gp" diamond is probably an uncut stone, 1/4 - 1/2 ct weight. Ironically, those are dirt common in some places in the world, and are usually crushed up for abrasives. If we're talking a gem quality cut stone, <1/4 ct. weight.
 
I know a great get-rich-quick scheme for Taylor. You can craft an object for 1/3 the end cost, and since crafting gold pieces actually takes a Crafting skill, use gold pieces to craft more gold pieces out of the gold pieces you already have...
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Casting it twice is all it takes.
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I've been in lengthy debates on another forum about this, and let's just say that's far from accepted/settled. I can elaborate if you want, but I fear it might drift off topic.
TaliesinSkye said:
In 5e to get a permanent change you'll need True Polymorph, which is 9th level. Which is about where that power should be.
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Ironically, despite being higher-level than other solutions in 3.5/PF, it's much more straight-forward and thus easier to get by a DM. No negotiation, really; it just works as written.

Kryslin said:
WRT the material cost of Raise Dead - The 500gp diamond required probably got taken from her hoard, kind of like EFT and automatic payments today. Ironically, considering where gem quality diamonds start on the treasure tables, a "500gp" diamond is probably an uncut stone, 1/4 - 1/2 ct weight. Ironically, those are dirt common in some places in the world, and are usually crushed up for abrasives. If we're talking a gem quality cut stone, <1/4 ct. weight.
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Yeah, I wasn't even batting an eye at the notion that her hoard gifted by Tiamat would have 500 gp gems just littering the place. She probably has one embedded in her scales from the last time she rolled around in it.
 
I've mentioned this before, but I really don't like Taylor bringing Annette back (for this or any other fic). It feels cheap.
 
Leechblade said:
Let's talk about adding dragons to the flight!
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Vista as a dragon would be funny. She could hide in places much too small for a dragon to fit and scare the heck out of people by popping out of impossibly small gaps and openings. It would be like some cartoon monster that can hide under a car or couch and then suddenly slide out and be full sized again.

Also, with the draconic fear aura she'd be like one of those monsters in a nightmare you can't escape from because the corridor keeps getting longer.
 
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Lycanthromancer said:
I know a great get-rich-quick scheme for Taylor. You can craft an object for 1/3 the end cost, and since crafting gold pieces actually takes a Crafting skill, use gold pieces to craft more gold pieces out of the gold pieces you already have...
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And any GM worth their salt would put their foot down on this clear abuse of the rules. The lower cost to craft things isn't because there's less materials being worked with, but because you're buying raw materials rather then a finished product. Thus you're not paying the craftsman for their time and effort PLUS the cost of materials. If you gather your own raw materials, it's even cheaper to craft things. It just takes time, and a small outlay for things you can't easily get in the field.

Any GM who knows what their doing would helpfully inform you "Okay, you've melted down your gold pieces and recast them. You have exactly as many gold pieces now as you did before because they are the same size and thickness as before." Then later when you try spending them, guardsmen come down on you like a ton of bricks for trying to use counterfeit currency.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Any GM who knows what their doing would helpfully inform you "Okay, you've melted down your gold pieces and recast them. You have exactly as many gold pieces now as you did before because they are the same size and thickness as before." Then later when you try spending them, guardsmen come down on you like a ton of bricks for trying to use counterfeit currency.
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Counterfeit currency means they'd have to be restamped too...? Because otherwise they're just bulk metal in funny-shaped ingots... well sure, owning those can be made illegal too but tends to make various kinds of craftsmen move to other jurisdictions.

... aand this is why smart mints use specific alloys that can be tested for, and when possible try to slightly overvalue the coinage. So, while possible to melt the coins into ingots, the result should be worth less.

IRL, there have been a few situations when the face value of metal coins has been less than the raw metal value that went into them, mostly during / after periods of aggressive inflation. Result tends to be that coins get melted down, even if it'd be illegal...
 
Or in a fantasy world, have a magical signature that's easy to test for, but difficult to copy. Historically, you also ran into issues of one nation not accepting the currency of another nation even though they both used the gold standard. This is still true.
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Well, when one of her powers is (or will be), quite literally, "bring back the dead," and one of the major traumatic events in her (and her father's) backstory is the death of a loved one...
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Neither she nor her mentors have the benefit of your guide books telling her every little detail. Who but OP knows exactly what she instinctively knows and what she's been taught?
 
My very rough estimate of a 500 gp diamond is just shy of a $900,000 and about 26.5 karets.
 
Arthur Hansen said:
My very rough estimate of a 500 gp diamond is just shy of a $900,000 and about 26.5 karets.
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It only comes out to about a 10-11ct diamond. I've been down this rabbit hole before. $1M gets you a 10-11 ct diamond, depending on color, clarity, and cut.

The biggest issue is the question : What is the monetary value of a Gold Piece? The answer is that there is no exact answer. Ergo, it is rather pointless to apply the modern commodity price of gold (1 pound troy = $15,000; 1 pound = 1.215 pounds troy; 1 pound of gold = $18,255) against the artificially inflated price of diamonds against the abstract value of 500 gold coins and our hypothetical diamond.

I would hazard that the diamonds used for material components aren't suitable for jewelry or enchantment, due to flaws inherent in the stones. However, a quick Bless and they become useful as a material component for Raise Dead. I suspect the type of diamon used for Resurrection and True Resurrection are more valuable and useful stones. I shudder to think what the material component would be for an Epic level Mass Resurrection would be - "Whaddya mean, I have to challenge the Dark Foe of the world and take the SIlmaril of Air to cast this spell?"

Silliness aside, a gentleman over Here had this to say about it:
1gp is 1gp is 1gp.

1 gp is worth 10 sp, 50 ep or 100 cp.

That's it.

Gold is defined to be worth that amount, and that's all there is to the economy in D&D.

Though the specific items that you can purchase differ widely, the prices are set by the designers. So an item that costs 1gp has the same worth in the economy as another item that costs 1gp. Obviously, if your DM wants to change the prices, he's totally in bounds to do that, it's his game, and prices can and should vary by setting.

So basically, if a goat and a whip are each worth 1gp, a farmer would likely consider a (nice, adventurer quality) whip handed in trade for a goat to be a fair deal.
It's worth noting that D&D is a complete and utter command economy. And designing a functional, working, economy is not generally regarded as a design goal for D&D. Things are given prices with some regard to fictional reality, but not very much. Ultimately, if you're concerned with the economy being functional, you probably want to import another economic scheme or find a different game.

As shown in other answers, trying to relate 1 gp to a current dollar value is nigh pointless, there's not going to be a consistent currency exchange to be found based on the items that you can purchase in the game (And the economies are so drastically different it's not remotely comparable). The best way to think about it is that 1gp is something like the $20 of the D&D world, it's not the largest unit of currency (that'd be astral diamonds), and it's not the smallest (that'd be the copper piece, the equivalent of a dollar, or maybe even a quarter..it's probably not a penny).

All that to say, trying to do a direct conversion from gp to dollars (or other modern currency), just isn't productive. Think of it as a unit of currency and not much more.
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So, if you want, consider 1gp = 20 Dollars/Pounds/DM/Euros. So, our 500 gp diamond would be worth approx. $1000, which is a largish uncut stone, or a nice, small cut stone.

Also, keep in mind that most Medieval Economies were based on Silver.
 
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