If you cast it on a statue (that was not previously a petrified creature) you get a corpse, but if the stone isn’t in the shape of an animal you just get random meat, and usually not choice cuts.
It’s not like Maddie has a supernatural ability to identify meats. It probably just smelled more like ham than any other meat.
But hey, maybe there’s some sort of mapping between meats and rocks. I’m sure some ancient wizard has researched the matter in great detail. It could make for an interesting book in a random dungeon treasure.
While “stone to flesh” *mostly* exists to reverse “flesh to stone,” it turns all stone targeted into flesh.
This isn’t useless if you’re using it on ordinary stone, but it is.. use impaired.
Frequent casting of Stone-to-Flesh on naturally occurring stone is one of the easiest ways to justify dense settlement in regions unsuited to intensive agriculture, protein-rich diets for carnivorous megafauna, and spacious underground areas. Probably more than half the economic-realism concerns of a typical D&D setting can be resolved at a single stroke.
Replying to John – If an underground denizen is relying that heavily on transmuted meat to survive, the resolution is less likely to be a single stroke and more likely to be a single heart attack.
Create Food & Water is a less costly spell, making it more viable for sustaining population. It doesn’t make as much food per casting as one might get from Stone to Flesh, but it also does not deplete other natural resources, and is available to lower-level casters. Stone to flesh seems more useful if the settlement in question is in the process of expanding its underground territory, as it would simultaneously expedite the excavation process and feed the workers.
Stone to Flesh can create enough food for 9250 Medium-sized people (y’know, like twicelings) per day cast. Create Food and Water creates enough food for 3 humans per caster level per day per cast, or 60 if you’re at the cusp of epic level.
The higher level is an issue (Stone to Flesh is Sor/Wiz 6, while Create Food and Water is Clr 3), but even if there are only 1/150th as many 11th-level wizards as 5th-level clerics, Stone to Flesh is still the winner.
Natural resources aren’t a huge issue. All you need is rock, which is everywhere. It doesn’t even matter [i]which[/i] rock, so you can use whichever is most abundant and cheapest.
That said, Create Food and Water does have the advantage of also producing, well, water. If you don’t already have access to more water than food, then Stone to Flesh isn’t going to solve your problems. In many places, water is plentiful, but if you’re somewhere it isn’t…
Other sources of water are Create Water (2 humans per caster level per day per cast) and Purify Food and Drink (8 humans per caster level per day per cast, but only if you already have some source of not-safe-to-drink water), both of which are Clr/Drd 0 cantrips (unfortunately, this isn’t 5e where you have unlimited cantrip uses per day, so your spell slots are still going to run out pretty quickly if you try to use these to provide for all the people your friend’s Stone to Flesh can feed).
I can’t find any way for wizards to compete. I considered summoning a Wall of Ice and waiting for it to melt, but the spell has a listed duration of one minute per level, not instantaneous, which means that even if you can melt it that fast, the water will just vanish again, making it useless for nourishment. Though if you can convince your DM to let it work, then it would create enough water for a little over 60 humans per caster level squared per day per cast – by the time you’re even high level enough to cast it, that’s 3000, and by the time you’re high level enough to cast Stone to Flesh, that’s 7500 (but by that time you’re also have three spells slots at Wall of Ice’s level).
Of course, we’re already houseruling a little if casting Stone to Flesh at a petrified creature also transforms some of the non-petrified stone nearby.
I want to point out that this implies there’s a spell starting with enough S’s to reach this point, but not one after (hence it refusing to answer).
Ssssssssssss’lyroth’s Enhanced Magic Missile or something?
Well, the Flesh to Stone spell requires a pinch of lime. I know I know, it’s “lime” the material and not the fruit, but I like to imagine that the artifact is always ready to party.
Huh. Imagine if the artifact is stealing components from the guests. “Such a lovely… hey what wrong with my mojito?! Wait, how long have I been here? I’m leaving!”
The fault is in your keyboard. If you weren’t talking out your ASCII, maybe we’d be able to tell the difference.
Unicode probably supports Lamian by now.
In Sibilant (spoken Lamian) the words for ‘Stone to Flesh’ are ‘?s?S???? ??§ ???????’. The Spell&Speak however can only type ‘S’ and doesn’t have any variants.
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Laterally from lisp to language, is the lexicon of Lamian.
Oof. I’d settle for ham. It’s always described as tumor-like in my games. Random teeth and hair does not make for a tasty meat snack. 🙁
Am I supposed to know what that thing is?
It’s the pedestal she was on. Apparently it Stone to Flesh can turn regular stone to flesh, and it’s from a random animal? I guess?
If you cast it on a statue (that was not previously a petrified creature) you get a corpse, but if the stone isn’t in the shape of an animal you just get random meat, and usually not choice cuts.
It has a heart of Spam!
Ooh. Well, I guess it’s vegan.
It’s not like Maddie has a supernatural ability to identify meats. It probably just smelled more like ham than any other meat.
But hey, maybe there’s some sort of mapping between meats and rocks. I’m sure some ancient wizard has researched the matter in great detail. It could make for an interesting book in a random dungeon treasure.
While “stone to flesh” *mostly* exists to reverse “flesh to stone,” it turns all stone targeted into flesh.
This isn’t useless if you’re using it on ordinary stone, but it is.. use impaired.
If you need to tunnel through a wall, turning it into meat will make it much easier for your Sword-and-Board fighter to hack his way through.
Frequent casting of Stone-to-Flesh on naturally occurring stone is one of the easiest ways to justify dense settlement in regions unsuited to intensive agriculture, protein-rich diets for carnivorous megafauna, and spacious underground areas. Probably more than half the economic-realism concerns of a typical D&D setting can be resolved at a single stroke.
Replying to John – If an underground denizen is relying that heavily on transmuted meat to survive, the resolution is less likely to be a single stroke and more likely to be a single heart attack.
Replying to John,
Create Food & Water is a less costly spell, making it more viable for sustaining population. It doesn’t make as much food per casting as one might get from Stone to Flesh, but it also does not deplete other natural resources, and is available to lower-level casters. Stone to flesh seems more useful if the settlement in question is in the process of expanding its underground territory, as it would simultaneously expedite the excavation process and feed the workers.
I did the math a few months ago.
Stone to Flesh can create enough food for 9250 Medium-sized people (y’know, like twicelings) per day cast. Create Food and Water creates enough food for 3 humans per caster level per day per cast, or 60 if you’re at the cusp of epic level.
The higher level is an issue (Stone to Flesh is Sor/Wiz 6, while Create Food and Water is Clr 3), but even if there are only 1/150th as many 11th-level wizards as 5th-level clerics, Stone to Flesh is still the winner.
Natural resources aren’t a huge issue. All you need is rock, which is everywhere. It doesn’t even matter [i]which[/i] rock, so you can use whichever is most abundant and cheapest.
That said, Create Food and Water does have the advantage of also producing, well, water. If you don’t already have access to more water than food, then Stone to Flesh isn’t going to solve your problems. In many places, water is plentiful, but if you’re somewhere it isn’t…
Other sources of water are Create Water (2 humans per caster level per day per cast) and Purify Food and Drink (8 humans per caster level per day per cast, but only if you already have some source of not-safe-to-drink water), both of which are Clr/Drd 0 cantrips (unfortunately, this isn’t 5e where you have unlimited cantrip uses per day, so your spell slots are still going to run out pretty quickly if you try to use these to provide for all the people your friend’s Stone to Flesh can feed).
I can’t find any way for wizards to compete. I considered summoning a Wall of Ice and waiting for it to melt, but the spell has a listed duration of one minute per level, not instantaneous, which means that even if you can melt it that fast, the water will just vanish again, making it useless for nourishment. Though if you can convince your DM to let it work, then it would create enough water for a little over 60 humans per caster level squared per day per cast – by the time you’re even high level enough to cast it, that’s 3000, and by the time you’re high level enough to cast Stone to Flesh, that’s 7500 (but by that time you’re also have three spells slots at Wall of Ice’s level).
Of course, we’re already houseruling a little if casting Stone to Flesh at a petrified creature also transforms some of the non-petrified stone nearby.
And here I thought she was pressing S repeatedly to bring up an index.
I want to point out that this implies there’s a spell starting with enough S’s to reach this point, but not one after (hence it refusing to answer).
Ssssssssssss’lyroth’s Enhanced Magic Missile or something?
Or she reached the length limit, by typing in a number of S’s equal to the length of the longest spell name.
Ssssso now we know!
I’m a bit concerned with how that Speak-and-Spell is looking after the faulty input. Destroying artifacts usually causes Problems, after all…
It looks as it always did, though.
Can confirm. The “cracks” were present in previous strips, and may be cosmetic.
Well, the Flesh to Stone spell requires a pinch of lime. I know I know, it’s “lime” the material and not the fruit, but I like to imagine that the artifact is always ready to party.
Huh. Imagine if the artifact is stealing components from the guests. “Such a lovely… hey what wrong with my mojito?! Wait, how long have I been here? I’m leaving!”
Since when does a magic item need components, let alone an artifact?
Because its delicious
Cherchez le ham?
Then we cast “Water to Cheese (melted)” & viola! A Fondue Fountain!
Lamian only has one letter, which makes it either the easiest or hardest language to learn, depending on who you ask.
One letter? I’ll have you know it has many. It’s just that all of them are… rather sibilant. You’ve got “s”, “s”, “s”, “s”, and “s”, to begin with.
…admittedly, it isn’t too easy to differentiate those letters in writing… their writing system leaves a lot to be desired.
The fault is in your keyboard. If you weren’t talking out your ASCII, maybe we’d be able to tell the difference.
Unicode probably supports Lamian by now.
Hey, now. The Lamian alphabet is a beautiful, flowing script, with dozens of unique phonetic characters…
which, when translated into common by culturally insensitive humans, are all represented as “s”, “ss”, or “sss”
Sorry, that should be “transliterated into common”
I counted it out, there is 13 “s” characters, and 12 characters in “stone to flesh”. Where does the extra character come from?
In Sibilant (spoken Lamian) the words for ‘Stone to Flesh’ are ‘?s?S???? ??§ ???????’. The Spell&Speak however can only type ‘S’ and doesn’t have any variants.
Awww, the comment fonts don’t have all the ASssssssssCII character sets…
There’s an XKCD for that…
https://xkcd.com/2309/
Got that hot tag, time for the comeback Maddie!
I can work with this. Is there a spell that turns water into honey glaze?
No, you have to brew that potion out of water and honey. Spices may change the effects of the potion – are you in the mood to experiment? 🙂
We talking POTIONS, or MEAD? Because honestly I’m down for either.
“Why am I on ham?”
Cause bacon don’t shake like that…?
It’s the raw ingredient (sorry about that) for a spam golem.
Cherchez le Spam, then!
That ham-fountain looks pretty nicely marbled.
And here we see the difference between hamming it up and being up on ham.
Sorry.
Now we see if Maddie can turn undead…
or if she’s the type of Paladin who can “turn undead to raisin sauce” 🙂
A Paladin shouldn’t be raisin dead