Much more powerful in 3.5, where salt was worth as much as silver for some reason. And it was a trade good, meaning it's worth the same right next to the ocean where salt is plentiful as it is far away from it when there's no trading route available.
If you really want to make this powerful, presumably if there's more water there you just destroy some of it, so destroy only the hydroxide ions and make a Coulomb explosion with the power of an antimatter bomb.
A 9th level casting of the spell could create up to about 112.5gp if we go with the 3.5e economy(which doesn't have this spell, anyways), or only just over 1gp going off the 5e economy(it takes about 4 gallons of seawater per lb of salt, and you can purify 90 gallons casting at 9th level).
It's really not that good. Sure if you're level 20 and use all of your spell slots on it it's a decent sum of gold... but you're also level 20. Go rob a bank or something.
The real LPT is to remove water from cider to make an intensely apple flavored spirit without muting its flavors with heat.
Then sell the liquor to nobles and inflated prices without ever revealing the production method
I wonder how calvados retains it's apple flavour, I've never really thought about this beyond once being told that distilling mead is pretty pointless because the spirit would have lost almost all flavour.
Salt was very valuable back in the day, helps preserve food, and is the only spice you could probably get your hands on. Add to that it being a magic component, and it would be even more valuable.
Get Alchemy Jug. Or 2 levels of Artificer and an infusion.
Generate 10 gallons of saltwater per day from Jug.
Get the salt out of that for the cost of 1 level 1 spell slot.
Profit? Apparently 2.5 pounds of salt based on another comment here.
Which is worth 12.5 cp. Or you could get 3 cups of acid and fill 6 vials (worth 1 gp each) and get 150 gp worth of acid. Sell that for 75 gp because it's not a trade good like salt, and you still made a profit of 69 gp. Nice.
Yes the acid route is considerably quicker.
Although in practice, so can the "I want 4 Galllons of the average stock of beer from the royal dwarvish Court."
The spell affects 10 gallons of water at first level, leaving you with close to a pound of salt valued at 5cp. That's not going to break the bank, but assuming you spend only one 1st level slot per day every day, in a month that will earn you 1.5gp, putting you somewhere between a Modest and Comfortable lifestyle. edit: turns out these prices are per day, I can't read, and I'm going to die in poverty covered in salty rags
Reminds me of a quest in Genshin Impact where someone was exploring ruins from the dead goddess of salt in the hopes of getting a magic item to sell salt.
The prices listed on that page are per day not per month. So with that in mind 5cp per day would but you at the lowest category of Wretched. Though both level 1 slots would put you at Squalid.
Huh, would you look at that. I missed the giant table header that said "Price/Day"
I swear in an older edition a couple gold went a lot further. Inflation comes for us all
I think you're right, I also had the impression it was 1gp per month for normal people. Unsure if that's a mandela effect or from an older edition.
The spell affects 10 gallons of water at first level
Yeah, but the meme says "a bucket of seawater." A 10-gallon container isn't a "bucket;" it's a trash can.
Well? What happens next? The story was just getting good! Suddenly all the salt dried up and people are inexplicably dying, nearly a hundred a month. What is causing this? What happens now? Does the fact that the entire town is built on a demolished holy site have something to do with it? How does the PC respond?
What is the limit of Water to other ingredients in an open container? And what’s the limit on the “container”? If a person/living thing is sitting in an open container, could you dehydrate them by destroying the water in their body? If that’s too far, what’s the limit? Suppose it’s a mix of 50% salt and 50% water, still good? What if it’s water with dirt in it? What if it’s really muddy water? Can you destroy/hurt a water elemental with it (supposing it were in an open container)?
Hmm, a body has several holes in it... it arguable is an open container, made of animal hide.
These are important questions that will be asked by your players if they haven't gone there already. DMs, pay attention. Have a solid argument planned out beforehand or suffer the consequences. The thirsty, withered consequences.
Personally, I argue that Create/Destroy Water can't target a creature therefore get fucked, cast it somewhere else or pick a different spell. Why that is, scientifically? No idea. Same reason you can't Revivify a kitchen table. Logic dictates that you could turn it back into a tree, in practice nothing happens. It's A Secret To Everyone™
My table's necromancer has a homebrew staff formerly belonging to a mummy-priest that allows him to cast destroy water, and it becomes an at will spell if used on a corpes to mummify it. The demon lord of drought and the patron of mummifcation demands it.
It allows for convenient storage and transport of the corpses he ...procures...
And then, since it's a trade good, you can sell it at full price to whatever lives on that plane. Though the way it's worded in 5e makes it sound like that's not necessarily true everywhere. It works better in 3.5.
