Description: You fire a small orb of acid at the target. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to hit your target. The orb deals 1d3 points of acid damage. This acid disappears after 1 round.
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The heart of this is the ability to conjure acid. Whether you use it offensively or not, everyone who can cast this now has the ability to apply acid where they will. Today acid is used to create fertilizer, dyes, paints, and explosives. Perhaps the ready availability of acid would accelerate these discoveries?
Acid could also be used to get rid of unwanted materials: corpses, both of murder victims and natural causes, as well as perhaps misguided attempts to deal with waste disposal, resulting in awful side products that would be worse than the original problem.
It could also be used for 'pickling', where the surface of metals is cleansed of imperfections. A service offered by weapon smiths? Used perhaps to scrub/clean any kind of surface that defies easy washing?
And of course there's the obvious offensive use, employed by thugs and muggers. I doubt the state would use acid against prisoners or rebels, so it would probably be an underworld kind of thing.
I'm not coming up with much here. Nothing really world shattering, at any rate. Not until chemistry grew more advanced, allowing for the creation of more complex substances.
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Actually, after further thought, I take this back. The very fact that any intelligent woman could possibly cast a ball of acid into your face if attacked/molested would suddenly change the dynamics on the street. It's like our modern license to carry arms. You never know who might be able to melt off your face. And while the number of women who could do this would be small, and no doubt relegated to the educated and wealthy, it would still give men greater pause in a time and place where abuse was far more common than it is today.
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The heart of this is the ability to conjure acid. Whether you use it offensively or not, everyone who can cast this now has the ability to apply acid where they will. Today acid is used to create fertilizer, dyes, paints, and explosives. Perhaps the ready availability of acid would accelerate these discoveries?
Acid could also be used to get rid of unwanted materials: corpses, both of murder victims and natural causes, as well as perhaps misguided attempts to deal with waste disposal, resulting in awful side products that would be worse than the original problem.
It could also be used for 'pickling', where the surface of metals is cleansed of imperfections. A service offered by weapon smiths? Used perhaps to scrub/clean any kind of surface that defies easy washing?
And of course there's the obvious offensive use, employed by thugs and muggers. I doubt the state would use acid against prisoners or rebels, so it would probably be an underworld kind of thing.
I'm not coming up with much here. Nothing really world shattering, at any rate. Not until chemistry grew more advanced, allowing for the creation of more complex substances.
---
Actually, after further thought, I take this back. The very fact that any intelligent woman could possibly cast a ball of acid into your face if attacked/molested would suddenly change the dynamics on the street. It's like our modern license to carry arms. You never know who might be able to melt off your face. And while the number of women who could do this would be small, and no doubt relegated to the educated and wealthy, it would still give men greater pause in a time and place where abuse was far more common than it is today.
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