Spell gem item. Assuming my group got it right anyway.
You cast the spell but as you finish it goes into the gem instead. And then it takes an action to produce the spell.
Since it states you cast the spell to fill the gem and it takes a specific (single) action to cast from it. Meaning that one action produces that spell. Because it states the action instead of saying "you can cast the spell stored". If it said that it would be normal casting time. But because it specifies the action. Specific overides general.
So you cast fabricate with materials and design. The gem takes it at the end of casting it. Later in battle spend the action the gem requires to activate.
It's a powerful item. Useful flavorful as well. It's from some specific campaign book.
Aside form being really good for airships and what it mentions. You can find broken armor and fix/resize it. Which seems an easy enough sell as your basically keeping it the same but making it fit better. Can use it to fix broken things.
Basically you use it as a spell where you think. "If we had something like this in the game, or on us. It would make this part so much easier." or can split a 50ft. thing of rope, if a transmuter, turn it to metal with your pitons built in and the knots so that you have the lowest DC you can get. Maybe other lengths of rope with clips so that if you fall, the rope catches you and is fuzed into the ground while able to support you easily.
Pretty much use it as a spell to take something simple, yet to make something so fool proofed that your intellect based character prevents yourself and the entire party from a risk of falling injuries. And a means to get back up/ secured so if attacked when climbing. The safety measure built in lets your people use weapons and spells to fend off the baddies. Your ranger might also appreciate a platform being built and other mundane stuff.
Not the most glamorous use but some spells require their components in a specific form. Say you're in the middle of nowhere and you forgot to do some component shopping before you left the city. If you have a bunch of gold coins and gems you can fabricate a chalice for hero's feast. If you have some diamonds you can break them down for greater restoration. Conversely, if you have enough dust you could reconstitute the diamond for revivify. I'm sure there are other examples but these are what I have off the top of my head. Furthermore, if something is broken but you have all the pieces I don't see why you couldn't use fabricate to rebuild it. Depending on how cool your DM is they might allow more interesting things like allowing you to make an intelligence check to fabricate the key to a lock or something like that. You just have to get creative.
Some uses depend on interpretation of “raw materials”. This use is to fabricate statues, but the REAL action is the negative space you leave behind. Many seem to believe that coins can be used - coins are worked materials. So, if an already worked item can be “raw materials” then you can use it take down castle walls and even adamantine doors with no problem by making negative space.
That locked door in Tomb of Annihilation just before the end boss but you lost the key? No problem, just drill a hole in it or around into the chamber with Fabricate.
Got a vault to break in to? Carve through it with Fabricate.
Take down a castle wall by carving out a one inch thick slab that is 5ft by 5ft by 1in and you stack 60 of those into your “statue”. Carve at a bias to make sure the wall crumbles. Heck, is that castle at the edge of a cliff? Send the whole thing plummeting.
If it is particularly thick section you need to move through, just cut a 1” hole up to 120 feet deep (spell range) and use either Misty Step (30ft) Thunder Step (90ft) or Gaseous Form \ Polymorph into a spider (120ft). You just have a neat “statue” left behind.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
Had a party in a town where they were wanted criminals, beyond the normal degree of a chaotic neutral campaign, and needed to change their appearance in a more permanent way than a disguise spell. The wizard was able to create a series of outfits that disguised the party sufficiently, and they made it to their objective with limited interference from the law. Most creative use I've seen, since they argued to me that it was their gear that got them noticed, so they made clothes that matched the style of the town. Happy to give it to them for that.
-Fabricate was nice to create spare wheels/axles for our wagon when needed.
I want to touch on this one right here. Most people don't realize that without the make whole spell existing in 5e. Fabricate is actually the only way to do this without bending the rules of other spells such as mend. Wheels and axles for Carts are actually too big for Mend to fix, which is also why when smart dm's allow them to be fixed with mend they put extra stipulations on it. But purely going by RaW it requires Fabricate to fix this problem magically. Otherwise your going to need the appropriate wood working and/or smithing skills to fix such things and the time to do it. This is because most breaks of these items are actually multiple breaks and there is a size limitation to each break as well of being no more than a foot. It's easily possible with splintering and such that axles and other parts of wagons can actually have breaks that are several feet in length so mending doesn't work on them.
yes it's a 4th level slot. But this sometimes can be one of the most valuable uses of the spell all on it's own.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Fusing a number of smaller, low-quality gems into a single larger gem, or into a smaller, high-quality gem. Players have used this to turn a wagon-load of busted quartz crystals into several dozen five-foot cubes over the space of several days as they meandered back to camp and then fused the quartz cubes together into pillars that they then had caved into fantastic shapes and installed in the Cleric's small temple she was building, then lit them up with Continual Flame for added effect.
As people have mentioned, crafting weapons and armor. We equipped a village or three with breastplates, spears and shields from random iron and steel items and some weapons and armor we'd recovered from dead enemy troops. Enough to give the villagers a fighting chance of holding out against the enemy that slipped past us while we chewed up the bulk of the invading force. And of course, gear for the Undead Minions since a lot of villagers are going to be quite against making armor fitted for Undead abominations.
Converting the ragged equipment and weapons looted from a dungeon's inhabitants into metal ingots, sheets of leather and bolts of cloth and furs to sell later on. When the players were setting out to convert a nearby dungeon into a bolt-hole for the nearby villages during a very bloody border-skirmish, it was quicker and cheaper to do this and let the villagers turn the goods into whatever they needed rather than try to get goods sent to the villages since the clashing armies kept on either requisitioning the goods or just outright stealing them.
Pushing a pile of iron scraps together with a bunch of carbon-heavy substances like charcoal and transmuting it all into steel ingots netted a tidy profit when the players were having to lay low, and when combined with the gem-fusing use of the spell, allowed the players to turn a mine that was struggling to be viable into a very profitable one, since all the sapphires being brought up were heavy with inclusions and of small size. A few castings of Fabricate and we were churning out tens of thousands of gold of large, flawless gemstones the size of thumbnails and hen's eggs, enough to be easy to sell but not enough to be shockingly wealthy from a mine long known for poor quality produce. A few fist-sized, and larger, stones were created as 'special' sales and/or Dragon Bribes, hidden away to sell in a pinch if the mine required a sudden influx of wealth or something dire had happened financially.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Is that... useful?
An AC 18 (long bow) or 20 (sword and board) skeleton with speed 20 feet and disadvantage on the attack roll, strength saves, dex saves, athletics checks, stealth checks, sleight of hand checks, acrobatics checks, and initiative checks doesn't... sound useful.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Is that... useful?
An AC 18 (long bow) or 20 (sword and board) skeleton with speed 20 feet and disadvantage on the attack roll, strength saves, dex saves, athletics checks, stealth checks, sleight of hand checks, acrobatics checks, and initiative checks doesn't... sound useful.
What makes you think they have disadvantage on all of that. Skeletons can wear armor without disadvantage, sure disadvantage on stealth checks as that is built into heavy armor, but not the rest. The perk of skeletons over zombies is you can equip them with weapons and armor which they can use.
And even if a skeleton dies ... so what? That's a round not being spent wailing on yourself, or your party, or whatever it was the Bone Patrol was guarding.
Being covered by plate armor means nothing is showing. The average thief isn't going to realize they're dealing with the Undead, and not a well-armored guard, until it is too late. A Skeleton isn't going to be tired and can see in the darkness as well as any Half-Orc, Dwarf or Elf. Hell, depending upon the setting and how much control your 'Necromancer' has, you could have Living Guards patrolling along with the Undead, with the Undead simply marching endlessly while the Living Guards focus on guarding the more important areas and listening for the sound of combat.
Heck, have the Skeletons ordered to "Immediately strike your weapon against your shield as loud as you can for six seconds, then attack until the enemy is dead or is out of sight.". If it dies? Oh well, time to turn that pesky damn invader into your newest Bone Boi.
But in regards to Fabricate, I want to point out something else that just occurred to me. Is it possible to use Fabricate to artificially accelerate the crafting of beers, spirits and possible alchemical potions? I'm re-reading the rules and I am not sure if alchemist's fire and similar items are considered magical. I know Common Healing Potions are, but alchemist's fire? Acid? Poison? Those are, as far as I am aware, mostly mundane but still have an effect similar to magic. I mean, if you whack a Wyvern's poison gland in a cauldron and you have proficiency with a Poisoner's kit or a Healer's kit, can you pump out a bunch of anti-toxin or a couple of doses of Wyvern Poison for the party to use? I think we're heading into DM Fiat territory, but there's nothing in the rules that prohibits non-magical creations through the Fabrication spell.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Is that... useful?
An AC 18 (long bow) or 20 (sword and board) skeleton with speed 20 feet and disadvantage on the attack roll, strength saves, dex saves, athletics checks, stealth checks, sleight of hand checks, acrobatics checks, and initiative checks doesn't... sound useful.
What makes you think they have disadvantage on all of that. Skeletons can wear armor without disadvantage, sure disadvantage on stealth checks as that is built into heavy armor, but not the rest. The perk of skeletons over zombies is you can equip them with weapons and armor which they can use.
Skeletons baseline aren't proficient in heavy armor, hence the disadvantage on attacks. There's an excellent argument depending on which rules you choose to obey (there are multiple mutually exclusive definitions of "skeleton" and it's not exactly clear which is RAI for Animate Dead) that the skeleton of a creature which was proficient in heavy armor retains its proficiency, so you might be able to make skeletons which are proficient if you hunt down some competent people, but without that there's absolutely no basis for claiming they're proficient. As for "the rest", skeletons are below the Str threshhold for plate armour, so unless you can get the dwarf racial onto your skeleton or make a very strong skeleton, they'll slow down. When I said 20 feet, I meant the generic skeleton monster in the Monster Manual, which is speed 30, below Str 15, and not proficient in the armor. If you can convince your DM to use the DMG rules for making something into a skeleton (which works a lot like making something into a half-dragon), that's how you get potentially different results.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Is that... useful?
An AC 18 (long bow) or 20 (sword and board) skeleton with speed 20 feet and disadvantage on the attack roll, strength saves, dex saves, athletics checks, stealth checks, sleight of hand checks, acrobatics checks, and initiative checks doesn't... sound useful.
What makes you think they have disadvantage on all of that. Skeletons can wear armor without disadvantage, sure disadvantage on stealth checks as that is built into heavy armor, but not the rest. The perk of skeletons over zombies is you can equip them with weapons and armor which they can use.
Skeletons baseline aren't proficient in heavy armor, hence the disadvantage on attacks. There's an excellent argument depending on which rules you choose to obey (there are multiple mutually exclusive definitions of "skeleton" and it's not exactly clear which is RAI for Animate Dead) that the skeleton of a creature which was proficient in heavy armor retains its proficiency, so you might be able to make skeletons which are proficient if you hunt down some competent people, but without that there's absolutely no basis for claiming they're proficient. As for "the rest", skeletons are below the Str threshhold for plate armour, so unless you can get the dwarf racial onto your skeleton or make a very strong skeleton, they'll slow down. When I said 20 feet, I meant the generic skeleton monster in the Monster Manual, which is speed 30, below Str 15, and not proficient in the armor. If you can convince your DM to use the DMG rules for making something into a skeleton (which works a lot like making something into a half-dragon), that's how you get potentially different results.
Monsters from the Monster Manual do not use proficiencies in this way. They never have a list of what weapons and armors they actually are proficient in. All you get is skills and maybe attributes they get proficiency in.
Not all of their weapon attacks add up properly to their stats and what they are using based upon the way that PC's would figure such bonuses and sometimes not even with alternate abilities on their sheets. They have a myriad of little unwritten rules about the way they work like Being able to Attack with Dexterity without Finesse being involved.
so the argument that they are not proficient is technically a home brew argument that is not fit into the rules as laid forth by the Monster Manual. People often forget that the monster rules are in fact different and that they actually have their own book dedicated to them. In Fact the only mention about them and Armor is in regards to their AC being figured but Proficiency is never talked about in it. It's just listed as part of how to read stat blocks that types of Armor may be listed as part of their AC calculation.
This is true for far more than just skeletons. For example if you want Plate Barding on your War Horse you just put Plate Barding on your war horse. You do not worry about what armor proficiencies they have or it affecting everything they do. They do not need special training. You don't have to figure out how to give them Multiple Feats. You just put Plate Barding on them and change their AC calculation. We know this works because we see them with armor in all kinds of places. And even the Rules on barding only talk about costs and weight and nothing about Proficiency for putting it on non-humanoid things in the PHB.
If you need a way to look at this for yourself. Just look at the Warhorse entry and the Skeletal Warhorse Entry. One has no armor on it and has AC 11. The other is listed as having Barding Scraps and has an AC of 13. Yet if you take a Warhorse and kill it and then raise it as a skeleton, it does not magically form Barding Scraps when you do so. And while your doing that please note that neither one ever lists any kind of Armor Proficiencies but the Skeletal WarHorse is not penalized for wearing the old remains of armor. Also note that the Scrap Barding is not clear what kind of Barding it used to be. It could be anything from Studded Leather to Plate depending on the way you flavor it even though many could make guesses it might be something like Chain. It should be completely possible to replace those scraps with new whole armor.
Fusing a number of smaller, low-quality gems into a single larger gem, or into a smaller, high-quality gem. Players have used this to turn a wagon-load of busted quartz crystals into several dozen five-foot cubes over the space of several days as they meandered back to camp and then fused the quartz cubes together into pillars that they then had caved into fantastic shapes and installed in the Cleric's small temple she was building, then lit them up with Continual Flame for added effect.
Much as I like this idea, does Fabricate limit you to things that can actually be made via mundane means? I don't know of a way to fuse gems with modern tech, let alone D&D tech. I would probably let it fly because 4th level spell and all, but it does raise some interesting questions. Like, how much of a forest needs to be turned into charcoal to compress into a diamond, and how much would that diamond be worth?
Heck, what if I don't want to be that obtuse? What if my "object" is a 5 foot mound of morrel mushrooms? They sell for a pretty penny and could probably go really far in making some cash depending on the area.
Fabricate does not limit the objects that can be created in that fashion.It can produce any object that can be contained in a 10ft cube,is made of the same material as the chosen target and that does not require advanced craftmanship (if you profiency in artistan´s tools you can create objects related the tool ignoring the last restriction).Techonolgy or method has no effect this magic.
Fabricate does not limit the objects that can be created in that fashion.It can produce any object that can be contained in a 10ft cube,is made of the same material as the chosen target and that does not require advanced craftmanship (if you profiency in artistan´s tools you can create objects related the tool ignoring the last restriction).Techonolgy or method has no effect this magic.
In that case, that is a pretty fantastic use. I could certainly see a lot of benefits there.
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How were you able to cast a spell with a 10 minute casting time in combat? I've never been in a combat that lasted more than 5 or 6 minutes.
Spell gem item. Assuming my group got it right anyway.
You cast the spell but as you finish it goes into the gem instead. And then it takes an action to produce the spell.
Since it states you cast the spell to fill the gem and it takes a specific (single) action to cast from it. Meaning that one action produces that spell. Because it states the action instead of saying "you can cast the spell stored". If it said that it would be normal casting time. But because it specifies the action. Specific overides general.
So you cast fabricate with materials and design. The gem takes it at the end of casting it. Later in battle spend the action the gem requires to activate.
It's a powerful item. Useful flavorful as well. It's from some specific campaign book.
Aside form being really good for airships and what it mentions. You can find broken armor and fix/resize it. Which seems an easy enough sell as your basically keeping it the same but making it fit better. Can use it to fix broken things.
Basically you use it as a spell where you think. "If we had something like this in the game, or on us. It would make this part so much easier." or can split a 50ft. thing of rope, if a transmuter, turn it to metal with your pitons built in and the knots so that you have the lowest DC you can get. Maybe other lengths of rope with clips so that if you fall, the rope catches you and is fuzed into the ground while able to support you easily.
Pretty much use it as a spell to take something simple, yet to make something so fool proofed that your intellect based character prevents yourself and the entire party from a risk of falling injuries. And a means to get back up/ secured so if attacked when climbing. The safety measure built in lets your people use weapons and spells to fend off the baddies. Your ranger might also appreciate a platform being built and other mundane stuff.
Not the most glamorous use but some spells require their components in a specific form. Say you're in the middle of nowhere and you forgot to do some component shopping before you left the city. If you have a bunch of gold coins and gems you can fabricate a chalice for hero's feast. If you have some diamonds you can break them down for greater restoration. Conversely, if you have enough dust you could reconstitute the diamond for revivify. I'm sure there are other examples but these are what I have off the top of my head. Furthermore, if something is broken but you have all the pieces I don't see why you couldn't use fabricate to rebuild it. Depending on how cool your DM is they might allow more interesting things like allowing you to make an intelligence check to fabricate the key to a lock or something like that. You just have to get creative.
Some uses depend on interpretation of “raw materials”. This use is to fabricate statues, but the REAL action is the negative space you leave behind. Many seem to believe that coins can be used - coins are worked materials. So, if an already worked item can be “raw materials” then you can use it take down castle walls and even adamantine doors with no problem by making negative space.
That locked door in Tomb of Annihilation just before the end boss but you lost the key? No problem, just drill a hole in it or around into the chamber with Fabricate.
Got a vault to break in to? Carve through it with Fabricate.
Take down a castle wall by carving out a one inch thick slab that is 5ft by 5ft by 1in and you stack 60 of those into your “statue”. Carve at a bias to make sure the wall crumbles. Heck, is that castle at the edge of a cliff? Send the whole thing plummeting.
If it is particularly thick section you need to move through, just cut a 1” hole up to 120 feet deep (spell range) and use either Misty Step (30ft) Thunder Step (90ft) or Gaseous Form \ Polymorph into a spider (120ft). You just have a neat “statue” left behind.
It's a must have for any Necromancer. If you have the skilled feat, so you have proficiency with all the tools, you can mass produce weapons and armor for your undead army at high speeds. It's great!
in aercheon (plane of war) turns portian of the ground into wepons for a whole army we won that war
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Had a party in a town where they were wanted criminals, beyond the normal degree of a chaotic neutral campaign, and needed to change their appearance in a more permanent way than a disguise spell. The wizard was able to create a series of outfits that disguised the party sufficiently, and they made it to their objective with limited interference from the law. Most creative use I've seen, since they argued to me that it was their gear that got them noticed, so they made clothes that matched the style of the town. Happy to give it to them for that.
I want to touch on this one right here. Most people don't realize that without the make whole spell existing in 5e. Fabricate is actually the only way to do this without bending the rules of other spells such as mend. Wheels and axles for Carts are actually too big for Mend to fix, which is also why when smart dm's allow them to be fixed with mend they put extra stipulations on it. But purely going by RaW it requires Fabricate to fix this problem magically. Otherwise your going to need the appropriate wood working and/or smithing skills to fix such things and the time to do it. This is because most breaks of these items are actually multiple breaks and there is a size limitation to each break as well of being no more than a foot. It's easily possible with splintering and such that axles and other parts of wagons can actually have breaks that are several feet in length so mending doesn't work on them.
yes it's a 4th level slot. But this sometimes can be one of the most valuable uses of the spell all on it's own.
My Necromancer has used Fabricate to create weapons and armors for his small undead army.
This.
Skeletons are okay. Skeletons in plate armor with shields and a sword are better. Skeletons in plate with long bows, shields, and a long sword are even better.
Couple of uses I have allowed as a Forever-DM.
Fusing a number of smaller, low-quality gems into a single larger gem, or into a smaller, high-quality gem. Players have used this to turn a wagon-load of busted quartz crystals into several dozen five-foot cubes over the space of several days as they meandered back to camp and then fused the quartz cubes together into pillars that they then had caved into fantastic shapes and installed in the Cleric's small temple she was building, then lit them up with Continual Flame for added effect.
As people have mentioned, crafting weapons and armor. We equipped a village or three with breastplates, spears and shields from random iron and steel items and some weapons and armor we'd recovered from dead enemy troops. Enough to give the villagers a fighting chance of holding out against the enemy that slipped past us while we chewed up the bulk of the invading force. And of course, gear for the Undead Minions since a lot of villagers are going to be quite against making armor fitted for Undead abominations.
Converting the ragged equipment and weapons looted from a dungeon's inhabitants into metal ingots, sheets of leather and bolts of cloth and furs to sell later on. When the players were setting out to convert a nearby dungeon into a bolt-hole for the nearby villages during a very bloody border-skirmish, it was quicker and cheaper to do this and let the villagers turn the goods into whatever they needed rather than try to get goods sent to the villages since the clashing armies kept on either requisitioning the goods or just outright stealing them.
Pushing a pile of iron scraps together with a bunch of carbon-heavy substances like charcoal and transmuting it all into steel ingots netted a tidy profit when the players were having to lay low, and when combined with the gem-fusing use of the spell, allowed the players to turn a mine that was struggling to be viable into a very profitable one, since all the sapphires being brought up were heavy with inclusions and of small size. A few castings of Fabricate and we were churning out tens of thousands of gold of large, flawless gemstones the size of thumbnails and hen's eggs, enough to be easy to sell but not enough to be shockingly wealthy from a mine long known for poor quality produce. A few fist-sized, and larger, stones were created as 'special' sales and/or Dragon Bribes, hidden away to sell in a pinch if the mine required a sudden influx of wealth or something dire had happened financially.
Is that... useful?
An AC 18 (long bow) or 20 (sword and board) skeleton with speed 20 feet and disadvantage on the attack roll, strength saves, dex saves, athletics checks, stealth checks, sleight of hand checks, acrobatics checks, and initiative checks doesn't... sound useful.
What makes you think they have disadvantage on all of that. Skeletons can wear armor without disadvantage, sure disadvantage on stealth checks as that is built into heavy armor, but not the rest. The perk of skeletons over zombies is you can equip them with weapons and armor which they can use.
And even if a skeleton dies ... so what? That's a round not being spent wailing on yourself, or your party, or whatever it was the Bone Patrol was guarding.
Being covered by plate armor means nothing is showing. The average thief isn't going to realize they're dealing with the Undead, and not a well-armored guard, until it is too late. A Skeleton isn't going to be tired and can see in the darkness as well as any Half-Orc, Dwarf or Elf. Hell, depending upon the setting and how much control your 'Necromancer' has, you could have Living Guards patrolling along with the Undead, with the Undead simply marching endlessly while the Living Guards focus on guarding the more important areas and listening for the sound of combat.
Heck, have the Skeletons ordered to "Immediately strike your weapon against your shield as loud as you can for six seconds, then attack until the enemy is dead or is out of sight.". If it dies? Oh well, time to turn that pesky damn invader into your newest Bone Boi.
But in regards to Fabricate, I want to point out something else that just occurred to me. Is it possible to use Fabricate to artificially accelerate the crafting of beers, spirits and possible alchemical potions? I'm re-reading the rules and I am not sure if alchemist's fire and similar items are considered magical. I know Common Healing Potions are, but alchemist's fire? Acid? Poison? Those are, as far as I am aware, mostly mundane but still have an effect similar to magic. I mean, if you whack a Wyvern's poison gland in a cauldron and you have proficiency with a Poisoner's kit or a Healer's kit, can you pump out a bunch of anti-toxin or a couple of doses of Wyvern Poison for the party to use? I think we're heading into DM Fiat territory, but there's nothing in the rules that prohibits non-magical creations through the Fabrication spell.
Skeletons baseline aren't proficient in heavy armor, hence the disadvantage on attacks. There's an excellent argument depending on which rules you choose to obey (there are multiple mutually exclusive definitions of "skeleton" and it's not exactly clear which is RAI for Animate Dead) that the skeleton of a creature which was proficient in heavy armor retains its proficiency, so you might be able to make skeletons which are proficient if you hunt down some competent people, but without that there's absolutely no basis for claiming they're proficient. As for "the rest", skeletons are below the Str threshhold for plate armour, so unless you can get the dwarf racial onto your skeleton or make a very strong skeleton, they'll slow down. When I said 20 feet, I meant the generic skeleton monster in the Monster Manual, which is speed 30, below Str 15, and not proficient in the armor. If you can convince your DM to use the DMG rules for making something into a skeleton (which works a lot like making something into a half-dragon), that's how you get potentially different results.
Monsters from the Monster Manual do not use proficiencies in this way. They never have a list of what weapons and armors they actually are proficient in. All you get is skills and maybe attributes they get proficiency in.
Not all of their weapon attacks add up properly to their stats and what they are using based upon the way that PC's would figure such bonuses and sometimes not even with alternate abilities on their sheets. They have a myriad of little unwritten rules about the way they work like Being able to Attack with Dexterity without Finesse being involved.
so the argument that they are not proficient is technically a home brew argument that is not fit into the rules as laid forth by the Monster Manual. People often forget that the monster rules are in fact different and that they actually have their own book dedicated to them. In Fact the only mention about them and Armor is in regards to their AC being figured but Proficiency is never talked about in it. It's just listed as part of how to read stat blocks that types of Armor may be listed as part of their AC calculation.
This is true for far more than just skeletons. For example if you want Plate Barding on your War Horse you just put Plate Barding on your war horse. You do not worry about what armor proficiencies they have or it affecting everything they do. They do not need special training. You don't have to figure out how to give them Multiple Feats. You just put Plate Barding on them and change their AC calculation. We know this works because we see them with armor in all kinds of places. And even the Rules on barding only talk about costs and weight and nothing about Proficiency for putting it on non-humanoid things in the PHB.
If you need a way to look at this for yourself. Just look at the Warhorse entry and the Skeletal Warhorse Entry. One has no armor on it and has AC 11. The other is listed as having Barding Scraps and has an AC of 13. Yet if you take a Warhorse and kill it and then raise it as a skeleton, it does not magically form Barding Scraps when you do so. And while your doing that please note that neither one ever lists any kind of Armor Proficiencies but the Skeletal WarHorse is not penalized for wearing the old remains of armor. Also note that the Scrap Barding is not clear what kind of Barding it used to be. It could be anything from Studded Leather to Plate depending on the way you flavor it even though many could make guesses it might be something like Chain. It should be completely possible to replace those scraps with new whole armor.
Much as I like this idea, does Fabricate limit you to things that can actually be made via mundane means? I don't know of a way to fuse gems with modern tech, let alone D&D tech. I would probably let it fly because 4th level spell and all, but it does raise some interesting questions. Like, how much of a forest needs to be turned into charcoal to compress into a diamond, and how much would that diamond be worth?
Heck, what if I don't want to be that obtuse? What if my "object" is a 5 foot mound of morrel mushrooms? They sell for a pretty penny and could probably go really far in making some cash depending on the area.
Fabricate does not limit the objects that can be created in that fashion.It can produce any object that can be contained in a 10ft cube,is made of the same material as the chosen target and that does not require advanced craftmanship (if you profiency in artistan´s tools you can create objects related the tool ignoring the last restriction).Techonolgy or method has no effect this magic.
In that case, that is a pretty fantastic use. I could certainly see a lot of benefits there.