Magical Construction

I have an NPC that is building a port.  It would take hundreds of workers over a year to built a port, and this NPC wants to speed things up.  He is a noble with deep pockets, so I'm assuming he could hire a magic user for some of the tougher tasks.

The first task is to build a sea wall and then dredge the mud up to the wall.  Normally this would require driving timber piles. placing timber lagging behind the piles, backfilling the space with crushed rock and then dredging the mud one bucket at a time with several crews.  I figure we should use magic.

My thought on how this would work is the workers would drive timber piles and then a magic user would place a 10'x10' stone slab behind the piles to act as the lagging.  The workers would backfill the space, and the magic user would return and place a 10'x10' stone slab over the backfill to serve as a surface for the dock workers.  Another magic user would come along and excavate the mud using magic, and use mud to stone to extend the wharf surface further back from the edge of the sea wall.

Does this plan make sense?  Am I missing a key step?  Are there more efficient steps to get this wharf built.  and FWIW, I'm still using 2014 rules, but I'll include spells from the later books like Tasha's and Arcanum and all that.

My second question about magical construction is what other spells could we use to make major advances instead of "expensive" and time consuming labor?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Planar Binding could be used to get elementals in order to perform underwater tasks without needing to remove the water.

Control water sounds like an interesting opportunity.  Mold earth was definitely on my radar.  Wall of stone is an obvious choice except it only provides a 6" slab.  I may homebrew or just gloss over the thickness.  I also like mud to stone because they can then make large shaped stones on sight. 

I never thought to get Elementals involved in the construction.  That could be a whole new ball game.

If you have the Tal'Dorei Reborn book, definitely check out the League of Miracles, a magic group that charges high fees for magical construction. 

I appreciate the commitment to realism, but why? Just have the wizard throw down a wall of stone and call it good. It stays in place because, magic.

As for more labor, there’s invisible servant. Or depending on how squeamish the population is, hire a necromancer who uses its pack of zombies/skeletons who don’t ever need breaks.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I appreciate the commitment to realism, but why? Just have the wizard throw down a wall of stone and call it good. It stays in place because, magic.

As for more labor, there’s invisible servant. Or depending on how squeamish the population is, hire a necromancer who uses its pack of zombies/skeletons who don’t ever need breaks.

 Or stone golems who can each do the work of 10 people

Quote from CharlesThePlant >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

I appreciate the commitment to realism, but why? Just have the wizard throw down a wall of stone and call it good. It stays in place because, magic.

As for more labor, there’s invisible servant. Or depending on how squeamish the population is, hire a necromancer who uses its pack of zombies/skeletons who don’t ever need breaks.

 Or stone golems who can each do the work of 10 people

 
Would they really scale up work like that? Sure, they can carry heavy loads, but it’s still only two pairs of hands per unit. Really, in terms of hauling power oxen are better than golems- only STR 18 vs 22, but they count as Huge size for hauling and such which should more than offset the difference.

Really, for this question “deep pockets” needs to be further defined. A landholder’s income is going to significantly defined by the amount of land under their purview, and they’ll have plenty of other expenses too. And that’s before considering what kind of resources are going to be available for purchase/hire. This can of course be given the Bruce Wayne handwave, but if you’re aiming for realism available budget and resources are both relevant considerations.

If I recall correctly Wish is only like 100,000gp. If they are truly rich can't they hire the right Wizard to provide a Wish Service?

“Only” 100K gp. An adult dragon’s hoard nets to about 64K gp in coin plus miscellany, per Fizban’s. While the way D&D handles money is infamously messy, I think it’s safe to say 100K in liquid cash is more in the “fabled lost treasure” bracket than the “profitable year” one.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

“Only” 100K gp. An adult dragon’s hoard nets to about 64K gp in coin plus miscellany, per Fizban’s. While the way D&D handles money is infamously messy, I think it’s safe to say 100K in liquid cash is more in the “fabled lost treasure” bracket than the “profitable year” one.

 They said they had deep pockets!

See above regarding the legitimacy of the Bruce Wayne handwave, but within the scope of value we can extrapolate, somebody with six figures of spending cash would seem to be a world power.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

See above regarding the legitimacy of the Bruce Wayne handwave, but within the scope of value we can extrapolate, somebody with six figures of spending cash would seem to be a world power.

So, they aren't rich. They're just well off then? Ugh, who would want to visit a port that cannot even afford a giant luxury resort. Pass.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I appreciate the commitment to realism, but why? Just have the wizard throw down a wall of stone and call it good. It stays in place because, magic.

As for more labor, there’s invisible servant. Or depending on how squeamish the population is, hire a necromancer who uses its pack of zombies/skeletons who don’t ever need breaks.

 Have to agree with Xalthu and ask why? Are your players really going to ask exactly which spells were used in the construction? Are they going to be taking notes and later trying to create a port of their own using the exact same methods? Seems like a lot of work that could just be covered by saying “they hired a wizard and did it with magic” 

Hey  Cunningsmile, Xalthu,

This is a lore event that happened before the campaign began.  There is an event in this period that will be recorded in the Marquis' logs.  I am going to flesh out the events and leave the clue for the players to discover.

There is an abandoned ruined city near the location where these events play out.  I am setting this up to invite the players to explore the ruin.

And, I am enjoying the thought experiment that this bit of worldbuilding is providing me.

Cheers.

Quote from CadenzaTheAdventurer >>

Hey  Cunningsmile, Xalthu,

This is a lore event that happened before the campaign began.  There is an event in this period that will be recorded in the Marquis' logs.  I am going to flesh out the events and leave the clue for the players to discover.

There is an abandoned ruined city near the location where these events play out.  I am setting this up to invite the players to explore the ruin.

And, I am enjoying the thought experiment that this bit of worldbuilding is providing me.

Cheers.

 That's fair enough, especially if you're having fun, I'm just very aware from my own failings how easy it is to get hyper focused and spend hours prepping something that actually adds no value to the session