Monument Builder - Story feat completion benefit

[Zitchas]

My character has developed a real interest in building magnificent structures, and thus the story feat "Monument Builder" (rules here) has attracted my attention. While the majority of the feat makes sense, the benefit he receives after completing the goal seems kind of ambiguous. The part about speeding up construction makes sense, but the other, not so much.

To be specific, part of the benefit is that "all the character's structures increase in value by 10%."

As best I can tell, this doesn't have any actual gameplay effect, although it does open up the possibility of combining the "discount" from construction with the increased value to give a particularly energetic builder the chance to turn construction into a business. Potentially a rather lucrative one, if the builder can find customers with that deep a pocket, anyway.

Is this the point of the benefit? Or does it have some other gameplay impact that I'm missing?

Thanks!

[Zitchas]

Along the same lines as this, regarding the benefit of the feat:

Quote:

When you supervise a construction project or do the construction yourself, reduce your raw material costs by 10%. You gain a +2 bonus on Knowledge (engineering) checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Knowledge (engineering), this bonus increases to +4.

They both make sense, but I was wondering about the "reduce material costs by 10% part. Since I'm working under the Downtime system using capital, does it work better to reduce the amount of goods capital needed by 10%? Or reduce the cost of generating/purchasing goods capital by 10%?

(For the record, I'm producing all the capital I'm using. Takes a bit longer, but makes for better story progression)

edit: Just ran some calculations, and it amounts to the same cost. So the bigger question is "which way is easier to keep track of and deal with? Reducing the amount of goods needed by 10% has a serious risk of resulting in decimal values.

edit2: The second question would be "Does that 10% reduction in raw material cost affect just the "Goods" capital, or would it also include the "Magic" capital? Given that the latter can be used as a substitute for expensive spell components, it could be interpreted as raw material components, just really expensive ones like diamond dust and gold and whatnot.

[Trekkie90909]

Regarding "all the characters structures increase in value by 10%:"

Basically you're a household name (congrats!); people are willing to pay more for your work (you're Rodin). In game this means you can earn more by making stuff for people/the government.

"reduce costs by 10%;" this would refer to the amount of capital needed - basically you're a master artisan and you don't need as much practice before going on to the real thing.

re Edit: again I'd go with goods needed; as a rule round disadvantageously.

re Edit 2: If you're providing the goods (magical or amagical) then the costs are reduced 10%. Rather than thinking of it as "I can cast spells for less," think of it as "I know how to achieve the end result with fewer total spell castings."

[Zitchas]

OK. If by "round disadvantageously" you mean round up in all situations, then (for individual rooms, at least) the feat only has an effect when that room costs 10 or more goods. Which means that out of the 93 rooms listed on the d20pfsrd downtime page, only 19 of them will actually change in price. And only two will save 2 or more.

That seems a bit useless, unless one can total the cost of a structure *then* take off the discount. If one can do that, or at least apply the discount to the total amount being built at that time, then it will actually start adding up. And also makes sense, since it does specify the cost of the structure, not the cost of the room.