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What is the first thing they start to discuss amoungst themselves? I'll tell you.
How much gold they can make selling the iron spheres. They calculate that there is at least 220,000 of the things. That is conservative at that.
Now that works out to be 660,000 silver at 3 silver each as is stated in the core books. Now then it works out to 11,000 gold each (there is 6 of them).
Now they are trying to figure out a way to get them all out of there. I will hand it to them, they have some innovative ideas. I think that the mine managers in Diamond Lake will have something to say, or do, about it.
Anyone else have this crop up?
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This has come up before:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/archives/hiddenTrea sureTrove
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/archives/opportunis ticParty
My solution would be to make them magically attuned to the Cairn itself. The instant a sphere passes through the entrance arch, it corrodes into a little pile of rust-colored dust and a pristine new replacement sphere appears in the chamber in which it was found. This would be the designers' way of ensuring that their trap was never disabled by pilferers looting spheres from the tomb.
Under this solution, the spheres should radiate a faint transmutation magic.
My players (thankfully) never thought of this, so I never had to deal with it during my game.
Edit: I have no idea why the board inserted spaces into the links above when displaying the URLs, but you'll need to remove the spaces for the addresses to work.
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Hidden Treasure Trove Thread
Opportunistic Party Thread
I'm a big fan of tweaking the description so they're all clay spheres of the same colour/composition of the "clay golem" in the Lair of the Labourers. The best they could do with those is become a Flanaess-leading bocce ball producer...
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Thank you for the links and ideas guys. I read through them both and they had great ideas.
My first problem is I already let them leave with a six of the balls so the turn to rust idea is out. The idea I like the best is the iron plated clay balls.
I remembered a thread from a while back that talked about wht the red substance the statue down in the workers quarters was made of. Someone there suggested a metal from Sandstorm. Went looking for that in the book and found it. Kehferu was the name. I am going to make it iron plated kehferu balls. Now all they need to do is discover that it is only a coating of iron.
They will have no idea what that will be worth, and likely no one else would either.
Think of the labor involed in harvesting and selling these iron balls at 6 sp each.
They will probably have to hire someone to do this labor, which will cut their profits considerably.
It will be impossible to run an operation of this magnitude without it becoming known where these iron balls are coming from. And somebody probably owns an interest in the land that the Cairn is on.
So to realistically pull this off your characters need to do research and find out who owns this property, contact them, purchase the property, hire laboreres to gather and transport the material, and then find a market.
This is a lot of iron, Daimond lake probably isn't the best market, considering that it is a mining town it should be flush with product. They will need to transport the material to where there is a decent demand to get a fair price.
If your players really want to do this, then go for it. But it's not going to be fun, and it will not net them nearly as much profit as they think once they subtract their expenses.
Say the iron balls rust out over a short time. Three days after leaving the cairn people complain/notice that the balls have disintegrated.
rooster
I don't think it's fair to the players to just simply decide that the balls "rust" away - either imediatly upon leaving the cain or over time. I think pointing out the problems of selling those 660,000 iron spheres is the way to go.
And, if the players aren't sufficently daunted by the many distractions of starting up a new business (probably in direct compitition with several unscrupulious mine managers) or by the legal implications other posters have brought up, then have then discover one last final secret to these iron spheres - they can't be melted down!
The why of this can be as mysterious as you want to make it. Perhaps the Air Lords created this iron out of pure elemental essence. Seems logical - after all, the spheres don't break despite hard impact (witness all the intact spheres lying in the pit) or rust over time (again, none of the balls are rusted).
The problem comes whan the PC's try to sell the spheres They find that they can't break it up. Also, they'll find out that it doesn't melt like "normal" scrap iron. It can't be mixed into any known alloy and if it's hidden in a larger ingot of ordinary metal, the whole thing weakens and flakes apart.
Since it can't be re-shaped or reforged, whose going to buy the stuff from them? Without a mass market for the things, what good are the sphere outside of a curiousity?
Olmac,
How quickly did they come up with this idea? You make it sound immediate. Based on the lengthy discussion on previous threads about this exact scenario, I would begin to suspect your players of lurking around these messageboards. Maybe they were just as clever as the original poster's players of the original thread; or maybe a "little birdy told them". So while you're trying to resolve this latest dilemna, consider this ... there may be one or more of your players who are picking up tips and "training" from these messageboards. Cheaters are a much bigger problem than just resolving a possible sudden influx of PC cash.
Why would anyone want to go through all the trouble of this? Don't they actually want to play D&D? Give them all 100Xp for being "brilliant" and say they spent all the money on ales and whores and get on with the real game.
What is the budget limit in Diamond Lake? I wouls say that there is no one who would be interested in/or able to affort to buy all these spheres at a price that would make it worth the labor. You could always have the party do all the work getting a couple wagons to get these things out, and then have what I would think would really happen in this enviroment...the mine managers who are the most likly buyers rob the party (with a bunch of goons). Selling these in town could also cause a Mine manager to decide to buy the spheres (if the asking amount is within the towns price range...I'd treat it as an all or none single item sale) and thus have enough profit that he decides to shut down one of his less profitable mines thus leaving the poor miners out of work and pissed at the party for undermining their labor.
Another option is to actually role play the removal of the spheres round-by-round. That should bore the players enough that they give up ;-)
Still the best option is to have the people of the town take interest at the very first instance that the players bring something valuable from the cairn to town. After that point, every town person and all the mine managers thugs should hound the party about where they got the loot, and follow the party to the cairn, or even investigate the cairn while the party is not there... or come in behind them when they are...
ASEO out
220,000 spheres? how did they come up with that? Maybe some volume calculations I guess. If that is the case, look at the volume and weight that they are trying to move by hand. We are talking months of labor here. And I still don't think that there is anyone in Diamond Lake that can afford to buy the lot, or that would be interested in blowing their whole income on iron spheres.
Another option is that the trap is rigged to reload the area with spheres if the sphere level gets to low...which results in another load of spheres falling from the ceiling and anyone in the room (where they would have to be to be removing the spheres) takes 100d6 points of damage from the tons of falling spheres.
This should kill at least sombody if it is a PC, then great, if it is a worker that the PCs have hired, make the town revold against the PCs and demand that they pay to have those killed resorected...which should be very expensive.
Lastly, the local temple (or a mystical wandering holy man that can convince the town...possibably in the pay of an evil mine manager) could believe that the spheres are evil holy symbols of an ultimate chaos deity
"See how they are shaped like a sphere of oblivion"
"They are evil! EEEEVILLLL"
"Only the Chaos lord could have created these foul objects"
"How dare you bring such vile objects into our town"
Everyone around is then afraid to have anything to do with the spheres. You could even play this up with locals suddenly recounting some misfortune that occured to them when the prty brought the vile spheres to town. "I turned into a newt!" and then demanding compensation from the party for the unfortunate event...Seeing a way to get a free buck, this could rapidly spin out of control with the whole town suing the party "The Bringers of the Evil Orbs"
The large plie where the party eventually bandons the spheres could become a local landmark and maybe even become an evil shrine to the Oblivion Lord!
ASEO out
OK I lied...I got one more here...The spheres could be thick, but hallow, and thus prone to explode dangerously when heated (ie: melted down) No one is willing to take these spheres because they are much to dangerous (to men and equipment) to melt down. By weighing the spheres, a potential buyer could learn that they were hollow.
"Hey! What are you trying to pull here? These things are Hollow! You know what they would so if I were to try to melt them down? Well? Do Ya? The'd explode! That's what they'd do! Likly kill me or destroy my smelter. Now get the hell out of here before I throw you our and sick my smelter boys on you for trying to get them killed! Damn fools!"
Either this or the "Evil Spheres" would be especially good after the PCs have exausted the effort of getting all the spheres out of the cairn.
ASEO out
I would think if they can harvest the spheres then a buyer can only be found in the Free City/Sharn. Unfortunately, all of the mine managers collaborate to "shut out" the new attempt to ruin the iron market for the town. Those mine managers could probably be pretty nasty, meanwhile, the PCs can't give away the things.
Of course, they might have to pay rental fees on space used to keep all the spheres in the meantime. Not to mention probalems regarding lacking any important "permits" to operate the business in DL.
rooster
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Olmac,
How quickly did they come up with this idea? You make it sound immediate. Based on the lengthy discussion on previous threads about this exact scenario, I would begin to suspect your players of lurking around these messageboards. Maybe they were just as clever as the original poster's players of the original thread; or maybe a "little birdy told them". So while you're trying to resolve this latest dilemna, consider this ... there may be one or more of your players who are picking up tips and "training" from these messageboards. Cheaters are a much bigger problem than just resolving a possible sudden influx of PC cash.
Oh no, I play with some very above intelligence guys. They all are University educated with Degrees. One of them holds two degrees, one being mathamatics. As soon as he heard the discription of the room he broke out his calculator and started computing the number of iron balls there. The first number he came up with was before they even realized the balls were 10 feet deep.
They also realize the magnitude of the effort it would take to pull the iron balls out of there. I have watched a couple e-mail threads floating around since saturday night. I think that they will give up on the idea for now.
Seems they realize the other mine owners would have them offed as soon as they figured out who and where the compitition is. So they decided to wait until they are tough enough to hold on to it, if they start try to sell the iron off at all. One of them thinks that by time they are strong enough to combat the resources of the mine managers, the money they will make will be chump change to what they can make adventuring. That of course does not rule out try to do it if and when they retire.
The other thing that was pointed out, by the paladin no less, was the economic damage all this iron would cause Diamond Lake. He feels it is unacceptable and would resist the temptatipn to market the iron balls. For the good of the community and all.
I do not believe that they are lurking the boards here at all. If they, or one of them is, it certainly has not shown in the game. I have asked them not to read anything pertaining to the adventure path, except for the Wormfood articles in Dragon. I trust them to not do so.
But really, if they did "cheat" and read this stuff, really they are only cheating themsleves right?
I like the - 'make them work it all out' version. They can't sell them all at book price as is because they would flood the market. You could litterly work their 'iron ball sales' into their treasure per level calculations. There is about 13,000 GP worth of iron balls. It'll take some time to set everything up and sell these things off. So long as their monetary gain come over the course of 3-5 levels and gets larger nearer the end you can keep their rewards basically in line with the recomended wealth per level of the party is.
Might take them some timeto figure out that for some reason their cash cow never actually resulted in them getting as rich as they had originally expected.