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I found this delicious wondrous item quite by accident, but would like to know one thing:
Once a week, its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, etc. The effect produced in 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for 3 days.
Does the lyre of building provide the materials for construction? Say I have a PC with a decent perform (Stringed Instruments) and he wants to terraform a small island into a port city, then does he need to procure the raw materials to start this process or does "magically construct" mean that the materials just *poof* into being?
I realize that this could be abused (a city made of mithril), but let us assume that there is no abuse intended and wood and stone structures would suffice.
I assume it only gets you the 'workers with the common tools' the materials will need to be present in some form or shape.
Huh, that is a magical item I have never noticed before.
I wonder how long you can use it for. It says you may use it once a week, and that every 30 minutes of playing counts as 3 days of work from 100 laborers, and you must make a Perform check every hour.
Could you have a bard play it for 8 hours and generate 48 days of work from 100 laborers? That bard could literally make the road faster then they can ride down it.
My guess is you have to have existing materials. It's imply too cheap to generate entire walls from nothing. Such as the Instant Fortress (aka cheap adamantine).
I think this thing just made my Kingmaker players crit their pants. I can see several of these being produced if for nothing else then home land defense with the 30 mins of invulnerable wall power.
I love this item it actually can do pretty well as a base power for a minor artifact. yea, sorry I have this annoying tendency to make every single magical item special, legacy of pre 3.x D&D I suppose.
Could you have a bard play it for 8 hours and generate 48 days of work from 100 laborers? That bard could literally make the road faster then they can ride down it.
My guess is you have to have existing materials. It's imply too cheap to generate entire walls from nothing. Such as the Instant Fortress (aka cheap adamantine).
Pretty much every place has packed earth (which can be turned into bricks pretty easily). If they don't, there's plenty of stone or sand (turn it into glass!) that can be used to make roads pretty cheaply.
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So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you?
So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you?
Couldn't you use some of this "labor" to haul stone from a quarry?
/thoughts
Could you have a bard play it for 8 hours and generate 48 days of work from 100 laborers? That bard could literally make the road faster then they can ride down it.
Yeah, I allowed this in my campaign. The PC ruler decided to hire a bunch of bards to get some buildings, roads, and what-not in place. He brought in the materials and engineers to guide the building.
So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you?Couldn't you use some of this "labor" to haul stone from a quarry?
/thoughts
Ofcourse.
But more relevant.. there are some pretty fascinating pressed-earth building materials. Quite sumerian in age, so its hardly anything new. Techniques vary a abit.. whether or not to insert grasses etc...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe
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Could you have a bard play it for 8 hours and generate 48 days of work from 100 laborers? That bard could literally make the road faster then they can ride down it.
So, then the question is, what is the reasonable limit to distance? It would be ridiculous to suggest that there is no limit and that an elven bard playing twenty hours could play a road across a small continent.
By the same means, it would be silly to suggest something like 100', as an 8 hour rockfest would be a waste.
What seems a reasonable limit?
So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you?Couldn't you use some of this "labor" to haul stone from a quarry?
/thoughts
Ofcourse.
But more relevant.. there are some pretty fascinating pressed-earth building materials. Quite sumerian in age, so its hardly anything new. Techniques vary a abit.. whether or not to insert grasses etc...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe
Thus my comment about "bricks." Like you said, techniques vary a bit and what not.
My favorite method of building bricks is to build a pyramid of wet clay slugs, load it up with fuel, build a brick shell and light that sucker on fire. When you take down the brick shell, you have a biggun pile of bricks underneath.
Good to know that great minds think alike :D
So, then the question is, what is the reasonable limit to distance? It would be ridiculous to suggest that there is no limit and that an elven bard playing twenty hours could play a road across a small continent.
By the same means, it would be silly to suggest something like 100', as an 8 hour rockfest would be a waste.What seems a reasonable limit?
I imagine that you could have the bard play the lyre of building while on a wagon. That way, the "range" moves as you do.
I imagine that you could have the bard play the lyre of building while on a wagon. That way, the "range" moves as you do.Right, and I agree. But, what would that range which moves be? 500'? A quarter mile? Assuming the bard stands still and perfoms, how large an area would be affected?
Hrm, now I'm thinking about all the evil exploits you could do.
Could you send in 100 men's worth of combat? I imagine that whatever magical effects are working their way through a certain area could be used offensively.
Or you could drop boulders on an invading army. Ho noes!
This certainly seems like a Public Works project, and that seems to be what's intended by the spell description. I imagine that it's will-enabled, so that a bard has to know where he's building and what not. I'd say a fair range is... a quarter mile? What a bard can see? Hrm.
I'm certain it would only work within earshot, but if the bard is on a wagon being pulled along the road that's being built faster then the wagon can go he could pave an entire road in one day.
My GoogleFu fails me, I can't find any information on how long building a road takes.
I am uncertain how I'd handle things like making glass and such, I dont think you should expect chemical / magical transformation from sand to glass for example.
The description leaves much open for interpretation, but persoanlly I'd expect nothing more than 100 men working with handheld tools.
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Yeah, the lyre of building has never been very explicitly defined in any edition. It has been used in a couple of 3.x campaigns I've been in, and we used these guidelines:
- The effect you get from 30 minutes of playing is what you'd get from 300 man-days (2400 man-hours) of unskilled human laborers using common tools appropriate to the job at hand. (In theory, the lyre could accomplish more complex constructions if its player had several ranks in Knowledge: Architecture/Engineering or a construction-related Profession, but we never ran into that situation.)
- The lyre supplies the effect of the tools as well as the muscle power but does not supply raw materials.
The effective range of the lyre wasn't clearly defined as a house rule and depended somewhat on what you were trying to do with it. One rule of thumb was, if you weren't close enough to personally direct the work (as a foreman would) then you weren't close enough to use the lyre.
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Yeah, the lyre of building has never been very explicitly defined in any edition. It has been used in a couple of 3.x campaigns I've been in, and we used these guidelines:
- The effect you get from 30 minutes of playing is what you'd get from 300 man-days (2400 man-hours) of unskilled human laborers using common tools appropriate to the job at hand. (In theory, the lyre could accomplish more complex constructions if its player had several ranks in Knowledge: Architecture/Engineering or a construction-related Profession, but we never ran into that situation.)
- The lyre supplies the effect of the tools as well as the muscle power but does not supply raw materials.
The effective range of the lyre wasn't clearly defined as a house rule and depended somewhat on what you were trying to do with it. One rule of thumb was, if you weren't close enough to personally direct the work (as a foreman would) then you weren't close enough to use the lyre.
Great guidelines Damon!
To get more perspective on an item, I always look at the creation prereqs (in this case, the 'fabricate' spells, which has a material component of "the raw material necessary for the construction of the item")
In this case, if you are making a bridge with the lyre of building, this means you must have a neat pile of materials on nearby pallets inbound straight from the Home Depot or else you get a bridge of woven grass and twigs! LOL! So, anything above a CRAFT/PROFESSION/KNOWLEDGE DC OF 10 would require a skill check... (look at the guidelines of "unseen servant" to see what an unskilled magical servant can do...) --> see below for interesting tangent...
Great catch on the engineering ranks! the spells fabricate also mentions that the necessary skill checks must be made. For at 13,000gp item... it would be perfectly reasonable for a DM to apply all these mitigating conditions.
I would also add that you need at least one rank of Perform String or Peform String DC 13 for the 1/day function (the items states "IF THE PROPER CHORDS ARE PLAYED") just based on the fact that the 1/week function requires DC 18 (a high CHA bards/sorcerers could do this untrained btw...)
And I would apply the same limitation that most bardic powers have: "must be able to hear the performance". In the case of this lyre, ok, at best what? 500 ft radius? (i.e. if performed during hours of low background sound / i.e. not during rush hours -- sure you can hear a guitar or lyre further than 500 feet, but the acoustical engineer in me would rule that the sound pressure level after 500 feet is too low for the magic to take effect... back in 3.X there was an item, horn of volume or something, that doubles that distance -- slotless item to booth... so with that I'd allow a bard to build in a 1,000 foot radius)
--> interesting tangent: craft checks are required to make *things* like swords, armor, clothes, shoes, etc. (see fabricate spell too); profession checks are required to perform a job, i.e. according to core rules, "a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge. The most common Profession skills are architect, baker, barrister, brewer, butcher, clerk, cook, courtesan, driver, engineer, farmer, fisherman, gambler, gardener, herbalist, innkeeper, librarian, merchant, midwife, miller, miner, porter, sailor, scribe, shepherd, stable master, soldier, tanner, trapper, and woodcutter." Please note that "architect, engineer, miner, and woodcutter" are specifically mentioned. This means, IMO, that someone with ranks in these professions could make direct use of their Profession skill via lyre of building, so this means, as per Profession skill core rules "You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. You can also answer questions about your Profession. Basic questions are DC 10, while more complex questions are DC 15 or higher." Thus, with lyre of building, you want a simple bridge? DC 10 Profession Engineer. Complex bridge? (i.e. draw bridge or suspended bridge or something with arches that is more complex than a simple cantilevered slab of stone / wood-trunks that is directly supported at regular intervals by beams that can touch the river bottom) then DC 15. Please note that the Craft rules allow for +10 DC to speed up construction: I would allow the same for Profession checks. So a DC 10 item a check of 20 yields 200sp worth of craft time a week; upping the DC to 20 gives your 400sp... (x2 modifier... x1.66 if the base DC is 15, x1.5 if the base DC is 20, etc. less and less at higher DCs, etc.)
So take this: someone who can pull of DC 30 Profession Engineer can build a Masterwork (DC 20) bridge with the lyre of building 1.5 times faster than someone who can only made a DC 20...
To sum up we have this: say a simple bridge requires 8 hours to do using the lyre (100 men working for 48 days normally). Someone with a +20 Profession Engineer can use the lyre for 5.33 hours only, AND the resulting bridge is Masterwork (i.e. nice feature like drawbridge added, or will withstand the ages due to craftsmanship, or can span double the usual distance, such as reaching an island in the middle of an especially large lake, for instance... :P OR if I was the DM: allow simple bridge in lieu of MW bridge and the PCs don't pay the raw material cost, so in KM speak, instead of a redux of 2BP, allow redux of 4BP... mind you, if the PC doesn't have a total of +20 to Profession Engineering, i.e. if he must *roll* to get the 30, then I would work out a penalty for failure, like no BP redux at all and you've wasted your time for this Kingdom Building turn... maybe not a full vacancy penalty but something along the lines of half the penalty OR regular BP cost for building...)
I would say that knowledge can substitute Profession checks but you take -5 to the check (i.e. knowledge engineering at minus 5, and use the result as if you had done a Profession check...)
Could you send in 100 men's worth of combat? I imagine that whatever magical effects are working their way through a certain area could be used offensively.Or you could drop boulders on an invading army. Ho noes!
This certainly seems like a Public Works project, and that seems to be what's intended by the spell description. I imagine that it's will-enabled, so that a bard has to know where he's building and what not. I'd say a fair range is... a quarter mile? What a bard can see? Hrm.
A friend and I just found this item and we are marveling at how absolutely broken it is. With such a cheap price and powerful magic effect there's no reason Golarion wouldn't be covered in superhighways and fortresses guarding every cave and island.
However, it is important to note that the manpower it provides can only be used towards the purpose of construction, and by my interpretation it wouldn't include the construction of mundane items, armor, weapons, siege weapons, or traps. I think even interior decorating would be generous. "Buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, etc." makes it sound like it really can only provide the framework for a city or other structure, as complex as the PC is able to imagine.
Nice necro.
My players bought one of these in S&S to redesign and rebuild the buildings at their island and got a big shortcut on the resources they needed to do so.
They were also able to change the features of a town that used to be inhabited by large creatures so it could host medium creatures.
It was very useful.
They also used it to create a hole in a tower's floor to grant them LOS/LOE against a dangerous but trapped enemy that couldn't leave the room where she was, making the encounter really easy.
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So my group has this item and the way we as a group, GM included, see it as is that it provides the manhours to do the work but not the materials. You still need to buy/procure the materials and get them on site and then the lyre will do its mickey mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice magic to put it all together.
Nice necro.
My players bought one of these in S&S to redesign and rebuild the buildings at their island and got a big shortcut on the resources they needed to do so.
They were also able to change the features of a town that used to be inhabited by large creatures so it could host medium creatures.
It was very useful.
They also used it to create a hole in a tower's floor to grant them LOS/LOE against a dangerous but trapped enemy that couldn't leave the room where she was, making the encounter really easy.
My group also bught one for Skull and Shackles, and it was a great boon. We also used it to rebuild a lot of settlements that we had found it disrepair/abandoned.
That said, the lyre definitely doesn't magically produce building resources.
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My old online group used one extensively in Kingmaker to save on downtime/BP costs. Fortunately, the rules for doing so are a bit more codified.
My old online group used one extensively in Kingmaker to save on downtime/BP costs. Fortunately, the rules for doing so are a bit more codified.Another necro...
Are there actually rules for the interaction of the Lyre of Building and the Kingdom Building rules? How are savings on BP through the Lyre calculated?
It gives a small discount.
At the GM's discretion, construction magic (such as lyre of building, fabricate, or wall of stone) can reduce a single building's BP cost by 2 (minimum 0).
I used mine to build ships. Great for S&S AP. Also used is the big naval battle as it was ruled to make a ship invulnerable for one combat round.
I also used it to build a logging camp and sawmill in a forest, and to reshape a harbor by deepening a smooth path underwater for safe access to the dock. [I didn't tell others where the smooth path was. You needed one of my people to bring the ship in.]
The GM also ruled that I had to make both the check to play and the check for crafting the ship, and I could not Take-10 due to the interaction and long time. Still, it was not hard to manage this with a little magic boost.
/cevah