Okay, so I'm running The Stolen Lands for my group, which are trying to keep a particular eye out for the Lyre of Building, so I'm trying to prep for the day where it ends up in my campaign. (I've been a GM a long time now, and if I know one thing, it's that the party will manage to get its hands on the one item you'd rather they not have) What I'm trying to figure out is how it will effect building costs and times for when they start building up their kingdom, which is really the central focus of the campaign.
Now, let me start with this: I do not fudge, ever. I'm a by the book GM, as I was a by the book player when I was on the other side of the screen. My player's trust my rulings, which speeds along gameplay alot, since they don't question my rulings, and instead are questioning what makes my ruling accurate.
I was figuring it would cut down the Building point cost by 50% due to the magic of the lyre, and the lack of need for laborers will cut down the time based purely on how long hey play it each week.
Yes, there's a bard in group, I should mention that, and he has stringed instruments as his perform (He designed the character after Sir Robin's Minstrels)
Allow the construction of an extra building in the city the lyre-PC is at during each monthly build phase. I'd still use the same BP costs, since you have to actually gather/transport/etc the pile of materials to the location itself. You just circumvent the actual construction crew. Used that way it would definitely be an asset, but wouldn't break your game.
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Given that you are a by-the-book GM, you will undoubtedly then want to know that the effect of a lyre of building is actually specifically mentioned in the kingdom building rules, on page 58 of Pathfinder #32: Rivers Run Red:
At the GM's whim, using construction magic (such as a lyre of building or spells like fabricate or wall of stone) can reduce the cost of a building's BP by 2 (minimum of 0 BP). This is a one-time reduction, regardless of the amount of magic used.
As for a time reduction, since all building happens in the abstract, during the Improvements Phase, you're really just looking at possibly increasing the maximum number of Improvements per Month; I'd probably raise the maximum number of new buildings per month by 2 or so to account for the effect of the lyre and then call it good.
meh, that's what the plebs are for.
Right, but you have to pay construction crews, hence the discount on BP, since labor costs are no longer a part of the equation. I'm not worried about it breaking the game, actually it'll paint a sizable target on the party's back as far as it goes because the three other kingdoms that are being built are also going to want that item, so if I pull the Assassination Attempt event, then I already know who they're going for. I mean, Christ, what king wouldn't want this thing? 6 days worth of labor and construction completed an hour? Yeah, if I were a BBEG, I'd kill for that.Allow the construction of an extra building in the city the lyre-PC is at during each monthly build phase. I'd still use the same BP costs, since you have to actually gather/transport/etc the pile of materials to the location itself. You just circumvent the actual construction crew. Used that way it would definitely be an asset, but wouldn't break your game.
Arguably, the cost of the actual labor is..well..cheap. If you compare to standard wages even a full crew of 50 people working for 6 days comes down to a handful of gold pieces.
I'm fine with the abstracting mentioned in the quoted adventure text above, and would simply run with that.
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A Lyre of Building is worth 2 BPs a month. This has a minor salutary effect in the first year of Kingdom management. After that, it's negligible as the income of the kingdom should skyrocket from selling medium magic items to the point where 2 BPs is chump change.
Let your party commission one if they do desire. It's no biggie, really.
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I mean, Christ, what king wouldn't want this thing? 6 days worth of labor and construction completed an hour? Yeah, if I were a BBEG, I'd kill for that.
One can safely assume other kingdoms would all have access to that 13K item... a +3 sword is more expensive.... LOL
See my other post here about my thoughts on what one can do with a lyre untrained vs. trained...
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A Lyre of Building is worth 2 BPs a month. This has a minor salutary effect in the first year of Kingdom management. After that, it's negligible as the income of the kingdom should skyrocket from selling medium magic items to the point where 2 BPs is chump change.
Let your party commission one if they do desire. It's no biggie, really.
Actually, the RAW says 2BP per *building*... if you assign a bard/engineer in each town with that thing, I'd say some players could make a case for all buildings created each turn to have 2BP less... so the benefit scales up with the kingdom size actually, not the other way around (you can build more new buildings per month as your kingdom size increases)
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A Lyre of Building is worth 2 BPs a month. This has a minor salutary effect in the first year of Kingdom management. After that, it's negligible as the income of the kingdom should skyrocket from selling medium magic items to the point where 2 BPs is chump change.
Let your party commission one if they do desire. It's no biggie, really.
Actually, the RAW says 2BP per *building*... if you assign a bard/engineer in each town with that thing, I'd say some players could make a case for all buildings created each turn to have 2BP less... so the benefit scales up with the kingdom size actually, not the other way around (you can build more new buildings per month as your kingdom size increases)
--> please note that at kingdom size 101, you can put 20 buildings per month, so that's a 40BP savings per month if you establish a lyre of building in each town... kingdom size 201+, no limits on buildings per month... let's say 35 buildings.... 70BP less... :)
--> a quick and dirty rule if you don't wanna deal with henchmen/cohort/followers and actually micromanage this whole "one lyre for each planning department" debacle: just say the town has one less magic item slot...