So, someone in the rules forum mentioned the lyre of building in regards to building things with the downtime rules. SKR referenced a Lyre thread, and saying it sounded fair the amount of labor it produced. Not sure what thread specifically he meant, or what calculations, but I found one on the products page.
Swashbucklersdc wrote:
I found a reference you can use in the mean time; according to the follower section on page 80, 2 followers working one day equal one point of Labor. Using that number, you can approximate that one Labor equals 16 man-hours. It is also stated that you can spend extra Labor to complete buildings quicker on page 92. Using these two points in combination, a Lyre of Building generates (100 men x 3days x 8 hours=2400 man-hours/16 man-hours) 150 Labor per 30 minutes of being played.
So, I didn't look it up, but seems like good math to me. As others said, the lyre could be very overpowered and/or unbalancing. I was thinking something along the following modifications might be helpful.
First off, the lyre requires the player either make a Knowledge (Engineering) check at DC 15 after the first half hour, and every half hour afterwards. This is to represent the player having to know the plans for the building being constructed. He cannot take 10 on this roll. Failing by less than 5 means that the player realizes their mistake, and stops playing (and construction) in time to keep any damage from being done. Failing by more than 5 means the player is unaware of flaws for that half hour. At the start of the next half hour, before checking for continuing playing, they can try a DC 10 check to notice something's not right, and stop playing. Otherwise, they continue on as normal. If they make multiple mistakes, the check to notice the problem get's a cumulative +1 bonus for every failed check. This represents the structure going more and more out of line with the plans. Not sure on the exact penalties, but errors in the building would require goods/labor/GP/etc... to fix.
The Perform check would be made every half hour, instead of every hour. It would also increase by 5 for every check after the first. This represents the strain of continuing to play for a long period, non stop, and "willing" the magic to build. Again, no take 10.
Finally, while the lyre provides a great deal of labor building, it doesn't help with funneling the massive amounts of materials to the construction site. Doing 2400 man hours of work in 30 minutes would require a massive flow of materials that normally wouldn't be needed. So, you still have to supply 1/2 the normal labor cost, up to the settlement limit, to represent workers bringing load after load of stuff to the site where the magic can use it to do it's thing. This let's the lyre reduce labor costs by 1/2, still useful, and probably the most useful part on large projects, speeds things up immensely.
Also, the lyre states that if they fail the check, the player stops and cannot play the lyre again for one week. I'd clarify/add onto that statement. Once the player stops, for whatever reason, they cannot play that lyre again for one week for any building. Also, no building can be affected by a lyre more than once per week, as far as the construction effect is concerned.
I think this would make the lyre far less over powered, and still be pretty darn useful. Any thoughts?
Looking over the settlement limits, which I just glossed over the first time through, I see that the 150 Labor per 30 minute block and my idea of reducing labor costs by 1/2 would mean not even a metropolis could let a Lyre play for a full 30 minutes.
Maybe a rule where you could prepare for the massive influx of materials needed by stockpiling stuff on the site for days beforehand for up to five days. For example, working in a metropolis, you spend five days preparing for the lyre's arrival. You stockpile goods there, spending 65 labor per day, giving you the equivalent of 325 Labor stockpiled. Combined with the 65 Labor you can spend on the day the Lyre is used, this means you could spend up to 390 Labor. Since you only have to spend 1/2 the Labor required for the building, you could use the Lyre to build a building requiring up to 780 in Labor. Assuming you could make the checks.
Nothing to contribute yet, but I will definitely be following this thread. In short, Dot.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Transportation costs should not be equal to 1/2 the labor costs of a building. Teamsters are quite a bit cheaper than stonemasons and carpenters (or they should be). And since the lyre can be used for excavation (as per the item description- "magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, ect.") if the materials are available on site in their natural state (stone in a quarry for example) then this should not cause any cost increases at all. I would also apply this to wood used in construction if the building site is in a forest, but that's just me.
And for underground construction there would be no material cost as long as the areas excavated didn't require materials from off site to be used for bracing. As long as the stone you're working can be engineered to hold itself up (dwarven bards looking really useful all of a sudden) then labor cost should be 0gp.
Honestly, this comes back to the oldest trick in the DM-ing arsenal. If you think an item is overpowered, don't let the players have it. Period. You can give reasons (can't find one to buy, can't find the needed information to make one, ect), impose penalties for having it (in this specific case I'm sure nobles tend to confiscate Lyres of Building from untitled riff-raff. Especially if they go building fortifications without permission. Tradesman's guilds likely go a bit nuts about them too.) or just say "No, you can't have one."
But in the end, how big an issue is this? Does it need a rule? I think not. The only time I have ever had players pulling their hair out trying to get one of these was while running Kingmaker. And if they had located one, I'd have let them have it. It's primary use is during downtime. Kingmaker is the only time I've had a situation where a Lyre could mess up the story line, but it was just the B story. The odds on it trashing your main plot line are normally pretty low. Just work with it.
It's a pretty big modification to the Downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign. Labor is a very specific resource that has a quantifiable value, much like GP. If you have a device that basically makes free Labor, at such a large value, you then have free GP. I don't think a modification to the item is unwarranted. Also, since it's a house rule, unless something very strange happens and Paizo decides they want to use this thread as official, you're free to rule as you wish in your game. It doesn't stop myself, and others, from thinking a bit of tweaking is needed.
As far as transportation costs go, no. Normally transportation isn't 1/2 the cost of the building. Nothing is specified about transporting goods to the building cite. It's just assumed all labor needed for the building is included in the labor cost. 10 labor points needed for the building? That's getting the stuff to the cite and assembling it. Baring special items coming long distances I can safely assume. But those normal labor costs are not figuring in the fact that work is occurring at 4800x the normal rate. Hence, there needing to be actual labor costs on top of the magical labor doing the real assembly of the building.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Agreed, it's a house rule, you can play it as you like.
My point is that the item predates the Ultimate Campaign book (or Paizo. Or WotC.) If the designers thought the item rules needed modification they likely would have included them it in the UCam book or the Core Rule update that hit my inbox this morning. Or assigned it a point value under the downtime building system. The lack of rule change leads me to think they didn't feel the need. And I'm sure they thought about it.
The idea that "The players can get something for nothing, can't have that!" just sits poorly with me. The item eliminates labor costs. So bumping the transport cost to compensate strikes me as being punitive for no good reason. Extra transport costs to stockpile materials? Fifty trips in a wagon will cost as much as fifty wagons making one trip. Or ten a day for five days. and it will still be a fraction of the actual material cost. And your players know this. Gigging them for planing ahead when you let them have the lyre seems like poor sport. And if they do take up the gauntlet then expect to see them realize the (underground building=no transport cost) mechanic I mentioned above.
Now if you want to talk about really unbalancing uses...
>Use the stone from underground construction as an offset for BP when building roads.
>Irrigation ditches dug with the Lyre make plains farmland hexes faster and cheaper. Terracing makes hill hexes into fields for lower BP
>Rerouting waterways can dry out swamp hexes fast, lowering BP cost to put anything there by lowering prep costs.
>Motte & bailey, rampart & ditch, moats, and other earthworks can be produced fast and free (since the spoil is used in adjacent rammed earthworks) and increase the defensive value of settlements.
>Breakwaters, quays, and defensive shoals can spring up overnight. Harbors can be dredged out equally rapidly. Reduce the BP cost for Waterfront. And eliminate the cost for waterways.
None of these projects have any transportation cost, or the cost is offset by the diminished labor costs to extract the material (example-the gravel from the excavation going to road construction). With 1 Labor=20gp and 1BP=4000gp THIS is where you'll see the unbalancing effect.
On page 212 of UCamp, under the construction heading, "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)." So, the (optional rule) to use it for kingdom building is already taken care of. For Downtime, maybe a simple rule, " A lyre of building can be used to provide half the labor costs used in construction. If so used, it reduces the time to construct a room/building by half as well." My reasoning being that the lyre can be used as unskilled labor, but some skilled labor must be used as well. But because it produces a disproportionate amount of unskilled labor, that can be used to speed up construction.
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