Hi all,
I had an idea that fascinated me and was the possibility to create small hideouts or caches around a city with use of a few cheap alchemical instruments and the idea works like this:
1) Find a dead-end alley (ideally in a little-trafficked area).
2) Build an initial wall with Paper Wall Paste to close the alley, which should take about 8 rounds (48 seconds), assuming the wall is 10 feet high and 10 feet wide and that we want to prepare it with care (using two full-round actions for each 5 foot by 5 foot section).
Ideally, in this phase, we'd leave a rectangular hole in the wall and use a wooden plank covered with Paper Wall Paste as a sort of "door/secret passage".
This would produce a wall that requires a Perception check vs. DC 15 to recognize as fake.
3) Use Boniface Paint to paint both the wall and the passage, which should increase by +5 the DC of the Perception check.
Frankly I have no idea how much could take to smear the wall with Boniface Paint...any idea or suggestion? Some advice from some other rule for alchemical item?
4) Once set up this "cover" with the point 1 to 3, the character should be able to work relatively undisturbed, since, from outside, the wall seems "legitimate".
So he proceeds to cover the inside of the wall with Casting Plaster.
This should take 20 clay pots of Casting Plaster (100 square feet) and would produce a wall with Hardness 1, 5 HP per inch and 1 inch thickness.
But I couldn't find anywhere how much time would take to spread the casting plaster...anyone has any idea or source available?
5) Then we use the base of Casting Plaster to spread Alchemical Cement over it. This would lead us finally to have a real stone wall where originally there was a paper-thin fake wall!
However the problem is...Alchemical Cement seems to be a completely fluff and badly-written alchemical item...since...
a) There is nowhere to be found how much area would cover the base quantity of alchemical cement.
b) There is nowhere to be found how much time would take to set up an alchemical cement wall.
Has anyone any suggestion about these two last points?
And...what do you think about this idea?
While would probably take both time and money seems a nice idea to
setup a fast and simple hideout for a character while probably spending much less money than buying an house!! :D
Skarm
http://www.archivesofnethys.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Boniface %20paint
One bucket, for this purpose. If you mean TIME wise, I'd say it would probably take an hour to adequately render a simple brick/stone wall.
Thanks Zarius!! :)
Skarm
A 10' wide alley is a bit big to be called one in pre-motor vehicle cases. Try 5' wide.
Applying a water-based plaster or cement to the paper wall seems likely to damage that paper wall, especially with paint applied to it. Or so say my long-ago memories from primary school of trying to attach a painted picture to paper mache.
To make a 10' by 10' wall as described needs:
Paper Wall Paste: 4 units (40 gp, 8#, 8 rounds for max effect)
Casting Plaster: 20 units (10 gp, 100#, 100 rounds to apply, 1 hour to cure)
Alchemical Cement: 9 units (45 gp, 18# + 1728# gravel + 144# wood frame, 1d6 hour to cure + 5 minutes to frame)
Boniface Paint: 1 unit (15 gp, 5#, 8 rounds painting)
Total: 110 gp, 1855#, up to 7 hours and change to deploy.
Add a Medium Wagon for 75 gp, and a Horse to pull it for 200 gp. The wagon can carry 2000#, so you can haul your supplies to the location.
Pull up after dark, and in the morning you are set. Of course, you got no roof. Hope it does not rain.
/cevah
: You need to dip into the bucket to get more quite often. I estimate 1 round lets you cover 1 square foot.
: Water weighs about 64#/cubic foot. Rock averages three times the density of water. You need 8.333 cubic feet to make 1" thick. Round to 9 cubic feet for calculations.
: You need to frame it in wood to keep a shape. I figure you need 1/4" thick plywood at 10' by 10' is needed. Wood floats, barely, so it is near the same weight as water.
: You can apply paint fast, but since you need to be careful, I used the same timing as for the paper wall paste.
This jar of thick, gritty paste is made from coarsely ground plant matter, weak epoxy, and bat guano. When exposed to air, the moldable substance quickly creates a thin, paper-like surface, which is ideal for creating false earthen walls. Creating a 5-foot-by-5-foot section of paper wall requires a full-round action. Though this false wall is easy to punch through, it requires a successful DC 13 Perception check to identify the wall as a fake. If the creator of the paper wall spends an additional full-round action disguising the wall with dirt and pebbles, the DC increases by 2.
This white, dry powder mixes with water to form a paste, which hardens over the course of an hour to create a solid material. It can be used to make casts of footprints or carvings, fill in gaps or cracks in walls, or (if applied over a cloth wrapping) create a cast for a broken bone. Hardened plaster has hardness 1 and 5 hit points per inch of thickness. A 5-pound clay pot of plaster can cover about 5 square feet of flat space to a depth of 1 inch, five Medium forearm or lower-leg casts, two Medium full-arm or full-leg casts, or twice as many casts for a Small creature.
You mix this fine gray powder with water and a cubic foot of sand or gravel to form a durable stone-like material. Until it cures, it has the consistency of thick mud, and you must hold it in place (typically with a frame of earth or wood) if you want it to harden in a specific shape. It takes 1d10+10 minutes for the cement to partially cure, gaining hardness 2 and 5 hit points per inch of thickness. After 1d6 hours the cement is fully cured and as hard as true stone.
This thick whitewash is laced with exotic oils, and it dries to a lovely finish run through with subtle swirls. Difficult to notice, these patterns help obscure seams and details in whatever the paint coats; the Perception DC to find a secret door or hidden compartment on a surface covered in boniface paint increases by 5. One bucket of boniface paint covers up to a 10-foot-by-10-foot area, and its concealing effects last for 1 year. Crafting a bucket of boniface paint requires a successful DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check.
The OP has two parts. 1) How to do this. 2) What do you think of the idea.
Part 1 is rules. Part 2 is advice. Reasonable in either forum, I think.
As to getting away with it, pick a dead end alley surrounded by abandoned buildings. What neighbors? Do it in the middle of the night, under a silence spell. No one to see you doing anything. Place some trash in front of it, and the locals won't go down to the end.
The trick to successful camouflage is to make people assume they know what they are seeing, so they don't check. If it also has no draw, then people don't even bother to think about checking.
/cevah
Or pay off those who might notice and successfully get a complaint laid. Street kids might notice, but they aren't likely to get the city government to care. The owners of the buildings could lay a complaint in most cases but you probably only need to pay off the people who take out their rubbish.