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Post by reefwood on May 23, 2011 15:22:16 GMT -5
I'm not sure how involved people want to get with this, but I want to create a separate thread to handle technical questions and ideas. This opening post will probably contain the most up-to-date base stats.
I will post some ideas and info soon.
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Post by reefwood on May 23, 2011 15:54:37 GMT -5
I've skimmed through the Stronghold Builder's Guide, and it looks like a 20 ft long x 20 ft wide x 10 ft high wooden structure with one strong wooden door with an amazing lock would cost 1,190 gp and take 6 hrs to build.
I need to double check these numbers, but this also seems to assume that a professional crew is doing this and has all the necessary supplies. Although, there is no mention of skill DCs or the level of people doing the work.
It looks like the current idea is to chop down trees, so most of the materials will be free, but it will take significantly longer. I don't have time to post all the numbers right now, but using the Craft skill, it looks like 60 1st-level followers could do this in about 5 days.
Also, there are additional features that can be added for more cost and time. And below are a couple other things I came across. Let me know what you think.
Followers
Followers are loyal but not slaves, so it occurred to me that some sort of compensation is appropriate. A trained hireling has a minimum wage of 3 sp per day. It has always made sense to me that someone of higher level should be paid more, so 3 sp per level per day seems appropriate.
If Brion uses all 60 1st-level followers to build the base, this would cost:
3 sp x 60 followers = 180 sp = 18 gp per day
If this task takes 1 week (7 days), it will cost 126 gp.
A way to adjust this amount for follower could be to receive a 10% discount for every point of Charisma bonus. This would lower the 126 gp by 40% for Brion's +4 Cha bonus for an adjusted price of 75.6 gp.
Additionally, followers spend 8 hours per day doing work for the army, so it seems like it might be a bit much for them to spend their remaining 8 hours doing hard manual labor. That was my original idea, but now something like half their free time seems more reasonable for hard manual labor. This would be 4 hours per day, and there is still 4 hours available before bedtime in the current side quest. And of course, their daily wage would also be reduced by half, but the task will also take twice as long, so in the end, the total wage cost would be the same.
EDIT: You can ignore the above paragraph. Upon further thought, these followers are your people, so we can just say they have been assigned to you by the army. Especially since you can outfit them and assign them to missions as you please. Therefore, they can spend a full 8 hrs per day working on the base as their first/current assignment, but as NPCs, they will be limited to working only 8 hrs per day.
Alternatively, you could hire hirelings from Verdas. They could work 8 hrs and would receive standard wages (3 sp per level per day). Or you could do a mix of both.
Cohorts really like you and usually receive equipment on missions and rewards, so they would require no additional compensation.
Wall of Stone
One thing I saw pointed out on the Paizo boards is that a wall of stone that is only a few inches thick may be good as a barrier but may not be able to hold up a ceiling, let alone additional floors, so a few castings may be necessary per wall to thicken them.
The masonry walls in the Stronghold Builder's Guide are 1 ft thick, and the hewn stone walls are 3 ft thick.
Also, you could have a wooden structure that is outlined in stone once you can bring in stone to shape.
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Post by reefwood on May 24, 2011 1:05:16 GMT -5
Stronghold Builder's Guide
This book measures area and rooms in "stronghold spaces" which are usually 20 ft wide x 20 ft long x 10 ft high. Some examples of what can fit in one stronghold space are an opulent bedroom, or two normal bedrooms, or quarters for six servants, or barracks for ten soldiers.
The system is fairly flexible, so a stronghold space can be a bit bigger or smaller without adjusting the price, and you don't need to have every detail measured or listed to determine price.
Walls are priced per stronghold space (ss) based on material. A structure can have exterior walls made of one material (masonry) and interior walls made of another (wood), and the percentage of each depends on the total size (1-5 ss = 20% interior/80% exterior; 21-45 ss = 50%/50%, 125 ss = 70% int/30& ext, etc).
Rooms are measured in stronghold spaces and have their own prices which include furnishings and whatnot. A barrack for 10 soldiers is 1 ss and costs 400 gp. Some rooms also require a staff to be functional. A luxury kitchen is 2 ss and costs 50,000 gp and needs 6 cooks.
Doors, windows, and locks have their own prices too.
One stronghold space with wooden walls costs 1,000 gp. These walls are 6 inch thick, have hardness 5, 60 hp, and break DC 20. There is a note that states "No cost for ground floor," but I'm not sure what that means because I can't imagine wooden walls would be free as long as the stronghold only has one floor. Or why a two-story wooden building would cost the same as a one-story wooden building.
Just as an example... masonry walls cost 2,500 gp per stronghold space, so a structure that is only 1 stronghold space with exterior masonry walls and interior wooden walls would cost: (1,000 gp x20%) + (2,500 gp x80%) = 200 + 2,000 = 2,200 gp. This means that a room in the corner of the structure could have masonry for its two exterior walls and wood for its two interior walls.
Anyway, the price for a completely wooden structure that is 20 ft long x 20 ft wide x 10 ft seems to be 1,000 gp. This can include interior wooden walls to create rooms inside, but these would be plain, empty rooms unless room types (i.e. bedroom, barracks, etc) were also purchased. Additionally, a strong wooden door costs 40 gp, and an amazing lock costs 150 gp. This is how I got the total of 1,190 gp.
Craft
If a 1st-level follower has Craft as a class skill, it could have the following modifier if it places 1 rank in Craft (carpentry), takes the feat Skill Focus: Craft (carpentry), and has an Int mod +1, but it does not have enough wealth allotted to gear to purchase a masterwork tool (50 gp).
Craft (carpentry): 1 rank +3 train +1 Int +3 feat = +8
If the follower Takes 10, that gives a result of 18.
Craft 18 x DC 15 = 270 sp per week --> 27 gp per week
27 gp x60 followers = 1,620 gp per week
At this rate, 1,190 gp of work would take 5.14 days to complete. A 1st-level worker would earn 3 sp per day, so 60 workers would earn 180 sp per day, so the job would be cost about 925 sp --> 92.5 gp in wages. Or 55.5 gp in wages with the 40% follower discount for Brion's +4 Cha bonus.
The book lists a standard rate of 10,000 gp per week, but it doesn't say anything about the skill or amount of workers involved, or if the raw materials are already prepared. Also, it seems like a scale that rounds up because the one example of a 72,000 gp keep takes 8 weeks, so the minimum seems to be 1 week. Whereas, I am trying to use Craft to determine the length of time if most of the raw materials are free but need to be obtained and prepared, and with skill being a factor too.
Trying the above example with higher skilled 4th-level workers gives...
Craft (carpentry): 4 ranks +3 train +3 Int +3 feat +2 tool = +15
This worker can Take 10 and increase the DC by 10 to work faster:
Craft 25 x DC 25 = 625 sp per week --> 62.5 gp per week
62.5 gp x60 workers = 3,750 gp per week
At this rate, 1,190 gp of work would take 2.22 days to complete. A 4th-level worker would earn 3 sp x4 = 12 sp per day, so 60 workers would earn 720 sp per day, so the job would be cost about 1,600 sp --> 160 gp in wages.
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Post by michael on May 24, 2011 16:57:36 GMT -5
Does it say how many people are in this professional crew? If I did gather all the building materials myself, how much would the cost be reduced?
Craft is great for one guy working on a single item, but it seems to completely break down when you try to calculate this sort of thing.
As an example, let's assume I put together the greatest crack team of carpenters the world has ever seen. Every one of them is level 20, with maxed ranks in Craft (Carpentry), +3 class skill bonus, +4 from their relevant stat bonus, +6 for skill focus, and +2 for artisan's tools. That brings them to +35. Now, just for the hell of it, let's say they're so good they can take 20s on their check. So every one of these master craftsmen gets a +55, every time.
They increase DC by 10 to work fast, and...
Craft 55 x DC 25 = 1375 sp per week.
To complete it in a week, it takes 9 of these Better-Than-Jesus Carpenters. To do it in the 5 hours it takes a professional crew, it would take 97 of them.
Compare that to real life, I built a small shack when I was in boy scouts over the course of a weekend. There were 6 of us working on it, and it was about 10x5. It wasn't a very good shack, but it had 4 walls, a roof, and it didn't fall down. It took 6 twelve year olds less than 2 days, and all of us would be considered "untrained". (We did all the manual labor, but we did have someone telling us exactly what to do throughout this. It wasn't an expert or anything, though, just another scout's dad.)
I'm not sure what the solution should be, but clearly Craft just isn't cut out for calculating this.
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Post by reefwood on May 24, 2011 19:44:27 GMT -5
Does it say how many people are in this professional crew? If I did gather all the building materials myself, how much would the cost be reduced? No, it doesn't go into these details. I think this is more about adventurers being able to afford a stronghold, so this tells you how much it costs and how much can be done in a week. It gets into flexible details about size and design, but it doesn't break down the time or go into any details about the number or skill of the workers. It seems to be a way for PCs to pay someone to do this work but doesn't seem set up to break down the effort for PCs to do themselves. The cost reduction will depend on what is being made, but just making a wooden building out of trees you chop down yourself, I'd say that would reduce the price by 90%. You'd just have to pay 10% for nails and whatever other metal or other parts you need to obtain. This is something that would be easy enough to find in Verdas, so you don't have to wait for rewards to get it from the army. But you could wait if you want since you could potentially have another reward package in a few days... or it could be several days... just depends on how the missions go. There are also price modifiers based on terrain, climate, proximity to major cities, and other misc possibilities. Stone is cheaper in the mountains, land near a city is more expensive, etc, but I don't think this will make much difference in this scenario. Especially since you are producing most of the materials and don't have to pay for the land. I tried running the numbers for a plains terrain close to a major city, and it came to between +1% to -2% in price, or maybe it was +2% to -1%, so pretty minimal anyway. Craft is great for one guy working on a single item, but it seems to completely break down when you try to calculate this sort of thing. As an example, let's assume I put together the greatest crack team of carpenters the world has ever seen. Every one of them is level 20, with maxed ranks in Craft (Carpentry), +3 class skill bonus, +4 from their relevant stat bonus, +6 for skill focus, and +2 for artisan's tools. That brings them to +35. Now, just for the hell of it, let's say they're so good they can take 20s on their check. So every one of these master craftsmen gets a +55, every time. They increase DC by 10 to work fast, and... Craft 55 x DC 25 = 1375 sp per week. To complete it in a week, it takes 9 of these Better-Than-Jesus Carpenters. To do it in the 5 hours it takes a professional crew, it would take 97 of them.Compare that to real life, I built a small shack when I was in boy scouts over the course of a weekend. There were 6 of us working on it, and it was about 10x5. It wasn't a very good shack, but it had 4 walls, a roof, and it didn't fall down. It took 6 twelve year olds less than 2 days, and all of us would be considered "untrained". (We did all the manual labor, but we did have someone telling us exactly what to do throughout this. It wasn't an expert or anything, though, just another scout's dad.) I'm not sure what the solution should be, but clearly Craft just isn't cut out for calculating this. I hadn't run the numbers yet, but I also wondered how this would size up for creating an uber expensive stronghold. Also, the 6 hr figure was just me breaking down the only given time table: 1 week per 10,000 gp. But yeah, 6 hrs seems way too fast for something good. I suppose we can just stick with the 10,000 gp per week time table since that is how this system works. Whether it is 1,000 gp or 10,000 gp, it takes 1 week. If it is 10,500 gp, it takes 2 weeks. But I can still try brainstorming ideas if you care about the length of time or how many followers need to be on the job. |
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Post by michael on Jun 2, 2011 18:40:15 GMT -5
What time will Skeletor and Ghoul's huge phantom steeds expire?
I'm playing with the idea of sending those two of to grab the biggest boulder they can carry and bringing it back. The boulder can then be polymorphed into our base at the earliest opportunity.
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Post by Rabbit on Jun 2, 2011 18:44:33 GMT -5
What time will Skeletor and Ghoul's huge phantom steeds expire? I'm playing with the idea of sending those two of to grab the biggest boulder they can carry and bringing it back. The boulder can then be polymorphed into our base at the earliest opportunity. Why not a mountain?  |
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Post by reefwood on Jun 3, 2011 0:51:38 GMT -5
What time will Skeletor and Ghoul's huge phantom steeds expire? I'm playing with the idea of sending those two of to grab the biggest boulder they can carry and bringing it back. The boulder can then be polymorphed into our base at the earliest opportunity. Dang... I need to remember that phantom steed spells take 10 minutes to cast cos that means the four from the side quest would have taken 40 minutes. They were all finished at 8:45pm, so let's say one ends at 10:45pm and the other ends at 10:35pm. Each one can hold the weight of the rider, plus 140 lbs in equipment, so figure out how much load is on Skeletor and Ghoul, and the remaining weight up to 140 lb can be used to carry boulders. |
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Post by michael on Jun 3, 2011 16:19:14 GMT -5
Ah, I was under the impression that Phantom Steeds could carry their rider's maximum loads. I guess it makes sense that it's based on caster level.
Ghoul and Skeletor are both still running Wind Walk until about 9ish, though, and that *is* based on carrying capacity, so I'll have them fly out to Boulder Fields to find one boulder each to carry back.
I don't know what their strength scores are, so I don't know how big a boulder they can carry.
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Post by reefwood on Jun 3, 2011 17:34:05 GMT -5
Ah, I was under the impression that Phantom Steeds could carry their rider's maximum loads. I guess it makes sense that it's based on caster level. Ghoul and Skeletor are both still running Wind Walk until about 9ish, though, and that *is* based on carrying capacity, so I'll have them fly out to Boulder Fields to find one boulder each to carry back. I don't know what their strength scores are, so I don't know how big a boulder they can carry. I'm not on my computer that has their stats, but I looked at them earlier, and I believe... Skeletor has Str 30 with a Max Load of 3,200 lb, so with his current gear, he can carry another 2,900 lb or so. Ghoul has Str 22 with a Max Load of 1,040 lb, so with his current gear, he can carry another 1,000 lb or so. Although, if you are going to polymorph the boulder, its starting size does not really matter, as long as it isn't bigger than the spell can handle. You can polymorph it into something smaller or bigger. The size would matter if you wanted the new object to be the same size as the target object; that would affect duration, but if the plan is to turn stone into a stone wall or stone building, the different size will still give a permanent duration: +5 Kingdom (mineral), +2 Class (stone to stone), +2 Int (same) = +9. Whereas, if you wanted to turn stone into a wall or building of a different material, like steel, you would get: +5 Kingdom (mineral), +2 Int (same) = +7. The only way to make this polymorph permanent would be to gain the +2 Size (same), so the starting boulder would have to be the same size as the steel building. |
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Post by michael on Jun 3, 2011 20:06:10 GMT -5
I plan on polymorphing it into a building of stone. Since the HP of the stone building is based on the original item, the bigger the boulder, the stronger the base. A google search turned up this.
Using the granite weight rather than sandstone, Skeletor can lift a boulder that's about 18 cubic feet, or 31x31x31, in inches. Ghoul can lift 5.7 cubic feet, or 21x21x21. I'll send Garm with them as well. His strength is the same as Ghoul's.
Does Nimarius know Polymorph any Object yet? What would his bonus be for a Craft (Stonemasonry) check? If Nim can do it, we might be able to get this base built tomorrow.
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Post by reefwood on Jun 3, 2011 21:09:51 GMT -5
I plan on polymorphing it into a building of stone. Since the HP of the stone building is based on the original item, the bigger the boulder, the stronger the base. A google search turned up this. Using the granite weight rather than sandstone, Skeletor can lift a boulder that's about 18 cubic feet, or 31x31x31, in inches. Ghoul can lift 5.7 cubic feet, or 21x21x21. I'll send Garm with them as well. His strength is the same as Ghoul's. Hmmm... yeah, that is an interesting point about the HP of an object. Guh... why is this spell so ambiguous?? I like the idea of using object hp as the HP of the creature it is polymorphed into. The idea of it working the same for object into object also seemed to make sense But some reason this post reminds about how the HP of an nonmagic object is solely based on material and thickness, and large objects like walls generally have that amount of HP per 5-ft square, and I'm not sure how that would be divided if an object changed size or thickness. If you have a 5 ft x 5 ft x 2 ft stone wall that has 100 hp (no idea if this amount is actually correct), how are those 100 hp when it is polymorphed into a 20 ft x 20 ft x 5 ft wall? How many HP would each 5-ft square section have? Would it be the same if it where 20 ft x 20 ft x 1 ft? Maybe object-to-object HP and hardness should be based on the final object size. Object-to-creature HP could still be based on the target object and lose hardness Creature-to-object HP could be based on the target creature and gain hardness. As for the weight of stone, I remember you posted something earlier about stone varying between 100 lb to 200 lb per cubic foot, so I decided to just say that all stone is stone, and stone weighs 150 lb cubic foot. Which matches those numbers. As for Garm, is his Str also 22? Cos the Ghoul is Large, so he has a much higher load limit than a Medium creature. Does Nimarius know Polymorph any Object yet? What would his bonus be for a Craft (Stonemasonry) check? If Nim can do it, we might be able to get this base built tomorrow. Nope, not yet on the spell. He'll have to answer the skill question, but I would take a guess that he has an Int mod +6 or +7, and that is probably it, but he could put ranks into when he gains a level and learns the spell. |
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Post by michael on Jun 4, 2011 16:25:49 GMT -5
I like this system. If you have to choose, I think making each type of transformation make sense is more important that consistency.
So that means there's no real difference between a pebble turned into a castle and a boulder turned into a castle, correct? I may not bother sending people out to gather them, then.
Oh, yeah. His STR is 22, but I forgot that Large creatures are double. So Garm's heavy load is 520 lbs.
Ok. There is a level 1 Alchemist spell that grants a +5 luck bonus to a craft check, so if we do eventually have Nim cast the spell, we can have a follower give him that.
Alternately, I might be able to hire someone for spellcasting services to take care of this. A level 8 spell like Polymorph any Object would cost 1200 gold. Could I look for a wizard that has high ranks in either craft (stonemasonry), craft (carpentry), or some other relevant craft skill that I can hire to cast Polymorph any Object?
Given how convenient it is compared to normal construction, both in terms of time and material, it would make a lot of sense that there are people making their living this way.
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Post by reefwood on Jun 5, 2011 12:27:22 GMT -5
I like this system. If you have to choose, I think making each type of transformation make sense is more important that consistency. So that means there's no real difference between a pebble turned into a castle and a boulder turned into a castle, correct? I may not bother sending people out to gather them, then. I'll give this more though, but it seem like it will mostly work. The only oddity I see now is if a creature polymorphs into something like a wall. If a creature has 50 hp, and it polymorphs into a 5 ft high x 20 ft wide x 1 ft thick wall, how many HP does each 5-ft square have? I have a couple ideas, but maybe this is something that will never come up. Ok. There is a level 1 Alchemist spell that grants a +5 luck bonus to a craft check, so if we do eventually have Nim cast the spell, we can have a follower give him that. Just remember that Alchemists don't actually cast spells. They can brew extracts that only they can use, unless they have that "infusion" (?) ability to allow others to use them too. Alternately, I might be able to hire someone for spellcasting services to take care of this. A level 8 spell like Polymorph any Object would cost 1200 gold. Could I look for a wizard that has high ranks in either craft (stonemasonry), craft (carpentry), or some other relevant craft skill that I can hire to cast Polymorph any Object? Given how convenient it is compared to normal construction, both in terms of time and material, it would make a lot of sense that there are people making their living this way. Finding a caster with the Craft skill already has something set up tied into rewards. It came up when Nim was learning to fabricate, and this info is in the Code of Conduct thread. So yeah, you can do it through rewards. Although, there probably aren't any casters of this level outside the army. At least none other than those fighting against you. |
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Post by michael on Jun 5, 2011 17:19:30 GMT -5
Yeah, all of mine (that are high enough level) are going to take the Infusion discovery so they can give their extracts to other people.
I have enough money from my daily wages to pay for this without a rewards package. Would I be able to pay someone in the military to do this, or not?
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