[3.5] Lyre of Building Calculations

[Irreverent Fool]

As part of a larger campaign, I've inserted an adventure called "The Styes" from Dungeon Magazine #121 (p40). Well, my players have found a particular piece of treasure, the Lyre of Building (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#lyreofBuilding). Further along in the adventure, they have come to the ruins of a sunken temple they wish to enter and, lacking an easy way to breathe water (though it's abundantly clear that the Styes has a strong alchemical trade and potions of water breathing would be easily available) or perhaps just deciding it would be more dramatic, have decided to raise the church using the lyre.

I have no problem with this but of course the adventure didn't assume they would do this.

What I am trying to estimate now is how long it would take to raise the building. Assume that there are plenty of materials, the bard can play the lyre indefinitely without risk of failing a check, and any necessary architectural know-how is provided by the lyre.

The church's base is sunk 60' below the surface of the sea and the building takes up a space of roughly 100' x 120'. The lyre can produce the same effects as the efforts of 100 men laboring for three days per each 30 minutes it is used.

My main problem is that I don't have any good baseline for determining how much work 100 men can do in three days.

How would you handle this?

obnoxious
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[pffh]

I also have a question about the lyre could you theoretically play it constantly for a week then stop and then instantly start building again with it? For a total of 100 men working for 1008 days per week.

[Irreverent Fool]

I also have a question about the lyre could you theoretically play it constantly for a week then stop and then instantly start building again with it? For a total of 100 men working for 1008 days per week.

Judging by the description, it seems that once a character has stopped playing it, a week must elapse before it can be used for that purpose again. But it doesn't say so specifically as the rule technically only refers to the outcome of a failed roll rather than simply stopping:


Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

While we're on it, when one says "100 men laboring for three days", does one mean 8-hour days, 16-hour days, 24-hour days or what? I mean if we're talking peasant labor I'd be willing to say 16-hour days.

obnoxious
sig

[bosssmiley]

As part of a larger campaign, I've inserted an adventure called "The Styes" from Dungeon Magazine #121 (p40). Well, my players have found a particular piece of treasure, the Lyre of Building (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#lyreofBuilding). Further along in the adventure, they have come to the ruins of a sunken temple they wish to enter and, lacking an easy way to breathe water (though it's abundantly clear that the Styes has a strong alchemical trade and potions of water breathing would be easily available) or perhaps just deciding it would be more dramatic, have decided to raise the church using the lyre.

I have no problem with this but of course the adventure didn't assume they would do this.

What I am trying to estimate now is how long it would take to raise the building. Assume that there are plenty of materials, the bard can play the lyre indefinitely without risk of failing a check, and any necessary architectural know-how is provided by the lyre.

The church's base is sunk 60' below the surface of the sea and the building takes up a space of roughly 100' x 120'. The lyre can produce the same effects as the efforts of 100 men laboring for three days per each 30 minutes it is used.

My main problem is that I don't have any good baseline for determining how much work 100 men can do in three days.

A gang of ditchers/navvies/military engineer using picks, shovels and barrows could supposedly shift 18-20 tons of soil per man per day when well-organized. At about 1m3 (27ft3) per long ton of soil that's 18-20m3/man/day, or a ballpark figure of 54,000ft3 per epic lyre solo.

Hoisting the church out of the lake on an extruded motte of packed earth 120L X 100W X 60H, with a 45degree angle of repose? My figures make that about 1,440,000 cubic feet, or (/ 54,000 =) 27.blah uses of the lyre. So hardly efficient even assuming the DM rules that, yes, the lyre works underwater.

Potions of water breathing all round then... :smallconfused:

[pffh]

Then what about if you simply don't stop, a warforged bard with 18 cha can at level 11 [sooner with a +skill item) play non-stop without any chance of a failed roll. He could in theory play for decades. That's 100 men working for 52560 days per year or 100 men working for 144 YEARS per year and if we assume a 16 hour workday then it's 100 men working non-stop for 96 years PER year.

This is just silly for the such a low price as 13000

This gets even worse if you can find a way to take 10 on the check then with 18 cha you can do it at level 1 you just need someone to pay for the lyre. Say a group of adventurers with warforged bard cohorts building cities wherever they go and laying the road they walk on as they walk on it.

Lets assume 16 hour work day, 4 bard cohorts. 30 minutes = 100 men working constantly for 48 hours that time 4 is 100 men working constantly for 192 hours in 30 minutes. that is 1 minute = 100 men working for 6.4 hours or 1 second = 100 men working for 6 minutes and 24 seconds or 1 second = 1 man working for 6 hours and 40 minutes.

I love it!:smallbiggrin:

[Irreverent Fool]

A gang of ditchers/navvies/military engineer using picks, shovels and barrows could supposedly shift 18-20 tons of soil per man per day when well-organized. At about 1m3 (27ft3) per long ton of soil that's 18-20m3/man/day, or a ballpark figure of 54,000ft3 per epic lyre solo.

Hoisting the church out of the lake on an extruded motte of packed earth 120L X 100W X 60H, with a 45degree angle of repose? My figures make that about 1,440,000 cubic feet, or (/ 54,000 =) 27.blah uses of the lyre. So hardly efficient even assuming the DM rules that, yes, the lyre works underwater.

Potions of water breathing all round then... :smallconfused:

Well, the bard is standing on the island next to which the church sunk and I don't have a problem with it being used to move the nearby underwater structure (I'm the DM :smalltongue:). Also, the lyre can be played for an hour before a perform check must be made (which the bard can't fail) so he could conceivably play it for days.

Your math is still very helpful. 27 'uses' means less than a day of playing for the bard which lets him do something fairly epic without setting unnecessary precedent.

obnoxious
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[pffh]

Well, the bard is standing on the island next to which the church sunk and I don't have a problem with it being used to move the nearby underwater structure (I'm the DM :smalltongue:). Also, the lyre can be played for an hour before a perform check must be made (which the bard can't fail) so he could conceivably play it for days.

Your math is still very helpful. 27 'uses' means less than a day of playing for the bard which lets him do something fairly epic without setting unnecessary precedent.

obnoxious
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27 "uses" are still 13 hours and 30 minutes he needs to play constantly. That's going to be tiring if he isn't a construct or an undead.

[Irreverent Fool]

27 "uses" are still 13 hours and 30 minutes he needs to play constantly. That's going to be tiring if he isn't a construct or an undead.

I don't think it's really a stretch for an 11th-level character to do that, especially a bard who's pretty much playing his instrument or singing constantly as the party travels anyway.

obnoxious
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[Human Paragon 3]

I would suggest throwing in some endurance checks, or making later lyre checks at a penalty though. It will feel much more epic if there's a chance of failure.

[Irreverent Fool]

I would suggest throwing in some endurance checks, or making later lyre checks at a penalty though. It will feel much more epic if there's a chance of failure.

While this is true, we usually handle stuff like this through roleplay rather than mechanics. He's spent the time to invest heavily into his perform skills, I don't see why I should arbitrarily punish a character for being good at something.

I don't assign random chances of failure to wizard spells.

In-character, I'll describe his fatigue and exhaustion and I know my players well enough (we've been friends for years) that I know he'll pick up on it and go along with it.

But this is becoming another topic. :D

obnoxious
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[Lysander]

Does the lyre provide the building materials needed? Or do you need to have the tools and supplies on hand for the spell to manipulate?

[Quietus]

Sounds like a fantastic group... and yeah, I think "sunup to sundown" ought to be a good rule of thumb for something like raising a sunken church to the surface, since it doesn't seem to be THAT far down. I'd totally see my buddies getting bored after two or three hours when there's no visible change, and then... "Wait, is that a stick? No, it's part of the church's spire... holy ****!"

And the bard? Just smiles. :smalltongue:

[Kosjsjach]

Does the lyre provide the building materials needed? Or do you need to have the tools and supplies on hand for the spell to manipulate?

From the wording, it would seem as the Lyre only provides the equivalent labor, not the materials. See here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#lyreofBuilding) for reference.

Man, I need to factor this item into my (imaginary) campaign.

[Ravens_cry]

From the wording, it would seem as the Lyre only provides the equivalent labor, not the materials. See here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#lyreofBuilding) for reference.

Man, I need to factor this item into my (imaginary) campaign.
It doesn't seem to say one way or the other, but it does explicitly say it constructs buildings.
The real RAW buggery is that it constructs 'whatever'. :smallamused:
***
Oh gods, what have I become?:smalleek:

[Thrawn183]

Yeah, I'd just rule that it takes him one whole day. If you want to cause him problems, have some monster get riled up from the deep, don't just tell him his character is too wimpy to play his instrument all day.

You could say that the church was collapsed on top of a kraken to contain it or something.

[Oslecamo]

Then what about if you simply don't stop, a warforged bard with 18 cha can at level 11 [sooner with a +skill item) play non-stop without any chance of a failed roll. He could in theory play for decades. That's 100 men working for 52560 days per year or 100 men working for 144 YEARS per year and if we assume a 16 hour workday then it's 100 men working non-stop for 96 years PER year.

This is just silly for the such a low price as 13000


Who do you think builds all those dungeons and construct armies that fill the wilderness?:smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

So I just had an amusing idea of a legend of how the first cities came about.

Roaming bard remaking the world with his music as he traveled, the lyres of building basically being modeled after the instrument from the legend originally.

[faceroll]

Then what about if you simply don't stop, a warforged bard with 18 cha can at level 11 [sooner with a +skill item) play non-stop without any chance of a failed roll. He could in theory play for decades. That's 100 men working for 52560 days per year or 100 men working for 144 YEARS per year and if we assume a 16 hour workday then it's 100 men working non-stop for 96 years PER year.

This is just silly for the such a low price as 13000

This gets even worse if you can find a way to take 10 on the check then with 18 cha you can do it at level 1 you just need someone to pay for the lyre. Say a group of adventurers with warforged bard cohorts building cities wherever they go and laying the road they walk on as they walk on it.

Lets assume 16 hour work day, 4 bard cohorts. 30 minutes = 100 men working constantly for 48 hours that time 4 is 100 men working constantly for 192 hours in 30 minutes. that is 1 minute = 100 men working for 6.4 hours or 1 second = 100 men working for 6 minutes and 24 seconds or 1 second = 1 man working for 6 hours and 40 minutes.

I love it!:smallbiggrin:

Epic lich bard with a dungeon the size of a planet.

[Randel]

As for making the sunken temple accesible, I think it would be more feasible to have him make a series of levees or dams or whatever (like those big levees in Holland that help keep the ocean at bay). Basically build a system of water-tight walls that can hold back the ocean and then build windmills or other sorts of pumps to pump the water out.

He could probably get some buckets for his magical workforce and have them bail out the area... or have them build windmill pumping stations on dry land and then manually push the pumping mechanism to pump out the water that way.

But anyway, I don't think its reasonable to expect the lyre to pull a temple out of the ocean but he could feasibly build a whole network of structures to hold back the water so he could explore them at his leisure. Maybe the locals will be suitably impressed with the reclaimed land and the new windmills to name them after him or he gets a share of the tourism profits from the newly accessible temple.


As for how long it would take... not sure. I'd say about a week or two just to be sure. Though alot of it relies on the materials needed for the job.

[Irreverent Fool]

Yeah, I'd just rule that it takes him one whole day. If you want to cause him problems, have some monster get riled up from the deep, don't just tell him his character is too wimpy to play his instrument all day.

You could say that the church was collapsed on top of a kraken to contain it or something.

Actually,inside the church is an enourmous water-filled pit in which an aboleth was incubating a growing half-farspawn kraken. Additionally, there are two aboleth who have been trying to stop the one who has been doing it and will likely attack the adventures (who have currently split the party) when the church begins to rise.

So I don't think I need to make things any harder than the players have already made it on themselves. :smallbiggrin:


It doesn't seem to say one way or the other, but it does explicitly say it constructs buildings.
The real RAW buggery is that it constructs 'whatever'. :smallamused:
***
Oh gods, what have I become?:smalleek:

The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook goes into a little detail about the Lyre, specifying that it can remove the need for labor but not materials.

@Randel
As for it being unreasonable for the lyre to raise a building from the sea, I have to disagree. The characters are on the shore of a rocky island and I don't think it's really pushing it to allow a platform to be constructed beneath the church or the seabed to be raised beneath it. I mean, it's magic after all.

The series of dams is a better (and likely faster) plan. I'll mention it to the player after he's spent the day singing the church from the depths and getting eaten by sea monsters.

I think an island made of rocks is all the material he really needs.

For those of you that might be interested, part of my "Beginning of Session Intro and Recap" I'll be reading to the group this Sunday:
Within minutes, the crumbling spire of the Langrave's Folly begins to shudder from the depths, twisting atop the rising seabed to straighten from the tilt it once possessed. The church continues to inch above the surf in slow but inevitable progress. Seawater drains from its shattered windows and half-finished walls. Great ruined scaffolding, made heavy by clinging sea greens and barnacles, collapse into jagged piles of rust until at last, after hours of effort, the church stands tall, dredged up from the depths and encrusted with the remnants of its once-watery tomb.

obnoxious
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[pffh]

Anyone got any idea how much the lyre would cost if you would ditch it's 1/day indestructable buildings ability and get one with just the 1/week have men work for you ability?

[Irreverent Fool]

Anyone got any idea how much the lyre would cost if you would ditch it's 1/day indestructable buildings ability and get one with just the 1/week have men work for you ability?

It really depends on the campaign. If there's a lot of siegecraft and warfare, the first ability is very valuable. In a more 'standard' dungeon-crawling campaign, it might see use once, maybe twice.

If you're going to ditch the first ability, I'd leave the price the same.

obnoxious
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