How to convert wondrous items into Wondrous Architecture?

[unseenmage]

Once upon a time long long ago, my friend and I (mostly him) worked up Golem Manuals as Golem Tables. Great stone slabs inscribed with runes and instructions. We'd taken them from one-use wondrous magic items and turned them into repeatable-use Wondrous Architecture.

However, I long ago lost my notes including the breakdown of the Golem Manuals and the extrapolations we'd made to turn them into Golem Tables.
More regrettably, I've lost the lists and lists of Golem Tables for each PC creatable construct.

Now I come to you playgrounders. Can you help me re-examine the Golem Manuals and re-build the rules for making Golem Tables?

If it helps a Google search dug up this little gem, looks like some of the break down work is already done for us here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?200843-Cost-Time-to-use-a-Golem-Manual

Thanks regardless folks.

[Emperor Tippy]

Do you want users to have to provide the golem bodies or do you want the table to provide those as well?

[unseenmage]

Just like the Golem Manuals users should have to provide the bodies.

[Jack_Simth]

Just like the Golem Manuals users should have to provide the bodies.
Well, if you look at the Creating Magic Items (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm) guidelines, specifically the Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values section, a single-use spell completion item (essentially what a golem manual is) is spell level*caster level * 25 for the base price. An at-will command-word item is spell level * caster level * 1800, or 72 times the cost of the one-shot item. Cutting it down to 1/day (less than that, actually, as it takes a long time to make a golem, but that's neither here nor there) cuts the cost by a factor of five, to 14.4 times the one-shot item. Making it wondrous architecture, per the SBG, basically cuts the item cost in half, so 7.2.

So theoretically, a Golem Table would cost 7.2 times the manual... other than the XP cost, which has to be paid 50 times over.

If we reverse engineer the Stone Golem Manual (which provides "supplies 3,400 XP for the creation of a stone golem"), then we can conclude that the manual's XP component costs 17,000 gp of the 22,000 gp for the manual - aka, the non-XP component of the manual costs 5,000 gp.

So your table would have a market price of 36,000 gp + the costs for the XP.

50 times 3,400 xp is 170,000 xp ... which is, what, the amount of XP it takes to go from 2nd level to 19th? ... at 5 gp per XP means that adds 850,000 gp to the market price of the table, giving the Stone Golem Table a final cost of 886,000 gp (and you'll need a rather lot of XP mitigation to actually craft it).

Edit: I suppose it's arguable that the XP component cost might be halved, too... and if so, that'd 'just' be 85,000 xp, for 425,000 gp for that aspect, making a final cost of 461,000 gp.

But all of this really is table ruling territory.

[Xervous]

I just wish to drop in to say, make This (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Codpiece_of_Attention_%283.5e_Equipment%29) into some form of architecture, amuse me, amuse the world.

[unseenmage]

Well, if you look at the Creating Magic Items guidelines, specifically the Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values section, a single-use spell completion item (essentially what a golem manual is) is spell level*caster level * 25 for the base price. An at-will command-word item is spell level * caster level * 1800, or 72 times the cost of the one-shot item. Cutting it down to 1/day (less than that, actually, as it takes a long time to make a golem, but that's neither here nor there) cuts the cost by a factor of five, to 14.4 times the one-shot item. Making it wondrous architecture, per the SBG, basically cuts the item cost in half, so 7.2.

So theoretically, a Golem Table would cost 7.2 times the manual... other than the XP cost, which has to be paid 50 times over.

If we reverse engineer the Stone Golem Manual (which provides "supplies 3,400 XP for the creation of a stone golem"), then we can conclude that the manual's XP component costs 17,000 gp of the 22,000 gp for the manual - aka, the non-XP component of the manual costs 5,000 gp.

So your table would have a market price of 36,000 gp + the costs for the XP.

50 times 3,400 xp is 170,000 xp ... which is, what, the amount of XP it takes to go from 2nd level to 19th? ... at 5 gp per XP means that adds 850,000 gp to the market price of the table, giving the Stone Golem Table a final cost of 886,000 gp (and you'll need a rather lot of XP mitigation to actually craft it).

Edit: I suppose it's arguable that the XP component cost might be halved, too... and if so, that'd 'just' be 85,000 xp, for 425,000 gp for that aspect, making a final cost of 461,000 gp.

But all of this really is table ruling territory.

First off thanks for such a thorough response. I truly do appreciate it.

I've come back to this explanation several times now and I'm... still not getting it. :(
Try as I might I still lose you somewhere before and after "7.2". Sorry.
Would it be possible to format the explanation as more of a how-to guide to converting wondrous items into wondrous architecture?

I've already found two other (admittedly less frivolous/expensive) uses for such a conversion. Both hinge on the idea that if a stronghold is mobile then some of it's wondrous items really need not be.
(I'm talking about turning a Lyre of Building into a Pipe Organ of Building and a Horn of Blasting into an Alphorn of Blasting respectively; in case anyone's curious.)

If what I'm asking is too much that's fine too. I realize it's not anyone else's responsibility to sit and do/explain math for me. Thanks again.

[Jack_Simth]

First off thanks for such a thorough response. I truly do appreciate it.

I've come back to this explanation several times now and I'm... still not getting it. :(
Try as I might I still lose you somewhere before and after "7.2". Sorry.
Would it be possible to format the explanation as more of a how-to guide to converting wondrous items into wondrous architecture?

OK. First off: This is not strict raw. This is based on estimates that very easily can be abused to break the game, and are intended for use in the DM's hands (the classic example is a use-activated widget of True Strike, that gives you an unslotted +20 Insight to attack rolls on every attack for just 4,000 gp).

We start with the item in question: The Golem Manual (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#golemManual), specifically the Stone Golem Manual.

A Stone Golem Manual, for practical purposes, is a single-use spell-trigger item. We want to turn that into a permanent item. Given the times involved, a 1/day item is preferred. So the first thing we want to do is establish the ratio of spell trigger to 1/day.

The Creating Magic Items (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm) section of the SRD includes a table for estimating values of things. A single use spell-completion item (closest you find to single-use spell trigger on the tables) has a market price of 25 gp * spell level * caster level. A 1/day command-word item is 1/5th the cost of an at-will command-word item. An at-will command-word item costs 1800 gp * spell level * caster level. So we're going from 25 gp * spell level * caster level to 1/5th of 1800 gp * spell level * caster level... and for convenience for a funky item, we're wanting to convert via ratio. So we set up an equation:

Modifier * (Single Use Item Cost) = 1/day Item Cost.

We then do our replacements:
Modifier * (Single Use Item Cost) = 1/day Item Cost.
=> Modifier * (25 gp * spell level * caster level) = (1/5) * 1800 gp * spell level * caster level
- Divide both sides by spell level and caster level:
=> Modifier * (25 gp) = (1/5) * 1800 gp
- Divide both sides by 25 gp to isolate the modifier
=> Modifier = (1/5) * 1800 gp / 25 gp
- Simplify
=> Modifier = (1/5) * 1800 gp / 25 gp = (1/5) * 1800 / 25 = 1800/125=14.4

Now, Wondrous Architecture cuts the cost in half (the above was for an appropriately-slotted wondrous item) - so that 14.4 modifier becomes a 7.2 modifier.

That, however, is ignoring XP and material components (with reason: "If item is continuous or unlimited, not charged, determine cost as if it had 100 charges. If it has some daily limit, determine as if it had 50 charges." as a note to the XP/Material component costs - it's NOT the same divisor as the uses per day). So we need to add those back in when we're done, times 50.

So the next thing to do is separate out the XP and Expensive Material components for the spells in use. The Stone Golem Manual "supplies 3,400 XP for the creation of a stone golem". We need to multiply that by 50, so that's 170,000 xp. We also need to convert that to market price, and yank it out of the calculations for the cost of the stone golem manual. 3,400 xp has a market price as a component of 5 gp per xp, or 17,000 gp. The market price of a Stone Golem Manual is 22,000 gp. So the non-XP part of that is 5,000 gp (which lines up with the crafting cost of the Stone Golem Manual: double the listed 2,500 gp).

We now have our base cost for the non-XP part of our Stone Golem Table: 2,500 gp * our modifier; our modifier is 7.2 (if we wanted it at-will instead of 1/day, that would be five times that: 36). So that's 18,000 gp. Then we add in the XP component (170,000 xp, see above). If we're buying this table, we pay the market price of that XP component - five times the XP cost, so that 170,000 xp turns into 850,000 gp (arguably half that - the Stronghold Builder's Guide Guidelines don't really specify if the half cost is before or after components, for now I'll assume we have to buy all 170,000 xp as a component). So we add the cost of the XP component to the cost of the non-XP component to arrive at the market price: 850,000 gp + 18,000 gp = 868,000 gp final market price.

[unseenmage]

I wonder if anyone would be willing to assist me again. I'm having trouble turning a Horn of Blasting and Lyre of Building into Wondrous Architecture.

The breakdown of one of them makes it's MP about half what it 'should be' and the other is about right on target. When I sat to find the ratio for how one of them differed from the other I got lost at 81/65. Help?