Value of automata in medieval times?

[unseenmage]

Was doing some Googling and though I can find references galore to their existence and historical significance (or lack thereof) I cannot for the life of me figure out how much they were worth nor how their IRL value translates to D&D-verse gp.

Please help?

[Yahzi]

Was doing some Googling and though I can find references galore to their existence and historical significance (or lack thereof) I cannot for the life of me figure out how much they were worth nor how their IRL value translates to D&D-verse gp.

Please help?

They are toys for the rich, since they can't do any actual work. Price them like a masterwork painting or statue. Say, 10 years of an expert's income?

[Necroticplague]

Depends on how you define value. Their actual practical value is typically fairly low, as a human servant is pretty cheap, and typically is more competent. So their value comes from their novelty and craftsmanship than actual use. To this end, I'd say they're the result of Craft checks, and use that to determine price.

Of course, it's entirely possible for magic to be integrated into an automata in DnDs world, either by directly enchanting it (thus producing what's essentially a low-end Construct), or by incorporating a magical item into it's mechanisms. Such things can considerably increase it's value, both as a practical one, and as an artistic/entertainment object. I'd just add the cost of the magic to it's base price, in that case, to keep things simple and consistent.

[unseenmage]

They are toys for the rich, since they can't do any actual work. Price them like a masterwork painting or statue. Say, 10 years of an expert's income?

Depends on how you define value. Their actual practical value is typically fairly low, as a human servant is pretty cheap, and typically is more competent. So their value comes from their novelty and craftsmanship than actual use. To this end, I'd say they're the result of Craft checks, and use that to determine price.

Of course, it's entirely possible for magic to be integrated into an automata in DnDs world, either by directly enchanting it (thus producing what's essentially a low-end Construct), or by incorporating a magical item into it's mechanisms. Such things can considerably increase it's value, both as a practical one, and as an artistic/entertainment object. I'd just add the cost of the magic to it's base price, in that case, to keep things simple and consistent.

Am more curious as to the actual conversion of their value historically to their value in-game.

[Psyren]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what do you mean by "automata?" Medieval machinery? Robots?

[Jack_Simth]

Am more curious as to the actual conversion of their value historically to their value in-game.

As items with no practical value, that require a lot of labor, only the rich could afford them. The answer, then, was "Whatever someone could be convinced to pay for them." No, seriously. It takes a good clockwork guy a long time to make a singing bird without modern manufacturing... but it doesn't do much. Meanwhile, that clockwork guy? He's got a relatively small amount of materials that he's working with a lot of delicate labor. His expenses are relatively low, and mostly amount to his sustenance while he's working, plus a small amount of metal and wood, maybe some coal and a few other things. For all practical purposes, it's priced essentially the same way as a painting.

[unseenmage]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what do you mean by "automata?" Medieval machinery? Robots?

Medieval clockwork sculptures that emulated living things somehow.

Mechanical songbirds, letter writing humanoid sculptures, etc.


... For all practical purposes, it's priced essentially the same way as a painting.
That's probably a fair assessment.

[Blue Jay]

Was doing some Googling and though I can find references galore to their existence and historical significance (or lack thereof) I cannot for the life of me figure out how much they were worth nor how their IRL value translates to D&D-verse gp.

Please help?

The 3.5 SRD has a water clock for 1000 gp. Why not just use that price for all automata? Maybe scale up from there for more elaborate automata?

[Thurbane]

Clockwork Wonders Archive (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archeb/cw) - might be some ideas here regarding pricing; although these are all items with practical uses, AFAIK.

Other than that, as Blue Jay mentions, the water clock is probably a decent pricing guideline; or Jack_Simth's approach of pricing it as an art object works too.

[Darrin]

Wolfgang von Kempelen attempted to sell the Turk for (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk) 20,000 francs, presumably sometime in the late 1700's. In 1804, Kempelen's son sold it for 10,000 francs to Johann Nepomuk Malzel. In 1811, Malzel sold it to Eugene de Beauharnais for 30,000 francs. Malzel bought it back later, but I'm not sure of the price. Malzel died in 1838, and the Turk wound up in the hands of John Ohl, who tried to auction it off but wound up buying it for himself at $400. That version of the Turk was destroyed in a fire in 1854.

Googling around a bit... I'm seeing several different sources, but it looks like in the year 1800, one French franc was worth about $0.20 US dollars at that time. Adjusted for inflation (http://www.in2013dollars.com/1800-dollars-in-2016), that might be worth $3.60 "current day" (2016) dollars. That gives us a range of about $400 to $6000 in 1800 dollars, or $7,200 to $108,000 in 2016 dollars.

John Gaughan created a more modern version of the Turk in 1984-1989, and spent about $120,000 on it.

There are a lot of older threads that attempt to convert GP into current-day US dollars, so I'm not sure if there's a consensus on this, but from what I can see with a little googling, most of them tend to fall in a $320 to $460 range. Call it $400, and the Turk's value in 2016 dollars converted to D&D GP would be... 18 to 270 GP. This places it at the lower end of art objects... which average about 1,100 GP, according to the DMG. Scarcity, uniqueness, craftsmanship, cultural significance, historical context, and a bunch of other factors could drive up the price. The water clock at 1,000 GP is probably a bad example, considering how medieval clergy were obsessed with accurate timekeeping. The desk clock in Ghostwalk is probably a much better example of what a mundane mechanical device might be priced at: 25 GP.

Looking at the Clockwork Steed in MMIV... 18-270 GP sounds about right for a non-magical construct, considering a magical construct that works like a horse costs $2,150 GP. Stamp of the Messenger (Waterdeep City of Splendors p. 151) is another magical construct with a similar price: 2,750 GP.

[unseenmage]

Oh wow! Thank you!

This is exactly the sort of info I was looking for!

Your assistance is much appreciated.