The Royal Artificery Society - OOC

[MrAbdiel]

That is mad bargain value.

Are the handful of special woods in the standard rules also available at their listed values? For consideration now, and future reference.

[DeTess]

That is mad bargain value.

Are the handful of special woods in the standard rules also available at their listed values? For consideration now, and future reference.

Well, you're using wood meant for shipping to try and make an instrument. I suspect the difficulties coming from that will make up for the price.

The standard woods are available. Darkwood is only 4 gp/pound, the others use the standard prices.

[WindStruck]

Shandara also has a nice merchant contact who can help procure rare goods now.

Though it sounds like this tundra oak is already something that is common enough to get.

[Prehysterical]

DeTess, should I wait for Shandara and Aiden to be done at the Ranger's Guild before I post my next action?

[DeTess]

DeTess, should I wait for Shandara and Aiden to be done at the Ranger's Guild before I post my next action?

No, feel free to post whenever you want.

[WindStruck]

I'll try rolling my own knowledge nature about various types of wood.

(1d20+8)[22]

[DeTess]

@mrabdiel, could you roll me a perception to see if you noticed the other elf's attitude?

[MrAbdiel]

Can do! (1d20-1)[12], lol.

[DeTess]

You didn't notice.

edit: btw, has this wood dealer of yours been on screen before? I don't remember.

[MrAbdiel]

Nope, not on screen, I think we declined to bother with a scene because it was literally about buying wood for a ship, and we assumed I already had a 'wood guy' on account of that being sort of a primary resource for Aiden's ambitions, and because he built a house recently. It's alright if he's not actually much of an expert in exotic woods - Aiden just frontloads expectations on people. Feel free to concoct an NPC to be 'the wood guy', and I'll play along.

[DeTess]

Some stuff Aiden knows about the Dunfen woodyards:

The woodyards are a family business, ran By Victor Dunfen and his wife Julia Dunfen. Their two sons, Richard and Rickard (twins, practically indistinguishable from one another) help out as well. Dunfen is the main expert on wood, while his wife runs the financial aspects of the business. Dunfen delivers to all kind of clientele, though his store and showroom near the western gates has specifically been set up to appeal to skilled artisans, nobles and others with a discerning taste for wood.

[WindStruck]

arcana: (1d20+17)[25]

appraise: (1d20+17)[22]

let's see what we come up with!

[DeTess]

arcana: [roll0]

appraise: [roll1]

let's see what we come up with!

So, looking over the wood, there definitely seems to be truth to the merchants words. There are thin veins of a number of different types of crystal and gemstone present, which could be used as the anchor for all kinds of enchantments. The wood itself also seems to be vaguely infused with magic, which a skilled enchanter could make use of. However, the fact that the veins of crystal are present in already set patterns does make enchanting a lot more difficult. Normally you would inscribe enchantments in their most optimal shapes, but if you wanted to work with the properties of this wood you'd have to work with the veins as they are. In addition, Aiden would have to work the wood in such a way that these crystal pathways remain in the finished violin. If the both of you did everything perfect then the crystal veins present could be used to substitute for several thousand gp worth of enchanting reagents, but mistakes during the woodworking or enchanting process will bring that value down significantly.

[MrAbdiel]

Much belated, but helping with Appraise, if it were necessary: (1d20+12)[31]!

Actually 33, with the +2 from Woodworking. I have... eight craft skills, but none of them are jewelcrafting, alas!

[Prehysterical]

Before I forget to mention it, I will be offline from March 16th to March 19th as I visit my brother. I won't have access to GitP during that time, so it's not me ignoring you.

[DeTess]

The total price for the wood would come at about 830 GP.

Windstruck, you'd know that the 'far west' is a frontier area that is considered to be mostly wilderness with some 'savage tribes' living in them. No real nations (at least not as the empire acknowledges them), and at the moment still poorly mapped.

@mrabdiel, do you tag along with Shandara to the Orlof merchant house.

[MrAbdiel]

Aiden will assume he's invited along unless he's deliberately dismissed, and will provide cart-transport with Ambrose for the journey. He's so enamoured with his new friend he will follow her around like a lost puppy all day up until delivering her to her home, if she lets him.

[WindStruck]

Aiden will assume he's invited along unless he's deliberately dismissed, and will provide cart-transport with Ambrose for the journey. He's so enamoured with his new friend he will follow her around like a lost puppy all day up until delivering her to her home, if she lets him.

Well, okay. You haven't made Shandara want to punt you away yet..

[DeTess]

@windstruck, the cavescape shown in the painting isn't familiar to you (it's certainly not a place you've ever visited or heard of), but some of the details you spot show that the artist in question is someone with actual familiarity with the Underdark. For more information roll me a knowledge check suitable for knowing about art (I'm thinking nobility or history).

[WindStruck]

Hm. Would appraise be good enough for art? (1d20+11)[26]

If not, the modifier would be +8, not +11.

I've also got dungeoneering since that seems very relevant: (1d20+11)[24]

...and even Lore (drow).

Maybe I'll save that one for later though.

[DeTess]

Could you roll lore(drow) as well then? It's tangentially relevant

[WindStruck]

okay then!

lore (drow): (1d20+13)[26]

[DeTess]

So, you do actually recognize the painting style. It looks like the work of a pretty famous Underdark artist, Tinyd Irhel. She disappeared a couple years before you yourself left the underdark, though it is assumed that some rival killed her.

[WindStruck]

That is very intriguing information. I'm rather tempted to make a preemptive sense motive, though I guess I don't really know what to expect here.

sense motive: (1d20+5)[21]

At this point, if we're having a little game of cat and mouse, I'm not sure if I should be rolling bluff to hide the fact that Shandara may know something.

Well if you want, modifier is +7.

[MrAbdiel]

Hey friends, just checking in to apologize for my slow responses and to say I'll be back on them soon - which means in the next couple of days.

Mixed in with the normal battery of excuses - "had to work", "was really tired" etc, is a more troublesome, if non-critical medical one. I have a disc in my neck that slips a little a couple of times a year when I sleep on it wrong and for the next few days I'm just managing it with painkillers until it sorts itself out. It's not a huge deal but it makes it hard to sit down and bang out words on a keyboard for a long duration.

I'm not far away and I won't be 'gone' long, but I do apologize.

[Prehysterical]

For my own status report, this week has been a trial. My lesson plans are due tomorrow and everything has been a bundle of stress since one of my bosses was fired earlier this week. Will be back on Sunday to figure out how to tackle the totally-not-a-printing-press.

[WindStruck]

Supposing we go along with the idea of using the spirit wood to attempt crafting a violin out of it...

If it fails, is it possible to salvage materials out of it to experiment with wand crafting?

Does this answer differ at which step it fails at? For instance, could fail at the wood production step simply cutting and fitting the pieces together, or at the enchantment step, when Shandara attempts to imbue it with the requested magical properties.

What seems really tricky is, the violin must both be able to take advantage of the spirit wood's properties, but also still be.. a working violin with appealing acoustics.

Secondly, what are going to be the costs and risks on Shandara's end? We're talking about up to 10,000 gp in enchantments (with some unknown amount of potential cost savings due to the wood) but how much of that do I end up spending before knowing if all the magical materials are being wasted or not?

Or is the idea simply that upon "success" with working with the wood, we pay a reduced cost in materials, but on "failure" we still will have working enchantments, but pay the full price?

[MrAbdiel]

These are all good questions! I’m confident that we will succeed at the wood part, given that I’m running at a +20 on the check and I don’t think we’re working under an oppressive time limit or anything. But having some idea of how best to manage the risks specifically would be good.

[WindStruck]

Well +20 is really good and all. But in this game, a crafting focused game where we try to make wondrous things.. I've found that often times to get everything we want, we usually need rolls of 25 or 30...

It really depends, though. A masterwork violin out of the appropriate wood? Easily a dc of 20 as it is. Then taking advantage of the spirit wood properties and first time working with the wood? Yeah, I can easily see needing a 30 for that roll. Not reaching the high numbers has typically resulted in having to make compromises and dropping features, or needing to find new ways to tackle a problem.

For instance, Bolten did not roll superbly well one time while crafting that SCORP thing, and so Shandara had to step in to try to solve the problem with some enchantments to get around the engineering shortcomings.

Not like I'm the GM here, but just telling you what I'm intuiting based off of experience.


edit: Aiden is so sweet and unassuming, I feel kind of bad to make him feel sad and bashful...

I know IRL I could not stand up to his charms and puppy dog eyes. Shandara however is.. well, a bit more 'focused'.

[DeTess]

Supposing we go along with the idea of using the spirit wood to attempt crafting a violin out of it...

If it fails, is it possible to salvage materials out of it to experiment with wand crafting?

Does this answer differ at which step it fails at? For instance, could fail at the wood production step simply cutting and fitting the pieces together, or at the enchantment step, when Shandara attempts to imbue it with the requested magical properties.

What seems really tricky is, the violin must both be able to take advantage of the spirit wood's properties, but also still be.. a working violin with appealing acoustics.

Secondly, what are going to be the costs and risks on Shandara's end? We're talking about up to 10,000 gp in enchantments (with some unknown amount of potential cost savings due to the wood) but how much of that do I end up spending before knowing if all the magical materials are being wasted or not?

Or is the idea simply that upon "success" with working with the wood, we pay a reduced cost in materials, but on "failure" we still will have working enchantments, but pay the full price?

If something goes wrong during the wood cutting process you could repurpose at least part of it to something simple like wands. In fact, if Aiden does really well there might be enough left even on a success to make a couple wands.

Edit: if Aiden were to agree to be extra prudent (which would raise the dc), you could guarantee almost all of the wood to be suitable for reprocessing into wands (on a failure).

For the enchanting, using the properties of the wood you pay for a very small amount of reagents (let's say 1% of the usual cost), and a failure wastes those reagents and reduces the capacity of the wood to some degree (if it starts out at 10,000 gp a small failure might knock of 500 or 1000, while a major one would reduce by more). This is irreversible, but if enough capacity is left you can try again, and worst case, you can do it the traditional way at full price if you waste too much of the wood's capacity.

@prehysterical, you think you have a good grasp on what you need for creating the typing machine, but you have the feeling you're overlooking something slightly more fundamental to the whole problem.

@mrabdiel, just to set some expectations for the DC's in projects like this, you can indeed expect it to hover in the 25-35 area. That +20 is what qualifies you to take on things of this magnitude, but it won't fix it all on its own for you.