Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dender Cage 02-09-05, 10:23 AM	You know that quest, in the back of the eberron book? The start of the foundry quest line? well, DM's, you might want to watch out. We did that quest, no problem. 7 Levels later, we came back and shrunk the doors to the foundery. After a fair amount of physics calculations, we determine that there was close to a ton of adamantium on those doors. And that that would be worth close to 2 million coins if sold by a shop. That means a million coins to the party if they try selling it. and before you say, thats insane, its also accurate. I'm a chem/physics major, and my roommate knows alot about metalurgy We ended up geting 80k to split 6 ways, which, honestly, is still fair. We nearly fully wiped thanks to a very hard encounter in the old church involving a demon portal Players, if you want to screw with the money balance, remember the doors DM's if you want them not to, just remember, selling for half implies that the item can be resold as is. Salvaging things is different. A good idea for reward is 10% of whatever can be reclaimed, and modify the ~1750 pounds of adamantium by 20% + d6x5% lost. Because you lose 25-50% of a metal while trying to reforge it into something else. That reduces the insanity. Also, make it hard to sell. That much adamantium would flood the market, and not to mention, most places wouldn't have the money to buy it. We had it easy because 2 party member worked for house caineth, and have met with marix d'caineth before for reasons i won't go into. So, we sold him the doors, telling him that we found them in the old House Caineth foundry below sharn.
Belabras 02-09-05, 10:45 AM	I believe a number of people have posted various issues with those doors. The most popular take was that once it is set there is no way to melt down or reforge adamantium. It's house rule, but it is an easy way for DMs to prevent players from trying to sell the things.
Nightshade 02-09-05, 11:04 AM	Ok... So, they've got these huge adamantium doors. How are they going to sell it? Who would they go to? What fence would be able to handle such a sale? Anyone with contacts to a fence ought to know that if anyone finds out they've got adamantium worth millions, the information will get back to the Boromars or someone else. In other words, if the 1st or 2nd level characters try to sell it, they are D.E.A.D., dead! Try a massive boromar assassination squad that will simply take that adamantium off your hands (along with your hands). Adventurers, theives, Daask, the boromars, corrupt members of the city watch, etc will be coming out of the woodworks to kill the characters and take the loot. It would be way cheaper for everyone to steal it rather than to buy it. There's no way the characters would survive. Not to mention the fact that this is House Cannith property they're taking. Sure, the House completely forgot about the Forge but they certainly know about it now, if Elaydren sent them into it. And it's unlikely that the House won't get ****** over this. You don't screw with a Dragonmarked House! Great way to end up in a lava pool in the cogs. {Edit} missed that part about selling it back to Merrix. That is a bit of a problem too. Cannith built it. It's in their forge. Thus, it's their property. Why would they buy it when they already own it. No, if the players tried to run away with it, they're going to send men after them. The players might try to ask for a finder's fee (possession 9/10's of the law and all that) but that's all they ought to get (like 10,000 gp or so) and then only if they make an amazing diplomacy roll, say 30+ or are Favored in House. Moreover, there's the whole problem that Elaydren is supposedly House West and Merrix, House South (even if she really works for Merrix). That has to be worked out too. Just my 2cp. {Edit} Realizing all of this, and realizing that my players would think about those doors long after the adventure was completed, I simply had House Cannith send in a cleaner and retrieval team. It went down into the Forgotten Forge to take away the adamantium doors and downed Warforged. This all happened immediately after the players got the schema back to Elaydren. It actually helped roleplaying issues too because it played into the mystery of Elaydren's loyalties. How could Elaydren of Cannith West send in retrieval team in Cannith South? If she could, then why hire us to go down there in the first place? Isn't she risking an interhouse war? Since one of the party is a down and out member of House Cannith, it also meant divided loyalties within the group, help my new friends or betray my family (and get myself killed) - "ummm, gotta go with family." So, he told Elaydren of the doors, and zip - they're wisked away. Be very careful about trying to cash in on those doors, they're more trouble than they're worth. Well, maybe not more than they're worth, but they're more trouble than any low level PC group could handle. I'm not sure your DM properly thought through the consequences of the PC's actions.
MikeyP 02-09-05, 01:16 PM	Here's how I would have calculated the raw material value of the doors... Iron is 1sp a lb. Fair to say that steel might cost a little more, say 5sp a lb for the sake of argument. That might be a little generous. For lack of a better vantage point, I'll use a longsword as an example. A steel longsword is 4lbs. In this case, the raw material (without any waste) cost of steel would be 2gp, therefore the remaining 13gp involved in its cost would be for work performed and overhead, whatever. An adamantine longsword costs 3015gp. Using the model above, raw material costs for the longsword is 2/15ths of the actual item value. 2/15ths of 3015 is 402gp, or roughly 50gp/lb of adamantine. Thus, a ton of adamantine would be about 100kgp. Still a nice haul at 7th level, but PCs only get about 50% value when selling goods, so that would be 50kgp for the party to split. Of course, they might find someone who needs an adamantine door and are willing to pay more. Unless of course House Cannith claims it as property belonging to them. There is the symbol on the journal engraved on the doors, which IIRC is the House Cannith seal or something like that (I could be wrong on that). Oh, and don't forget that the doors were not pure adamantine. They're steel with a layer of adamantine outside of it. 1 inch, by the looks of it. That might reduce the value of the adamantine even more.
Dender Cage 02-09-05, 01:21 PM	ok, let me rephrase this, because it seems i wasn't clear First off, for a 1st or 2nd level party, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to get the doors out. Our party came back at 8th average level with 2 scrolls of shrink item, provided by my warforged artificer, a member of house caineth, who also completed the Shadows of the Last War campaign, returning the... goods found to Merrix personally. Whats MdC really going to say "Well, you've done alot for the house in the past, and you have lead a party to the mornlands and came back with my lost son, and you did return the second and third schema. So, i'm just going to have my Wand Adepts kill you now, because i'm chaotic stupid" We went with the 10% finders fee, minus adamantium lost in reforging, and were happy with that. See, 10% of 2 million is still 200000 gold. You musta missed how much a ton of adamantium was worth too. Having a cleaning team go in is a perfectly valid way of getting around it. But they show up right after the party leaves? Thats a little too orchistrated. Try to make it seem like there was alot of preparation. Remember, in eberron, there arent a whole lot of people willing to venture into the sewers to retrieve a schema which is part of the spoiler spoiler to spoiler spoiler. Now, that thing is priceless, and the group got sent after it. For those who are going to deal with this problem, just be careful not to make it really SEEM like you're just trying to screw the party out of the doors. It doesn't need to be said that games where its looks like its the DM versus the players just isn't as fun.
Uller999 02-09-05, 01:27 PM	The doors are made of adamantine, not adamantium. Adamantium is a mythical metal existing in the marvel universe which were laced to wolverine's skeleton. Adamantine is like mithril and is a super hard dark grey metal used in most D&D universes. there doesn't have to be a difference but I just wanted to know what was being discussed. if you are talking about wolverine's stuff than yeah the stuff about not being able to reheat it once shaped, it being ubreakable, etc are fair. if you are talking about adamantine than well that has stats and figures like mithril or steel or any other D&D metal. So I just wanted to know what exactly is being discussed
Dender Cage 02-09-05, 01:40 PM	Its a good idea mikep, but that prices Adamantium per pound less than mithral, which is 500gp/pound. and the doors are a half inch thick. adamantium is 40 hp per inch, and they have 20 hp from addy. each door is 10 feet high, and 5 feet wide, 2 doors, 10 feet wide. 10 x 10 x (.5 inch/12) gives you 4.167 cubic feet of "material that weighs no more than steel". average density for steel runs from 7.3 to 8.1g/cc depending on quality. i did my calculation using the lower number of 7.3, which comes to 455 pounds per cubic foot ish. 1895 pounds. Close to a ton. I'm really not trying to be a jerk about this. Hell, i'm just glad i got to complete one of my lifetime gaming goals: turn doors that were badass hard to get through into treasure.
Dender Cage 02-09-05, 01:47 PM	Very good catch Uller999. I always make that mispelling/mispronunciation. Yes, the doors are made of adamantine. Sorry about that. Though it doesn't change the math or the arguement. Heh, its good i'm not an english major, eh.
jonthegm 02-09-05, 02:22 PM	Whats MdC really going to say "Well, you've done alot for the house in the past, and you have lead a party to the mornlands and came back with my lost son, and you did return the second and third schema. So, i'm just going to have my Wand Adepts kill you now, because i'm chaotic stupid" "I thank you for the trouble of digging up our past, and I can offer you a thousand Dragons for your efforts. However, those doors are rightfully Cannith's, and we would have dug them out eventually. I must warn you that Cannith does not look kindly on theives and privateers, it would be best if those doors did not find their way into someone else's collection..." Let's review some facts: Merrix is LE. The doors technically should belong to Cannith. Salvage Rights technically don't [officially] exist in Eberron. Merrix won't go to the watch for this, as the PCs are obviously more resourceful. Merrix sees the PCs as needing him more than he needs them. The PCs are not Cannith, and if they are, they're not part of Merrix's cabal. EXCORIATE! So, my take: He gives the PCs a chance to give him the stuff for a good amount of money. If the PCs acquiesce, he gives them the money and leaves them alone. If the PCs don't acquiesce, he hires a third party to "take care of them."
spamfiltre 02-09-05, 02:28 PM	The "doors to the vault are the real treasure" bit has been done many times. The fact is, this issue is strictly DM call. Chances are, a 1st level party won't have had the forethought/resources to be able to extract the doors immediately (magic or proper tools, lots of manual labor to haul the material), so... 1) a weak DM will make the doors disappear without plausible explanation 2) a weaker DM will simply give the players an unbalancing amount of money 3) a good DM will make the players work hard to recover the doors for a reasonable amount of salvage money or finders fee 4) a great DM will make the payers work hard for the political and economic ties necessary to recover the full amount of money at a level where it will only further the campaign and not be unbalancing. Any DM could easily justify removing the doors under certain circumstances (especially if the characters return to the forge after this first adventure - they are most liely being watched, someone follows them, and voila, stolen doors), but if the players aren't stupid about it ("Hey, buddy, do you know anyone that can help us remove huge adamantine doors worth millions from a forgotten Cannith forge beneath the city?") Likewise, the DM of players who expect a simple solution such as the above-mentioned shrinking spell should prevent that from happening. If it were that easy, a house cannith artificer would have scribed a quick scroll and taken the doors when the facility was abandoned. It should be assumed that in Eberron, vaults, especially vaults created by any of the Houses, protecting anything of value, would have at least some magical protections on them, whether or not it's specifically written into the adventure. While I generally discourage logical thinking when it comes to the rules (it is a game and the rules don't always make real-world sense), logical thought on the part of NPCs and their behaviour is something to be encouraged and assumed.
Nightshade 02-09-05, 03:22 PM	ok, let me rephrase this, because it seems i wasn't clear First off, for a 1st or 2nd level party, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to get the doors out. Our party came back at 8th average level with 2 scrolls of shrink item, provided by my warforged artificer, a member of house caineth, who also completed the Shadows of the Last War campaign, returning the... goods found to Merrix personally. My players may be first level but they're a bunch of doctors and engineers. I think they could figure out a way to get the doors out of there even if they are only 1st level. They just couldn't hold onto to the treasure since someone would lay the smackdown on them. Sorry, no mention was made in the first post that they were 8th lvl - just assumed that they were 1st cause that's what the adventure was designed for. Whats MdC really going to say "Well, you've done alot for the house in the past, and you have lead a party to the mornlands and came back with my lost son, and you did return the second and third schema. So, i'm just going to have my Wand Adepts kill you now, because i'm chaotic stupid" We went with the 10% finders fee, minus adamantium lost in reforging, and were happy with that. See, 10% of 2 million is still 200000 gold. You musta missed how much a ton of adamantium was worth too. I'll take your word on the selling price of the adamantine. I still wouldn't let them get a full 10%. 1% maybe since they're really just returning property to the owner. It's too unbalancing for low level PC's. Your party was 8th so maybe 10% is ok - DM's call. Having a cleaning team go in is a perfectly valid way of getting around it. But they show up right after the party leaves? Thats a little too orchistrated. Try to make it seem like there was alot of preparation. Remember, in eberron, there arent a whole lot of people willing to venture into the sewers to retrieve a schema which is part of the spoiler spoiler to spoiler spoiler. Now, that thing is priceless, and the group got sent after it. For those who are going to deal with this problem, just be careful not to make it really SEEM like you're just trying to screw the party out of the doors. It doesn't need to be said that games where its looks like its the DM versus the players just isn't as fun. It might seem like the DM is against the players but only to players who try to take advantage of flaws in WotC modules. Making the game fun is the DM's job but maintaining game balance is what keeps the game playable. One of the PC's in my party was a House Cannith member. He informed his House like a good little Cannith member who is seeking the Favored in House feat and they sent a team in. When he told the others of his party, they were a bit mad but understood his conflict and that the decision was the only reasonable one he could have made given the circumstances.
MikeyP 02-09-05, 03:32 PM	Its a good idea mikep, but that prices Adamantium per pound less than mithral, which is 500gp/pound. You're missing the point altogether. Mithral itself does not cost 500gp/lb, but a weapon or item made of mithral does. This is to reflect work, time, overhead, etc. The cost of a mithral or adamantine item also includes the cost for masterwork, which further drives down the relative cost per pound of mithral or adamantine as a raw metal.
Kast 02-09-05, 04:44 PM	I could see letting my players salvage the doors, but they won't be getting any thing close to the price of pure adamantine. I'm inclined to say that the adamantine is fused to the steel and is unrecoverable. However, I'm sure a noble up above would love to have him a set of those doors and would pay handsomely for them.