I've seen this mentioned many times as a great magic item, can someone steer me in the right direction on how to properly apply it?
A laborer is a commoner, right? With 4 ranks in the associated Craft skill, just figure out what GP value a group of 100 average commoners could do. Might convince the DM.
lets see:
~ 150gp progress/hour of playing
That's:
-- ~ 6.5 hours for a simple house
-- 1000 hours for a keep
if that time also replaces the procurement of materials, then that's pretty impressive; if not, then I don't think that it's worth it (though I'm pretty sure it does).
A laborer is a commoner, right? With 4 ranks in the associated Craft skill, just figure out what GP value a group of 100 average commoners could do. Might convince the DM.
lets see:
~ 150gp progress/hour of playing
That's:
-- ~ 6.5 hours for a simple house
-- 1000 hours for a keep
if that time also replaces the procurement of materials, then that's pretty impressive; if not, then I don't think that it's worth it (though I'm pretty sure it does).
Where did you find those numbers? That is more or less what I am looking for.
Also, the Lyre does NOT provide materials according to the Stronghold Builders Guide. It's 3.0 but I have no reason to believe this changed in 3.5
Lyre of Building says 30 minutes of playing = 3 days of work from 100 laborers. Which means 1 hour = 6 days (which I equate to 1 week -- even God had to rest 1 day/week).
Average craft check from a 1st-level commoner = ~15. 15sp x 100 laborers = 150gp.
Page 101 of the DMG lists prices for common/typical buildings. From there, it's just simple arithmetic.
A more comprehensive list of prices can, of course, be found in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (as previously mentioned).
well, you make progress on crafting at a rate of (your craft check) in sp per week (as per the skill description).
Lyre of Building says 30 minutes of playing = 3 days of work from 100 laborers. Which means 1 hour = 6 days (which I equate to 1 week -- even God had to rest 1 day/week).
Average craft check from a 1st-level commoner = ~15. 15sp x 100 laborers = 150gp.
Page 101 of the DMG lists prices for common/typical buildings. From there, it's just simple arithmetic.
A more comprehensive list of prices can, of course, be found in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (as previously mentioned).
That's fairly simple.
But, I believe your times are wrong. The Lyre doesn't provide materials according to the Stronghold Builders guide. It also says that labor is only 30% of the cost. Therefore, if you have the materials on hand it would only take 30% of the time you quoted.
Also, the weekly progress of a craft skill check is the skill check X the DC in silver pieces
edit: after going over the Stronghold Builders Guide again, it gives a cost of 1 week per 10,000 gold of the structure. 30% of that is labor for a total 3,000 gold a week in labor, which it takes 2 hours of playing to replicate with the Lyre of Building. Breaking that down would be 750 gold worth of labor per 30 minutes of playing applied towards the cost of building. Since the Lyre does not provide the materials, you must have them on location to build. Therefore you could build that house in a little less than 15 minutes but it would still need 700 gold worth of materials. However, since the cost of that house includes furnishings and such you could build a structure even faster than that if all you want is 4 walls and a roof.
Stronghold Builders Guide does have rules to build things faster with more effort, and it gives a cap as to how fast something can be built....but I'll worry about that later.
Also, the weekly progress of a craft skill check is the skill check X the DC in silver pieces
WOW -- how did I miss that?! That definitely changes the math a bit. Good catch.
So divide the time periods by 10.
Usually, though, it's in the region of 3-6000 hours for a house. The lyre gives you 100 men*72 hours = 7200 man hours, which should be enough to construct one or two 'regular' sized houses for each 30 minute playing session.