Lyre of Building: Guidelines/Rules of Thumb

[Ghostmoon]

Hello all,

I was wondering if there was any guidance on just how much the build function of the Lyre can do. From the SRD:

Lyre of Building: The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

Anyone out there have any rules of thumb or guidance on just how much work can done with "100 humans laboring for three days"? I notice that the text for the Lyre has essentially remained unchanged since AD&D 1st edition, although I have never seen anything that described construction in "men working per day".

Any help would be appreciated!
Ghostmoon

 

[FireLance]

Offhand, I would say even an uskilled craftsman (+0 Craft modifer) could create 1 gp "worth" of work in a day. By the Craft rules, taking 10 on a simple DC 10 task results in 10 x 10 cp = 1 gp.

100 humans working for 3 days would thus create 300 gp "worth" of work. A 6,000 gp structure would require 10 hours of playing to build.

 

[dcollins]

I notice that the text for the Lyre has essentially remained unchanged since AD&D 1st edition, although I have never seen anything that described construction in "men working per day".

In AD&D 1st Ed. that description tied into the Construction & Siege rules on DMG p. 106.

 

[Ghostmoon]

Anyone else handle this differently? Thanks!

 

[dcollins]

If you're looking for 3rd Edition rules, I'll throw out that the Stronghold Builder's Guide uses a base of 1 week = 10,000 gp construction (p. 9). So by that maybe 3 days is about 5,000 gp construction. Firelance's analysis may be better to avoid truly gigantic structures being built with the lyre.

 

[MarauderX]

Materials included? I gotta say that whipping out a large wooden structure for 100 construction workers in 3 days would be easy, especially if there are no electrical, plumbing, or mechanical systems to install. Stone or other material would of course complicate things IMO, as it might take 100 dudes 3 days to shape just a few stone foundations for a castle. I am feeling the need for a spreadsheet to pop out of this, using RS Means pricing indexes.

I would incorporate something from work, but it might be too boring to take out items like 'non-resin based glue' and 'resilient tile flooring.'

 

[blargney the second]

Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe goes into *extensive* detail on what can and can't be done with a Lyre of Building.

I highly recommend it for this and many other reasons!
-blarg