Library Research

[Ed_Laprade]

You realize, of course, the the books themselves (that many of them) is a huge chunk of loot if they can figure out how to transport it? I know that would be the first thing anyone I ever played with would be thinking.

 

[Slife]

You realize, of course, the the books themselves (that many of them) is a huge chunk of loot if they can figure out how to transport it? I know that would be the first thing anyone I ever played with would be thinking.

And there's Amanuensis, a low level (0th? 1st?) cleric spell that copys nonmagical text...

A minor wondrous item which casts Prestidigitation (to create a very crude book) and Amanuensis(to copy the text over) wouldn't be out of place. Everyone who visits can take home a text...

 

[Hawken]

how do you do it in your campaign?

I use the rules from the Ravenloft Heroes of Light supplement for research in a library. A Search check that takes 1d4 hours.

Considering the size of the library I would consider changing it to days or even weeks instead of hours, depending on what kind of time constraints the PCs are under.

100K books is a lot even by today's standards and back in less advanced cultures it would be an even more daunting task, especially if the books were written in another language.

If the ancient librarians left behind some kind of indexing system (perhaps discovered through a Decipher Script check), you could maybe cut the time in half.

 

[JustKim]

1d4 hours is extremely optimistic for research.

It takes 1d4+1 hours to question people using the Gather Information skill. Readily available people who will actively recall the information you are looking for and with whom you can quickly interact for specific details.

What the Research feat and Heroes of Light supplement are suggesting is that it takes less time to locate books in a library, find and assimilate relevant text, and cross-reference for what you're actually looking for.

In the real world, good research takes up your whole weekend, and we have things like the Dewey decimal system and the internet to help us out. And I'm not even getting into the complications of sharing information in a world without global civilization, without unifying science, where a word can cause someone's head to explode, and your personal one true god lives in apartment D-208, 1901 Elven Pantheon Lane on the third layer of Heaven-For-Chaotic-Goods.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

A library with 100,000 Items? Wow. Actually, this would be too big for anything that would have been middle ages or ancient times... Tell me more

well their was one, but it was burned to the ground. The library of Alexandria. Makes me cry thinking about it. I dont know if its true but i have heard that its destruction caused the darkages.

 

[Whimsical]

Here's my house rule for research. It's intended to be used in the libraries of Shackled City.

Knowledge checks can be rerolled if your character does some research. Use a source of information, such as a library, that grants a bonus to the knowledge check that you want to make. You can then make a new knowledge check afterward. The amount of time it takes to research a knowledge check normally take four hours of time to make. However, for every five points you make your Knowledge check, the time it took is halved (5-9 = two hours, 10-14 = one hour, 15-19 = 30 minutes, 20-24 = 15 minutes, etc.) If you don't have four hours to research, you can choose to increase the Knowledge DC by 5 to reduce the time to two hours, or by ten to reduce the time to one hour. And so on.

I use the same method for Gather Information checks.

Oh, and this Loremaster pwns your library.

 

[Treebore]

A library with 100,000 Items? Wow. Actually, this would be too big for anything that would have been middle ages or ancient times... Tell me more

Do you have any idea how many scrolls, maps, etc... the Library of Alexandria is believed to have had? How about the libraries of ancient Rome?


They were far more extensive than you seem to believe.

Now think of a world with mages, and gods dedicated to knowledge, with many churches and priests of great power.

How extensive of an inventory do you think major libraries in such a world would be?

Huge. Simply huge. Millions of scrolls, books, maps, etc...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Doing research in a library or archive that is 1) disorganized (by modern standards), 2) unstaffed, and 3) vast is going to be a tedious and time consuming task.

I once had to get some title documents from the records office in Waxahachie, TX- with a population of 21K, its not exactly a sprawling metropolis. The people who worked there did the digging, and I still had time to eat a leisurely lunch and shop in 3 antique stores before they called me to pick up the documents.

The situation you describe should be much more drawn out.

Thus, I agree that you should use the library more as a plot device (or occasional encounter setting) than as an actual library.

 

[Glyfair]

There's a feat called Research in the Eberron Campaign Setting that lets characters research out of a library. Personally, I don't think it would be too unbalancing to simply take the feat as a rules addition, so characters can use the "feat" without actually taking it.

I think the point of the feat is that the character specializes in library research (not any easy thing in most genre libraries). I would use it as a base and make things more difficult for those without the feat.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Yes, i do know how big ancient librarys tended to be - I'm a historian. And I can tell you that any estimate for Alexandria that goes over the 8000 mark is overrated. WAY overrated. Remember, we are talking about a time without printing presses, where everything was copied by hand.

HOWEVER, BTT: I'd say to meaningfully dig through a large, Library that is without a systematic organization (For example, the one at the university where I waste my days ) you'd need at the size we're talking about at least a week, probably more.