I was looking at some of the magical research rules and had some questions I’d like semi-authoritative answers to.
Are libraries, workshops, labs, and crypts divided into arcane and divine, or can a mage use a cleric’s library or lab and vice-versa (maybe some are separated like this and others aren’t)?
How many spell-casters can benefit from a library or lab or workshop at once? I’d think that the library at least could be used by a multitude of casters (hence why a guild might grant access to their large library), but a workshop or lab might be limited to just a mage and her apprentices working under her.
How large/heavy is a library of a given value? At what point does it become impossible to transport unaided? by mule? by wagon?
What, if anything, is stopping a group of mage/cleric PCs from pooling their resources into a giant library (or workshop, etc.)? I understand that pooling resources is the whole point of mage guilds, but it seems like it might skew power-by-level if a mage has access to a library 3x a large as they normally would have.
3 seems deducible from the Mercantile rules, which put ‘rare books’ at 3 stone / 1000 gp. So at a wag I would rule that a wizard can carry around 6 or 7000gp of library at 30’, a mule can carry around 13000gp of library at 60’, and so forth.
As for 2, you could require them to partition the library’s value between people using it concurrently?
And for 4, I wouldn’t worry about it, but power-by-level isn’t something I stress much over in any case. They’re supposed to have X-ish gp at level n, and if they all spend it on library-stacking, that’s money that isn’t going somewhere else useful (like castles, mercenaries, funding actual research projects, or reserve XP). It’s all fungible, and it’ll work itself out.
1. Are libraries, workshops, labs, and crypts divided into arcane and divine, or can a mage use a cleric's library or lab and vice-versa (maybe some are separated like this and others aren't)?
They are not divided unless the Judge feels a particular book or item has a worth to one type of research but not to the other. For example, "The Holy Sacrament of the Lion" might be worth 2,000gp to a divine caster but worthless to an arcane caster, while "The Undisclosed Secrets of Sorcery" might be the opposite.
2. How many spell-casters can benefit from a library or lab or workshop at once? I'd think that the library at least could be used by a multitude of casters (hence why a guild might grant access to their large library), but a workshop or lab might be limited to just a mage and her apprentices working under her.
There's no official rule on this. I would allow the value of a library to be shared, while the value of a workshop would be divided by the number of (mage + apprentice) teams using it.
3. How large/heavy is a library of a given value? At what point does it become impossible to transport unaided? by mule? by wagon?
As Jedavis pointed out, it's 3 stone / 1,000 gp.
4. What, if anything, is stopping a group of mage/cleric PCs from pooling their resources into a giant library (or workshop, etc.)? I understand that pooling resources is the whole point of mage guilds, but it seems like it might skew power-by-level if a mage has access to a library 3x a large as they normally would have.
Nothing. They can and should do this. Note, however, that magical experimentation (per the Player's Companion) can be very damaging to a library or workshop...
The only real annoying part of the shared library is location. Once you start taking domains you either have to share or go to your friend’s tower to work. Not a deal-breaker, but irritating. I guess having one tower for library, one for the workshop, one for the lab, etc. would be fair. Or some could opt out of realm-building in favor of pure study.
In your campaign, how do you handle library and workshop construction times? I guess I can see two reasonable approaches here - one is the 500gp / day rate of stronghold construction (since presumably there is some literal physical construction involved in building a library), while the other would be to make Rare Books mercantile cargo the standard method of library expansion, in which case you have slow and variable library growth, but can get good deals in some places. This also makes looting the libraries of other wizards a more attractive option and adds incentives for travel and mercantile involvement. Less easy to do with workshops, though.
How large a library might one expect a guild to have as a function of town size or membership? Heck, how large a library might one expect an independent nth-level NPC wizard to have? Something like ‘starting at 5th, about 25% of income into each of library, workshop, research, and savings’? Likewise, what sort of dues would one expect a guild to collect?
I’m figuring that library value is more a function of the texts contained within than the structure, so library building should only take the time to aquire the texts (bookshelves don’t take long to make). That does still beg the question as to how much magical library material is available by market class. Workshops, labs, and crypts might be more like construction though…
I allow players to buy boxes of rare books on the Equipment Availability by Market Class table, priced as a 1000gp item. That will mean, e.g., 1 set of rare books per month in a Class III town. If they want more than that, they have to resort to the Mercantile system.
Ah, ok. I kind of considered that, but wasn’t really sure how mercantile lots interacted with the normal availability system. Sounds like a good compromise position, and a good precedent for other unclear cases.