In the eternal effort to reduce accounting, and make the game run faster and smoother, I thought I would try these out.

Much like my wealth stat, I am going to issue a stat to a player or non player's lab or library.     Like the wealth stat, its a number that represents how stocked with scientific gizmos and or occult information that lab or library may be.


The higher the number, the more data they have and thus, the more helpful they are.

So  when inventing,  the Inventor has some quick numbers to work with.    They now would spend their inventing point, and instead of fumbling with pages of details about their belongings, they can roll vs their lib/lab stat.

So here is a quick run down.    Dr. Occult wishes to create a magic staff.  He spends the inventing point and the GM ( Me Mother Fers!)  gives him a modifier to his die rolls.   Dr. Occult rolls to see if he has the informatio nessessary to create that item.   His library is stated at 13.   Darn he rolls a 15.  He can abondon his research as he doesn't have the information needed to create the magic item OR he can spend two points from his Wealth Stat to make up the loss.     This represents him going out to gather more information, the expense of the travels and pay offs for such information, etc...

I will also permit the player to spend wealth stat points for lib/lab points on a one for one basis  BEFORE the attempt to invent.  This would also reprent spending money to stock their lib/lab with books, computers, scrolls, etc...  but not at the fly as they would do once the inventing process is going.  ( Hence loosing wealth points vs transfering wealth points.)

Does this make sense to anyone at all besides myself?

How does a PC start with one? Sacrifice Wealth points? Treat it like a low level power itself or anyone could have one but a stat of 9 would equal two textbooks and a microscope?

I like the simple mechanics of this John excellent idea.

The one thing to consider is ways one can INCREASE their wealth stat.  Given the above, the wealth stat can easily go down quickly, so to be fair there should be ways to get it back up.

If you make a wealth roll, and roll a one, it goes.  This is due  to the stock market, good investments, etc...   Pluse you can train in wealth, or sell inventions, make endorsements, etc...

Also, building a well stocked lab and or library should be difficult and expensive.   So don't expect to have a nice one at first level.

John,
The lab could probably have a 'base level' of 4 per the rules for attack level inanimate objects/animated servants etc. This would bring the difficulty ratio the GM would present to a 1 to 1... a character without a lab would face a higher difficulty to the invention task than the guy who has a lab..
The difficulty of the inventing task to be done would be modified by the present of the lab (the lab would help to modify the inventing score), after all its still the inventor and not the lab doing the research.
The lab should have a relevant field it supports too. All labs just aren't the same: A mechanic's auto shop is a lab, but so is a clean room in an electronics fab. Each Lab should have to be built separately and the cost should vary based on if it's just an add-on to a lab for a related field or if it's an entirely different application.
Wealth could increase the resources of the lab for sure.

This is another interesting idea overall John.

What would we consider Dick Dantes Library to be rated at?

Efforting......

True, and neither should  any Character's lab.

Yes.

So to help make this clear, and crystallize some rules, lets try this out.

Dr. Occult wants to create spell.  He has the necessary  knowledge areas.  So he spends the inventing point.   THEN rolls the %.  So far so good.   Then to see if he has the proper amount of materials  he rolls vs his library and wealth stats.   If all these rolls are good then new spell.  I will assign the time based on how successful the wealth and library rolls are.

If he fails either the wealth or library rolls, he doesn't have enough money or enough lore to complete the spell.   He can spend and permanently reduce his wealth stat to make up for the difference.  He can spend wealth for, wealth and, or, library.

Does that make its clear?

So I read this as it actually making it more detailed and even more difficult to invent something. Adds more detail to inventing as opposed to just whipping something up.

Last night was a pretty good example when Strombringer used inventing points to create an Antidote. The main focus was to get to the CHESS Lab in the Deep Six Holding Facility. He had the knowledge but not really everything he needed to complete the Antidote until he got to the Lab. That was actually pretty cool. Figure that Lab had a pretty high Lab score plus had the Technicians there to help with the work.

If you don't have a library, then you automatically fail the library roll, right?   

I hope you have a ton of money to make up for that then.

Basically one reduction in Wealth score translates to that score in the amount of rolls you can use to increase your Library or Lab.

It's not like you are just trading one point for another. I get it.

19 Wealth and you take  off 1 wealth point. This gives 19 chances for success' to increase your Library or Lab with each success making the next roll slightly more difficult on a D20 as the Lab or Library gets larger.

Wealth reduces to 18 because you spent all the money investing in the Lab or Library

OK. Subbing Dr. Occult with Dr. Dante.

Dick has a Library with a score of 11. He wants to sacrifice a point of Wealth which is currently at 15 so he dips into a few accounts.

Since his Library is currently at 11pts does that mean he now has 4 rolls on d20 to increase the Library score of 11, unless of course one of them is successful early in which case he would then have to beat a 12 if he makes it.

Math error.


If Dick Dante had a wealth of 15 and reduced it to 14 bump up his lab, get gets 15 rolls, not 4. But , as in the case above, the first roll would have to beat 11 and so on.