I need help coming up with resources for raw materials. For example an NPC battle smith needs raw materials to build her iron defender. Obviously its made of iron, which is a great starting point, but I also need to determine exactly how much iron it takes to build a Medium Construct, the supply/demand economics, weights of either unprocessed ore or ingots. It is technically a quest of sorts as I don't want to hand wave this NPC automatically getting it at level 3. As for the time period, it's pre-industrial era wild west. Any help is much appreciated. Side note, DM's guild doesn't seem to have what I need.
The artificer ocasionally breaks the rules of material resources. The battle Smith states it can build an iron defender after a long rest. I like to think of it as magically being able to pull unlimited amounts of scrap metal generated by magic out of the tool box.
Medium construct, 6 feet tall, 1.5 feet square (roughly), total of 13.5 cubic feet. Iron has a density of 491.5 pounds per cubic foot. So if the construct is solid, that's 6635.25 pounds of iron. Let's say an ingot is 10 inches x 5 inches x 4 inches. You'd need 117 such ingots. In terms of economics, that could be obtained for a reasonable price at a large city's merchant district. The PHB says a pound of iron costs 1 sp. So the 3.3 tons needed for the construct will cost you 6635.25 sp, or 663.525 gp. That's not too bad.
But wait. It's gets more complicated.
An iron construct probably won't be just solid iron. There'll probably be some other materials mixed in there as well. Maybe some gold for heat shielding, maybe some copper for circuit conductivity, maybe even some mercury to drive the gyroscopic stabilizers or whatever. So let's say the construct is 85% iron, 7% gold, 7% copper, and 1% mercury. Gold has a density of 1206 pounds per cubic foot. Copper is 559. And mercury is 846.
Mercury: 0.135 cubic feet = 114.21 pounds @ 10 gp per pound = 1142.1 gp. (1.166 ingots) (I fudged this one because I couldn't find any D&D pricing for mercury/quicksilver.)
So, in total, the construct weighs 7422.46 pounds and costs a total of 58970.2275 gold pieces. (For reference, a 2019 Cadillac Escalade ESV has a gross vehicle weight of about 7300 pounds.)
Economically, the iron and copper should be readily available in the merchant district of any large city, or from a typical dwarven mine. That much gold might be harder to find in one spot. Maybe a dwarven mine or a dragon's hoard. Good luck. The mercury/quicksilver/cinnabar will be tricky. It's not a normal substance, and it's extremely dangerous to handle. You'd have to find an alchemist in a major city to even find out where to locate it. It's usually found in dense veins deep in mountains near a tectonic plate boundary where the crust has been deformed by uplift. So.... dwarves again. Or more likely, Drow. It does have practical applications as a prolonged-exposure poison, so the Drow are probably your best bet for negotiating a purchase. Again.... good luck.
So, it's heavy, it's expensive, and it's gonna take a lot of scrounging to acquire the necessary materials.
But here's the bad news... that's the easy part!
So you've finally got the materials. Now what? Well, you'll need a workshop and you'll need people who know how to work metals and build the dang thing. Building a construct is not like building a wagon or a chair. Check out "Crafting a Magic Item" on pages 128-129 of the DMG. It'll cost 50,000 gp to craft a very rare item and you'll need a wizard who is trained in alchemy who is at least 11th level. Progress is made at a rate of 25gp worth per day. So your construct, which had a materials cost of 58970.2275 gp would take about six and a half years. So yeah, you'll want to negotiate with the DM to whittle that number down a bit because gee whiz. If you convince the DM that a construct should only be considered a "rare" item rather than very rare, then you're looking at just 5,000 gp of crafting costs and 200 days of work. That's a bit better. That's something that could be role played in a single session of downtime montage.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
I need help coming up with resources for raw materials. For example an NPC battle smith needs raw materials to build her iron defender. Obviously its made of iron, which is a great starting point, but I also need to determine exactly how much iron it takes to build a Medium Construct, the supply/demand economics, weights of either unprocessed ore or ingots. It is technically a quest of sorts as I don't want to hand wave this NPC automatically getting it at level 3. As for the time period, it's pre-industrial era wild west. Any help is much appreciated. Side note, DM's guild doesn't seem to have what I need.
The artificer ocasionally breaks the rules of material resources. The battle Smith states it can build an iron defender after a long rest. I like to think of it as magically being able to pull unlimited amounts of scrap metal generated by magic out of the tool box.
As I said before, I don't want to hand wave it because magic.
Okay. So let's math this out.
Medium construct, 6 feet tall, 1.5 feet square (roughly), total of 13.5 cubic feet. Iron has a density of 491.5 pounds per cubic foot. So if the construct is solid, that's 6635.25 pounds of iron. Let's say an ingot is 10 inches x 5 inches x 4 inches. You'd need 117 such ingots. In terms of economics, that could be obtained for a reasonable price at a large city's merchant district. The PHB says a pound of iron costs 1 sp. So the 3.3 tons needed for the construct will cost you 6635.25 sp, or 663.525 gp. That's not too bad.
But wait. It's gets more complicated.
An iron construct probably won't be just solid iron. There'll probably be some other materials mixed in there as well. Maybe some gold for heat shielding, maybe some copper for circuit conductivity, maybe even some mercury to drive the gyroscopic stabilizers or whatever. So let's say the construct is 85% iron, 7% gold, 7% copper, and 1% mercury. Gold has a density of 1206 pounds per cubic foot. Copper is 559. And mercury is 846.
That's:
Iron: 11.475 cubic feet = 5640 pounds @ 1 sp per pound = 564 gp. (100 ingots)
Gold: 0.945 cubic feet = 1140 pounds @ 50 gp per pound = 57000 gp. (8.17 ingots)
Copper: 0.945 cubic feet = 528.255 pounds @ 5 sp per pound = 264.1275 gp. (8.17 ingots)
Mercury: 0.135 cubic feet = 114.21 pounds @ 10 gp per pound = 1142.1 gp. (1.166 ingots) (I fudged this one because I couldn't find any D&D pricing for mercury/quicksilver.)
So, in total, the construct weighs 7422.46 pounds and costs a total of 58970.2275 gold pieces. (For reference, a 2019 Cadillac Escalade ESV has a gross vehicle weight of about 7300 pounds.)
Economically, the iron and copper should be readily available in the merchant district of any large city, or from a typical dwarven mine. That much gold might be harder to find in one spot. Maybe a dwarven mine or a dragon's hoard. Good luck. The mercury/quicksilver/cinnabar will be tricky. It's not a normal substance, and it's extremely dangerous to handle. You'd have to find an alchemist in a major city to even find out where to locate it. It's usually found in dense veins deep in mountains near a tectonic plate boundary where the crust has been deformed by uplift. So.... dwarves again. Or more likely, Drow. It does have practical applications as a prolonged-exposure poison, so the Drow are probably your best bet for negotiating a purchase. Again.... good luck.
So, it's heavy, it's expensive, and it's gonna take a lot of scrounging to acquire the necessary materials.
But here's the bad news... that's the easy part!
So you've finally got the materials. Now what? Well, you'll need a workshop and you'll need people who know how to work metals and build the dang thing. Building a construct is not like building a wagon or a chair. Check out "Crafting a Magic Item" on pages 128-129 of the DMG. It'll cost 50,000 gp to craft a very rare item and you'll need a wizard who is trained in alchemy who is at least 11th level. Progress is made at a rate of 25gp worth per day. So your construct, which had a materials cost of 58970.2275 gp would take about six and a half years. So yeah, you'll want to negotiate with the DM to whittle that number down a bit because gee whiz. If you convince the DM that a construct should only be considered a "rare" item rather than very rare, then you're looking at just 5,000 gp of crafting costs and 200 days of work. That's a bit better. That's something that could be role played in a single session of downtime montage.
Well, I hope this helps.
Now you just need to think of a name for it.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
wow. this is actually more than enough. good thing im the DM. thank you so much!