Re: [DL] A couple of Mad-Science Questions

[Marguerite Frey <natasha_corey@yahoo.com>]

Oh goody, more mad science!  :-)

--- W E Watson <wewatson@direcway.com> wrote:
> Where and which books lists or describes the amount 
> of time a scientist spends in developing his 
> blueprints?  The Player's Guide says that if the
> Scientist fails to make the required hand they spend
> Half the time reuired and must start again.  The
> "Gizmo Constuction Table" in the Players Guide lists
> "Base Times", but isn't this the time it takes to
> construct the gizmo.

The two books are the main rules, and Smith & Robards.
 Specifically to your question of time, look on page
138 of the main rules (that's in No Man's Land, just
FYI, and yes I do have a copy of the page with me, I'm
a geek).  The Gizmo Construction tables lists times
which are BOTH for development and construction.  So
if you're trying to build a steam wagon, with a hand
of Flush, it takes 1-4 weeks to develop the blue
print, and another 1-4 weeks to build the thing.  It
works differently for alchemy, however; let me know if
you want clarification.

On the construction, however, feel free to flub it
around a bit.  Even if your mad scientist draws a high
hand for a two pair invention and is entitled to say
1/8th build time, that doesn't mean it's feasible. 
Heh, we had one blue print that took something like 2
and a half MINUTES to build (a type of crossbow).  Our
joke was you threw a watch at a pile of wood and the
weapon popped out.  

As a good rule of thumb, we don't let the construction
time for an item be lower than the minimum time it
would take to build; i.e. a 1 - 5 hour device can't
take less than an hour to build.

In addition, if you're building something BIG, like a
vehicle, a single person is going to take MUCH more
time then an entire team would be.  In that case,
you'd be justified in declaring the item takes the max
time to build, at least.

> If the Mad Scientist fails to make his
> Constuction TN.  How much time & money are lost?

Hmmm... I haven't encountered this one, but I'd say,
like creating the blueprint, they lose half the time. 
Money wise the same, half, but I might let them make a
roll to recover some of those materials.  Say a TN 5
Tinkerin' roll to recover 50%, with an additional 10%
per raise.

Hope that helps; I'm more than willing to answer
additional questions or clarify.

Marguerite