[DF/Fantasy] A few Questions

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

I do my math in Notepad and double-check with a calculator.

I can't do that. I have a Numeric Dyslexia quirk; I can enter the same list of numbers into a calculator three times and come up with three different answers.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Based on what I've read, even skilled TL3 labour is cheap. The final cost of stuff ended up being based mainly on the cost of the stuff required to make the final stuff.

A Bible, for instance, was expensive because a wide variety of inks and rare colours were required to scribe and illustrate it, and of course the parchment to write it on, not because it took a monk 15 months sitting there wielding a pen. So that seems to be one major difference between TL3 and TL8.

This would indicate the Low Tech rules are wrong. Using LTC1 and the material costs from Low Tech, books are around 80% labor if using paper, 65% labor if using fancier materials (and -30% or so labor for vellum, which is obviously broken; if we assume all vellum collections are good quality, that brings it back to 65% labor). Iron is $6.9/lb (LTC3). The cheapest (per pound) all-iron item I can find in Low Tech is the large crowbar, at $11.875/lb, where a bit over 40% of the cost is going to be labor (so in that case most of the cost is material, but not by a large margin), while most seem to hover around $20/lb for utility, at least $40/lb for combat (for around 65% or 85% labor). I suspect most other material-item comparisons will be comparable.

[Bruno]

The cost of labor swings wildly depending on which side of a big plague or famine you're on. To a (usually) lesser extent, warfare can also toss it around.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

The cost of labor swings wildly depending on which side of a big plague or famine you're on. To a (usually) lesser extent, warfare can also toss it around.

Both Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting, and my own Ärth setting, are before the Black Death and its huge changes to the labour cost in medieval Europe.

So if GURPS Low-Tech has taken average values across multiple centuries, some before the Black Death and some after, then of course the result is going to be bizarre.

Also, to the other poster: Is the cited cost breakdown for a scribed book, or for a book that's both scribed and illuminated?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Also, to the other poster: Is the cited cost breakdown for a scribed book, or for a book that's both scribed and illuminated?

You'd have to ask the author of that particular section to know for certain, but from the descriptions of Good and Fine (as opposed to Basic) quality libraries it appears they are simply scribed (the higher quality versions sound like they are potentially illuminated).

[Anthony]

Skilled TL 3 labor is cheap, but it's also very low productivity. For that matter, many of the expensive materials are expensive because quite a bit of labor was required to produce those materials.