Relocating Laboratories

Laboratories of any type are not very portable. If a character needs to move a lab, he requires one medium-sized wagon for each 100 square feet of equipment and materials. Packing up a lab or setting it up again after transport should require at least two to three days per wagon-load, and the wizard will certainly have to spend a significant amount of money in replacing broken, lost, or ruined materials. Depending on the length of the journey and the care of the wizard’s preparations, he will have to replace materials and equipment worth 10% to 40% of the value of the entire laboratory.

Shiria the Sorceress is a 7th-level invoker who has a great idea for a new spell, Shiria’s Bolt of Efficacious Destruction. First, she needs to find a site for her laboratory; after due consideration, Shiria elects to locate her lab in the town she and her comrades use as a base of operations. She decides to buy a “medium” stone building in a good part of town to house her laboratory and spends 3,000 gp to have a new building raised (she wants some specialized features to be included). The construction takes 10 weeks.

While she’s waiting for her building to be completed, Shiria decides to get a head start on collecting the materials and equipment she requires for her lab. Since she plans to do spell research, she decides to acquire a research laboratory, and the DM sets the price at 3,000 gp. It’s reasonable to assume that collecting and setting up the equipment would take some time, as well, but the DM generously decides that Shiria can do a lot of this while the building’s going up.

The initial expense of the lab includes a small library suitable for researching 1st-level spells, but Shiria’s Bolt is proposed as a 3rd-level spell, and Shiria will have to expand her library immediately to perform the research. She requires a library valued at 4,000 gp above and beyond her laboratory. The DM doesn’t feel like identifying any particular books she needs to find; Shiria can build her library at the rate of 500 gp per week, finishing her collection just about the time her building’s ready for occupation.

Since the research laboratory is valued at 3,000 gp, Shiria will have to pay maintenance and upkeep totalling 300 gp per month while she is engaged in active research, or 150 gp a month to keep the lab moth-balled. By now, Shiria’s purse is feeling a little light! She could have saved some money by renting a building instead of buying, or borrowing someone’s library instead of outfitting her own. Of course, she can recoup some of her investment by selling access to her facilities to other wizards, or selling Shiria’s Bolt of Efficacious Destruction once she develops it!

Table of Contents