Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Venshad 04-18-06, 08:30 PM	Greetings! My current character (an aasimar Cleric 1 / Paladin 5) got the Leadership feat, and altough his leadership score only allows him 5 level 1 followers, he wishes to build, in the long term, a keep near the city he lives. So I need some advice on how to build a keep (and upgrade it into a village/small city). By building I mean: *Constructing the keep (can I use the craft rules of 1/3 total cost of materials?) *Hiring employes *Overall costs I don`t know if I am asking too much, but any advice counts :) Thanks
forrestfire15 04-18-06, 09:02 PM	first , get a lyre af building. Sword and Fist has costs for employes.
Fenris Frost 04-18-06, 10:19 PM	Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell. There's one of my favorite little sourcebooks called Stronghold Builder's Guide. Sorry if it seems a bit cheap telling you to go find a book but honestly, I use it all the time. It's easy to understand, it has pretty much everything you could think of and then prices, time, and everything you need. Check it out if you can and remember, you don't necessarily need to buy it. Just take a notebook to your nearest bookstore and chill and take notes.
Last City 04-18-06, 10:25 PM	Yup, the stronghold builder's guide is a good reference and source for building whatever castle/keep u had in mind. :)
Sithus 04-19-06, 12:31 AM	Be prepared to pay for dirt squares though. [SBG] This book has haunted me since our group built a castle.
Bluehero 04-19-06, 12:38 AM	i think theres prices for a keep in the dmg, but im not sure about making one ur self
Mirikon 04-19-06, 12:49 AM	Stronghold Builder's Guide was put out during the 3E days, but pretty much everything in it can be taken as is for use in 3.5. Double-check prices of the magic items listed there, just to be safe, though. As was mentioned before, a Lyre of Building will do wonders to reducing the cost of your keep. That, combined with spells such as Levitate, Move Earth, and the like can really reduce the cost of building.
katarl 04-19-06, 09:23 AM	I gave up on the stronghold builders guide when it told me it cost 200 000gp to build a small cabin. What!? A grand house costs 5000gp, thats reasonable! It costs about 50 000gp to build a small keep, from Sword and Fist, with room for about 40 warriors, plus 4 officers. There aren't any real rules for building a village- i've been trying for weeks, mongoose does sell something similar, but the rules get ridiculously murky when you start wondering what a peasant gets. A lighthouse keep (much bigger) costs 150 000gp, and a mansion costs 100 000gp. Generally, people come for jobs, and stay for houses and food. If you can set up a small trading post that creates items using the craft rules, and sells them for a profit, or you create a mine, then starting a community isn't too difficult. I play a sort of knightly person, and wanted to get a good deal of land. For 3000gp, you can start a small farm, get peasants to work it (families of 8 *all* adding +2s), and leave them 10gp a month, and you'll break even in a couple of years. This isn't something you're going to do in your standard campaign. Creating a keep yourself will require 1/3 of 50 000 (thats just over 16000gp) or a working stone quarry, many stonemasons and labourers (thats 25000gp or so) working for a few months (you add all their checks together, i guess) and the remaining 1/6 is taxes and other general costs. A keep is an 'item', so it can be built using craft, but you wouldn't really want to.
Venshad 04-19-06, 11:51 AM	Hi! First of all I'd like to thank you all for the replies! I'll explain my current situation to clarify any doubts regarding my plans. By now, my PC is resident on a small city (more or less 840 citizens), with almost none militia and guard security. This city posses a strategical bridge that connects two important places, in addition of beeing a good trade pathway. My PC, as stated before, is a Paladin, so he wishes to better defend the city against common foreing invaders, so he is gathering a small number of followers (via Leadership feat) to become the city's guardian. The local Mayor is weak and suscetible to bribe, as the local militia. Most of the citizens are farmers (with some exceptions, like merchants and artisans). My idea is to slowly dethrone the local Mayor, by gaining the citizens' confidence and support. I wish to place my Tower (50.000 gp) near the bridge. As stated before, this Tower can mantain 40 soldiers and 6 officials. By 10th level I think I can attract that much of followers, but here comes the great question: how do I upkeep my men? As a Lawyer in real life I am used to several kinds of tributes and taxes, so I tried to apply my real knowledge into the game. Assuming that I want a big percentage of the local populace as Warriors, and that each Warrior costs 6 gp to maintain (in addition to food costs), I'll need something about 10 families farming my lands (assuming that each family can produce an excedent of 20 to 25 kg of vegetables, and each 1 kg can be sold for 5 sp, so I can tax them for something around 20% to 30%, wich gives me a total income of 2 gp to 3,75 gp per farm, or 20 gp to 37,5 gp for each 10 farms) so I can mantain 2 level 1 Warriors (12 gp), feed them (18 gp) and still have something to cash (in addition to other fair and acceptable taxes). This way, to mantain a permanent host of 1.000 foot soldiers I need something around 5.000 families working the lands, in addition to other taxes and revenues. What do you think? Am I a good administer ;) ? Thanks again!
Venshad 04-20-06, 12:12 PM	Ok. I just read my Stronghold Builder`s Guide and had a few questions. The book states that a stronghold can be built in one week for each 10.000 gold pieces in its final price, so a Border Tower (50.000 gp) would be complete in 5 weeks. This is ridiculous! If you consider the process of making a Stronghold a Craft check, with its DC varying accordingly to the type of construction, you'll notice that this rule (10.000 gp / week) is simply broken... Lets make the calcs: Craft (Stonemasonry) DC 15 (a simple Border Tower). Check result is 10 (roll) + 6 (general mods. like Skill Focus, Int. and Synergy Bonuses) + 100 (50 employies aiding the constructor) to a total skill check of 116. If we raise the DC to 115 we have a total of 13340 sp (1334 gp) in one week! This way, in order to beat the 10.000 gp cap we must have 150 (overall check of 316) employies aiding the constructor and a Craft DC of 315! This means that the overall worker cost is 315 gp (one week food) + 105 gp (laborer cost) = 420 gp / week or 1680 gp / month. So, a five weeks work will cost 2100 gp (worker total cost) + 16666 gp (1/3 material cost) + any other bribes, lands etc., resulting in something around 20.000 gold pieces (furnitures included). Pay someone to do it (and become stressed) for you: 50.000. Or, do it (and become stressed) by yourself: 20.000. Ok, this may sound tempting... :rolleyes: Comments?
DungeonMaster 04-20-06, 12:42 PM	Just to be certain: you're a lawyer in real life, playing an obligate lawful good class, and you're going to bribe local officials to usurp power ? The craft (stonemasonry) skill doesn't have a "simple border tower" DC so where the heck are you pulling that from? The costs are all inclusive, you don't need to worry about labor - it's factored in. Labor is 30% of the total cost only. p.10 of the book. It only costs you 15k GP of labor for a 50k tower. That's merely 3000 GP/week for all your labor costs.
Venshad 04-20-06, 12:55 PM	Just to be certain: you're a lawyer in real life, playing an obligate lawful good class, and you're going to bribe local officials to usurp power ? Hehehehehe. Yep, I am a Lawyer in real life, but I love to play LG (Paladins) characters and I AM NOT bribing local officials to usurp power. I just said that they are easily bribed, wich gives the populace a false safety sensation (wich my paladin obviously disagrees). The craft (stonemasonry) skill doesn't have a "simple border tower" DC so where the heck are you pulling that from? I just picked from the Craft DCs in the PHG. Altough there isn't a "simple border tower" DC, I picked the one I felt were more appropriate. Of course, the DM may wish to increase or decrease it. The costs are all inclusive, you don't need to worry about labor - it's factored in. Labor is 30% of the total cost only. p.10 of the book. It only costs you 15k GP of labor for a 50k tower. That's merely 3000 GP/week for all your labor costs. 15.000 gold pieces is a lot coins. I prefer to build things by myself, so I can save a great ammount of money from lazy workers and corrupt architecs. :D
Edymnion 04-20-06, 01:24 PM	I gave up on the stronghold builders guide when it told me it cost 200 000gp to build a small cabin. What!?Okay, obviously you're not telling us the whole deal here. A small cabin would only cost a few thousand, not hundreds of thousands. What did you try to do, really? Build a solid adamantine fortress in the middle of the richest part of Waterdeep in 2 days? There's just no way you could have followed the rules in that book and gotten 200k for a small cabin unless you put a *LOT* of expensive stuff in there that you're not telling us about.
Tolby 04-20-06, 01:36 PM	One thing your missing in when comparing your time to craft skill calculations vs stronghold builders guidebooks is that they say that the costs and time account for the fact your hiring spellcasters whenever approapriate. Which means spells like Wall of Stone mean instant hewn stone walls that would take laborers days or weeks to erect. There are lots and lots of ways to get discounts for building things in stronghold builders guidebook. Read over it carefully. Finally Craft Stonemasonry will only help you with stone items. What about the Wooden Furniture? Metal torch brackets? Linens for the beds? Pots/utensils for the kitchen/
Venshad 04-20-06, 01:52 PM	One thing your missing in when comparing your time to craft skill calculations vs stronghold builders guidebooks is that they say that the costs and time account for the fact your hiring spellcasters whenever approapriate. Which means spells like Wall of Stone mean instant hewn stone walls that would take laborers days or weeks to erect. There are lots and lots of ways to get discounts for building things in stronghold builders guidebook. Read over it carefully. Finally Craft Stonemasonry will only help you with stone items. What about the Wooden Furniture? Metal torch brackets? Linens for the beds? Pots/utensils for the kitchen/ I guess that 150 professional workers, with masterwork tools can make lots of things. But getting low to the point of choosing each one of them is really crazy... I preffer to just pay the generic price for workers ;)