Many of us are 8th level now, only 1 level from the stronghold levels. I go back and forth all the time as to whether to try to rule over some peasants, or just run my sacred order of neo-Ardean assassins.
Despite the fact that I get the Savage Worlds or Homebrew Game or Traveller itch every now and again, I'm pretty excited that we're actually reaching the "name levels" and are going to start building stuff soon.
Should we perhaps have a page on the campaign wiki for each person who builds one's stronghold? We need some sort of uniform of monitoring what people are doing, time and effort wise.
I know Jason has been banging away with Badaxe Jack all along, how much paperwork is involved?
I think we should destroy the Tower of Dengwur. We kicked the ass of the bastard, we bored out "Bor"'s hole. We got some ass-kicking clerics.. Let's put a smiting on the ass of the Lich!
ReplyDeletePaperwork, it does take a bit. But basically, it's a HUGE money sink. Starting with your keep/fortress (which required a 30,000gp investment because it's wilderness). If you're an active adventurer, population will grow better for you, but for a semi-retired adventurer like Badaxe Jack, you'll see fortunes disappear if you do what he was doing and try to use coin to bring settlers in for expediency's sake. Put shortly, money equals population growth. Population means more money coming in monthly and (if you're a clerical type, with a decent stronghold morale) you can also use the population to help you replace (at least some of) those pesky magic item components on a monthly basis. At the best morale level (which Badaxe Jack has maintained at great cost), you need a minimum of a class 4 town (625 families) in order to avoid the material costs of a level 1 scroll/potion components.
ReplyDeleteAs far Murderface, he's got a VERY sizable fortune gathered right now, as well as a couple of groups of junior berserkers formed, and a decent level craft priest backing him up. I'm thinking I need to find a spot for the new Mordhaus, and start training up my own batch of Klokateers, so I can start looking for the rest of Dethklok.
There are probably ways we can work together to make our strongholds compliment each other. For example, if we were to secure domains near each other, we could probably make the case to say that the Badlands are at least borderlands (which means the population can get larger, faster), or possibly even civilized lands (which means the population can get larger, faster still).
Ultimately, the bottom line is yes, you can get money from strongholds (or other things like hijinks or trade caravans), but it will take a long, long time before it's even close to what you could get adventuring (though it is usually much safer).
is there the ability that our one town of yoeville can become the city of yoestantinople or something
ReplyDeleteeach with our own suburbs taking different corners of the city ?
Well, basically Dave's assassin and the wizards can set up shop wherever they darned well please in Yoeville and not worry about any crossover.
ReplyDeleteDave's assassin can form an assassin's guild, which does it's own thing pretty much regardless of what happens in the rest of the city.
The wizards can build a wizard tower, and do the spell research/enchanting thing. The main drive for wizards, though, is they build a tower with a nearby dungeon (whether they build it themselves or build the tower near a dungeon), so they can harvest monster bits for enchanting. Generally their towers will be (or should be) away from towns, because the monsters from their dungeons will cause trouble (think like Skull Mountain).
Clerics, can do a lot of the spell research, magic item creation and so-forth that mages do, but they can also build a 'fortified sanctuary' at half the listed price, and attract 5D6x10 fanatical followers (never check morale) and a D6 1st to 3rd level clerical followers. Now, fortified sanctuary doesn't say anything about requiring a domain. You could probably make it like an actual church inside a city, and get the 'congregation' benefits (using the spiritual power of your congregation to substitute for enchanting materials). You'd get ALL the benefits yourself by founding your own town, but I suppose a cleric church inside another person's domain would be possible.
Fighters, though, I really don't know how they would form a stronghold situation in another person's town/realm. The book says 'build a castle and become a great leader of men, taking a leadership rank in his society'. I suppose you could become a mercenary leader or something, but without land to pay for upkeep on things, and a sizable city with which to hire mercenaries from, you'd quickly run out money and men. You have to pay for those D4x10 mercenaries and D6 1st-3rd level followers yourself, in addition to any others you hire. You could say you have a mansion/fort/whatever outside the city in the countryside, but still, that's just going to be a money sink without your own domain.
A single city of Yoeville's size just is not going to produce enough money to provide upkeep for all of our needs. Unless we did something crazy like dig up a couple of million gold pieces to turn Yoeville into a class 1 city.
There's also the weird wizard near Skull Mountain. Maybe it's time to give him a visit again. By which, I mean, Kill his ass dead and take his castle.
ReplyDeleteCapturing keeps and lairs is actually one way you can cut down on the costs for founding a stronghold. Clear out an underground lair, or murder a wizard who already owns a tower, and boom, you got a stronghold.
ReplyDeleteIf at some point, we want to take the weird wizard of Tower Graf, I will need a bit of advanced notice (at least a day or two before the game session, real time) to make it happen.
ReplyDelete>>Should we perhaps have a page on the campaign wiki for each person who builds one's stronghold? We need some sort of uniform of monitoring what people are doing, time and effort wise.
ReplyDeleteI'll take care of that by starting the first one for Yoesville.
>>A single city of Yoeville's size just is not going to produce enough money to provide upkeep for all of our needs.
Amicus is working hard just to make sure it can take care of *his* upkeep. The only reason why he can hire you 7th level guys is because you count toward his garrison. As soon as you turn 8th level, your garrison value is only 1800gp and I would have to pay your upkeep of 5000gp -- not a very good bargain. However, paying a 1000gp upkeep on a 1400gp 7th level dude makes *great* economic sense.
if at all possible some of my flunkies could be hired out for this job they do 2 weeks of a month work at yoeville and it gives rinaldo 2 weeks a month free to do magical research
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday tell me their levels, and I'll make them an offer. If their value to me is significantly below their benefit (see the 8th level breakdown above) consider it done!
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