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Jimbob
2009-11-12, 08:08 AM
Afternoon all,

A character of mine is going to be building a stronghold and I just wanted to double check my workings out at the "guide to stronghold building" is not to clear.

My stronghold takes up 25.5 spaces, so that means it has 50% exterior and interior walls. Im using masonary for the external and at 2,500gp per space I worked it out to cost me 31,875gp (2500*25.5*50%)

But for the interior im using wood and it says in the description that you can use wood for free so I worked out how many spaces my second floor is and its 11. So the total cost fo this would be 5500gp (1000*11*50%)

Is this correct for the internal walls?

Many thanks.

elliott20
2009-11-12, 08:38 AM
first thing, do not use stronghold builder guide. with that, you end up spending a small nation's worth of GDP for a single bridge.

SilverSheriff
2009-11-12, 08:41 AM
are there any other sources then?

I something like the Stronghold builders guide for a PATHFINDER game...
My players will stop at nothing to build anything.

streakster
2009-11-12, 08:42 AM
Fun Fact - Mountain + Fabricate/Disintegrate= Free Fortress. Throw in some Wall of Stone/Wall of Iron action, and call it a day.


EDIT: Here's Lycanthromancer's plan from that one ongodly Fighter thread.

I can build an entire keep (and an incredibly complex and darned luxurious one, if I actually bother to use Craft checks) for virtually nothing, so long as I have time and the appropriate spells.

As far as costs go, fabricate pulls the weight of the load here. And, considering that standard campaigns have vast tracts of unoccupied wilderness (RAW, it's what the core rules assume; your mileage may vary) punctuated by towns, cities, fiefdoms, etc, it'd be easy to find raw materials. Even if those materials need to be chopped down and hacked up, processed and carted around, there are easy ways to do that, too (teleportation, planar binding critters, and so on).

I can find an unnoccupied granite mountain, cast some divination spells to make sure the area is clear of 'long forgotten monsters of yore that were sealed away beneath the surface' cliches, and then get to work. I don't need labor. I am the labor.

If I can be bothered, I'd hire a small group of mid-level mercenaries to patrol the area for threats (or just use my party or some planar-bound critters) while I, personally, build the entire thing using spells and spell slots that cost me nothing in terms of money that hasn't already been spent.

I can use fabricate to create walls, floors, and ceilings, archways and balconies, dungeons and doorways, rooms and hallways. A single fabricate spell alone might not be able to get the job done, but get this: I can cast it multiple times, and their effects (instantaneous, note) stack. Since I'm not creating anything too complicated (yet) I don't need to make craft checks to get the lion's share of the keep done.

If there are trees (plenty of forests, generally speaking), I can use fabricate to render them into easily-transportable blocks, make a Craft check to make a simple wagon to haul them, and use phantom steed to pull it (or I can use shrink item to transport thousands of tons of the stuff, if necessary).

If I want to increase my security, and have no iron around with which to do it, I can spend a piddling 50 gp per casting (affordable by level 2) to create a wall of iron that has a surprising volume (5 ft x 5 ft per level wide and tall, and 1" thick per 4 levels) in order to fabricate into whatever shapes I need. I can even use wall of stone, stone shape or fabricate to build my basic structure, then coat them in a veneer of iron using fabricate, which helps increase my security (since many spells don't work through thick metal walls), makes spells like stone to mud useless, and makes the walls harder to break down or dig through.

I can use fabricate to render stone, wood, or iron (whichever I want) to create fairly simple furnishings that are serviceable. I can procure the nice stuff later, but that's beside the point.

I can create simple doors without Craft checks, and I can find a variety of ways to lock them (ie, the lock spell), and if I want, I can make Craft checks (even untrained) to make surprisingly complex mechanisms, since my wizard's Int score is rather high (and there are lots of ways to make this happen, up to and including polymorph any object). Given that, being a wizard, my Int is REALLY high (and far higher if I do my homework with the proper applications of spells), there's a really good chance that I can get my Craft checks ridiculously high without spending any effort in buying lots of ranks. Thus, I'd be making Craft checks, that, even if I get a natural 1, still are very high, means I can create surprisingly complex structures with no money expenditure.

bosssmiley
2009-11-12, 09:33 AM
are there any other sources then?

Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC. They're reprints of the old edition rulesets, and have semi-sane - and still applicable - prices for stronghold components like keeps, curtain wall, towers and 10x10 dungeon corridors. Minor fixtures and fittings (arrow loops, doors, staircases, prison bars and the like) are assumed in the basic costs.

The LL prices are plenty inflated as a result of the game's intended "easy come, easy go" sword-and-sorcery focus, but a little research into medieval labour costs will allow you to cut them down substantially.

UglyPanda
2009-11-12, 09:34 AM
first thing, do not use stronghold builder guide. with that, you end up spending a small nation's worth of GDP for a single bridge.To be fair, most players use a small nation's worth of GDP on a single sword.

But yeah, don't use that book, if you don't want bankruptcy.

elliott20
2009-11-12, 09:43 AM
touche panda...

personally, I say keep it simple and just use the price in the DMG for a quick and dirty purchase. That is, if you just want to know how much one should cost. And really, unless you're trying to design something very specific and very bizarre, you should still be in the same ball park of the DMG price.

Jimbob
2009-11-12, 11:07 AM
Well these are all very helpful but they dont answer my question.

So can any one please answere MY QUESTION?

Tyndmyr
2009-11-12, 11:34 AM
Internal walls have their price included in the spaces you purchased, unless you're doing something funky to them.

Thus, build one floor down instead of building at ground level. Same cost, but you get stone walls for free instead of wooden.

Radar
2009-11-12, 11:44 AM
touche panda...

personally, I say keep it simple and just use the price in the DMG for a quick and dirty purchase. That is, if you just want to know how much one should cost. And really, unless you're trying to design something very specific and very bizarre, you should still be in the same ball park of the DMG price.
If one wants to build something more complicated, would it make sense, to normalise Stronghold Guide against DMG? By which a mean counting the price of a standard DMG keep using Stronghold Guide and divide the prices to get a fixed discount factor.

Lycanthromancer
2009-11-12, 01:10 PM
Well these are all very helpful but they dont answer my question.

So can any one please answere MY QUESTION?They cost nothing if you're a spellcaster, and cost less if you're friends with a spellcaster.

If you're neither of those, you're spending every gp you have on it, pretty much.