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Sarquion
2010-09-07, 12:30 PM
What book are they in and what page, just because I cannot find the price for buildings anywhere

ericgrau
2010-09-07, 04:59 PM
DMG or SRD:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm#buyingBuildings

There are also books that get into more detail and give more options.

Shhalahr Windrider
2010-09-07, 05:01 PM
Which game and edition?

For 3.x D&D, the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook has information for constructing and pricing buildings of all sorts.

Chrizzt
2010-09-07, 05:03 PM
Concerning the Stronghold Builders Guidebook I have the impression that they are quite overpricing everything they offer. Basic wooden furniture for a bedroom comes at several hundred goldpieces, for example. For adventurers it might be no problem, general consistency suffers, however (how should the peasants be able to furnish their houses?)

The descriptions of possible building components are nice, though. The prices however are simply not reasonable, in my opinion.

ericgrau
2010-09-07, 05:11 PM
Historically, yes, clothing, furniture and homes were expensive and often passed down through generations or home made. There's also all the math out there showing that commoners aren't as poor as you think, and a commoner (or was it a family?) can buy a couple hundred gp worth of stuff per year.

Chrizzt
2010-09-07, 05:23 PM
I have seen a math about a commoner family, where the young son hunts, the parents craft and the young girl collects berries or the like. Do you mean that math? It is some time ago that I have read it, though, so I don't quite remember the exact numbers. I would be happy if you could provide me with the link. It could perhaps change some (and only SOME :smallwink:) of my thoughts about Stronghold Builders Guidebook.

Shhalahr Windrider
2010-09-07, 09:08 PM
Concerning the Stronghold Builders Guidebook I have the impression that they are quite overpricing everything they offer. Basic wooden furniture for a bedroom comes at several hundred goldpieces, for example. For adventurers it might be no problem, general consistency suffers, however (how should the peasants be able to furnish their houses?)
Hm.

I never really had cause to examine the cost of furnishings separate from that of the rest of the stronghold components. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-08, 12:58 AM
Concerning the Stronghold Builders Guidebook I have the impression that they are quite overpricing everything they offer. Basic wooden furniture for a bedroom comes at several hundred goldpieces, for example. For adventurers it might be no problem, general consistency suffers, however (how should the peasants be able to furnish their houses?)

The descriptions of possible building components are nice, though. The prices however are simply not reasonable, in my opinion.

Keep in mind the modifiers. For instance, walls are free in the first level of basement if stone. Likewise, free on first level of ground floor if wood. This allows you to very inexpensively model most civilizations in a reasonable fashion.

There's also the fact that commoners might not have complete bedroom sets. Sleeping on a straw mat or similar, with perhaps a blanket is pretty common historically. I would expect those at the lowest rungs of society to do the same, and if they own their own homes at all(which is doubtful), they have the absolute minimum. This is easily attainable with D&D economics.

Chrizzt
2010-09-08, 01:46 AM
@Shhalahr Windrider
I meant the stronghold components that are basically just sets of furniture, like the Bedrooms, Basic, on page 18. It costs 700 gp, and if you half the price because you only want one small bedroom, thats 350 GP, for a straw matress and rough furniture.

If commoners may get more money that I am aware of, this might change my own calculations as well, of course.

But for another example you might want to have a look at the basic courtyard. 1000 GP for... flowers and rough wooden benches. Not even paved ways. And the basic kitchen costs 4 times the price of an alchemists lab. : ) Sure, its a big kitchen. But still.. Or consider the guard post. 300 GP for an unspecified componant that allows someone to have a look at the surroundings. 300 GP to buy a chair or what? Don't get me wrong, I like the book, but they demand money for things that should be cheaper or even free.

Some other stuff might have been reasonably priced onces, but with all the materials out now, they just aren't anymore. For example the book prices on page 25. I would have priced them like masterwork tools providing bonus on certain knowledge topics, but in the stronghold builders guidebook they are not only too expensive, but also take away to much place in your library.

Those are just pick-and-choose examples that came right into my head. As said, stronghold builders guidebook has its good points too.

@Tyndmyr:
It might be realistic to assume that the generic commoner would sleep in a slum-like accomodation, on the floor or the like. Most descriptions of D&D towns in official books or adventures however do not mention slums, and many commoners even own houses made of brick or even frame houses. At least this is my impression, which might have been mislead.

Another_Poet
2010-09-08, 01:54 AM
I think if you are haggling over mundane furniture you have gotten pretty far from the core concept of D&D.

If the furniture is fine enough to be an Art Object or if it has magical powers, price guidelines are already in the DMG.

For major buildings like fortresses with crenelated walls, I can see a need for pricing the approximate value. If it is mundane it is probably less than you would expect; several thousand gold pieces is an outlandish expense even for a noble and could represent generations of peasant labour to build. Adding a new tower or wall section might be 1,000 gp or less.

If the structure is enchanted in any way, use the wondrous item pricing from the DMG.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-08, 11:33 AM
@Tyndmyr:
It might be realistic to assume that the generic commoner would sleep in a slum-like accomodation, on the floor or the like. Most descriptions of D&D towns in official books or adventures however do not mention slums, and many commoners even own houses made of brick or even frame houses. At least this is my impression, which might have been mislead.

Some probably do(and yeah, it likely varies by setting). Class and personality are different. Commoner A is a spendthrift who isn't that great at his profession, and spends whatever he makes. He lives in a pretty trashy place. Commoner B has maxed out profession x, Skill Focus x, and works at the same trade as his father before him. He lives in a decentish, if small, home, possibly inherited. Both are fully supported within the rules, and are pretty reasonable historically.

Personally, I enjoy slums in the stuff I make. I like a wide range of wealth values, and D&D supports that very well.

bokodasu
2010-09-08, 11:50 AM
I've always wanted to use Wall of Stone to build my entire castle. Sure, it may take some time, but it's free.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-08, 11:52 AM
Right. I've done it in downtime. It's pretty amazing how much you can create with stone shape, wall of stone, wall of iron, and fabricate in just a coupla weeks.

We only use the SBG for things our characters can't make for ourselves. And a DIY wizard is pretty good at it.

ericgrau
2010-09-08, 12:09 PM
I have seen a math about a commoner family, where the young son hunts, the parents craft and the young girl collects berries or the like. Do you mean that math? It is some time ago that I have read it, though, so I don't quite remember the exact numbers. I would be happy if you could provide me with the link. It could perhaps change some (and only SOME :smallwink:) of my thoughts about Stronghold Builders Guidebook.

Not off the top of my head but IIRC the DMG does mention something on it without doing the math.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-08, 12:18 PM
Well, let's assume a profession check, with no stat boosts of any kind.

4 ranks for level 1, +3 for a skill focus. After a short period of time, you can afford the +2 from masterwork tools, for a total of +9. You get half your check in gold per week, so taking ten, you'll get 9.5 gold per week for a single commoner.

That isn't too shabby. A days worth of poor meals is a silver piece, so if you eat three squares, you drop .7 gold on food. Perhaps a bit more for the occasional gallon of ale or better food. For the poor, you can get a loaf of bread for two coppers. A peasant's outfit will run you another silver piece, which is still fairly unimportant. So, even a level 1 peasant can have a reasonable bit of spending money if he's frugal. And he can certainly support a family.

ericgrau
2010-09-08, 12:28 PM
More likely a copper or so for a pound or so of wheat. Commoners get by mostly by making their own food and so on. Profession is for professional laborers. So if you mean the town blacksmith and so on then ya they're pretty well to do. But the self-sufficient farmer, while he doesn't even have to pay the copper for the wheat, makes less money. OTOH it might not be unreasonable for someone to learn a profession later.

MickJay
2010-09-08, 01:24 PM
If you want to be cheap: check how much a skilled craftsman/untrained labourer can do in a day IRL, hire craftsmen in the game, give them raw materials and tools, provide them with tents to live in and food and pay their wages. Depending on the type of work they'll be doing, the costs are going to be between 10 and 50 times lower than those in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook for almost every item listed there.

Ormur
2010-09-08, 02:34 PM
D&D economics don't make much sense in context so I'd avoid attaching a gp price to anything the party isn't buying. If they're buying a house you can just use the official prices and assume they're getting screwed over or lower to what you think is appropriate. I use the SBG but I tend to think of the prices there as only in terms of balancing the landlord feat. Also even though the more mundane stuff is expensive the expensive stuff isn't necessarily so. Wondrous architecture as an example is in most cases a lot less expensive than comparable effects according to the magic item creation rules in the DMG, balanced of course by being immobile.

Huge castles worth up to a million gold were probably built over a long time with a lot of cost reducers from inexpensive labour, magic and favourable conditions by nobles and kings that might very well have incomes measured in hundreds of thousands of gold per year.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-08, 05:36 PM
If you want to be cheap: check how much a skilled craftsman/untrained labourer can do in a day IRL, hire craftsmen in the game, give them raw materials and tools, provide them with tents to live in and food and pay their wages. Depending on the type of work they'll be doing, the costs are going to be between 10 and 50 times lower than those in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook for almost every item listed there.

Well, the problem goes when you say "IRL". If you bring real life productivity into a game, and expect to pay fictional wages from an entirely different age, it's going to come across as blatant gamesmanship to get the cheapest price.

Now, there's nothing wrong with hiring craftsmen...you can make money that way, by buying a shop, hiring workers, that sort of thing. Of course, this IS fairly realistic, and unless you're paying for fancy modules just because you can, it won't be terribly expensive. However, the DM probably will use it as a plot point somewhere along the line.

MickJay
2010-09-09, 12:18 AM
I'm rather thinking of doing something along the lines of checking how much a guy with a shovel can dig during a 10 hour work day (which is still being very generous to the man, considering the setting) and hiring diggers to dig your moat, then a few carters to carry the dirt and then making some earthworks with it. It's going to be far cheaper than the 50k (IIRC) listed in SBG. Same with hiring gardeners, people laying pavement, carpenters, stonemasons, etc. That's all assuming they're experienced workmen using mediaeval/renaissance building methods, by IRL I meant considering the realities of the setting, not how much an engineer in a specialized vehicle can do (which would be equivalent of hiring a minor mage to help out with spells - and they'd make things even cheaper, considering how low the listed wages of a lesser mage are).

gomipile
2010-09-09, 12:25 AM
I'm rather thinking of doing something along the lines of checking how much a guy with a shovel can dig during a 10 hour work day (which is still being very generous to the man, considering the setting) and hiring diggers to dig your moat, then a few carters to carry the dirt and then making some earthworks with it. It's going to be far cheaper than the 50k (IIRC) listed in SBG. Same with hiring gardeners, people laying pavement, carpenters, stonemasons, etc. That's all assuming they're experienced workmen using mediaeval/renaissance building methods, by IRL I meant considering the realities of the setting, not how much an engineer in a specialized vehicle can do (which would be equivalent of hiring a minor mage to help out with spells - and they'd make things even cheaper, considering how low the listed wages of a lesser mage are).

Not to mention it only costs 660g to have someone cast Move Earth once.

Hague
2010-09-09, 01:52 AM
Right. A cadre of unseen servants or a set of eternal wands of unseens servant might serve you much better. Constant, free labor, or a way of shoring up a larger labor force.

Amulets of the Disk can provide laborers with easy transport of tools, bricks and blocks. Lets not forget that magewrights (if you play Eberron) have access to bonuses on craft and profession checks for your laborers. Lets not forget access to bardic music, and other abiltities can aid your workers. A simple bonus to lots of relatively unskilled workers can add a lot of cumulative gp for those bonuses. Let's not forget other morale bonuses and situational bonuses.

Otodetu
2010-09-09, 02:05 AM
The stronghold builders guidebook really does not make sense, the prices are way to high.

The developers even admitted as much when they added the landlord feat in the book, basically a feat so that you can afford a stronghold without digging into your wealth by level.

ericgrau
2010-09-09, 11:39 AM
I'm rather thinking of doing something along the lines of checking how much a guy with a shovel can dig during a 10 hour work day (which is still being very generous to the man, considering the setting) and hiring diggers to dig your moat, then a few carters to carry the dirt and then making some earthworks with it. It's going to be far cheaper than the 50k (IIRC) listed in SBG. Same with hiring gardeners, people laying pavement, carpenters, stonemasons, etc. That's all assuming they're experienced workmen using mediaeval/renaissance building methods, by IRL I meant considering the realities of the setting, not how much an engineer in a specialized vehicle can do (which would be equivalent of hiring a minor mage to help out with spells - and they'd make things even cheaper, considering how low the listed wages of a lesser mage are).

FWIW Based on this:
http://dynamicsuser.net/blogs/singleton/archive/2009/03/02/if-it-takes-one-person-10-days-to-dig-a-ditch-how-long-does-it-take-10-people-to-dig-the-same-ditch.aspx

I got about 5,000-10,000 gp depending on the size of the enclosed castle (100x100 to 200x200) for 1300-2600 man-days of labor. Maybe 2,000 gp as a very generous idealistic scenario where you hired all the labor yourself, perfect efficiency and the moat is minimum size. Tools and carts add many a couple hundred gp more. All that includes putting the dirt about 150 feet away from the moat, which may or may not be acceptable. That effectively makes the work area 500x500 (including putting the dug out dirt far away), which is still within two move earth spells though. You need the second spell to reach the 15 foot depth.

That's fine for a temporary moat. What puzzles me more is how the moat stays in place without eroding away over time. That may require a bit more work. Making the walls an additional 10 feet deep, for example, would cost quite a bit. Especially since the walls themselves supposedly cost 350,000 gp (the difference between a keep and a castle is the walls+towers). Not to mention the steep angle that would have to be done with manual labor since move earth can't do that. On the other side a gradual slope could help prevent erosion, though it may need maintenance too.

So since the walls seem to cost much more than the moat itself, and might be part of the moat, now I wonder how many walls of stone it would take to do 400-800 feet of 10 foot thick x 15 foot high wall. EDIT: A wall of stone is thin and thus only 7.5 cubic feet. Hiring masons would be a lot cheaper and faster than making 8,000-16,000 walls. Now I wonder how much building that wall would really cost.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-09, 12:31 PM
SBG does have a caveat about work being cheaper with magical help and such. It even includes rules about repeatable magic traps, but doesn't consider their application to construction itself.

There's also the price modifications based on where you build the castle. If you pick a reasonable spot, you can shave quite a good chunk off the price. Continue by doing most the work yourself via magic, or hiring a mage who can. Only use their rules for things you don't posess the capability to make.

Consider their rules like hiring a home designer to make a place for you. He handles all the details, but charges you a premium. If you want to get your hands dirty yourself, you can save a ton.

And designing a fortress is really quite a lot of fun, especially if you want to hire a fair number of people(rules also in SBG, very handy) to work the place and such.