Help me build an Academy!

[Kane0]

Hey guys, just need a little help planning this out.

Heres the situation:
This is Pathfinder.
The Party (me included) has recently gotten our hands on a fort and its surrounding farmland, and have been tasked with making it a thriving community, preferably with enough to growth to become a city like there once was long ago.
Every party member has a leadership role of some kind, and I am the once in charge of Arcane Magic. My idea is to coordinate with the treasurer (our wizard), the General (our Paladin) and the Marshal (Our gunslinger) to build an academy that acts as a central location for training, from militia and town guard right up to elite soldiers and Spellcasters. It may also double as fortifications and barracks in times of duress.
I hope to eventually make this academy renowned and valued for its production of (quickly and well trained) Warmages, versatile blends of Soldier and Arcanist. Using the system I have below a fully trained Warmage would take roughly two years to produce, by virtue of basic and then Warmage training.

The basics I have in mind in terms of training are:
{table=head] Training | Length | Purpose | Requirements
Basic| <1 Year | Militia, Town Guard, etc | None
Advanced (Military) | 1 Year | Professional Soldiers, Elite Guard, etc | Basic
Advanced (Other) | 1 Year | Scouts, Rangers, Specialists, etc | Basic
Magic | 1 Year | Arcanists and other casters | Basic
Warmage | 1-2 Years | Warmages | Basic
[/table]

The amount of training classes need varies according to their Skills, Magical capability and BAB.
Low BAB = Basic Training
Medium BAB = Basic Training and one other kind of training
Full BAB = Basic and Advanced training

<=4 Skill points per level = Basic Training
> 4 Skill points per level = Advanced Training (Other)

Naturally derived magic (spontaneous and <full casting) = Basic and Advanced training (Other). You can also opt to have Magical training in place of Advanced (Other).
Learned Magic (prepared and some spontaneous) = Basic Training and Magical Training

If you are required to take a type of training to cover more than once of these requirements it does not stack. Eg. a Ranger would not need to take Advanced (Other) Training twice because of his Full BAB and skill points. It is all covered in the one year.


So my questions boil down to:
-Is this feasible/sustainable/profitable?
-How much will this cost?
-How long will this take?
-Is there a better course of action?

[Averis Vol]

1) what you might want to do is take a look at the stronghold builders guide, that will tell you the general productions cost.

2) as for feasibility, it all depends on how many instructors you get and the skill of them (what level they are) the better the instructor, the better they should be. note that the higher the level they are the more they will charge.

3) once again for how long it will take, it depends on the skill and number of people you higher to build it. if you higher three dozen dwarven stonemasons it will be done twice as fast as any other race, throw spellcasters into it, even faster.

4) what level do you consider each different tier to be, i mean what level does basic training get you, what level does advanced and warmage get too? alternately after basic training you could start sending your students out to missions to get them some better experience, maybe you could turn into into a mercenary company and start taking in jobs for them to do. stuff like that, maybe you might even get the chance to go out and do a few jobs with your students to train them in an active environment rather then just going against dummies and people with blunted weapons who don't want to actually harm them.

i similarly started a company like this recently. it started small with just my party and cohort but eventually we started bringing in more people looking to join. now i don't even have to personally pay for the upkeep of the manor, the commissions from the jobs pay for it all :smallbiggrin:

[Feralventas]

As I understand it, arcane magic is somewhat like a college education. You'll need to have all of the basics already done (math, reading, understanding of the arts and such) before you can begin in anything resembling a specialization. Your DM may disagree, but a standard, 1st level wizard is going to take five or more years to produce after a moderate amount of prior training, and starting from scratch is looking more like a decade's worth of work on any one student.

I think you'll do okay with the one or two year's time to train warriors or combatants; swinging a weapon around is fairly straightforward, and while perfecting the arts of war will certainly take time, a regular 1st level fighter could probably be churned out in 6 month's time with dedicated effort, or a year or so for good measure and certainty.

Rogues and scouts and experts will take a while longer than the fighter's side of things because of the amount of technical training required, probably equivalent to a 2-year or community college degree.

A war-mage, since they're focusing more on practical application of magic rather than theoretical development might be able to get away with just the initial 5 years and a year or so of combative training combined with tactical and logistical details. Beguilers and the like the same, though since this is PF, Bards would probably fit in here too.

You can off-set the cost by requiring student tuition, but that then makes it a little more difficult to do because you're trying to cater to a relatively meek economic area. The way to start development is by taking the available resources in the area and either exporting it raw or by making simple things to get income started by selling them. You can help this along as a group of adventurers, but just pouring money into an academy would result in a nifty academy with very few local students. This does, however, bring up the opertunity for the area to develop a service economy based on the student's needs (you can see examples in the locals around a lot of private and public colleges and universities.)

PS: Magus is a prepared 'caster, not spontaneous.

[Kane0]

Thankyou for your input guys :smallsmile:

Averis Vol:
- Good idea, looking around for it now
- At the moment we are the only instructors, and possibly a few people from the neighboring city, which has a rather large magic academy of its own.
- We have about a dozen? or so decently skilled craftsman among the refugees and peasants, and could easily hire more help from the nearby city if needed (budget allowing)
- At the moment it is a low level game, the party just got level 5. Initial training might be 1st or 2nd level, then advanced 3rd or 4th. Warmage training is the last to be implemented and will probably be on the higher end (4th-5th). This will likely scale with both the party level and the progress of our lands.

Feralventas:
- That is true. I will have to tweak the training to make wizards and the like need longer training, but it shouldnt be much more than everyone else going through the academy. We want them to be coming out in workable batches instead of staggered groups after all.
- Agreed
- Agreed. I hope this training shows that skilled characters need a little longer than standard warriors and different to dedicated soldiers
- Agreed. The focus of his tuition would mean a faster education. Plus I hope the academy will eventually become renowned for its warmages, so its training would be better, shorter or both.
- Good idea, but we cant get too much off anybody yet as we are still setting up and taxes on refugees that are trying to settle wouldnt work too well.
- Good catch, fixed :smallsmile:

[Lostbutseeking]

Completely non-mechanical but you should get a lich as a librarian, he will always know where to find the book a student wants and people won't be late returning them.

[Kane0]

Stronghold builders guide was a lot of help thanks!

Also keeping in mind a lich for a librarian, but may have to do with an animated book or something until i can get one...

[Suddo]

Don't, don't, don't look to closely at how the world of D&D works. When you level 3 levels in about a week you may start to wonder why these silly commoners are still level 1 even though they have lived a decade longer than you (past adult). But if we are going to actually do it let break it.
So you are playing PF I may mention somethings from 3.5 so double check my work, I'm not 100% familiar with PF.
Try and look up if Pathfinder has something like this. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm#magicdevicetrapcost) Basically you'll create a create food and water trap, this will feed the entire academy.
If you can't do that try and start up a church pick a LG god to rule over it and get as many Clerics to do the above. Because they are LG, perhaps a god of education, they will want to help feed the people for free.
You could also create a pile of level clerics in a couple of years. They can create water and purify water all day combine this with proper farming technique and you'll able to break that form of the economy. Though try and make sure you are near a low river so you can funnel it somewhere.

Unfortunately a lot of the really game breaking spells are higher level. This includes: Plant Growth (3rd Plant), Fabricate (5th Wiz, 5 Artifice), all healing spells from cures light wounds to cure poison or disease, if you are feeling kind of evil Calm Emotion being repeatedly cast over people can help keep them in line, there are many more but you'll have to look for them.

Edit: If you can build magic repeating traps post it and I'll dive deeper.

[Averis Vol]

Stronghold builders guide was a lot of help thanks!


figured it would, its a great source book for building stuff. built my whole homebrew world off of it (the cities and towns of course, not that actual world. that would be unreasonably expensive :smallannoyed:)