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Bouregard
2012-07-13, 12:34 PM
While most adventurers and heroes sleep in their cloak and lick green things growing under rocks for nutrients, there are apparently some who spend their loot on real estate.

RP reasons aside, why should your average powergamer spend his hard earned gold on something he can't carry around?


The stronghold:
In every adventurers life will be one point where he bites of more then he can chew.
Maybe he married the beautiful young princess to a horrible old necromancer in the woods for 50 goldpieces and a +1 sword and the father/king sends a few of his most powerfull knights to teach our would be date doctor a lesson?
A fight in open terrain would be suicide. But behind your very own castle walls? Easy.

The trophy rack:
This adds another option of reward for the DM. You defeated the evil dwarfs of MountMacDwarf? Oh that masterwork bed locks really comfy. Why should I sell it, if it fits nicely into my bedroom? Finally there is a use for adamantium doors beside selling them.
Even portable holes and bottomless bags have limits! While adventurer can carry an impressive amount of items sometimes you just want to hold onto something without carrying it around all the time.
Also it's never good to have all your eggs in one basket. Huggie the lovable rust monster is much less scary if you know that you have a spare set of plate armour in your dressing room.


The +diplomacy den:
Who do you think is more believable? The murdering hobo who smells like forest or the handsome adventurous new lord in town wo bought that nice manor on the hill?
It's also much easier for people to send you a letter to your place instead of trying to find you in person in some horrible dungeon. People you helped in the past may provide you with useful information without too much hassle.

(feel free to add plothooks, benefits and drawbacks as you like, stories are welcome too)

Slipperychicken
2012-07-14, 07:43 PM
Too situational (you're a traveler. You're leaving home), too little benefit, too much cost.

Real people buy houses because they're comfy, and want to settle down. Adventurers do that after they're done adventuring, almost by definition. Why buy a house now when Baron Von Evil might kill you and blow the world up by tomorrow?

Averis Vol
2012-07-14, 07:51 PM
I recently bought some land and built up a mansion, because most of the game takes place in the area its in. It also serves as a great place for my mercenaries to call home. As for a normal game to stop the big bad evil where you will travel thousands of miles across land and never return to one place....its useless, its only good for games that are urban or or you just commonly stay in one area.

kieza
2012-07-15, 01:18 AM
Urban campaigns see a lot of characters buy or rent real estate. (At least, mine do.) At the very least, most characters have an apartment, or an arrangement with the landlord of a convenient inn. In one story arc, the party was attracting assassins often enough that they pooled their money to rent a nice townhouse, so that they could all live behind one set of wards.

Lo and behold, the next time a bunch of assassins came after them, the party had a nice laugh as the assassins tried to jump through the warded windows and bounced.

You're right, though, campaigns involving a lot of traveling aren't going to encourage property ownership. I once played in a campaign where the DM awarded the paladin a small fiefdom, but he kept using plot hooks that took us a long ways away. Every time we finished an adventure, we'd come back to our stronghold and have to kick out the goblins/bandits/oozes that had moved in. I left that campaign, but I later heard that the paladin player retired his character because the DM wouldn't let him sell or abandon the place.

Erik Vale
2012-07-15, 01:56 AM
I'm definitely going to have to agree here. Sure, having the uber-warded castle of doomy defenseness if good, if you can live in it....

Speaking of which, I think I might mention to my DM his Investment rules... Maybe buy a house and rent it out, support a merchant. Spend money now, gain it later....

Actually, there is your reason for powergammers/travllers. It's an investment property, every time you drop around, you have more money to buy the uber-weapon of slaying.

Jay R
2012-07-15, 11:45 AM
RP reasons aside, why should your average powergamer spend his hard earned gold on something he can't carry around?

It's an RPG. If you set the "RP reasons aside," there's no game.

The question makes as much sense as asking, "Combat considerations aside, why should characters want to carry weapons?" Ore "Magic components aside, why should anyone carry around bat guano?"

If you are trying to play a role, then that role will often involve doing what people do with their life.

My 2E mage/thief had a manor house and lands where his growing army trains and grows crops, where his miners dig iron, where his armorers are making weapons and armor for his army, and where his herds of horses are being bred and trained. It's where his new bride is, and where his companions meet. It's where he runs an orphanage, where he's built a trade school and a military academy and the first magic school in the kingdom.

Since he learned that a large invasion is coming, he's been preparing for it.

Now, if you don't want to play a role that way, then you're probably right, there's no point in buying anything that's not useful for what you do want to do.

But I want to play a complete role in a medieval-based world, and that means that high levels of power translate into land eventually. Otherwise, he's just a hired peasant, even if a well-paid one.

There is no reason in the world why you should not have fun playing RP-free adventure games. But that's not what I play, and the land is for the kind of game I play.

So to answer the actual question, if you are willing to put RP reasons aside, then there's no answer.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-15, 12:09 PM
Not to mention that an adventurer may want to settle down in a completely different place from where he bought a house mid-career. It just doesn't make sense, both mechanically and in roleplaying terms, to buy a house until you're done wandering (or scrambling to save the world, or whatever).


If you want not buying a house to have an RP opportunity, your character could consider a consequence of adventuring; you can't do it forever, and you have to/want to settle down someday... but right now you need to fight the Evil Forces of X, and that means you need to focus on the fight. The dream-house has to wait until the world's safe to live in.

kieza
2012-07-16, 06:18 PM
It also depends a little on the ease of teleportation, I think. When you can blink across continents in a heartbeat, having to travel a lot isn't that big an obstacle to settling down.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-16, 06:48 PM
RP reasons aside, why should your average powergamer spend his hard earned gold on something he can't carry around?

<stuff>

I'd count all of those as RP reasons, actually.

I love owning a house in-game because it lets me vicariously live out my childhood dream of being an interior decorator.

CET
2012-07-17, 02:16 PM
Even if you don't strictly enforce encumbrance rules, it's worth considering how much GP/valuable statuettes/works of priceless art/big weapons/suits of armor/ammunition/dungeoneering equipment the murder-hobos PCs can actually carry in packs. After that, things have to go on extra horses, which are a PITA in combat or a chase, and tend to get stolen/killed/etc. Hell, packs aren't that much fun either.

Better to travel light and have a secure storage facility for your backup and specialty gear, as well as the less portable loot that you are still looking to sell/fence.

Also - for a epic/globe spanning game, an alternative to teleport is the extradimensional stronghold. Who doesn't want a fortress on the plane of shadow?

The Random NPC
2012-07-17, 07:35 PM
The problem with that is bags of holding, portable holes, and handy haversacks take care of all your carrying needs. And if you are too poor to have them, and still need to carry a lot, it probably isn't worth enough to take it.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-18, 11:32 PM
Better to travel light and have a secure storage facility for your backup and specialty gear, as well as the less portable loot that you are still looking to sell/fence.

Handy Haversacks. Bags of Holding. Portable Holes. Shrink Item (use "clothlike" option so it doesn't pierce the BoH). With that much cash, invest some of it in the myriad ways to keep massive amounts of wealth light and portable. If you don't, you're pretty much asking to have it stolen or destroyed. Even then, you put the extradimensional storage inside your breastplate or something so no-one has Line of Effect to it.

Also, don't build your fortress on the Plane of Shadow. If Magnificent Mansion isn't enough for you, have a 17th level Wizard build you a personal demiplane, then build a fortress there, and Astral Project from it (via bound Nightmare). Have a Cleric cast Forbiddance, so Plane shift doesn't work (can't arrive on-target precisely, so they go into the Forbiddance, and the spell fails because of Forbiddance). They'll need the obscure, Greater version. They won't know why the Plane Shift failed in the first place, and won't know the specific "safe" location on the plane to target anyway, so they have to randomly pick from among 1,000+ possible 5x5 cubes, some of which could be in the air or under the ground.

CET
2012-07-19, 10:45 AM
Yea . . . but the PCs can only get extradimensional inventory windows if the GM hands them out. And if the GM wants the PCs to have a compelling, non-RP reason to need a physical lair, given them infinitely large backpacks is pretty counter-productive.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-19, 11:03 AM
Yea . . . but the PCs can only get extradimensional inventory windows if the GM hands them out. And if the GM wants the PCs to have a compelling, non-RP reason to need a physical lair, given them infinitely large backpacks is pretty counter-productive.

Personally, I'm not sure how I would feel about a 3.5 game with such spaces banned, since they're the assumed means for carrying the dragon's Hoard back to town. Short of banning them, there's not much to do about it, since they're inexpensive relative to WBL. If I were a PC in a game without bags of holding, I'd quickly turn most of my "liquid" wealth into precious gems/diamonds/magic-items for easy transport, and leave a portion in coins for casual spending purposes (food, housing, beggars, etc).

Besides, a non-mobile base in dnd just means you trapped yourself in a box, and your enemies know where to find you. Good luck warding an entire estate against teleportation.

Deepbluediver
2012-07-19, 01:03 PM
Personally, I'm not sure how I would feel about a 3.5 game with such spaces banned, since they're the assumed means for carrying the dragon's Hoard back to town. Short of banning them, there's not much to do about it, since they're inexpensive relative to WBL. If I were a PC in a game without bags of holding, I'd quickly turn most of my "liquid" wealth into precious gems/diamonds/magic-items for easy transport, and leave a portion in coins for casual spending purposes (food, housing, beggars, etc).

I've always preferred games where rather than give us a million gold coins, the DM actually makes specific magic items that you acquire without having to haul an entire dragon's hoard to the local magic-mart. The WBL table was used as a guideline for the relative value of our arms and armor, but no one was ever going to trade us an entire kingdom's gold supply for a single sword because only we, as adventurers, could make good use of that sort of thing.

If we wanted a specific magic item, we had to either make it ourselves, or find some one to craft it for us (or occasionally track it down via sidequest). On the rare occasion we would run into a dragon-esque treasure room scenario, we had to make decisions about what was most important to us. (kobolds always seemed to steal the rest before we could make a second trip back from town)

It led to some rather interesting moments; "Gah! can't we just fight more seemingly-immune-to-everything demons? It would be less painful than having to choose between this Staff of Infinite-Immortality and the Kill Absolutely-Anything Sword!"

Having a base of some sort (which could vary from a rented house in the middle of a city, to a castle of our very own, to an extradminesional fortress) was a good way to stockpile loot.



Huggie the lovable rust monster is much less scary if you know that you have a spare set of plate armour in your dressing room.

This is effin' hilarious.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-19, 01:20 PM
(kobolds always seemed to steal the rest before we could make a second trip back from town)


After the first or second time of this happening, I would leave some party members behind to guard the Hoard (and pack it all into easily-guarded bags. A tent might do well as a stop-gap measure), while the rest went to town and brought bags/carts/pack-animals back (maybe some muscle from a reputable security organization like merchant caravan-guards, or some friends, if bandits are a huge issue). Then just keep the carts around for the next dungeon, and either leave them at the entrance or keep them one or two rooms behind (the things can make for good cover in a pinch. Can also transport explosives. You can never have too many explosives :smallbiggrin:). Remember that you can push or drag up to 5x your max load, even without carts, animals, or helpers.


A house doesn't help you with Rust Monsters -you can put the spare armor in your backpack, which the Rust Monster can't get to without a serious beatdown from you. If you stick it in your house, you have to go all the way back to get it, and a thief might have taken it. Hell, just spend the house-money on one of the enhancements that makes it immune to rust.

Jay R
2012-07-19, 04:47 PM
If their ultimate goal is to be hobos and saddle tramps all their lives, then there is no reason to own anything that they cannot carry.

But if their goal is to move up in the world, then they will eventually want to buy or build a keep, settle some wilderness, bring in some farmers, and becomes great Lords or Ladies. That was the intended goal of characters in original D&D.

Besides, that way the game can get into great battles in which they are the war leaders.

eulmanis12
2012-07-19, 06:50 PM
My fighter found the perfect base for the adventurer on the go. A leonardo-davinci brand mobile fortress. Sleeping room for 50 hirelings, 360 degree ballista coverage, armor plate, weapon storage facilites, food and water storage come standard. For some extra gold pieces (or threats of physical violence) the artificers can replace the ballistas with cannon, install a rotating antaircraft mounted cannon or ballista in order to deal with those pesky dragons/winged zombies/ other flying nonsenses, a magical stereo system, a steam engine to replace the horses, more armor, caterpillar tracks, more cannon, more armor, another engine, more cannon, additional ammo storage, more armor, a few more cannon, infinite trunk space, courtesy of the bags of holding, and ,if you're feeling generous, a couple of hammocks for the rest of the party. Contact your local artificers today!:smallcool:

Erik Vale
2012-07-19, 07:07 PM
My fighter found the perfect base for the adventurer on the go. A leonardo-davinci brand mobile fortress. Sleeping room for 50 hirelings, 360 degree ballista coverage, armor plate, weapon storage facilites, food and water storage come standard. For some extra gold pieces (or threats of physical violence) the artificers can replace the ballistas with cannon, install a rotating antaircraft mounted cannon or ballista in order to deal with those pesky dragons/winged zombies/ other flying nonsenses, a magical stereo system, a steam engine to replace the horses, more armor, caterpillar tracks, more cannon, more armor, another engine, more cannon, additional ammo storage, more armor, a few more cannon, infinite trunk space, courtesy of the bags of holding, and ,if you're feeling generous, a couple of hammocks for the rest of the party. Contact your local artificers today!:smallcool:

I want your GM.

Deepbluediver
2012-07-20, 01:02 PM
After the first or second time of this happening, I would leave some party members behind to guard the Hoard (and pack it all into easily-guarded bags. A tent might do well as a stop-gap measure), while the rest went to town and brought bags/carts/pack-animals back (maybe some muscle from a reputable security organization like merchant caravan-guards, or some friends, if bandits are a huge issue). Then just keep the carts around for the next dungeon, and either leave them at the entrance or keep them one or two rooms behind (the things can make for good cover in a pinch. Can also transport explosives. You can never have too many explosives :smallbiggrin:). Remember that you can push or drag up to 5x your max load, even without carts, animals, or helpers.

To explain a little bit better: for a variety or unimportant reasons, we tended to play low-level campaigns; finding more treasure than we could carry was usually a once-a-campaign type of event. It was the DM's way of giving us a choice in magic items without having to waste time schlepping thousands of coins all over the map. Leaving a party member behind most likely meant that they'd just get eaten by the Kobolds.

If you went through the effort of finding and securing a base of operations, then the DM would (usually) let us accumulate a backup supply of wealth, but it wasn't the sort of thing we expected to happen.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-20, 03:25 PM
To explain a little bit better: for a variety or unimportant reasons, we tended to play low-level campaigns; finding more treasure than we could carry was usually a once-a-campaign type of event. It was the DM's way of giving us a choice in magic items without having to waste time schlepping thousands of coins all over the map. Leaving a party member behind most likely meant that they'd just get eaten by the Kobolds.

If you went through the effort of finding and securing a base of operations, then the DM would (usually) let us accumulate a backup supply of wealth, but it wasn't the sort of thing we expected to happen.

Hm. Should be able to do well enough by asking the DM "Is X in there? Is Y in there? Is Z in there?...." until you have everything you want and can fill your inventory, dump out any nonvaluable encumbrance you're holding, then saddle up your max load with the best items (highest gold-to-weight ratio. Most magic items are either 1lb or don't have a listed weight). Do the same for all your 20-str Fighters, split it evenly, and you should all have a lot of cash.

If the Kobolds are really strong, have just one guy head back to town, and let the party drag the wealth into a defensible/secret room (and after Night 1, prepare enough Rope Tricks each day to last 24h) and hold out till he gets back.