Stronghold Building

[willpell]

One of the more obscure supplements I own, and one of the very first ones I acquired which I only recently actually tried to use, is the Stronghold Builder's Guide. Some very neat, evocative stuff in there, really brings out the worldbuilder in me. But I'm getting hung up on a few of the details.

I'm using this to build my campaign's first real "dungeon", the house of a mad wizardess who lives in an upscale residential district in one of the campaign's decent-sized cities (essentially it's a medieval take on the suburbs, only inside the lower-rent city area rather than outside it, as the latter seems like it'd be less popular when armies of orcs occasionally go rampaging around the countryside). She's got a bizarre quasi-cult going and has been quartering and teaching these students in her house, only something has gone horribly wrong, and my PC and her bodyguards are headed there to investigate. In more mechanical terms, since the wizard is rich but aiming to be kind of low key and fit into the neighborhood, I didn't want to make the place too huge; it's meant to seem kind of like a bungalow surrounded by a large lawn, only when you go around it you see that the facade is deceptive and it actually extends back and around a fair ways. She's not big on secrecy so all but three rooms are on the ground floor, and there are lots of windows and not many hidden areas...but I'm getting off the subject.

The point is this...the table in SBG says that a "grand house" gets 7 stronghold spaces while a "mansion" has 15, so I split the difference and gave her 11. When I filled out the list of rooms I wanted, I decided that I could stand to have 9 actual rooms and 2 Courtyards, figuring they would be the front and back yards. But today I finally started to map the damn thing, and...well, it makes not a lick of sense to assume. A courtyard is just like any other Stronghold Space, roughly 20x20, and with 6 rooms on the ground floor, each of them 16 combat squares, I don't even have enough courtyard available to put a 5-foot ring of grass all the way around the house (I'd have to skip the corners, and that's if I made the house a 3x2 rectangle of SSes, instead of the triangle I have planned to represent the small facade and semi-hidden wings). Let alone provide the broad swath of front lawn, smallish-but-still-not-claustrophobic side yards leading back, and the big spooky veranda in the back.

The bottom line is, it makes no sense to me to assume that big empty spaces full of grass ought to count toward your SS total. I mean, I can kind of see why they should, as the space could be useful for stuff like a drilling field for your army or space to run a tame dragon around in, but ultimately in most cases we're just talking about an ornamental lawn the same as anybody's house is gonna have (well maybe not in a typical Dung Ages setting, but my setting is more like Postmodern Quasimedieval-Renaissance Chic, and the residential and city planning models are a lot closer to 20th century america than 14th century Europe). So I'm trying to figure out if it's fair and reasonable to say that the SS of the courtyards only count toward little areas that have gardens and walkways and similar amenities, rather than just grass. Even going with that, it works out to about double the space I allotted, and it irks me to think that a bloody third of my SS are being used for spaces with little if any practical merit. (The double-sized library and little occult lab will kinda make up for it, but still.)

This ain't quite the use to which the SBG's rules are meant to be put, but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far, and easily the most ambitious bit of dungeoncraft I've managed to make any real progress on so far. Advice is welcomed as I continue to puzzle it out.

[Talderas]

Open land should have a cost, after all you need to purchase it to have rights to build on it. It should definitely not cost more than any stronghold space that has construction or does something though...

[Cicciograna]

I share your experience of of having bought the SBG as one of my first handbooks. Over the time, having repeatedly perused its wisdom, I have come to an important conclusion on the notion of Stronghold Space, a conclusion which is hinted to by the handbook itself altogether, albeit in a very oscure manner.

A SS is not 20x20ft. It's how much you want, please and feel functional.

Don't think about them in terms of combat space: have 'em large as you please, keeping in mind that only a really enormous room or area would probabily require more than just 1 SS; the trick is that what constitutes an enormous area is up to you. Do you fancy a ring of grass around the house? That's fine, it's 1 SS and it extends up to where you want. If it's really gorgeous then it's probabily the Deluxe version, but that's it, don't bother minding too much the mechanisms of the rules.

Believe me, when you understand this simple point, the SBG is more fun.

[willpell]

Problem there is that if I don't have a limit, I tend to inherently lean toward the ridiculous. I feel as though D&D combat is claustrophobic anyway - a 10x10 room is four squares and that doesn't feel like a "room" to me, so I always want to make every dungeon have corridors a quarter-mile wide or something. If 20x20 isn't a good guideline, what is? 30x30? "However much room I want" is going to end up the size of a small continent if I don't have some check on my ridiculosity.

[Kelb_Panthera]

On the whole 20X20 thing, bear this in mind; a character doesn't take up the entirety of his 5ft square. You can squeeze 4 medium creatures into one 5ft square by RAW, they'll just be counted as squeezing for combat purposes.

The room you're sitting in as you read this is quite likely less than 20X20. Most of the spaces designated bedrooms in modern american homes are one of 12X12, 12X20, or 20X20 with the rare larger room for high-end homes.

Not realizing this tends to lead alot of people to misunderstand spaces as much smaller than they actually are.

I do not own the SBG just yet (it's on the list) but perhaps this little insight will help. (?)

[awa]

that's an excellent point one i had not really thought about in that way. In the real world a five foot wide single door would be fairly unusual.

edit or the classic 10 by 10 table

[Vaz]

A 10ftx10ft space is about standard. My bedroom is currently about 15ftx10 ft, and I have a huge amount of stuff in it, double bed, TV and computer, desk, 2 full sized wardrobes, a bookshelf filled floor to ceiling. The ensuite is about 5x5, and there is a showver, sink and toilet, two cabinets... The living room is about 20x15...

You can get serious amounts in that space, just because a human takes up 5ft space in combat stance in dnd is just putting an easy rounded figure to use.

If you want to put a desk, or sideboard or whatever in, they are little more than 2 ft wide and rarely a hindrance to medium height arm swinging.

For space wise, a shield wall was likely 3-5 people for every 10ft, but in dnd 2 can block a corridor making a shieldwall.

[Phelix-Mu]

Again, I find myself agreeing with Kelb. Most houses in the USA are 2-4 stronghold spaces at most. You can fit a pretty large amount of stuff into a stronghold space. For outside, also, I can also see that, assuming she owns the land on which she is building (something that isn't, as far as I can remember, included in the cost of a stronghold), this mad wizardess could manufacture some extremely low-cost courtyard. Transmute mud to rock and stone shape pretty much make paved courtyards for free. Add in some fabricate and she can even do the decorating herself (might need a few token skill ranks).

As DM, the final deduction to price that a spellcaster can achieve via magic is pretty much up to you. With slave labor or planar binding, cost can quickly become negligible. If you want a few extra SS in this particular mansion (she liked her gardens, perhaps), do it. WBL is only for adventuring characters, not semi-retired evil masterminds that can devote 100% spellcasting to crafting their dreamhouse.

Now, if it were the player's making their own place, then a closer audit of cost would be warranted.

[JaronK]

As much as I love the inspiration from SHBG, the fact is the prices in it are nuts. Plenty of those spaces could be created with spells for free, really, and the stuff in the rooms simply isn't costly enough to make them so darn expensive.

So... wing it a little on prices.

JaronK

[willpell]

The room you're sitting in as you read this is quite likely less than 20X20.

Untrue actually (I'm in a gigantic freaking office in the suburbs, this department alone is probably close to half a city block), but I see your point. However I still run into this problem every time I try to comprehend dungeons in spatial terms. To me the squeezing rules suggest "two people entirely within each other's personal space, bumping noses into smalls of backs as they wiggle to try and find a cubic inch of emptiness to ooze into", not "two people standing with six inches of space between their elbows at rest which would bump said elbows if they tried to draw two swords apiece". The rules don't provide for any "super-squeezing" to represent the kind of congested conditions you'd expect in some dungeons (eg: a maze of twisty little passages, all alike). And I find it hard to imagine that hobgoblins patrolling their military fortress are always accepting a -2 on their to-hits so that they can march four abreast in a 10-foot corridor.


So... wing it a little on prices.

JaronK

Completely beyond my ability unfortunately, although prices aren't the problem I'm having; I can arbitrarily assign her as much gold as it takes to build whatever I think she deserves. The issue is making her upper-middle-class house not be larger than Castle Greyhawk simply so that I have room for all the potted plants and whatnot.

[Lonely Tylenol]

"Squeezing" can most accurately be defined as "a few too many people in an elevator" or "a few too many people to a bus", if you're of the type who lives in a place where elevators or buses are frequent. Seldom (but not never) does this mean that you are literally pressed forcefully against the next person, but it can mean you are uncomfortably close (well inside your personal space bubble, possibly within a few inches of each other), you may have to suck in your gut or back up a little to let someone pass through, and occasionally you will even bump into this person when the bus hits a pothole or something, but only in extreme circumstances (a small subset of the above) are you literally packed like sardines.

So, to answer your question: yes, "squeezing" can be used to define the rather narrow circumstance of being literally pressed nose to armpit or whatever, but it is and, I feel, should define the much broader circumstance of "anytime your personal space bubble is violated", because that's what a five-foot square basically is: your personal space bubble. (To put this in perspective: if you reached your arms out end-to-end, your arm span, which is commonly used to define your personal space bubble, should be between 5 and 6 feet, end-to-end, for a person of average height for either sex.) This is why grappling typically provokes an attack of opportunity: the act of grabbing somebody necessitates being within arm's reach of a person, which puts them within the square's width of a character, and entering an enemy square typically provokes an attack of opportunity.

EDIT: To use a modern analogy for how this might affect combat, even without literal nose-to-armpit squeezing:

I can swing a golf club with somebody standing within arm's reach of me, but at best, I'll be extremely self-conscious about hitting that person, and at worst, occasionally, I actually will. (Actually reminds me of the time I accidentally peeled the skin clean off my brother's forehead with a sand wedge...)

[TypoNinja]

Problem there is that if I don't have a limit, I tend to inherently lean toward the ridiculous. I feel as though D&D combat is claustrophobic anyway - a 10x10 room is four squares and that doesn't feel like a "room" to me, so I always want to make every dungeon have corridors a quarter-mile wide or something. If 20x20 isn't a good guideline, what is? 30x30? "However much room I want" is going to end up the size of a small continent if I don't have some check on my ridiculosity.

My bedroom is on the large size, its 12x12. I can fit a big bed, a computer, half a dozen bookcases, and a small table in here. 10x10 is lots of space to live in, its just not a lot of space to fight in. Grab a tape measure and measure a couple of rooms in your house, you might be surprised

Its a terribly cramped space for fighting though, the amount of space you live in and the amount of space you need to conduct combat in are entirely different scales. Even the narrow corridor provided for professional fencing is around 40x5. Fighting takes room if you aren't just standing there trading blows.

So I've got a big bedroom, but a small fighting space. Remember a space of 5x5 doesn't mean you are 5x5 it means you need 5x5 to fight in effectively, likewise if you aren't supposed to be fighting in that area hallways/gaps between furniture don't need to be 5 feet wide.

Your rooms may require less space than you think you need.

Finally, if you want to ring your house with lawn, considering classing it as a Hallway rather than its own SS.

[willpell]

Finally, if you want to ring your house with lawn, considering classing it as a Hallway rather than its own SS.

That makes sense. I had forgotten that you get hallways for free; plain grounds are the same principle, so I'll go ahead with the map I have and not worry about it. Thanks.

Let me know if you guys want to hear about the place once it's built. I don't want to be narcissistic, but I do try to hold myself to a high standard of quality, so it's conceivable you might find my accomplishments interesting to hear about - I'll let you decide whether the chance is worth your time. :smallcool:

[ArcturusV]

I always like hearing about neat things, so I hope you end up posting it up.

[Fyermind]

Courtyards are a weird type of stronghold space. Charge for courtyards only when they are made of stone or other materials requiring upkeep, or are intended to be well kept gardens. A space of empty lawn inside your doughnut shaped keep should cost no more than if your keep were horseshoe shaped. The description of a courtyard notes that it has at the very least a few benches and the option for gravel and flowers. At most it is stone and hanging gardens with a fountain, several statues and a gardener.

However, if you want your courtyard to travel with you if you make your castle mobile, you need to pay for it as a stronghold space (or several if it is larger), even you aren't paying for it otherwise. I don't think this is relevant to your campaign however.

[willpell]

Now I want a Mobile Oppression Palace that is nothing but Fancy Courtyards. With a Burrow speed.

[TypoNinja]

Now I want a Mobile Oppression Palace that is nothing but Fancy Courtyards. With a Burrow speed.

well I'd make your free lawns count as SS's for determining cost of magical movement. Pay for it if you wanna take it with you :P