A new old stronghold. What to add?

[followthedarke]

Our DM has been running the game 7 or 8 years now in the same universe.
We recently acquired a four story Inn with a giant tree growing in the middle.

What should we add Spells/Rooms/Equipment/staff.

We've read the builders stronghold guide so far.

Party: level 11's
Cleric of Lathander NG, Bard of Oghma NE, Monk N, Half-Fiend Psion NG, Psion CG, Rouge/Druid Doppelganger NE.

We currently have about 400,000 Gold Pieces worth of platinum bars.

[yugi24862]

First, are you going to keep running it as a inn, or make it your stronghold only?

If you are running it as a inn, obviously you'll need the normal inn staff and faculties on the first two floors. Is there a NPC you can trust as the innkeeper, so you dont have to pull one of a hat? Second, if you use the top 2 floors for your own purposes, you'll need wards to prevent nosy patrons finding your hideout.

[Yora]

I'd say function comes first: What do you want to do with it?

Is it an Inn that provides the party with income and also has some private rooms for them? Is it going to be their luxury mansion? Is it to be a base for the PCs mercenaries, followers, and other hirelings? Or do you even want to make it into a defensive fortress to protect the people inside against attackers?
This all will make a major difference in what you should add to it.

[followthedarke]

well we want to use it as an Inn, but we may just abandon it at this point.

So far, the doors are built with infernal locks.
the cleric handled the key and gained a negative level
every single door has a circle of protection against evil on it, which reverses to protection against good when opened. (or taken off the hinges as we later found out)
in one room alone (by the way we have a very competent rouge who gets the cleric and psion to check for magics on things, but apperently the DC was too high for us (we were rolling 30's)
-we opened a ledger and prisim spray jumped out opening the negative plane and turning a character to stone.
we opened a scroll and a fireball jumped out burning books in there
There was a shrine to Vhaeraun in this room
The table was trapped so that if touched it spilled ink allover the documents on the table making them instantly unreadable. the monk was told he couldn't save anything. (again this was after a search check of 38 from our rouge)

we found deadly mould that did 11 points of con damage to the rouge,
there are also 3 sub-basements we hadn't heard about.

My DM has a custom rule that if you use detect magic and there's too much magic or too high a level your skull instantly explodes, and now he's getting whiny that we won't cast it in this building at all..

at this point, even after paying 250,000GP's and knowing there are amazing treasures to be had, we are thinking of abandoning it.

[Yora]

That thing sounds like a deathtrap. I think I would probably just burn it down and build something new on the site.

[Callin]

Consecrate the "Hell" outta it

[followthedarke]

I tried to consecrate it already and was thrown through a window. spell didn't take.

[Scow2]

What domains does your cleric have?

I'd suggest attempting to spam dispel Magic, or maybe Antimagic Field if anyone can cast that.

[yugi24862]

Yea, it sounds like your DM really, really doesn't want you in it. Burn it to the ground (If your DM will let you, that is).

[SamBurke]

I tried to consecrate it already and was thrown through a window. spell didn't take.

This all sounds less like your DM giving you something, and more like him slipping the Dungeon of Horrors into the game... a lot of that is more DM fudge than anything else.

[Krobar]

As previously recommended, burn it to the ground. Kill it with fire. If your DM won't let you do that, just leave it be and go on with your life. Let the next poor SOBs that come along deal with it.

[CaladanMoonblad]

Yeah. With 400k in the bank, just build a new stronghold, of stone, with towers, a curtain wall, a central keep, etc. The Cleric should have access to Wall of Stone and Stone Shape, which can be almost entirely free (sans the room costs) if you simply calculate the total volume and you have a number of days free.

The Inn as described is a death trap, and totally not worth 250k that you paid for it. Burn it to the ground and kill some more stuff to make up the cash your GM leached from you on that lemon.

[Khatoblepas]

The Inn as described is a death trap, and totally not worth 250k that you paid for it. Burn it to the ground and kill some more stuff to make up the cash your GM leached from you on that lemon.

Namely the people you paid the 250k to in the first place.

I'd also slap the DM a bit, he's power tripping. Detect Magic can't make your skull explode (and he seems out to make you kill yourself with it), I'm pretty sure that's beyond the power of a cantrip. Tell him to stop fudging stupid stuff like this. He sounds kind of immature.


(oh, and to make the documents readable: Amanuensis. There's still writing on the documents, you can copy it to another piece of paper. Spell doesn't specify that you have to be able to read it. Or prestidigitation, to clean the spilled ink off.)

[Lazers etcetera]

Make it a tourist destination, or a Succubus brothel or both.

It's clearly a silly place so steer clear of it, or invite idiots to come visit.

Make sure you clear out the booze cellar before leaving.

[ericp65]

Call in an airstrike of Solars!

[Zero grim]

"how about we just push the Inn somewhere else?"

cast all the area holy spells your want elsewhere, and then get a giant or two to push the inn there, that might solve the problem.

if you've sunk 250k into this don't just burn it down, you've got to find a way to make a profit somehow, perhaps you could put a really shiny crown at the top of the Inn and hire lower level adventurers to get it, two out comes A) they disarm the horror house B) you have some dead adventurers to loot.

If you want to do the job yourself get a hold of an Iron golem (I think you can afford it) and just instruct it to rip out every item that's tried to curse you so far and throw it into a ravine, repeat until inn only has minor flavourful curses that will give it some homely charm.

Also I agree with epicp65, get a scroll of gate, open it to some goody goody plane with your side in the Inn, this may have the problem that solar's might just burn it to the ground.