Sorcererous Creation

[Ruethgar]

I am making a sorcerer who is going to be building his own nation, probably a city-state or just a fortress to start. What are some good resource books I can use to further this en-devour?

Strongholds are expensive, and I don't like relying on WBL for anything if I don't have to, apart from Wall of X, X Shape, and Fabricate are there any other spells I could use to build my city and circumvent the cost?

Where are the rules for spell traps?

Short of epic magic, is there a way to make my city fly? (not really needed but it would be cool)

[Deca4531]

I seem to remember in ebberon there were some sort of anti-grav disks that they used on their flying war ships, though i cant say what book they were in.

[unseenmage]

Stronghold Builder's Guidebook has rules for how much of a discount using your own spells gets you in Stronghold creation, it's not much.

For cutting costs there's the Landlord feat from the same book which gives you a decent amount of funds that you can only use on your stronghold.

SBG also has the, very expensive, rules for mobile strongholds.

Eberron does have a flying disk but it's just a big crystal version of a flying carpet. Though there is one for buildings as well IIRC. What you're looking for in Eberron is the Bind Elemental stuff. That's how they get their Airships afloat.

For maximum cost cutting and mobility you combine the feat that gets you a ship from Stormwrack, the Landlord feat, and take an Eberron Airship. Just check with your DM to see if your ship can be both a ship and a Stronghold.

There's also the Create Moving Portal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030611a) feat which could allow you to link your Airship to an Extradimensional Stronghold which is built in a more traditional manner.

[Ruethgar]

-.- How is being able to make structures with a spell or four not cut the cost of making structures much?

Other than that, thank you I will look into Eb and SBG, they sound like good resources to work from.

[Yuki Akuma]

-.- How is being able to make structures with a spell or four not cut the cost of making structures much?

Because those sorts of spells usually have expensive material components?

[unseenmage]

-.- How is being able to make structures with a spell or four not cut the cost of making structures much?

Other than that, thank you I will look into Eb and SBG, they sound like good resources to work from.

Because the building of a stronghold involves more than the gross assembly of the materials. You have to adjust for poor weather, local politics and taxes and fees. An abstraction of the process of building or crafting will include a surcharge for mistakes and corrections for error.

Put the wrong Wall of Stone in the wrong place and it needs removed and replaced with the correct structure. Which costs more time. And over a long project there are ample opportunities to get distracted, catch a cold, make mistakes, or even to be misinformed.

Local georgaphy might not be in perfect 5' squares just yet or some brush, boulder, or trees might need to be cleared.

Etc etc etc. Sure casting Wall of Stone once is easy, but casting Wall of Stone, Stone Shape, Fabricate and ten other spells each insequence in the correct locations at the correct times takes patience and a certain margin of error.

Make sense?

[ahenobarbi]

Lyre of building + character with enough ranks to continua playing that doesn't need to stop (to eat, rest etc.) will do work of 100 people for 144 days (or about 39.5 years of work of a single person) a day.

[unseenmage]

Lyre of building + character with enough ranks to continua playing that doesn't need to stop (to eat, rest etc.) will do work of 100 people for 144 days (or about 39.5 years of work of a single person) a day.

Stronghold Builder's Guide has the price modification for that too if you're more RAW minded. And it's not trivial either. I do not remember if there is a limit to how many Lyres can be active on the same project at once either.

Depending on what you want a fort for, Frostburn has an Ice Fortress spell that's very effective and there's the Small Stronghold spell in Dragon 309 page 48 that literally creates the stock stronghold found in the SBG on the spot.

[Ruethgar]

Mistakes and errors: Stone Shape and Fabricate may take another day but where's the surcharge?

Misplaced Wall of Stone: Stone Shape or blast it.

Uneven land: A little more difficult, stone shape can work but takes a while. Move earth also works a bit, but I like mudslide with mud to stone.

Lucid Dreaming and trasdimensional spell cuts the time severely, letting you get 5 times the spells per day without stretching it. That should make up for a great deal of time. And if you are going that route, only another dreamer would dare to try and collect fees and taxes.

[unseenmage]

Mistakes and errors: Stone Shape and Fabricate may take another day but where's the surcharge?

Misplaced Wall of Stone: Stone Shape or blast it.

Uneven land: A little more difficult, stone shape can work but takes a while. Move earth also works a bit, but I like mudslide with mud to stone.

Lucid Dreaming and trasdimensional spell cuts the time severely, letting you get 5 times the spells per day without stretching it. That should make up for a great deal of time. And if you are going that route, only another dreamer would dare to try and collect fees and taxes.

Mind that the Region of Dreams is home to anything. Truly anything. Things that break the rules even.
A DM worth their salt would make it home to the pure undiluted forces of 'Dm fiat'. That said, do you really want to ask the question, who would tax my dream'?

And the point of the Stronghold Builder's Guide guidelines is that they are abstractions. You don't ask, 'what's costing so much extra money?' because you're off adventuring to pay for the stronghold you just commissioned.

Without that abstraction, and the imagination required to let the suggested guidelines do their thing, you're playing Strongholds and Minutia instead of Dungeons and Dragons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that can be fun too, but it will outline the weaknesses of a system meant to abstract when you attempt to apply the precision of round-by-round actions to it.

If sounding out the errors in the more abstract guidelines of the rules of the game is fun for yourself, your DM, and your group then have at it. But be warned, if you apply round-by-round precision you will wind up with overnight fortresses and if you can do it then there's little to no reason why your enemies can't too.

[Baron Malkar]

Looking at the stronghold builders guidebook it seems it is possible to do it cheaply if you also have a source of free labor.

Wall of stone (CL 16) can give you all of your walls for free. 12 castings per space.
Fabricate can give you 50% off luxury furnishings. 2 castings per space.
some form of free labor (undead, constructs,lyre of building, mind raped slaves...) will shave off 30% of everything.
Telekinesis takes 50% off of the price adjustment for height. 10 castings per space.

Its not exactly free but can be made rather cheaply if you have a lot of free magic.:smallcool:

EDIT: Also if you build in a warm plains or warm hills area that is considered lawless it can be reduced another 20%.

[WebTiefling]

Quick flying city:

Wall of Stone. Spam the living daylights out of that sucker to make as massive of a "floor" as you want. Make it in 5'x5' sections, maybe 2" thick. Add stone walls around the edges.

Do NOT form all the 5'x5' sections together into one piece. Leave them as separate pieces. They will be bound together later with other crafting. (think tongue-and-groove)

Make a resetting trap of Suspension. (spell from Shining South). It costs 500*4*7 = 14,000 gp. Lasts 1d4 days + 1 day per level. Lifts 1000 lbs per level: 7000 lbs. Each 5'x5'x2" weighs 700 lbs. (5'x5'x2" is 4.16666667 square feet. Granite weighs 168 lbs/sqft. That is 700 lbs per square taken from 7000 lbs of lift.) Each 20' section is made of 16 squares which means each 20' section can lift 16*6300 = 100,800 lbs = 50 tons.

Fit all the tongue and groove chunks together and glue 'em tight. Or, use metal plates and rivet the chunks together. Do both! However you want to do it.

The Levitate spell lasts at least a week. Make the trap and cast it onto each piece of stone. You now have a massive floating stone floor with stone walls. (cast Levitate on the walls too if you like)

Each week, bring the city back down to ground level, go underneath and re-use the trap to cast Levitate on each square.

You're good for another week.

If you can do all the Wall of Stone and Stone Shape yourself, then the only cost is the Trap which is 14,000 gp and 40*7*4 XP to make.

For only 14,000 gp you now have as massive a platform as you want to make that flies around at 45' per round. (just over 5 mph) It might take you a few months to cast all the spells to make the stone chunks and shape them if you just cast them yourself, but if you have more money than patience, make a trap of Wall of Stone to crank out the chunks by the buttload.