Leadership to build a city

[CIDE]

Alright! I've been scouring threads, books, etc for the past few days and I have a few ideas so far. Still,I think there's quite a bit of stuff that I missed so far that I think you guys would be awesome for (you always are!).

Anyway, what I thought of a character doing (not built, he specifically doesn't matter. With be cha based though)takes the leadership feat and potentially any additional feats to boost his cohorts/minions as needed. They won't be following him around, however. Basically, the point of what this character is doing is in this specific world is building a kind of safe haven against the variety of evil or potentially evil armies and city-states and nations that would otherwise want to take over everything nearby (in fact the initial cohort/minions will be refugees alongside the main character).

Specifically, they will have wandered and made there way to a place in the desert. Far enough away that most armies would want to stay away due to weather/terrain. Not far enough away that their trading caravans (magically assisted of course) couldn't otherwise make it to civilization for commerce.

Now, the cohort in question is likely an Artificer. The DM in question will likely let me control the minions (within reason). Anyway, I want this place to flourish. That said what can they reasonably get into and at what level (for cohorts) could they manage it? For example mining is a likely proposition. Magically created goods (Wall of Iron shenanigans) or trade goods (wall of salt) to export as needed. Additionally, could they reasonably create a viable river to travel via decanters of endless water if we assume they're situated up-hill? What options are available for magically assisted crop growth for self-sustainment? Same with animals (aside from PAO shenanigans to make any animal you need).

I'm already very strongly considering a small fleet of airships for both the trade goods and potential combat. Looked at the builds for golem sentries and defenses since I'd ideally be using NPC classes for the minions and...let's face it; they can't defend themselves. Likewise, best and quickest routes for building? Traps to set in the surrounding desert? Assuming that Lyre of building may not be a possibility?

Additionally unlike most leadership exploits the money they'd be making off whatever they do isn't getting siphoned by the PC. Instead the PC is going to be adventuring and such in some way for their sake and may even be sending his (or her I guess) loot to the village instead. Likewise, the character by their decree/ruling wouldn't even get stuff for free (even if it'd be a major discount). Essentially, the character is out for the sake of the village.

[Azoth]

Landlord feat is awesome for things like this as it is free money to use for building and designing the city. Stronghold Bubuilder's Guide is awesome for pricing of units to build the city and allows for some great cost reductions.

If you are stuck to using NPC classes for the followers, then you are going to be mainly using adepts and I think Magus from an one of the ebberon books. Try setting up their spells to cover most utility needs and give them craft wondorous item. This can allow you to start going Tippy on people with auto resetting create food traps, and items of plant growth for trade crops. Any spells you don't have on eithe class's list you can try knowstones or rune staves of from the town proffits.

Animal taming can be done easily with commoners/experts. As for getting them, you can either invest in buying their young for various prices or sending out refugees to capture and tame them in groups. If you are adventurous enough you can start an animal/magical best managerie and use them as trade goods/town defense. Use a trainer and a group of them to defend the city. Have adepts make custom Speak with Animal items and use them avian parties to watch the surrounding desert to keep it safe from invading forces that can't teleport.

To handle teleport threats, buy a few Weird Stones and place them throughout the city in secure locations. Each one prevents teleportation effects within 5 miles of them.

[OldTrees1]

To populate an area:

All cohorts of 12th+ level have the Improved cohort feat
All cohorts of 9th+ level have the Landlord feat
All cohorts of 6th+ level have the Leadership feat

Use DMG population statistics to determine the classes of the various cohorts.

[CIDE]

Landlord feat is awesome for things like this as it is free money to use for building and designing the city. Stronghold Bubuilder's Guide is awesome for pricing of units to build the city and allows for some great cost reductions.


Except for the specific upgrades and such to rooms would I even need the stronghold builders guide if wall of stone/iron is available to spam? That coupled with shape stone should be quicker than physically building this town? Especially since stuff like wood for lower quality homes is going to be much harder to come by and much less efficient for desert heating/cooling.

Also, where's the landlord feat fout?



If you are stuck to using NPC classes for the followers, then you are going to be mainly using adepts and I think Magus from an one of the ebberon books. Try setting up their spells to cover most utility needs and give them craft wondorous item. This can allow you to start going Tippy on people with auto resetting create food traps, and items of plant growth for trade crops. Any spells you don't have on eithe class's list you can try knowstones or rune staves of from the town proffits.


I can't seem to find the magus class. As for the NPC classes that's more of a personal limitation. The DM in question has never dealt with the Leadership feat and I really don't want his first encounter to be too far into the broken end of the spectrum; even if I'm not using it to build an entirely broken character.



Animal taming can be done easily with commoners/experts. As for getting them, you can either invest in buying their young for various prices or sending out refugees to capture and tame them in groups. If you are adventurous enough you can start an animal/magical best managerie and use them as trade goods/town defense. Use a trainer and a group of them to defend the city. Have adepts make custom Speak with Animal items and use them avian parties to watch the surrounding desert to keep it safe from invading forces that can't teleport.


I forgot to even consider this. Thanks.




To handle teleport threats, buy a few Weird Stones and place them throughout the city in secure locations. Each one prevents teleportation effects within 5 miles of them.


Is there any way to bypass these if the characters within the village needed/wanted to teleport to/from? Or my character specifically?



All cohorts of 12th+ level have the Improved cohort feat


Already planned on this one, thanks.



All cohorts of 6th+ level have the Leadership feat


As a player and DM both I'm of the school of thought that if the Cohort had the qualities to be a leader then he wouldn't be a Cohort. So either the cohorts can't take leadership or once they do they're no longer a cohort.

In my mind this has nothing to do with balance; it just makes sense.



Use DMG population statistics to determine the classes of the various cohorts.

I like this idea.

[Coidzor]

Create Spring is a 2nd level Shaman spell from Oriental Adventures.


Create Spring (OA) – Shaman-only. 6 gallons of fresh water per hour permanently squirt from the earth. Not something you'll want to prepare for a dungeon, but definitely a spell you'll be spamming in your off-days. May be a plot-breaker.

Your artificer can get a bunch per day using the spell-storing item infusion, IIRC.

edit: Plant Growth (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/plantGrowth.htm) is another spell that increases the productivity of croplands and is 3rd level, and easily replicable by an artificer, with or without making an item.

Nurturing (http://dfds.wikia.com/wiki/Druid_Spells)Seeds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16601094&postcount=66)might be of interest, but it's from Athas.org (http://athas.org/products/ds3) or possibly an Athas.org update of 2e material.

edit2: Magus might be in reference to Magewrights, an NPC class that uses arcane casting and are a source of magical crafting expertise but not on the artificer level.

edit3: Pathfinder has some rules on city and kingdom building (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building) they adapted from their Kingmaker adventure path that might be of interest.

edit 4:
Except for the specific upgrades and such to rooms would I even need the stronghold builders guide if wall of stone/iron is available to spam? That coupled with shape stone should be quicker than physically building this town? Especially since stuff like wood for lower quality homes is going to be much harder to come by and much less efficient for desert heating/cooling.

Also, where's the landlord feat fout?

The magical architecture is of interest, at least. The general rule of thumb is a composite wall of Stone and Iron in layers for better defense from spells like Disintegrate as well as requiring both earthglide and the ability to pass through metal to sneak through/bypass without flight or burrowing the long way around from underneath. You can add in additional layers as various other wall spells become available, such as salt, & I believe there's a quick way to add in a dirt/earth/sand layer without manually doing it with a lyre of building or the old fashioned way too.

The feat's from the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook as well.


Is there any way to bypass these if the characters within the village needed/wanted to teleport to/from? Or my character specifically?

Short of Wish and Epic Magic, I don't believe so.

[Azoth]

Sorry the NPC arcane caster class is Mage Wright from one of the Ebberon books.

Stronghold builder's guid also has alot of magical architecture. So while the pricing of specific units (barracks, armory, ect) may not be useful the magical additions can be quite nice.

The Landlord feat is in Stronghold Builder's Guide.

As for Weird Stones, nope no way to bypass its screw you to teleportation effects. You can only get within a few miles of them with teleport effects. You can teleport out of its area of effect with no problem, but not into. Added bonus is that it also stops incoming scry attempts flat out. expensive at 230k though.

On the subject of cohorts taking Leadership, think of a world renowned General. Yeah he has groupies, that is certain. He could also have world renowned vice-generals or captains that draw men to serve under them. That is the easiest way to explain it if you decide to do it.

Also, while I love the ideas and where this is going, if your DM hasn't seen this sort of thing before I implore you not to go to Tippyverse levels with town construction and operations. You would drive your DM nuts and could well end the campaign if you go that far with it.

Oh, for the managerie of animals/magical beasts look into the Warbeast and Magebred templates. Normally a bit expensive to do, but if you are pooring your profits back into the town it should be alright.

For your gardens don't forget to look into magical plants that exist in the far corners web articles and poisonous plants. They turn nice profits. Use Shambling Mounds or effigy creatures to guard the gardens. Just mean.

[Eaglejarl]

Decanters won't do it for river creation (see math below). Instead, use Planar Ring Gates. Put one half of each set on the Elemental Plane of Water and the other where you want the river to be. As a basic Fermi calculation, a PRG to the EPoW produces roughly 1 cube of water 33' per side per minute. If all you need is medium-capacity flat-bottomed river barges, this is starting to sound feasible. A PRG could produce a section of river that is (roughly) 10' wide x 8' deep x 450' per minute.

Now you've got a river, but you need to get stuff down it. If you've got Decanters, use them as water jets to push your barges (from what I can google, a Decanter pushes about twice the volume of water per unit time as a small-diameter firehose).

Now, this approach would work for creating a transport river and it doesn't rely on casters. But, if you have access to a high level caster, a better solution would be to use the PRGs as a water supply for the city and to use one or more Permanency'd Teleportation Circles for transport.

Next you need to think about self sufficiency. Food is easy: plant some stuff, then start casting Plant Growth in the 'enrichment' mode. Each casting raises the productivity of a 1 mile diameter circle by 1/3 for one year. Pile up 10 of them and your garden is 17 times more productive than it started. (This is by RAW; RAI probably doesn't allow you to stack the benefits.)

You've got food and water. Next comes shelter. Use Wall of Iron; cast one, knock it over to make a floor. Cast three more to form walls (attached to the floor), then put another Wall on top and allow it to fall over so it forms a roof. Cover over the remaining side through any means desired (e.g. physical building, or yet another Wall of Iron offset to leave a gap at one end). WoI allows you to double the area by halving the thickness; depending on your DM, you might be able to halve the area by doubling the thickness (hopefully multiple times), giving you thicker walls / roof / floors. A WoI will be dozens, if not hundreds, of feet long, so build some dividers on the inside and you've basically got an apartment building. You'll want Continual Flame for light since there's nowhere to vent smoke. Fire suppression is an issue.

You've now got strongly defended homes, plenty of food, plenty of water, and easy transportation. You need some sort of defense. Your people are mostly Commoners so they won't help. Hire mercenaries, buy / build constructs, summon Outsiders...lots of options.

Finally, convince a few dozen clerics to set up a mission in your town to handle healing and disease-curing.


That should give you a pretty good start.



--------

The crunchy numbers:

One Decanter produces 300 g/min, or about 40 cubic feet of water per minute. That's a cube 3.5 feet on a side. Assume that, if you're going to use flat-bottom barges with low cargo capacity, you would need (at an absolute minimum) a river 10' wide and 3' deep. 10 Decanters working together for one minute would produce enough water for a 3.5' long section of your river. That's not going to do it; you'd need a lot more Decanters...how many would depend on the slope of the land.

---

Figuring the flow rate from the PRGs is a bit of a pain given the limited information we have, so let's assume that a Decanter just creates a very small portal to the EPoW. That means everything is equivalent, both produce water at the same rate, and the only difference is size of the output channel. Assume a Decanter has 2" diameter and that pi = 3 (since we're doing a Fermi calculation). That means that the Decanter can push 300 g/min (30 g/round * 10 round / min) through an area of 3 sq in. A Planar Ring Gate has a diameter of 5', meaning an area of 2700 sq in, so it pushes 900x as much water per unit time. In this case, that means it's putting out 270,000 gallons (one acre-inch) per minute, which is a cube 33' per side.


Edit: D'oh. Epically ninja'd.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The problem will be finding a reasonable balance between profit/sustainabilty and not attracting the attention of raiders because of too much wealth.

If you're willing to put in a hand for a few months you can easily set up buildings, walls, etc. essentially for free.

Making money shouldn't be a problem. Get a bunch of experts and have them craft masterwork weapons and armor. A single follower with 4 ranks in craft:weaponsmithing and a mw tool can crank out 1-2 masterwork weapons per month. Even without haggling, selling them generates more profit than most commoners make in a year.

Put in a few adepts to handle injuries and diseases and the settlement should be self sustaining.

Now you'll have to worry about defense because by non-adventurer standards that village is rich.
The cheapest method of defends against common threats like orcs, bandits and wild animals are undead.
An unoptimized spellcaster can control 4 HD per CL of skeletons so you can create quite a few and have them commanded by some of your higher level followers.
Another method is having a bunch of followers get ranks in handle animal and some feats that boost it and have them train desert critters for free.
Add in a few warriors with bows and you should be set for reasonable threats.

If you want to be dragonproof you'll need to invest some serious cash. Weirdstones were mentioned, another option is golems but those get expensive quickly.
Cheapest method is again, necromancy. Go out and kill high level clerics, rogues and fighter types, then use Animate Dread Warrior (UA), preferably with some method to circumvent the XP cost, to animate them. They are automatically under your control, with no limit, and they can actually think for themselves!(somewhat at least)

Undead clerics can in turn animate more skeletons. They can also use rebuke to command other intelligent undead, such as Spectral Mages and Crypt Spawn (both MoF, created with Create Greater Undead).

So, while your city earns some money you go around and murder strong monsters and high level characters to add to your army, choosing the best template for their abilities.
Animals and magical beasts make good skeletons (basically any melee brute monster)
Fighters and rogues are best animated with Animate Dread Warrior
Wizards and monsters with spellcasting benefit most from the Crypt Spawn template.
Sorcerers are best raised with the Spectral Mage template.

Keep in mind that you'll need clerics raised with Animate Dread Warrior with rebuking gear to keep your Crypt Spawn and Spectral Mages under control.
Dread Warriors are automatically under your control but lose Intelligence and Charisma, so the template is unsuited for wizards and sorcerers.

Do that and you'll collect an army in no time since you can send out your new undead minions to aquire more "conscripts", though you'll probably have to help out with the tougher ones.

Some of the good-aligned churches will probably start sending out adventurers against you, but that's okay.
Once you get going they'll just become new minions you don't have to go out of your way for. :smallbiggrin:

[Seerow]

I think there's an extra cohort feat floating around somewhere, but a quick google search only showed one from Pathfinder. Worth looking into.

Also Dragon Cohort from Draconomicon reads as though you get a Dragon Cohort in addition to your normal cohort. Another thing worth checking out at least.

Also look into the rules for Organizations for DMG2, I haven't looked at them much myself, but I expect there's probably some interesting things there for helping with this sort of project.



For what it's worth, I don't buy the argument of "If they had what it takes to be leaders, they wouldn't be your cohort". There is such a thing as a command structure for a reason. Plenty of people with good leadership qualities work alongside with or beneath somebody else. The only important thing in being a leader is how you interact with those below you.

[Erik Vale]

Going to skip to the end. There are plenty of leadership boosting classes and feats, but two to look out for are Rulership and Extra Followers.
You can grab them both by 12 without any shenanigens, and you multiply your following by 20, which with a halfway decent leadership score you can populate most if not all of a city with loyal followers.

[Seerow]

Going to skip to the end. There are plenty of leadership boosting classes and feats, but two to look out for are Rulership and Extra Followers.
You can grab them both by 12 without any shenanigens, and you multiply your following by 20, which with a halfway decent leadership score you can populate most if not all of a city with loyal followers.

Where are you getting multiply by 20?

Extra followers multiplies by 2. Rulership doesn't multiply at all, it just increases your Leadership score by 4. Given pre-epic leadership score caps out at 25, that's not particularly impressive.

[Azoth]

For defense beyond the standard norm, if you can get enough casters together you can hollow out a large bowl in the desert. Once you do this, get the casters to create a large dome over it with a few offshoots into the desert (conceal how desired). Then just move the displaced sand over your burburied city so finding and accessing it mundanely is difficult. Or if not worried about powerful creatures messing it up, just leave it exposed and do the wall of iron gates that seal all entrances.

Take a band of orcs a good while to punch through a wall of iron.

[Morph Bark]

Already planned on this one, thanks.

Just to note: Improved Cohort is a feat the leader needs to take, not the cohort.

[OldTrees1]

As a player and DM both I'm of the school of thought that if the Cohort had the qualities to be a leader then he wouldn't be a Cohort. So either the cohorts can't take leadership or once they do they're no longer a cohort.

In my mind this has nothing to do with balance; it just makes sense.


If your goal is to approximate the population statistics of a normal settlement, you would need some mid leveled individuals (in between your cohort and your followers). Personally I like to use cohorts with the leadership feat to create these mid leveled individuals.

In case it has not been answered yet:
Landlord feat is found in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook
http://dndtools.eu/feats/stronghold-builders-guidebook--49/landlord--1731/

[CIDE]

Create Spring is a 2nd level Shaman spell from Oriental Adventures.
.

That helps a little but nowhere near enough to make a river. Honestly, 6 gallons per hour isn't that much either. I'd need several of such springs to keep a whole town going and since they're forced to be 100 yards apart it gets a little tricky.



edit: Plant Growth (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/plantGrowth.htm) is another spell that increases the productivity of croplands and is 3rd level, and easily replicable by an artificer, with or without making an item.


Thanks, I must've misremembered how plant-growth worked. That said I'd need existing crops to cast plant growth on to turn it into a viable plant source. It would at least be able to make a thick jungle oasis around my town if I get a decent bit of plants.



edit3: Pathfinder has some rules on city and kingdom building (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building) they adapted from their Kingmaker adventure path that might be of interest.


I'll take a peek.



The magical architecture is of interest, at least. The general rule of thumb is a composite wall of Stone and Iron in layers for better defense from spells like Disintegrate as well as requiring both earthglide and the ability to pass through metal to sneak through/bypass without flight or burrowing the long way around from underneath. You can add in additional layers as various other wall spells become available, such as salt, & I believe there's a quick way to add in a dirt/earth/sand layer without manually doing it with a lyre of building or the old fashioned way too.

The feat's from the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook as well.

The magical stuff was what I was referencing. As for the actual construction it'd probably go faster to create walls of X and/or Lyre of building. NPC's can be Warforged and can take ranks in Perform, right?



Short of Wish and Epic Magic, I don't believe so.

I guess that's both a good and a bad thing.


Sorry the NPC arcane caster class is Mage Wright from one of the Ebberon books.

I found it now, thanks. I also found the Mral (I think?) in a few more NPC class searches. Not as good all around as a Magewright but for dedicated crafters could come in handy. Especially since they can get Major Creation.




On the subject of cohorts taking Leadership, think of a world renowned General. Yeah he has groupies, that is certain. He could also have world renowned vice-generals or captains that draw men to serve under them. That is the easiest way to explain it if you decide to do it.

I considered that. Really though I envisioned (at least as it's implied) that the minions still falling below the Cohort would kind of qualify for those roles. Namely the fewer higher leveled minions that I'd have as compared to the %$@#$ load of level 1 minions. Not really a direction comparison, though.



Also, while I love the ideas and where this is going, if your DM hasn't seen this sort of thing before I implore you not to go to Tippyverse levels with town construction and operations. You would drive your DM nuts and could well end the campaign if you go that far with it.

Yeah, I was already considering this. I really just want this to be built into a completely self-sufficient town. A safe haven that could theoretically be built up to help refugees from war torn neighbors while also having the resources to provide humanitarian aid when available. Any weapons or anything that could easily be weaponized would be dedicated to defense only. I don't even think the town would manufacture weapons to sell but could possibly manufacture armor and other goods along with the raw material (salt, iron, etc).

Hell, could even theoretically go the route of manufacturing that one mithril equivalent that's psionic and crystaline instead with the right characters involved.



Oh, for the managerie of animals/magical beasts look into the Warbeast and Magebred templates. Normally a bit expensive to


While I imagined this on some level like a commune I was already going to calculate each individual also keeping some of the profit themselves. With the idea of virutally infinite food/water and possibly other goods though most of their profits wouldn't be focused on purely survival. That said, I'm pretty sure this is definitely going to be a fairly wealthy nation. I don't think adding some templates to these animals is going to be that big an issue.



For your gardens don't forget to look into magical plants that exist in the far corners web articles and poisonous plants. They turn nice profits. Use Shambling Mounds or effigy creatures to guard the gardens. Just mean.

Do you have any names to look up? In addition to that with the plant growth and building a jungle around my little oasis I could fill it with things naturally dangerous to the advances of an army.


snip.

How many of those ideas are still going to work with liberal usage of weird stones? I'd rather have defenses against teleportation than easy travel. And the relative cost of airships in D&D make those more suitable for long range commerce with the boats dedicated to short range commerce; especially if the rivers give access to port towns.

Great job on the math though. I also love the idea of setting up cleric temples and such. I think I'd include several good/neutral churches and even offer an option for monestaries for monks/swordsages/whatever if they so chose to have a safe haven.


The problem will be finding a reasonable balance between profit/sustainabilty and not attracting the attention of raiders because of too much wealth.


Yeah, I was considering this. This is part of why it'd be set up in a mostly remote location at first. I'd also avoid the substantial levels of profit until well after the town is built up and the defenses are built up to suitable levels. Really, the profit isn't as important to survival as it is comfort and for the more ludicrous aspects of the town anyway. Sure, it may take longer. But I'd also have to point out most of my character's wealth as an adventurer would be dedicated to the town as well. And this particular DM isn't exactly a penny-pincher.




Making money shouldn't be a problem. Get a bunch of experts and have them craft masterwork weapons and armor. A single follower with 4 ranks in craft:weaponsmithing and a mw tool can crank out 1-2 masterwork weapons per month. Even without haggling, selling them generates more profit than most commoners make in a year.

Yeah, definitely. Not just experts but adepts, magewrights, Mlars, etc and the Artificer Cohort. There's going to be abundant ways to make money. Honestly, I asked about this for ways I hadn't already read about or considered.

As already mentioned there's the wall of salt shenanigans, wall of iron+crafting, or even selling the iron at 5 sp per pound for a reduced profit (that's still a lot of iron). But what else would there be?




Now you'll have to worry about defense because by non-adventurer standards that village is rich.
The cheapest method of defends against common threats like orcs, bandits and wild animals are undead.
An unoptimized spellcaster can control 4 HD per CL of skeletons so you can create quite a few and have them commanded by some of your higher level followers.
Another method is having a bunch of followers get ranks in handle animal and some feats that boost it and have them train desert critters for free.
Add in a few warriors with bows and you should be set for reasonable threats.

If you want to be dragonproof you'll need to invest some serious cash. Weirdstones were mentioned, another option is golems but those get expensive quickly.
Cheapest method is again, necromancy. Go out and kill high level clerics, rogues and fighter types, then use Animate Dread Warrior (UA), preferably with some method to circumvent the XP cost, to animate them. They are automatically under your control, with no limit, and they can actually think for themselves!(somewhat at least)

Undead clerics can in turn animate more skeletons. They can also use rebuke to command other intelligent undead, such as Spectral Mages and Crypt Spawn (both MoF, created with Create Greater Undead).

So, while your city earns some money you go around and murder strong monsters and high level characters to add to your army, choosing the best template for their abilities.
Animals and magical beasts make good skeletons (basically any melee brute monster)
Fighters and rogues are best animated with Animate Dread Warrior
Wizards and monsters with spellcasting benefit most from the Crypt Spawn template.
Sorcerers are best raised with the Spectral Mage template.

Keep in mind that you'll need clerics raised with Animate Dread Warrior with rebuking gear to keep your Crypt Spawn and Spectral Mages under control.
Dread Warriors are automatically under your control but lose Intelligence and Charisma, so the template is unsuited for wizards and sorcerers.

Do that and you'll collect an army in no time since you can send out your new undead minions to aquire more "conscripts", though you'll probably have to help out with the tougher ones.

Some of the good-aligned churches will probably start sending out adventurers against you, but that's okay.
Once you get going they'll just become new minions you don't have to go out of your way for. :smallbiggrin:

I'd really rather avoid undead. While I personally don't think the undead thing is inherently evil no matter what WotC says on the subject (I think they're morality/alignment rules are bullocks anyway) I do know a lot of people, players, and DM's would not agree. That said just to be on the safe side the undead is kind of a last resort option rather than an immediate form of defense. Even then I'm not sure where I'd have the resources to make the undead given the location.

Also, are there rules for training random "insert monster/animal here" from any location? I'm legitimately curious since I never looked into these rules (never had to) than with a hippogriff example or a Druid's companion.


I will say I never considered dragons either. Which...is a big and potentially fatal mistake... Thanks for bringing them up.


I think there's an extra cohort feat floating around somewhere, but a quick google search only showed one from Pathfinder. Worth looking into.

Yeah, I'm having the same trouble. I heard of it but can't seem to find it. fortunately I'd likely be able to day PF feats for this particular game.



Also Dragon Cohort from Draconomicon reads as though you get a Dragon Cohort in addition to your normal cohort. Another thing worth checking out at least.

I completely forgot about this feat. Thanks again. I originally planned on it when I had the idea and forgot it existed.



Also look into the rules for Organizations for DMG2, I haven't looked at them much myself, but I expect there's probably some interesting things there for helping with this sort of project.


I'll take a look at these too. I think I'll have to borrow someone else's copy of DMG2 though.


Going to skip to the end. There are plenty of leadership boosting classes and feats, but two to look out for are Rulership and Extra Followers.
You can grab them both by 12 without any shenanigens, and you multiply your following by 20, which with a halfway decent leadership score you can populate most if not all of a city with loyal followers.

Where are these two from? I knew of Extra followers (but never saw/read it) but never heard of Rulership.


For defense beyond the standard norm, if you can get enough casters together you can hollow out a large bowl in the desert. Once you do this, get the casters to create a large dome over it with a few offshoots into the desert (conceal how desired). Then just move the displaced sand over your burburied city so finding and accessing it mundanely is difficult. Or if not worried about powerful creatures messing it up, just leave it exposed and do the wall of iron gates that seal all entrances.

Take a band of orcs a good while to punch through a wall of iron.

I like the idea. I wanted at least part of the city submerged but not the entire thing. I specifically wanted it among mountains, valleys, and canyons in the desert but I can at least build a section of it as you suggested. It may be easier just to build a hollow into the mountains though.


Just to note: Improved Cohort is a feat the leader needs to take, not the cohort.

Oh yeah, I knew this already. I just didn't bother to correct the poster of the original comment for it.


If your goal is to approximate the population statistics of a normal settlement, you would need some mid leveled individuals (in between your cohort and your followers). Personally I like to use cohorts with the leadership feat to create these mid leveled individuals.




So many people suggesting this. I think I'd be more comfortable using the D20 Modern feat that I think is just called "minions". In D20 Modern Leadership is split into two. You take a feat for a Cohort (sidekick) and a feat for the followers (I think it's Minions). I just don't like the idea of cohorts having cohorts. But Cohorts with followers is another thing.

[Azoth]

You can find alot of the magical plants and some cool alchemical items made from them in the links from this post from the Fey Compendium.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12418404&postcount=7

For mundane ones that are mean look through the poison handbook. One that comes to mind is most definitely Black Lotus.

[OldTrees1]

So many people suggesting this. I think I'd be more comfortable using the D20 Modern feat that I think is just called "minions". In D20 Modern Leadership is split into two. You take a feat for a Cohort (sidekick) and a feat for the followers (I think it's Minions). I just don't like the idea of cohorts having cohorts. But Cohorts with followers is another thing.

I do not have access to those feats.

Imagine you are 11th level. Your Cohort is 9th level and your 2 highest followers are 6th level. This is a gap of 3 levels that will only get wider as you level. Such a gap conflicts with the verisimilitude of the settlement.

Do either of the D20 Modern feats fill that gap?

If the Minion feat just replicates the follower section of leadership, then it would be a good feat for your cohort. However I would suggest trying to fill that level gap in addition.

Would you consider taking a feat like "You get an extra cohort at 2 levels less than an existing cohort"?

[XmonkTad]

Artificers need a reliable source of crafting materials to work. Teleportation defences will mean taking everything with you when you set out, or making trips across the desert. Any reason to build this on the material plane? Ethereal fortresses or settling in outlands would make an interesting locale. If "getting safe" is the reason, why not lead a exodus to Empryrea?

If rule is the goal, take over an existing city and level evil neighbor nations.

[Coidzor]

All of this discussion of undead and refugees fleeing into the desert are reminding me of Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers (http://www.flamesrising.com/hollowfaust-city-of-necromancers-rpg-review/) from the Scarred Lands setting of Sword & Sorcery. XD

So you might want to check into taking over some ruins and restoring them to habitability and improving upon them.

As far as training (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7097263&postcount=38)magical beasts and other non-animals, you'll find most of it is listed in the individual monster entries for each creature, the handle animal skill description, or the Arms & Equipment Guide from 3.0. Wild Empathy can definitely be a help though.

There's also an un-updated 3.0 feat called (Creature Type) Trainer, which changes depending upon the type of creature, but it allows using the handle animal rules to rear and train Int 4(or lower) creatures of that type.

Dragon Trainer from Draconomicon(IIRC)Races of the Dragon likely supercedes this for Dragons though, but it also bears mentioning on its own anyway, and it doesn't require DM adjudication to finish updating it to 3.5 from the 3.0 handle animal rules where they actually need adjudication. And it's better anyway, since the Int cap is raised to 6, and the Half-Dragon template changes anything's type to Dragon anyway, though it also raises the Int by 2, so you'd need some way to either set the creature's Int at 6 or less via template stacking or magically alter the creature. Or maybe even just load it with Int drain/burn.

[Azoth]

From a style point I like the animals and magic beasts more than undead anyway. Undead are done too often as the end all be all of cheap and effective minion-mancy. Personally, the image of a pack of Gravbeasts tearing into an Orc raiding party is much more satisfying.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well, that's largely because undead are "the end all be all of cheap and effective minion-mancy".:smalltongue:

No other method allows you to get as many minions for as little cost and time at as early a level.
That's not to say they don't have their weaknesses but they make effective "bulk" forces that you can supplement with more expensive/high-level options like golems and ice assassins.

[CIDE]

You can find alot of the magical plants and some cool alchemical items made from them in the links from this post from the Fey Compendium.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12418404&postcount=7

For mundane ones that are mean look through the poison handbook. One that comes to mind is most definitely Black Lotus.

Awesome. This stuff looks awesome.


I do not have access to those feats.

Imagine you are 11th level. Your Cohort is 9th level and your 2 highest followers are 6th level. This is a gap of 3 levels that will only get wider as you level. Such a gap conflicts with the verisimilitude of the settlement.

Do either of the D20 Modern feats fill that gap?

If the Minion feat just replicates the follower section of leadership, then it would be a good feat for your cohort. However I would suggest trying to fill that level gap in addition.

Would you consider taking a feat like "You get an extra cohort at 2 levels less than an existing cohort"?

Neither feat fills any gaps. Sidekick does start your "sidekick" a level closer than your cohort is. Otherwise it's exactly the same as Leadership just split into two feats. And yes, feats like that are cool.



Artificers need a reliable source of crafting materials to work. Teleportation defences will mean taking everything with you when you set out, or making trips across the desert. Any reason to build this on the material plane? Ethereal fortresses or settling in outlands would make an interesting locale. If "getting safe" is the reason, why not lead a exodus to Empryrea?

If rule is the goal, take over an existing city and level evil neighbor nations.

Construction is going to initially start at lower levels where extra-planar stuff isn't reliable. Nothing to stop it from expanding to extra planes, demi-planes, whatever. But initially there's going to be a significant portion of it on the material plane. That said that's why I was wanting the river(s) for travel. More easily watched and guarded, keeps invasion paths predictable. etc.

I did however find reference to portals and such. Not sure if they'd work near weird stones. if they do that replaces the planar ring gates for less expense and makes travel to pre-set destinations much easier.

Also, they wish this to be a place for refugees. Going extra planar isn't exactly helpful to that cause unless there's at a minimum a decent base in the material plane. Ushering people safely across the desert was going to be part of the duties there too.

You have any info on the Ethereal fortress and such


All of this discussion of undead and refugees fleeing into the desert are reminding me of Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers (http://www.flamesrising.com/hollowfaust-city-of-necromancers-rpg-review/) from the Scarred Lands setting of Sword & Sorcery. XD

So you might want to check into taking over some ruins and restoring them to habitability and improving upon them.

I'd love to build in ruins and restore them. That'd be something they would do. Granted, I won't be able to play in this game anymore I want to keep building on this idea. So i can ask the next DM I want to try this one if ruins are available to work with.




From a style point I like the animals and magic beasts more than undead anyway. Undead are done too often as the end all be all of cheap and effective minion-mancy. Personally, the image of a pack of Gravbeasts tearing into an Orc raiding party is much more satisfying.

Yeah, I love it. Absolutely love it. The undead would have too many negative consequences here anyway.

[OldTrees1]

Neither feat fills any gaps. Sidekick does start your "sidekick" a level closer than your cohort is. Otherwise it's exactly the same as Leadership just split into two feats. And yes, feats like that are cool.


So if you took the Leadership feat and then started taking some kind of "lesser cohort feat" (extra cohort 2 levels lower than an existing cohort), then your cohorts could take the Minions feat and the Landlord feat(if high enough).

End result: A more smooth population curve and wealth reasonable for the public works and private buildings of the city.

[CIDE]

So if you took the Leadership feat and then started taking some kind of "lesser cohort feat" (extra cohort 2 levels lower than an existing cohort), then your cohorts could take the Minions feat and the Landlord feat(if high enough).

End result: A more smooth population curve and wealth reasonable for the public works and private buildings of the city.

Yeah. Mostly, I just don't want to break the game. And this whole thing was already pushing it as-is; the whole thing just had such a strong root in fluff that I was going to go for it. I mean...I could maybe do the traditional "Cohort takes leadership" tactic but I really don't want to push my luck with any DM and their trust.

Granted, I would never take advantage of this. I'd ahve too much fun with the story aspects. the problem is if I went all out with this I'd be one decision away from a Tippy-verse kingdom that could take over the rest of the world. If I wanted that I'd exploit the hell out of Thrallherd or use Tippy's path of ascension or something.

[Azoth]

I have got to say that has me wanting to make a city and go full blown Tucker's Kobolds with it. The whole thing nothing but Leadership chained cohorts and followers. The city a perfect 8 mile sphere of multiple layers and entry points all leading to the central column that houses the weird stone and a lvl20 character in a maze like fashion All followers use NPC classes and cohorts be actual PC classes. Go Thunder Dome with it so they can't leave once they get in, and just wait to hear the screams and crying.

[Coidzor]

I have got to say that has me wanting to make a city and go full blown Tucker's Kobolds with it. The whole thing nothing but Leadership chained cohorts and followers. The city a perfect 8 mile sphere of multiple layers and entry points all leading to the central column that houses the weird stone and a lvl20 character in a maze like fashion All followers use NPC classes and cohorts be actual PC classes. Go Thunder Dome with it so they can't leave once they get in, and just wait to hear the screams and crying.

Sounds like fun. :smallbiggrin:

[CIDE]

It does sound fun. Also! I can't seem to find the weird stones. where are they at?

[Azoth]

Player's Guide to Fauern

[gomipile]

As a player and DM both I'm of the school of thought that if the Cohort had the qualities to be a leader then he wouldn't be a Cohort. So either the cohorts can't take leadership or once they do they're no longer a cohort.

So, you don't find real life chains of command realistic? If a captain can independently lead his crew, he shouldn't be taking orders from admirals? More in keeping with the mechanics of the Leadership feat, a feudal chain of command can look a lot like chained Leadership.