Thorps and Buildings

[Ruethgar]

How do thorps afford homes? They have 100g max resources available at any one time and need a minimum of 222g in perfectly optimal conditions. A ranger or druid might get lucky with the +10 level boost and get the Landlord feat but that is only 4% of thorps and hamlets, not even villages. Do they just use survival to make shelter or are they all indebted to someone else?

[Afgncaap5]

I think different Thorps do it differently. Some may be in feudal societies where they are provided for/indebted to a lord, some may be lucky, some might just be that good at maintaining their homes.

In my group, we sort of rule that the interpretation of "maximum resources available" refers to an upper cap of what the players are able to locate during a standard trip to such a community. Ie., a performer with a truly massive result on a performance check in a tiny village may well be able to claim that he or she *deserves* to get a huge amount of money in compensation for their performance, but the villagers don't really have that much money just lying around to throw at the character's hat (as opposed to a metropolis of wealthy elves who all walk around with platinum coins in their belt pouches.) Similarly, a character in a metropolis can likely find something worth a thousand gold or more (a spyglass or if they're lucky a magical weapon in a specialist's shoppe), while a character who walks into the Adept's spells-n-things stall in a thorp might be lucky to find a level 1 scroll or potion.

I don't know if our interpretation is strictly by the book, but it helps us to justify the workings of communities, and also the luckiness of characters. (Plus it's a handy way to get around availability problems. A player isn't likely to just *happen* to walk into a store that sells adamantine weaponry unless it's a metropolis near the crash site of a meteorite from a few decades in the past.)

[Slipperychicken]

The 1000gp house listed on the SRD is pretty luxurious by a medieval peasant's standards: Most people lived in single-room structures containing a fireplace, straw beds, and a dining table. I imagine that huts, hovels, and shanties would exist and have a base price around 30-70 gold.

Also Thorps by definition have less than 20 people. You're basically talking about some guy and his family (or maybe ~4 family units at the high end). Building a new house would likely be a communal effort involving thorp's entire manpower of 1-8 guys. It would not surprise me if such people farmed or foraged their own food and lived in debt to whatever lord owned them (as serfs were considered part of any given fief).



In my group, we sort of rule that the interpretation of "maximum resources available" refers to an upper cap of what the players are able to locate during a standard trip to such a community.

I recall this being the case.

[Ruethgar]

The 1000gp house listed on the SRD is pretty luxurious by a medieval peasant's standards: Most people lived in single-room structures containing a fireplace, straw beds, and a dining table. I imagine that huts, hovels, and shanties would exist and have a base price around 30-70 gold.

Also Thorps by definition have less than 20 people. You're basically talking about some guy and his family (or maybe ~4 family units at the high end). Building a new house would likely be a communal effort involving thorp's entire manpower of 1-8 guys. It would not surprise me if such people farmed or foraged their own food and lived in debt to whatever lord owned them (as serfs were considered part of any given fief).

Thorps have a minimum of 20, up to 80, not sure what book you are looking at.

Stronghold builder's guide puts a home as you describe as a 500g endeavor, perfectly optimal includes a caster helping out of the goodness of his heart, no paid labor, and the most perfect location for cost reduction getting it down to 222g.

I was actually looking at hamlet for the 100g, thorp is 40g. Of course with a good enough survival skill(+6) you can make shelters in a day or two that last an indefinite amount of time, and any experts, druids or rangers present could easily make that happen. But I imagine that more like a shanty town akin to slums more than a cute little homestead community in the country.

What was the book that dealt with rent? Was it Cityscape? It may shed more light on the subject.

[Zweisteine]

They build the houses themselves, and pass them down. Nobody living in a well-established thorp bought their house. More likely, they were founded a few generations ago, built houses then, and are jut running maintenance now, which they do themselves. Thorps are small enough that everybody knows everybody, and if someone needs help, others will pitch in. The carpenter works cheaper for his friends, and in exchange, they act just as kind to him.

I'd guess that most thorps don't have an economy as we imagine it. They rely more on trading goods than on paying gold, and everyone trades. They'll buy from outsiders, sure, but only because they know they can sell what thu bought to he next caravan to pass through.

[Slipperychicken]

Thorps have a minimum of 20, up to 80, not sure what book you are looking at.


I was looking at Pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/settlements). My bad.

[Ruethgar]

The 222g is representative of them building their own house, in the perfect location, with the free help of a spell caster. The walls are wood and thus free, labor free, magic free, materials I guess then are nearly half the price. How much would a weather shelter be worth?