Building a city from a player's point of view

[BaurPowr]

Hello there forum. In the campaign I am currently in we recently acquired the rights to the cit we started in and I need some help with rules and advice. The game started out by us being handed all the different divisions of the town and were told to divide the jobs between us, with one extra that ended up being given to an NPC that may or may not be the over-arching antagonist.

I, being the ranger of the group, was placed in the role of Head of the Militia. This job also covers the town's defenses, including the walls, towers, moats, and siege weaponry.

As it stands right now the town itself is about 4 square miles and surrounded by 4 foot thick, 25 foot stone walls on each side and a gate leaving the town at each cardinal direction. There are 4 towers currently, but nothing really well maintained as they are made of wood and not really sturdy enough for more than one man to stand atop of.
The populous is about 10,000 [I might be wrong] and the Militia is composed of 100 archers and 400 militiamen. When asked about their training the dm effectively said that they are all pretty much rednecks.

Which leads me to the monetary acquisition for improvements on the town. Each game session we all decide how much of our income to add up and pool for improving the defenses of the town. Once found, the dm then matches our total 1:1. It usually averages out to be around 10k a session, doubled.

Mainly I was gong to the Stronghold builder's guide to look up information about improving the fortifications, however, they are ridiculously expensive. Walls, for 20ft x 1ft x 10ft high are 1k, and that's pretty much **** quality besides making it out of something like wood, which is ridiculous. Is there another book or information source out there that covers the cost of building things inside a city for a player?
Secondly, I was curious to people's advice as for what to build for defenses and how to even go about training the militia.

[unseenmage]

The Pathfinder rules for Downtime (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime) could do what you're looking for.

The Stronghold Builder's Guide is pretty useless for extrapolation (and I say that as a fan of the book). There are third party prodcts that get into city building from a DMs perspective fairly well but I've never seen one with prices in it though.

[Hazrond]

-snip-

*hears stronghold builder's guide, cracks knuckles*

i suggest fortifying a large building in the center of town heavily, maybe a government building or something, then creating a small bunker underneath the building, the size shouldnt matter too much because all you need to do is make a multiple gateways in the bunker room that each are a wondrous architecture of Mordekainens Magnificent Mansion, and then creating a pillar in the center room which is a wondrous architecture of the spells Greater Teleport, Teleport Through Time, and Plane Shift. Then proceed to hold regular drills with the populace to teach them to rush into the bunker when they see some pre-arranged signal (Dancing Lights?) and you now have the ultimate getaway defense in the case of Shadow/Wight/Whateverpocalypse. Something destroying the world? send the bunker along with all of its denizens back in time to when its safe. Orcs invading your city? Well im sure they arent invading the countryside on the other side of the planet. Civil unrest due to boredom or some such? How about a trip to the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, or maybe Elysium? and if you dont want to abandon your homes to get away just teleport into the future a few years and you will probably have a ghost town to re-inhabit. :smallbiggrin:

It would be expensive but once completed it would be practically unbeatable

Edit: (Just realized this was pathfinder and that all my stronghold builder's shenanigans have gone to waste :smallfrown:)

[jedipotter]

You might not want to do this.....

I know it sounds fun ''have a town!'' ''Build an army!'' ''Defend the town!'' ''Live out them Epic Lord of the Rings battles!''

But D&D/Pathfinder is not the system to do this. If you really, really, really want to do the whole town and army thing, you are better off using another game. There are tons of ''empire/kingdom'' games you can use it simulate this, but not D&D/Pathfinder.


And if your going to do it....why? You have a town...ok. But is it in immediate danger of being attacked? Is there an army moving on it right now? Does the town really ''need'' defenses?

And the ''arms race'' does not end well. Like where you ''train'' the militia for six weeks and make then all 2nd level. Well, ok....then everyone in the world can have like 10th level armies in like one year....and

And even if you made 100 foot tall adamintimun walls manned by ninja-cyborg-demi-gods.......the bag guys would still ''break in'' to town and destroy it. For the simple reason that having a ''implementable fortress'' is boring. And if say an orc army did attack the town....would you want your character really leading the militia or fighting and playing D&D and getting experience?

[torrasque666]

Given that this is Pathfinder, crack open the Ultimate Campaign if you have it(if not, go find a way to get it) as it has rules for this sort. Starts on page 198. Hell, you even get experience for advancing your kingdom!

[Oneris]

I'm not proficient in the bestiary, but could there be some sort of low CR monster you could 'farm' for experience to level up your militia? Or find and disable a high CR monster and let the NPCs scratch away at it for levels.

[unseenmage]

You might not want to do this.....

I know it sounds fun ''have a town!'' ''Build an army!'' ''Defend the town!'' ''Live out them Epic Lord of the Rings battles!''

But D&D/Pathfinder is not the system to do this. If you really, really, really want to do the whole town and army thing, you are better off using another game. There are tons of ''empire/kingdom'' games you can use it simulate this, but not D&D/Pathfinder.


And if your going to do it....why? You have a town...ok. But is it in immediate danger of being attacked? Is there an army moving on it right now? Does the town really ''need'' defenses?

And the ''arms race'' does not end well. Like where you ''train'' the militia for six weeks and make then all 2nd level. Well, ok....then everyone in the world can have like 10th level armies in like one year....and

And even if you made 100 foot tall adamintimun walls manned by ninja-cyborg-demi-gods.......the bag guys would still ''break in'' to town and destroy it. For the simple reason that having a ''implementable fortress'' is boring. And if say an orc army did attack the town....would you want your character really leading the militia or fighting and playing D&D and getting experience?

The Kingdom Building (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building) section of Pathfinder begs to differ. (Though admittedly at this point the abstraction is such that you're playing another game inspired by the game you're trying to play.)

[Telok]

Taxes. Figure out who has the money, how to tax them in a popular manner, and spend it on very visible town improvements. But, even better than monetary taxes are work taxes. Figure out how to tax the master masons in the town and let them send their apprentices to work on your wall. Tax the rock quarries, let them pay in stone. Tax the armor smiths guild, let them pay in armor.

This was done in antiquity and it works.

[troqdor1316]

The Kingdom Building (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building) section of Pathfinder begs to differ. (Though admittedly at this point the abstraction is such that you're playing another game inspired by the game you're trying to play.)


You might not want to do this.....

I know it sounds fun ''have a town!'' ''Build an army!'' ''Defend the town!'' ''Live out them Epic Lord of the Rings battles!''

But D&D/Pathfinder is not the system to do this. If you really, really, really want to do the whole town and army thing, you are better off using another game. There are tons of ''empire/kingdom'' games you can use it simulate this, but not D&D/Pathfinder.


And if your going to do it....why? You have a town...ok. But is it in immediate danger of being attacked? Is there an army moving on it right now? Does the town really ''need'' defenses?

And the ''arms race'' does not end well. Like where you ''train'' the militia for six weeks and make then all 2nd level. Well, ok....then everyone in the world can have like 10th level armies in like one year....and

And even if you made 100 foot tall adamintimun walls manned by ninja-cyborg-demi-gods.......the bag guys would still ''break in'' to town and destroy it. For the simple reason that having a ''implementable fortress'' is boring. And if say an orc army did attack the town....would you want your character really leading the militia or fighting and playing D&D and getting experience?

Long story short, these guys are spot on in that you're probably better off using something better keyed to civilization building than DnD. Maybe you could try playing something like d20 Empires side by side with your dnd campaign? The games can interact with each other. Maybe you go to war in Empires and your PCs play a part in some deciding battles, or command forces throughout the land.

[SciChronic]

i would cut down all trees within at least 1000' of the town, to allow guards stationed on the walls/towers to spot invading enemies quickly as well as give a clear line of sight for archers.

use the new lumber to reinforce the walls with layers of palisades.

create an outer wall about 50 to 100ft away from the inner wall. Then divide this space into sections, creating a walkway between the inner and outer walls. Make sure this walkway can be easily closed off/destroyed by the inner wall. Now if an invading force can break past the first wall, they are now in a killbox, with archers from both the inner and outer walls firing down on them. if the outer wall is taken, your men can just take the walkway and then close it off preventing enemy forces from using it.

Level out most of the buildings in the outer districts and teach your militia to fight from the rooftops. Installing small, hidden arrow caches on the rooftops will make sure your men never run out. Teach 4-5 man units to rain arrows down on the enemy from the roof, and when the building is taken, use a plank/board to cross over to the next roof, and start over.

have one of your more diplomatic party members travel and try to strike a good deal for raw materials like stone, then hire casters to shape it, might be cheaper to do it that way, than build it manually, it would definitely be faster. consider paying them with a building they can run a magic item workshop through. If they live in your town, they would be more inclined to help defend it. An increase in magical goods in your town would help arm your men, as well as bring in more money.

fighting an invasion is going to be mostly about attrition. you need to make sure that for every foot of ground they take on your city, they are going to lose a dozen or more men for it.