Thoughts on castle rebuilding

[Bladeyeoman]

Hey guys! Fairly new DM here. I've been running my group through the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and they recently cleared out Castle Cragmaw, and the party wizard re-consecrated (un-desecrated?) the shrine there.

For those who haven't run this adventure, the castle is in severe disrepair, with sections of the walls collapsed into rubble. Nonetheless, a lot of the structure is still there, in addition to this shrine which is important to the party wizard. The party is interested in rebuilding the castle to serve as their base of operations/stronghold (something I'm a fan of, assuming it won't break things too much). I wanted to pick your brains on a few things:

What should it cost to rebuild? And how long should it take? I believe it's generally 2gp/day for skilled labor, 2sp/day for unskilled labor, but I have to admit I haven't thought about. Furthermore, it may make sense to tailor the cost to gameplay significance, rather than a realistic cost estimate. The party has spent very little of its gold, and I have been a little bit generous in random encounters; I believe each individual has around 1500 gp. Realism is fine, but mostly I want a fun experience for my players.

Are there any major pitfalls I should be aware of? Ways I can accidentally break the game (by which I mean make it drastically less fun)? Any tricks for making strongholds feel special/important/more fun?

Are there any good rebuilding-related RP opportunities or specific rebuilding adventures that come to mind? I'm sure I can weave in all kinds of adventure hooks, but if anything comes to mind as especially awesome, I'd love to hear it.

Does anyone have suggestions for stronghold references/splatbook type stuff that works well with 5e? I've skimmed a few things online, but what I came across didn't seem to synergize all that well with the playstyle of lower level 5e characters.

Party is 6 level 4 characters, although party size per session varies between 3 and 6.

Thanks in advance!

[Sigreid]

What I did at the end of the adventure was sort of hand wave it. I informed the party that their share of the loot would allow them to rebuild and then provide an ongoing aristocratic lifestyle but money wouldn't pile up, they simply wouldn't have to pay for the lifestyle. I set an arbitrary time of 2 years for repairs.

It's quick, it's dirty, they get to be rich and no one has to do a bunch of book keeping.

[Corsair14]

Go look up the book "Complete Book of Castles" from 2nd ed. The money, labor and cost to build and run a castle was all there. You can probably find a download somewhere. Its a really handy book for that specific information.

It will take more than a couple adventures to pay for a castle. They are likely the most expensive thing in DnD.

[Sir cryosin]

I'm at work but in the phb it has sailing ships prices and the cheapest one was around 10,000gp with other ones getting way higher. So I would say a castle or keep to cost around 100,000gp on the cheap cheap side of 50,000gp. So if your doing repairs I'll price around 25,000 to 10,000 and that's for materials and labor. Now to furnish set up labs ,forgery and other stuff your still looking at thousands of gold pieces.

[Temperjoke]

If you have the DMG, on page 128 it describes building a stronghold during downtime activities. Since it's an existing place that just needs restoration/renovation, I'd adjust it a little lower from there, unless the players want to improve it from what it was previously. Page 127 describes the maintenance costs for places as well.

[sigurd]

Just be aware that Castles aren't really very secure in D&D. The game is built around empowering characters who will always be more powerful than piles of stone.

Obscurity is far more defensive because anyone who can find you, can put together the right magic to destroy you - even at high levels.

I love castles, towers, keeps etc... but they all can be defeated and the attackers can have fun doing so.. :)

[Bladeyeoman]

Go look up the book "Complete Book of Castles" from 2nd ed. The money, labor and cost to build and run a castle was all there. You can probably find a download somewhere. Its a really handy book for that specific information.

It will take more than a couple adventures to pay for a castle. They are likely the most expensive thing in DnD.

Great suggestion! I'll look it up!


I'm at work but in the phb it has sailing ships prices and the cheapest one was around 10,000gp with other ones getting way higher. So I would say a castle or keep to cost around 100,000gp on the cheap cheap side of 50,000gp. So if your doing repairs I'll price around 25,000 to 10,000 and that's for materials and labor. Now to furnish set up labs ,forgery and other stuff your still looking at thousands of gold pieces.

Thanks to Temperjoke I found the actual numbers - 15,000 for a fort or outpost, 50,000 for a small castle or a keep, 500,000 for a large castle or a palace. So your ballpark was right on the money.


If you have the DMG, on page 128 it describes building a stronghold during downtime activities. Since it's an existing place that just needs restoration/renovation, I'd adjust it a little lower from there, unless the players want to improve it from what it was previously. Page 127 describes the maintenance costs for places as well.

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for!


Just be aware that Castles aren't really very secure in D&D. The game is built around empowering characters who will always be more powerful than piles of stone.

Obscurity is far more defensive because anyone who can find you, can put together the right magic to destroy you - even at high levels.

I love castles, towers, keeps etc... but they all can be defeated and the attackers can have fun doing so.. :)

Definitely! This isn't a strategic decision to defend against the incursion of some villain, but rather the players wanting to have a place to call their own. I definitely intend for them to have to defend it from time to time, or have other castle-related adventures that don't rely on castles being impregnable.

[Sigreid]

Great suggestion! I'll look it up!



Thanks to Temperjoke I found the actual numbers - 15,000 for a fort or outpost, 50,000 for a small castle or a keep, 500,000 for a large castle or a palace. So your ballpark was right on the money.



Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for!



Definitely! This isn't a strategic decision to defend against the incursion of some villain, but rather the players wanting to have a place to call their own. I definitely intend for them to have to defend it from time to time, or have other castle-related adventures that don't rely on castles being impregnable.

It's a good sign that they want something of their own in the world. It'll help ground them to it.

[Bladeyeoman]

It's a good sign that they want something of their own in the world. It'll help ground them to it.

My thoughts exactly! Which is why I want to accommodate it.

[Drizztguen]

I'm working on a campaign that will allow my players to rebuild a castle they've just cleaned out. I used the stats from the DMG for a new keep and took half the cost and time as a baseline.

I'm planning to make them first support the castle by organizing a garrison, then hiring some dwarves to do the repairs. They'll also need to look into more long term things like getting farmers to settle in the area to feed the people in the castle, find blacksmiths to work on arming the soldiers, hiring a steward, etc.

Eventually the castle would be self sufficient, maybe encouraging a village to build up around it, and then the castle could supply the players with useful items (especially if they find a wizard).

[CaptainSarathai]

I'm working on a campaign that will allow my players to rebuild a castle they've just cleaned out. I used the stats from the DMG for a new keep and took half the cost and time as a baseline.

I'm planning to make them first support the castle by organizing a garrison, then hiring some dwarves to do the repairs. They'll also need to look into more long term things like getting farmers to settle in the area to feed the people in the castle, find blacksmiths to work on arming the soldiers, hiring a steward, etc.

Eventually the castle would be self sufficient, maybe encouraging a village to build up around it, and then the castle could supply the players with useful items (especially if they find a wizard).

To you and to OP - check out the Kingmaker campaign from Pathfinder, it centers around building an entire kingdom, starting from a small frontier outpost. It's pretty cool. It was written to be a very open-ended game, so really, you could pluck the Kingdom Building element from the game and just lay whatever your original campaign was going to be over top of that. Remember that they have published (rather excellent) Mass Combat rules for 5e, because there's a section of KM where that's quite prevalent.

In the group I'm playing with, when we went through LMoP we came into possession of Tresendar Manor, thanks to my awesome Charlatan Warlock.
Initially, I was meant to take over this group at the conclusion of LMoP, and intended to keep the campaign going from there. My plan was to say that about 1yr has passed since the end of LMoP, and the party had used their share of the profits from the Mine to rebuild the house and live like minor nobles. I would do the same with the castle.

Instead, since our DM will be restarting us all at Lvl1 in a different setting, he sped up the process by using my character's background impersonating a leaser member of a wealthy Waterdavian family. I diverted some of their funding to the building and had it up and running in about a month, by sending a line of credit to craftsmen in nearby Neverwinter.

[furby076]

My recommendation, unless there is a need to do some serious table RP for the castle, have them manage this via e-mail. This will help ensure the adventure still happens; you don't spend precious face time doing book keeping (some players may not care for that); allow good record tracking (the e-mails).

Make the timing reasonable and milestones short (if you are an IT project manager...think Agile SDLC). Instead of "it will take X years and Y gold to fix the place, and you will reap the benefits then" allow them to break the repairs into segments. So they could focus on the walls, then the bedrooms, then the dining hall, then the weapons room, then the wizards lab, etc. They can choose what to fix first, and change their minds as they progress. Why do things this way? Quick fixes = quick rewards. X years in game time may very well equal X years in real life time. That's boring, and no fun.

As others have said, keep it simple. First calculate how much money in total, then divide it by the types of upgrades. Also, with castles and the costs of upkeep, repairs, hired help, troops, etc.....it brings in income from the locals. Keep in mind...while typically hiring skilled labor, troops, etc has a price - that's assuming they are just following along and helping. Now when you give the help a free place to live, food, etc - that price drops dramatically. Think full time child nanny costs vs full time au pair costs. The nanny costs more $$ per week. She goes home and has to pay for her own food and lodging. The au pair costs less $$ per week because you provide her room and board. What I'm saying is - don't pillage the players money... They probably still want to buy magic gear :)

[Bharaeth]

Hey Bladeyeoman - I can't claim any of the following as my own, but I found the content of this link (https://geekchicery.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/modular-stronghold-design-dd-5e/) to have some pretty nice stuff, in terms of building your own stronghold, if you wanted more in-depth than what the DMG provides

[Sigreid]

The 3e Strongholds book is pretty good too if you can find it.