Follower Charts for Player Strongholds

[Aemon]

Hello all.

My players have recently completed the first arc of our campaign and were awarded a small plot of land. They are working on planning and building a home there and they have been really excited about this facet of play. I have been looking up some rules and homebrew items for building strongholds, but I haven't found too much on gaining followers. I am just getting back in DMing this year after a 15 year break and am still learning 5e, but I remember in my old AD&D books that there were charts that the players could roll on for followers based on their class. I cannot seem to find these in any of my old books and I was wondering if any of you remember where these would be so that I can either dig a bit deeper or look for PDF options of these from the DM's guild or something.

Also, if you have any recommendations of great homebrew/3rd party supplements for stronghold building or recruiting followers, I would love to take a look. I will take just about anything, but I am really looking for something with less fantastical creatures for the players to get. They are relatively low level and I would like to see things like them recruiting merchants, soldiers, scribes, etc (they are in an area of the world that is much like feudal Europe). A crazy creature here and there is fine though....I have a druid I need to keep happy too :)

Thanks for the help and advice!

[leogobsin]

This doesn't help much on the followers end of things, but seems like it should be able to help in terms of building and customizing strongholds!
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/207377/WH-Fortresses-Temples--Strongholds-rules-for-building-and-customizing-playerowned-structures

[Galadhrim]

This hasn't been released yet but seems to be exact what you're looking for.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/255133215/strongholds-and-streaming

[ImproperJustice]

For some inspiration you could browse the Pillars of Eternity Wiki. It was heavily inspired by Baldur’s gate and a key feature of the first game is building and developing a stronghold.

Off hand, I would look at the Downtime activities in Xanathar’s and think that NPCs based at a stronghold could add bonuses to rolls or even enable some activities to be completed faster or more efficiently.

As an example: A fully stocked alchemy lab, with a storehouse of ingredients, and a trained alchemist should help the PC Herbalist crank out some healing potions a lot faster and cheaper than if he was making it on the hot plate at his room at the local tavern.

The same could go for research, religious activities, even small businesses such as the Keep’s bar, and local farmers and their goods.
You could really get into some community building and dredge up some great plot hooks of your own through this.

[Madfellow]

I would also recommend a look at ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System), a DND retro-clone that focuses on that aspect of world building.

[Monster Manuel]

Isn't there some very basic information in the DMG about upkeep costs and staff for different types of strongholds? something like, a Keep costs 200GP per month to operate, and included in this cost is the salary for 30 untrained workers and 15 soldiers(or etc)? I don't have the book with me, but I'm vaguely remembering some kind of table to this effect...

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, the DMG had some really basic info but if you can wait a while longer Matt Colvilles book is going to be pretty much exactly what you are looking for.

Not sure if the mechanics will be your speed (you should be able to find some of his preview docs to see what it is likely to be) but it will provide a framework.

[Aemon]

Thank you all for the very helpful replies! It is appreciated!


Yeah, the DMG had some really basic info but if you can wait a while longer Matt Colvilles book is going to be pretty much exactly what you are looking for.


This hasn't been released yet but seems to be exact what you're looking for.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...-and-streaming

Yeah, I am REALLY excited about this book and am sad that I wasn't quick enough on the draw to help support the kickstarter. I think this will definitely help out. My players have just started to get to this area of play now, however, so looking for a few things to tide us over for now. Looking forward to this one!


This doesn't help much on the followers end of things, but seems like it should be able to help in terms of building and customizing strongholds!
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/2073...ned-structures

Thanks for this. I had actually found this one and really liked it. I had hoped there would be something to go along with this one about followers, but that is ok. I actually found that Warlock Homebrew also puts out this one for merchants, which I did find quite helpful too. Here's the link if interested:

http://www.dmsguild.com/product/209113/WH-Traders--Merchants-Inventories-for-28-different-types-of-merchant-indexed-by-quality?src=also_purchased


For some inspiration you could browse the Pillars of Eternity Wiki. It was heavily inspired by Baldur’s gate and a key feature of the first game is building and developing a stronghold.

Off hand, I would look at the Downtime activities in Xanathar’s and think that NPCs based at a stronghold could add bonuses to rolls or even enable some activities to be completed faster or more efficiently.

As an example: A fully stocked alchemy lab, with a storehouse of ingredients, and a trained alchemist should help the PC Herbalist crank out some healing potions a lot faster and cheaper than if he was making it on the hot plate at his room at the local tavern.

The same could go for research, religious activities, even small businesses such as the Keep’s bar, and local farmers and their goods.
You could really get into some community building and dredge up some great plot hooks of your own through this.


Thanks for these ideas, I really like them. I have been figuring that I am probably going to have to make some charts and things myself, and this is some good inspiration for that!


I would also recommend a look at ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System), a DND retro-clone that focuses on that aspect of world building.

Thanks for this! I had actually come across this acronym before when searching for things like this and couldn't figure out what it meant. I am going to check this one out!


Thank you again! I appreciate your time and help!

[JeffreyGator]

In addition to the generic npcs in strongholds, are there ways to get named folk in the strongholds for your character.

Named NPCs rescued in quests, mercenaries taken prisoner in quests and recruited by the PCs and henchmen hired by the NPCs.

[fbelanger]

Personal rules of thumb.
A level 5 can manage 10 followers, soldiers or equivalent.
Level 10 100
Level 15 1000
Level 20 10000.

Of course he got to have ressource to pay, equip, transport them.