Building a Stronghold

[Stryyke]

I am just starting to look into building a stronghold. I've just read through the Stronghold Builder's Guide, so I have an idea what's going on. What I'm looking for here is advice. Things that you wish you had known before you started building your first stronghold.

Also, general advice on building and running a stronghold. All 1st party sources are on the table, and if a third party item or spell is reasonably balanced, I can probably talk my DM into it.

The premise of the stronghold will be that its focal point is a Cathedral. I'm a stone druid, so it will certainly be made of stone, and hand crafted by me. I'm tossing around a few ideas for location. Obviously the local under-dark would be a prime place. The city could even pay us to keep the underdark at bay. And to the west of the city, there is no civilization for weeks. A nice location half-way between two trade points would make for an excellent location.

My character would actually prefer the above ground option, because he is trying to spread the word of his deity. I know it sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but he feels that architectural grandeur is more impressive above ground.

So those are the basics. Any advice would be welcome.

[Fizban]

Well if you want to know what rooms go in a historical castle, Shadiversity just had a video recently on that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5mb2Zcw6mc), but none on monasteries or churches. So I'd suggest looking for floorplans and pictures. While you're at it decide whether this is an actual stronghold as in military fortification or if it's just a fancy building, since the two use very different layouts.

Since you're basically getting the entire building for free, there's not much else to worry about. SBG's assumption is that you just hire enough people to do what you want them to do, and they do it as long as you keep paying them. If your DM's letting you get income from it, you'll probably make enough to pay them from that, though since the income is a percentage of the stronghold's cost and you're building it for free there's rather a lot of cheese potential.

How much and what sort of countermeasures to magic and wondrous architecture/cheese are needed or appropriate depends far more on your campaign than anything else.

[King of Nowhere]

the stronghold builder left me deeply unsatisfied, because it never assumes that your stronghold is going to be assaulted by magic or by high level adventuring party. it only assumes you will be assaulted by hordes of mooks. in truth, high level adventuring parties are by far the worst threat.

[druid91]

the stronghold builder left me deeply unsatisfied, because it never assumes that your stronghold is going to be assaulted by magic or by high level adventuring party. it only assumes you will be assaulted by hordes of mooks. in truth, high level adventuring parties are by far the worst threat.

Eh? It had plenty of things for dealing with high level enemies.

[Celestia]

You should definitely build it on top of a mountain. It's a very defensible position against armies. The monastery on a mountain is a classic trope. Plus, as a stone druid, I can think of no better place for it to go. Your character probably already sees mountains as sacred.

[montoya]

Our was built into a mountain like a smaller version of Helms Deep. It was assaulted twice by an a corrupted hoard of people lead by a lich king. Lots of fun I might say and we are high level 19 and 20. And it was definitely manageable defending the stronghold from equally powerful threats. The big budget episode we nicknamed it.

[Talverin]

I've played a handful of Stronghold-style games with my friends, and my main takeaway was this: We loved having a base, and making improvements to it... and hated micro.

For the game I'm running in the Stronghold-style, I changed things up a bit. Instead of having static costs and such, the benefits of buildings generally have two components: A direct, and indirect one.

The direct benefit was things like a trading center giving them more gold or cheaper prices. A chapel gives them easy access to healing at their base. An Arcane Academy gave them an easy location to learn new spells and recharge their magic (Using the Spheres of Power system, so they are able to restore spell points and make 'day to day' casting and 'adventure prep' casting free.

Indirect benefits were things like... The barracks added combat missions for the various unnamed NPCs. They can be sent out to clear the nearby forest, protect the farms, and dispatch threats the party would otherwise have to go and face. Investing in guardhouses reduces the need for the players to help keep watch, and prevents/reduces crime within the castle.

To build these buildings, they needed to hit certain milestones. Some were obvious (Establish a dock to increase the flow of resources and people; use magic to help clean up the ruined parts of the castle, freeing up space and resources; delve into the catacombs beneath the castle to clear away threatening Undead that dwell down there) while some were less obvious, or not stated outright (An arc I'm planning to work in where the castle they're using once belonged to a now-adversarial faction whose numbers and resources will bolster them; finding an architect who can help them build more efficiently, or more complex buildings; hiring a 'Siege Wizard' who can erect and reinforce fortifications to help them build up towers; make deals with Elementals to fuel a few specific elementally-tied buildings; making deals with some of the local religions).

Of course, we also level on a 'When the DM says so' basis, so there's no feeling of missed XP/opportunities just because the NPCs were handling the light work. I made a handful of NPCs they get along with well, and had a serious accident leave several leadership positions open... So now the party is basically a 'ruling council' with the remaining NPCs as a kind of 'regency'. It makes the day-to-day handling much easier while still giving them the opportunity to meddle. They can jump in and swim around, but the water won't come after them (Normally) if they don't.

Also, check out the rules for Reign as far as managing 'Companies', which can be a grouping of any size or reach. Basically, opposed rolls between different factions for their different qualities, with bonuses or penalties added to account for the actions of individuals.

Using 'Might', 'Treasure', 'Influence', 'Territory' and 'Sovereignty', they simulate the major characteristics of any organization, and actions can be taken against or for these qualities. Unrest in the town? Actions damaging Sovereignty will make it worse, while bolstering it will reduce those problems. It can be made into an opposed roll each month (Or however long) between the rebel leaders and the town itself to see who has more influence over the hearts and minds of the locals.



In short, I find simplicity is generally the most effective tactic, and laying out what they do/don't have access to is generally easier to manage than pennies and nickles and 1-2% changes in price based on the time of day and local weather.

Stronghold Builder's Guide is a great sourcebook for ideas though!

[Stryyke]

You should definitely build it on top of a mountain. It's a very defensible position against armies. The monastery on a mountain is a classic trope. Plus, as a stone druid, I can think of no better place for it to go. Your character probably already sees mountains as sacred.

FANTASTIC idea! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that!

[Kelb_Panthera]

the stronghold builder left me deeply unsatisfied, because it never assumes that your stronghold is going to be assaulted by magic or by high level adventuring party. it only assumes you will be assaulted by hordes of mooks. in truth, high level adventuring parties are by far the worst threat.

:smallconfused:... Is your copy missing the wondrous architecture section?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you're a spellcaster, you can do most of the work (such as building walls) for free. Or, at least, for a few spell slots. For all the super-expensive stuff, use hallow and/or unhallow to tie spell effects to the place, try to attract friendly haunts and some fiend of possession followers (see: friendly tieflings) to you, and they can help you bolster the place. Use permanency for a fairly cheap source of additional magical effects.

For all the rest, use the Landlord feat, Item Familiar, Legacy Weapon feats, and Ancestral Relic for free money to invest in it. Even more fun if you can add the effects of a psychoactive skin of proteus to it in order to change its shape to a wearable item, further enhance it as a magic item, and then return it to its building form. Then pack it up and move it when you decide you don't like where you've set it up.

Alternately, take a skin of proteus with a boosted manifester level, have a friendly warforged psion wear it and become an animated object (manse or castle), and said warforged can defend itself by manifesting powers on anything that shouldn't be there. Even better if the warforged is a shaper/constructor, so it can create long-lived astral constructs. It can also wear a collar of perpetual attendance to create any number of invisible servants for you.

Note that none of these are exclusive to the others.

[King of Nowhere]

Eh? It had plenty of things for dealing with high level enemies.

Well, it probably does, but I can't get past stuff like "the flying tower: this thing cost 3 million gp and its virtually unconquerable because it flies out of reach". yeah, any 6th level group can take it with preparation.
Or "you can make secret rooms accessible only by teleport, so nobody can get there". Yeah, nobody except somebody else that can teleport, and if you teleport around your manor it means that it is not dimensionally locked, and so anyone could pop in (now, gaining knowledge of the secret rooms to be able to target them for a teleport may not be trivial, I grant that, but still).