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GryffonDurime
2008-01-19, 11:06 PM
So, my party's recently come into a rather sizable chunk of change for our level: we're just a hare's breath from level three, and our extraneous party fund has currently reached around 5,000 gold...that is, we've that much gold without any specific use for it and however its used has to be beneficial to the party as a whole. Because our DM is worried that we'll be tempted to splurge and break the Wealth-By-Level system, he's opened up the possibility of using the Stronghold Builder's Handbook.

After a short side track and a rather amazing fight with a dragon (whom we killed solely through the use of a celestial porpoise), we've also managed to get our hands on an old pre-made keep...it's a nice middle ground between easy-to-get-to and out-of-the-way, but it'll take some work to make it habitable again. It needs to be dredged out for one. Still, we should have a rather sizable pot of gold to start up our little keep, and so I wanted to ask: dies anyone have any recommendations for unique, interesting things to invest in for our keep? As soon as we get the resources, we plan to track down the obvious essentials like decanters of endless water or ring gates, but we're also looking for something a bit more economical for our current range that's interesting, flavorful, and useful for our keep in the long run.

RTGoodman
2008-01-19, 11:24 PM
My suggestion? Get a bunch of treasure chests, fancy doors, expensive poisons, shovels, punjee sticks, and all that, and go to town filling the whole thing with traps.* You don't even need treasure! Just grab a few ranks in Profession (Conman), and set of a business charging low-level adventurers a bunch of money to enter, letting them keep anything they can find - if they survive! (Cue maniacal laugh and organ music)

Once they've been in long enough to be killed, just go in and collect their goods, too! :smallcool:


*For more information, see "The Tomb of Horrors."

Ulrichomega
2008-01-19, 11:25 PM
5,000 gold is about the cost of a one room guard area if I remember correctly. Yes, a premade keep would work, you would have to redo the rooms to something else though. 5000 might be enough to refurbish, but you would have to go with the cheapest material and whatnot.

Ganurath
2008-01-20, 12:59 AM
What sort of things can your spellcasters do, and what are your skill options? If you're third level still, you have the following potentially going for you:

Bard: A bard could spread word around the perimeter that a new keep/town is forming, which means job opportunities. Of course, this requires a means of paying people...

Cleric: I'll need to know Domains for true potential, but Make Whole is going to make things incredibly easier.

Druid: Goodberry makes feeding the locals easier, providing you have a steady supply of berries, but that means commiting to tend your keep. Soften Earth and Stone, though, makes the land workable, which is real estate for fungible. Wood Shape also helps make minor modifications to the keep.

Arcanist: Detect Magic for hidden surprises... Mending's nice if you don't have a Cleric... Wow, Prestidigitation FTW. Not much beyond cantrips at this point, ironically, especially if the Arcanist is a Sorc.

Shugenja: ...Next class!

Warmage: ...Next class again!

Wu Jen: ...Melt can clear ground in the winter?

Warlock: Spiderwalk to where things need to be done, or use the Dark Speech to... demolish unwanted elements.

Psionics: Nothing in the SRD that I see...

skywalker
2008-01-20, 02:46 AM
You're pretty thin at level 3 and 5,000gp.

Might I ask you how you killed a dragon with a celestial porpoise, and how you came to encounter a dragon at level 3?

My records also indicate that a level 3 character is supposed to be worth 2700 gold pieces. Which isn't that far from 5000. Considering how many party members you have(I don't know how many that is) why don't you just divvy it up?

When my group came into possession of a (like yours, pre-made) keep that needed re-modeling, we didn't even think about touching it till level 10.

Edan
2008-01-20, 03:04 AM
Ah Stronghold Builder's my favorite source book. I can tell you what I did in a campaign once.

I can suggest what my (very nice) DM house ruled in for us. Because we were always moving around a lot we didn't have the ability to frequent our keep much, and we didn't want to hire someone to clean it. So we used a modified Unseen Servant spell so it would last while we were out of range, made it permanent, and gave it a rod of Prestidigitation. The only task it performed was to use Prestidigitation to clean the keep every day, so when we did return it was shiny and clean. Sorry, I don't remember how much it cost right now. I do remember that we were about 5th or 6th level then.

Dervag
2008-01-20, 04:45 AM
So, my party's recently come into a rather sizable chunk of change for our level: we're just a hare's breath from level three, and our extraneous party fund has currently reached around 5,000 gold...that is, we've that much gold without any specific use for it and however its used has to be beneficial to the party as a whole. Because our DM is worried that we'll be tempted to splurge and break the Wealth-By-Level system, he's opened up the possibility of using the Stronghold Builder's Handbook.

After a short side track and a rather amazing fight with a dragon (whom we killed solely through the use of a celestial porpoise), we've also managed to get our hands on an old pre-made keep...it's a nice middle ground between easy-to-get-to and out-of-the-way, but it'll take some work to make it habitable again. It needs to be dredged out for one. Still, we should have a rather sizable pot of gold to start up our little keep, and so I wanted to ask: dies anyone have any recommendations for unique, interesting things to invest in for our keep? As soon as we get the resources, we plan to track down the obvious essentials like decanters of endless water or ring gates, but we're also looking for something a bit more economical for our current range that's interesting, flavorful, and useful for our keep in the long run.My first D&D party had exactly this situation, except that we beat an army of hobgoblins and not a dragon to get the keep. Of course, we focused more on starting a barony in the abandoned lands around the keep than on actually fortifying the keep. Not least because our main need to protect the keep was troops, and we didn't have a population to support troops with.

On the economics and political side:

Make sure to hire a staff and guard force, with a competent castellaine to administer the place for you. Otherwise it may not still be there when you get back from an adventure.

If you intend to assert control over the surrounding territory, make sure that the leaders of any local communities accept your rule over the territory in question. Having an army of rebellious locals battering down your door can be hazardous to your health.

Establishing your authority over the surrounding territory may require you to do things like slay dragons (which you already did), vanquish local champions in single combat, rule justly on disputes between local power blocs, go on a junket to nearby nations that want to make sure you're not planning on stealing their borderlands, and wage a war of regime change in a neighboring city-state to overthrow the ambitious half-fiend who has usurped the lawful government.

These examples are by no means an exhaustive list, but we had to do them, so they came to mind quickly.

Try to get a good feel for the natural resources to be had in the area. If your location is good, you may be able to profit from tolls and commerce passing through. Your claim to collect tolls is made stronger by the fact that you just made the road safer. If there are potentially profitable mines or crops available around your castle. You can use these sources of income to get a bigger budget for rebuilding and refurbishing your keep. In our case, the castle had been poorly maintained for the past thousand years, so we had a lot of refurbishing to do. And we still don't go in some parts of the underground dungeons.

Try to reassure the DM that you do not intend to break the Wealth-by-Level system's restrictions on personal equipment. Buying lots of magic items for your keep may make him nervous, because there's nothing to stop you from carrying the equipment with you on adventures. Investing in more buildings, businesses, and troops is better, because you can't carry a guard tower or a winery with you on campaign and a platoon of 1st-level warriors aren't going to want to follow you down into a dungeon.

If you don't want your keep to form a large fraction of your adventure hooks for the next long time, you might want to just leave the place be or trade it to the highest bidder in exchange for some kind of favor the DM can have an NPC give you without breaking WBL.

Randel
2008-01-20, 04:47 AM
Consider checking out alternate uses for magical traps.

at spell lvl x caster lvl x 500 gp and spell lvl x caster lvl x 40 xp you can put almost any spell to be cast with an automatic reset.

cure light wounds, remove disease, create food and water... use them to help yourself and anyone who is willing to pay a little. Or let locals benefit and get some good PR, if bandits try to take your stuff then kill them for XP and loot. Just be on the lookout for anyone with disable device.

dyslexicfaser
2008-01-20, 04:53 AM
Ah Stronghold Builder's my favorite source book. I can tell you what I did in a campaign once.

I can suggest what my (very nice) DM house ruled in for us. Because we were always moving around a lot we didn't have the ability to frequent our keep much, and we didn't want to hire someone to clean it. So we used a modified Unseen Servant spell so it would last while we were out of range, made it permanent, and gave it a rod of Prestidigitation. The only task it performed was to use Prestidigitation to clean the keep every day, so when we did return it was shiny and clean. Sorry, I don't remember how much it cost right now. I do remember that we were about 5th or 6th level then.
Rather clever.

At 5000g, I can't think of anything especially fun.

If you get your capital up to 18,000g and you have a bard, invest in a Lyre of Building. Then all you'll need is raw materials to add on to your keep, at least for mundane things: no labor necessary.

If you're looking for defensive measures, I'd suggest something like the Xen'drik Flying Boat (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070129a). I never could figure out the rules for making such things, so I couldn't tell you how much it would run, however.

GryffonDurime
2008-01-20, 03:24 PM
You're pretty thin at level 3 and 5,000gp.

There seems to be a bit of miscommunication. We each, as characters, have roughly 2,700 gold in equipment. Our fighter is currently playing around with his new +1 Greatsword and his mithral chain shirt. The 5,000+ gold we have represents extraneous party funds above and beyond the Wealth-by-Level.



Might I ask you how you killed a dragon with a celestial porpoise, and how you came to encounter a dragon at level 3?

As to how we came to encounter him, strange things happen when one plays in the Wilderlands. The entire campaign is sandbox style. We came across a keep, it happened to have a young black dragon in it. Our DM, ever fond of rewarding creative tactics, was quite pleased when a celestial porpoise was summoned to wallop the dragon with a dive-bombing smite evil slam attack, and apparently thought it was enough to stun a dragon momentarily.

Momentarily enough for the dragon to fall down into the pit he was hovering over while our Enlarged Fighter stuck a greatsword in him.

Tiki Snakes
2008-01-20, 04:13 PM
Can dragon's even hover? I mean, i thought you needed a specific feat, or perfect maneuverability? It's a common confused-topic amongst our usual groups, with the DM's often just assuming that, of course any flying thing can hover, and so on.

anyway, Wealth by level is like a glorious, distant dream in our ptolus campaign. We're level four or more, and most of the PC's would wet themselves at the idea of having as much as 2700 worth of equipment. Heh. Man, we're poor.


I'd vote for, if possible and if you still intend on keeping the keep, do as much of the work as humanly possible yourselves. Hire unskilled labourers, even, (you should be able to afford a sizeable team for not too much per day, and should soon have it, at least, humanly inhabitable.

In a world where 1 gold gets you a ridiculously oppulent meal, 5000gp should at least be enough to replace the doors/gates and clean the muck out.

Quietus
2008-01-20, 04:53 PM
Can dragon's even hover? I mean, i thought you needed a specific feat, or perfect maneuverability? It's a common confused-topic amongst our usual groups, with the DM's often just assuming that, of course any flying thing can hover, and so on.

Unless you have Perfect maneuverability, I believe, you can't hover without picking up the feat "Hover". Least, I'm fairly certain that that's what it's called. It's either in the MM or in the draconomicon.

Chronicled
2008-01-20, 05:01 PM
There seems to be a bit of miscommunication. We each, as characters, have roughly 2,700 gold in equipment. Our fighter is currently playing around with his new +1 Greatsword and his mithral chain shirt. The 5,000+ gold we have represents extraneous party funds above and beyond the Wealth-by-Level.

My suggestion is to use it for party expenditures and insurance. 5000 gp is enough to buy up some diamonds, so that if someone dies, you can haul them to a cleric and get them raised. Alternatively, a few items that would benefit the entire party might be in order; a few wands of Lesser Vigor or CLW are always nice, for instance. A pair of Rings of Sustenance would take care of keeping watch forever. Or buy some one-shot items for the "just in case" factor, like the Feather Tokens.

5000 gp really isn't that much extra. Putting it into a stronghold won't get you very far.

GryffonDurime
2008-01-20, 05:14 PM
My suggestion is to use it for party expenditures and insurance. 5000 gp is enough to buy up some diamonds, so that if someone dies, you can haul them to a cleric and get them raised. Alternatively, a few items that would benefit the entire party might be in order; a few wands of Lesser Vigor or CLW are always nice, for instance. A pair of Rings of Sustenance would take care of keeping watch forever. Or buy some one-shot items for the "just in case" factor, like the Feather Tokens.

5000 gp really isn't that much extra. Putting it into a stronghold won't get you very far.

I should begin by mentioning something I should have mentioned a while back; we're using the Recharge variant from Unearthed Arcana, so our casters are a bit more flexible. We've got five people in the party thus far, including myself (Dwarven Wizard), a cleric, a fighter, a beguiler, and a paladin of tyranny. So, wands are...not quite as essential for us, really.

And we want a keep because it's cool. If our DM had rewarded up properly for the dragon (he fudged down before he got the idea of encouraging us to fortify ourselves), we would have gotten something more akin to 15,000 gold for the party purse. The returns aren't great on a keep, we're aware of that. We want it anyway because it encourages the DM (a dear friend but terrified of party power) to reward us properly rather than fudging way, way down as he normally does.

bosssmiley
2008-01-20, 05:58 PM
Divvy up the 5k in gold between you and use it to buy more gear (wands, some minor wondrous items, etc.). Then go out and slay more bad guys and loot their stuff, repeat until hardcore beyond the dreams of normal men (in D&D terms this is 9th-12th level). Even at 3rd level characters are still - relative - small fry and should be concentrating on building their personal power base to a level where the NPC-classed proles seek them out and *offer* to built them stuff in exchange for protection.

Since the days of OD&D the threshold at which characters settle down in their keep/tower/guildhouse/temple - having killed every threat within a day or two's ride - has been around 9th level (chimera-whomping, hydra-lopping, vampire-staking and giant-killing territory). There have been literally reams of D&D material published on what to do in order to set up a domain. But, with the probable exception of the Birthright setting, you're expected to spend the earlier levels exploring the GM's carefully world before settling down.

Until you get to mid-high levels a known base of operations is just a target for the bad guys (boy, I hope your GM reads this... :smallwink: ).

Konig
2008-01-20, 11:12 PM
In the long run, you want...

Enclosed towers/central plaza. Basically, something that flies (ie. Every major threat in D&D) shouldn't be able to bypass your 40' walls.

.
Fill the gaps in the walls with spent iron, lead, sand & glass. The basic idea here is to make it so that people can't necessarily Stoneshape a window into a nice big gate when robbing the place.

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As is fitting for your group, see about a Conscecrate or Unhallow. Helps the ambiance.

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As an alternative to the unseen servant, an animated object - broom would work & can defend the place if need be. Animate a big comfortable chair, then once your DM has allowed you to possess it for a while & has let his guard down, have your wizard ride it into battle.

.
Embed chunks of glass in the mortar at the tops of the castle walls. Some old castles really did do this. Thief uses a grappling hook, by the time he's halfway up, the motion/friction along with the glass cuts through the rope. It also makes things a little more uncomfortable for those invaders with ladders.

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Consider doing something about the ground beneath the walls & within the grounds themselves. It's no use being protected against flying creatures, only to have a Bullette or Blue Dragon crawl into your castle & make a home there.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-21, 12:31 AM
Guards and Wards. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/guardsAndWards.htm) Buy a scroll or a wand of it. When your DM attacks you'll be glad you did.

sigurd
2008-07-24, 07:22 PM
5000gp really is not very much to start playing with the landed nobility.

At third level, with the expectation of more successes, I'd try and invest in the party future.

1. Sages, experts and Lawyers. 1000gp might get you the best of your choice for a year, including all the niceties of bribes board and smoothing feathers.

Investigate the power structure around the dragon's castle? Does anyone have a claim on it? Can you buy the claim? Buy them off?


2. Curry favour with those in power. Some figure might endow a small church, might pay for an expedition against a hated enemy, might undo some terrible _public_ wrong that would make your party heroes.



3. Join something that already exists. 5000gld in hand is a lot of money and might buy out a 20,000 business depending on it or its owners current circumstance.

3a) My favourite - 'Spend' your initial bubble of money for a party context. Talk to your DM about buying a business or tradition that will reduce your losses but not really make you more money.

Perhaps 2000gld per head will buy you chairs at the adventurers guild? In consideration of your contribution the guild will give you the use of rooms and apartments in your home city for so long as you use them\survive. Perhaps a quantity of money will let you buy into a mercenary outfit\business?
The operative thing here is that you give up a whack of cash and you (and the DM) can forget worrying about upkeep costs and just assume a level of lifestyle for your players. If you are already assuming this lifestyle consider this an overdue paying of dues. Basically a small fortune allows you to live like petty nobility or rich burghers. The DM can tweak your wealth up or down (invent a crisis or two) but generally, without you doing something stupid or asking for your money back, life costs will not distract you from your adventuring while you are in the one city.

Perhaps a truly wealthy noble, of some repute, keeps a palace in the region but seldom visits it. Without owning the palace you might be able to buy your way into being wards, reeves, or protectors of the area. You have most of the castle benefits with no need of the headaches. Think of yourselves as glorified Musketeers.
Your patron becomes another wrinkle in your planning: is he safe? corrupt? noble? Do his\her aims coincide with the party? etc. etc.


One option I've found that works well is to buy shares in a trading company. Tell your DM you want to suck up your excess wealth and buy a percentage of an expedition to do something that might make you more money. That is a basis for a good adventure.


IMHO any of these make gaming easier whereas buying a keep, if you pay attention to it, makes gaming more tedious.

KillianHawkeye
2008-07-24, 09:21 PM
This thread is 6 months old. I doubt they are still 3rd level with 5000 gp anymore. :smallamused:

hamishspence
2008-07-25, 04:32 AM
maybe debate castlebuilding in general, rather than as applied to those particular characters.

4th ed flight is decidedly more manuverable than flight used to be. if I remember rightly, dragons can now hover.

Emperor Tippy
2008-07-25, 05:55 AM
4th ed flight is decidedly more manuverable than flight used to be. if I remember rightly, dragons can now hover.

What makes you think that this thread has anything to do with 4e?

hamishspence
2008-07-26, 04:00 AM
it doesn't- its a generic, edition free thread. However some of the 4th edition changes may bear on the validity of the information when applied to 4th ed.

Based on the powers, items, monsters etc that we know of in 4th ed, are castles likely to be better, less vulnerable, than in 3rd or before?

Emperor Tippy
2008-07-26, 01:04 PM
it doesn't- its a generic, edition free thread. However some of the 4th edition changes may bear on the validity of the information when applied to 4th ed.

Actually it is not. Seeing as how it is discussing WBL, ring gates, decanters of endless water, Wu Jen, the Stronghold Builders guide, etc. None of those are in 4e, thus this thread has nothing at all to do with 4e. As for the validity of the info, it has a lot to do with it. 4e is a completely different rule set that allows you to do different things. You can't use a lyre of building in 4e. The stronghold builders guild can't be converted to 4e.


Based on the powers, items, monsters etc that we know of in 4th ed, are castles likely to be better, less vulnerable, than in 3rd or before?
...of course they are less vunerable. A lot of the things that made then weak were removed.

If you want to discuss castles in 4e then make a thread for that, don't threadjack a thread that has already suffered from thread necromancy.