Stronghold Builder's Guidebook

[Kirowan]

There's a lot of great advice and suggestions in this thread; thanks guys.

Silveras, I would rather pick up Book of Strongholds & Dynasties since it has realm management, construction, and mass combat all in one book. However, I read the posts you made about it, especially the one were you posted that challenge, and I'm not to sure about picking it up. I don't want to buy a book with a broken system.

Btw, I posted that challenge in the rulesmaster forum on Mongoose's site. I didn't use your name so I hope you don't mind.

My players and I do like to go through shopping lists and draw floorplans, but only to a point. It's hard for me to descirbe how crunchy we get. We're more interested in fun than simulationism. To that end, I care more about support for fantasy elements than modeling real world castles and strongholds.

Nick

 

[Emiricol]

Book of Strongholds and Dynasties is one of the few purchases (well okay, the ONLY purchase) I've ever made that I regret 100%. Save your money and get the MMS:WE pdf, and use the construction rules in there, if the SBGB isn't your style. The former is relatively abstract, the latter very shopping-list like. I have fun with both.

 

[jgbrowning]

join me! i wish to start a letter writing campaign to get jgbrowning and suzi yee to write MMS:castles and fortifications.

we can do, just flood them with requests.

Have you been a good potter this year?

joe b.

 

[Silveras]

There's a lot of great advice and suggestions in this thread; thanks guys.

Silveras, I would rather pick up Book of Strongholds & Dynasties since it has realm management, construction, and mass combat all in one book. However, I read the posts you made about it, especially the one were you posted that challenge, and I'm not to sure about picking it up. I don't want to buy a book with a broken system.

Btw, I posted that challenge in the rulesmaster forum on Mongoose's site. I didn't use your name so I hope you don't mind.

My players and I do like to go through shopping lists and draw floorplans, but only to a point. It's hard for me to descirbe how crunchy we get. We're more interested in fun than simulationism. To that end, I care more about support for fantasy elements than modeling real world castles and strongholds.

Nick

Hmm .. well, with that last line, I would expect that the Stronghold Builders' Guidebook would be more appropriate than any of the others.

Fields of Blood also is an all-in-one book, as is AEG's Empire, as long as you don't mind that the construction rules are limited to how a REALM builds settlements and fortresses, and not how INDIVIDUALS would do it. I would recommend Fields of Blood first, and Empire second, because Empire needs some fixing on its scale system (as well as seems to be missing a few details here and there).

I will be curious to see what response you get on Mongoose's forums. I posted the challenge here because the author had replied earlier in the thread; I hoped he would take it up.

 

[Wormwood]

For what it's worth:
My current campaign is centered around the PC's rebuilding a ruined keep in the face of an impending orc invasion (you gotta love King Obould Many-Arrows).

The Stronghold Builder's Guide has been indispensible in this regard. I'm having a blast watching the party drool over the myriad options and additions included in the book. They're furiously sketching floorplans and working out a budget--activities which may seem boring but which they seem to love.

I honestly can't remember the last time I've seen my players so enthusiastic about a project.

Are the build prices expensive? Oh hell yeah.
But I'll admit that it's a lot more fun watching all that hard-earned adventuring cash going into upgrading castle walls than on upgrading their Flaming Burst weapons.

 

[Kirowan]

Silveras,

Hmm, a lot of people have been praising Fields of Blood. I don't think my players would mind that construction is handled from a realm standpoint as long as they had direct input in the process. Can players fund their realm with personal wealth? The reason I focus on this issue is because I want them to have a chance to affect the world around them with their gains in other ways than purchasing additional magic items.

Also, I remember you liked Fields of Blood as well but had a problem with the scale of the hexes being too small or something. Can you sum that up for me while keeping in mind that I don't have experience with realm management systems? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Nick

 

[Silveras]

Silveras,

Hmm, a lot of people have been praising Fields of Blood. I don't think my players would mind that construction is handled from a realm standpoint as long as they had direct input in the process. Can players fund their realm with personal wealth? The reason I focus on this issue is because I want them to have a chance to affect the world around them with their gains in other ways than purchasing additional magic items.

Also, I remember you liked Fields of Blood as well but had a problem with the scale of the hexes being too small or something. Can you sum that up for me while keeping in mind that I don't have experience with realm management systems? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Nick

Sure. The summation is simple: 12-mile hexes are a little too small. The author was aiming for something about the same size as provinces in the Birthright rules system. For that, 24-30 mile hexes would have been better. The 12-mile hexes mean you have 4x as many "locations" to deal with (compared to the 24-mile hexes) in the same area, which increases the bookkeeping.

Also, because my world is alrady mapped, translating my existing maps to 12-mile hexes produces realms that are "Large" in Fields of Blood's scale -- which means that even the smallest domain in my world is paying a high cost for maintenance. This one is adjustable; you can change the break points where the maintenance costs increase to adjust what is considered a "Large" realm.

Yes, you can use personal funds to improve your domain. There is a conversion rate, which again can be adjusted to suit what the DM considers appropriate. The base is 100 gp = 1 resource point. The cheapest permanent fortification, a Hill Fort, costs 100 RP per unit capacity; that's 10,000 gp worth of materials and labor to build a Hill Fort for 1 unit.

 

[Cbas10]

I personally love the book. It is not enough to get a lot of historical accuracy, but, then again...D&D is not exactly known or desired for such a thing. Castles can get expensive, but they should be; they are commonly the legacies of kings and are able to endure for hundreds upon hundreds of years. The only thing I dislike about pricing is how expensive the simplest of shacks and basic houses cost under the system (that is easy enough to fix for my games, though).

I'm certainly not one to complain about books without feats and classes; the more background, story, and setting material the better! As to how the book would translate to 3.5, I think the Magic items would need a bit or reworking (with the revised spell-components in many spells, the revision to costs for persistently active items, etc etc etc), but that is all that needs to be done.

As a side note, I think of the "high" cost as an "expedite fee." Castles were normally built over years, if not decades. SBGb structures are built in player-friends amounts of time (i.e. maybe a year or so) meaning you have tons of crews and are virtually monopolizing the local resources causing inflation.

This is a good way to approach some of the mechanics of cost and building times. The guideline given in that book allows for massive fortresses valued at a million gold pieces to be built in less than two years; not very realistic in my opinion - not even considering how attempting to compare the real world would change things. Aside from that aspect of the book, I really loved it.

you can find much better reference material on real castles and architecture at your local library for free. all you need is a library card.

Very true. A trip to the library or website can be essential for a fully detailed castle. However, the SBG is great for associating game rules and prices to those ideas without needing to take the time or effort from playing time and adding to yet even more prep time.

It may be accurate with history, but it's IMHO too expensive for a PC to build since even a bunch of minor magic items bought for the price is more useful.

When regarding the dungeon-delving, pure adventuring sorts of characters, you are correct. However, my paladin with the Leadership feat found that all the belts of giant strength in the world were useless if his trrops had no place to live or for protection.

 

[Kirowan]

Thanks to everyone for all the great replies and advice.

Silveras, I think I'm going to go with Fields of Blood for realm management and warfare. I have MMS:WE and am going to use the construction rules in that for anything the PCs want to build on a micro level.

Btw, does Fields of Blood have rules for naval combat?

Nick

 

[Silveras]

Thanks to everyone for all the great replies and advice.

Silveras, I think I'm going to go with Fields of Blood for realm management and warfare. I have MMS:WE and am going to use the construction rules in that for anything the PCs want to build on a micro level.

Btw, does Fields of Blood have rules for naval combat?

Nick

If you have not already thoroughly mapped your world, you will likely have much less difficulty with Fields of Blood than I am.

Note that you will spend some time defining troops ... Fields of Blood converts many of the standard monsters to unit stats for its Mass Combat rules, but because you can custom-design your soldier-type units, almost none are pre-defined.

As for Naval combat, no, Fields of Blood does not address it. The closest it comes is mentioning moving troops by ship, and even that "assumes there are enough ships available". I like the naval combat rules in FFG's Seafarer's Handbook; the book is also just plain a good resource for adding some seagoing elements to any campaign (underwater combat rules, naval combat rules, feats, skills, equipment, aquatic races, and so on).

I think using MMS:WE to detail the lowest levels is a good approach. In that sense, MMS:WE makes a good companion volume to Empire or Fields of Blood. I think there is a little too much overlap (and inconsistency) with the BoSD for them to be used together, but it works well with the others.

If you have not been to Expeditious Retreat's web site, you should go and check out the Community Support page for some good additions. And the forums, while not the busiest in the world, offer some good information and discussions.