Level Up (A5E) Clarifications on Strongholds and Followers

[Dausuul]

Hi there Morrus!
I feel kind of silly asking about the answer about the staff ratio per square feet, but as lichmaster I'm not used to the imperial system and I get lost with this answer:

I'd have to check, but I'll bet that supposed to be ft-squared not square feet.

I don't get the difference between ft-squared and square feet.

100 ft squared is (100 feet) squared, that is, 100x100. It's ten thousand square feet.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

10 ft^2 is roughly the size of a standard bedroom, so if you split up the space into equal, but individual rooms, each staff member would get an entire bedroom’s worth of space to themselves.

For further context: the average commercial kitchen is roughly 1,000 square feet, and that restaurant might have as few as 6, or as many as 20 staff (not counting servers) in the back of house depending on type of restaurant and how much business they do

There are a few different ways that the arrangements can be visualized, but I think the issue is that as written when you upgrade to luxurious you get a lot more people, and often that isn‘t going to feel very luxurious. I mean if you want rows of servants fanning you and carrying you around on cushions or waiting with wine pitchers, sure. But there is also an idea of luxury that involves having a little more personal space than that, and it isn’t compatible with that population hike as a required component of the upgrade.

 

[Morrus]

I don't get the difference between ft-squared and square feet.

10 feet squared is 100 square feet.

 

[peivolrivas]

There are a few different ways that the arrangements can be visualized, but I think the issue is that as written when you upgrade to luxurious you get a lot more people, and often that isn‘t going to feel very luxurious. I mean if you want rows of servants fanning you and carrying you around on cushions or waiting with wine pitchers, sure. But there is also an idea of luxury that involves having a little more personal space than that, and it isn’t compatible with that population hike as a required component of the upgrade.

Thanks, that's my thinking precisely.
And it's ok to have a lot of people working there, but probably I'm inclined to this approach in my example: less staff, better suited for the task.

10 feet squared is 100 square feet.

Thanks (an also to Dausuul) for the clarification.

Please, let us know if is going to be ft-squared or square feet.
It is quiet a change!

 

[lichmaster]

10 feet squared is 100 square feet.

There's a difference between saying (10ft)^2 and 10ft^2. In the first case the 10 gets squared, in the second it doesn't.
Considering a standard battlemap, in the first case it's a 2x2 area, in the second is a 2x1 area.
What I meant is always using the second, i.e. without brackets, as I would in the Metric System.

 

[Morrus]

as I would in the Metric System.

The unit of length is irrelevant to it. centimetres, feet, yards, metres, miles, lightyears, parsecs. The metric system doesn’t change geometry.

 

[tetrasodium]

Thanks, that's my thinking precisely.
And it's ok to have a lot of people working there, but probably I'm inclined to this approach in my example: less staff, better suited for the task.

a large pool of staff has a benefit though. It's easy to move five or ten ultra skilled high value employees away from danger or keep them safe, if there are 50 or 100 of them the gate guards might not even allow that heavily armed party of adventurers to leave town with them just before that army of undead rolls in without forfeiting the very expensive stronghold itself

 

[Ragnir]

According to core rules: Luxurious ×2 -- 1 staff per 100 square feet this means 1 staff per 10x10 feet squared.

Laboratory grade 2 (must be luxusrious): 40ftx50ft thus 2.000 square feet. According to rules 20 staff.

Honestly it feels overpopulated.

Visual sample lab crowded:

 

[Anselm]

According to core rules: Luxurious ×2 -- 1 staff per 100 square feet this means 1 staff per 10x10 feet squared.

Laboratory grade 2 (must be luxusrious): 40ftx50ft thus 2.000 square feet. According to rules 20 staff.

Honestly it feels overpopulated.

Visual sample lab crowded:
View attachment 147400

The 5x5 square really only applies to the area a medium creature can cover in combat. A person certainly does not actually take up 25sq ft. Sitting here at a table I think I maybe take up 4sq ft. My extended family of 7 can eat dinner around this table (3ftx4ft ish) in this small kitchen+dining room (maybe 8x15?) fairly comfortably.

 

[Ragnir]

My work room is quite small and it's less than 10x10. 20 people working on an area 10ftx10ft (we're talking luxurious, so they should be pretty comfy) is really small. They are not family, they need personal space. Not let's add the furniture...

According to you, 7 can easily take dinner on a small room. Can you work, play, investigate in that room? Do you feel comfortable doing it? Feel luxurious while doing it?

That's what we are trying to imply here. The rules overcrowd the space a lot.