Blog (A5E) Build A Stronghold

Attempted sample combination strongholds. This triggered my question in Edit5.

Shop
500 sq ft, with 500 sq ft external loft area.
100 sq ft of internal space is allocated to a Workshop.
500 sq ft external area is allocated to a House (Hut) living area.
Quality: Average
Cost: 500 + 250 + 100 + 500 = 1350
Prestige: +2
Staff: 2 or 3

> This seems reasonable. 2-3 staff (depending on how sub-strongholds affect staffing) manning a small shop fits with expectations.

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Temple
5000 sq ft Temple with 1000 sq ft external plaza
500 sq ft of internal space allocated to Library
500 sq ft of internal space allocated to Training Hall
400 sq ft of internal space allocated to Sacred Grove, the holy tree growing at the center of the temple
Quality: Luxurious
Cost: (5000 + 500 + 500 + 500 + 400) x2 = 13,800
Prestige: +3
Staff: 60 or 74

> This is a little less certain. I would not be entirely surprised by 60-74 staff for a small temple, but it does seem a little on the high side.

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House
1000 sq ft
Quality: Legendary
Cost: 1000 x5 = 5000
Prestige: +2
Staff: 100
Followers: 1

> And this is where it gets wonky. 100 staff for a small house is hard to wrap my head around, even for Legendary.

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Given 1000 sq ft of space, you end up with:
Frugal: 1 staff
Average: 2 staff
Luxurious: 10 staff
Legendary: 100 staff

Frugal, Average, and Luxurious make sense, but Luxurious is about the point where you've saturated your space with people. More people beyond that seems to be counterproductive. 10x as many staff makes it seem like your house is made up more of people than wood.

Note: There is an implication in the Furnishing and Staff section that the "staff" may in fact include non-human elements, such as traps or enchantments or whatever. That may mediate the apparent over-abundance of personnel, but it's definitely not clear if this is actually the case.

Size needed to gain 1 follower:
Frugal: 100,000 sq ft (minor palace or fortress)
Average: 50,000 sq ft (castle or cathedral)
Luxurious: 10,000 sq ft (farm or manor)
Legendary: 1000 sq ft (house, lab, temple)

Cost needed to gain 1 follower:
Frugal: 50,000 GP
Average: 50,000 GP
Luxurious: 20,000 GP
Legendary: 5,000 GP

The cost scaling vastly incentivizes going for Legendary quality rather than Average or Frugal, despite Legendary strongholds being described as unusual and unique.

Part of the problem is that the pages on followers was not posted, so I'm not sure what all is being granted.

Stalker0 said:

Follower: Looks like 500 gp is the minimum for a free follower (100 square foot luxurious house/encampment).

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Not sure how you get 500 GP for this. Are you buying it as entirely external space? I don't think that's valid. Though that depends on yet another unclear part of the rules.

Also, your math seems wrong. Luxurious 100 sq ft would grant 10 staff (1 staff per 10 sq ft), and you need 100 staff to get a follower.

More questions:

* Does the minimum size given in the stronghold types section apply specifically to the stronghold's basic size/cost, or can it include external grounds? Is there a limit on using the external grounds costs?

* Also, the minimum size of the House if 500 sq ft. How is it possible to have the Hut option if the minimum size is larger than the size category that would result in a Hut?

Stalker0 said:

Ability bump: 500.5 GP for Con (1001 sq ft frugal encampment), 25,000 gp for a +2 (but the fact it increases your max is awesome).

So effectively for 25,500.5 gp you can do a +3 to a stat, and theoretically have a 22. Very expensive but that is cool and I could absolutely see players with that goal.

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It's not clear whether the +1 and the +2 stack. I read it as the +2 replacing the +1 bonus when you increased the stronghold to grade 6.

Morrus said:

All building types can be any size. The examples column is just examples. You want a 250K sq ft house, you can have one if you can afford it. You’d probably call it a palace or something, but it’s basically a big house.

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Well, in the case of the House, the rules specifically change what it apparently is based on its grade, which is based on its size. Though there's also the conflict that the minimum size for a House-type stronghold is 500 sq ft, so it's not possible to have a grade 1 house, despite rules specifically for that.

I think the main conflict is between the "Examples" on the Stronghold Size table, and the actual Stronghold Types. The implication from the table is that the grade determines the type, when they shouldn't be so strongly connected. Despite the title of "House, Hut, Mansion, Manor, Palace", that stronghold type is just "House", which can be described in different ways based on size. A Mansion is not a different stronghold type from a House; it's just a large enough house to get the grade 4 benefits of the stronghold's feat.

I'm also a bit leery of the minimum sizes being given in square feet. The Farm, for example, has a minimum size of 10,000 sq ft, which is the absolute maximum for a grade 3 stronghold. One has to wonder why it can't be any other grade 3 size, and why it realistically looks like the minimum size is the bottom of grade 4. The minimum size being the maximum size for a grade feels like things are out of sync.

Or maybe the implication is that the minimum sizes given are the minimum size to gain the feat for that stronghold type, not the minimum size for the stronghold type itself. That's certainly not clear, if that's the case.


Overall, there are a lot of things that need more clarity in this section.

Kinematics said:

I should add, I really like the general concept, even without the full info. However the external grounds stuff confuses me.

In particular, the Farm has a minimum size of 10,000 sq ft. Most of that is likely to be fields/pastures/etc. Is that purchased at 1 GP/2 sq ft, or 1 GP per 1 sq ft? Or do you split it? If you want a farmhouse/stable/etc, would a Farm be 10,000 sq ft of fields (at whichever price), combined with a House of whatever size you wanted (possibly on grounds, or maybe on external grounds?)? Or is the housing part of a farm implicitly included?

Edit: Honestly, the combination of strongholds is getting me to think more that that is the true intended use, and the reason that tier 1's are so small and cheap. Have one large manor with attached workshop and stables and gardens and library and so on, where each additional piece is small and cheap.

Edit2: Also, do you have to pay for the unusual environment multiplier in a sub-stronghold? If you have an underwater manor, and add a library to it, does the library also have to be paid for as underwater? Or has that cost already effectively been paid by the main stronghold having to cover that space with its larger size? Especially when having to consider minimum costs.

Edit3: The section on Furnishings and Staff says you can't change the quality of a single room within the stronghold, but only describes that with respect to the stronghold itself. However, how does that interact with combining strongholds? If I put a library in a manor, do both the library and manor share the same quality, can the library be bought at a different rate?

Edit4: How do staff get counted when you combine strongholds? Do you only count the area provided by the main stronghold, or do each of the sub-strongholds each get their own staff? Since staff is determined by sq ft area.

Edit5: There feels like there might be some squirrelly-ness with staff sizes as you scale up in quality. A Legendary 1000 sq ft House ends up with 100 staff. That's the minimum requirement to get a follower, but just feels strange.

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An acre is 43560 sq feet, so the 10000 sq feet minimum is less than a quarter-acre section, so I really hopes its just the site of the farmhouse and sheds as you are not getting much ‘surrounding fields/pasture’ on that.
It takes about 5 acres to feed a person well and generally in medieval times a a poor/cottar family might have 15 acres (house and fields) to themselves, with the average more like 30. I suppose paying 750,000gp for farmhouse with a 15 acre paddock isnt too bad,

Overall I like the approach being taken of Stronghold as Feat, and think this has provided a really good insight as to how LevelUp will handle them. I’m wondering if the rules can be used to build villages/towns too - I suppose a town is just a cluster of other buildings.

My question though is why does building on an Island (x4) cost so much more than building underground (x2) or on a mountaintop? Does it really cost more to get a barge out on a lake than it does to haul materials into deep caverns?

and it bemuses me that Encampments are best suited fighters and rogues and Farms for berserkers and druids - my expectations would be the opposite.

oh theres also a minor disconnect in my brain over Mansion (which is just a large fortified house) being bigger than a Manor (which is a country house and the estate around it) but not getting hung up on a single word, I will happily accept the weird and wacky machinations of Morrus’ creative mind

Faolyn said:

Awesome! I'm still not quite convinced about the sizes, at least for the lowest levels. Level 1 is a 10x10 room room, which as we all know is exactly big enough for one orc and one chest. It seems like the encampment is the smallest stronghold at a minimum of 100 square feet. I know that those two pages don't list all the stronghold types, but I can't imagine any of the other Grade 1 strongholds being much smaller. Maybe the chart should start at that level, and Grade 1 is 100-500 square feet?

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I imagine the Level 1 10x10 stronghold as the Witches hovel out in the woods, just big enough for the Witch and her raven familiar and stuffed full of weird eldritch trinkets. (Of course she cooks outside and does her business in the woods)

Kinematics said:

Well, in the case of the House, the rules specifically change what it apparently is based on its grade, which is based on its size.

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They're all just synonyms for house. They're the same type of stronghold.

Morrus said:

They're all just synonyms for house. They're the same type of stronghold.

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Maybe make that clearer? As it is, it kind of looks like a bunch of different strongholds. Call it dwelling and say it comes in levels ranging from hut to palace.

So I think just in our initial discussions, there is definite confusion around these areas:

1) Does a stronghold benefit only a single person, or the entire party?
2) What is the purpose of "external area"? Does it do anything mechanically?
3) Does the ability bonus at Grades 3 and 6 stack?

Kinematics said:

Also, your math seems wrong. Luxurious 100 sq ft would grant 10 staff (1 staff per 10 sq ft), and you need 100 staff to get a follower.

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Yep your right. Looks like its 5000 GP to get a free follower (1000 sq foot with luxurious). That's 1000 / 10 = 100 followers = 1 free follower.

Kinematics said:

Most modest houses today are about 1250-1500 sq ft, with larger houses pushing 2000 or so. I could see 2500 sq ft as being a reasonable cap for a house size (fitting the prefix digits to the rest of the scaling), while going above that puts you in the range of an actual manor. It also fits better for a guildhouse or temple, which have a reasonable need for more room for dealing with a moderate number of people.

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Corrosive said:

View attachment 144355

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The bottom part of that graphic seems wrong to me. If homes in Hong Kong are 500 sq ft, you can fit about 4.5 in a 2250 sq ft Australian home, not the 22.6 shown. Those 22.6 HK homes would each be about 10 sq ft, which is clearly not right. Or am I missing something?

Looks like my estimate was right in the middle of that chart, around France-Denmark range. Also, the overall range coincidentally matches what I suggested as the spread for grade 2 — 500 to 2500.

And yeah, the infographics at the bottom are laughably inaccurate, but I'm still willing to accept the main chart for by-country approximations.

Tonguez said:

An acre is 43560 sq feet, so the 10000 sq feet minimum is less than a quarter-acre section, so I really hopes its just the site of the farmhouse and sheds as you are not getting much ‘surrounding fields/pasture’ on that.
It takes about 5 acres to feed a person well and generally in medieval times a a poor/cottar family might have 15 acres (house and fields) to themselves, with the average more like 30. I suppose paying 750,000gp for farmhouse with a 15 acre paddock isnt too bad,

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Yes, getting into actual farm sizes really doesn't work well for by-square-foot purchasing and scaling. As you scale up from a garden (backyard), to a small farm (a few to dozens of acres), to a ranch (hundreds of acres), to a plantation (1000+ acres), we can reach costs of 50 million gold, a couple orders of magnitude higher than the cost of a palace.

At the same time, while the previous playtest thread explicitly denied that a stronghold was a "stronghold", one has to wonder if going beyond a useful personal access size kinda breaks the point of the feature. It may be a bit of work to traverse the entirety of a palace or university, but that's nothing compared to trying to cover a 500 acre ranch.

It may be that beyond a certain size, it just becomes "virtual space". Perhaps you do actually have a 500 acre ranch, but beyond the first ~6 acres, it just doesn't matter as far as the Stronghold is concerned. Of course 6 acres is barely a small farm, so there's still a conceptual and cost breakdown in there.

If I were to try to adapt a type of virtualized space for farms, I'd probably do something like say that the cost of the farm in thousands of gold is the number of additional acres of farmland that your stronghold can support. So a top-end grade 2 gets 1 extra acre; a grade 3 could have 10 acres; a grade 4 has 25 acres; and so on, up to a grade 8 having an extra 250+ acres. They have no mechanical effect, and just support the mental picture you have of the size of the farm.

Meanwhile the Farm stronghold itself would encompass things like the house, barn, stables, silos, equipment sheds, processing areas (sheep shearing, cow milking, wine pressing, etc), and whatever else is used to keep the farm running, along with whatever fields, orchards, paddocks, or whatever you want to keep close at hand to be available for personal attendance and inspection.

Note: I'm assuming the Farm has a house to live in, but not a House-as-stronghold. You'd need to buy that separately for that feat's effects, but not having it doesn't mean you don't have a place to sleep.

This feels far more comfortable an idea for handling the scope of a farm without screwing with the existing rules.

Morrus said:

They're all just synonyms for house. They're the same type of stronghold.

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This also gets into the Stronghold Ability Score Increases table, where the House, Mansion, and Palace are listed as specific stronghold types. Which causes problems with the suggestion that they are just synonyms, particularly as Manor is not listed despite being a type of house of sufficiently high grade to get an ability score boost, whereas House itself actually does not (being defined as grade 2).

Along with Manor being missing from the list, so is Library. Given the small base size, it may grow into larger stronghold types as higher grades, such as School and University. While this makes sense alongside Hut being missing, it doesn't mesh with things like Tavern, Shop, or Sacred Grove being present.


Summary of unclear issues found so far:

• From @Stalker0 — Whether a stronghold affects only a single person, or the entire party. Based on the wording of the rules for the House at grade 2, my impression is that the rules apply only to a single person, and that if a stronghold affects the entire party it will probably say so explicitly.
• From @Stalker0 — What is the purpose of "external area"? Does it do anything mechanically?
  • Also, is there a limit to the size of an external area, relative to the size of the base stronghold?
  • Also, are there any restrictions on what sorts of strongholds can be made sub-strongholds within an external area? For example, is it reasonable to put a library in an external area? And the design of an Encampment sounds like that shouldn't work when parked next to a house or mansion.
• From @Stalker0 — Do the ability score increases at Grades 3 and 6 stack?
• From @tetrasodium — Does the short rest benefit of a grade 2 House apply when you are not resting at the house?
• From @Tonguez — The cost for the Island environment seems high compared to the other environments. Is this intended, and what is the justification? Does this imply special properties of the island, such as complete isolation and no other inhabitants?
• Do the sizes of a main stronghold and any contained sub-strongholds stack, particularly for the purposes of things like ability score increases?
• Do sub-strongholds generate staff? If so, and if you go over 100 staff, how do you determine which followers become available? Are they presumed to always come from your primary stronghold?
• Do sub-strongholds need to pay the environmental multiplier and/or minimum cost when it has already been paid by the main stronghold?
• Do all sub-strongholds share the same Quality of the main stronghold?
• Security elements are listed alongside furnishings and staff, but it's not clear whether they are considered part of the Furnishings (and thus Quality), part of the Staff (influenced by Quality and Size), or something else altogether. How are security elements defined and used?
• Cost scaling and purchase incentives for Legendary vs the other Qualities seem screwy.
• Does the minimum size described in the stronghold types listings apply to that stronghold type as a whole, or only inasmuch as the feat benefits come into play?
• General issues with the labeling of stronghold types, and how they are used in various tables.
• ++ Can you change the size of a stronghold after it has been built? Particularly, can you continue to grow it over time?

Kinematics said:

From @Stalker0 — What is the purpose of "external area"? Does it do anything mechanically?

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I'm guessing that it contributes to the size, and therefore Grade, of the Stronghold. Which doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me because 250,001 square feet is about 5.7 acres. But my (limited) research indicates that Medieval farms would be anywhere from 12-30 modern acres (admittedly, a lot or all of that farmland would actually belong to the area's lord). So if that's the case, then even poor farmers in the serf-less D&D world are going to have at least level 4 or 5 Strongholds.

The Taj Mahal covers 42 acres, and the Great Pyramids cover 13 acres, both of which would be, like, level 14 Strongholds.

Honestly, the sizes on the chart should probably be increased by a factor of 10, with the caveat that they represent both the immediate grounds as well as the actual building (extra land can still be bought, but the "front yard" is included if necessary). Either that or "Stronghold" should apply to only the heart of the building, and everything else may be part of the property but not part of the Stronghold.

@Morrus et al, I really think you guys need to redo the math here. The Strongholds are an awesome concept and everything is really cool except for the sizes.