D&D 3.x Advice on possible city/kingdom-running rules sets that fit 3.5?

[Hastur00]

The story so far...

So I brought along the Stronghold Builder's Guide to my 3.5 session because the wizard was looking for ideas on how to build... um... basically a hyperbolic time chamber to fast-train troops for a looming war. The other players kind of latched onto it, astonished at the possibility of owning businesses and buildings and things in a D&D game 8-O

...and from there it spiraled upwards into the idea of building whole towns, and from there to whole kingdoms, so I've kind of been appointed Finder of Rules since I started the whole thing.

So. Some brief Google-Fu revealed a number of possibilities on those lines; I wanted to ask if anyone had any experience with 'em. Strongholds & Dynasties by Mongoose came up, as did AEG's Empire, and while I know this is a 3.X forum, the Kingmaker ruleset from Pathfinder looked like a good option. I thought as a second step I'd throw the idea to the ENWorld hivemind. Has anyone had any experience with these rules? Weak points, strong points, abusability problems, or unforseen consequences? Verisimilitude? Hacks to improve? Since I'm starting blank, any kind input would be appreciated, really.

 

[PureGoldx58]

I don't know much about the rules aspect of it since when my party started building a city we just used druids...

I do know that if not everyone is into it, it can cause problems. Thankfully though it sounds like everyone is in love with the idea of essentially leaving their mark on the world.

Stronghold builders, is fairly decent. I've seen a few quirks here and there that don't make sense and its discounts for having a spellcaster
help don't make much sense, (it should be free if you are using fabricate, etc.) but as far as I know it is decent enough to use as is.

 

[Dozen]

I ran quite a few such adventures. In my experience STG is great, except the Landlord feat and ridiculous building costs. Luckily, someone else thought so as well, so I didn't have to write a new one... there you go, attached. Credits go to Warhook. It may be homebrew, but a lot of effort was put into it.

(it should be free if you are using fabricate, etc.)

It shouldn't. Casting Fabricate eliminates the cost of construction only. Materials, transport, hauling and taxes still cost money. That's why lavish furniture prices go down by half when Fabricate is used while the normal price saving is a mere 5%, good furnishings are more expensive to create compared to the rest of the costs. For a 100% free castle, you'd have to craft and bring everything on your own.

 

[Hastur00]

I'm sorry, let me clarify; we're already probably going to use the SBG for costs and times for building individual buildings. What I'm more concerned with now are rules for governance, taxation, resource allocation, and local effects of civic buildings (hospitals, colesseums, military structures, etc.) on the city/population, and possibly streamlined large-scale constructions.

Edit: Oh, and as long as I'm at it, has anyone encountered any solid rules for running businesses (that aren't from the DMG2 and therefore don't SUCK SUCK SUCK)?

Further Edit: Is it just me or are the errata'd building times a little... sluggish for small structures (objectively, I mean, not just compared to the SBG's rate of construction)? A grand house (DMG, 5,000gp, seven rooms) would take 40,000 manhours to build.

 

[Dozen]

I'm sorry, let me clarify; we're already probably going to use the SBG for costs and times for building individual buildings.

Oh, okay! Over my head, sorry.

Edit: Oh, and as long as I'm at it, has anyone encountered any solid rules for running businesses (that aren't from the DMG2 and therefore don't SUCK SUCK SUCK)?

There aren't, but you don't need one. We only ran this kind of adventure once. I was playing a Mongrelman who extablished what he called the Gleaner's Guild or Scavenger's Guild, depending on the situation. The idea was to deal contracts with armies, towns and adventurer parties to collect corpses, broken items and other scrap they had no use for and resell what we repaired or made out of them. But I digress.
We didn't use the DMG2(we didn't have a copy back then, I recall), so I had to improvise to simplify the process. I couldn't gauge how much material we got from a given battlefield in advance, but that's not necessarily important as long as we got enough to keep the secondary industry running. So I calculated how much work I could expect from the workshops over a period of time(I've gone with a day) based on crafting rules, minus wages. This was my gross product. If something popped up that slowed or halted production, such as low supplies, an employee was lazing off, a trade agreement expiring, ragamoffyns and raiments spurting spontenaously into existence throughout the fabric department(yes, seriously), or vandalism, I calculated the loss based on the time it took to deal with the issue and subtracted it from the gross gain.

Any other source of income was dealt with in the old-fashioned way: get thing, sell thing, profit, piece by piece. If anyone can figure out a better one, I'm all ears. Hope I helped you out, Hastur.

Further Edit: Is it just me or are the errata'd building times a little... sluggish for small structures (objectively, I mean, not just compared to the SBG's rate of construction)? A grand house (DMG, 5,000gp, seven rooms) would take 40,000 manhours to build.

Still fairly short, actually. D&D plays in the middle ages with primitive mechanical tools and bare hands, not modern day New York where everything is built out of a combination of concrete and wood sheets with massive cranes. Where I live, building a decent house can and will take years, since we're still stuck with relatively old-timey methods, machines and materials. Not that we don't have access to them, we just can't afford them(also they are kind of bad picks in the middle of a wetland). The first portion of our rather modest old family house, about five rooms, took two years, in the 20th century. Imagine what a pain construction was a thousand years prior. You can pay extra in case you wanted to speed it up. As the STG reads, fast, cheap or good, pick any two. Alternatively, build a smaller portion first where you live on until the rest is ready instead of the step-by-step approach.

rulesfor governance, taxation, resource allocation, and local effects of civic buildings (hospitals, colesseums, military structures, etc.) on the city/population, and possibly streamlined large-scale constructions.

Heh. If only there was a good method to governance. Sorry, you're on your own with that one. Stick by a political system(I recommend a sort of constitutional feudal monarchy for simplicity's sake), use you common sense, control and see everything for yourself whenever you can and pray to all the gods the mayority will at least tolerate you.

As for the rest, Pathfinder's SRD includes rules for martial entertainment, and Wizards of the Coast have some articles regarding settlement population.

 

[Hastur00]

Where I live, building a decent house can and will take years, since we're still stuck with relatively old-timey methods, machines and materials. Not that we don't have access to them, we just can't afford them(also they are kind of bad picks in the middle of a wetland). The first portion of our rather modest old family house, about five rooms, took two years, in the 20th century.

Did it have a hundred guys working ten-hour days? I'm not saying the construction times are off, necessarily, just that they're off for that big a crew. Of course, the fact that additional crews provide diminishing returns because they start getting under each others' feet confuses the issue somewhat; maybe my question should be "shouldn't the crews be smaller for the building times provided"?

 

[Dozen]

Did it have a hundred guys working ten-hour days?

No, of course not. We'd be drowning in debt to this day! There were about the equalient of 5, 10-hour shift laborers.

Let's stay at our house to clarify. The base(very strong to withstand the floods we get twice a year) was built out of cobblestone, masonry was used for walls, about 90 feet outside and 90 inside, the attic was built out of(rather cheap) wood, with a slate roof- let's call that last one one-half the prize of masonry, for a wall of the same width. The kitchen was very small and low tech(50% off), while the bathroom and the two bedrooms were sort of fancy. The dining "hall" was more of a dining room, obviously(75% off), though it doubled as a common area. We also had a library that doubled as an extra, not so fancy room.

Base: 10 wall sections worth of stone, 600 gp.
Walls: 18 wall sections worth of masonry, 450 gp.
Attic: 15 wall sections worth of wood, 150 gp.
Top: 2,5 wall sections worth of masonry, 62 gp, 5 ep.
+2 extra doors, 20 gp.
Kitchen: 100 gp.
Fancy bath: 250 gp.
fancy bedroom x2: 800 gp.
Dining room + cm: 100 gp.
Library + br: 170 gp.

Overall cost: 2700 gold pieces.

That'd take 27 days with a crew of one hundred workers as per the errata. 5 people a day on average would take 20 times as long, 540 days. I'm not suprised to see it would have taken less than two years assuming everything went smoothly(if the fact the building site was flooded four times is not of any indication, I assure you, nothing did).

Now, the grand house costs 5000 gold pieces, and thus takes 50 days to build -which is indeed 50.000 manhours with 100 people working on it ten hours a day(50 days * 10 hours * 100 workers).

So no, the crews should not be smaller for the building times provided. Two months spent on building a house by a large, professional group working only on that is reasonable.

 

[MichaelSomething]

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8x64?Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Ultimate-Campaign

Includes "Rules for building up a kingdom, including construction and technological advancements, governing your people, and more." Preorder now!

 

[Hastur00]

Well holy s**t. Sometimes things just work out

 

[Dozen]

Well holy s**t. Sometimes things just work out

Is that... Bad? Your smiley says it's bad. Dang, I thought I was helping. Sorry.