Another solid article - Strongholds

[Dausuul]

Excellent article! It's about time we had some stronghold rules, and these strike me as just the right balance of detail and abstraction. And I love the fact that we now have actual rules for making flying and extraplanar strongholds!

I'm a bit skeptical of Bigby's Construction Crew; after the initial investment, it lets you churn out new strongholds at 1/5 normal cost, which seems a bit much. I'd be inclined to reverse the market and component costs, so it's 5K to learn the ritual and 20K to cast it. But that's a minor detail.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

1st of all: great article!

While I found strange that the DCs of certain things (such as the climb DC of outer walls) were based on the level of the creature trying to overcome them, overall I found this article very good.

That is a certain issue i have with essentials.

I don´t have issues if trying to beat down walls scales with level, but locks? Really... A trained person should improve with level.

Against an untrained person however, the difficulty may scale.

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]:

actually you still have to pay for 25k for every stronghold, as you may deduct the component cost from 25k. It is a onetime investment of 20k and the rest is practically free. They just splitted it up before someone comes in and tells them that using a ritual should be cheper as you need not pay your builders,i guess.

 

[Dausuul]

I don´t have issues if trying to beat down walls scales with level, but locks? Really... A trained person should improve with level.

Yeah, that was another problem I had, albeit minor. Why don't they just do what they did with the other stronghold components and have several versions at different levels, with appropriate DCs for each? I've never understood the rationale for scaling skill DCs by level; seems like 4E can't make up its mind whether it wants to add 1/2 level to skills or not.

actually you still have to pay for 25k for every stronghold, as you may deduct the component cost from 25k. It is a onetime investment of 20k and the rest is practically free. They just splitted it up before someone comes in and tells them that using a ritual should be cheper as you need not pay your builders,i guess.

That's not how I read it. The section on using rituals in construction says:

When using a ritual to speed or complete construction, deduct the ritual’s component price from the stronghold’s price. See the “Construction Rituals” sidebar for discounts on time.

Better still, you might create a stronghold using a powerful ritual such as Bigby’s Construction Crew.

(Emphasis mine.)

In other words, Bigby's Construction Crew is an alternative (as indicated by "better still") to using the listed rituals to speed or complete construction. Which makes sense. You're not using BCC to help a regular workforce--you're using it to replace the workforce.

I mean, look at the ritual itself. Suppose you just cast Bigby's Construction Crew, all on its own, without any workers within a hundred miles. What happens? Well... according to the ritual text, you get a stronghold of 300 squares. So why would you ever use BCC as part of the regular construction process?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

While I found strange that the DCs of certain things (such as the climb DC of outer walls) were based on the level of the creature trying to overcome them, overall I found this article very good.

That was the same issue I had as well. A very good article, but I couldn't help getting tweaked just a wee bit by the creature-level DCs.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The ritual is nice, but I would have prefered a "Lyre of Building".
That's what we used (among others) to build or stronghold in a Forgotten Realms campaign.

I have a character that quested to find a series of enchanted building tools in order to get a stronghold built in time.

Some were "normal" 1st & 2nd edition items like the Spade of Colossal Excavation, and the Pick of Earth Parting, but also included some custom ones, such as the Trowel of Speedy Spreading, Hammer of Hasty Nailing, and the Saw of Mighty Cutting.

Fun stuff.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I really liked the Call Stonghold ritual.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I thought the fluff was neat, but the crunch was a little lacking and ill thought-out.

For example, the Library. A +3 to a single skill check at Epic Tier? Weak sauce (especially at 85k). If the PCs are going to invest in a stronghold (as magic items), the skill bonus should be a +2/tier minimum, in my opinion. Personally, I'd make it a little more, since you have to be in the stronghold to make use of it.

Alternatively, to make it (IMO) a little more interesting I would have tied it to the existing skill "levels." That is, the first tier Library allows you to make knowledge checks within it as if you had Skill Training, the second as if you had Skill Focus, and the third with an added bonus (lower DC). Tiers don't represent character level so much as they represent the collection in the library; a first tier Library has common and several uncommon books, a second tier Library has most uncommon and a couple of rares, and the third tier Library has several rares and even some unique stuff.

 

[LostSoul]

I'm a bit skeptical of Bigby's Construction Crew; after the initial investment, it lets you churn out new strongholds at 1/5 normal cost, which seems a bit much. I'd be inclined to reverse the market and component costs, so it's 5K to learn the ritual and 20K to cast it. But that's a minor detail.

That might be a slick little piece of design. Once you hit level 15, the cost for making a Stronghold is reduced to 5k. In one way it's like saying, "You're level 15 now, it's time to build a Stronghold. Or a Kingdom."

I don't like the time it takes, though - 24 hours? It's very powerful when adventuring. A set number of hours per square might be better - maybe 4 hours?

 

[Dedekind]

Very cool stuff. This is the sort of thing that is perfect for DDi. Long enough to provide significant content, but it isn't forced into the 32 page count limitations of printed products.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I thought the fluff was neat, but the crunch was a little lacking and ill thought-out.

For example, the Library. A +3 to a single skill check at Epic Tier? Weak sauce (especially at 85k). If the PCs are going to invest in a stronghold (as magic items), the skill bonus should be a +2/tier minimum, in my opinion. Personally, I'd make it a little more, since you have to be in the stronghold to make use of it.

Alternatively, to make it (IMO) a little more interesting I would have tied it to the existing skill "levels." That is, the first tier Library allows you to make knowledge checks within it as if you had Skill Training, the second as if you had Skill Focus, and the third with an added bonus (lower DC). Tiers don't represent character level so much as they represent the collection in the library; a first tier Library has common and several uncommon books, a second tier Library has most uncommon and a couple of rares, and the third tier Library has several rares and even some unique stuff.

You can still do that in your game, that is why we have DMs. I think the strength of the article is that it gives a flavourful but simple way of calculating the cost of a stronghold that does not require a calculator and autocad.
It also give good examples of flavourful rituals.