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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1279606" data-attributes="member: 6271">Construction RulesMy previous posts have been confined to the Government rules in each product. Half of Strongholds & Dynasties, though, is construction rules. A Magical Medieval Society also has an appendix that addresses this topic. Empire and Birthright offer construction options, but on an abstract scale. To compare the systems, I decided to work up Kharith Keep. Birthright: Kharith Keep would be part of a Castle (3) in the province, under Birthright rules. Although the Birthright rules refer to fortification of a province as "building a castle", I tend to think that castle is an abstract representation of a number of border forts and other defensive positions in the province. Empire: Kharith Keep would be a Keep at Kingdom scale, I think, and nothing at Empire scale. I tend to think of Empire's Castles and Keeps as being symbolic of a network of defenses, much as Birthtight's castles are. S&D has an extensive system for building. It earns bonus points because the buildings integrate with the Open Mass Combat System II. Each of the "stock designs" presented includes the hardness, structure points, and stability modifiers for use with the OMCSII, making it relatively easy for tactical combats to include breaching the walls (kudos for the breach rules in OMCSII). Cry Havoc, by contrast, treats terrain as obstacles in tactical combat (and does not offer rules for breaching walls); siege combat appears only in the "quick resolution" systems. MMS:WE also has a good building system. It is shorter, and much more streamlined, than S&D's. I can't fault MMS:WE for not integrating with a Mass Combat system, as that was not its purpose. It does present hardness and hit points for the materials used in a building, however, so you can still make a hole in a wall using standard D&D rules. Both books cover the essential factors of building: labor, materials, convenience of getting the materials to the work site, monstrous and magical labor savings, etc. S&D's prices are a good bit higher than MMS:WE's, though. That may stem from MMS:WE's basis in historical reality and S&D's base assumptions of fantasy world costs. In the end, neither S&D nor MMS:WE is difficult to use. S&D has more page space devoted to construction, so is more thorough in presenting options and stock buildings, and presents some rules for having workers chop down trees themselves instead of bringing in cut wood, etc. However, a project under S&D's rules will have a much higher base cost than one built under MMS:WE, so which one you use may well come down to that as a determining factor. Attached are two PDFs, one each for MMS:WE and S&D, showing the calculated costs of building Kharith Keep. The parameters: Kharith Keep is a fortress with a 20 ft thick curtain wall, 150 ft x 60 ft., with 8 2-storey 20 ft diameter round towers, 2 20 ft tall gatehouses, 1 2-storey donjon/keep, 1 stable, and 3 levels of underground chambers and passages. The Keep was built with magical assistance limited to teleporting all needed workers and materials to and from the worksite as needed. Thus, neither sheet presents much added cost for carriage (conveyance of materials), and neither sheet makes use of magic to reduce costs otherwise.</blockquote>

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