House buying through the Stronghold Builder's Guide

[Quasqueton]

The PCs in my campaign wanted to buy a house outside the city. 4 bedrooms, kitchen, maybe a basement, some basic living area. Nothing much, nothing fancy. I said they could probably find one in a few weeks of looking. Not a big deal. How much? I said maybe a thousand gold. I'd check my Stronghold Builder's Guide for some guidelines.

So I checked my SBG for some prices. According to that book, each of these "items" take up a 20'x20' area: 2 bedrooms (x2), kitchen, living area. Sounds reasonable. Comes to a 20'x40', two-story dwelling (not counting a basement). Total cost, by that book, for "basic" rooms: 5,300gp!

Holy crap! 5,300gp for a basic "family" home? This doesn't even include a basement or stable. (The stable for 4 horses costs 1,000gp all by itself.)

Is the SBG completely useless for pricing guidelines? What would you price their desired house at?

Quasqueton

 

[Eltern]

When it comes to anything resembling economics and business, such as real estate or the daily wage of a commoner, virtually everything WotC has printed is completely and utterly useless.


What level are they? They could probably build the house for less than 500gp, especially if there's magic to help, so it'd just be an issue of the value of the land, and who owns it.

 

[Shadowdancer]

You also have to remember that the Stronghold Builder's Guide is for that -- building strongholds. The structure you came up with using the book is probably a lot more secure than a normal house of the same size and with the same features. The stronghold probably has walls of stone, while a normal house would probably be wood, or mud bricks, or something else less secure.

 

[LeapingShark]

Real world home prices are also just like that.

So maybe D&D commoners should be forced to get financing, just like we do. A 30 year mortgage through Kingdomwide Home Loans will do. If they don't make their payments on time, the ogres come knocking.

 

[Stalker0]

If your looking at this from a commoner's point of view, 4 bedrooms is a palace. Normally that common room would also be the kitchen and the bedroom for everyone.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You shouldn't assume the commoners have to buy these things. There's other ways to get a house.

Commoners don't buy their homes. They build them. Thus, they get around the costs by doing it themselves.

If my PC's wanted to bake the bricks and design the rooms and lay the mortar and hew the stone and chop the wood and thatch the roof all by themselves, I wouldn't make them pay for it, either.

 

[Alzrius]

As I recall, the SBG is also predicated on the idea that the person who is paying for the house is buying the materials, not gathering them themselves (I can't remember if they include the price of having someone else construct them or not).

Commoners, on the other hand, almost always go chop down their own trees, lug home their own stones, patch their own mud, etc.

 

[MerricB]

5,300 gp is cheap for PCs, who are the people who are going to be paying the bills.

The D&D economy is ignored except for the actions of PCs, as it should be in a heroic fantasy game.

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

I'd say this middle-class dwelling should cost around 500gp to build or 1000gp to buy, assuming it's in a city with no land shortage.

Edit: I concur with the 'WotC prices are crap'. consensus. I realised that when I first noticed that per my 3.0 DMG a mundane stone tower costs the same as a Daern's Instant Fortress...

 

[Neo]

5,300 gp is cheap for PCs, who are the people who are going to be paying the bills.

The D&D economy is ignored except for the actions of PCs, as it should be in a heroic fantasy game.

Cheers!

Thats pretty much what it has to come down too..

Especially when you consider that a laborer for example going by the DMG rate of pay would only earn 36.5gp in a year.. most PC's groups spend more than this on thier tavern room and bar bills in any adventures, not to mention almost every creature encountered has a fair portion of this amount on them even at first level. Heck according to the DMG even a skilled individual like an Alchemist only earns 365 gp per year.

Pc's can in no way work alongside a game world economy in a meaningful way as they break the system..as Merric points out.

Just look at hireling wages in comparison to the Variant Upkeep rules in the DMG, following that, almost no hireling is even self sufficient, let alone poor.