House buying through the Stronghold Builder's Guide

[Banshee16]

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

Well, that "nothing fancy" is a manor, by the standards of the day. Didn't most people live in thatch roof shacks back then? If so, I'd be willing to bet that the 5300 gp home is probably right for a wealthy merchant, etc.

I had a PC purchase a one room shack in the woods...basically a cabin, and I think it was 1000-2000 gp. It wasn't fancy....there was a fireplace and chimney, sleeping pallet, small table, etc. That's what I think of when I think of homes in the period..

Banshee

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Also keep land prices in mind.

Me & my wife just bought a nice 2 story brick home (with basement) in Boonville, MO (pop 10,000 or less). Paid well under $100,000. The same style of house in Columbia 30 miles down I-70 (pop ov er 100,000) was at least $ 150,000. And Missouri has cheap land prices.

Are they trying to buy land in New York or Wyoming. One's a lot cheaper than the other. How close are they to a large city. Inside the city will be horribly expensive (esp one with city walls for protection). Are they outside the city & how far? In a dangerous area anything outside teh city walls might be dirt cheap (what wtih the orcs &gorgons running around). If presumably safe, rich nobles within a day's ride or so will drive land prices up a lot (of course there might be a few decent former manors on the market). As most everyone relies on horses or feet for tranportation, anything beyond a day's ride or so will see land prices drop dramatically.

On the other hand, in remote areas, no one might even OWN the land. Just use squatter's rights (I ain't talking about the outhouse) to stake a claim.

Then there is the special mods. like Necromantic Wells of Absolulte Evil nearby or within a Red Dragon's territory. This can really drive down the cost of land.

 

[Sigurd]

Castles are not built for shelter but for control and economics. They rely on protecting relatively large numbers of troups where they can raise the most taxes. They don't really work in D&D but they're the best that we have.

Individual prowess & magic in D&D so outstrips the protection of stone & construction that there is no real security to a castle. In fact, standing proud at the top of the hill as the 'ruler' only makes you an easy target.

For the game to function you have to forget that virtually everyone with a half dozen class levels or more can defeat any simple building. Castles generate taxes at huge expense and administrative cost.

Strongholds express real wealth & allow you to store what you can't move. They create a place where people\factions\creatures can find you and you can hang out. This is or isn't a good thing .




Personally, my players have always simply claimed a house or old stronghold & gone about making the 'inheritance' work with law and others. Money for land seems never apealed to my players. If they were to buy something it would usually split the party along racial lines -- eg the dwarf wouldn't want to live with the elves, and they werent really in one place long enough to benefit anyway.
Patrons usually have a dissused manor or building they can offer as shelter. Players might be 'making it safe' for several years.

 

[gizmo33]

Daern's Fortress does not hold a tenth the number of people a full sized castle holds.

I can buy 10 instant fortresses for 550,000 gp according to the SRD. I think your statements about peasants are open to debate (I'll be referencing the 3E demographics if you want to talk peasants and magic. I'll be referencing the Mongol empire if you want to talk about mobility and loyalty.)

And I agree with you that 10,000 man army is a better option. Or maybe 2,500 horse-archers and an instant fortress or two.

If you really want to fix the pricing problems in D&D, division is not the answer. Square roots (and logarithms) are. But that is not the topic of this thread.

Did I kill your character in a past life?

 

[gizmo33]

They don't really work in D&D but they're the best that we have.

I think the truth of this is far from clear to me. I'll start a new thread.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Sorry... Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, by Expeditious Retreat Press.

Highly recommended for this kind of thing. Building construction is fairly quick and breaks down to one equation and a couple of table lookups.

Final Cost = (1 + interior style + exterior style) x [ carriage + (1 + material modifiers) x E(area x usage cost x (1+height mod))]

Where "E" stands in for the summation symbol. The styles are generic (rough, functional, tasteful, etc) and address all the furniture, wall hangings, paintings, finish, scrollwork, tile, etc. Carriage is the cost to haul stuff in. Material modifiers are based on walls/floor/ceiling so you have wood/wood/wood, wood/stone/thatch, usage cost is a per-square-foot value (kitchens, bedrooms, stable, storage, etc) and the height modifier addresses the fact that adding a 2nd floor room is more complicated than a 1st floor room.

This "quick" version assumes the whole building has the same interior style. You can end up with a couple of showy rooms and the rest being bare stone & unfinished wood but it takes a few more calcs to do it.

A crude 500sf one story (0% height) hut (dirt floor, adobe walls, thatch roof 2% material mod) of rough interior (10%) and exterior (0%) style built near the reeds and mud (0 carriage) intended to be a home (1gp/sf) costs:

Final Cost = (1 + 0 interior style + .1 exterior style) x [ carriage 0 + (1 + 2% material modifiers) x E(500sf area x 1gp/sf usage cost x 1.0 height mod)]
= 1.1 x 1.02 x 500 = 510gp.

This includes the rudest furnishings (piles of straw with blankets, a fireplace with a pot, cheap clay pots & dishes, rough wooden utensils, etc) and may be subdivided as desired.

If I got it wrong I'm sure JGBrowning or one of the others will correct me.

 

[jmucchiello]

I can buy 10 instant fortresses for 550,000 gp according to the SRD.

Or maybe 2,500 horse-archers and an instant fortress or two.

Each fortress is 20 feet square and 30 feet tall. Where are you going to house/feed/stall those 2500 archers and horses? Even 10 fortresses does not come close to holding that many mounted troops.

On the chart I quoted in the DMG a tower is 50,000 gp. That is functionally equivalent to the Instant Fortress. A Castle, based on that chart, would be much bigger than a tower.

Did I kill your character in a past life?

Is there a missing smiley here? All I was saying was the cost of magic items is out of whack because all prices are squared. They should be linear. So cost of scroll should be X gp * sqrt(sp lvl * caster lvl). A permanent effect should be Y gp * sqrt(sp lvl * caster lvl). A +1 sword should be 1/2 the cost of a +2 sword, not 1/4 the cost. IMO This is where the problem with magic item costs arises. The game designers just didn't want to put square root symbols in the DMG. Depending on how you set X and Y above, the income of PCs does not need to skyrocket into the millions when they reach 18th level.

But, again, this isn't the thread for fixing D&D economics. (No thread can do it. )

 

[dungeon blaster]

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

Cheers!

Umm....why?

 

[S'mon]

A crude 500sf one story (0% height) hut (dirt floor, adobe walls, thatch roof 2% material mod) of rough interior (10%) and exterior (0%) style built near the reeds and mud (0 carriage) intended to be a home (1gp/sf) costs:

Final Cost = (1 + 0 interior style + .1 exterior style) x [ carriage 0 + (1 + 2% material modifiers) x E(500sf area x 1gp/sf usage cost x 1.0 height mod)]
= 1.1 x 1.02 x 500 = 510gp.

This includes the rudest furnishings (piles of straw with blankets, a fireplace with a pot, cheap clay pots & dishes, rough wooden utensils, etc) and may be subdivided as desired.

I think it's a bit unfortunate MMS:WE based its prices off the DMG list, so you still have to divide them by 10 to get a reasonable price - ie 51gp for a hovel, not 510gp.

 

[Ace]

One simple D&Dnomics fix I implemented was to assume that all wages included cost of living at an appropriate social status

This way an untrained apprentice (1sp) will have enough silver at the end of the day for a couple of tankards ale and (over the week) a spot of tobbaco --

Skilled workers (typically 3rd level skill 10-12) have a better standard of living and 10 or 12GP a week extra -this is a decent chunk of money -- enough to put them into the D&D middle class anyway-- they can buy a house (if the save for a few years) - take a short vaction -- afford and emergency spell without going into lifetime penury (say Cure Disease to save little Billy) thats sort of thing -- they may even have a Cure Minor potion for emergency stabilizing if they have a dangerous job

They could even scrimp together enough to outfit a starting adventurer

They aren't rich though and won't be buying +3 Armor or a fortified moathouse