D&D 5E How do you handle party home bases (houses, strongholds, etc)?
MostlyHarmless42
Adventurer
Another thing of note I've tried, if you have access to the game and your base is reasonably sized, Minecraft is an excellent program for making things in d&d. I built several maps using it, including a hedge maze (still the best way to run a maze in d&d I've found), the tavern in Dragon Heist, and castle Ravenloft.
The last map in particular took a damned week to build by hand, but the results were well worth it and my players loved it, and it gave me the benefit of a truly intimate knowledge of the layout of the castle that I frankly would not have had just by looking at a map. The best part is the game's communities make finding different texture packs an easy thing to customize each map.
The last map in particular took a damned week to build by hand, but the results were well worth it and my players loved it, and it gave me the benefit of a truly intimate knowledge of the layout of the castle that I frankly would not have had just by looking at a map. The best part is the game's communities make finding different texture packs an easy thing to customize each map.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
THAT, my friend, is an amazingly useful little document you have created. I have snagged it and its now "a thing" for my game too. THANK YOU!
In our 2E game, we ran through a Dungeon adventure called "Kryptgarden Keep" (by Paul F. Culotta) that ended up being the PCs' stronghold for the rest of that campaign. We even had a failed paladin PC retire from the adventuring life and become Captain of the Guard for Kryptgarden Keep, keeping it secure between adventures.
In my first 3.5 campaign, the PCs were all part of an Adventurers Guild located in Greyhawk City, so that was their base of operations (although they didn't own it outright themselves).
In my current 3.5 campaign (a follow-on from the previous one, taking place 20 years later), the PCs all started out with a headquarters: Battershield Keep, a keep the PCs in the previous campaign had sort of inherited. The king decided it would be a good headquarters for the first official adventurers of the kingdom, and thus it was. I had built a scale model of the keep out of cardboard and we've had several adventures where the PCs were defending it from marauders of various types. (The interior buildings have also been changed out so I can use the keep as different small castles and whatnot throughout the years; I once gave it a second level and made it a demonic dwelling in the Abyss, for example.)
Having a headquarters is, in my mind, a good idea because it serves as a place where others know they can find the PCs. Thus, it's a good adventure starting location; many of my plot-hooks start off with someone coming to the PCs for help and that's much easier to do when they have a standard address where they can be found.
As this current campaign's only got a few sessions left, my new 3.5 campaign will be starting up shortly and I've decided one of the main background plots will involve the PCs needing to travel all across the continent. But that doesn't mean they can't have a headquarters, since in my previous campaign I crafted a life-sized wood colossus that I still have, so I envision at some point they'll find it and make it their "mobile home" since it can change between "building" and "humanoid giant" forms....
Johnathan
In my first 3.5 campaign, the PCs were all part of an Adventurers Guild located in Greyhawk City, so that was their base of operations (although they didn't own it outright themselves).
In my current 3.5 campaign (a follow-on from the previous one, taking place 20 years later), the PCs all started out with a headquarters: Battershield Keep, a keep the PCs in the previous campaign had sort of inherited. The king decided it would be a good headquarters for the first official adventurers of the kingdom, and thus it was. I had built a scale model of the keep out of cardboard and we've had several adventures where the PCs were defending it from marauders of various types. (The interior buildings have also been changed out so I can use the keep as different small castles and whatnot throughout the years; I once gave it a second level and made it a demonic dwelling in the Abyss, for example.)
Having a headquarters is, in my mind, a good idea because it serves as a place where others know they can find the PCs. Thus, it's a good adventure starting location; many of my plot-hooks start off with someone coming to the PCs for help and that's much easier to do when they have a standard address where they can be found.
As this current campaign's only got a few sessions left, my new 3.5 campaign will be starting up shortly and I've decided one of the main background plots will involve the PCs needing to travel all across the continent. But that doesn't mean they can't have a headquarters, since in my previous campaign I crafted a life-sized wood colossus that I still have, so I envision at some point they'll find it and make it their "mobile home" since it can change between "building" and "humanoid giant" forms....
Johnathan
The two groups I play in use Fortresses, Temples and Strongholds which we found on DMs Guild.
