Location Templates?

[Duke Frinn]

In 3e the template concept can apply to almost anything.

How about templates for towns or cities?

The templates could be Hamlet, Metropolin, and the like, but also Magical (more wizards, and magic works better), Lost (high DC's for gather information, older magic items), Besieged, Ruined, Planetouched, War-zone...

So a DM could take a basic location, and add the Magical Lost Village templates, and have all the numbers: population, magical properties, market modifiers or whatever.

What do you think?

Another possibility is classes for locations, but that is a bit more complex. A village would be a level 3 location, the biggest city in the kingdom would be a multiclass 15 location, and the epic city of Oire would be a level 30 location... with cities gaining things with levels, and kings or dukes gaining location xp to level up their cities... eh.. never mind. but how about templates?

 

[Mordane76]

Actually, I'm intrigued by this idea of location XP... it sounds like an interesting segue into something very like Birthright.


I'm also interested in your idea of location templates, but how would one go about something like this? What exactly would the basic locations be like?

 

[gpetruc]

Great idea.
Some time ago I was considering to give "levels" to areas such as magical forests, and I tried to use "shop ability checks" to determine if some exotic items where present.

I don't think Hamleth should be a template (or the other base city sizes). Magical, instead, works well as a template.

Let's suppose every city has a size (or level, you choose) that might go from lvl 1 thorp to lvl 20+ very large cities (metropolis are epic).

1) They gain a number of citizen based on the size: let's assume at every level they gain city-level x d100 people.
It means 55 ppl at level 1, about 800 at lvl 5, 3000 at level 10, 6600 at level 15 and 11550 at level 20.
(maybe with some feat or template they could have a smaller or larger HD)

2) Then they should have some skills ...
For things like craft, profession and knowledge skills is easy: the city skill bonus could be either the best skill bonus you can find for hire in that city (so if you want an answer to a DC 30 question you should go in a city with Knowledge +20 to have a 50% chance)

still, a better mathematic formula should be used.

3) Using something like the table for the Authority feat you could have an idea of the militia ...

Still, I don't know if cities should have standard mental ability scores, or use a different set of abilities (such as Power, Discipline, Wealth, ...).
Using different classes (and PrC !?) could also be feasible, maybe a bit complex (for example we could have classes like Rural Settlement, Trade Center, Military Base, Mining Town, and a Capital PrC)

Templates could modify the city because of other influences (high magic area, savage inhabited village, desert settlement, ghost town)

I really like the idea

I don't know Brithright ... how did it work ?

 

[Duke Frinn]

I don't know birthright either...

I think that templates could have a different purpose than class levels.

With a template, a DM could easily create a location with themes that would normally require tweaking dozens of rules.

For example, a DM who wants to create a city known for it's magical streams of lava originating in the plane of fire and for it's great azer blacksmithes would normally have to make up some stats - how the magic affects skill checks in the city, availibility of magic items, prices, population.

With a planetouched template (plane of fire) and a specialty profession template (blacksmith) you can do all this in a minute.

Classes are better as a way to show progress over a stretch of time. This makes it actually more complicated to create a large city quickly, since you need to assign levels, feats, skills.

It would make it easier though to see where the city is going in the future.

I think the template idea is has more uses, because it takes decades or even centuries for a city to really change, while a character usually rises from level 1 to level 20 in less than 10 years. It just won't impact the game enough.

Templates, however, would be a welcome help in the rule-managment of diverse cities, since these templates, if created correctly, could be very "loose". The planetouched template and the specialty profession template could create...

* A dwarven city where gemcutters manage to marvels with the magical earth-planetouched soil.
* A human village where magnificant celestial silk is woven by a divine process.
* A forest where shipmaker gnomes have learned the secrets of creating Air ships.

The Glorious template combined with the Deserted template could create...

* An elven city of bygone days, where sad songs of ancient wonders are now sung.
* A proud city of humans, the capital of an empire pillaged by barbarians.

... and so on and so forth...

 

[Tonguez]

Great idea.

Still, I don't know if cities should have standard mental ability scores, or use a different set of abilities (such as Power, Discipline, Wealth, ...).

Templates could modify the city because of other influences (high magic area, savage inhabited village, desert settlement, ghost town)

I really like the idea

Inspired by Civilisation, Aria and later Birthright I was/am working on an idea of giving organisations (everything from a Blacksmiths Forge to Global Empires) ability scores and treating them like 'Characters'

The Ability 'Parameters' I came up with were

Politics - Ability to enforce its Political will (used for Diplomacy and Tax collection)
Economics - Ability to sustainably harvest its resources
Enforcement - Responsiveness and effectiveness of Military/Police
Culture - Ability to develop and maintain its culture and learning (Knowledge)

The Parameters are determined with 3d6 (3-18) but certain Technologies could increase this eg the Technology:Bureaucracy would give +1d6 to Politics whereas Tech:Logistics might give +1d6 to Enforcement.
Magic and Religion both came under Culture

Alignment determined Political Structure - Lawful societies got bonuses to Politics, Chaotic ones got penalties

Each Area also got a Fertility Score (its level) which was used to determine the Harvest yeilds and annual Population increase
(eg if a coastal Town has a Fertility of 4 each labour unit might be able to produce enouh fish to feed 80 people per week with a Max yeild of 800 per week)

Feats became Technologies (eg Technology Feat: Blacksmith Forge or Technology Feat:Banking (prereq Merchants Guild) or Tech Feat: Mages Tower)

Skills became Education and Industry eg Profession: Fishing +3 would mean that the Town had a +3 fishing fleet (lead by a Level 3 Expert) and that +3 would be used for the Harvest check.
(eg Fish Harvest DC =MAx Yeild/Labour/Days - 800/10/5 = 16
Check D20+Economics mod + 3 (Prof:Fishing Skill) vs DC 16)

Other Skills were also applied to Politics and Enforcement (eg Diplomacy, Intimidate, Gather Info (spies))

Each Turn was between a Week and Three Months (a Season) long

Anyway I think the Template idea would be wonderful in giving definition to places. I like Duke Frinns idea of planetouched, Magical, Glorious templates etc etc and would love to assist if you want to expand this idea a bit more...

 

[Duke Frinn]

A list of possible templates by catagories:

Planetouched or Elemental: fire, water, air, earth, fiendish, celestial, anarchic, anxiomatic

Magical: High magic, Wild magic, Dead magic, Free magic, Divine

Circamstance: Deserted, Ruined, War-Zone, Lost, Specialty Profession, Overpopulated

Exceptional: Glorious, Sacred, Infamous