PC starts a town: DM panics...

[Treebore]

A note on genies...

As I understand it, in 3.5, the duration on any spell cast by a summoned creature expires, regardless of it's normal length, when the summon expires. Permenant is a duration, as opposed to Instantaneous, like Wall of Iron.

My reading is that even "permenant" spells cast by summons end when the summons end. This would include Permenant Illusions cast by summoned pixies, for example.

That would be a darn good way to rule it. Or not that they necessarily end, but go with the summoned creature when their summons is over.


On top of the Rules Cyclopedia, and Stronghold books already mentioned, I strongly, STRONGLY, recommend Expeditious Retreats "Magical Medievel Societies: Western Europe" and "Silk Road" books. They give you all the tools you will need to deal with realistic economics (as realistic as it can get, based on a D&D gold scale).

 

[Verys Arkon]

If you were looking for something more abstract, you could model the community using the Affiliation rules from PHBII. You could even have individual elements within the community modeled as separate affiliations. Every month or so, decide what the affiliations do, make the checks, and adjust things like scale, captial, etc. Describe those changes verbally to the player (the temple expands, the fort recruits more militia, the merchant lost a ship at sea, etc.).

Player ideas, individual abilities and skills could be used as modifiers to the affiliation checks.

This way you aren't tracking every GP in the community, but it is still a dynamic environment, and the PCs actions can have consequences.

 

[Runestar]

The prices for mundane eq is also quite wonky, what with ladders costing less than 2 10-ft poles...

 

[roguerouge]

The needs of any self sufficient community are always the same; water, food, shelter, cooking materials, metal and food storage.

With this in mind you would need the professions/crafts mining, woodcutting, hunting, smelting, charcoal burning, metalworking, building, carpentry, stone-masonry, pottery, boatbuilding, fishing, food preservation, farming, animal husbandry and perhaps plant husbandry as well (for finding new food plants in the "new world", threshing, and baking.

All I can think of for now. Just site the new colony near iron or copper, clay (for pottery), wood for building and fires, stone for building (not immediate) water and some south facing slopes for farming.

Thanks! I would never have thought of all of that...

 

[roguerouge]

So, to sum up: DMGII (business: town), PHBII (affiliations), Stronghold Builder's Guide (for structures), Magical Medieval Societies (for economies).

Beware of high level summoning and conjuration spells, as well as the old ladder trick. Talk about what the player wants to get out of this scenario. Try to run a goodly amount behind the screen and present challenges and final results of complex processes over time to the players.

 

[Minicol]

I had the situation in my campaign a few years back in 2e.

Rules were not such a problem, as we had a very liberal play style.

What was interesting to us though, was : so we have a keep and a village springing in the wilderness, who comes to settle it ?

My answer was :
Escaped slaves
spies
religious fanatics
slaver agents
brigands
...

I think you get the idea. I had designed about 80 NPCs of note, all disguised into the populace, all with a reason to come here, either to help or to hinder the PCs.

I really should spring this on my current group.

 

[S'mon]

3e doesn't really have an economic model. You obviously need to ignore the resource-availability rules, where in the example there are 'only' a few dozen longswords in a hamlet of 90 people. The wealth limits and demographics may work ok if they fit your own campaign world - I find they give too much magic and too many high level PCs in large cities for my main campaign world, but are ok for anything up to large town.

Usually the best approach is to say that the PCs run the town, it produces enough wealth for them to live comfortably, and don't do any number-crunching. If the town is attacked they can raise a militia from the combatant population. If the town has a valuable resource like a gold mine it may produce a monthly cash income in addition. Most won't.

 

[S'mon]

Re the 'Wall' spells, I make them Permanent not Instantaneous, same as in prior editions. I don't know what the 3e designers (Tweet?) were thinking when they changed that.

 

[haakon1]

Harn Manor from the Harn system is a good source of inspiration too, I think.

 

[roguerouge]

3e doesn't really have an economic model. You obviously need to ignore the resource-availability rules, where in the example there are 'only' a few dozen longswords in a hamlet of 90 people. The wealth limits and demographics may work ok if they fit your own campaign world - I find they give too much magic and too many high level PCs in large cities for my main campaign world, but are ok for anything up to large town.

Okay. So I should not model it based on the DMG rules for town GP limits and NPCs etc. as it leads to nuttiness in hamlets and urban centers.