Stronghold Builders Guidebook

[IronWolf]

The complete guide to building and using strongholds in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.

This comprehensive resource details everything a Dungeon Master or player needs to design, construct, and play virtually any kind of stonghold (castles, fortresses, towers, and so on) in a Dungeons & Dragons, campaign.

 

[The Sigil]

As promised, here is a quick review of the Stronghold Builders' Guidebook which I purchased yesterday from my local WotC store...

Price: $21.95 for a 128-page softcover - I am not thrilled with the constant upward creep in the price of RPG products, but this is consistent with things like Bluffside: City on the Edge (144 pages at $22.95) so I guess I shouldn't do too much complaining.

Percent of OGC: 0%. This is admittedly a sticking point with me on WotC stuff - I understand that they don't have to follow the OGL/d20STL when releasing their material, but it sure would make it easier to have consistencey across the d20 landscape if they would release a few of the mechanical terms (such as planar stat blocks, divine abilities, and stronghold statistics) as OGC rather than forcing every publisher to generate their own system from scratch. If you want everyone else to play by the rules, you should be playing by the rules yourself (they HAVE given us the SRD, including psionics, but I would like to see them add the "mechanics" from at least the major expansions - Deities and Demigods, Manual of the Planes, and Stronghold Builder's Guidebook - to the SRD).

First Impressions: There are a lot of good ideas in here; rather than giving strict rules for what a room's dimensions are, we are told that a "standard" unit is about 4,000 cubic feet (20x20x10). We are also told not to sweat the specifics... if a PC wants to build a room with an arched (15') ceiling, let him. It's a very good approach to make things even more modular than usual. The sidebars are well-used (one set takes you through the creation of an example stronghold step by step, for instance). There are also a lot of ideas for incorporating magic into a stronghold - this incorporation comes in three "flavors" - Wondrous Architecture (think "Really Big Wondrous Items", Wall Augmentations (if you think a stone castle wall is bad to have to breach, imagine a stone wall that throws spell effects at you), and a section on using "normal" magic items (from the DMG) in your stronghold.

Initial Annoyances: The Number One annoyance for me is Wizards' continual push for Political Correctness getting in the way of good editing. The character who is building the sample stronghold is sometimes referred to as "he" and sometimes as "she" - with the change sometimes coming mid-paragraph. While I don't mind seeing "she" in things and having female iconic characters, having an iconic character's sex changing from sentence to sentence gets very annoying. IOW, the desire to be "inclusive" with both "he" and "she" sometimes leads to horrific editing jobs, and this book is no exception.

Breakdown by Chapter:

CHAPTER ONE: BUILDING A STRONGHOLD - This chapter walks you through the "bare bones" of the stronghold-building process. It contains rules on how to modify the cost of a stronghold based on proximity to towns/cities/other suppply centers and contains a sidebar walking you through the construction of a sample stronghold. What it does NOT contain are lists of components and costs... these are handled in later chapters. Chapter One is basically "here's how you use the rest of the book to create your stronghold." The sample stronghold was relevant and clear (except for the afore-mentioned androgynous character). A quick sidebar also notes that realism is not a good aim - because in real life, castles took about a century to build - use of magic in D&D speeds the process greatly, "because characters want to get a chance to actually enjoy their castle." Seems fair to me... I don't want my PC plunking down enormous sums of cash for a structure he will never use.

CHAPTER TWO: STRONGHOLD COMPONENTS
This is the meat of the book, taking up about half of the book. Here you will find lists of materials with Hardness, Hit Points, and Break DCs (Break DC is based on thickness). Here you find the various types of rooms you can install in your stronghold - from an Alchemist's Laboratory to a Bedroom to a Theatre to a Torture Chamber. (Also included is a sidebar encouraging the downplay of torture - basically "just roll the Intimidate Check and get on with it." This section also contains clusters - "groups" of rooms that frequently come together (e.g., a Tower and Guard Barracks) to save you the trouble of purchasing them separately (though you can if you want). This chapter also discusses hiring Staff members (like the cook, the resident Alchemicaly assistant, blacksmith, and so forth), Walls (and the possible magical enhancements), use of magic items, and Wondrous Architecture. In other words, this is the chapter where all the "building" happens and where you will find costs for everything you could possibly want for your stronghold. Of course, this was my favorite section, as it presents a lot of ideas for use of magic items - suggestions such as "since you can move up and down as well as side to side when ethereal, you might consider building a room 50 feet down in the ground with no windows and no doors if you have a means of going ethereal." The selection of enhancements for walls is not all-encompassing, but a great variety is given. The same goes for Wondrous Architecture; creative players will always be able to think up more things, but there is a great deal here to start from. In my mind, this is the best section in the book.

CHAPTER THREE: STRONGHOLDS IN YOUR CAMPAIGN
This section is more for the Dungeon Master than the PCs... it discusses placement of strongholds, how to attack them (and how to defend them), and gives lots of suggestions (though few hard and fast rules) for making strongholds feel "realistic." The comment that "a well-designed fortress can be just as memorable as the enemies within" is a very good reminder to DMs... players remember the Keep of Bone as much as they remember the Necromancer King. Most veteran DMs will find this section a little tired and simplistic (gee, you mean that a Teleport spell and Decanters of Endless Water make seiges almost impossible? Really?), but it is utilitarian and useful for newer DMs, so I don't begrudge its inclusion. I myself don't have a ton of need for it because I learned a lot about stronghold seiges many years ago in TSR products such as the Boxed Sets, but if I hadn't received that instruction then, I would be grateful to have it now.

CHAPTER FOUR: SAMPLE STRONGHOLDS
Just what it says - this runs the gauntlet from mundane ("the Cheap Keep," a very basic structure given over to the most spartan of needs ) to the fantastic ("The Citadel of the Planes", a luxurious structure that uses portals to span multiple planes of existence). These are good templates and starting points, and serve an oft-neglected purpose - showing us "how to do it" several different ways... think about it, wouldn't it have been nice for the Players' Handbook to show us six different fighters at 10th level with different sets of Feats and Skills (the archer, the tank, the swashbuckler, the master-of-all-weapons, the knight-on-horseback, and the samurai, for example)?

CONCLUSION:
This is a book made up of a great mix of "crunchy bits" and "idea seeds." You aren't just given ideas without the rules to implement them as sometimes happens in other supplements. On the other hand, you aren't just handed rules without suggestions on how to use them. There are numerous examples and explanations (very important) and the suggestions should help anyone from the greenest newbie to the most experience veteran (and let's face it, anytime we get new rules, we are all newbies as far as the ruleset goes... we may know a lot of theory about role-playing and campaign management, but it always takes time to learn the mechanical ins and outs of a new ruleset and that's what this is - a new set of rules for building strongholds). Of course I would have liked them to stuff more in here, but that would have upped the page count and I have to keep in mind the fact that you can fit only so much material into a given amount of space. Given the page count, I really didn't see a lot of room for improvement. The editing problems mentioned above and the pricetag dampened my enthusiasm a bit, so I can't give it a perfect score, but I think 4.6 out of 5 is about right.

It gets a 4 on ENWorld's reviews due to the lack of OGC and pricetag. If only the "stat block ideas" had been made OGC (allowing later publishers to use them), it would have gotten a 5. As it is, this makes this book incompatible with other professional publications not done by WotC, and therefore places limits on its utility. When I buy a sourcebook at this price, I would prefer to see it compatible with lots of future products.

--The Sigil
5/9/2002

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I also thought this was a good book, but my big gripe was the amazing
number of typos. Not just the male/female problem that Sigil mentioned
(I have to admit that one slipped by me) but the large number of
misspelled words, words that were simply left out, and misnumbered
diagrams. There was a paragraph in the section describing the floating
tower where a sentence trailed off into thin air. If I were the editor,
I would be embarrassed that this product made it to market like that.

I guess I expect a little more proofreading when I shell out money for
a professionally published book.

Chrispy

 

[Gez]

"because in real life, castles took about a century to build"

Do they actually say that ? Because it's false. Cathedrals took forever to build, because of all these scupltures, vitrals, paintings, etc. But military stronghold were built pretty quickly. You could have a large fortress done in less than 10 years. However, something true was that these places were nearly in continual work, as they were continually repaired (after a siege, be it lost of won) and upgraded. Some stronghold did not achieve their actual state after centuries -- but don't assume it was "unfinished" or "unusable" before.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

The main problem is that the "editor" is also a playtester. He lacks true editing skills. Besides the aforementioned errors there are also math errors in the Clusters section. For some they didn't add staff correctly, thus they don't have enough beds. Others, like the Dockside Inn, say they include a fancy kitchen (12,000 gp) but the total cluster cost is 12,500 gp. This should read basic kitchen.

I also have to agree about the cost of their books. I hate to say that I don't support my local gameshop but you can't beat $16.00 from Amazon.com. It’s the only way to buy WotC material.

As a whole, even with the errors, this is a decent book. I agree with the 4/5 stars. I didn’t leave this book thinking that something was missing, other than editing of course. I look forward to building my own stronghold and pray that my DM doesn’t buy this book.

So if your character or party is looking to own stronghold, city or other structure then you will want to grab this book off the shelf as quickly as you can.

Game on,
Azar

 

[sbwoodside]

A good book despite the errors noted by the others above. I'm getting some seriously evil ideas from reading this :-> I have only two problems with it: 1 - it presents some powers that seem to me way too good, although they are usually expensive enough to compensate (and I HATE portals anyway) and 2 - this is a biggie. they don't deal with how the standard castle will handle aerial attacks. I was really hoping they would.

Simon

 

[Arnwyn]

I had, and still have, mixed feelings about the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. How would a book that is so integral to any long-term campaign shape up, especially in the d20 system? Will it be full of details, or will it be a lazy attempt that will leave DMs wishing for more?

It turns out that it's a mixed bag, but with more good than bad points. (As a quick note, I am going to, at times, briefly compare this book with it's 2e incarnation, the "Castle Guide" - the only other book in D&D to detail how a stronghold is to be built.)

The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is 128 pages, looking much like the class books put out by WotC. The interior art is sparse, which at first seems good (more space for details and maps), but could also to be constued as being very dull, sparking nothing for the imagination. The 2e Castle Guide has a couple of very nice full-colour pictures of different strongholds. This is purely a matter of taste.

There are 4 chapters, with Chapter 2 being the longest.

Chapter 1: A brief step-by-step guide in building a stronghold, to be used with Chapter 2 (the actual components). Quick, to the point, and easy to follow. Useful tables cover subjects such as terrain the stronghold is being built on/in, and the distance from a major population center.

Chapter 2: The meat of the book, and a massive chapter. All the components (well, most - I'll talk about that later) you need to build a stronghold is found here, including size, price, and description. Examples include Stables, Alchemical Laboratories, Magical Laboratories, Libraries (including a spiffy rule set on how libraries enhance Knowledge skills), Common rooms, Kitchens, etc. Some sample floorplans for some components are included.

Also included is a full list of NPCs along with monthly wages - and more detailed than the hireling section in the DMG.

Further in the chapter are full statistics for walls (hardness, hps, break DC, etc) along with costs for different types (masonry, iron, mithral, bone, etc).

Finally in this chapter is the section worth the price of the book on it's own: magical enhancements ("Wondrous Architecture"). This book (FINALLY!) gives full details how to add magical effects to the walls, rooms, etc of your stronghold (it's based on the Craft Wondrous Item feat). You can now mimic a tower that all those insane wizards insist on building - and have the full rules to do so! No more DM headaches.

Chapter 3: This chapter is the least useful in the book. It gives basic "ideas" about what to consider when building a stronghold, who to hire, and the like. It's designed much like portions of the class books - the audience seems to be those who wouldn't know an RPG from a hole in their head, and like to use the phrase "KEWL DOOD". There is a bit of hope in this chapter, though, with a brief section on the mechanics of attacking a fortress. Very useful, but woefully incomplete.

Chapter 4: The final chapter details and maps four different strongholds. They can easily be dropped in any campaign.

The good:
Anything that details a complicated subject like stronghold-building is appreciated. This book will save a lot of DMs from jumping out the nearest window when a PC declares he/she is going to build a stronghold. Further, the details on the wondrous architecture is incredibly useful. Not only can you build a castle, but full rules for building *any* sort of structure - including dungeons. Yes - with this book you can actually grab a dungeon you created and ran years ago and determine what it would have actually cost to build. That's slick.

The not-so-good:
Now the mixed feelings. I consider this book "a valiant yet flawed attempt". There are large portions that should be hacked right out, and replaced with more valuable material. The rules for attacking a fortress were decent, but lacked detail. The 2e Castle Guide had a great section on rules for mining/sapping (digging under the walls), building trenches, etc. This book? Pretty much nothing. The 2e Castle Guide also had a great little section (and table) on events that could occur when building a stronghold. Nothing here. (And on a related gripe: no sieging or mass-combat rules. *sigh* I guess it really is Chainmail for us.)

Another problem is that some of the wondrous architecture is (3e parrot term - get ready "broken". Some items seem to be priced far too low. For example, to create a permanent magic-dead area (non-dispellable!) of 400 square feet (or, in actuality, 4000 cubic feet), costs only 66,000 gp. In stronghold terms - this ain't much - especially when some stronhold prices are going far in excess of 2.8 million gp. [DMs - get yer fixin' pencils ready!)

Finally, putting together the stronghold components isn't cut and dry. How they are put together, the costs for building up and down, and what's included in the price and not included in the price isn't always clear. Reading Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2 a couple of times may be necessary. There's still a lot of work to be down when getting the final design - time will be involved, so expect a gaming session (4 hours or so) to cover all the details properly. DM SUPERVISION ADVISED!

The end result, though, is that it's better to own this book than to not own it. Even if a stronghold isn't part of the future plans of PCs, many components of this book can give DMs ideas on what to put into the villains' strongholds, and even much of the wondrous architecture can be slammed into any dungeon.

An average book if I ever saw one.

 

[krbrunn]

I've been interested in building a stronghold when playing D&D ever since I started playing back in the days of 2nd edition. The thought of a mage holed up in his tower, researching new spells, or a great warlord watching over his serfs from a vast castle have always appealed to me, but I never had the know how of how to make one. And now I have a book that makes it easy to do everything I have always wanted to do.

Chapter One takes you through all the determining steps one must take in order to build a stronghold, including location, stronghold size, and time of construction. Everything is laid out nicely, and is easy to read.

Chapter Two has a listing of all sorts of different rooms that you can build, with set costs, which makes it rather easy to create a building. If you want a fancy room, just check out the price, drop it in, and you are good to go. Also, no rooms have a set size, just an average, so you can make it smaller or larger to suit your needs, though for larger increases you are required to purchase the same building twice. The system is nice and flexible.

Also in chapter 2 there is a section for using existing magic items in new and different ways. My personal favorite was the alternate use of a Bag of Devouring for a waste disposal system in a kitchen or bathroom.

But the best of chapter 2 is the section on new wondrous architecture, which are basically stationary magical items. There are some really impressive ideas in here, and each item has a price as well as what spells are needed to create them, just as normal magic items have.

Chapter 3 is all about how strongholds fit into your campaign. There is discussion of taking over strongholds as well as refurbishing them or razing them to the ground. Not much in the way of rules in here, just ideas to think about.

Chapter 4 has 5 example strongholds, from the mundane "Cheap Keep" to the very interesting "Citadel of the Planes" that is basically 10 strongholds spread out over the various planes, connected by portals. All are nicely described, and have the price they took to create. The Cheap Keep costs only 70,000 GP, while the Citadel costs 2.6 million.

All in all this book is exactly what I was looking for, rules for building fortresses. My only gripe about the book is the poor editing throughout. It's not that the book is riddled with errors, it's just that when they appear they are very jarring. And none are more jarring than the appearance of the gender bending Iconic builder by the name of Karlerren, the female turned male, gender swapping wizard. How that error managed to sneak through editing is beyond me.

Also a down point for the book is that there is absolutely no Open Gaming Content in it, so there is no standard to use when creating new Wondrous Architecture. But that's a rather small problem.

I give this book 4 out of 5 when not taking into account the editing errors. With them, I give this book a 3.5

 

[Archer]

If you already have older stronghold guidebooks, S&F or QSF is this product worth getting? What is the ratio of new to recycled material?

 

[krbrunn]

I don't have those other products to compare with, so I can't say.

The listed sources are the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Manual of the Planes, and the Arms and Equipment Guide.