Stronghold building - Do you do this?

[jasper]

Imc the group has taken over a stronghold and rebuilt. I use the map of the stronghold from the village of hommlet/temple of elemental evil. They first bought around third level. They again bought around seventh. First time the baron who sold it to them did not have rights to land. (the group occasionally think of revenge). They are trying to secure now from a former party member who is now a vampire. And their population is growing. They are eigth to tenth level now.
They are also thinking of securing another castle (copy of Strahd's). However since they torn half down while getting rid of a necromancer, and killing off a half of dwarven workers, the deal is has gone sour.
One good thing about strongholds are they are money pits.

 

[d20Dwarf]

My old group was more interested in building businesses than building strongholds. Maybe it was our modern paradigm sneaking into the gaming. We especially enjoyed opening up weapon shops....do you realize how many weapons you acquire while adventuring?! Pure gold!

 

[Altalazar]

My old group was more interested in building businesses than building strongholds. Maybe it was our modern paradigm sneaking into the gaming. We especially enjoyed opening up weapon shops....do you realize how many weapons you acquire while adventuring?! Pure gold!

That is an interesting idea - the perils of running a business in a fantasy world are fascinating to explore. I tried that on a limited basis with my "Merchant" character who bought raw gems, cut them himself, and then sold them, travelling such that he was able to make a profit not only on his cutting, but on the relative scarcity of certain gems in certain areas. (He was a psionicist in 2E).

I wonder how many others have actually tried to run businesses in-game.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Well, back in 2E days, I was involved in a FR campaign that had been ongoing for several years when I joined. Luckily, with the unbalanced XP of 2E, I was able to get up to level 8 or 9 by the time the higher level PCs in the group were a level above me.

But, we had just saved Silverymoon from some sort of great menace and Lady Alustrial (sp?) awarded the head PC in our group some land in the corner of her kingdom as a Barony, with the rest of us being knights. “We have some land in a swamp for you, uh, I mean, next to a swamp, right across the river from the lovely Trollmoors, which are particularly fetid at this time of year…”

We decided to all pitch in and build a castle for ourselves and hopefully attract a lot of followers. Unfortunately, the campaign bogged down and we never got too far into building…and, I think we got interrupted by a dragon or something… but, we had all the plans laid out, hired some builders (including some dwarves & gnomes to build it quicker) and some security in case we went out adventuring, etc. It was actually fun to have a ‘castle planning & building’ session one night.

 

[kigmatzomat]

My old group was more interested in building businesses than building strongholds. Maybe it was our modern paradigm sneaking into the gaming. We especially enjoyed opening up weapon shops....do you realize how many weapons you acquire while adventuring?! Pure gold!

My players have "adopted" a stronghold via an ally (undead paladin - long story) and send most of their non-magical weapons and armor to him these days. It is an amazing thing how much gear you need to fully equip a dilapidated micro-fortress. Every now adn then they think about the chain-mail shaped gold sitting on the armor racks and then remember that there may come a day when they need to equip dozens, if not hundreds, of people in a hurry.

As to the buying and selling, my players go to two annual fairs to sell off loot. They pay the license fees and taxes, have display cases & pavilion tents in storage, and still realize they make more money than if they were selling to middlemen. Having a high level bard doing the negotiating doesn't hurt either.

They have started investing in bulk. Last session we realized there is over 100,000gp in purely cash-generating trade ventures and about 20,000gp in loans to cities and organizations. The rogue invested nearly 30,000gp because he decided he wanted to save up for some big ticket items and wanted the money to 'work' for him in the meantime.

Given the general 1gp=$100 equivalence in my world economy, they aren't greatly impacting the economy ($10M in investments) but they have entered the point of being considered "wealthy investors." And since they've made a few loans to towns they are philanthropists too.

Of course, I've made a point of "paying" them for some adventures with minor non-hereditary titles that exempt them from nuisance taxes and small personal properties. I didn't want to deal with them applying taxes or having to be responsible for things yet.

They are preparing to build their own stronghold as one of their conditions for providing a low-interest 15,000gp loan to a town for wall-upgrades was that they could construct a bastion attached to the wall for their own uses.

 

[Telperion]

I'm starting a new campaing, Scarred Lands campaign setting, that has a political background/campaign plot. So the players actually start out with level 6 characters and a grand mansion. So, basically they are sitting on over 200'000 gp at the beginning of the game. I'm looking forward to seeing how many of them just vote for selling their patents of nobility and the grand manor fairly soon after the game starts. They would certainly get a whole lot of money for it

As far as actual strongholds go I have never really seen a character build anything even resembling a stationary base from which to operate. The only exception was a castle in a campaign that was so over the top that I simply laughed (as a player) when the DM introduced us to our new "home". It could fly, it had its own backyard, multi-leveled, pocket dimension, immense space and it was constructed in a way that when the first enemy actually bothered to knock on its walls they could have conquered it in less time than it takes to blink your eyes. Of course the DM covered this "minor" weakness with tons of warding spells and other guardians.

 

[Jolly Giant]

My gang of players always like to establish some sort of "base"... An inn, a guild, a shop, a church or a stronghold.

In one campaign they adopted a defeated enemy's dungeon stronghold for their own, while at the same time two of them ran a magic shop together, one had a pub/fight-pit and the forth similtaniously established an inn and an archers guild...

In my longest-running campaign, where the PCs started out as pirates, they are now traveling/living in a gigantic flying ship that planeshifts 1/day. At the same time they've got a small demiplane of their own and they're trying to found a village in the Outlands.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Unfortunately, the campaign bogged down.

Haha! Bogged down! In the Trollmoors!

 

[DaveStebbins]

The PCs in my current campaign (currently on hiatus while we play through some one-offs) moved into a manor-house in the wilderness which they cleaned out when they were second level or so. We rotate DMs and one of them loves messing with the manor in different ways, usually as plot hooks. We mostly just use it as a base for character down-time.

Over the years I've played this has not been a very frequent occurance. In the old AD&D days, PCs in games I was in didn't really think about homes or businesses that much before the name-level stronghold requirements. Probably a dynamic of the groups I was in more than a real trend.

-Dave
"Laugha while you can monkeyboy." --Dr. Emilio Lizardo

 

[Kichwas]

Unless the characters in my game had been granted specific lands, noble titles, and the rights to field armed men by the local nobility building a stronghold would result in them having a hostile army camped at their doorstep as soon as said local elites learned of their plans.

The PC's are commoners - freemen, but no more. Two have loose connections to minor baronets and barons, but no more than that.

While gentry can be earned, patriciate gained, peerage cannot - it is a right of birth.