My Cleric wants to build a town

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of. What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

Halp please.

There's some stuff in the Kingmaker material.

Does he absolutely require written, published, and purchased material from Paizo? Or will he accept something less official? If he will only take published material, I recommend the second and third Kingmaker books.

But the easy and cheap way to do this would be to sit down with your DM and tell him what you want. Then, he tells you how much of that you can get and what it will cost you.

What kind of a town do you want? It looks like you have the resources to build an impressive location, and really tailor it to your needs.

Kingmaker ap has city/town/kingdom building rules. Work pretty well and are fun to use.

Kingmaker ap has city/town/kingdom building rules. Work pretty well and are fun to use.

Number 32: Rivers Run Red

Greatly appreciate the help guys! I'll take a look at the 2nd and 3rd kingmaker books.

@Lyrax, I'd love the idea of sitting down and telling him what I want to do. If I don't have it written out pretty clearly with specifics it's most likely i'll be screwed over. Also if I don't have numbers to work with there's a more than likely chance it'll be "You get three huts of mud for 100,000 gold. Thank you come again."

Yow. That sounds... adversarial. Good luck!

You only need the second book. All the rules are in there.

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of. What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

Halp please.

Level and Domains please, do you have building skills or feats? How about your followers, how many of them have carpentry/masonry skills? what is a general statement on their magical abilities?

Zenyu wrote:

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of. What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

Halp please.

Level and Domains please, do you have building skills or feats? How about your followers, how many of them have carpentry/masonry skills? what is a general statement on their magical abilities?

7cleric 7 holy vindicator(Healing and Rune domains). 12th level cohort (Still deciding on what it is)As far as my followers go, I have yet to decide on what most of them are. I figure as I plan out my town and draw it up I will decide on what %'s of them are. My cleric has a Profession of carpentry and masonry of totals of +20. As far as access to magic there's a 15th level wizard in the group who has become very attached to my paladin. Also I have access to a plane traveling city which has up to 25th level casting divine/arcane.

We have a group of rotating DM's and this is an off period for one of the sessions where we write up what we want to do during this time. I decided after falling away from a god and having an a major dispute with a large nation and a god that I would begin to create my own civilization to work out of. Also in the future I am hoping that my followers will become those who worship me on the track to become immortal/a demigod (Waiting on DM approval for being a god. But immortality is definitely within reach)

thomas nelson wrote:

Zenyu wrote:

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of. What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

Halp please.

Level and Domains please, do you have building skills or feats? How about your followers, how many of them have carpentry/masonry skills? what is a general statement on their magical abilities?

7cleric 7 holy vindicator(Healing and Rune domains). 12th level cohort (Still deciding on what it is)As far as my followers go, I have yet to decide on what most of them are. I figure as I plan out my town and draw it up I will decide on what %'s of them are. My cleric has a Profession of carpentry and masonry of totals of +20. As far as access to magic there's a 15th level wizard in the group who has become very attached to my paladin. Also I have access to a plane traveling city which has up to 25th level casting divine/arcane.

We have a group of rotating DM's and this is an off period for one of the sessions where we write up what we want to do during this time. I decided after falling away from a god and having an a major dispute with a large nation and a god that I would begin to create my own civilization to work out of. Also in the future I am hoping that my followers will become those who worship me on the track to become immortal/a demigod (Waiting on DM approval for being a god. But immortality is definitely within reach)

Ok Cool, lets get into this beoch.

Mending - Tools get broke, so do work clothes, use this to lower expenses.
Guidance - walk around your site and bless your workers, it improves moral and slightly improves productivity.
Arcane mark - More of a role playing thing but you can have important domiciles, documents and other things marked with a arcane mark.
Prestidigitation - mostly for clean up but it has its uses.
Unseen Servant - for ugly/redundant jobs (dig up all the stones in this field, cut down those trees, scrub that sewer clean!)
Ant haul - Moving big rocks is sort of important here
Alarm - Used with craft misc magic item to make stones of alarm, somewhat valuable.
Floating disk - similar to a construction crane
Crafter's fortune - very useful, very long lasting.
Enlarge person - combine with ant haul for astounding lifting power.
Expeditious Excavation - Digging is a large part of construction.
Arcane Lock - make everything you need or want locked more secure.
Continual flame - make permanent street lights, cheaper than torches and candles in the long run.
Make Whole - If you botch and break a building you can fix it and try again.
Ancestral Communion - +4 to Knowledge architecture/engineering.
Stone Shape - have your strongest-enlarged-ant-carrying minions bring you boulders and shape them according to your needs.
Shrink item - shrink that boulder or tree trunk, carry it in your pocket regrow it so you can shape it.
Illusory Wall - Hide secret doors and trap doors or just make a wall look better.
Animate Dead - what the unseen servants do, only creepier.
Hallow - Not just for your place of worship but for your battlements and barracks as well.
Wall of Stone - Simply put the most important spell in this selection, use it to make sewers, basements and building foundations long before making actual buildings with it as the stone is unattractive but this spell is the most important arrow in your quiver.
Fabricate - Use this for important detail work, turn a pile of gravel into a stone block, a pile of wood chips into planks, broken bottles into window glass etc. Be warned if you use this spell for mundane tasks you could find yourself with a major labor dispute.
Permanency - there are so many spells it is useful to have made permanent, good spell for allot of reasons.
Guards and wards - Scroll it and keep it in your citadel.
Wall of Iron - If your GM will let you use it to make a cage wall that covers 4x the area of a wall of stone then use it to make a reinforced stone wall, otherwise it is limited because it will rust.
Control Water - understand aqueducts? have the craft misc item spell? Create decanters of endless water and make fountains in your city, just make sure the water created drains back to where it came from.
Hardening - Strengthen your town's weak points.
Move Earth - the second most valuable spell in your quiver, towns are more defensible on top of flat hills, so make one, dig your entire sewer system in one day (many more days to line it with stone but who is counting) just make sure to ward your town against move earth after you are don so someone does not tear your town up later.
Control Weather - Moderate terrible weather and help your crops.
Giant Form I - Like enlarge, only more so.
Limited Wish - lots of uses really.
Polymorph Any Object - Turn your ugly grey walls into beautiful marble walls, turn your walls of iron into walls of brass or some other not rusting metal, turn straw huts into stone and wooden mansions, turn rats into livestock and so on and so on and so on.
Wish - "I wish I have a town that would comfortably house my followers and their families."
From the Druid list:
Wood Shape - like stone shape, has its uses.
Plant Growth - regrow forests you have cut down and feed your people better, very useful background spell.
Transmute mud to rock - Use wall of stone to build a giant stone holding tank and then fill it with mud and rocks, then cast this spell, viola! instant wall.

Important feats:
Skill focus: craft or profession, self explanatory, but not that useful on this scale.
Leadership: Congrats you have dozens to hundreds of people who can work, now how many of them are actually skilled?
Craft magic item: Very important, you can create magically reinforced walls and magical tools that help your town a great deal, important buildings can be made nigh invulnerable with this feat.

Important Items:
Lyre of building: If you use this to do everyday work trade guilds will gang up and murder you, use it to repair damage and do work that is unsafe for your workers or tedious. Replant a forest after you have paid people to cut it down, pull in a harvest in an emergency, go to a monster infested quarry and load all of your teamsters carts in minutes, dig out a collapsed mine in time to save the miners trapped withing, but for gods sakes don't do mundane tasks with this item or you will kill your economy and get killed.

Decanter of endless water: All the fresh water you need wherever you are.

Mattock of the Titans: if you can get someone big enough they can do all the digging you need quickly, but this may cause the same problem the lyre causes.

Sovereign Glue: To attach one thing to another, it has its uses.

Stone of Alarm: Security measure for your store rooms.

Lord's Banner of Victory: expensive but gives everyone who can see it a +2 to all skill checks, build your tower first and hang it up.

I also recommend masterwork tools for all of your workers (have them arcane marked so people believe they are warded against theft.)

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of. What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

Halp please.

Lyre of building? You'll want to be able to tap a DC 18 perform check. If you look at a 16CHA (+2 headband 14base) NPC expert with skill focus perform, a circlet of persuasion, trained, realizing the lyre is masterwork, under a guidance spell, with 2 ranks then even a 1 will hit DC 18. That's assuming that for some reason your DM will give you flak on taking 10. Assuming that, then use this level 2 expert (level 3 if he gives you trouble on guidance).

Once a week he should be able to play until his fingers bleed. Keep him cured and lesser restored. The amount of work that he alone can do here will be staggering. Essentially you should be able to get all the manual labor done with this alone. Give him ranks in architecture and crafts for kicks.

Wall of stone should give you a great deal of materials. Fabricate if you really need to as well.

Other spells like move earth, disintegrate and the like can be useful, as would bringing in earth elementals via planar ally spells.

Basically making the buildings should be *very* easy for you. Getting raw materials and other logistics perhaps less so.

You'll likely also want to spring for a decanter of endless water (pun intended) for a water source for your town.

So far I've used your town crier and 30.5k gold.

The biggest part of the work will be figuring out all that you need to have a running and functional town.

-James

Kind of reminds me of a setting in my gameworld. The catfolk kingdoms wanted to avoid being overrun by the human warlords. So they built a 50 foot high wall of ensorceled stone on the earth plane with earth elementals, enchanted it, and then gated it to the real world overnight. So the warlords scouts reported that the catfolk swamps were unprotected. Three months later when the army showed up, there was a 50 foot high enchanted wall covered with archers along the entire 50 miles of the swamps border.

Not a happy warlord at all. The scouts were left on pikes when the warlord retreated.

So to start build my plan. I am going to gather a good majority of my skilled followers. Still deciding on who's going to be skilled at what and the %'s on that. Next obtain tons of resources (Stone, wood, iron, ect) Use lyre of building to create a whole in the ground and insert decanter of endless water for water. Next begin strumming to create buildings with Lyre. While the strumming is happening to create the buildings I'll create a wall for a parameter.( I'm thinking something like Helms deep maybe?)

Home base is now kind of set up! Next begin to work on the food situation, I don't plan on building a government/economic system until everything is set up and the town is self sufficient.

So far I'll have Shelter, Water, and some security.
How can I begin to feed those working on the town? Do I have to buy tons of rations or what?

Next crops will need to start to exist, and cattle will need to be brought in. Should I buy them from other towns? Should I have people dedicated to obtaining and tracking down wild cattle? (Ideas please)

What else am I missing? Once the town is done being built and set up I intend on putting away the Lyre for intensive uses. Or give it to the "City Worker's" guild.

So far I'll have Shelter, Water, and some security.
How can I begin to feed those working on the town? Do I have to buy tons of rations or what?

You'll need healers, either clerics or adepts. Either way, have about 30 or so of them, and have them memorize Purify Food & Water, as well as Create Food and Water every day. You can use them as a force multiplier on your food supplies. You don't want to do rations if you can help it, they work, but nobody likes eating MRE's day in and day out. You can do it if you have to. The best way to do it would be to buy foods that can be stored (beans, flour, pasta if it's existent, dried things). The clerics/adepts can create food/water at the end of the day for evenign meals if they haven't convered to healing spells by that time to conserve food. Make sure you get 3-4 different gods followers though, if you want to keep a diverse work force happy, but gods who can get along (like all good or all good neutral neutral nuetral, etc).

Next crops will need to start to exist, and cattle will need to be brought in. Should I buy them from other towns? Should I have people dedicated to obtaining and tracking down wild cattle? (Ideas please)

Unfortunately, crops while needed, will take a year to produce your first crops. You'll need food to tide over for the winter. You don't want cattle at first. They take too much water and feed. You're better off with sheep and goats, their food needs can be handled by wild grasses and leaves. Goats especially, plus you can get dairy from goats as well. Cattle are really expensive. If it's mild winters, it's even better. Pigs are another good one, as they can live off slop from human leftovers and are very hardy.

You can have some rangers/experts who hunt the surrounding wilderness through the first winter, but you have to be careful not to hunt out the area, that's a good way to cause rat over populations (overhunting usually makes predators move out, and vermin overbreed).

Don't bring in cattle until you've had about 5 years of stable harvests. If the world has the equivalent of buffalo, use them instead. They eat anything like goats, grow very big on it, have lots of fat for rendering (they store fat differntly than a cow, so it's all under the skin, easy to extract and not in the meat). Their hides are big and have lots of uses. Honestly Buffalo are much better source of meat and other uses than cattle.

What else am I missing? Once the town is done being built and set up I intend on putting away the Lyre for intensive uses. Or give it to the "City Worker's" guild.

You need to set up a legal system first, all these people working together will have problems. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but someone needs to make decisions, and those decisions need to be written down so everyone knows what happens when A B or C happens. You'll need rules on such things as prostitution, drugs, food rationing, etc.

You'll also need schools (people work hard, they want to have fun, that leads to kids) although that is often taken care of by temples (see the clerics from the food entry). So that's probably self taking care of.

You need tanners, glass makers, cobblers, clothiers, smiths, etc. You really need to be careful about where you set up the town. If there's no nearby source of ore for metal, then that's something that has to be imported forever. Same of lumber.

So to start build my plan. I am going to gather a good majority of my skilled followers. Still deciding on who's going to be skilled at what and the %'s on that. Next obtain tons of resources (Stone, wood, iron, ect) Use lyre of building to create a whole in the ground and insert decanter of endless water for water. Next begin strumming to create buildings with Lyre. While the strumming is happening to create the buildings I'll create a wall for a parameter.( I'm thinking something like Helms deep maybe?)

Don't come crying to me when the carpenter and mason guilds pay someone to break your kneecaps for you.

Home base is now kind of set up! Next begin to work on the food situation, I don't plan on building a government/economic system until everything is set up and the town is self sufficient.

For the people sworn to you you set up a kitchen with a a few commoners or experts with the skill Profession chef then pay him 3 silver a day, pay 1/3 the cost of good meals for ingredients and your cooks will craft enough food for your people. Make sure a Brew house is like the first building you make, Ale can be made in 2 weeks, good ale can be made in four, it will be running full time but it will keep your people motivated. Don't try to feed your people created with the create food spell unless you are punishing them.

So far I'll have Shelter, Water, and some security.

How can I begin to feed those working on the town? Do I have to buy tons of rations or what?
Next crops will need to start to exist, and cattle will need to be brought in. Should I buy them from other towns? Should I have people dedicated to obtaining and tracking down wild cattle? (Ideas please)

Parcel out lots outside of town that have farming land, buy your people farm animals and tools, in a year they should be providing you with food. Control weather and Plant Growth are really good for this.

What else am I missing? Once the town is done being built and set up I intend on putting away the Lyre for intensive uses. Or give it to the "City Worker's" guild.

Put some of your gold reserves into stockpiles of iron, good quality wood and leather, if you need it you can fabricate tools, armor and weapons in an emergency, otherwise you can liquidate it fairly quickly into more liquid assets. Try and get a idea of what natural resources are in your area and find a way to responsibly exploit them. Have one of your people train ravens to fly messages to nearby civilizations and military outposts, set up the various trades that keep your town going, preferably at least two of each so they have to compete.

You'll need healers, either clerics or adepts. Either way, have about 30 or so of them, and have them memorize Purify Food & Water, as well as Create Food and Water every day. You can use them as a force multiplier on your food supplies.

Imagine if you where only served a block of white tofu, a vitamin pill and a gallon jug of water every day. How long would it be before you said screw this and found an employer who understood your gastronomical needs?

The hero in question is 12th level and is building a town out of his followers. As long he doesn't feed them all from a hundred copies of Murlynd's Spoon, he should be fine. Also, I'd like to see the non-existent guilds of the town he is building come after a twelfth-level character.

The kitchen is a good idea, though Create Food & Water is excellent as a backup, since sometimes Plan A fails.

mdt wrote:

You'll need healers, either clerics or adepts. Either way, have about 30 or so of them, and have them memorize Purify Food & Water, as well as Create Food and Water every day. You can use them as a force multiplier on your food supplies.

Imagine if you where only served a block of white tofu, a vitamin pill and a gallon jug of water every day. How long would it be before you said screw this and found an employer who understood your gastronomical needs?

I believe I said that exact thing several times in the post, and suggested stockpiling food that would keep? The using create food/water was to help stretch out the food reserves.

Unless you were just agreeing with me in a way I didn't understand.

Basically I am pointing out that feeding people power bars and water and taking away employment opportunities is not going to engender loyalty among the people who will live in your town. Create food and water is for people who have no other options, its not real food.

First things first...

If you DM is the sort of guy who is likely to look at something just to screw you over, then just spend that 90 of the 100K on yourself, thank your followers for their service, give them the remaining 10k as a payout (so he doesnt use them against you) and put them under one of your faiths other leaders and walk away.

Seriously, if its that sort of GM and relationship just tell him blunt that while you are willing to put some thought into this, you arent gonna waste your time if he's just gonna take 5 minutes to screw you over... "Yeah, they get Plague and spread it to other cities... and now the king wants to kill you - sucks to be you" would just drive me to walk out the door and never play again, so get it straight with the GM first.

That said, assuming your GM isnt a Douche, then it also helps to get some buy in from the local Church and Rulers - you generally need permission to build a town, and especially if you fortify it and arm it. Assuming you get permission? Happy days... now you can ask the Rulers and the Church if they have anyone for the great settler movement, and those 200 settlers of yours will likely come with families too.

Potentially you are looking at a small city (1000 people) if you count a transient worker population.

Is the DM going to give you carte blanche on what items you want? Check it now before you make assumptions. It would suck big time if your plan revolves around having 2 flasks of neverending water to provide water power, drinking water and clean your sewers only to have them say "Nah, none for sale".

Other than that the other posters have given some NICE info. I'd avoid the Lyre of Building too - sounds like something the GM could use against you. Having low level casters around (including Bards) would be a good and beneficial idea.

One note:

Lyre of building replicates 100 humans working for three days per half hour of playing, as no other data is given I am going to assume no masterwork modifiers or skill focus feats I am assuming level one commoner with a single skill rank.

1 skill rank plus class skill = 4

one human taking ten on a class skill = 14

crafting results 100 humans taking ten on profession/craft skill 1400 gold of work per hour.

If I was a bard or expert with a lyre of building 700 gold/hour would be a fair price to pay for my services. Probably with a bonus for every hour after the first to reflect the difficulty of work after the first hour (probably time an a half until the fourth hour then double time.)

Basically I am pointing out that feeding people power bars and water and taking away employment opportunities is not going to engender loyalty among the people who will live in your town. Create food and water is for people who have no other options, its not real food.

I think I said that several times, so I guess you were just agreeing with me then. It sounded like you were arguing against what I said.

As to the 'taking away employment', that's a mixed bag, and it depends on the setup. If he's building the town initially for his 200 followers, they aren't going to be upset about him taking employment away from them. They'll be much happier to have the town buildings built and walls up to defend from predators first, and worry about making the normal livings afterwards. Nobody wants to camp out with their family for 6 months with no homes/outhouses/defenses if they can help it. Plus, he gets to pick his followers, so maybe none or few of them are builders.

In general, you didn't get towns being made whole cloth, they were built a few homes at a time, and eventually walls were made when there were enough people to make it feasable.

This is more like a military garrison being built for war time, quick up and down. In that situation, you'd bring in a passle of people from out of town, have them build the city and walls in a month, and then send most of them away. And most of them would be army grunts.

If he's building a new city, I'm assuming he's building it in unclaimed or unoccupied lands. Otherwise, the next city over is going to be upset about them taking part of their territory. If it's unclaimed/unpopulated, then it's probably dangerous (or someone would have been here sooner), so again, nobody to complain about him building the wall with magic and the buildings with a lyre.

As to the 700gp per hour for the lyrist, again, it's a cohort or follower, so... yeah, no big deal there. He buys the lyre (it's his equipment) and the bard plays it for a few days to get the basic buildings up. After that, actual workers do the details and get things more comfy.

As to the 700gp per hour for the lyrist, again, it's a cohort or follower, so... yeah, no big deal there. He buys the lyre (it's his equipment) and the bard plays it for a...

I gotta say one great thing for the lyre to do would either to be to dig their sewer system (low DC required for ditch digging) or pave the streets... I am not sure if it creates the materials itself either or if they need to be on hand.

Why paved streets? most frontier places were just a collection of houses and small shops until it needed to be otherwise... then it rained and got swampy, which no one likes.

Paved streets inside the town, and heck maybe even far as 5-10 miles down the road (ala roman style roads) would be a huge draw to bring in new commerce.

As for one thing that seems to be forgotten... Farms. They need be built too unless the people in town want to walk out to work every day.

As an incentive to get new farmers in, build the first 20 basic homesteads (2 room simple with fireplace) and have a lottery for the towns folk. Every day of work they put in in the initial farms, they get one chance in the lottery for one of those farm houses.

Again I do need to echo some other posters... not sure if work guilds exist and not sure how much power they have but if you do it early and fast before the town gets any sort of reputation and then stop once you got the basics in - citing immediete need etc, and making a payment to certain people - you should avoid some painful conversations.

One thing I always find funny is conversations on labour costs in fantasy worlds. Slavery is not always verboten in some worlds and when wizards can conjure up their own workers, materisls, heck... finished structures even, its a bit of a giggle.

Another reason I prefer low magic - low level games.

One note:

Lyre of building replicates 100 humans working for three days per half hour of playing, as no other data is given I am going to assume no masterwork modifiers or skill focus feats I am assuming level one commoner with a single skill rank.

I'm sorry why are you assuming this?

First of all as a magical item the lyre needs to be masterwork quality to be enchanted.

Secondly I was suggesting that one of his followers be an expert with skill focus in perform: lyre, but honestly it need not be if he can take 10 as I detailed out in a prior post. Perhaps check that out as it seems a reasonable set of assumptions.

Third as the cleric is supplying the lyre I don't see spending that kind of cash to have someone play. Take a look at what money can be made with a DC 20ish perform check...

-James

@Helaman

Good suggestion on the paved roads. And the farmsteads.

I guess my assumption is this,

He's building a town big enough for about 1500 people. I get this as 200 followers, each married with 2 kids (800 people or so), and room to expand the city by double before they have to look at building stuff outside the walls (other than farms).

Now, in general, if we assume we need farms to feed, we're looking at about half the population outside the town, and half in. So the town needs to be able to hold about 700 people, but start off with about 350. That includes kids and such. Each house should hold a family at minimum. So... 700/4 around 175 houses. That's actually quite a big city. However, if we assume there will be apartment type setups, two story dwellings and such, that drops significantly. So, a single block might have a two story building with a commons area in the center with cooking pits and tables to eat off of (thinking a big square in the center of a building). The building could have apartments, each apartment consisting of 1 common room and 2 small bedrooms and a small kitchen. Probably four to a side, two stories high is 8 to a side. Four sides is 32 dwellings. I'd say 5 of those (160 dwellings), and then a few dozen single family homes, and a couple of bigger houses for people with money would do it. Then add in a city admin buildings, stores, etc, and you're done. You could get away with a city that's relatively small but close knit.

You could get away with a city that's relatively small but close knit.

If I recall from childhood there was a book about Roman city design simply called 'City' this might have a few nice ideas for him to take from as well.

-James

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat.

I'm curious, what's your leadership score?

Maxed out all I see it giving is 163 and that's at a 25. At 14th level, with stronghold (cart before the horse here) and great renown that's a 24CHA which seems a tad high to me.

Now your highest level followers at the 25 leadership score would be 2 5th level and 2 6th level NPCs. If these are all clerics then with 16WIS scores for all 4 of them, they could have 2 or 3 3rd level non-domain spells available. Thus they could, by taking all of their spells as create food feed 2x5x2x3+2x6x3x3=60+108=168 people. Now giving them a staff of create food and water could let them recharge this staff each day to increase that by 2x3x3+2x2x3=18+12=30 more people. This comes close to your 200 number, that's assuming a CL8 staff and you could get a higher CL one made to increase this.

Also the community (Family) domain has create food and water as a domain spell which would let them feed another 2x5x3+2x6x3=30+36=66 more people, but I'm not sure if you want clerics of another faith in your town.

How is the surrounding countryside as far as danger/farming goes?

-James

Zenyu wrote:

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat.

I'm curious, what's your leadership score?

Maxed out all I see it giving is 163 and that's at a 25. At 14th level, with stronghold (cart before the horse here) and great renown that's a 24CHA which seems a tad high to me.
-James

Actually, not all that bad.

Renown +2
Fairness +1
Special Power +1 (Assuming he's gotten some artifact, that would count)
Stronghold +2 (I'd give him credit for it, if he's announcing he's building a city, that would attract new followers)

That's +6

25 - 6 = 19

19 - 14 (level) = 5

So a 20 Cha would work. And that's doable without even worrying about a headband, just base stats and level bonuses.

thomas nelson wrote:

One note:

Lyre of building replicates 100 humans working for three days per half hour of playing, as no other data is given I am going to assume no masterwork modifiers or skill focus feats I am assuming level one commoner with a single skill rank.

I'm sorry why are you assuming this?

Because no other data is given.

First of all as a magical item the lyre needs to be masterwork quality to be enchanted.

So its +2 to play.

Secondly I was suggesting that one of his followers be an expert with skill focus in perform: lyre, but honestly it need not be if he can take 10 as I detailed out in a prior post. Perhaps check that out as it seems a reasonable set of assumptions.

Third as the cleric is supplying the lyre I don't see spending that kind of cash to have someone play. Take a look at what money can be made with a DC 20ish perform check...

-James

Most DC 20ish perform checks don't create buildings or farm fields, that is an apples to oranges comparison. I was trying to come up with a value for what an hour of playing a lyre of building produces based entirely on what the available text said.

The effect produced in 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for 3 days.

One rank and a class skill bonus may have been an excessive assumption, one can also assume they have no ranks and no penalties and that taking ten at a craft check nets them 1000 GP of construction/labor per hour and could be worth 500 GP per hour of playing.

One rank and a class skill bonus may have been an excessive assumption, one can also assume they have no ranks and no penalties and that taking ten at a craft check nets them 1000 GP of construction/labor per hour and could be worth 500 GP per hour of playing.

Your assumption on the cost of hiring fails the economy test.

If you could get 500gp per hour of playing, no bard in his right mind would not have a lyre of building. He can cover the cost in a couple of days of work. After that, he has a money printing machine. What keeps the Lyre from being widely used is it's price, and what you can charge for using it. If you make the charge for use 500gp per hour, then you'll take away the negatives of the lyre.

mdt wrote:

As to the 700gp per hour for the lyrist, again, it's a cohort or follower, so... yeah, no big deal there. He buys the lyre (it's his equipment) and the bard plays it for a...

I gotta say one great thing for the lyre to do would either to be to dig their sewer system (low DC required for ditch digging) or pave the streets... I am not sure if it creates the materials itself either or if they need to be on hand.

Why paved streets? most frontier places were just a collection of houses and small shops until it needed to be otherwise... then it rained and got swampy, which no one likes.

Paved streets inside the town, and heck maybe even far as 5-10 miles down the road (ala roman style roads) would be a huge draw to bring in new commerce.

totally agree.

As for one thing that seems to be forgotten... Farms. They need be built too unless the people in town want to walk out to work every day.

As an incentive to get new farmers in, build the first 20 basic homesteads (2 room simple with fireplace) and have a lottery for the towns folk. Every day of work they put in in the initial farms, they get one chance in the lottery for one of those farm houses.

A two bedroom is not going to suffice for a farmhouse, every child in a farming community is free labor so farmers have as many as they can, otherwise this is spot on. Also remember the most valuable land is the land that is upstream from the town is going to be by far the most valuable as it is easiest to get the food to the market.

Again I do need to echo some other posters... not sure if work guilds exist and not sure how much power they have but if you do it early and fast before the town gets any sort of reputation and then stop once you got the basics in - citing immediete need etc, and making a payment to certain people - you should avoid some painful conversations.

Here's the thing, in order to build and furnish this town you need some specialized materials and tools. You cannot just go to A big box store and get these things you have to talk to craftsmen, who talk to other craftsmen. Pretty soon carpenters and stone masons and blacksmiths and potters and brick makers and all sorts of other trades find out about your project, Next thing you know they and their representatives are approaching you about work opportunities. Once they figure out that bingo the bard is doing all your work they gang up, find every avenue they have legal and illegal and act.

One thing I always find funny is conversations on labor costs in fantasy worlds. Slavery is not always verboten in some worlds and when wizards can conjure up their own workers, materials, heck... finished structures even, its a bit of a giggle.

Another reason I prefer low magic - low level games.

Slaves only produce as much as they absolutely have to, Working men almost always work harder and produce more. As for spell casters conjuring materials, they tend to be rare and highly specialized, less than one in a thousand people is going to be able to do it and very few are going to be genuinely interested in competing with the actual labor market.

thomas nelson wrote:

One rank and a class skill bonus may have been an excessive assumption, one can also assume they have no ranks and no penalties and that taking ten at a craft check nets them 1000 GP of construction/labor per hour and could be worth 500 GP per hour of playing.

Your assumption on the cost of hiring fails the economy test.

If you could get 500gp per hour of playing, no bard in his right mind would not have a lyre of building. He can cover the cost in a couple of days of work. After that, he has a money printing machine. What keeps the Lyre from being widely used is it's price, and what you can charge for using it. If you make the charge for use 500gp per hour, then you'll take away the negatives of the lyre.

What economy test? We are dealing with magic here.

james maissen wrote:

Third as the cleric is supplying the lyre I don't see spending that kind of cash to have someone play. Take a look at what money can be made with a DC 20ish perform check...

-James

Most DC 20ish perform checks don't create buildings or farm fields, that is an apples to oranges comparison. I was trying to come up with a value for what an hour of playing a lyre of building produces based entirely on what the available text said.

Sorry, but as the cleric is going to supply the lyre.. your value isn't reasonable.

If the bard were supplying it you might have something, but that's not the case.

Make sense?

-James

thomas nelson wrote:

james maissen wrote:

Third as the cleric is supplying the lyre I don't see spending that kind of cash to have someone play. Take a look at what money can be made with a DC 20ish perform check...

-James

Most DC 20ish perform checks don't create buildings or farm fields, that is an apples to oranges comparison. I was trying to come up with a value for what an hour of playing a lyre of building produces based entirely on what the available text said.

Sorry, but as the cleric is going to supply the lyre.. your value isn't reasonable.

If the bard were supplying it you might have something, but that's not the case.

Make sense?

-James

not after the first hour no.

someone who can reliably hit a dc 18 check under duress is a virtuoso, not a average player.

second what is the value produced of an hours playing in your mind?

Also in the future I am hoping that my followers will become those who worship me on the track to become immortal/a demigod (Waiting on DM approval for being a god. But immortality is definitely within reach)

So is this the main motivation for people to live in your town? I'm trying to figure out why people would want to live there. What opportunities are there to make and keep money in your town versus other towns? Do you tax heavily compared to other cities? Are there more or less laws compared to other cities? What nation is your city in, as I'm assuming you'd have to be under its laws? Is your town a tourist destination, e.g. mountains, beaches? What's the name of your town? Are you the mayor? Do you make decisions on some of the questions above or do the town's citizens vote to decide such things?

Note: I only skimmed the thread so sorry if some of this has already been discussed.

Your assumption on the cost of hiring fails the economy test.

3.x / pathfinder fails the economy test.

If you could get 500gp per hour of playing, no bard in his right mind would not have a lyre of building. He can cover the cost in a couple of days of work. After that, he has a money printing machine. What keeps the Lyre from being widely used is it's price, and what you can charge for using it. If you make the charge for use 500gp per hour, then you'll take away the negatives of the lyre.

How much building work do you think exists? Just because you can do a job doesn't mean someone wants/needs you to do it.

someone who can reliably hit a dc 18 check under duress is a virtuoso, not a average player.

What I detailed out was a 2nd level expert... is that close enough?

You'll note that the items were supplied by the cleric, while the expert had a 14CHA, 2 ranks in perform and skill focus: perform (for a normal modifier of +10).

With the support he can hit the DC 18 on a 1... thus under duress.

-James

thomas nelson wrote:

someone who can reliably hit a dc 18 check under duress is a virtuoso, not a average player.

What I detailed out was a 2nd level expert... is that close enough?

You'll note that the items were supplied by the cleric, while the expert had a 14CHA, 2 ranks in perform and skill focus: perform (for a normal modifier of +10).

With the support he can hit the DC 18 on a 1... thus under duress.

-James

So what you are saying is Above average intelligence and experienced in his profession? Yeah he can definitely figure out what he is worth. :P

OK, so like I said before a Lyre of building says it does the work of 100 humans for 3 days per half hour of playing.

As no modifiers are mentioned I have no choice to assume that this is a 100 people with no modifiers mentioned, so this would be 100 unskilled workers taking 10 on a untrained craft check or 1000 gp of production per hour of playing.

Here is where things get hairy, only the most basic items are a DC 10 craft check, which means if you want anything more difficult your magic workers have to take 20, which divides your production by 20 to 50 gp per hour of playing.

If you want tenements or ditches dug, go with a lyre, if you want your stuff to be nice then hire people.

OK, so like I said before a Lyre of building says it does the work of 100 humans for 3 days per half hour of playing.

As no modifiers are mentioned I have no choice to assume that this is a 100 people with no modifiers mentioned, so this would be 100 unskilled workers taking 10 on a untrained craft check or 1000 gp of production per hour of playing.

Here is where things get hairy, only the most basic items are a DC 10 craft check, which means if you want anything more difficult your magic workers have to take 20, which divides your production by 20 to 50 gp per hour of playing.

If you want tenements or ditches dug, go with a lyre, if you want your stuff to be nice then hire people.

One other thing, while the lyre does not provide materials it can process and gather them just fine so if you spend one out of every four hours playing in the area of raw materials (Rocks, trees, clay, sand, tar, dead animals, livestock, trace metal deposits etc.) you should be able to produce enough raw materials to fuel three hours of playing. Bear in mind you will only have what is available in line of sight while playing but you could log and process a pretty big patch of forest or dig out a mine pretty safely and quickly.

What tools are there for building towns? I had someone suggest using the 3.0 stronghold builder guide, but our DM wants to stick to strictly Paizo material.

That would be The Rules in Kingmaker. However all you need do is price the building Materials in the Pathfinder Manual and go the hard Road. I love the hard road. I live there.

My Cleric has 6 months to do whatever he wants. I have 200 followers from the leadership feat. I also possess 100,000 gold. I am looking to build a town in which I can make a base of operations out of.

SOMETHING REALISTIC

Stonework

The Quarrying of Stone costs 76 ounces of gold (4.75 lb) per 10' x 10 x 10' and takes a month for 5 labourers to cut it down into appropriate blocks of use in Stone Paved Roads and Walls.

So what you are saying is Above average intelligence and experienced in his profession? Yeah he can definitely figure out what he is worth. :P

Yeah, far, far less than you want him to charge.

Guess the cleric would just do it himself then. Spend 4k gold on a headband of INT+2 then he'd have a +19 or so perform check.

So so much for your 2nd level experts get rich quick schemes, he's back to singing down in the tunnel trying to make it pay.

-James

Sorry guys! I've been away doing stuffs all day and just got time to check the forums. To answer a few questions that have been asked and more information.

Leadership score is a 24. 14th level, Charisma 26 (Backstory to follow why it's so damn high) Right there is a 22, also add in two more points from leadership bonuses.

The idea behind this town. My character wants to build a town/civilization because so far it seems many people places are evil terrible and bad. The city that we've been working out of travels in and out of the plane based on the lunar cycle. In this town it is all weretigers. I've had it up to my neck with how flustered I get with the people of this city. I've had a personal argument with their god, and I actually was banished from Iomedae's service. The weretigers and their religion have done nothing but piss me off for the most part. Though, they do give us a pretty coin for our world magic which has been nice.

Backstory backstory, I'm going to try and be brief with this explanation without explaining this entire campaign. Started out as a paladin, as a paladin I began to gain much grace in Iomedae's eye due to our great mission to save the world without out any help but our 5 man groups help. I began to truly impress her and she began to grant me special powers and equipment. Our mission was to stop the summoning of an elder evil god.

We had to stop the baddies from corrupting an angel, get book of doom 1, get book of doom 2, and a unicorn horn. (I forgot the names of these books.) We found book 1 without knowing what the hell was going on. We stumbled upon this weretiger city. We handed over the book after receiving an explanation.

(At this point I didn't want to hand over the book after I found out it summoned the evil god of doom. I didn't trust these people. But the group handed it over after I argued with my first encounter with Iomedae AKA the DM advancing the plot wagon.)

We sat around in this city doing stuffs, nothing big. We went and saved an angel, I died. I met Iomedae and became a half celestial and other super stuffs. Came back to life. We went and got book #2 went back to give them the book to destroy it. We came back with the second book of doom and it was the last single entity needed to summon a god of doom. I argued for about an hour trying to convince the group to not give them the book. Then I argued with their god. Pretty much the DM demanding the book. Then Iomedae cast me away from her powers. I came back with the decision to either be a cleric or paladin. I decided to be a cleric. Now being fed up with Iomedae, these weretigers, and their god. I want to build my own town and try not to deal with those people ever again.

I want to build a town that isn't evil and doomed to die where people live in dung pits. I want a town that isn't ruled by an ignorant DM god. I also want a town to begin my journey of possible god hood.

So you want a town that is economically self sustaining, a fortress against it's enemies, and 'aligned to you' basically.

First off lets choose a site.

The Reasons for any Settlement location come down to (a) the Availability of Resources - either Water, labour, Fuel, Farmland, Minerals; (b) A region of Environmental Transition - Land/Water, Foothills/Mountains, Desert/Plains, Forest/Savannah, Swamp/Highland, Tundra/forest; (c) a Defensible position - Hill/Mound, D%%!/Causeway, Mountaintop, Bend in River, Stilt-town on Lake, Gorge/Pass; or (d) a route or node - crossroads/river crossing, stopover/riverport, Fork/River fork.

Any of those Catch your interest? Right now we could Say:

Reason for Location (Labour Availability)

However, as you want a fortress against it's enemies, lets try:

Reason For Location (defensible position)

After thinking about it last night, I have decided that it would be wise to attempt to join one of the last few standing kingdoms that aren't corrupt/evil/ignorant/the dm. Build my town from their, or create an alliance. The more and more I begin to work on mapping and how I am going to create the town the more the political aspect comes into my head.

TL DR:Bah I need to talk to the DM.