I used the guidelines in Sharn: City of Towers as to property acquisition. More expensive, noble houses are toward the top rings, while the poor folk live on the docksides.
To buy:
Poor residence: 1d4 x 100 gp
Average: 1d4 x 1500 gp
Good: 2d8 x 2500 gp
To rent per month:
Poor: 1d4 gp
Average: 1d4 x 10 gp
Good: 2d8 x 10
Right now, my PCs own a flat in mid-Cauldron, and are looking to buy Ghelve's locks (since Keygan is incarcerated), and the Lucky Monkey (since the owner was eaten).
I assume too it would be incredibly expensive because the Cauldron can not grow any bigger.
I /really/ like the Strongholder Builder's Guide for these sort of questions.
As for the size of Cauldron...I had a thought while working on a similar problem in my game. How neat would it be for the rebuilding of Cauldron to build /up/ instead of out?
I then immediately thought of Sharn and shuddered to myself. =)
How interesting would it be to visit Cauldron 100 years later, with the towers named after the building it was built up from? (Lathenmire Tower, etc.)
When Cauldron is being rebuilt after all the turmoil, I just see that little island basically being forgotten about and left to ruin, much in the same way as the Narrows of Gotham City in Batman Begins.
I'm actually considering having my next campaign set in Cauldron in the future, with the current NPCs acting as the Elminsters of their era.
I posted this on the Wizards of the Coast forums as well. At http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=561340. My campaign is SCAP, so as far as property acquisition in the city what do you guys think? My players would like to buy a house so they have a place to rest and craft items. I personally like the idea but I've never dealt with the issue of property. I assume too it would be incredibly expensive because the Cauldron can not grow any bigger.
The question has already been raised here : http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/shackledCity/archives/realEsta teInCauldron#23098
I have written there a few guidelines to take into account the players' demands regarding real estate in Cauldron. Some other posters made some great suggestions to amend them so feel free to do as you wish. I share your idea that owning a property is expensive in Cauldron due to the lack of room for expansion. It may be also a good idea to use this property to stress the constant tax pressure from the Valanthru era. One of my players owns a small manor on Obsidian which cost him 350 gp in land-tax this year. He immediatly became one of Maavu's Arlintal hottest supporters :D
Is there any issues you guys can think of that could come up with the party now owning property?
Let your players do the job for you. Once they are owners, it's funny how fast they imagine the worst for their newly-acquired home sweet home. Don't disappoint them. Once they have established their defenses, try to burglarize their home with some novice members from the Last Laugh or any criminal organization you use in your campaign. Make it fair for them but make their opponents clever too. Once the first burglar has been captured thanks to a glyph of warding, send others with better info or with higher skills to pass the glyphs. Poison the dogs if they accept food from strangers. If the players leave their valuables hidden somewhere assess the Search DC needed to find them. In fact what I did was to let the PC create his own "dungeon" and run it to me and the other players, playing a gang of first-level rogues. I haven't repeated the experience yet, but once they'll leave for Occipitus I will try again with other players and a full team of 3rd or 4th level adventurers.
Owning a property also establish the owner as a full member of the community. Have him or her pay taxes, talk to neighbours, bribe the Watch to have a special protection and so on. He or she has to buy furniture, to talk to an architect or to deal with a dwarf engineer. You can let them make a "good" bargain on the house price to discover later it's haunted (that's what I did - I know it's cliché but the player's loved it).
Hope this helps
Bran
If any of your players end up owning Ghelve's Locks like my players are, and thus laying a claim to Jzaridune and the Malachite Fortress by association, they get to deal with all manner of Underdark critters finding their way up to the surface.
I can't wait for Drow, Duergar, Kuo-Toa, etc... to come knocking on their doors!
I like the idea of making the house haunted, that adds a new dimension to the game.
IMC, the buyer of the manor was the wizard. He bought the house from a gnome barrister who accepted his price very quickly. The house is on Obsidian. It has 6 beautiful rooms, a garden, a well and a small tower. Market price 10500 gp, sold at 4000... I developped the story of the house. Many families lived there but left quickly. Once, a younger son killed his siblings and parents because of "the voice". Some families left because everybody fell sick at the same time. Strange things happened there : noises, awful visions... The neighbours try to ignore it, but their servants should talk to the PCs if they ask. There are stories of an evil wizard living there in the past.
If they investigate further they can learn his name was Zharis Wayne, a Wee Jas(GH)/Myrkul(FR) worshipper. He didn't have the power to turn into a lich but was buried in a small chapel of his dark god beneath the cave. He is a mummy with spell-like abilities (template from Complete arcane, can't remember the name sorry, undeads with runes carved on them) and some powers on the house : he can make the stairs shaking, use telekinesis on small objects like knives in the kitchen, summon a rat swarm in the cave, make the bed move in the bedroom, make some blood stains appear on the walls (thanx to rats) and so on. And once a week he has the power to cast Domination on one person... (deadly option, when the hexblade turned psycho after being left alone in the library lol).
The solution is to discover the small chapel (rather through investigation than 'making 20' on search checks) and to destroy the powerful undead. I gave him some creepy spells from Book of Vile Darkness and Summon undead and monsters spells. it was a tough fight (the cleric couldn't turn it and the mummy fear effect was devastating). They discovered his journal and heard from Cagewrights for the first time there. A good one-session game before starting Flood Season.
I'll post Zharis abilities I you're interested.
Bran.
I like the idea of making the house haunted, that adds a new dimension to the game.
IMC, the buyer of the manor was the wizard. He bought the house from a gnome barrister who accepted his price very quickly. The house is on Obsidian. It has 6 beautiful rooms, a garden, a well and a small tower. Market price 10500 gp, sold at 4000... I developped the story of the house. Many families lived there but left quickly. Once, a younger son killed his siblings and parents because of "the voice". Some families left because everybody fell sick at the same time. Strange things happened there : noises, awful visions... The neighbours try to ignore it, but their servants should talk to the PCs if they ask. There are stories of an evil wizard living there in the past.
If they investigate further they can learn his name was Zharis Wayne, a Wee Jas(GH)/Myrkul(FR) worshipper. He didn't have the power to turn into a lich but was buried in a small chapel of his dark god beneath the cave. He is a mummy with spell-like abilities (template from Complete arcane, can't remember the name sorry, undeads with runes carved on them) and some powers on the house : he can make the stairs shaking, use telekinesis on small objects like knives in the kitchen, summon a rat swarm in the cave, make the bed move in the bedroom, make some blood stains appear on the walls (thanx to rats) and so on. And once a week he has the power to cast Domination on one person... (deadly option, when the hexblade turned psycho after being left alone in the library lol).
The solution is to discover the small chapel (rather through investigation than 'making 20' on search checks) and to destroy the powerful undead. I gave him some creepy spells from Book of Vile Darkness and Summon undead and monsters spells. it was a tough fight (the cleric couldn't turn it and the mummy fear effect was devastating). They discovered his journal and heard from Cagewrights for the first time there. A good one-session game before starting Flood Season.
I'll post Zharis abilities I you're interested.
Bran.
He or she has to buy furniture
Has anyone a list of furniture prices?
Besides, some has talked about house taxes. How do you figure it out?
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We are about to finish Life's Bazaar and my player's PCs have been crashing on Keygan's floor in the workroom. Keygan is getting a little annoyed with a group of adventurers dirtying up the room so I have been hinting to the players that since it is a rather large city, there are houses & apartments for rent as well as abandoned houses that they could squat in and eventually buy in the future.
Actually I would most certainly like all the information you can provide on this if you don't have a problem with me using it. If you do I'll just go off your idea and modify the rest for my own group. Thanks Bran!
I'll do it tonite (Paris time, beginning of the afternoon for East Coast).
