First floor, Bar, kitchen, and possibly a mop closet.
Second floor, rooms to let. The Privvy is either outside or has a toilet that leads to the plane of ooze.
You're right. The basement has the ale celler. Also, there is often a trap door that leads to the dungeon. Never ask the bartender to let you out the back way. :)
While it wasn't originally about taverns, this thread kinda derailed and we ended up debating how you'd construct a tavern with either the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook or the Land and Home Guide.
IMO, a tavern has a place to make food, a place to serve food and drinks and several places to sleep. It's very likely that most innkeepers have rooms similar to those they let. A basement would likely just be a root cellar for storing food and drink. I would guess only a large inn would have an actual stage (though even a small inn would reasonably clear a corner for traveling performers).
A planar toilet is a fun idea, but too expensive for almost any inn. Plus, you really don't want things crawling back out. :P
I was wondering if anyone has rules or know of a location for PCs owning a tavern. What would the base cost be and what could be some room options.
For building a structure, there is the Stronghold Builder's Guide, a 3.5 Wizards of the Coast publication that pretty much deals with most conceivable structures. I'm not a huge fan of it (a lot of stuff is IMO overpriced), but it does the job.
Also available and more current (i.e it's for Pathfinder) is the Land and Home Guide, by Dark Quest Games. It's available on DriveThruRPG as a PDF file for $2. It covers fairly conventional construction (i.e. no magic or strange materials), but goes into a finer level of detail than the Stronghold Builder's Guide.
As for pricing rooms and whatnot, it's going to be largely a matter of SWAG (sweet, wild-a** guess). Rules as Written, the guy running the inn makes a Profession: Innkeeper roll to determine weekly profits. Pathfinder, like all iterations of D&D, doesn't concern itself with investments.
In our campaign, PCs are encouraged to have investments (or rather, allowed/expected to). Our rule of thumb is a rough return on investment of 1% per month. So if you invest 10,000gp in a business, expect it to return (as profit), 100gp per month. Obviously under this system it take 100 months to recoup your initial investment (over 8 years), but the business runs itself (or rather, people you hire run it for you). This makes investment unattractive to most PCs, who make money fast through risky do-or-die adventuring, but allows for long-campaign play-style where you can set yourself up for steady income.
How about a shaft with a gelatinous cube trapped at the bottom? They cannot climb. In the dungeon, there is a door labled in common, "Do not open!" Opening it sets free the cube.
Now I want to make a ranger that traps gelatinous cubes for cities to use for garbage disposal. :)
Back on topic, a lot of the details of the inn will depend on where its built. A small inn in a small town will be different than a small inn in a big city, and even two inns in the same city will differ depending on where in the city they are.
Great... Now I have the Let's Build a Snowman song stuck in my head.....
There's some rules on running businesses (including taverns) in the 3.5 DMG2, but they're pretty wonky, and don't go into detail much.
Good old Stronghold Builders Guide from 3.0/5 could be handy here. Even if it's for Strongholds, you could easily use the same rule to build your tavern and hire the staff.
Instead of cost, why not make an adventure out of it? Have the PCs do something for the mayor for the land rights, have them do some work for a local lumber yard to get a discount on wood, have them do something for a merchant family to get some sweet deals on booze.
Suggest the PCs keep any impressive carcasses to stuff and mount in the bar as sort of a tribute to what they went through.
Then it's not just a monetary asset, it's a testament to the party's achievements.
Then they care more about the bar. Threats to the bar or city are now threats to them.
Tie their blood and sweat into the bar.
As a player, you can bring it up to the party IC about making this tavern a group effort. If done right, it could make for some excellent impromptu adventuring for everyone!
It's how I got my character's wedding to take up an entire session, but be fun for everyone.
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Some of the impromptu sessions are the best...
I have quite a few where the players story sidetracked the campaign for a session or two due to the players and gm enjoying what was happening.
They are the most memorable parts of campaigns I have been in because the players invested in those parts of the storyline and it really made a difference.
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Oh man, now I want to revisit an old campaign idea I had:
The party (no matter HOW diverse their backgrounds) have all been named the inheritors of a broke down roadside inn. Not one of those fancy joints like they have in towns and cities but a real ramshackle mess.
Now right after they get it they also realize it comes with a lot of land. The hilsides are rolling and COULD be arable/valuable if 1) someone put in the time and 2) there wasn't that pesky doomcrack a mile away.
Half the campaign is finding ways to deal w/the "neighbors". The OTHER half of it though is fun side quests for stuff like the finest cookware, exotic recipes, fine ingredients, plus of course attracting clientelle. Why don't they just walk away? Well...
If the bar can generate a profit (the bar, not their adventures; there's a paladin sheriff to keep 'em honest) of even a SINGLE GP w/in the year they get some cool perks: titles or magic items or whatever.
The whole thing was a ruse to get adventurers into the area to deal with the festering evil. The sheriff and local lord didn't want to bother with paying anything up front and figured if they s/up a long term investment the "inheritors" would be FORCED to do something about the monsters.
A large part of Shadow in the Sky, the first part of the Second Darkness AP, involves the PC's running a Casino/Tavern.
It's not as fleshed out as one might like, but it's a good starting point.
Main hall - open floor space containing 2 long trestle tables and eight rounds. Each has stools/benches. The floor is scattered with sawdust and the room is dimly lit by a roasting fire and a single chandolier.
Boring? Some alternatives I've used, depending on the theme of my game:
The crypt - The barrel vaulted basement was formerly a series of small funeral cysts. Slots in the walls of three of them were now a wine cellar, pantry and larder while the main chamber was lined with skulls and bones and used for private dining.
The upper floors were done in a sort of gothic meets victorian motif made to look like a funeral home. The main hall had an ivory and crimson marble tile floor in a checkerboard and the tables were ALL round, with a skull on each that glowed with only the dimmest light spell. The barmaids were all lingerie-clad women (worshippers of Wee Jas in old D&D) while a clean up/bouncer crew of skeletons were fitted into coffin-shaped niches in the walls.
The second and third floors held a bordello and then a library/private apartments for the Matron Mother of the house. These chambers featured silk, velvet, and many other dark and rich fabrics and no light ever seemed to get into them except for the perpetually lit candles. They were decorated by skulls, weeping angels, and arcane ironwork.
The Viking Hall - instead of going up I went out with this one. The place was a multi-chambered lodge. The main hall was like a chieftan's bower with sleeping platforms above, a massive open pit in the center for the fire and the bar at the far end was actually a preserved dragon's head with the bar-top mounted on it. The other chambers extending around the back were a shrine to a god of strength, storage and pantry, and then a secondary hall on the edge of a cliff meant for semi-private feasting. The court outside was an open hillside for all manner of games: wrestling, stone tossing, a spar to serve as a target for axe throwing or archery.
The halfling den of iniquity - this one was a human/halfling bar. This was not a quaint hobbit/halfling place, though it was partially underhill. No, this was the hideout for thieves and they plied every vice there.
The common room was pretty standard; wooden beams, half-timber construction, lots of open tables. Games of chance were legal as was wagering so this area doubled as a spot for dice, cards and small games. The second story above was 6 bedrooms for "private entertainments" and were ONLY rented by the hour.
Now the basement had a high ceiliing so this was where the fight club was. A few side chambers off this main area were storage and mundane, but one had a secret entrance to the underhill areas.
These had an opium den, a "room of bells" for agility training, a lab for poisons and drug manufacture, and then the private apartments of the guild's grandmaster and a few key guild members. My players never got to see them so I didn't go into much detail.
I have a reference for a roadside inn.
In the Shackled City AP, in Chapter 3 (I think) the party goes to the Drunken Monkey roadside inn to retrieve a rod of water control for Cauldron.
The inn has been invaded, ransacked, and I believe the owner is murdered.
The party I ran through it decided to take over ownership and employed one of my PC/NPCs as the new keeper for them. He shares about 5% profit with the whole party.
It's a nice floorplan in my opinion, so it's worth a look. I don't have my copy in front of me, so I am sorry for the lack of page numbers.
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If you want ideas, I'd say do an image search of some of the kinds of lodgings you want it to look like. RV's and motorhomes are a good example of a small, self-contained living space. Big fancy lodges help capture the atmosphere. Large boats, college dorms, and old hotels are all good examples of structures designed to provide sleeping accomodations for lots of people.
If you know what the building used to be used for, then you have an example of what you want it to be. The ground floor is what people first see when they enter, so that should be where the bar and games of chance are. Make sure there's plenty of rooms on the upper floors-- a room can be as small as 10'x15' if you just want to pack 'em in, or you can have bigger rooms for a higher class clientele.
You'll also need a kitchen (15'x20', no more than one story away from the eating area) probably a room for a brewing vat if you want your own house brand of libation (you can brew beer in a room as small as 15'x15') plus whatever other services you want to offer. Perhaps you want a large outdoor area for athletics? A stable? A veranda or balcony for private parties? Maybe you want a library/observatory to attract the mages?
Get yourself some graph paper and draw out each floor. Remember, every floor needs a staircase, and each floor needs to "sync up" with the ones above/below it (staircases in the same place, upper floors don't jut out too far past the ground floor's boundary, etc.
Why do they have to sync up? "you head up the stairs and find they lead to a dead end wall. You shrug and press on; there's a soft 'pop' in the air and the feeling of rushing wind. You suddenly find yourself at the top of a flight of stairs looking down into a hallway of doors you don't recognize..."
I think tonight is a graph paper night...
The closest thing to the rules your looking for which is as mentioned the old stronghold buildiers guide. That said I found the price for basic buildings to be unrealistically expensive. I understand why this should be so but it also priced small huts out of the price range of the poor.
I would take a look at the goods and services list and use comparable items and labor costs.
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Why do they have to sync up? "you head up the stairs and find they lead to a dead end wall. You shrug and press on; there's a soft 'pop' in the air and the feeling of rushing wind. You suddenly find yourself at the top of a flight of stairs looking down into a hallway of doors you don't recognize..."
I think tonight is a graph paper night...
If the OP wants to spend the additional magical resources to make confusing magical portals from one floor to the next, on top of the mundane resources he's already committing to the significant task of restoring an old building, just so his patrons will consistently get lost in his tavern and tell their friends not to stay there, then by all means.
Ok lets pretend that Gold was not a factor and you can do what ever you want.
I want some interesting and realistic ideas for concepts.
One I read was using Ooze as a waste disposal.
Hoo boy!
First and foremost you need a portal to the plane of beer in your tap area. If there is not such a thing you need to make one, then put a portal to it in your tap area.
You need a bunch of Drench spells or create water for, well, water. Sprinkler systems, running water in the bathrooms, marble font, etc.
If there's a trapdoor under the stage you need a slide.
Animate dead or golems for the service. They never get pinched, never complain that their feet hurt and give all their tips to the house. For that matter summon spells keyed to keywords could start or stop a fight as needed.
Get an alchemist. Period.
Part of the basement could be the alchemist's lab. I can't stress it enough; hire an alchemist.
Bedrooms instantly cast Reduce Person on patrons for the duration of their stay so as to cram in more guests
Serious, high end touches from bars and hotels:
- a water feature (preferably with girls)
- unique lighting effects: dancing lights, everyone that enters gets anything from alchemical glowsticks to their own Dancing Lantern spell
- bring the outdoors in: potted plants, a tree growing through the middle of the common room, a volleyball sand pit, mud wrestling
- a unique entertainment while dining: fire eaters "flat screens" with illusions on them, the rooftop deck that levitates for one hour every so often
Games:
Pachinko - except with bones or an undead instead of pegs
Backgammon
cribbage
dominoes or some fantasy variant
animal races/fights
skittles or shuffleboard
billiards
wicket toss
horseshoes
roulette
There's also a million different card games, dice games, throwing bones, jacks, marbles and kid games, feats of strength and endurance, etc.