I got my physical copy of PF#3 today!
I love that the characters get a chance to become lords of a castle and built in to the adventure.
However, I'm distressed that there is not much really on being lords of the castle in PF#3. I like that "Keeping the Keep" presents a list of events for the castle owners, but there is almost nothing on really developing the keep. I haven't seen anything like a set of repairs needed to be performed. Even the entires for the castle didn't really give me much of a sense of the extent of damage to structures (implied in the tower collapse event). Compare this with building the manor in Diamond Lake at the beginning of the Age of Worms AP, which gave a great sense of not only the extent (cost/effort) of repairs, but potentials for going above and beyond (extra fancy furnishings to improve diplomacy checks).
Further, I'm going to contrast the keep section with the wonderful work done on developing Farshore in "Tides of Dread" in STAP. In that backdrop, the characters had a chance to build up the town in a way that seemed to engender them to the town and impact the campaign. I liked having some canned developments presented. Of course, developing Farshore was central to that adventure. Ideas for Fort Rannick as finding new eagles for the aerie, patrols to protect various resource/development areas (which in turn costs soldiers/effort/money to generate future revenue), etc.
Maybe I just missed the details in my first read tonight.
To what extent is the area around the fort planning to be developed in future installments?
As for rebuilding the tower, there's the "rebuilding the keep" sidebar. I'd perhaps give an ETA of 2 to 5 years depending on how much cash flows into the keep via Magnimar or the players.
I've used A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe for this sort of thing in the past. It models it well and has a lot of good ideas. It's a little too simulationist for some people, but if you're looking for grit the it's for you. :)
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I would suggest revisting the "Savage Tide" adventure path. Specifically the the adventure where you had to "rebuild" farshore and prepare it for the Pirate Attack (I do do not remember the name of it). You can use a lot of those ideas and "mechanics" to expand the 'Rebuilding the Keep' Theme.
I am thinking of "borrowing" concepts from "The Gauntlet" (an old 1E module), The Companion Set of OD&D, Stronghold Builders Guide, and the aforementioned STAP adventure. The hard part is going to be restraining myself and my players from make it the focus of the campaign!
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I would suggest revisting the "Savage Tide" adventure path. Specifically the the adventure where you had to "rebuild" farshore and prepare it for the Pirate Attack (I do do not remember the name of it). You can use a lot of those ideas and "mechanics" to expand the 'Rebuilding the Keep' Theme.
I am thinking of "borrowing" concepts from "The Gauntlet" (an old 1E module), The Companion Set of OD&D, Stronghold Builders Guide, and the aforementioned STAP adventure. The hard part is going to be restraining myself and my players from make it the focus of the campaign!
Why not? It'd be fun as hell, especially if you have them deal with commerce, supply, or the occasional raid.
Creative Director
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There won't be much more about Fort Rannik at all in future adventures; what's in Pathfinder 3 is pretty much it. In the original outline, there was a lot more about running the castle, and the idea was to have it be more like the Farshore stuff where you have to rebuild things, recruit people, and defend the keep now and then from attacks by ogres and monsters.
As it worked out, Nick Logue went for another type of adventure. The addition of Skull's Crossing and the Grauls is more or less what replaced the "castle upkep" part of the adventure, and those areas are pretty cool and exciting, so I decided we'd go with those instead of having the keep play a more central roll.
All of which means that you can expect a "castle upkeep" type adventure to eventually appear in Pathfinder some time down the road.
Where is yellowdingo when you need him?
What all needs to go into fixing up the keep and how much do you guys think it would cost
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What all needs to go into fixing up the keep and how much do you guys think it would cost
Depends.
Typically I wing it:
PCs have too much cash? Then the repairs of the North Gates are pretty pricey.
PCs are underfunded? A blacksmith whose home was destroyed in the Turtleback Ferry Flood offers his services as long as "I get a warm bed, square meals, and enough coin for ale and whores" he'll repair the gates (hinges and such).
Reducing it down to "New Gates cost 500gp" sort of takes the ROLE-playing out of it, and this portion is clearly a ROLEplaying portion of the adventure.
If the PCs want to do the work themselves, perhaps they need some "Old Growth" lumber to get the thick and tall boards they need. Maybe an Advanced Dire Bear, preparing for hibernation, lairs near these woods and is annoyed by the logging operation...
Quarrying is easier said then done. Where to get new stone for Fort Rannick? The original quarry might be flooded (from the heavy rains), winter is about to set in, and workers are scarce.
Try not to worry about cost as if the PCs only need to go to home depot remodeling center and sign up. Costs should give you an idea of difficulty. (STRONGHOLD BUILDER GUIDE) is a good resource for price.
So lets say your PCs are 10th level. And lets say the Gate Repairs cost 500gp. Since 600gp is roughly the "treasure" for an EL 2 encounter, what sort of challenge is an EL 2 to 10th level PCs? A simple Intimidate/Diplomacy/Craft check is all thats necessary really (intimidate the carpenter at Turtleback ferry, Diplomacy the same carpenter, or do a craft check themselves or hire someone to do it). In short, it should be "OK, you convince the Mayor to send some people up to repair the gate. They arrive the next day and begin to work"
More importantly, its the roleplay opportunities that are presented. Do you want the PCs to get as involved in Turtleback ferry as they did in Sandpoint? Play it out. Make the checks tougher, or make the PCs do a "favor" for the carpenter: "I would LOVE to get my hand on some Witchwood. Too bad it only grows In the shimmerglens"
enjoy.
Now I'm starting to wonder what would happen if I dropped a Lyre of Building in as loot later in the adventure path. Would my players(future) go back to Hook Mountain really create a mountain fortress? If any of my future players acquire territorial ambitions along with the keep I was planning on using the domain rules from Birthright and the fan updated 3rd edition material to help manage that 'sudden' twist. The Stronghold Builder's Guide is also on my shelf to fall back on for repairing and running the keep.
It was really funny when I was running my group through Red Hand of Doom and they got the keep in that adventure. Some of them got very protective of it and really threw themselves into fighting goblins off "their land." Nothing like owning property to make you care about local politics eh?