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One thing that I've often thought of is that as adventurers you often clear out castes, forts, dungeons, caves and such of monsters. Once you've looted the location however, most PC's fail to realize that they now have the rights to "Beachfront Property". After all the listed price for a Mansion is 100,000 Gold. If you take that BEBG (Big Evil Bad Guy's) Castle refurbish it have just aquired a castle for free (Baring expenses for repairs and upkeep).
Or even better take the land and sell it to some nobles or merchants. Land it itself is worth $$$. Why not cash in?
So the question is what prevents PC's from clearing out monster lairs and just taking over the place as their own property or selling the land for $$$?
The land is part of a grant from King Longago An'faraway to a noble of a house that is still extant. It's status is perhaps clouded, but all the most important parties agree, it's not yours.
The castle is the personal property of that long-lost noble. Perhaps, if you could actually prove the noble's dead, his heirs might lease it to you?
In other words, it's not part of your Wealth-By-Level, it's hooks for the next adventure!
At least, in a perfect world, it is.
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I have a druid who took residence in a small cave system that you can only access by swimming to the entrance in an underwater pond. He and his party took down a troll named Pennywort who live there previously. Now, my PC spends his time setting up traps and a few roaming monsters for when the inevitable band of kobold adventurers comes through.
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In a previous campaign of mine, one of the PCs took over an ancient castle that had been previously occupied by a shadow dragon and minions (who the party killed), and used it as the home base for his own sect of his church. The Shadow Fist Assassins who trained at the ruins of Mok-Zarak quickly became the premiere assassins across the face of Tor.
I'm not sure how you can claim ownership by right of having slaughtered a band of orcs, bandits, demons or whatever who had taken possession of a castle that they doubtless didn't "own" in the first place.
Even if your game world is largely wilderness, I bet there's somebody somewhere who has a claim, however tenuous, to the real estate your characters have just commandeered.
Although it could be an adventure in itself trying to establish free a clear title to that ruined castle or haunted townhouse. They say possesion is nine tenths of the law, so why not try to press your claim?
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Gaining a facility is a gain, but I've never seen it as an issue on the WBL thing because the facility usually needs to be reclaimed.
The average PC has a higher standard of living.
Now, its possible you might come across a well appointed, fully functional area, but more frequently...
>They have mold infestations (seriously).
> They have creature infestations.
> Their furnishing is old or worn out.
> The place has broken doors or facilities from the PCs taking it.
> Its full of dead folks.
> Its far away from a place where a 'good' food source is.
The bad guys might have gotten off on raiding for meat, licking lichen off the wall and drinking slime infested well water, but the PCs probably will want to upgrade.
Well, you can divide it into various types of property.
First, it could be in or near a city of some sort. Abandoned temples, thief guild offices, storehouses, and so on. These HAVE an owner. City land is top $, and even if nobody is using it, they CAN produce the papers. You've just cleaned out the reason they didn't use the property, so congratulations! The owners may even send you a thank you card. Expect refurbishment soon.
Second, it's somewhere in the countryside, but still inhabited. Say, an old country keep, no longer useful, but too much trouble to tear down. This would have to go through the king of the country. Best result is that you are given the responsibility of taking care of it, but it still belongs to Joe Noble over there.
Third, it's far off the beaten path in the deep wilderness. Nobody cares. Nobody wants it, for the simple reason that merely getting to the area requires dealing with CR 12 encounters.
None of these is going to make you particularly rich by selling.
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It really depends on the campaign. If there's a doom clock on the game then You can't really stop to build patio furniture for the lair. On the other hand if you are looking at making frequent trips into a sprawling megadungeon its almost essential that you conquer and secure living quarters somewhere within striking distance.
Frankly the few times I've gotten the chance to play this is ALWAYS one of my character goals. The last guy I played was a gestalt Halfling ranger/cavalier named Bucky. He was a trapper and hunter by trade who just happened to be really good with a sling and a lance while riding his wolf, Blitzer. Anyway, he wanted a locale, part hunting lodge, part tavern for adventurers and travelers passing through this wilderness to have a safe haven.
Bucky's first adventure out involved taking out a few kobolds raiding and living in the cavernous "cellar" of an old ruin. As soon as he was done with the battle he started sizing up the place. Had the campaign continued I'd have asked to fix it up. It was right on a major river, had a couple solid walls both above and below ground and Bucky had, among other skills, Profession: Woodcutter. I figured I could use that to build a kind of survival shelter to enclose the "cellar" level, then as the game went on slowly build up the site.
Sure, some noble might've come to claim it but that's why I took Diplomacy, high charisma, the Trustworthy trait etc. People LOVE Bucky and Blitzer; why would you want to keep him from his dream?
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If bandits/orcs/whatever have taken over a fort for some time then while you may not "own" it, it probably won't be an issue for you to talk to whenever does and take the place over. Especially if You are paying for it.
"Hey you know Fort Whatseiedoodle that the Orcs took over and have been using as a base for 5 years? We cleared it out and want to fix it up and patrol the area and keep it clear. Can we keep the fort?"
What noble in their right mind is going to say no to that? You have *free* guards now keeping an area clear of baddies. This means more taxes, happier citizens, and a group of well trained guards there to take care of problems that arise- not just in their new feifdom but in the surrounding areas.
They clearly couldn't handle the place themselves, why would they say no to new owners who were willing to handle it and the surrounding area?
-S
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Consider: a PC trained with 1 rank in survival knows how to pull together a survival shelter with a few hours work. Four PCs, 3 granting Aid Another to the one guy with the skill, can work for a day to make a decent shelter that'll last a few days in the wilds. If at first level your first adventure brings you up against, say, some goblins in some caves, you have an awesome base for the rest of the campaign.
First you surround the mouth of the cave with a survival shelter. You rest up here for a few days and go through the caves, assessing all those concerns like clean water, dirt and grime, etc. Your arcane caster is spamming Prestidigitation like crazy while your other PCs are using mundane means to sanitize the place (soap and water, smoke, fire, etc).
Now you head back to town, using some of that phat lewt to hire some workers. Said workers build you a couple walls, install a door; you're living very minimalist right now. It takes a couple weeks during which time you're hunting more goblins in the surrounding wilds, defeating low-level evils, and trying to hide from the hill giant and wyvern living at the edge of the hex. During this time you level and a couple PCs sacrifice a couple skill ranks to Profession: Miner and Profession: Engineer.
Now you use your new mad skillz and lewt to really go to town on your lair. You build in some retaining walls and ditches; you vent the inner caves and you seal off the deeper fissures from the livable space. You leave yourself some access to the lower halls for future adventure and expansion. Using Survival you build wood skeins and coat them with mud and clay. Quarrying stone from inside you build up around the circular wattle and daub walls, creating a round tower. This is now your gatehouse for accessing the cave level.
Of course during all this the goblins return, bringing their bugbear brutes with them. A siege occurs but you survive, tracking them back to their new lair and defeating a vicious cult with ties to the town. You're heroes! You've saved people in town, rooted out a major evil and really cleared this hex, making it safe for the first time in years.
You've also grabbed more lewts.
Now at third level you're installing lighting. Your arcane caster starts making Wondrous Items and installs some 1/day create water devices that ensure clean drinking water. The PCs explore those lower halls and find some really twisted fey and vermin. Weeks of hit and run adventures follows during which most of the construction stops and the PCs and their henchmen are nearly destroyed. In the end they emerge victorious once more and their legend, treasury and lair grows.
You've found a modest mineral and gem mine. You won't get uber rich off it but it'll keep a steady income coming in. Some of your henchmen decide to take up permanent residence in the shadow of the tower. They are granted access to the mines by a new tunnel you construct. Now that you're 5th level and you've well explored the hex you leave your burgeoning settlement in order to finally deal with that wyvern that's terrorized the border for months.
A protracted adventure ensues wherin one of the PCs dies and is raised in town. You don't return with TONS of treasure but you keep some in reserve. You've discovered that the hill giant and wyvern were merely pawns as were the goblins. An ancient evil is rising in the nearby mountains and you'll need to be ready. Thankfully, you've got a tower.
You return home and find the mine is well under way. Now at 7th level you pickup Leadership and your cohorts kick things into high gear. Stone quarried in the lower halls is used to shore them up and also to begin building out around the tower. Working with the town for mutual defense you establish a full castle, enclosing your minions' homes and buildings inside a wall. Farms and gardens are established; hunting grounds in the wilds are now well known; through trade with the town raw gemstones and minerals are traded for livestock, tools and other essentials.
Congratulations; you have a village.
Isn't this what EVERY player plans out from first level?
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In our current homebrew campaign my players' first adventure brought them face-to-face with a kobold mastermind with an insidious plan to flood the town. The party stopped it at the zero hour, but not without many near-death escapes! When all was said and done though, all I said was that their contact was so grateful in town that they'd all been given 4 Goods and 4 Labor (capital from the Downtime system in Ultimate Campaign) as a reward. So between the 5 PCs that's 4 Goods and 4 Labor EACH, totaling 40 capital.
Without hesitation they asked if they could build outside town at a spot they'd found in the first adventure. There was a grove near a tiny marsh but one guy's a druid and the other's a swamp druid. I said sure. Suddenly the 1/2 orc female barbarian is using Profession: Woodcutter to cut and mill trees, carefully selected by the druids, to expand the capital they have.
Now the PCs, only 2nd level, have a fieldstone cottage, Viking longhouse style, with a round tower. They are right on the edge of a stand of hardwood trees (and Darkwood if they go looking) and a marsh area rich with fish and animals (since there's a hunter in the party and the druids enjoy trapping and fishing). I am really encouraging them and want them to build up home base.