Fortifying Home Base


Advice


Our current campaign will involve the party inheriting a keep that we will then use as our home base. Our GM plans to use downtime rules for us to do work on the keep, and assured us that the keep will matter; somewhat indicating that we might have more encounters here, that it might get assaulted, etc. I believe he also plans to provide some building resources as additional treasure along the way so that we don't have to use character resources to work on the keep.

So, what I would like advice for (this being our first time using these rules) is:

1) How/what to build? I've glanced over the downtime rules, with regards to building towns/structures, and see that there are several "types" of rooms that we can convert current rooms into, or add on. What are some of the suggested ones we should try for first?

2) Customizations? What are some special customizations/defenses we should be adding? Things like arrowslits, crenellations, and murder holes come to mind, as well as some sort of ditch or moat.

3) Anything else? Any other items, upgrades, customizations, etc., that you recommend?


What classes and level is your party? Your available options will vary wildly based on that.

General advice, if you have any casters I highly recommend craft wondrous item so that you can make custom magic items for your keep. If your DM follows RAW then you'll be able to make immobile wondrous items for the keep at a deep discount. This is basically taking advantage of the "trap" rules and making beneficial "traps." Is it cheese? Probably, but personally I like it. In my mind theres a significant difference between an orb of storms (or whatever) that you can carry around versus one that's permanently attached to an immobile structure.

Edit: Also, how large of a structure are we talking and what's the surrounding area like?


Party is currently level 6. Classes are: Slayer, Barbarian, Arcanist, Witch, and Bard.

Current structure is 2 stories (with a single roomed third story on a corner tower). I'd say it's roughly rectangular, about 70'-80' wide and slightly less deep. Not sure what each room currently is, but we could potentially re-purpose rooms anyway.

Didn't get too much of an idea of surrounding terrain yet; definitely some cleared area around the keep, and beyond that, mostly forest; based on the hex map of the area, the keep is in slightly hilly/mountainous terrain.


Ok, so we're not talking about a full castle with walls and such.

If the surrounding area is also yours it wouldn't be a bad idea to build up some walls with guard towers and such. A very "old school" approach, but classic for a reason.

I'm going to assume between your casters you can access a lot of stuff. However, if you're limited to 6th level casting then your options are limited.

Random thoughts with <3 level spells

Enter Image: This is one of my favorite "base" spells. basically you have a lot of images of yourself. Either in the form of paintings, busts, faces cleverly worked into the stone so that they're not immediately recognizable unless you really look, etc. Put these non-magic things everywhere within range in and around the keep. Then if the place is attacked one person can scan the area to provide real world intel to the war room.

Shrink Item: can store large things for 1d/ CL. Would require recasting/maintenance, but still useful to have some boulders to drop on people, etc.

Secret rooms only accessible by use of Gaseous Form. An easy low-magic way to protect anything that you can carry.

Burrow: Again, good for hiding things or simply running away.

Animate Dead, Lesser: Always useful to have a horde of skeletons to unleash. I'd keep them in a locked secure area until you need them. Like a pen or stone room. Then you can just open the gate from a safe location and let them wreak havoc upon your enemies. They wouldn't necessarily even need to be under your control. Just let them run and follow their instincts of killing anything living. You'd be safely ensconced in the keep of course. Naturally, there may be some cleanup after, but these things happen.

Major Image: Put your face in the sky and speak directly to the opposing force or just make public announcements.

Spherescry: keep a few in hidden locations all over the keep. Then you can eavesdrop whenever you like on whomever may be around. Also good for verifying nobody is inside waiting to kill you when you get home.

Guardian Monument series : Useful if you're humans.

The mental version of alarm will wake you up without alerting your enemies.

There are a lot that are self explanatory, such as Lock and fireball, that I won't get into for obvious reasons.

A bit too high level for you, but Invisibility can be cast on objects and made permanent. Cast on a section of stone, for example, and you basically have an unbreakable window.

Then of course if you can make beneficial spell traps your list of useful spells goes up dramatically. A greater magic weapon trap of sufficient caster level and all your guards effectively have +5 swords, for example.


1ED DMG has some tables and ideas for this, I might be able to take a pic and post a link tonight.

My main advice would be to put on your thinking caps for how to -attack a keep-.

Ranges of siege engines (those on the keep, as well as any you might bring along to attack it)?

What is the "indirect approach"? Think spells, tunneling, subterfuge, Trojan horse (party polymorphed to something tiny and delivered in a package...).

Magic is the main thing that changes any kind of traditional attack/defend things that you can think up, so should be a consideration in developing your keep's defenses.

Consider anyone you hire to assist in design or construction is a potential information source. For your basic defenses that's probably no big deal....so you have a moat...people can see it, they don't need the designing engineer to tell them about it.

However...things like magical defenses, hidden traps, as well as any possible secret tunnels/bug-out plans you've built inside or in the dungeon - these secrets are tough to keep secret and built at the same time.


Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

What classes and level is your party? Your available options will vary wildly based on that.

General advice, if you have any casters I highly recommend craft wondrous item so that you can make custom magic items for your keep. If your DM follows RAW then you'll be able to make immobile wondrous items for the keep at a deep discount. This is basically taking advantage of the "trap" rules and making beneficial "traps." Is it cheese? Probably, but personally I like it. In my mind theres a significant difference between an orb of storms (or whatever) that you can carry around versus one that's permanently attached to an immobile structure.

Edit: Also, how large of a structure are we talking and what's the surrounding area like?

I would like to read more about this for some places I am designing. Tiny Coffee Golem where is the deep discount written up for MI that are immobile? Thanks


TPK wrote:
I would like to read more about this for some places I am designing. Tiny Coffee Golem where is the deep discount written up for MI that are immobile? Thanks

"Discount" might not be the right word. I just meant it's cheaper than a mobile magic item that does the same.

It's an as written use of the magic traps mechanic. The basic premise is that there's nothing that inherently says magic traps must be harmful.

The cost for an auto resetting magic trap is : +500 gp × caster level × spell level

The cost for an at will magic item is: +2000 gp × caster level × spell level


If you are going to go all out and you think you may need to defend against a large force here are some mundane Ideas:
-Clear the forest for 100 ft in every direction
-Have a bolt hole or means of quickly escaping
-Have a stock of food
-Design areas in the fort to give terrain bonus to your players. (roughened terrain in the entrance, pits that trigger for large creatures, elevated firing positions, choke points in hallways where numbers mean nothing, ceiling drops, etc.)

Take a look at the star fort with several bridges to cross and numerous choke points it was able to hold off both Spanish and German invaders during the 80 year war.

I DM'd a large invasion of a mountain fort several years back and my players decimated an army of 85+ giants, orcs, and goblins. They dropped bridges as the enemy crossed, set up choke points for maximized fire balls and lighting bolts, started land slides, and used a stampede of large creatures (covers in burning pitch and carrying barrels of greek fire oil) to dishearten, destroy, and break the invading army.


Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
TPK wrote:
I would like to read more about this for some places I am designing. Tiny Coffee Golem where is the deep discount written up for MI that are immobile? Thanks

"Discount" might not be the right word. I just meant it's cheaper than a mobile magic item that does the same.

It's an as written use of the magic traps mechanic. The basic premise is that there's nothing that inherently says magic traps must be harmful.

The cost for an auto resetting magic trap is : +500 gp × caster level × spell level

The cost for an at will magic item is: +2000 gp × caster level × spell level

Wow, that is mighty interesting! Pretty cool ideas are now rolling around in my head! Thanks


TPK wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
TPK wrote:
I would like to read more about this for some places I am designing. Tiny Coffee Golem where is the deep discount written up for MI that are immobile? Thanks

"Discount" might not be the right word. I just meant it's cheaper than a mobile magic item that does the same.

It's an as written use of the magic traps mechanic. The basic premise is that there's nothing that inherently says magic traps must be harmful.

The cost for an auto resetting magic trap is : +500 gp × caster level × spell level

The cost for an at will magic item is: +2000 gp × caster level × spell level

Wow, that is mighty interesting! Pretty cool ideas are now rolling around in my head! Thanks

Anytime. :-)


I personally would absolutely not allow that trap rules for anything that wasn't a trap. While those rules do exist, expect either your DM to disallow them, or (which might be worse) have the NPCs use such things too.

The second will dramatically change the nature of the game, and in a way that is less fun in my opinion (as does just letting PCs use them)

Basically though, defending your keep is sort of a Red Queens Race problem. If the DM wants you to have encounters that threaten you in the keep, or threaten the keep itself, he will. If you up the defenses, he will just up the threat to counter them. That is sort of the nature of plot.

That said, I wouldn't ignore defenses, I would simply make sure I kept them at a reasonable baseline as I leveled up. If the party has spells that can help (things like Hallow for example) I would make sure to employ them as they came available. I would spend a reasonable percentage (maybe 25 or so) of building resource on defensive type things, make sure their was some sort of guard, and things like that. Basically try to keep the defenses as more or less baseline for the size of the structure and the wealth of those that live there, not trying to 'break' things, but also not inviting attack.

That will let your GM come up with reasonable (and hopefully fun) challenges centered around your keep.


Forbiddance is one of the ultimate defensive spells, but is level 6 and limited to Clerics, Oracles and Inquisitors (or those with scrolls & UMD). It blocks teleportation and deals enough damage to opposed alignments to kill mooks easily.

If your GM is willing you could hire a caster to do it for you though. Assuming a hired caster and that 4x 60' cubes are enough to completely protect the keep, the total price is just 8160gp. This is very affordable at level 6 if your 5 players pool their cash.


Dave Justus wrote:

I personally would absolutely not allow that trap rules for anything that wasn't a trap. While those rules do exist, expect either your DM to disallow them, or (which might be worse) have the NPCs use such things too.

The second will dramatically change the nature of the game, and in a way that is less fun in my opinion (as does just letting PCs use them)

Basically though, defending your keep is sort of a Red Queens Race problem. If the DM wants you to have encounters that threaten you in the keep, or threaten the keep itself, he will. If you up the defenses, he will just up the threat to counter them. That is sort of the nature of plot.

That said, I wouldn't ignore defenses, I would simply make sure I kept them at a reasonable baseline as I leveled up. If the party has spells that can help (things like Hallow for example) I would make sure to employ them as they came available. I would spend a reasonable percentage (maybe 25 or so) of building resource on defensive type things, make sure their was some sort of guard, and things like that. Basically try to keep the defenses as more or less baseline for the size of the structure and the wealth of those that live there, not trying to 'break' things, but also not inviting attack.

That will let your GM come up with reasonable (and hopefully fun) challenges centered around your keep.

Again, Trap rules by RAW. The DM is as always welcome to change thing as he/she pleases.


I like having some or all of the steucture leadlined to protect against scrying, you may not need it for a few levels though. Think about designing the floorplan in such a way to suit your party's prefferred tactics, size of rooms, available charge lanes, amount of cover. Do the same with the surrounding grounds. Set up firing nests for your ranged characters, choke points for your melee types. Basicly all the tbings you try to arrange with battlefield control magic and positioning you can prepare ahead with the terrain.


Dave Justus wrote:

I personally would absolutely not allow that trap rules for anything that wasn't a trap. While those rules do exist, expect either your DM to disallow them, or (which might be worse) have the NPCs use such things too.

The second will dramatically change the nature of the game, and in a way that is less fun in my opinion (as does just letting PCs use them)

Basically though, defending your keep is sort of a Red Queens Race problem. If the DM wants you to have encounters that threaten you in the keep, or threaten the keep itself, he will. If you up the defenses, he will just up the threat to counter them. That is sort of the nature of plot.

That said, I wouldn't ignore defenses, I would simply make sure I kept them at a reasonable baseline as I leveled up. If the party has spells that can help (things like Hallow for example) I would make sure to employ them as they came available. I would spend a reasonable percentage (maybe 25 or so) of building resource on defensive type things, make sure their was some sort of guard, and things like that. Basically try to keep the defenses as more or less baseline for the size of the structure and the wealth of those that live there, not trying to 'break' things, but also not inviting attack.

That will let your GM come up with reasonable (and hopefully fun) challenges centered around your keep.

This is great advice from a GM, and I'd look at a players keep exactly the same way. Its a new opportunity for encounters, even entire story arcs, not just somewhere you sleep and store your special equipment.

Its a fun opportunity for you as players if you enjoy designing this kind of thing, and for the GM more opportunity for ideas to incorporate into plot hooks and NPCs.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Fortifying Home Base All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.