Is there anyone that has an easier way to do this than the (IMHO) needlessly complicated method that is the "official" way to do this? I have a player that wants to build low cost housing for the poor in her home city and quite honestly I don't get how it's done in the Ultimate Campaign book and am not good at homebrewing my own methods for this, though I'd be willing to work with someone.
So, anyone have their own methods for pricing construction of homes, businesses, etc? Lay 'em on me.
Like most subsystems, it introduces a lot of micromanagement for its own sake to create gameplay. Some players enjoy these kind of minigames, others understandably not so much.
Ultimately, I think you have to decide with your players how important it is for your story. Some of my best RPG memories relate to a Planescape campaign where the players decided to run an inn in Sigil. Taking the inn away from its previous owner, rebranding it, fighting off the mob, helping our employees out with their problems, and being able to offer our customers the best drinks of the multiverse where all worthwile occupations for a whole campaign and they didn't require any complicated subsystems.
We've had dozens of games where we would have absolutely loved the downtime rules for rooms, buildings, teams, and organizations, but they *are* very minutiae-focused (that happens to work well with our group, which tends to enjoy such things.)
That said, I think it would be easy enough to just ignore the Capital system entirely and convert everything to gold if you wanted to.
Rooms, buildings, teams, and organizations already have gold piece costs for hiring, buying, or building directly, so that really speeds things up.
Then you can just convert the profits to earned gold rather than earning Capital (just use the earn gold option - feel free to double or triple it if you think gains are too low - they kind of are, and that's intentional.) Compared to earning Magic capital and using it to fund magic item creation, it's nowhere near as profitable, and that's okay, too.
Use building times as loose guidelines, and for goodness' sake, let multiple rooms and teams be built/recruited at the same time. People can raise barn*s* (plural) in a day and build *modern* houses (with electrical wiring, etc) in a matter of days.
Is there anyone that has an easier way to do this than the (IMHO) needlessly complicated method that is the "official" way to do this? I have a player that wants to build low cost housing for the poor in her home city and quite honestly I don't get how it's done in the Ultimate Campaign book and am not good at homebrewing my own methods for this, though I'd be willing to work with someone.
So, anyone have their own methods for pricing construction of homes, businesses, etc? Lay 'em on me.
It's not just the building...it's the land. Even if the player owns the land, she'll be paying taxes on it. and on top of that, she may be paying taxes on what she builds on it. Those determine the bottom line of the ongoing expenses of those buildings... she may have to rethink her concept of "low cost".
Social welfare was pretty much a non-existant concept during the equivalent periods of Euro-American history.
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If it's just low income housing, I'd suggest taking the House and removing most of the rooms to cheapen the cost. Most people lived in one-two room huts, so all you need is a kitchen and maybe storage. Kitchen is essentially the bedroom. With 1 Kitchen and 1 Storage, you have a total cost of 280 gp. It's cheap and has up to 14 squares of room for the family(ies). For bathroom, you can go outside or use chamberpots. Luckily, the rules just give you the cost of everything so you can simply ignore the Capital. Nothing really complicated about it.
I like the house-building costs, but if I don't feel like micromanaging it by room, I just look for a pre-built building that has similar functionality and use that instead. For example, a flophouse for the homeless would likely cost as much as an inn.
Thanks, everyone.
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Lots of good suggestions.
As advice to the original poster, it is best to ignore the city building rules from ultimate campaign. It doesn't figure in that you might build low cost housing in a crowded city versus a small village with lots of nearby woods versus a small community near a mountain/desert environment. It is more for kingdom or guild building purposes (depending on which section the original poster referred to).
In short, make it cost what you feel would be best for your campaign. Not outrageously expensive, yet not something first level PCs could do easily. Make sure there's enough intrigue and adventure to interest the other players, yet not so much that everyone gives up the project.
The most important rule as a GM is to make things fun for everyone. If they love micromanaging subsystems, go for it. If they just want to kill monsters and find treasure, then feel free to make it something that is a background event that gets a few updates from NPCs, yet does not demand center stage from the PCs.
Thanks, KestrelZ. My players nearly always start out as adventuring fools then end up micromanagers. I don't know why they do this, but that's how it nearly always happens.
They live in a fairly large city (about 150k people, counting outlying communities) and the reason the player who wants to build the houses is because the city still hasn't fully recovered from a terrible dragon assault some 2 years prior to the current time. She wants to take some of the money she's made adventuring and help the poor by building affordable, decent housing for those in the worst hit areas. The kingdom is fairly prosperous, ruled by a good man who's taken a liking to the adventurers and sometimes supports their exploits for the help they've given him against threats to his rule. But despite this, there are still areas of the city that need improvement and that's where the player comes in.
I just can't decide what a fair amount of gold would be to build and charge for say a small home with an open kitchen/living area, two sleeping areas, and perhaps even a lavatory, though most likely this would be a series of communal lavatories set up over sewers like the Romans or Harrappans did. But the primary cost is the house itself. Just can't figure out what the cost should be. And the migraine I have isn't helping...lol
But thanks again to everyone who's taken the time to throw some ideas at me. I have some staring points and as soon as the headache subsides I can get to work tinkering.
EDIT: I just re-read Odraude's suggestion and it seems to be very reasonable. I can adjust up or down from his cost suggestion as I need to. Thanks!
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If you're looking for ancient indoor plumbing like the Romans/Indra/Inca, I'd add a Sewage Connection and you're good to go!.
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Is there anyone that has an easier way to do this than the (IMHO) needlessly complicated method that is the "official" way to do this? I have a player that wants to build low cost housing for the poor in her home city and quite honestly I don't get how it's done in the Ultimate Campaign book and am not good at homebrewing my own methods for this, though I'd be willing to work with someone.
So, anyone have their own methods for pricing construction of homes, businesses, etc? Lay 'em on me.
Simple..Say I spend X-Amount..
as for Furnishing...Loot every Baddies hide out..never buy pots and pans, dishesProblem with written rules...They don't cover every single detail in 1 size fits all.
When You go shopping do all glasses cost say 50 cents in every single store, what about Shoes, or Drapes? No they cost different...So In Our group we just say and Amount we spend.
We set our Cost of Living for each PC based on our personna we want for that Character..One might spend 3 GP a month to live while another spends 300