Friday, September 19, 2008

Strongholds

This is one aspect of D&D that I've never fully experienced. I have long dreamed about it ever since I got my 1e DMG back in the early '80s. But none of the campaigns I played endured long enough to warrant the building of a stronghold for my characters. The adventures I played always seemed to have been one-shot affairs. We would prepare characters and dive into a published dungeon.

As I mentioned earlier, I never became involved with an ongoing campaign until around 2005. For the first time, the players I was gaming with were actually developing their own fiefdom. But as I explained, I never had much say in that group and I eventually left it.

I'm wondering if building a stronghold for PCs is a dead art. Is it all about adventure paths? Judging from the resurgent interest in old school sandbox gaming, it might make a comeback.

To this end, I want to draw attention to a relatively recent splat book, Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. I believe that it was published before the advent of 3.5e. However, I think that it can be perfectly useful for any edition, including 4e. It's similar to some of the rules presented in Gygax's 1e DMG but with much more detail.

But then the next question is how do you conduct seige warfare in D&D? What about large-scale battles? I wonder...

3 comments:

Neon Elf said...

I use the Stronghold Guidebook to build anything from a tavern to a Castle. I need creative help and it gives me some solid rules to work with, it's great. For large scale combat I've seen (but not read) Heros of Battle.

Xeveninti said...

For large scale combat I've seen (but not read) Heros of Battle.
Ah, yes. I think I have heard of that book. I will have to give it a read.

Donjon Master said...

My gaming group (we play a combination of 1E and 2E) has annexed a chunk of territory on that Florida-like peninsula south of Safeton in the World of Greyhawk. We have settlers; are building castles, temples, towns, etc.; are in the midst of repelling a humanoid invasion from the Pomarj; and we're not even name-level yet.