Dungeons and Dragons Blog

The Stronghold Builders Guidebook is an older supplement, but it’s still worth looking at.  The name says it all.  The book basically walks you through the steps of building a stronghold.  Whether it’s your players who want to build a fortress for themselves or a dungeon master who wants to build that floating castle while also coming with an idea as to how much it would cost, this is the book that gets you there.

Chapter 1 takes you through the basic steps of building a stronghold.  The stronghold’s location, size and basic components are chosen and then extras and wondrous architecture are touched on.  It also talks about mapping your stronghold and finishing things up.

Chapter 2 is the largest chapter and it starts with an extensive menu of room options and components.  Do you want a basic library or a luxury library?  If you choose the latter, don’t forget you need to hire a librarian.  If you’re a wizard who dabbles in potions, do you go with the basic alchemical laboratory or do you go with the fancy one?  You also get six different choices for bedrooms and you can even throw a tavern in for good measure.  Costs are provided for each, along with how much space each component takes up.

There’s also a detailed section on the walls that make up your stronghold.  Do you want mithral walls?  Then expect to pay through the teeth.  You can also add augmentations to your walls.  You can add magical blades or a fog veil if you’d like.  Along with walls comes some description on the door, windows and locks located through the stronghold.  Like the components, everything has a price.

There’s also an extensive section on extras.  These are basically magical items that don’t take up space in your stronghold but most are fixtures of some sort.  If you want a Decanter of Endless Water, expect to pay up 9,000 gold pieces.  Also discussed are moats and trenches and if neither of those provide the security you want, there’s a discussion on mobile strongholds.  There’s a section on permanent spells and if you don’t want magic to guard your treasure hoard, good old fashioned traps are also discussed.

The final section of this chapter talks about wondrous architecture.  These are basically spell like effects attached to components.  If you don’t think prison bars will keep your prisoners locked up, you can spend 14,000 gold pieces to turn it into a prison of fire.  And if you don’t want to pay for help by the month, you can drop 1,500 gold pieces for an invisible helper to make the bed.

Chapter 3 discusses how to bring strongholds into your campaign.  If discusses the construction of strongholds and how they’re run.  And then there’s sections on protecting and assaulting strongholds.

Chapter 4 provides some sample strongholds and I thought this was the worst part of the book.  The cheap keep is very generic and I wouldn’t find myself using the underwater coral castle.  There’s a floating tower and then the one I could see myself using is the Dwarven Redoubt. 

Outside of chapter four, which is basically just a throw in, I thought the Stronghold Builders Guidebook is a quality supplement.  It’s probably not completely neccesary, but I think it provides a good foundation for players and DMs that want to design their own dungeons and fortresses.  And it also gave me some great ideas that I know I’ll be throwing into my campaign.