Settlement Building - Part 3
We are back to Settlement Building!
Last time, I shared a few stat blocks for different buildings, as well as the basic ideas around resources. The big thing I got from people was that they wanted more about labor resources. So for this week, I am going to think about human(oid) resources and touch on taking the Trade action for your settlement.
Labor Resource
A city isn’t a city without a population. If there are no people there, it is a ruin. So people are very important to a city and it gets you thinking, how many people does it make to make a city? What about a village? When do you call a hamlet a metropolis?
I think those designations will be based on Proficiency Bonus, so the chart below will line those up:
Hamlet | +2 Proficiency Bonus
Village | +3 Proficiency Bonus
Town | +4 Proficiency Bonus
City | +5 Proficiency Bonus
Metropolis | +6 Proficiency Bonus
Of course, that doesn’t really tell us how many people are in a village or hamlet. I think the way I want to use population is more of a “Minimum Required” for buildings. I dislike the idea of ‘spending’ labor resources as it sounds… bad.
Of course, that’s the tricky part isn’t it? What were settlement sizes? Well, there isn’t an official record set anywhere, but rather you have to go by vibes for what feels appropriate. In addition, a ‘modern’ hamlet size is going to be bigger than a medieval hamlet size, so keep in mind that you may want to massage the numbers around a bit if you have a drastically reduced population or a drastic surplus of population.
Here is my break down:
Hamlet | +2 Proficiency Bonus | up to 100 people
Village | +3 Proficiency Bonus | up to 500 people
Town | +4 Proficiency Bonus | up to 5,000 people
City | +5 Proficiency Bonus | up to 20,000 people
Metropolis | +6 Proficiency Bonus | more than 20,000 people
I do want to make one thing clear. You can not turn a hamlet into a metropolis just cause you invite a few friends over. Population is not going to be the ‘experience points’ for city growth. While population is an important part of a city, when we are gamifying it, we are going to be concerned about other parts of a city as well.
When a city levels up, I don’t want it to only be because they took in a 1,000 refugees. A city needs proper infrastructure to support that many people, so if you were once a hamlet with 60 people and then all of a sudden you become a town of 1,060, you are not automatically leveled up. You need to build structures, find food, and more. This means that your hamlet will be hemorrhaging food resources until you can level up your city enough to be considered a city.
What that looks like, I’m not quite sure yet. But we’ll get there! Instead, let’s talk about what population does for you.
Last time I shared some stat blocks but I didn’t touch on the people required to operate it or when you might utilize an Advanced Sawmill from a Basic Sawmill. Here is the Basic Sawmill below as a refresher:
Sawmill (Basic)
This simple structure has a large saw that cuts wood into lumber. This basic sawmill produces a small amount of lumber every week.
Requirements Near a forest or source of wood
Prerequisites None
To Build 1 Metal (Saw), 2 Wood (Structure), 1,000 gold
Building Time 1 month
Effect Gain 1 Wood once per week (no action required).
Now, a sawmill needs people to operate, unless you can be like the kingdom of Geb and use a large populate of undead zombies and skeletons to do all the menial labor for you. In which case, the sawmill needs bodies to operate it.
But how many people? And are we going to be accounting for everyone in the village? Well, I’m not going to answer that first question cause I don’t know a real answer to that and I’m sure it depends. A sawmill on a river will take less people than if the people have to do all the hewing and sawing themselves. As for the second question, yes and no.
We will be accounting for everyone in the settlement, but also, we aren’t. See, I think we can do something like “Labor Points” where a settlement has an amount of points that they have based on their level (equal to their level?) which will help be the limiter to how much a city can produce.
This does change our previous assumption that a sawmill automatically creates a single resource every week. With adding in Labor Points, now you’ll have to upgrade to better structures to get that automatic resource (at a reduced rate). This incentivizes your settlement to have people (as there will be a rule that if you have lower population than certain amounts, you get fewer labor points to spend).
For example, a Lv3 hamlet could have 3 labor points that it can ‘spend’ on the different structures in its settlement. So if we say that a sawmill requires 1 point, a mine requires 2 points, and a farm requires 1 point - the settlement could be actively spending resources at the sawmill and farm, but couldn’t also be actively spending points at the sawmill since it requires 2 points and we only have 1 leftover.
But fear not! If you instead spent a point on the sawmill and 2 on the mine, your settlement doesn’t immediately start starving. All it means is that that structure is operating at the baseline and only produces enough to ‘make ends meet’ for that structure. As in, your farm produces just enough food for the settlement, your sawmill produces just enough timber to do a few things, etc.
You gain no ‘extra’ Resources for Trade or stockpiling or building new structures.
Now let’s say you do have a mine, a sawmill, and a farm in your Lv3 Hamlet. That would require 4 labor points, but you only have 3 cause you’re only level 3. What happens if you have them tucked away at the sawmill and mine, but you need more food resources because winter is coming and you are going to need a stockpile of food to survive the harsh winter when Saint Nicodracius the White Dragon breathes its wintery breath across the realm and freezes the oceans?
Well, once per week, when you gain resources, you can move your labor points around. Instead of focusing on a sawmill and mine, you can now focus on the farm and mine. So then for that week, you gain food and ore, instead of wood and ore.
Now, the other question I got from last week was when would you build an Upgraded Sawmill vs a Basic Sawmill. I think we can tie that to proficiency and labor points, but also, I’m going to say… I’m not sure. I still need to finish building out the core basics and then make a few settlements to see if resources need to be adjusted or completely changed.
But here is my basic idea for the stat blocks with what we have covered so far, and now accounts for Labor Points and a structure’s passive effect (i.e. you don’t spend any Labor Points on it):
Sawmill (Basic)
This simple structure has a large saw that cuts wood into lumber. This basic sawmill produces a small amount of lumber every week.
Requirements Near a forest or source of wood
Prerequisites None; Proficiency +2
To Build 1 Metal (Saw), 2 Wood (Structure), 1,000 gold
Building Time 1 month; Labor 1 point
Effect Gain 1 Wood; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Sawmill this week, you gain 0 Wood.
Sawmill (Upgraded)
This upgraded structure features more saws and greater production. When constructed, it replaces the Basic Sawmill.
Requirements Near a forest or source of wood
Prerequisites Basic Sawmill (replaces); Proficiency +3
To Build 3 Metal (Saws), 5 Wood (Structure), 5,000 gold
Building Time 2 months (basic sawmill produces no wood during this time); Labor 1 point
Effect Gain 1d4 Wood; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Sawmill this week, you gain 1 Wood.
Sawmill (Advanced)
This upgraded structure features more saws and greater production. When constructed, it replaces the Upgraded Sawmill.
Requirements Near a forest or source of wood
Prerequisites Upgraded Sawmill (replaces); Proficiency +4
To Build 7 Metal (Saws), 11 Wood (Structure), 15,000 gold
Building Time 2 months (upgraded sawmill produces no wood during this time); Labor 2 points
Effect Gain 2d4 Wood; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Sawmill this week, you gain 1d4 Wood.
Sawmill (Factory)
This expansive structure is built of multiple sawmills and yields large amounts of production. When constructed, it replaces the Advanced Sawmill.
Requirements Near a large forest or large quantities of wood
Prerequisites Advanced Sawmill (replaces); Proficiency +6
To Build 12 Metal (Saws), 20 Wood (Structure), 25,000 gold
Building Time 3 months (advanced sawmill produces no wood during this time); Labor 2 points
Effect Gain 4d4 Wood; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Sawmill this week, you gain 1d4+1 Wood.
Trade
The next part I want to talk about is Trade. Now why would a settlement want to trade? Well, if they are in the desert, they may not be able to produce as much food as they need. Or they are in the forest, but there are no appropriate places to quarry for stone, or they want horses as a trade good, or they have a surplus of gems, or maybe, they are working on their magic and have learned that the secret to the greatest magic is locked behind friendship.
Which brings us to Trade!
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I really want to make a fleshed out caravans mechanic for D&D, and its been sitting in my drafts folder on this website for a while. And as tempting as it is to get super involved and design a whole subsystem… This will not be it. Again, the point of this system is to avoid record keeping and help tables quickly get in and out of the system… and I’m a little sad on that. I had notes on caravan hit points, how large monsters that would ordinarily be too big of a threat for a single adventuring party could use their caravan guards to help bring down the monster, but with their caravan taking damage, and on and on but I’m getting way too in the weeds on something that has no bearing on Trade.
So Trade is a basic settlement action you can take beyond building, producing, and whatever else we come up with between now and the finished rules. Trading is all about taking the resources you have and exchanging them for money and/or other trade goods. Or the opposite of that, using your money to buy resources your settlement needs.
And this isn’t an instant transfer of goods and money. When we talk about Settlements trading, they aren’t just exchanging a few coins for a weapon. We are talking about large scale trade, like a caravan being sent to another settlement to exchange large quantities of lumber, ore, spices, or whatever your settlement produces.
So first, we have to talk about how much you can trade. Oh look, caravans are coming back! (Foreshadowing is a literary device in wh—)
When a settlement wants to trade, it will have to use one of its actions to assemble a caravan and trade a number of resources equal to half its Proficiency Bonus. A caravan requires a number of Labor Points equal to half the number of resources being traded (rounded up).
So for our Lv3 hamlet that wants to trade Wood, it will have to use one of its actions on its turn to create the caravan, load up the Wood, and send it off. This will cost 1 labor point and they can only trade up to 1 Wood.
They will then send the trade caravan out, conduct the trade, and then eventually come back with either money or new resources.
Now, a single Wood isn’t much, but that’s why we are going to introduce Trading Posts and Caravans as structures to build! The base is only half your Proficiency Bonus and the Labor Point is kind of high for what you are doing because you haven’t invested in it. As you get better (and build structures), you’ll be able to trade more efficiently and become known as the trade capital of your neck of the woods. I provide basic stat blocks for them at the end of this section.
Up next, how long is the trade caravan gone for? This will be largely up to the GM based on where the next trade partner is and could be a big problem for some settlements started on new lands that players are trying to settle. I would say, most likely, that GMs could use the following scale:
Local | 1 week trip, less than 25 miles away | A close neighbor, like a hamlet that is a day or two walk away
Near | 2 (1d4) week trip, 25 to 60 miles away | A neighboring settlement, typically less than a weeks walk away
Outlying | 3 (1d4+1) week trip, 60 to 150 miles away | A settlement at least a week away for travelers
Far | 5 (2d4) week trip, 150 to 300 miles away | A settlement several weeks away
Distant | 7 (3d4) week trip, 300 to 500 miles away | A settlement very far away that requires almost a full month to travel to and back from
Remote | 10 (4d4) week trip, more than 500 miles away | A location that can take several months to travel to and back from
The next question I might get is… why travel so far? Well, for some settlements, you might not have a choice. For other settlements, it could be that the best trading cities are several weeks away. Or that all the nearby settlements have no interest in wood cause they are also in the same forest as you and you need to ship lumber out of your local area and to the big city that is a few weeks away. This will largely be dependent on where your settlement is located, where other settlements are, and the GM will ultimately have the final say on distances and how long trade routes can take.
So if our Lv3 hamlet wanted to trade with another hamlet, we’d use one of our actions to do a Trade. We gather our caravan, send them out, and then that Labor Point is gone until the caravan gets back. If it is a Local hamlet, they are back next week and we can immediately gain any new resources and that Labor Point. If they are 1d4 weeks away, we roll, get a 4, and now that Labor Point is gone for 4 weeks. We can still take two actions next week, but we are now down to 2 Labor Points from 3 until that trade caravan gets back (luckily, our labor is made up mostly of kids and, as we all know, kids yearn for the mines).
Now, how do we decide what settlements want?
Settlements are going to need some stat blocks for them, with a Needs/Surplus section. In addition, the bigger the settlement, the more you can potentially make for your trade goods. This will be something detailed when we get into other settlements, but its important to understand that part when it comes to trade. You can trade with a hamlet all day, but if you want to make more money, you have to go to a city or metropolis. (At this point, I’ll argue that if you are making a whole new settlement, you are not going to be near any city as it is likely that all of that land has already been settled and built up.)
The next part of trade is money, but I’m not going to get into that this week. Maybe next time we can talk about money, additional structures, other settlement rules that we need, or maybe I’ll finally finish my caravan rules…
Before I go, here are the basic versions of Caravans and Trading Posts. As a reminder, a settlement can still take the Trade action without either of these, but building one of them will make it a lot more profitable for your settlement.
Caravan (Basic)
This simple group of wagons can transport material to other settlements and trade with them.
Requirements None
Prerequisites None; Proficiency +2
To Build 2 Wood (Structure), 200 gold
Building Time 1 week; Labor 1 point
Effect Can conduct Trade and transport +1 resource; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Caravan, you conduct no Trade.
Caravan (Upgraded)
This expanded group of wagons transports material to other settlements and conducts trade with them. When constructed, it replaces the Basic Caravan.
Requirements None
Prerequisites Basic Caravan (replaces); Proficiency +3
To Build 3 Wood (Structure), 500 gold
Building Time 2 weeks; Labor 1 point
Effect Can conduct Trade and transport +2 resources; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Caravan, you can trade 1 resource with a local settlement.
Trading Post (Basic)
This large building is more of a large barn and attracts traders from Local settlements.
Requirements None
Prerequisites None; Proficiency +2
To Build 3 Wood (Structure), 500 gold
Building Time 2 weeks; Labor 1 point
Effect Gain 1 basic Resource (Wood, Ore, Food) and pay its normal costs; Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Trading Post, you gain 0 Resources.Trading Post (Upgraded)
This large building is a bustling market of traders from Local and Near settlements. When constructed, it replaces the Basic Trading Post.
Requirements None
Prerequisites Basic Trading Post (replaces); Proficiency +3
To Build 5 Wood (Structure), 1,000 gold
Building Time 1 month; Labor 1 point
Effect Gain 2 basic Resources (Wood, Ore, Food) and pay its normal costs Passive Effect If you don’t spend labor points on the Trading Post, you gain 1 basic Resource (pay its normal cost with no discount).
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