Thursday, July 4, 2013

Settlement (New Class)

So what I wrote about end of last month is going somewhere. First of we need to establish a somewhat plausible frame for the growth of a settlement. The idea is to play a settlement (even the settlements of a whole region,  if you have the players for that) like a D&D character or, for a DM, to have some descent cornerstones to see how a settlement grows and reacts to it's environment within the D&D rules. It's aiming for a Domain-Game Subsystem and I'm using the Rules Cyclopedia to do the heavy lifting here.

Basics

Ability Scores: The idea is that the Ability Scores mirror the leadership of a city. As soon as a character, for instance, reaches Name Level and founds a settlement, his Ability scores build the foundation of that settlement. This also means that a change in leadership changes a settlement and that's by design, so to say. Weak settlements, in the early stages, could just die and leave ruins, but there is always room for change. It could be a plot point for a group of adventurers to change the leadership of a settlement for the better (with the new stats showing the difference in growth or defenses, etc.) or it could show how people leave town because of bad leadership (low CON, like, for instance, the king is sick and people get worried). Another big point could be that, with creating a settlement, the leadership is created with it (which could be useful for a DM). The effects of the Ability Scores are close to what one would expect from the game:

Strength - As usual, bonuses are used for damage and attacks. Fighting will be part of another post, but the post linked above gives some indications where this might lead*.

Dexterity - A bonus gives indications ho well a settlement is protected. Again, using AC gives on the one hand a concrete tool to see what influence player characters could have protecting a town (if they help building the defenses) and, on the other hand, is an easy to understand reference for a DM.

Constitution - Bonuses mean more hit points and that means more people.

Intelligence - I'll go with skills and the progression from the Rules Cyclopedia for this one. Should indicate the main trading goods and political influence. But there is room for some ideas from the Noircana brainstorm, like those spells by Porky. But more on that (and magic in general) in another post.

Wisdom - Indicates the settlements attitude towards the environment and strangers, maybe. Spirituality, maybe, too? It's a difficult one, but not necessarily important. so for now it would give a bonus to saves...

Charisma - An easy one. The number of possible retainers is the number of settlements depending on the main settlement. Always one status below the one of the main settlement, but never a Metropolis or higher. For a level 1 settlement it is the number of farms in it's territory (see below for some ideas about the size of the territory). In addition, if a settlement has, say, 5 "retainers" and the are cities, those cities would have stats and also (smaller) retainers, etc.. So with building a Metropolis, a DM would get a whole region structured, too (down to farms, actually).

Hit Points: Starting with d6, this is upgraded to the next higher die (d8, d10, d12, d20, d100) every time the status of a settlement changes.** One hp means 1 d6 citizens.

Saves and Combat: The Class of a settlement's leadership indicates the list to save on, the Level of the settlement gives the number. For combat goes the same. Fights as Class, but with the settlements Level.

Territory: This is just for double checking. I wrote about it here. HD and environment indicate the size of the territory needed. Using the numbers I proposed in the post linked above (giving the status of a settlement as size indicator), a Level 30 Megalopolis (times 5 for size) would be (according to The Measurement of Things), with 11.025.000.000 square meters (or 11.025 square kilometers), just a little bit smaller than Sitka (the second entry in the list), the second biggest city in the US of A. Sounds about right (it wouldn't be the settlements size, but the territory it needs to cover to support it's citizens)?

The Settlement (New Class)

Level         XP     Status     # of d6 Citizens with 1 to 9 HD (or level)***
                                  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 ...
  1            0     Settlement   1
  2        2.000                  2
  3        4.000     Hamlet       2   1
  4        8.000                  2   2
  5       16.000                  2   2   1
  6       30.000     Village      2   2   2
  7       60.000                  3   2   2   1
  8      120.000                  3   3   2   2
  9      240.000     City         3   3   3   2   1
 10      360.000                  3   3   3   3   2
 11      480.000                  4   3   3   3   2   1
 12      600.000                  4   4   4   3   2   1
 13      720.000                  4   4   4   3   2   2
 14      840.000                  4   4   4   4   3   2
 15      960.000                  5   4   4   4   3   2   1
 16    1.080.000                  5   5   5   4   3   2   2
 17    1.200.000                  6   5   5   4   4   3   2
 18    1.320.000                  6   5   5   4   4   3   2   1
 19    1.440.000                  6   5   5   5   4   3   2   2
 20    1.560.000     Metropolis   6   5   5   5   4   4   3   2
 21    1.680.000                  6   5   5   5   4   4   3   2   1 ...
 22    1.800.000                  6   6   5   5   5   4   3   2   2 ...
 23    1.920.000                  6   6   6   6   5   4   3   3   2 ...
 24    2.040.000                  7   7   6   6   5   5   4   3   2 ...
 25    2.160.000                  7   7   6   6   5   5   4   4   3 ...
 26    2.280.000                  7   7   7   6   6   5   5   4   3 ...
 27    2.400.000                  7   7   7   6   6   5   5   5   4 ...
 28    2.520.000                  8   8   7   6   6   6   6   5   4 ...
 29    2.640.000                  8   8   7   7   7   6   6   5   5 ...
 30    2.760.000     Megalopolis  8   8   8   7   7   7   6   6   5 ...
 31    2.880.000                  8   8   8   7   7   7   7   6   6 ...
 32    3.000.000                  9   8   8   8   8   7   7   7   6 ...
 33    3.120.000                  9   9   9   8   8   8   7   7   7 ...
 34    3.240.000                  9   9   9   9   8   8   8   8   7 ...
 35    3.360.000                 10   9   9   9   9   9   8   8   8 ...
 36    3.480.000                 10   10  9   9   9   9   9   9   9 ...

This is the Class, next up is Combat and Harvesting...

I believe the numbers came out right enough and there is already the possibility to make this work as a domain game. All it needs is to see the environment as the enemy and the ways to gather xp and this might be good to go.

As it is, one might already conclude how to measure a tribe of Goblins against this and how they could fight. Again, some ideas about that would be in the post linked to at the beginning. More on that in one of my next posts.


*To give but a short glimpse: HD gives the damage and, a bit like Weapon Mastery, a settlement gets another damage die every 3 Levels (so a Megalopolis could deal 10 d100 damage to its environment or enemies).
**So a Level 36 Settlement (a Megalopolis) would have 10 d100 citizens with 1 HD, 10 d100 citizens with 2 HD, etc. (all multiplied with d6 afterwards).
***This means people of note, living in the settlement. Everyone else has 1 HD-2. It doesn't mean those in charge. An adventurer founding a settlement won't be around every time (going on adventures and all that), same goes for a noble (or the noble doesn't care, either way, same difference). 

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