THE SETTLEMENT
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This topic could easily be something completely separated from the last four articles about mining. That is because we could define how a settlement works and treat it as standing-on-its-own template.
It mean that we may define how to run a settlement that is not necessarily a mining settlement, it could be whatever.
However, let’s try to get stick to the original idea, and see what happens, then we may eventually decide to create a spin-off.
Ok, let’s start then.
When thinking about a settlement we need to determine which are its main features or characteristics.
We state we want to consider a settlement as something akin to a “character”, by stating this we can build settlements that have their own peculiarities.
So, a settlement should include the following elements:
A) PRIMARY STATS
Elements that can be rolled once the settlement is founded. As a consequence we’ll have modifiers related to each stat.
Stats and modifiers will influence dice rolls and will work as as prerequisites when we’ll pick (or roll randomly) the traits.
B) SECUNDARY STATS
Elements that are not rolled, but are influenced by primary stats and other stuff.
C) TRAITS
A list of traits that define the nature of the settlement since its foundation.
D) EXPERIENCE & TIER
A measure of a settlement progress.
E) ACTIONS & EVENTS
A settlement is able to perform a certain number of actions in a specific range of time. Success of failure of an action will be decided by rolling a d20. Every action is related to a specific primary stats and use that specific stat modifier to produce an effect. We assume that an effect is something that will be described when we’ll talk in detail about every action.
Events occurs when an external agent affects the settlement. While an action is performed by another settlement, the event is triggered by other circumstances. As per the action, the event produce an effect and involves the settlement to roll a d20 to resist or embrace the event.
ABOUT PRIMARY STATS
Read article…Dwarves & Mining #5 part 2 – D&D Mining Guide – The Settlement’s Primary Stats
To keep the settlement familiar to how we play a character we decide to create six stats, each one being related to the stats we already are familiar with.
Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.
However we need to change the names and give each stat a slightly different flavour and purpose.
Military (from strength)
Represents the capability to withstand conflicts and the ability to organize the community against a threat.
Flexibility (from dexterity)
Represents the capability to adapt and react to everchanging circumstances or unexpected and unpredictable events.
Resistance (from constitution)
Represents the capability to withstand dangerous situations that pose a threat to the population and its social stability.
Technology (from intelligence)
Represents the capability to improve and enhance the settlement’s performance.
Culture (from wisdom)
Represents the capability to accumulate knowledge and explain events, to attract new settlers and produce art.
Influence (from charisma)
Represents the capability to deal and interact with other organizations like kingdoms, cities, and institutions.
ABOUT SECUNDARY STATS
Read article…Dwarves & Mining #5 part 3 – D&D Mining Guide – The Settlement’s Secundary Stats.
We said we want to consider the settlement as a “character”, that means we need to define elements that emulate AC (armor class), AB (attack bonus), HP (hit points), lvl (level) and XP (experience points).
I think this is all we need, but I’m not 100% sure…so we’ll see!
Offense (from AB or attack bonus)
Represents the capability to lead a hostile action agains any target. We’ll employ the attack bonus to determine the magnitude of hostile events also.
Defense (from AC or armor class)
Represents the capability to withstand an attack. It may be a siege, a raid, a natural disaster or whatever we come up with. We probably do not want it to be related to warfare only.
Population (from HP or hit points)
Represents the endurance of the settlement. Some events may reduce the population, or increase it. A war for example will reduce the population, as well as natural disasters or plagues.
EXPERIENCE & TIER
Read article…Dwarves & Mining #5 part 4 – D&D Mining Guide – The Settlement’s Experience and Tier
Represents the knowledge, experience, cultural strength and identity of a settlement. Everything they have endured is part of their heritage and a legacy for the generations that follows.
Winning battles earns experience, mining and earning gp earns experience, withstand and survive natural disasters earns experience, and so on.
Tier advancement implies new abilities for the settlement and other bonuses.
ABOUT ACTIONS & EVENTS
As we said, a settlement accomplish an action by rolling a d20 and by adding a proper modifier. Which modifier is added depends on the nature of the action, because we state that every action will be related to a specific stat.
Example: the settlement perform a spy action (see below). It rolls a d20 and add its influence or military modifier (because spy is an action related to both stats) plus tier modifier. The target rolls a d20 and add its defense bonus plus target’s influence or military modifier.
A settlement can perform one action per week, unless stated otherwise. It is possible for a settlement to perform more than one action per week (or turn) but this will depend on the tier of the settlement. We’ll make a table showing tier and xp later. We even state that an action, in order to completed, may require more than one week.
Below we present a list of possible actions.
Build (variable rolls)
The settlement builds infrastructures picked from those listed in the Building table
Craft (variable rolls)
The settlement crafts goods picked from those listed in the Trade Goods table (which is not available yet).
note: we can employ the crafting and building mechanics described in pathfinder 1ed. because it is very practical, however we’ll make some changes to turn it simpler. We basically link the crafting process and advancement to the gp value of the goods and buildings we want to craft.
Defend (military or flexibility roll)
The settlement prepares to fend off an attack. This could result in an improved defense bonus against a specific attack.
Establish Connection (influence roll).
The settlement open diplomatic relationships with other communities, cities, kingdoms or organizations. If the settlement interacts with any external institution without having established connections first, then the interaction will suffer a penalty to any other action roll related to that institution.
Establishing a connection is similar to sending an envoy, an embassador or a scout, but it’s not as invasive and hostile as spying.
So, actions like defend, invade, raid, sell products and spying suffer a penalty if establish connection is not performed in advance.
Expand (resistance roll)
The settlement expands its boundaries to host more population by building housings and essential infrastructures. The expand action must be performed everytime the settlement tier increases.
The expand action should cost a proper amount of gp*tier.
Invade (military roll)
The settlement perform a hostile action against a target. We may include circumstance modifiers that depends on distance, terrain and other elements.
Produce (flexibility roll)
The settlement canalize its efforts to produce raw materials. Output increases by 1% per tier of the settlement.
Raid (military or flexibility roll)
The settlement organizes a small incursion in enemy territories. A raid action is not like an invade action, so damages against the target are not severe. The goal of a raid is to seize resources and weaken the target.
Recover (resistance, culture)
The settlement focus its efforts to recover from a war or anything that could have damaged its integrity.
Sell Products (influence roll)
The settlement monetizes whatever it is producing, in our case mine products because we are talking about a mining settlement. The sale is not automatic neither it occurs at its full gp value.
Spy (military or influence roll)
The settlement gather intelligence about a potential threat, or it may explore an unknown area. As a general rule when something is hidden or unknown a spy action should be rolled. A successful spy action grants a circumstance bonus to a specificl roll.
In this case we can create a table detailing some possible circumstance bonuses
Technological Enhancement (technology roll)
The settlement enhances its efficiency and performance. It can be cost reduction, better production, improved crafting. weapon effectiveness and so on. This is a detail that must be studied deeply.
note: we are facing a dilemma here. We can create a list of possibles and detailed enhancements or we can create generic guidelines to let the players customize their own enhancement. Or, why not, we can implement both. The first option is very laborious, while the second is very complex.
Train (culture roll)
The settlement trains and get insight of knowledge accumulated over time. Valuable experience usually comes from above-the-average individuals who shares their knowledge with the community. This action leads to an overall increase of a settlement experience points.
Other Actions (variable rolls)
We leave a paragraph opened just in case we decide to add actions to the list.
Custom Action (variable rolls)
We include the possibility that a player may come up with new, unusual and more elaborate actions.
ABOUT TRAITS
While every settlement must possess stats that define and describe that specific settlement, we don’t want the same for traits.
A settlement can pick only a few of the traitswe are going to describe.
We said a trait defines the nature of a settlement and emerges once the settlement is founded.
As a player and as a character I can’t decide exactly which traits define my settlement, because it is the sum of all people who form the community.
A trait answer to the questions what kind of people form the settlement? what is their way of life? how do they interact with other races and cultures? how do they make things?
However we may consider that the character can have a slight impact on it, depending on his/her race, class and background
We don’t know yet how traits will interact with the settlement because we have not defined the content of each trait, so we are just going to sketch a list of traits and present some plausible modifiers. We’ll probably change or add some modifiers later, once we define in detail more elements.
However, as a general rule we state that traits will influence primary stats, secundary stats and actions through modifiers.
LIST OF TRAITS
Aggressive
Modifiers: +1 military rolls to invade; -1 influence rolls to establish connection
Creative
Modifiers; +1 culture rolls to train; +1 any roll to craft; -1 flexibility rolls to produce.
Cosmopolitan
Modifiers: +1 influence rolls to sell products; +1 influence rolls to establish connection; +1 culture rolls to train; -1 flexibility rolls to expand; -1 flexibility rolls to produce.
Defensive
Modifiers: +1 military rolls to invade; +1 military rolls to defend
Diplomatic
Modifiers: +2 influence rolls to establish connection; +1 influence rolls to spy; -2 military rolls to raid.
Elitist
Modifiers: +1 culture rolls to train; +1 technology rolls to technological enhancement; -1 culture rolls to recover.
Expansionistic
Modifiers: +1 resistance roll to expand; -1 resistance rolls to recover.
Hard Worker
Modifiers: +1 flexibility rolls to produce; +1 resistance rolls to expand; -1 any military rolls.
Healthy
Modifiers: +1 reistance rolls to recover; +1 bonus to resistance.
Independent
Modifiers: +1 any roll to craft; -1 influence rolls to establish connection.
Industrious
Modifiers: +1 any roll to craft; +1 resistance rolls to expand.
Innovator
Modifiers: +1 technology rolls to tech enhancement; +5% to buildings cost; +5% xp earned.
Insidious
Modifiers: +1 military/influence rolls to spy.
Intimidating
Modifiers: +1 military rolls to invade; +2 military rolls to raid; -2 influence rolls to establish connection.
Financial
Modifiers: +1 flexibility rolls to produce.
Friendly
Modifiers: +1 influence rolls to establish connection; -1 military rolls to raid.
Hostile
Modifiers: +1 flexibility rolls to invade; +1 military rolls to defend; -1 any influence roll.
Militaristic
Modifiers: +1 any military rolls; -1 any flexibility rolls.
Optimizer
Modifiers: +1 any craft rolls; -5% building cost; -1 resistance rolls to expand.
Organized
Modifiers: +1 culture rolls to train; +1 flexibility rolls to produce.
Philosopher
Modifiers: +1 culture rolls to train; +1 resistance rolls to expand; +1 culture rolls to recover; -1 any military rolls.
Planner
Modifiers: +1 to flexibility rolls to defend; +1 flexibility rolls to raid; -1 resistance rolls to expand.
Pragmatic
Modifiers: +1 any roll to craft; -1 influence rolls to establish connection.
Prolific
Modifiers: +1 resistance roll to recover; +1%*tier to population.
Protective
Modifiers: +1 bonus to defense; +1 military rolls to defend.
Religious
Modifiers: +1 any rolls to build buildings; +1 culture rolls to train; +1 culture rolls to recover; -1 flexibility rolls to produce.
Reputable
Modifiers: +1 influence rolls to establish connection; +1 influence rolls to sell products; -1 influence rolls to spy; -1 military rolls to raid.
Researcher
Modifiers: +1 technology rolls to technology enhancement, -1 any craft rolls, +5% to xp earned.
Survivalist
Modifiers; +1 resistance rolls to recover, -1 culture rolls to train.
Trader
Modifiers: +1 influence rolls to sell product; +1 influence rolls to spy.
Xenophobic
Modifiers: +1 flexibility rolls to produce; +1 military rolls to spy; -1 influence rolls to establish connection; +1 culture rolls to train; -1 flexibility rolls to expand.
RESUME
We have talked about five main block so far.
Primary stats
We need to define how stats are rolled and how their modifiers work.
Secundary stats
We have to detail how secundary stats are affected by primary stats.
Experience & Tier
We need to define how much experience is needed to advance of tier and what kind of bonus and benefit each tier has.
Actions
We have described some actions but we have not talked about the effect each action produce-
Traits
We have a compiled a list of traits and vaguely defined how they interact with rolls.
We haven’s said much yet, but we have an idea of what to do.
In the next articles we will discuss more specifically other details.
Stay tuned!
Next article…Dwarves & Mining#5 part 2 – D&D Mining Guide – The Settlement’s Primary Stats