Previous editions of D&D assumed that most of the wealth that adventurers collect will be spent on magic items to boost their own power. However, such items are much rarer in 5E, and the default assumption is that characters cannot simply buy, sell, or craft magic items at will. Colville's solution is to give characters the option of using that money to build a stronghold, which allows them to attract followers and gain other tangible benefits. It also gives them more motivation to get involved in the politics and intrigue of the region around their new base, which can lead to new kinds of adventures.
The book is divided into six parts (three main chapters, plus substantial appendices which make up 40% of the book):
- Strongholds: Rules for building a stronghold, and the benefits characters gain from that investment.
- Followers: Details on the army units, retainers, and other followers a character can attract to their service, as well as special allies who help out from time to time.
- The Siege of Castle Rend: An adventure designed to introduce players to many of the new rules in this book.
- New Monsters: A bestiary of new extraplanar and draconic servitors that can be summoned by characters with a temple stronghold, and a few other methods.
- Warfare: Rules for mass combat, using army units gained as followers and/or hired with gold.
- New Items: New magic items referenced elsewhere in the book, or that use the new rules presented here (such as battle magic or new monsters).
Strongholds
A stronghold is a structure that provides a base of operations, a home for followers and allies, and enhanced personal abilities to its master. There are four basic types: a keep allows you to raise an army and defend the local populace; a tower helps with spell research and learning battle magic; a temple allows the summoning of divine servitors and learning battle magic; and an establishment allows you to perform espionage and generate income. A castle combines more than one type of stronghold, allowing a larger complex to be built and run by multiple characters. A stronghold's size (1-5 levels) is a measure of both its cost to build and the benefits received.In addition, the leader's class determines a number of the stronghold's features. Each class's entry lists a few possible demesne effects (ways in which the leader's power manifests in the local area) and stronghold actions (special abilities that the leader can use in combat). The leader also gets an improved class feature, which they can use a number of times equal to their stronghold's level before needing to take an extended rest (a week spent at the stronghold, re-attuning oneself to the site and recharging one's influence).
These abilities are typically very powerful, in order to make building a stronghold more attractive to players. They are not designed to be "balanced" (an overrated idea, in Colville's philosophy), but to give a cool reward to players who invest time and effort in this part of the game. In effect, the land responds to the leader's influence by granting them these special abilities, but they require the leader to periodically return to renew that bond.
Colville never says this explicitly, but the demesne effects and stronghold actions are an obvious parallel to the regional effects and lair actions associated with a powerful monster's lair. Once a player character has the resources to build and maintain a stronghold (at least 5th-7th level), they have arguably become powerful enough to manifest similar effects in their own "lair." Because the game is focused on the PCs, these stronghold actions and related effects will likely see more use than any NPC monster's lair would, so DMs will want to think about whether to use them and how often. The improved class features, on the other hand, have a built-in limit, and seem much more reasonable in their scope when you consider what a character could accomplish in a campaign that allowed them to invest the same amount of gold in portable magic items.
Followers
The leader's class determines what table to roll on for followers, which fall into five categories:- Units are military forces that can be used to defend the stronghold or wage war against enemies. They have special stat blocks used in the warfare rules.
- Retainers are lower-level adventurers who help the leader in their adventures, and can serve as lieutenants in the leader's absence. They use simplified stat blocks that give them a few cool powers but make them easy to run in combat.
- Artisans attach a shop to the stronghold, and can provide benefits such as reduced construction costs (carpenter, mason), magic item production (alchemist, scribe), training of troops (captain), or specialized knowledge (sage, spy).
- Ambassadors are members of local nonhuman tribes who act as liaisons between their people and the stronghold's leader. They allow the recruitment of army units from their ancestry.
- Allies are powerful local monsters who are impressed by the leader. They do not take orders, but can provide special help from time to time.
The Siege of Castle Rend
This 5th-level adventure is designed to introduce players to many of the new rules in this book: seizing and restoring a stronghold, attracting followers to serve there, and a mass combat battle to defend it. The adventure has several tough encounters, but there are also opportunities to resolve a couple of them through clever play rather than violence.New Monsters
The new rules for temples involve tracking concordance, a measure of how pleased the character's god is with them. A god's favorites can call upon divine aid, which can take the form of an extraplanar servitor arriving to aid the petitioner. The Monster Manual provides numerous examples of fiends that can fit this role, but far fewer celestials and elementals, and not many extraplanar creatures of other origins. Therefore, as a stretch goal, Colville created over 30 new monsters, grouped into several planar factions in the unique cosmology he has created for his own campaigns. Each faction contains creatures of Challenge ratings 5-10, providing a good spread of foes and allies over several levels' worth of play (much as the MM's demons and devils do).While all of Stronghold & Followers is lavishly filled with gorgeous artwork, this chapter shines brightest of all. Almost every new monster gets it own illustration, many of them full-paged pieces.
The largest section of this appendix is devoted to a new category of dragons, the gemstone dragons. Unlike metallic or chromatic dragons, these creatures are at least partially neutral in alignment, and wield psionic rather than magical powers. Of the handful of short fiction pieces in this book, the gemstone dragons get the two longest, to help convey the author's intent for how to use them in game.
Warfare
Colville's rules for large battles are a highly abstracted system, with stats based on ancestry, experience, equipment, and type of unit. It isn't a wargame, but a simplified system to run in parallel with the heroes fighting enemy leaders while their armies clash around them. And for DMs who want resolve battles even faster, there is an even simpler option presented at the end of the chapter.MCDM's next book will be Kingdoms & Warfare, which will expand on the mass combat rules presented here. Colville makes a number of references to that book throughout Followers & Strongholds--to battle magic, provinces, etc.--but because he doesn't want to overwhelm the reader with two books' worth of new rules at once, he keeps them to a minimum. For example, there is very little battle magic available in this first book, with most of it being provided by codices.
New Items
This chapter presents several new magic items, including objects that can be installed in a stronghold to gain various benefits; artifact-level, reality-bending books of battle magic known as codices; and powerful weapons capable of summoning many of the new servitors introduced in this book.My Conclusions
I have a few quibbles with Colville's writing style, which tends towards an overly conversational tone for a gaming rules supplement, with far too many "Gee, ain't this cool?" asides for my taste. (And smiley-face emoticons in a professional book, Matt? Really?!) But that's my personal opinion, and I have to admit that, like it or not, that choice does set his brand apart from other RPG books.That said, Strongholds & Followers is a very useful book for 5E DMs who want to include some of the fun of earlier editions' "name levels," when PCs were assumed to have acquired enough wealth and renown to build strongholds and attract followers. Colville presents a fairly cohesive system for players to invest in such projects and reap in-game rewards for their efforts. The time that he and his team put into play-testing those rules shows--they cover a great deal of material and options in an easy to understand way, and there is ample advice for tweaking things to suit your own game.
This system isn't for every campaign--it requires a game where characters will be regularly returning to a home base, and a GM and players who want to explore political and military challenges. But there is material here that will be useful even if you don't use the strongholds and warfare rules on a regular basis. The appendix of new monsters is a lovely addition to any 5E library by itself, and will help immensely in fleshing out a campaign's cosmology outside of the lower outer planes.
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