In the Waterdeep Dragon Heist adventure, chapter 2 seems to strongly encourage the players to renovate the tavern and run it as a business. It costs 1250 gp to do this. Where does a party of level 2 characters get this much gold? There is one hidden room in the Zhentarim Hideout with almost enough treasure to cover this cost. A hidden room is easy to miss and without it low level characters won't have enough money. Even if the treasure is found, would the players really want to sink *all* of their funds into a business rather then buying adventuring gear or services from the other nearby businesses? The level 2 faction quests don't help with this. The Zhentarim quest is the only one that rewards any money, and it's only 50 gp per character. The characters could potentially secure a loan or ask for favors from recently acquired friends, but the adventure doesn't mention any of this. In general, chapter 2 feels very weak amidst an otherwise well written adventure. What if none of the characters are interested in joining these factions and they don't want (or don't have the money) to run a business? There's nothing else presented for them to do. What if the characters would rather sell the property or not remain there for whatever reason, how would chapter 3 work?
Running a tavern in the city is a cool idea but it doesn't seem feasible given this set up. What would be some good ways to put some extra gold in their pockets and encourage them to renovate? What are some good contingency plans if that's just not what the players are interested in doing? Am I missing something?
The campaign I play in is running Dragon Heist, however we haven't hit the tavern yet. We were all fourth level when we started the Heist, so we're all pretty well off already (through some clever playing, my character has thousands of gold and a Keep), and I plan on renovating the place by myself. I'll give you an update on how it works out. We say biweekly, so it might be a month or so...
My group found the stash, but they have blown a good chunk of the money. I was planning on increasing the quest rewards for the Lords Alliance and Harpers starting quests.
I was also considering letting them put down an initial deposit or borrow money. (500g covers some of the renovation but it doesn’t restock the bar or larder) Borrowing it may get them to meet Victoro Cassalanter in the process.
You don’t have to renovate in order to be open for business. I was planning on having them run the place for a while, maybe making it a bit easier to gain coin just to not have us be stuck in a tycoon for more than a session. The 250 guild fee is optional as well, and could make for quite a fun session if they refuse to pay.
You don’t have to renovate in order to be open for business.
That's not at all how I'd read it.
The sidebar states "If the characters have unpaid expenses, subtract one from the roll fore each 1GP they owe". How do we know what expeses they might owe? There is a convenient list just above this statement, broken down into "one-time expenses" and "recurring expenses". We also know that, looking at this table from the DMG that there are scenarios where the maintenance cost (or on-going costs) can be covered within the roll. That means that the only way regular expenses can affect the roll is if either the players specifically say they are choosing to not pay those costs, or if they roll below a 40 on the net percentile.
I say net percentile because there is the matter of the one-time expenses to consider. Consider the state Trollskull Manor is initially described to the players:
the tavern’s taproom is filled with broken furniture, tarnished silverware, casks of wine that have turned to vinegar, and worthless detritus. The tavern’s other rooms are all empty, except for cobwebs, dust, and harmless rats.
This place cannot support a business without some serious renovation. Cleaning yes, but also ordering new chairs, new flatware, plateware, lighting, vermin extermination and so on. 1000g is not an objectively unreasonable price for all of that work.
So if you tried to run a business out of that without any work done to if, of course you'd turn away customers. So subtract 1000 from the percentile roll. you will always get a result of 1 - " You must pay one and a half times the business' maintenance cost for each of the days"
There are a few ways to handle this.
Let business expenses count towards one-time costs. this one is pretty straight forward - anytime the party rolls something requiring them to pay out of pocket, those proceeds go towards the renovation and guild contract costs. This spreads out the cost over serveral weeks, allowing them to do sidequests and earn up the money necessary.
Increase the monetary rewards from faction quests. Also straightforward, but assumes your party has shown interest in renovating the venue.
Reduce the one-time costs by calling in 'faction favors'. This is a good way to tie advancement to the factions you encounter in Ch. 2. For example, the Harpers might be able to provide your players leverage to drive the cost of lumber and labor down by half, reducing the cost to 800. The Lords' Alliance might waive the taxes for your help, driving it down to 500gp, and so on and so forth. In theory you could get the cost down to 100gp, which could then be partially covered by the quests for the factions themselves, allowing fair rolls on the business table.
Introduce a money lender. I like the idea of introducing Mirt early - he's Waterdeep's most famous money-lender, after all. Durnan has history with him and can recommend the party his way. Mirt could offer to cover the one time costs in exchange for some percentage of the profits (which could then be conveniently rolled into the operating costs and thus forgotten). If the players later then wish to buy out Mirt, they can do so at the cost of the loan plus some percentage. the DM should gauge how well they've been rolling on the table, as well as how often they've been doing so, to determine what premium Mirt will charge.
As a DM, I'm planning on letting my players help out their neighbors to possibly lower the cost for this. Tally could renovate their furniture in exchange for a quest, and the genasi blacksmiths could conceptually make their tankards and other silverware and such. I just need to figure out exactly how to do that. In other routes, I've thought about having some of the other neighbors perhaps drop a loan on the tavern in exchange for advertisement in the Inn (the book explicitly states that Vincent at the Tiger's Eye would appreciate that sort of thing).
But in short, yeah, I know my players well enough to know that they would choose keeping their gold over dropping it in this random tavern (that also has a poltergeist that one player is terrified of). If I don't give them alternative options that don't involve them spending their rewards, I'm not sure that they'll care.
I used the money-lender ideia in my game too and it worked great, my only regret is that i havent thought of it in the beginning of the second chapter, Volo himself could have recommended Mirt to the party.
i was thinking of doing a slightly different approach. Allowing the party the option of buying it but when they see how much of a money pit it is. Introduce a NPC who offers to take it off their hands but rent them the top 2 floors. This involves some role playing negotiations and remodelling of the manor but will give the players a base as well as still having the inn to work out from if they want.
Alternatively there is Mirt or the Cassalanter's who could loan the party money. (I like the second option as provides a way to introduce a potential villain in a softer way)
If you are running a rich party there are several other buildings for rent like the villa near the bards college (on the interactive waterdeep map in sea ward).
Honestly it seems like something that isn't really THAT important. we have a Knight with retainers and a Former merchant pc now NPC, I'm going to have them handle the repairs and running the business so that the players can focus more on what they would like to do. With the help of trollskull residents they should be able to pull it off with relative ease.
In the Waterdeep Dragon Heist adventure, chapter 2 seems to strongly encourage the players to renovate the tavern and run it as a business. It costs 1250 gp to do this. Where does a party of level 2 characters get this much gold? There is one hidden room in the Zhentarim Hideout with almost enough treasure to cover this cost. A hidden room is easy to miss and without it low level characters won't have enough money. Even if the treasure is found, would the players really want to sink *all* of their funds into a business rather then buying adventuring gear or services from the other nearby businesses? The level 2 faction quests don't help with this. The Zhentarim quest is the only one that rewards any money, and it's only 50 gp per character. The characters could potentially secure a loan or ask for favors from recently acquired friends, but the adventure doesn't mention any of this. In general, chapter 2 feels very weak amidst an otherwise well written adventure. What if none of the characters are interested in joining these factions and they don't want (or don't have the money) to run a business? There's nothing else presented for them to do. What if the characters would rather sell the property or not remain there for whatever reason, how would chapter 3 work?
Running a tavern in the city is a cool idea but it doesn't seem feasible given this set up. What would be some good ways to put some extra gold in their pockets and encourage them to renovate? What are some good contingency plans if that's just not what the players are interested in doing? Am I missing something?
No reply in a tenday... Has no one else run into this or thought it was too expensive at level 2?
The campaign I play in is running Dragon Heist, however we haven't hit the tavern yet. We were all fourth level when we started the Heist, so we're all pretty well off already (through some clever playing, my character has thousands of gold and a Keep), and I plan on renovating the place by myself. I'll give you an update on how it works out. We say biweekly, so it might be a month or so...
My group found the stash, but they have blown a good chunk of the money. I was planning on increasing the quest rewards for the Lords Alliance and Harpers starting quests.
I was also considering letting them put down an initial deposit or borrow money. (500g covers some of the renovation but it doesn’t restock the bar or larder) Borrowing it may get them to meet Victoro Cassalanter in the process.
You don’t have to renovate in order to be open for business. I was planning on having them run the place for a while, maybe making it a bit easier to gain coin just to not have us be stuck in a tycoon for more than a session. The 250 guild fee is optional as well, and could make for quite a fun session if they refuse to pay.
That's not at all how I'd read it.
The sidebar states "If the characters have unpaid expenses, subtract one from the roll fore each 1GP they owe". How do we know what expeses they might owe? There is a convenient list just above this statement, broken down into "one-time expenses" and "recurring expenses". We also know that, looking at this table from the DMG that there are scenarios where the maintenance cost (or on-going costs) can be covered within the roll. That means that the only way regular expenses can affect the roll is if either the players specifically say they are choosing to not pay those costs, or if they roll below a 40 on the net percentile.
I say net percentile because there is the matter of the one-time expenses to consider. Consider the state Trollskull Manor is initially described to the players:
This place cannot support a business without some serious renovation. Cleaning yes, but also ordering new chairs, new flatware, plateware, lighting, vermin extermination and so on. 1000g is not an objectively unreasonable price for all of that work.
So if you tried to run a business out of that without any work done to if, of course you'd turn away customers. So subtract 1000 from the percentile roll. you will always get a result of 1 - " You must pay one and a half times the business' maintenance cost for each of the days"
There are a few ways to handle this.
As a DM, I'm planning on letting my players help out their neighbors to possibly lower the cost for this. Tally could renovate their furniture in exchange for a quest, and the genasi blacksmiths could conceptually make their tankards and other silverware and such. I just need to figure out exactly how to do that. In other routes, I've thought about having some of the other neighbors perhaps drop a loan on the tavern in exchange for advertisement in the Inn (the book explicitly states that Vincent at the Tiger's Eye would appreciate that sort of thing).
But in short, yeah, I know my players well enough to know that they would choose keeping their gold over dropping it in this random tavern (that also has a poltergeist that one player is terrified of). If I don't give them alternative options that don't involve them spending their rewards, I'm not sure that they'll care.
I used the money-lender ideia in my game too and it worked great, my only regret is that i havent thought of it in the beginning of the second chapter, Volo himself could have recommended Mirt to the party.
Have a noble character and then they are the heir to the fortune.
After they find Floon,
there parents die. They get lots of money and get to open the tavern.
DM: Dragon of Icespire Peak PbP
i was thinking of doing a slightly different approach. Allowing the party the option of buying it but when they see how much of a money pit it is. Introduce a NPC who offers to take it off their hands but rent them the top 2 floors. This involves some role playing negotiations and remodelling of the manor but will give the players a base as well as still having the inn to work out from if they want.
Alternatively there is Mirt or the Cassalanter's who could loan the party money. (I like the second option as provides a way to introduce a potential villain in a softer way)
If you are running a rich party there are several other buildings for rent like the villa near the bards college (on the interactive waterdeep map in sea ward).
Honestly it seems like something that isn't really THAT important. we have a Knight with retainers and a Former merchant pc now NPC, I'm going to have them handle the repairs and running the business so that the players can focus more on what they would like to do. With the help of trollskull residents they should be able to pull it off with relative ease.