HI, I'm running an Eberron campaign and my players are in Sharn.  One of them wants to buy/ acquire his own tower as a home and is asking me how much it is going to cost.  I swear one of the rule books had information for players trying to buy properties, but I cannot find it on DND beyond. Can anyone throw some links at me? He is also talking about finding something that is overrun with squatters and just kicking them out to do it on the cheap.  I can imagine local gangs taking it back later, but if anyone has tips or complications that would be fun/ frustrating for him to play, I would love to hear them.

Quote from Davenader >>

HI, I'm running an Eberron campaign and my players are in Sharn.  One of them wants to buy/ acquire his own tower as a home and is asking me how much it is going to cost.  I swear one of the rule books had information for players trying to buy properties, but I cannot find it on DND beyond. Can anyone throw some links at me? He is also talking about finding something that is overrun with squatters and just kicking them out to do it on the cheap.  I can imagine local gangs taking it back later, but if anyone has tips or complications that would be fun/ frustrating for him to play, I would love to hear them.

 

There is some discussion of this sort of thing in the Dungeon Master's Guide under the Downtime Activities section. The new 2024 DMG coming out next month will have a much more detailed "Bastion" system that gets at some of this too.

Here's the 2014 DMG's table on buying/building property.

Brilliant guys. Thanks!

Just want to mention the bastion rules are due out in a couple weeks in the DMG. They might give you ideas for how to run it.

 For smaller things, a reasonable rule of thumb is that the cost of a dwelling at a given lifestyle is about 1,000x your daily lifestyle costs, and having a home reduces your lifestyle costs by around 25% (yes, this will not come close to paying off in a normal length campaign). Thus, a Modest house would cost about 1,000g (or more likely, several times that but also supports multiple people).

Wow! You never know what it will take to get someone to sign up, but I guess someone was looking to answer this burning question and make their mark. Yeah, I'm going to have to dig, cause there was definitely some information in the past. My biggest problem is remembering snippets from rules long dead and gone mixing in with my current remembrances of sources still in use! Though telling them to have patience on waiting fo the Bastion rules might be prudent, but may still not answer the question.

Quote from Grayfax >>

Wow! You never know what it will take to get someone to sign up, but I guess someone was looking to answer this burning question and make their mark. Yeah, I'm going to have to dig, cause there was definitely some information in the past. My biggest problem is remembering snippets from rules long dead and gone mixing in with my current remembrances of sources still in use! Though telling them to have patience on waiting fo the Bastion rules might be prudent, but may still not answer the question.

 
I would wait for the official Bastion rules to go live also - been playing with the playtest version of them, and my players seem to rather enjoy the system. 

Regarding the cost, they’re not going to be able to afford a mile high tower - I’m not even sure any individual can afford to buy a full tower in Sharn.  What they are likely to purchase is basically a condo - a room or set of rooms in one of the towers. 

The cost is that is going to be heavily dependent on level and district - Eberron’s materials set forth the general living conditions in each part of the city, which would provide you some basis for costs.

However, another option would be to give them the bastion/property as a quest reward.  Then you can remove that initial cost component and let folks spend their money on furnishing and non-utility rooms—really allow them to customize and build their home. 

Not sure what the final version of the rule would be, but the playtest bastions allowed you to spend money to build at various tiers of expense - I probably would factor the location of their bastion into what level they have to build at.  After all, if you try and build out at a poor level in Upper Tavick’s the HOA might have problems with you; try to build something aristocratic in Lower Dura and you’re just asking to be robbed. 

Matt Colville had a supplement titled "Strongholds and Followers" with a bunch of information regarding players having their own property. I do feel like the upcoming Bastion rules will be somewhat similar/fill the same niche, but Matt Colville's work is always excellent, so maybe give that a look!

You may also want to consider checking out AI chapter 2 on Franchise Headquarters for some ideas and inspiration.

If you want tower/multifloored building layouts, Prisoner 13 got Revel's End prison tower; MOOT got Arbor Watchtower under the maps section; COS got the Death House, and if you want something ginormous, there is also Castle Ravenloft. If you need more floors, it is relatively easy to one or more of the floors and just stack them on to each other.

XGTE, TCOE, and VRGTR got traps, natural hazards, puzzles, and haunted traps as obstacles for your players and help beef up the tower's defenses.

For additional ideas to think about, if you want to give your tower a twist, maybe the tower is actually an old Warforged Colossus hidden underneath the building's fascade, and you can find a floor plan of the Colossus in E:RFTLW Chapter 4. And since it is Eberron, instead of having a static tower as the homebase, maybe let the players consider having an airship as a mobile homebase as well. GOS Appendix A and S:AIS Chapter 2 got ship and spelljammer layouts that you can reflavor as airships.