This is a pretty long post but I'd love to hear some of your opinions/idea's on the idea.
Backstory
I'm playing a wizard in a campaign run by a friend of mine and we're currently level 5 and have just completed Waterdeep Dragonheist. I asked my DM today whether or not there's a mages college in his version of Waterdeep since I figured it might be good to try and cement myself with some NPC's there that I could learn new spells and such off. He said there's a guild but no actual college so I've hatched a plan to build one, but why focus on just Waterdeep when with enough prep (say 2 years or so) I could have a ramshackle mages college on its own grounds without needing to worry about spacial restrictions of city streets that I could then continuously improve on in my spare time, this is what I've come up with so far.
Spell Slot Restriction
Looking at this from the perspective of when I want to have it built and the spell slots I need to build it I think level 15 is a good place to really start it. At level 15 a wizard has two 5th level spell slots, a 6th, a 7th and an 8th. Plus they can use Arcane Recovery to get 1 of those expended 5th level slots back per the restrictions in Arcane Recovery. So if I reference casting 3 5th levels a day below assume I've used arcane recovery to get 1 back. Otherwise Ill try to stick to what I can conceivably do between long rests.
The Actual Execution
The first thing I'd need is some land, land isn't hard to get especially not if I go out to the sticks where I can probably buy a sizeable farm from someone for 1000gp or less, the more isolated it is the better in my opinion.
Then I'll use the spell Move Earth to lower areas of land in 40ft squares down 20ft deep and combine it with Transmute Rock to make the now lowered earthen squares stone so they stay down (Honestly not 100% on this interaction so if you want to try it Id say talk to your DM first, I don't really need a basement but its not the kind of thing I want to try put in later so its now or never). Repeat the process until I have as much ground carved out as I want for the first structure to have. Excavating the entire basement shouldn't take more than a few days(3 days should be able to get me 120x120ft). Then use Transmute Rock again to turn the sunken earthen walls to stone too, so that would be a 10 day (if I'm generous with breaks) from casting Move Earth to the basement being dugout completely
Then using Wall of Stone I can create 6 permanent walls per day. Given that in 1 tenday I could make 60 walls so Id say in 1 month (3 tenday by the Faerun calendar or 180 castings of Wall of Stone) I could have a structure consisting of 1 ground floor and 1 basement that would have a main hall, some classroom spaces, a barracks, and store rooms. Stuff like properly stocked kitchens, a library, a mess hall and private rooms for the higher ranking students can come later when the college is up and running.
Now is where the time starts to really shoot up as once the basic structure is made I'm going to start putting up some towers and making a permanent Teleportation Circle. The spell Galder's Tower allows you to make a permanent tower if you cast every day in the same spot for 1 year, Teleportation Circle has the same stipulation. If I use 1 5th level everyday for Teleportation Circle I can use the other two 5th levels, a 6th, a 7th and an 8th level to make permanent towers with 4,5,6 and 7 stories each with different assortments of rooms depending on level I cast at.
So I've now spent 1 year, 1 month and 1 tenday working tirelessly on this structure, not bad considering I thought it would be 2 years to get the most basic structure I could that's fit for purpose. I could spend the rest of the time using Wall of Stone to make more stories for the main school building, build up a courtyard around the Teleportation Circle and even use a combination of Wall of Stone and fabricate to build some decorative statues. Or I could start taking in students and reinvest their tuition fee's into other teachers and hire staff for different facilities and upgrade as I go in the mean time.
Once I have enough students moving through the college the rest of my plan begins. Each student who is able to cast at 5th level or above will be taught the spells Teleportation Circle and Sending before they leave, I can then ask them to make a permanent Teleportation Circle from wherever they go to the college and message me via Sending when its complete so they can let me know its done and where it goes to, hopefully it will also increase the amount of students we have which will be more money to reinvest in upgrades that I cant do using just spells and my own intuition.
Upgrades to Put in Later (Needing 1 month to a year time skips in game for each)
Stocked library, can be overseen by a ranking member of staff with a contingent of students under him to function as librarians. If it gets big enough this could probably even get its own dedicated building.
Staffed and Stocked Apothecary. Probably similar to the library in how its actually manned but a functioning apothecary would be nice.
Staffed kitchen/mess hall where students can buy and eat food. My vision for the earliest execution is to use teleport to manually go and get food supplies but that's a very short term solution. If I'm teleporting to Waterdeep every day to get supplies I may as well stop off somewhere and start making a permanent Teleportation Circle there while I'm at it.
Artificer's workshop. Using Mighty Fortress to make a permanent annex where artificers can build things.
Medical wing. Where students who want to learn healing magic can study and students who hurt themselves can be studied. (Also a Mighty Fortress I think)
Large scale student accommodation. Another Mighty Fortress, guaranteeing privacy for the higher ranking or higher tuition fee paying students.
Large, secure wall in case of attacks.
Warding for Protection, using Glyph of Warding and creative triggers we could defend the place pretty well. Also you'd need permanent Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum on the Archmage's tower.
Finally Id love to have dedicated buildings in major cities and towns that could function not only as entrances but could also house our alumni and serve as a way to contact the school if any emergencies started happening and someone needed 50 high level spellcasters help real quick, we'd be like the Xmen then, but the school would need to be doing seriously well for this to happen and it probably wouldn't be before this character made it to level 20.
Ask your DM also if maybe hiring some workers/builders to see if that might speed up the construction? Labor is comparatively cheap if you go by the Xanathar rules, though I suppose building materials might run up that price
Ask your DM also if maybe hiring some workers/builders to see if that might speed up the construction? Labor is comparatively cheap if you go by the Xanathar rules, though I suppose building materials might run up that price
Thats not a bad idea. I might go for that but so far with the spells Ive picked the only gold price is for the land and daily supplies my 1 PC needs to survive which can be as little as 2gp depending on how I want him to live.
Really Im trying to keep cost cheap so I can use what gold I do have to buy equipment and stuff for when its ready. If I wanted to I could open the college after the first month but people would need to travel by foot to it. I could open it after the first month then use my 7th and 8th level spell slots to travel to waterdeep, use the 6th while Im there to make a teleportation circle and use my 5th levels when Im at the college to make a teleportation circle and 2 5th level Galder's Tower's. That way on the day the towers become permanent I also have a teleportation circle to Waterdeep thats permanent. Could really make foot traffic abundant from the get go
Edit: I'm not sure if you can simultaneously set up 2 linked permanent circles as Teleportation Circle says you go to a permanent circle in its text. It also costs 18,250gp to set up a permanent circle (50gp in chalk which the spell consumes every casting times 365 days in a year by the Faerun calendar)
This is a pretty long post but I'd love to hear some of your opinions/idea's on the idea.
Backstory
I'm playing a wizard in a campaign run by a friend of mine and we're currently level 5 and have just completed Waterdeep Dragonheist. I asked my DM today whether or not there's a mages college in his version of Waterdeep since I figured it might be good to try and cement myself with some NPC's there that I could learn new spells and such off. He said there's a guild but no actual college so I've hatched a plan to build one, but why focus on just Waterdeep when with enough prep (say 2 years or so) I could have a ramshackle mages college on its own grounds without needing to worry about spacial restrictions of city streets that I could then continuously improve on in my spare time, this is what I've come up with so far.
Spell Slot Restriction
Looking at this from the perspective of when I want to have it built and the spell slots I need to build it I think level 15 is a good place to really start it. At level 15 a wizard has two 5th level spell slots, a 6th, a 7th and an 8th. Plus they can use Arcane Recovery to get 1 of those expended 5th level slots back per the restrictions in Arcane Recovery. So if I reference casting 3 5th levels a day below assume I've used arcane recovery to get 1 back. Otherwise Ill try to stick to what I can conceivably do between long rests.
The Actual Execution
The first thing I'd need is some land, land isn't hard to get especially not if I go out to the sticks where I can probably buy a sizeable farm from someone for 1000gp or less, the more isolated it is the better in my opinion.
Then I'll use the spell Move Earth to lower areas of land in 40ft squares down 20ft deep and combine it with Transmute Rock to make the now lowered earthen squares stone so they stay down (Honestly not 100% on this interaction so if you want to try it Id say talk to your DM first, I don't really need a basement but its not the kind of thing I want to try put in later so its now or never). Repeat the process until I have as much ground carved out as I want for the first structure to have. Excavating the entire basement shouldn't take more than a few days(3 days should be able to get me 120x120ft). Then use Transmute Rock again to turn the sunken earthen walls to stone too, so that would be a 10 day (if I'm generous with breaks) from casting Move Earth to the basement being dugout completely
Then using Wall of Stone I can create 6 permanent walls per day. Given that in 1 tenday I could make 60 walls so Id say in 1 month (3 tenday by the Faerun calendar or 180 castings of Wall of Stone) I could have a structure consisting of 1 ground floor and 1 basement that would have a main hall, some classroom spaces, a barracks, and store rooms. Stuff like properly stocked kitchens, a library, a mess hall and private rooms for the higher ranking students can come later when the college is up and running.
Now is where the time starts to really shoot up as once the basic structure is made I'm going to start putting up some towers and making a permanent Teleportation Circle. The spell Galder's Tower allows you to make a permanent tower if you cast every day in the same spot for 1 year, Teleportation Circle has the same stipulation. If I use 1 5th level everyday for Teleportation Circle I can use the other two 5th levels, a 6th, a 7th and an 8th level to make permanent towers with 4,5,6 and 7 stories each with different assortments of rooms depending on level I cast at.
So I've now spent 1 year, 1 month and 1 tenday working tirelessly on this structure, not bad considering I thought it would be 2 years to get the most basic structure I could that's fit for purpose. I could spend the rest of the time using Wall of Stone to make more stories for the main school building, build up a courtyard around the Teleportation Circle and even use a combination of Wall of Stone and fabricate to build some decorative statues. Or I could start taking in students and reinvest their tuition fee's into other teachers and hire staff for different facilities and upgrade as I go in the mean time.
Once I have enough students moving through the college the rest of my plan begins. Each student who is able to cast at 5th level or above will be taught the spells Teleportation Circle and Sending before they leave, I can then ask them to make a permanent Teleportation Circle from wherever they go to the college and message me via Sending when its complete so they can let me know its done and where it goes to, hopefully it will also increase the amount of students we have which will be more money to reinvest in upgrades that I cant do using just spells and my own intuition.
Upgrades to Put in Later (Needing 1 month to a year time skips in game for each)
Stocked library, can be overseen by a ranking member of staff with a contingent of students under him to function as librarians. If it gets big enough this could probably even get its own dedicated building.
Staffed and Stocked Apothecary. Probably similar to the library in how its actually manned but a functioning apothecary would be nice.
Staffed kitchen/mess hall where students can buy and eat food. My vision for the earliest execution is to use teleport to manually go and get food supplies but that's a very short term solution. If I'm teleporting to Waterdeep every day to get supplies I may as well stop off somewhere and start making a permanent Teleportation Circle there while I'm at it.
Artificer's workshop. Using Mighty Fortress to make a permanent annex where artificers can build things.
Medical wing. Where students who want to learn healing magic can study and students who hurt themselves can be studied. (Also a Mighty Fortress I think)
Large scale student accommodation. Another Mighty Fortress, guaranteeing privacy for the higher ranking or higher tuition fee paying students.
Large, secure wall in case of attacks.
Warding for Protection, using Glyph of Warding and creative triggers we could defend the place pretty well. Also you'd need permanent Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum on the Archmage's tower.
Finally Id love to have dedicated buildings in major cities and towns that could function not only as entrances but could also house our alumni and serve as a way to contact the school if any emergencies started happening and someone needed 50 high level spellcasters help real quick, we'd be like the Xmen then, but the school would need to be doing seriously well for this to happen and it probably wouldn't be before this character made it to level 20.
Ask your DM also if maybe hiring some workers/builders to see if that might speed up the construction? Labor is comparatively cheap if you go by the Xanathar rules, though I suppose building materials might run up that price
Thats not a bad idea. I might go for that but so far with the spells Ive picked the only gold price is for the land and daily supplies my 1 PC needs to survive which can be as little as 2gp depending on how I want him to live.
Really Im trying to keep cost cheap so I can use what gold I do have to buy equipment and stuff for when its ready. If I wanted to I could open the college after the first month but people would need to travel by foot to it. I could open it after the first month then use my 7th and 8th level spell slots to travel to waterdeep, use the 6th while Im there to make a teleportation circle and use my 5th levels when Im at the college to make a teleportation circle and 2 5th level Galder's Tower's. That way on the day the towers become permanent I also have a teleportation circle to Waterdeep thats permanent. Could really make foot traffic abundant from the get go
Edit: I'm not sure if you can simultaneously set up 2 linked permanent circles as Teleportation Circle says you go to a permanent circle in its text. It also costs 18,250gp to set up a permanent circle (50gp in chalk which the spell consumes every casting times 365 days in a year by the Faerun calendar)