Rating: 
Summary: Strong walls and how to turn them to rubble....
Review: Good solid work on how to construct keeps and buildings where some players might like to spend their time.
I assume it is not very interesting for a DM to know what a given Keep is going to cost, but for those players who want to build their own castle, this is vital information. The rules on this are clearly thought out in such a way that it is still sort of realistic, but simple enough to be workable.
For the DM this book could very well be less interesting, but it still gives you a lot of back-ground information and it gives you a general idea of how big the different areas should be compared to each other. (If you want to feed 100 people you need a dining room about this large and of course a kitchen, which would employ about this number of cooks and needs about this area in floorspace.)Besides information on buidling and protecting your new household, there also is information on how to take over the stronghold of a opposing power and how to go about at making sure that this opponent does not walk straight back in to kick you out again. In short: a very good resource, that covers much more then just building a stronghold.
Rating: 
Summary: Week short of paper with squares nothing new here.
Review: Have a million gp in your backpack and nowhere to sleep? This book is for you. Aimed more at players than DMs, it contains a wealth of ideas for rooms, enchantments and exotic extras. The mechanics for making an inventory of rooms and putting a price on your fantasy home are clean and efficient and the examples in the back are good for brainstorming. The prose of each page is filled with little ideas that prod the imagination. If there is a weakness to this supplement, it's that it stands alone in the d20 system right now. To really shine in a campaign, it needs to be combined with a dominion construction guide (such as 2nd ed birthright rules or old D&D companion rules), an abstract siege system (such as Battlesystem or the above) and features that make each culture / setting unique. A random stronghold generator would have been fun to help a DM design template fortresses. On the whole, a recommended addition to wealthy campaigns.
Rating:
Summary: Useful book - easy rules
Review: I bought this book a while ago and have found it informative and useful. The system devised for this book on keep construction is easy to learn and use quickly. Players simply purchase construction "units", which can be any type, ranging from armories, bedrooms, kitchens, temples, etc., then draw/place the units on a map accordingly. This makes the details of creating and building a keep to a minimum, and standardizing tasks so that they are not so mundane.
Other information I found useful was the commentary on working keeps into your campaign as bases of operations, using NPCs and staff to maintain your keep, and defending your keep from enemies.
An essential book if you're a player or DM looking to build or add a keep to your campaign.
Rating: 
Summary: Castles, Dungeons, and Forts, Oh My!
Review: I remember a short campaign I ran a while ago, where my players amassed so much wealth that they decided to buy a tavern and some empty lots in the city they were basing out of. On those empty lots, they were hoping to open shops selling the jewels that some gnomes were going to sell to them. Having recently cleared out a gem mine, they had met the enterprising gnomes and struck a deal. Also, they were hoping to build a mansion on the biggest lot. I did not have this book at my fingertips, so I guessed and estimated. I now realize how wrong I was. This book has cleared up everything I found difficult about building strongholds. It gives you details on how to build everything from a one-room cottage to a 200+ stronghold space dungeon. The rooms are not broken up into 5 feet and such, but into stronghold spaces, which are something like 20 square feet, maybe more. There are everything from privies to huge, fancy libraries, magic labs to heavily fortified barbicans and gatehouses, and nearly a dozen or more different wall types, both interior and exterior. It also gives you three or four premade strongholds, and details on how to run, assault, and conquer strongholds. All in all, this book is a godsend both to PCs and NPCs alike.
Rating:
Summary: Week short of paper with squares nothing new here.
Review: I was highly disappointed not much imagination here. The fundamentals are week and this could have been done so much better. The book did not embellish on anything that can be imagined. Long time TSR fan.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent rules, good instructions, clear maps
Review: It's now possible for even the severely map-challenged, namely yours truly, to design dungeons that are something more than an endless string of boxes connected by doors. I realize that many resources existed before, but until now I hadn't found all those resources in bascially the same place, outlined so simply. Whil agree with some critics of this book who claim that it makes building an impenetrable castle a little too affordable, I've always believed that it's the DM who's responsible for keeping the game from tipping too far in the player's favour, not the sourcebook. What I really appreciated were the simple rules for figuring out how much staff a given structure would need, and how much you ought to pay them.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre work, but worth the cost if...
Review: Similar products in the past have allowed for more customization, this seems a bit simplistic. If you dont want to invest a lot of time in creating a castle this is the right book for you. However, it has always been my feeling that if my character reached a high enough level to build himself a castle he will want to be picking out floral patterns for the drapes. It's still a good product, well written and creative, but in the end you will hunger for more content that just isnt there. Look for a similar product by Mongoose as thus far their Quintessential books have far exceeded the WotC books.
Rating:
Summary: Fantasy Building at its best
Review: The SBG is a wonderful guide for those wanting to create a fantasy castle or stronghold for their PCs. Although a DM can use the information to build the local lord's domain and make it unique, my experience DM's build first and worry about costs later (if at all).
The modular sections has its limitations, but the additional bookkeeping a brick-by-brick system would incur won't be missed at all. Rather than taking hours to design a castle, you can throw a fortress together in about the same time you could cook up a character. And with the modular nature, you can simple add your own, just as you add new feats and spells to the core game.
As far as being a historical treatise on strongholds, forget it. This book is designed to promote how a castle would be built in a Fantasy world, with fantasy elements. Decade-long construction times for real castles and realistic treatments of seiges is nowhere to be found. Everything is designed for playability, from getting a castle up before a character croaks of old age to the effects of magic in shortening or shoring up a seige.
Rating:
Summary: Solid instructions for a good solid keep
Review: The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (SBG?) provides both players and GMs with a simple solid system for building everything from massive castles in the clouds to dungeons in the underdark. I've purchased books on the subject before. Most are quasi-historical texts done up in game terms. The SBG is different. In addition to covering the usual subjects, it expands the concepts into a true high fantasy setting. The book is broken into three chapters. The first chapter layouts out the steps for building your dream structure. The second chapters goes on to describe in detail a wide variety of components to use in building your stronghold. These components include everything from the mundane (i.e. a basic kitchen) to the wondrous (a Bier to Resurrection). Details are also given on magically enhanced walls and traps. Please note some of the information on traps is a repeat of that found in Song & Silent. The third chapter deals with how a stronghold interacts with the fantasy world around and also gives some good example keep. All in all the SBG is a good solid reference for gamer who want a solid foundation for their castle building adventures.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT buy for both DMs & players
Review: this book has everything that a DM needs to create better dungeons and castles. as a DM, this book made it simple to make floor plans of just about every building in my realm, and i have never been able to make floor plans. I gave it to some of my players, and they all created individual castles for themselvs, complete with guards, traps and enchantments. i would reccomend this book to anyone, player or DM, who wants to make better floor plans or create a personal stronghold for your character.
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