Rules Index | GM Screen

Urban

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 202
None would deny that opportunities for great adventure lie within the dank dungeons, winding caves, and sprawling wildlands of the world. However, the place where the PCs come back to sell their treasures, rest, and live their lives can hold excitement as well. Urban settings shouldn’t be overlooked as a place of adventure. Filled with people, businesses, intrigue, and secret locations, cities can provide adventure hooks on literally every street corner.

This section looks at how settlements are put together, how the PCs move around them, what business can be conducted there, and how to craft your own adventures within a city, taking into account both real life elements and the incredible possibilities that magic affords to fantasy settings.

The Shape of Civilization

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 202
If you’re building a settlement from scratch, you’ll first need to determine how many people live there. Is it a tiny collection of houses along a lonely stretch of road? Is it a bustling village that sits at the crossroads of several major thoroughfares? Or is it a full city that serves as the hub for an entire region? Chapter 6 of this book contains a wealth of advice on how societies and civilizations function, but what happens when your PCs actually want to adventure in the city?

Before running an adventure in your city, you must decide what it looks and feels like. The first thing your PCs see as they approach a new city is its skyline. Unless you have a reason to avoid it, consider giving your city’s skyline at least one notable landmark. If a city’s skyline is shown in silhouette, a knowledgeable traveler should be able to recognize it. The landmark could be an unusually shaped building, a huge tower (such as a cathedral’s bell tower), a castle atop a hill, an immense statue of a dragon, a decommissioned warship protruding from a too-small waterfront, or anything else you can imagine, but being able to remind the PCs what city you’re talking about by mentioning this unique landmark gives you an incredibly useful resource.

The bulk of the buildings within any settlement are the homes of the people that live there. Many businesses merely present a storefront, with the rooms above or behind it serving as the owner’s home. If you’re following a medieval model for your city, then the typical home is host to a large number of people crammed into a relatively small space. The average peasant or freeman might only be able to afford a single room or two within a house, living cheek-to-jowl with his neighbors to either side and possibly above and below.

Buildings themselves are products of their environments and are built from materials readily available in the area. The terrain and climate of the land surrounding a city determines what that city is made of. A city in a temperate coastal area might have mostly wooden buildings with some stone structures. A desert town would have adobe or stone buildings, or even structures dug into the earth itself to create dark, cool places for people to live. Cities built in swamps or wetlands might have massive levees and dams to keep the water at bay.

If you’re having trouble visualizing the size and population of a village, town, or city, compare it to real-life locations and gauge accordingly. For example, at its height at the end of the 2nd Century, Rome boasted over a million people (although census records were sketchy—some report nearly 10 times that number!). During the 14th Century, Rome’s population had declined drastically to around 50,000 people. Although these numbers might not seem particularly impressive compared to modern cities, Rome was considered massive and teeming with people.

A heavily populated city does not necessarily translate to urban sprawl. For example, when London reached the 80,000 mark in the 14th Century, the populace was still squeezed within the confines of the ancient walls built by the Romans several centuries earlier, resulting in atrocious living conditions.

Another way to help conceptualize such huge numbers of people is to look at sports arenas, some of which can hold the population of a small or medium-sized town within a single vast structure. The famous Coliseum in Rome could hold 50,000 people at a time. Modern Yankee Stadium can hold nearly 60,000 people.

You should also consider the settlement’s level of sanitation and the presence of sewers. A city with decent sanitation copes with disease considerably better than those where people simply dump sewage in the streets. Settlements with sewers and other sanitation infrastructure also provide ready-made locations for your players to explore, hunting down criminals and cultists or searching for lost treasure, all beneath the feet of the unaware citizens walking the streets above.

Streets and Traffic

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 202
How do people get around in the town where they live? What are the streets and avenues of your settlement like? Is the town open, with wide avenues, or is it cramped, with houses crammed together, casting the streets and alleyways below into perpetual shadow?

Assuming that the settlement doesn’t contain some sort of wide-ranging magical transport network, most people get around the old-fashioned ways—by foot, mount, or carriage. In most cities, these are the only options available. However, depending on the city and the level of technology and/or magic available, how the populace gets from Point A to Point B could be far more interesting.

Adult humans have a walking speed of around 3-1/2 miles per hour. Thus, walking across a small, open town may take only a matter of minutes. Yet as cities grow in size, they become more difficult to swiftly navigate because of the density of people, animals, and vehicles on their winding streets. In large cities or metropolises with moderate-to-high population density, people on foot move at the rate of a single mile per hour.

Rather than walking, those who can afford the fare may also travel in animal-drawn vehicles, such as wagons, carriages, or hansom cabs. They might also travel in rickshaws or something equivalent. This method is probably more common in places where people are plentiful and horses, mules, and other beasts of burden are either rare, expensive, or both. Does your city sit on a river, or is it interlaced with canals? If so, then gondolas, barges, canoes, or other flat-bottomed boats are probably used as a major form of transportation. Cities and towns built in confined spaces may be far more vertical than less densely-built cities; the populace might make use of bridges, ladders, and even lifts to haul people up and down the several stories they need to traverse.

Beyond these mundane methods of movement, magic and technology can create truly bizarre or fantastic conveyances. In a high-magic game, magic carpets or the equivalent may be employed by the wealthy to travel within a city. Alternately, the city (or independent entrepreneurs) may possess its own “fleet” of specially trained griffons or other flying creatures capable of carrying one or more people to specific locations. In extreme cases, teleportation may even be relatively common, with special booths or “stepping portals” scattered throughout the city, allowing instantaneous transportation within the confines of the settlement or beyond. Take care to limit these magical methods in your game, though, unless you want a game where the wondrous becomes commonplace.

Keep in mind that the PCs can encounter danger and excitement even as they travel through a town or city. Besides the occasional assault by thieves, gangs, or other ruffians, the PCs may have to deal with animals run amok, riots, duels (mundane or magical) in the streets, fires, agitators, and any number of other interesting events. If a pickpocket manages to snag an item from one of the PCs, a rooftop chase might ensue as the PCs pursue the thief. A procession of nobles may stop and question the presence of the adventurers in their fair city. A random corpse in the gutters bearing the signs of a ritual murder may open up an investigation or mystery.

The city’s streets themselves bear consideration as well, for it is here that many of your urban-themed encounters will begin or end. A typical city street should be wide enough to allow two horse-drawn carriages to pass each other, with a little bit of additional room for foot traffic—as a result, well-traveled city streets should never be less than 30 feet wide, with major thoroughfares being 60 feet wide or wider. Back streets might be only 15 or even 10 feet wide—anything narrower than 10 feet will be difficult to navigate on horseback or via carriage. These narrow lanes are usually your city’s alleyways, only 5 to 10 feet across and often taking complex, winding routes between buildings.

Additional rules for city streets, for moving through crowds or across rooftops, and for cities in general can be found on pages 433–437 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

Settlement Population Ranges

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 203
A settlement’s population is left to the GM to assign, but you can use a settlement’s type to help you determine just how many folks live in the city. Since the actual number of people who dwell in a settlement has no impact on game play, the number you choose is largely cosmetic—feel free to adjust the suggested values below to fit your campaign.

Settlement Type	Population Range
Thorp	Fewer than 20
Hamlet	21-60
Village	61-200
Small town	201-2,000
Large town	2,001-5,000
Small city	5,001-10,000
Large city	10,001-25,000
Metropolis	MOre than 25,000

Settlements in Play

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 203
The best way to handle a settlement in your game, of course, is to plan it out, placing every shop and every home, naming every NPC, and mapping every building. Yet settlements are the most complicated locations you’re likely to ever feature in your game, and the prospect of fully detailing one is daunting, especially if your PCs are likely to visit multiple settlements.

Presented on the following pages are basic rules for a more streamlined method of handling settlements in your game. Essentially, these rules treat settlements almost as characters of their own, complete with stat blocks. Using these rules, you can generate the vital data for a settlement quickly and efficiently, and with this data you can handle the majority of your players’ interactions with the settlement.

Note that for particularly large cities, you can use multiple settlement stat blocks to represent different districts within a city. This allows you to have neighborhoods with distinct characteristics inside one city’s walls. GMs should feel free to add other new elements to create the cities they desire.

The Settlement Stat Block

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 204
A settlement stat block is organized as follows.

Name: The settlement’s name is presented first.

Alignment and Type: A settlement’s alignment is the general alignment of its citizens and government— individuals who dwell therein can still be of any alignment, but the majority of its citizens should be within one step of the settlement’s overall alignment. Alignment influences a city’s modifiers (see page 206). The type is the size category the settlement falls into, be it thorp, hamlet, village, town (small or large), city (small or large), or metropolis. In most cases, rules play off of a settlement’s type rather than its exact population total. A settlement’s type determines many of its statistics (see Table 7–36: Settlement Statistics).

Modifiers: Settlements possess six modifiers that apply to specific skill checks made in the settlement. A settlement’s starting modifier values are determined by its type. This value is further adjusted by the settlement’s alignment, government, qualities, and disadvantages. Note that introducing settlement modifiers to your game will somewhat increase the complexity of skill checks by adding a variable modifier each time the PCs visit a new town or city—consider the use of these modifiers an optional rule.

Qualities: All settlements have a certain number of qualities that further adjust their statistics—think of qualities as feats for settlements. A settlement’s type determines how many qualities it can have.

Danger: A settlement’s danger value is a number that gives a general idea of how dangerous it is to live in the settlement. If you use the urban encounters charts on pages 212–213 for random encounters in your city (or any similar wandering monster chart that uses percentile dice and ranks its encounters from lowest CR to highest CR), use the modifier associated with the settlement’s danger value to adjust rolls on the encounter chart. A settlement’s base danger value depends on its type.

Disadvantages: Any disadvantages a settlement might be suffering from are listed on this line. A settlement can have any number of disadvantages you wish to inflict on it, although most settlements have no disadvantages.

Government: This entry lists how the settlement is governed and ruled. The type of government a settlement follows affects its statistics.

Population: This number represents the settlement’s population. Note that the exact number is flexible; a settlement’s actual population can swell on market days or dwindle during winter—this number lists the average population of the settlement. Note that this number is generally used for little more than flavor—since actual population totals fluctuate, it’s pointless to tether rules to this number. After the settlement’s total population, a breakdown of its racial mix is listed in parentheses.

Notable NPCs: This section lists any notable NPCs who live in the city, sorted by their role in the community, followed by their name and then their alignment, gender, race, class, and level in parentheses.

Base Value and Purchase Limit: This section lists the community’s base value for available magic items in gp. There is a 75% chance that any item of this value or lower can be found for sale in the community with little effort. If an item is not available, a new check to determine if the item has become available can be made in 1 week. A settlement’s purchase limit is the most money a shop in the settlement can spend to purchase any single item from the PCs. If the PCs wish to sell an item worth more than a settlement’s purchase limit, they’ll either need to settle for a lower price, travel to a larger city, or (with the GM’s permission) search for a specific buyer in the city with deeper pockets. A settlement’s type sets its purchase limit.

Spellcasting: Unlike magic items, spellcasting for hire is listed separately from the town’s base value, since spellcasting is limited by the level of the available spellcasters in town. This line lists the highest-level spell available for purchase from spellcasters in town. Prices for spellcasting appear on page 159 of the Core Rulebook. A town’s base spellcasting level depends on its type.

Minor Items/Medium Items/Major Items: This line lists the number of magic items above a settlement’s base value that are available for purchase. In some city stat blocks, the actual items are listed in parentheses after the die range of items available—in this case, you can use these pre-rolled resources when the PCs first visit the city as the magic items available for sale on that visit. If the PCs return to that city at a later date, you can roll up new items as you see fit. See page 461 of the Core Rulebook for the number ranges determining how many items can be found in a community.

Table 7-36: Settlement Statistics

Type	Modifiers	Qualities	Danger	Base Value	Purchase Limit	Spellcasting
Thorp	-4	1	-10	50 gp	500 gp	1st
Hamlet	-2	1	-5	200 gp	1,000 gp	2nd
Village	-1	2	0	500 gp	2,500 gp	3rd
Small town	0	2	0	1,000 gp	5,000 gp	4th
Large town	0	3	5	2,000 gp	10,000 gp	5th
Small city	+1	4	5	4,000 gp	25,000 gp	6th
Large city	+2	5	10	8,000 gp	50,000 gp	7th
Metropolis	+4	6	10	16,000 gp	100,000 gp	8th

Table 7-37: Available Magic Items

Community Size	Base Value	Minor	Medium	Major
Thorp	50 gp	1d4 items	—	—
Hamlet	200 gp	1d6 items	—	—
Village	500 gp	2d4 items	1d4 items	—
Small town	1,000 gp	3d4 items	1d6 items	—
Large town	2,000 gp	3d4 items	2d4 items	1d4 items
Small city	4,000 gp	4d4 items	3d6 items	1d6 items
Large city	8,000 gp	4d4 items	3d4 items	2d4 items
Metropolis	16,000 gp	*	4d4 items	3d4 items

* In a metropolis, nearly all minor magic items are available.

Settlement Modifiers

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 205
Life in a settlement is represented by six modifiers, each of which adjusts the use of specific skills within the city.

Corruption: Corruption measures how open a settlement’s officials are to bribes, how honest its citizens are, and how likely anyone in town is to report a crime. Low corruption indicates a high level of civic honesty. A settlement’s corruption modifies all Bluff checks made against city officials or guards and all Stealth checks made outside (but not inside buildings or underground).

Crime: Crime is a measure of a settlement’s lawlessness. A settlement with a low crime modifier is relatively safe, with violent crimes being rare or even unknown, while a settlement with a high crime modifier is likely to have a powerful thieves’ guild and a significant problem with violence. The atmosphere generated by a settlement’s crime level applies as a modifier on Sense Motive checks to avoid being bluffed and to Sleight of Hand checks made to pick pockets.

Economy: A settlement’s economy modifier indicates the health of its trade and the wealth of its successful citizens. A low economy modifier doesn’t automatically mean the town is beset with poverty—it could merely indicate a town with little trade or one that is relatively self-sufficient. Towns with high economy modifiers always have large markets and many shops. A settlement’s economy helps its citizens make money, and thus it applies as a modifier on all Craft, Perform, and Profession checks made to generate income.

Law: Law measures how strict a settlement’s laws and edicts are. A settlement with a low law modifier isn’t necessarily crime-ridden—in fact, a low law modifier usually indicates that the town simply has little need for protection since crime is so rare. A high law modifier means the settlement’s guards are particularly alert, vigilant, and well-organized. The more lawful a town is, the more timidly its citizens tend to respond to shows of force. A settlement’s law modifier applies on Intimidate checks made to force an opponent to act friendly, Diplomacy checks against government officials, or Diplomacy checks made to call on the city guard.

Lore: A settlement’s lore modifier measures not only how willing the citizens are to chat and talk with visitors, but also how available and accessible its libraries and sages are. A low lore modifier doesn’t mean the settlement’s citizens are idiots, just that they’re close-mouthed or simply lack knowledge resources. A settlement’s lore modifier applies on Diplomacy checks made to gather information and Knowledge checks made using the city’s resources to do research when using a library.

Society: Society measures how open-minded and civilized a settlement’s citizens are. A low society modifier might mean many of the citizens harbor prejudices or are overly suspicious of out-of-towners. A high society modifier means that citizens are used to diversity and unusual visitors and that they respond better to wellspoken attempts at conversation. A settlement’s society modifier applies on all Disguise checks, as well as on Diplomacy checks made to alter the attitude of any nongovernment official.

Settlement Alignment

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 206
A settlement’s alignment not only describes the community’s general personality and attitude, but also influences its modifiers. A lawful component to a settlement’s alignment increases its law modifier by 1. A good component increases its society modifier by 1. A chaotic component increases its crime modifier by 1. An evil component increases its corruption modifier by 1. A neutral component increases its lore modifier by 1 (a truly neutral city gains an increase of 2 to its lore modifier). Alignment never modifies a settlement’s economy modifier.

Settlement Government

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 206
Just like nations, towns and cities are ruled by governments. A settlement’s government not only helps to establish the flavor and feel of the community but also adjusts its modifiers. Choose one of the following as the settlement’s government.

Autocracy: A single individual chosen by the people rules the community. This leader’s actual title can vary— mayor, burgomaster, lord, or even royal titles like duke or prince are common. (No modifiers)

Council: A group of councilors, often composed of guild masters or members of the aristocracy, leads the settlement. (Society +4; Law and Lore –2)

Magical: An individual or group with potent magical power, such as a high priest, an archwizard, or even a magical monster, leads the community. (Lore +2; Corruption and Society –2; increase spellcasting by 1 level)

Overlord: The community’s ruler is a single individual who either seized control or inherited command of the settlement. (Corruption and Law +2; Crime and Society –2)

Secret Syndicate: An unofficial or illegal group like a thieves’ guild rules the settlement—they may use a puppet leader to maintain secrecy, but the group members pull the strings in town. (Corruption, Economy, and Crime +2; Law –6)

Settlement Qualities

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 207
Settlements often have unusual qualities that make them unique. Listed below are several different qualities that can further modify a community’s statistics. A settlement’s type determines how many qualities it can have—once a quality is chosen, it cannot be changed.

Note that many of the following qualities adjust a town’s base value or purchase limit by a percentage of the town’s standard values. If a town has multiple qualities of this sort, add together the percentages from modifiers and then increase the base value by that aggregated total—do not apply the increases one at a time.

Academic: The settlement possesses a school, training facility, or university of great renown. (Lore +1, increase spellcasting by 1 level)

Holy Site: The settlement hosts a shrine, temple, or landmark with great significance to one or more religions. The settlement has a higher percentage of divine spellcasters in its population. (Corruption –2; increase spellcasting by 2 levels)

Insular: The settlement is isolated, perhaps physically or even spiritually. Its citizens are fiercely loyal to one another. (Law +1; Crime –1)

Magically Attuned: The settlement is a haven for spellcasters due to its location; for example, it may lie at the convergence of multiple ley lines or near a well-known magical site. (Increase base value by 20%; increase purchase limit by 20%; increase spellcasting by 2 levels)

Notorious: The settlement has a reputation (deserved or not) for being a den of iniquity. Thieves, rogues, and cutthroats are much more common here. (Crime +1; Law –1; Danger +10; increase base value by 30%; increase purchase limit by 50%)

Pious: The settlement is known for its inhabitants’ good manners, friendly spirit, and deep devotion to a deity (this deity must be of the same alignment as the community). (Increase spellcasting by 1 level; any faith more than one alignment step different than the community’s official religion is at best unwelcome and at worst outlawed—obvious worshipers of an outlawed deity must pay 150% of the normal price for goods and services and may face mockery, insult, or even violence)

Prosperous: The settlement is a popular hub for trade. Merchants are wealthy and the citizens live well. (Economy +1; increase base value by 30%; increase purchase limit by 50%)

Racially Intolerant: The community is prejudiced against one or more races, which are listed in parentheses. (Members of the unwelcome race or races must pay 150% of the normal price for goods and services and may face mockery, insult, or even violence)

Rumormongering Citizens: The settlement’s citizens are nosy and gossipy to a fault—very little happens in the settlement that no one knows about. (Lore +1; Society –1)

Strategic Location: The settlement sits at an important crossroads or alongside a deepwater port, or it serves as a barrier to a pass or bridge. (Economy +1; increase base value by 10%)

Superstitious: The community has a deep and abiding fear of magic and the unexplained, but this fear has caused its citizens to become more supportive and loyal to each other and their settlement. (Crime –4; Law and Society +2; reduce spellcasting by 2 levels)

Tourist Attraction: The settlement possesses some sort of landmark or event that draws visitors from far and wide. (Economy +1; increase base value by 20%)

Settlement Disadvantages

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 207
Just as a settlement can have unusual qualities to enhance its statistics, it can also suffer from disadvantages. There’s no limit to the number of disadvantages a community can suffer, but most do not have disadvantages, since a settlement plagued by disadvantages for too long eventually collapses. A disadvantage can arise as the result of an event or action taken by a powerful or influential NPC or PC. Likewise, by going on a quest or accomplishing a noteworthy deed, a group of heroes can remove a settlement’s disadvantage. Several disadvantages are listed below.

Anarchy: The settlement has no leaders—this type of community is often short-lived and dangerous. (Replaces settlement’s Government and removes Government adjustments to modifiers; Corruption and Crime +4; Economy and Society –4; Law –6; Danger +20)

Cursed: Some form of curse afflicts the city. Its citizens might be prone to violence or suffer ill luck, or they could be plagued by an infestation of pests. (Choose one modifier and reduce its value by 4)

Hunted: A powerful group or monster uses the city as its hunting ground. Citizens live in fear and avoid going out on the streets unless necessary. (Economy, Law, and Society –4; Danger +20; reduce base value by 20%)

Impoverished: Because of any number of factors, the settlement is destitute. Poverty, famine, and disease run rampant. (Corruption and Crime +1; decrease base value and purchase limit by 50%; halve magic item availability)

Plagued: The community is suffering from a protracted contagion or malady. (–2 to all modifiers; reduce base value by 20%; select a communicable disease—there’s a 5% chance each day that a PC is exposed to the disease and must make a Fortitude save to avoid contracting the illness)

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Table 7-36: Settlement Statistics

Table 7-37: Available Magic Items