Strongholds & Followers Reaction

The product that started it all for MCDM in 2018. This product spawned as a personal project by popular D&D YouTuber Matt Colville. The project blew up on Kickstarter bigger than even he could imagine, amassing over one million in funding from 28,918 backers (according to Colville’s videos and the dedication in the book).

The book’s titular content makes up the first 90-odd pages of its 272 page count (I'm referencing the pdf as I write. The hardcover may be a few pages shorter). Pages eight to 67 detail a system of strongholds that is tantalizingly teased by some opaque references and cost tables in the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide, but not fully fleshed out.

Thoughts

You can certainly see the differences between S&F and later MCDM products, but I don't mean that as a criticism, merely an observation. The design and writing styles changed as Colville brought on more outsider writers and designers for later projects. It still had some significant play testing (by 3,114 testers, again according to the dedication). 

This book also seems more grounded in the legacy and content of earlier editions of D&D. The influence of Matt’s studying the rules of prior editions, along with his own play experiences, particularly in AD&D and 2e are pretty evident. In a video that I don't recall the title of, he makes reference to the 2e Birthright setting, which you can see as a conceptual influence in both this and the sequel book Kingdoms & Warfare. Certainly, the idea of roleplaying a character from being a dirt-under-the-nails, torch-gripped-with-white-knuckles adventure all the way through their career which accrues them riches, titles, and land with strongholds (which might eventually become dungeons that future adventurers will pick through) seems deeply rooted in the history of a game whose initially premise was to zoom in on an individual soldier in a wargame and allow the player to experience that person's journey. 

It's certainly interesting to see this take on the subject matter. In the future I'd like to do an in depth comparison of S&F style of managing strongholds and compare it to the Bastion system that WOTC plans to include in the 2024 edition of D&D. There may be elements of each that a GM can cherry-pick and combine to create more simple or more complex systems for abstracting or managing strongholds. 

The stronghold mechanics in this title helpfully focus on providing cool new limited use abilities to player characters. Some of these are quite powerful. But I think if the GM is doing their job and drawing the players out of their strongholds in order to continue adventuring then these abilities will not be game breaking (they mostly only function within the geographic area of their stronghold, and their class-tied abilities require an extended rest (one week at their stronghold).

In addition to the core stronghold mechanics, the book contains 28 pages of followers, including NPCs that can be attracted to grow your stronghold and provide income, and retainers to act as lieutenants for your domain. While the MCDM design for retainers has changed (I think for the better), overall it’s not hard to covert these early stats for the later rules, and they still function well as simple stat blocks for followers. The sidekick rules from WOTC came out a couple years after this rule set, which are much more complex and similar to an actual character class. I think those are perhaps better for a one-on-one game where you want a more powerful partner for your player to keep them alive. The retainers are actually the most transferable rules from this book into the entirely new domain system created in Kingdoms & Warfare.

Next is the Siege of Castle Rend adventure, which provides the opportunity to implement the stronghold mechanics for a group of fifth level characters. I think it works as a good drop in adventure that features a village, and a ruined castle filled with a tribe of orcs. The artwork and maps for this adventure are beautiful.

There is an additional 75ish pages of new monsters, many of which are designed to provide fiends and celestial that fill in the gaps in CR that exist based on those available in vanilla 5e. These are also intended to support concordance rules (essentially an added way to include divine intervention for characters). There's also the interesting inclusion of gemstone dragons long prior to WOTC's own exploration of these monsters in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, and a rudimentary psionics system for them (at some point perhaps I'll take a side-by-side look at this system and compare it to where the psionics system went in the Talent supplement from MCDM). Of the creatures, my personal favorite groups are the Celestial Court, the Court of All Flesh, the Court of the Elements, and the Inexorables. The stat blocks are quite boring in most respects though (ironic considering MCDM's later kickstarter campaign for Flee Mortals! promising to "unboring" 5e monsters--spoiler; they succeeded with that later book, but hadn't quite cracked the code yet in this initial offering).

Finally the warfare system makes up the last portion of the book. Interestingly, I think this section is the only OGL content that I've found in any MCDM product. So if you want to make a Warfare supplement do it with this book, not Kingdoms & Warfare, which is most definitely not open game content. This time through the book marks the very first time I've sat down to focus and really read this section--previously I knew Kingdoms & Warfare was already out, so I've just ignored this earlier warfare system.

I will say, this system is much more replicable and easy to build units yourself than Kingdoms & Warfare, which needed to release the resource document (which still isn't open game content) to provide directions on how to build your own units. The basic system, other than positioning and the additional traits (of which there are many) is very similar to the one created in the later book. This book offers actual upkeep and recruitment costs, which is helpful, and the ability to abstract positioning isn't bad. Finally, the simple resolution capability is a quick way to take care of any warfare scenarios. Having looked at both systems, and considering how my players seem to interact with the additional complexity of intrigue and warfare, I think a blending of the two systems player focused things like organization titles, and simple warfare might be a good way to go for many tables (although I really like the idea of intrigue, it's difficult to explain, and simply resolving organization actions narratively seems more simple than making Operations and Lore tests. I'll need to think more about all of this.

Finally, there is an appendix section on new magic items, including the codices. I love theses books--they are flavorful magic items that provide narrative inspiration. And they're books, which I love personally. They each provide campaign altering powers. At some point I need to drop one of these or one of the additional codices detailed in Kingdoms & Warfare into my campaign.

There's lots of goodness in Strongholds & Followers. My Lost Mine of Phandelver players will complete construction on their establishment soon, so I'll actually get to see some of the stronghold powers, and attempt to implement one of the warfare systems. While the age of this title does show, especially compared to later MCDM products, I would still recommend the book for the creative influence and material it provides, along with the gorgeous artwork.