So in the "Downtime Activities" (=Adventure-strategy Activities) section of "Ultimate Campaign" (page 84), there is a list of activities that heroes can undertake every turn/day such as Construct Buildings, Earn Capital, Gather Information, and others.
I am adding a new activity that I am calling Claim Buildings.
Somewhere in those rules (can't find the exact passage now, but it's there; post the page number below if you find it) it says that just because your party cleared a temple of evil cultists, doesn't mean the temple now belongs to you. It belongs to the settlement it's located in (village, town, etc.) But as I was reading through the room and building types just now, I came to the Crypt:
And I remembered that the scenario SriK cleared is called Skeleton King's Crypt. So the book means to tell me that the mayor of Sandpoint suddenly gives a shit about that crypt that's several miles from town buried on the side of a hill? What will he do with it?
And then I remembered that in our version of the scenario the crypt isn't real but part of a stage audition, but this shouldn't make any difference for our rules design, because IF it were real, it would stand to reason that SriK's hero should have some kind of claim on it as a result of first of all discovering it, and then clearing it of monsters.
So I am adding the rule that as long as the room or building is hidden/ruined etc. the hero or party that cleared it can obtain it for half the purchase cost. In the Crypt's case that's either 5 Goods, 3 Influence, 5 Labor and 2 Magic divided by 2 and ROUNDED UP, or 490 GP /2 = 245 GP.
This also applies if the building belonged to someone with no heirs. If you slay a baron who has no heirs (or slay his heirs too, perhaps if they took part in the final battle), then you can have it for half its cost. If he has heirs then of course they get it. AND the slaying must have been LAWFUL, i.e. because the king commanded you to slay the baron, not because you decided to assassinate him. (Whether any related titles are also transferred to you will be decided on a case-by-case basis, at least for now, because I might make some rules for this too once I get comfortable with the "Ultimate Intrigue" rules.)
The whole point of this mechanic is twofold. First, it incentivizes Master of Heroes players to tackle Master of Combat Scenarios, because they might lead to opportunities for seizing buildings on which to further build. And second, it gives players reasons to set roots somewhere specific instead of being overwhelmed by Pathfinder's gargantuan universe and endlessly wandering it without being able to decide where to settle. If SriK's crypt had been real, he'd have been mightily incentivized to stay in the Sandpoint area and claim it and develop it, plus its still considerable cost would straightaway have given him a goal to aim for, instead of what he's facing now, which is a deluge of possibilities with no clue of which to pursue.
If you think this mechanic is overpowered, consider that it gives NOTHING to players other than CONDITIONAL CLAIM on a property, and in order to acquire the property they still have to pay half its cost, which for example in the case of a castle is still a formidable expense. And if the property is ruined, the rules say you must pay half its cost to repair it, which together with the claim expense would end up amounting to... the whole cost. But this would at least take less time than building it from scratch. Plus you still get some of its benefits even if it's in a "broken" state, as the rules call it.
So, in the roleplaying layer, if a party wants to claim every fucking building they storm, they'll end up spending more time trying to put together the money than actually playing the adventure. And remember, you don't get to claim a tavern just because you won a fight in there; this mechanic only works in rare cases, mostly when fighting criminals or social outcasts, and utterly evil creatures that are enemies of society and so on. Which most adventures have plenty of, but it's not every building in the adventure.
The cost goes to greasing the right hands in the community plus acquiring licenses and at least some superficial renovation costs to prove to the community that you plan to take care of the place and be a good steward and neighbor.
I suppose you could even play real-estate flipper and just turn these purchases around for quick profit, but only if they aren't damaged. If they're damaged, it takes time and more money to repair them. The time might mean you get tied down to a location for a while, and the money cost might end up eating into your profit or even entirely eliminating it. Which is why I might consider lowering the claim cost to 1/3rd. But probably not: if the cost remains at 1/2 it means you can't flip ruined buildings because there'd be no profit in it, but you CAN flip buildings in good working order, which would incentivize you to take care during battle to not damage them, adding tremendous strategic and tactical complexity for those looking to profit off the flipping.
The time required to claim a building in this way is 1/10th its construction time, so for the Crypt it'd be 1.6 days ROUNDED UP (i.e. 2 days) of going around town talking to the right people, finding which are the right people to talk to, greasing palms, and putting on a show of wishing to be a good caretaker and fix the place up and make it productive in some way. For example, if you plan to build a Shrine above the Crypt for the nearby farmers to come and worship at, or a Watchtower that serves as a guard post to protect said farmers.
I am thinking of adding a mechanic whereby the hero or party take over the building surreptitiously, thereby paying nothing, but then risk being discovered. I need to devise the penalties for discovery, etc. Maybe an evil player wizard wants to expand the Crypt, adding dungeons to it. Why would he go ask the mayor for permission? The rules need to account for this. Let me know if you come up with anything in this regard, or any other regard. There is a whole subsystem we could graft onto this that Paizo's designers have neglected, and that would be lots of fun to simulate.
So this is how the rule stands for now. Any suggestions or objections, let me know. We could perhaps make the requirements a bit more complex if we find the activity is OP and needs to be dialed-down a bit.
