Bastions are a great set piece for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. They harken back to the old wargaming phase of the series where players gained political and military power as their levels went up. It's now much more mechanically feasible for high-level fighters to raise armies, or high-level necromancers to raise armies.
Bastions also ensure that all players have actions they can take during downtime, becoming more attached to the world and setting. Some groups will struggle with being invested in the people and places they interact with without some mechanical incentive, which can be provided in these optional rules.
How Do Bastions Work?
Bastions add some downtime activities for the players to invest in a single location. They passively produce minor bonuses for the adventurers such as producing simple items or granting extra charges for certain spells and abilities.
Officially bastion turns occur every seven days of in game time, but they're best conceptualised as something to manage between sessions. If the players level up about once every three sessions, they'll get two or three bastion turns after each game.
The main mechanic reward for using bastions are Bastion Points. You gain a fistful of these every turn. These can be cashed in for a number of rewards, the most notable being the ability to purchase magic items.
Special facilities are the other main draw of bastions and are gained automatically while leveling up. These are more tailored towards specific playstyles and characters, giving specific passive boosts or extra income and items.
How To Use Bastions As A DM
Bastions work best if you build your campaign around a single location, a city, country or company. This lets you tie in the management of the bastion to the progression of the campaign and ensures that bastion events are a part of the narrative instead of distractions.
Many of the bastion abilities have regional effects that bog down gameplay if you're precisely measuring distance from the bastion.
There are some changes we recommend to how the bastion rules are presented by Wizards of the Coast. Which rules you apply to your game will depend on the type of game you're running and how ly your players engage with the new mechanics.
|
Changes |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Improve Maintenance |
Be more generous with when the players can give orders to their bastion. The automatic maintain orders make sense if the party are trapped in another plane or faking their deaths but otherwise they should be able to send instructions using either magic or a carrier bird. |
|
Streamline Management |
Basic facilities and raw facility space can be handwaved for most groups. If your players want to plot out a precise map showing where the windows are and the Feng-Shui of their bedroom, let them, but otherwise it doesn't add much. |
|
Roleplay Spending Points |
Add some interactivity to the spending of bastion points. There isn't a lot of story potential in rolling 1d4 BP every week for several years and then getting a legendary weapon delivered to your doorstop. This is also important because the BP costs increase far more quickly than the amount players earn from their bastion. You want to keep the amount of ceremony proportional to how much the players are investing. |
|
Cheaper Goods |
Reduce the cost heavily for any roleplay-focused options. There is no plausible reason why printing pamphlets should cost 1GP per copy, or why a team of glassblowers needs seven days to make a mundane bottle. |
|
No Free Resurrections |
Remove the ability to spend bastion points to come back from the dead. Coming back from the dead using the power of friendship is hilarious but clashes with the tone of most games. Liches would have no reason to seek undeath if they could just hire a bunch of people to sit in their castle and will them back into existence when they die. |
How To Use Bastions As A Player
The player side of the bastion is largely going to be determined by your class and the type of game you're playing.
- A gameplay focused bastion can emphasize the strengths of your PC, such as by giving you additional casts of your favourite spells, or to shore up weaknesses by making healing potions in a party without a cleric.
- A narratively focused game is liable to have you dedicate at least some of your facilities towards plot relevant constructions. Barracks, pubs, printers are all liable to fall in this category but also offer some gameplay bonuses.
|
Facilities |
Campaign Type |
Application |
|---|---|---|
|
Barracks, Armory, War Room |
Military campaign |
Bastion defence is easy to ignore right up until the DM mounts an attack on your home base. The barracks is a nice starting facility if you're worried about that. The War Room only unlocks at level 17 but if you DM needs you to have one, you'll likely get it earlier. |
|
Teleportation |
Exploration/Westmarch games |
A teleportation circle installed in a bastion is far cheaper than casting the spell every day for a year. In games that have you roaming far from your bastion, a teleportation circle is a must but also a vulnerability if rivals learn the sigils to access it. Inviting mages to visit is a nice way for wizards to get access to new spells for scribing. |
|
Pub |
Intrigue/Political Campaigns |
For people looking to optimise a character, the pub is strangely one of the best facilities available. The magical brews it offers give powerful buffs on par with some concentration spells. There is also no restriction on taking a wineskin of Bigby's Burden with you on a longer journey and having a permanent enlarge buff. For intrigue-focused games, the pub also gives you a spy ring. How well you leverage it is going to depend on both you and the DM, but its a strong starting point. |
|
Archive |
Monster Hunting / Investigation games |
Free castings of Legend Lore can save you a lot of money if you use them frequently. The reference books allow an intelligent character to reliable pass any lore skill checks. |
|
Laboratory |
Low magic settings |
When you don't have ready access to permanent magic items, potion crafting lets you fill in any gaps in what you can cover. There are relatively few places you'll be able to get flight or speed potions for only the cost of materials. |
Some of the facilities can be counter-intuitively better if you go against the class lines they're written for. A theater facility gives you an extra dice of bardic inspiration once every three weeks. Parties without a bard will feel that a lot more strongly .
