D&D (2024) Bastion rules: every pub owner is at least 13th level

[Shardstone]

That's a great example of the exact same kind of purely videogame-style balancing WotC are doing here.

You don't like Bastions, Ruin?!

 

[Micah Sweet]

You could stop complaining and just lower the level man, it isn't that serious.

As long as everybody else also stops complaining about things in the game they don't like, sure. Have to be fair here.

 

[Shardstone]

OK. It's recommended you get 6 to 8 Bastion turns per level. At minimum, those are getting a Maintain Order command, which gives 1d4 BP per special facility. Level 5 special facilities (what you'll be starting with) also give 1d4 BP per order given, though some orders take more than 7 days (the typical duration of a bastion turn).

So if you do nothing but Maintain Order with your brand new level 5 Bastion, you get about 5 BP per week for 6 to 8 weeks, giving a total of 30 to 40 BP when you reach 6th level. That could get you maybe a couple common magic items, but not enough for an uncommon one.

By level 7 you could maybe have enough to get an uncommon magic item.

Getting a rare magic item requires 250 BP and a minimum level of 9. By level 9, you may have accumulated around 140 BP, which still isn't enough for the magic item. However you get two more special facilities, and the level 9 facilities give 1d6 BP per order. That means you're likely to average 12 BP per bastion turn, and could maybe hit that 250 BP threshold by the middle of level 10.

So baseline, things don't look great for trying to get a magic item out of a Bastion. However we can improve things by spending 25 GP per order given. That gives you "advantage" on the BP roll. That increases your average BP roll from 2.5 to 3.13 for the level 5 facilities, and from 3.5 to 4.47 for the level 9 facilities. For the die sizes in question, it's an increase of about 25%-30%.

7 weeks of two orders per week would cost 350 GP per level. Your average BP accumulated per level would increase from 35 to 44. In 4 levels you should have accumulated 175 BP. At level 9 with the two new facilities, you should average 15.2 BP per week, or 106 BP over the level (at a cost of 700 GP). That gives you a grand total of 280 BP by the time you reach level 10. Total gold cost is 2100 GP.

2100 GP is a midrange cost for a rare magic item (which the DMG prices between 501 and 5000 GP).

Overall, by level 10 you could have 4 uncommon magic items, or 1 rare magic item, as long as you don't spend your BP on anything else. Getting an uncommon magic item would require 2 levels of work between levels 5 and 9, or 1 level of work after level 9.

Of course you're getting the other benefits of the facilities along the way, so it's not all just waiting and waiting. But the bastion turn mechanic does feel like it could run afoul of some normal game time limits.

In my most recent game, it's taken almost a year of play time to reach level 5. So, roughly 12 weeks of one game session per week per level. On the other hand, the amount of in-game time that has passed is maybe 2 months. Even if we continue to level up at the same real-world rate, we could conceivably be getting just a couple bastion turns per level.

The facility benefits themselves may be worthwhile, but the BP benefits will be anemic, particularly against the amount of real-world time that has passed. At the current rate, I might be able to get a single uncommon magic item by level 10, which is hardly even worth tracking.

So yeah, the BP aspect of this is going to be heavily dependent on a game running with lots of downtime.

I'll probably be tweaking the point rules myself.

 

[Shardstone]

As long as everybody else also stops complaining about things in the game they don't like, sure. Have to be fair here.

No Micah, I'm not playing that game with you. Use a new stock argument.

Changing the LEVEL of the PUB is NOT a big deal. It's just not. We're not going to sit here and complain that changing the level of the pub is some massive problem that makes the entirety of Bastions unusable. It isn't. It's ok if you don't like it being that high. I don't either. So I'm going to make pubs (and gambling dens) available at 5th level. There's no problems with this. No serious work. It isn't backbreaking. It takes no mechanical balancing.

 

[bedir than]

No Micah, I'm not playing that game with you. Use a new stock argument.

Changing the LEVEL of the PUB is NOT a big deal. It's just not. We're not going to sit here and complain that changing the level of the pub is some massive problem that makes the entirety of Bastions unusable. It isn't. It's ok if you don't like it being that high. I don't either. So I'm going to make pubs (and gambling dens) available at 5th level. There's no problems with this. No serious work. It isn't backbreaking. It takes no mechanical balancing.

You're going to have a spigot of 24 hour duration potions available at level 5?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

OK. It's recommended you get 6 to 8 Bastion turns per level. .

The best use of BP is the generic stuff, not getting magic items. Which is weird.

My concern would be that the Bastion rules get all the designer attention at the expense of the other downtime rules, yes. Do I know for sure that will happen? No. That being said, I have no evidence that the existing downtime rules are being expanded, and I have documented written evidence that Bastion rules are being developed. I can only make educated guesses based on the evidence at my disposal.

IIRC Crawford says they’re expanding and improving the downtime mechanics in the video for this UA.

 

[Professor Murder]

I havent crunched the rules themselves, but I love the concept. Birthright anyone?

 

[Micah Sweet]

No Micah, I'm not playing that game with you. Use a new stock argument.

Changing the LEVEL of the PUB is NOT a big deal. It's just not. We're not going to sit here and complain that changing the level of the pub is some massive problem that makes the entirety of Bastions unusable. It isn't. It's ok if you don't like it being that high. I don't either. So I'm going to make pubs (and gambling dens) available at 5th level. There's no problems with this. No serious work. It isn't backbreaking. It takes no mechanical balancing.

I don't react well to "stop complaining" arguments.

 

[Epic Meepo]

This is what the 1e DMG says on building castles/strongholds.

"When player characters reach upper levels and decide to establish a stronghold and rule a territory, you must have fairly detailed information on hand to enable this to take place."

You could certainly homebrew it differently, but RAW was that you needed to be 9th(upper levels) level.

This is what the BECMI edition Expert Rules from 1983 say about fighters building castles:

"A fighter with enough money may build a castle regardless of level. When a fighter reaches Name level, the character is eligible for selection as a Baron (or Baroness)."

But neither my example nor yours is quoting rules published by WotC. The historical state of the game 40 years ago doesn't reflect any changes made since WotC took the helm.

The last dedicated stronghold-related WotC product that I'm aware of is the Stronghold Builders' Guidebook from 3.x Edition. On page 4, that sourcebook says:

"Characters with enough gold and magic at their disposal can construct massive fortresses limited only by their imagination." No minimum level requirements are mentioned anywhere in the guidebook.

So, per WotC's most recent, stronghold-centric product, there are no minimum level requirements for building a stronghold. The 2024 DMG isn't required to follow this precedent, of course. But why build upon game mechanics from the 1980's when you can at least use something published in this century as a basis for your new rules system?

 

[Epic Meepo]

You could stop complaining and just lower the level man, it isn't that serious.

It would be bad form for me to start a thread on a playtest forum that wasn't dedicated to discussing the relative merits of content being play tested. I'm happy to hear other poster's thoughts on the Bastion mechanics - in fact, I'm learning some useful context for them - so I won't be telling anyone to stop offering their opinions on the matter.