D&D (2024) Dungeon Master's Guide Bastion System Lets You Build A Stronghold

The Dungeon Master's Guide's brand new Bastion System has been previewed in a new video from Wizards of the Coast.

Characters can acquire a bastion at 5th-level. Each week, the bastion takes a turn, with actions including crafting, recruiting, research, trade, and more.

A bastion also contains a number of special facilties, starting with two at 5th-level up to 6 at 17th-level. These facilities include things like armories, workshops, laboratories, stables, menageries, and more. In total there are nearly thirty such facilities to choose from.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah I thought of it as an extension of a character sheet, but it definitely has a heavier footprint in the world than a single character (talking real estate, not actions). Then again this stuff is all in the dmg so... Well it's a weird place to be pitching a player feature to players but putting it in the GM book.

But yeah, the player character sheet is the players' demesne 99% of the time. Makes sense in a way.

I would say that 5 murderhobos are a much heavier footprint on the world while they are going everywhere they want as opposed to a fixed structure.

 

[Distracted DM]

I would say that 5 murderhobos are a much heavier footprint on the world while they are going everywhere they want as opposed to a fixed structure.

Lol yes that's why I specified real estate, not actions
But PCs come and go, whereas the things they make, I like to make those a part of the world. The PCs too but a keep might be around a century after it's founding fighter built it. And a building needs to be placed somewhere; it will take space somewhere. Definitely something to have a dialogue with the GM about, not assume its existence and location.

Again, really waiting to see what comes out in the book. I doubt it'll take the place of what I use now, but it'd be nice if it was good enough to do so!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

These bastions aren't designed to be a tower-defense minigame.

Sometimes I miss my PCs could built "killboxes" like in Fortnite: Save the World ("Orcs must die" is more railroad).

We shouldn't worry too much because we can bet somebody will publish house rules for "grogs" or "demiPCs. And each grog would work like a room or special facility for bastions.

Other crazy idea is bastions to be "sentient" and even could being incarnated into avatars, something like "genius loci". These would be like monster classes, but with a different leveling-up system, more "storytelling". We don't need it was too powerful, only level of a classic home fairy.

A shop, tavern or other type of business should be an easy access for potential customers, but usually these are in "commercial districts" within town walls. Not all the rooms or facilities should be together in the same place. Some facilities could be movile, like carriages.

* Other risk is when the DM wanted to play with the trope o haunted house. Some room or facility would be "locked" until the murder mistery was solved. Maybe this ghost later becomes a new setinel.

Not all the attacks should be a raid of gnolls or like this, but more a hunt by a supernatural predator, for example a theriantrope, or infiltration by a doppelganger spy, or a saboteur hired by a rival shop.

 

[Azzy]

There's no curing bad players. But we don't have to cater to them.

The same can be said about bad DMs.

 

[S'mon]

The same can be said about bad DMs.

Yes, and it gets said all the time! No one ever thinks about the bad players...

 

[Micah Sweet]

As I said before, I do not think that intention is to make bastion immune to DM actions, but that the design is immune the same way a PC creation is.

Sure DM can pre-ban some things, but if all players decide to have all facilities be barracks in the bastion so they can muster legion of soldiers, then DM should not interfere with that idea, but play along or around it.

Then maybe they shouldn't use the phrase, "off-limits to the DM" as some sort of gleeful selling point to get players to buy the DMG. This reads more like player-focused ad copy than anything else.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah. Whether a PC stronghold gets attacked IMC depends on stuff like local threats, how well defended it is, what allies & vassals the PC or PCs have made... The Temple of Yig in my Stonehell campaign never got attacked because even the Three Eyed King could see that was impractical. The owner had created a strong network of allies & vassals, and turned it into a deathtrap. A manor house on the Damaran borderlands was attacked by an orc horde because the owners had been raiding the orcs, had done nothing to fortify it, and had even pissed off their liege and former allies. They had major Special Snowflake syndrome, were purely focused on intra-party romances ...and ragequit when they got in-game warning of the Orcs - who they could probably still have defeated. That seems to be the kind of players this system is catering to.

Yup. What happens to and around a player stronghold should be based on PC actions and that strongholds' place in the wider setting. Forcing it to be immune to the DM is illogical, inconsistent, and gamist.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I thought of it as an extension of a character sheet, but it definitely has a heavier footprint in the world than a single character (talking real estate, not actions). Then again this stuff is all in the dmg so... Well it's a weird place to be pitching a player feature to players but putting it in the GM book.

But yeah, the player character sheet is the players' demesne 99% of the time. Makes sense in a way.

I'm convinced it is in the DMG because they're trying to gets players to buy it. It has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with $$$.

 

[Horwath]

Then maybe they shouldn't use the phrase, "off-limits to the DM" as some sort of gleeful selling point to get players to buy the DMG. This reads more like player-focused ad copy than anything else.

that I agree, Bastions and magic items should have been in PHB, but then would it be space for it.
Maybe they could have bitten the bullet and printed PHB in 2 volumes for $100. with total of 800 pages. I would buy it.
then maybe we could have gotten Artificer and 5/6 subclasses per class, more feats and more spells.

Guess that we will wait for it in PHB2 coming in 2025/26 with some "not PHB2" name like Elminster's collection of Lore...

 

[MarkB]

Then maybe they shouldn't use the phrase, "off-limits to the DM" as some sort of gleeful selling point to get players to buy the DMG. This reads more like player-focused ad copy than anything else.

Which is why it's really nothing to get excited about at this point. Let's see what it actually says in the DMG before considering it a declaration of war on DMs.