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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ah, of course, who has ever heard of Alfred Pennyworth? Or Samwise Gamgee? The idea of a completely loyal character is just silly in a logical setting.

If Batman or Frodo ever consciously decided to heap enough abuse on those characters, I could see either of them conceivably breaking loyalty, however unlikely. The rule you posit literally makes that impossible. It that wasn't what you meant by "100% loyal, would never betray", your language says otherwise.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Rather than Bastion Points or upgrade time or anything like that, it's simply:

When the players level up, they can choose to level up their Stronghold.

When they do so, they pick up a Stronghold Upgrade (like a Great Hall which improves persuasion checks when you host, or a Hospital that improves healing checks, or a Monument that can be taken if a PC dies, after which the party increases their Spirit Die).

After they pick an upgrade, they roll on the Stronghold Encounter table. It's a d20 table, where "nothing happens" or there's a "diplomatic mission", or a "siege", or a "plague", or a "natural disaster".

And that's it. The similarities are clear between the two, but the SW version just gets to the meat and the fun stuff without the fiddly nonsense that adds next to nothing. Changing it to 5E would basically only involve going through the upgrades and making system-based adjustments.

Edit: there is another twist that you can add, which are the "Advantages" and a "Complication" for your stronghold to give it flavor.

An Advantage (a good thing) could be your stronghold is in an exotic location, it produces some kind of item, or there's a mentor that lives within.

A Complication (a bad thing) could be that your stronghold is Contested (there is an invasive species that is a nuisance difficult to root out), or is well-known (your enemy knows about it), or has a dark history (foreboding).

That does sound like a good system. Was it added recently? I've never seen it in any of my Savage Worlds books (but I did miss the most recent edition)

 

[Imaro]

If the beastmaster is blatantly mistreating the pet, I would consider it but only after repedatelly calling it out in other means and have player ignore it. It's no different than in my current game, when a prince of another nation who was PC's sidekick betrayed the party after being repedatelly relegated to minor taks, despite making it clear as a warrior he found it insulting, and being multiple time harassed by a PC who thought he is a spy (he wasn't, but he decided if they're treating him that way he may as well prove them right).

Well there is a difference you let the PC control the pet... they didn't control the sidekick. That said it still seems like this isn't a strict players only play their PC's and you play everything else situation. Why do you find it permissible to let the ranger control the actions of the pet unless he's chosen to abuse it, when earlier this is exactly the type of division of narrative control you called videogamey.

With the familiars it depends on their personality. Again, looking at my current game, One that was forced by the patron to be a familiar as punishment and Warlock anjoyed abysing him? He was basically waiting to betray the party, but they got him permakilled by accident. Current familiar is a hero who died and got his soul trapped as a familiar, so he mostly gives Warlock side-eye or comments on his actions or laments his state. He wouldn't act against the Warlock because he convinced Warlock to do a quest to get him his body back, eventually.

Again the familiars actions (at least in combat but I assume some downtime as well) is being controlled by the warlock, even if only partially... how is this not going against your stance?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Correct. But I also trust my GM not to be a jerk, and to listen to me if what they want to do doesn't make logical sense to me, even if it's ultimately their call. Seems you don't feel the same.

Quite the opposite, since my GM isn't a jerk, they don't seem to have any problem at all with the way the Bastion rules are presented, because they don't deny them anything they would actually want to do.

 

[Hussar]

Quite the opposite, since my GM isn't a jerk, they don't seem to have any problem at all with the way the Bastion rules are presented, because they don't deny them anything they would actually want to do.

Again you are doing it wrong.

Players cannot ever be trusted.

 

[Imaro]

In my games, henchmen (including animal companions) are NPCs are controlled by the DM (except in combat, a nod to convenience on my part). Familiars, which are basically part of the PC as they are described, are an exception to this and are controlled by the PC. NPCs act based on their personalities, their knowledge, and their relationships with others (including of course the PCs).

So yes, if an animal companion felt sufficiently aggrieved by their master, I could see them betraying them. Seems pretty unlikely though.

So from this statement I'm taking...

Players can control NPC's if the DM finds it convenient. Interesting take. So players act through their PC's and only through their PC's is ony enforced if the DM doesn't find it too incovenient to control them.

As far as familiars go... you must not be playing D&D because familiars are individual spirits in animal form... not part of the spellcaster.

NPC's act based on their personalities, their knowledge and their relationships with others...except when it's inconvenient for the DM in combat.

Question...Who controls the animal companion?

 

[Imaro]

If Batman or Frodo ever consciously decided to heap enough abuse on those characters, I could see either of them conceivably breaking loyalty, however unlikely. The rule you posit literally makes that impossible. It that wasn't what you meant by "100% loyal, would never betray", your language says otherwise.

So is it that you wouldn't trust a player who chose a 100% loyal henchman or hireling to roleplay appropriately?

 

[Chaosmancer]

If Batman or Frodo ever consciously decided to heap enough abuse on those characters, I could see either of them conceivably breaking loyalty, however unlikely. The rule you posit literally makes that impossible. It that wasn't what you meant by "100% loyal, would never betray", your language says otherwise.

Why do you play with people who insist on abusing the weak and helpless who can't fight back? Seriously, what kinds of games do you play where the question of "but what if they beat their 5 year old daughter into a coma, go and get drunk, then kill the barmaid?" is a legit question?

Alfred has had his life put in danger by Bruce Wayne's crusade dozens of times just in the TV shows. He's been poisoned, shot, stabbed, and exploded on more than one occassion. And there has never been a moment of "well, this is too much, good-bye"

Sam followed Frodo across the flipping continent, fighting for his life on multiple occassions, had abuse heaped on him at the gates of Mordor, and still followed Frodo into metamorphical Hell. Sure, Frodo wasn't carving Sam up like a thanksgiving turkey most weeks, he was worthy of being loyal to, but the vast majority of Player character's I've seen are the exact same. They probably wouldn't even scream at and insult him like Frodo did towards the end.

Maybe play with people who aren't going to abuse and harm those weaker than them for giggles and the idea of loyal NPCs who won't betray them won't seem so far-fetched.

 

[Hussar]

And the problem with disloyal npcs is the same as the problem with traps.

The players have to treat every situation like the npc is disloyal even if 9 out of 10 aren’t. So IME the players simply bypass the issue by never having npcs around unless it’s forced on them by the dm.

In which case the chances of the npc being disloyal becomes nearly 100%, this reinforcing the player’s determination to never allow such a vulnerability into the game.

It’s a vicious cycle.

 

[Lanefan]

There is a rooster of hirelings that the PCs can hire.

Apropos of nothing else, that's the best typo I've seen in a while!