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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Makes me wonder if they use a Feat to gain access to a Bastion initially

No, the article on DDB explains how to get a bastion.

It’s basically loot, like a magic item.

 

[hopeless]

You know that Pub could serve as the cover for the bastion itself.
I recall a series of books involving Sparhawk a knight making use of a secret Knight base located at a Inn allowing them to enter the actual Fort located across a wall they had the means to cross without anyone knowing about it.
Odd thoughts, but I understand the reference to the DM needing to be hands off as I've met GMs would destroy these bases just for kicks or steal it so they can claim their character owns that.
It sounds dumb, but worth remembering.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Odd thoughts, but I understand the reference to the DM needing to be hands off as I've met GMs would destroy these bases just for kicks or steal it so they can claim their character owns that.
It sounds dumb, but worth remembering.

I "love" double stadard where we justify the bastion being off-limits for the dm by toxic dm behavior and that is apparently fine, but being wary of this very rule being abused by toxic players is either "made up hypothetical" or fault of individuals that cannot be used to justify general attitude towards something.

 

[hopeless]

Agreed, but having my last experience of a campaign ending because of a DM who would do this that doesn't mean I don't recognise player's are just as capable of messing up.
Watching Treantmonk's video on this, its pretty good.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I've been repedatelly in this thread told that any abuse of the bastion is an individual player problem and thesolution us talking to the player because a bad player will be bad bastion or not. But the idea of asking your dm to set lines about what can be dne eith the bastion is somehow out of the question? One ould argue a dm willing to break sicial contract to screw the player over eill also brak the rule forbidding them from interacting eoth the bastion. Why do we have the double standard?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sounds very railroady. What if the PCs decide to assassinate the king before the assigned date?

He said "once they occur". He's talking about retconning.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Re: Zone of Truth

Questioner: "Failure to answer a question will be interpreted in a manner highly unfavourable to you."

2 and 3 overlap with the name piece: if someone gave me the answer "You can call me Timothy (etc.)" I'd ask the question again: "What is your name?". Continued obfuscation would end the interview real fast.

Indeed, but they do exist.

"Well you never asked" situations are usually the fault of the questioner, who should have asked unless it's really obscure (and a demon hiding in someone's shadow would to me qualify as obscure).

And realistic. Not every third Sunday, though: I'm trying to defend against it happening once, because once is all it takes if the assassin is successful.

That, and the definition of "good deeds" very often depends on whose side you're on. The character of mine I'm referring to here has been in parties that have done covert ops in an enemy nation that have resulted in some serious messes being made - all "good deeds" to us and our home nations but not at all good deeds as seen by the place we were messing up.

And we-as-PCs already know that nation knows who we are (or thinks they know, their info is a bit inaccurate) - at one point we stole a copy of a supposedly top-secret intelligence brief that had half our names in it along with some half-decent sketches of some of us, though the matching of names and sketches was largely out to lunch.

And we also know this nation has the means of reaching out halfway around the world to screw with us.

So yeah, a bit of good old-fashioned paranoia ain't always a bad thing.

Expect it when you least expect it.

@Chaosmancer ,please correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that you're not interested in a game where the PCs are not trying to be objectively (more or less) heroic individuals, by which I mean they almost always take good guy-coded actions (by modern standards. Is that correct? If so, I can see how that opinion would color the character of your rhetoric quite strongly. The posters against whom you are arguing largely do not share this point of view; ie, there is no assumption that the players will or should portray their PCs as modern-styled heroes.

 

[hopeless]

But it deserves a reminder because bad dming does exist no matter how many times bad player's gets mentioned.

And I think I understand why its in the dmg after all in my experience its rare for a campaign to be set in one location primarily.

Its something I'd enjoy doing, but the impression I get is that people play these things to get away from real life where we don't often have the ability to get away from home so use this to replace that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because if I don't no one else will, and as the only one who is retired, I'm the only one with the time.

That actually makes a lot of sense. If I didn't want to DM but felt obligated to do so, I would be looking for ways to off-load some of the work onto the players (with their cooperation of course) as well. You have my sympathies.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

toxic players

Toxic players are easy to deal with - they get the boot instantly.