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

[Maxperson]

Acquisitions Incorporated - Marketplace - D&D Beyond

The Acquisitions Incorporated D&D setting book makes it easy to open up your adventuring franchise. Includes a level 1-6 adventure and more.

dnd.wizards.com

View attachment 303769

The 5E book for running businesses. I've always thought one could always refluff the rules here and there to get the Stronghold rules for 5E games at the time of its release.

Maybe I'll give that one a closer look. It struck me as more comical roleplay than serious roleplay, which isn't my thing.

 

[Weiley31]

Maybe I'll give that one a closer look. It struck me as more comical roleplay than serious roleplay, which isn't my thing.

It's one of those 5E books that you use more for Cherry-Picking stuff for your 5E games. Unless you're into Aquisition Incorporated.

 

[Yaarel]

Stuff like this should be Bastionizable, especially if hiring a high-tier spellcaster.

Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything

"
MIGHTY FORTRESS
8th-level conjuration

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 1 mile
Components: V, S, M (a diamond worth at least 500 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous

A fortress of stone erupts from a square area of ground of your choice that you can see within range. The area is 120 feet on each side, and it must not have any buildings or other structures on it. Any creatures in the area are harmlessly lifted up as the fortress rises.

The fortress has four turrets with square bases, each one 20 feet on a side and 30 feet tall, with one turret on each corner. The turrets are connected to each other by stone walls that are each 80 feet long, creating an enclosed area. Each wall is 1 foot thick and is composed of panels that are 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Each panel is contiguous with two other panels or one other panel and a turret. You can place up to four stone doors in the fortress’s outer wall.

A small keep stands inside the enclosed area. The keep has a square base that is 50 feet on each side, and it has three floors with 10-foot-high ceilings. Each of the floors can be divided into as many rooms as you like, provided each room is at least 5 feet on each side. The floors of the keep are connected by stone staircases, its walls are 6 inches thick, and interior rooms can have stone doors or open archways as you choose. The keep is furnished and decorated however you like, and it contains sufficient food to serve a nine-course banquet for up to 100 people each day. Furnishings, food, and other objects created by this spell crumble to dust if removed from the fortress.

A staff of one hundred invisible servants obeys any command given to them by creatures you designate when you cast the spell. Each servant functions as if created by the unseen servant spell.

The walls, turrets, and keep are all made of stone that can be damaged. Each 10-foot by 10-foot section of stone has AC 15 and 30 hit points per inch of thickness. It is immune to poison and psychic damage. Reducing a section of stone to 0 hit points destroys it and might cause connected sections to buckle and collapse at the DM’s discretion.

After 7 days or when you cast this spell somewhere else, the fortress harmlessly crumbles and sinks back into the ground, leaving any creatures that were inside it safely on the ground.

Casting this spell on the same spot once every 7 days for a year makes the fortress permanent.

"

I feel this spell can happen at a much lower level, like level 9, or at most level 13, depending on what the genre expectations of high tiers are.

(Costly spell gp components are moot at high levels that are overflowing with gp. There are better ways to balance spells. Costly components are a pain point because of how they prevent innate spells and interfere with the way each class casts spells.)

 

[M_Natas]

On Facilities

I don't like the Armory. It's a high cost facility that provides almost no benefit. In the event of an attack, you go from an expected loss of 1.0 defenders to a loss of 0.75 defenders, and have to pay again to have those same benefits in the next attack. It's not worth it in terms of benefits, or in terms of space used.

Instead, I'd integrate it into the Barracks themselves. Something like:

Level 5: As in UA, you can recruit up to 12 guards
Level 9: You've improved the armory for the guards. Roll d8's during an Attack instead of d6's.
Level 13: You can recruit up to 20 guards, as well as a lieutenant commander who reduces the number of dice rolled by 1 during an attack. (size: Vast)
Level 17: You can recruit up to 30 guards, as well as a second lieutenant commander.

Should probably have some benefit other than just guarding during an Attack. Maybe get a +1d4 on any negotiations performed in your Bastion, given the security and authority being displayed?


General tiering ideas

Level progression for all facilities: 5 > 9 > 13 > 17

Higher tier provides more benefits, and is generally larger in size. When combining different facilities from the UA document, lower tier benefits should still be available when upgraded to higher tier facilities.

Generally must buy at the entry level (usually level 5), and then upgrade from there. Limits on how often an upgrade can be done?

Reaching level 17 may allow combining two tiered facilities into a single facility with combined benefits (though the BP return only goes up one die size), giving you room to build another facility. You need to have both base facilities at level 13 to combine them into the level 17 version. These combinations are limited and enumerated.


Pub:

Pub (Cramped) > Bar (Roomy) > Tavern (UA Pub) > Cantina (Vast; combine with Theater)

Leveling benefits: Improved information network; improved magic potions.


Gaming Hall:

Back Room (Cramped; dice games) > Gambling Den (Roomy) > Gaming Hall (Vast) > Casino (Vast; combine with Tavern or Theater)


Theater:

Stage > Playhouse > Theater

Leveling benefits: Incraesed Theater Die size. Reputation and renown.


Library:

Combine Library, Scriptorium, and Archive

Library > Scriptorium > Archive


Garden:

Combine Garden with Greenhouse.

Garden (Roomy) > Greenhouse (Roomy) > Grove (Vast)


Stable:

Combine Stable with Menagerie. Put Stable at level 5.

Stable (Roomy) > Nursury (Roomy) > Menagerie (Vast)

Leveling benefits: Be able to house and take care of more complex and exotic animals and mounts.


Planar:

Combine planar-related facilities.

Teleportation Circle [level 9] > Observatory > Demiplane


Storehouse:

Rename to "Shop". Can be any type of mundane trade. Higher level = increased profits.

I would get rid of Bastion points and gate it by Gold.
The DMG should provide a breakdown on the expected Gold by level. Because there is an expected Gold by level if you follow the Guidlines for treasure hordes and monster loot, at Lvl 5 a character should hav 600 Gold, at lvl. 11 21.000 Gold, at lvl. 17 129.000 Gold and ar lvl. 20 800.000 Gold ( Character Wealth (Gold) by Level - Dungeon Masters Only - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond ).
So you call that out explicitly in the DMG, that the process for buying magic items and establishments is based around the expected Gold per Level.
The DMG already does that for example with magic items, it just doesn't tell you:
The amount of Money you get per DMG per level allows you to buy a magic item of a similar rarity of what you will find in an adventure according to the treasure tables. So if you follow the DMG guidlines, you are able to buy uncommon/rare/very rare magic items the same time you wild fine them in the wild.

And for me that is the perfect level gating.

No extra meta currencies like Bastion points, no arbitrary level requirements. If you have the Gold, you can get the facility.

Level gating is okay, but you have to hide it. No "you can't use this sword/get this pub" because you haven't killed 200 orcs yet. But a "you cannot afford it yet" is totally fine by my book.

Also get rid if Bastion Turns. Make it weeks or months or something. Why should the time to brew a potion or forge an item change?

Bastion Points and Bastion Turns are additional visible game mechanics that will rip players out of the game and can easily be done better by ingame tracking of Gold and Time. With Bastion turns and points, you are not longer Sir Dav'a'lot the brave Knight of the Cool Realms who just got enough money to buy his first pub. You are now just Dave, a guy who plays the Sims, the D&D version. And even the Sims doesn't go so low and uses Metacurrency and Meta Time.

Also make time matter! If yo have a campaign that will last days, no bastion benefits for you!

Also, add options for moving bastions. Spelljammer-Ships, Ships, walking castles.

And there should be an option for a warden, somebody you leave behind who will oversee the facilities and manage them, when you are longer away. As long as he has the money to do so, he will upkeep the bastion.

 

[M_Natas]

So, if I would create a System that allows players to have bastions/establishments from scratch, I would do it that way:

First of all, everything is Gold and Time based. No additional meta currencies.

Point 1: General building costs based on the material used.
To build Walls with roof, it cost per 5 feet of Wall (1 Hireling, you can hire more, Hireling to fasten the process, a second hireling halves the time needed, but the cost increases by 1,5)

• Wood: 1GP, one day (AC 10, 5 HP, damage threshold 5)
• Stone: 10 GP, 5 Days (AC 12, 20 HP, damage threshold 15)
• Dig into a Mountain/into Stone (5 square feet): 30 GP/15 Days
• Underground-Facilities/Cellar (5 square feet):

- Soft Ground/Clay: 10 GP/5 days (max. 1 Level deep)
- Hard Ground/Stone Ground: 30 GP/15 Days

- Upper floors:
Every floor above the ground floor increases the costs and time by half. So the second floor costs 1,5x, the third floor 2x, the fourth floor 2,5 times and so on.
Wooden structures only support a ground floor and one upper floor. Stone structures can support several upper levels.


If you need to drain water (Swamp-Area, by the sea) or have other complications, time and Money is doubled.

So now you have a simple system to build a shell for your buildings. The numbers are fast and loose right now, but I think they are in the right ballpark.
You can build a 10x10 Shed out of wood for 8 Gold in 8 days.
Out of Stone a 10x10 hut costs 80 Gold and it takes 40 days.
Playe characters can also reduce costs if the work themselves (like halve the cost for wood, reduce 1/4 of cost with stone).

If players want to buy a building, you can look at what it would cost to build that building and double that. There should also be guidlines on when to give buildings as quest rewards.

Now, after having the shell of your building, you can stock it.
You can put everything you want inside it.

To make that easy, there will be sets, for example for mundane rooms:

Bedroom-Set:

• Squalid (requires at least a 5 square feet room) - a straw mattress, a scratchy blanket, and a wobbly wooden chair - 2 sp
• Poor(at least 10 square feet) - a wooden single bed frame with a straw mattress, blanket and pillkw, a wooden chair, a bedside table - 1 GP
• Modest(15 Square feet) - a wooden single bed frame with a spring mattress, a warm blanket and comfortable pillow, bedside table, chair, dresser - 5 GP
• Comfortable(20 Square Feet) - a wooden bed double bed frame with a spring mattress, warm duvet and blankets, pillows, beside table, chair, dresser, wardrobe - 15 GP
• Wealthy(25 Square feet) - a comfortable queen size bed with spring mattress, nice duvet, blankets, pillows, bedside table, chair, dresser, wardrobe, dressing table - 30 GP
• Aristocratic (30 Square feet) - ... (Go crazy?) - 100 GP

So you have an upgrade path. I would also tie some resting benefits on the quality of the Bedroom, but I don't know what yet (which would work with gritty realism rules, like, in Squalid conditions you rest time doubles, in comfortable it halves and in Wealthy/Aristocratic you are so rereshed you start the day with inspiration).

So we would have such Price Lists for the most common rooms like the privy, a kitchen, dinning room and so on.

Then we get to the special rooms, like the pub.

Pub-Set:
Squalid (Minimum: 20 square feet, 1 unskilled hireling) - a wobbly wooden counter, 3 wobbly chairs on the Brink of braking, a shelf for Drinks - buying cost 1 GP, upkeep Cost 3 SP per day (Labor and Drinks, can change depending in what drinksnyou wanna serve and how many people younwanna hire) - makes 1d4+1 sp per day (can change depending on the drinks you sell, special occasions and other factors).
Poor (Minimum: 30 square feet, 2 unskilled hirelings) - 10 GP buy - 1 GP upkeep, 2d10 SP per Day
Modest 100 gp
Comfortable 500 gp
Wealthy 1000 gp
Aristocratic 5000 GP

One can also summarise upkeep and profits into weeks (tendays) or month (30 days) to cover longer periods of time.
So for a ten week the upkeep Cost of the Squalid Pub is 30 SP, the income is 10d4+10 SP.
For a month upkeep would be 90 sp and income 30d4+30SP.

And than add some special abilities. Like with the Squalid one, you can hear rumors about things going on with the poor people or gain favor with the poor and criminal elements of the city by giving out rounds, with the poor one you can gain favor with the working class and so on.

And now do that for all the special rooms mentioned in the Bastion UA and adapt that accordingly.

Now players can decided, if they want to have 10 pubs in the city or build a big keep together with a gambling Hall, pub and arcane study or if they want to separate their pub establishments from their private rooms and so on.

So, what I actually just want and need are building costs, upkeep and buying costs for single bulsings/rooms/establishments, descriptions of what the rooms can do mechanically and upgrade paths, gated by Gold cost and building time and also special things that can happen to the establishment/building based in the Typ (like Brawl Fight breaks out in the Pub, giant rats find their way into the cellar ect.).

No bastion Points or turns or ant of that stuff.

 

[Horwath]

I'm not even opposed to level restrictions, I'm more bothered by the fact that this is effected by the tendency to put things on too high a shelf to be useful to players in most games. There's so much 5th level material that's inexplicably valued as level 10+ in both the old stuff and in 5.5 and even when they seem to concede that point, they do so by like two levels.

I want to see that latest "new" ability(except spell levels) is at level 11.

After that you only get improvement of existing abilities and/or more usage of them.

 

[Sulicius]

The goal of this bastion system does not appear to be making your players adventure for gold. That is why gold is taken out of the equation.

D&D economy is borked in any case, but can you imagine? Instead of adventuring, your pc’s would be handing out loans, living off interest. Our own world runs on money, and it is a mess that I don’t want to deal with.

My guess that the bastion system was designed with these things in mind:

• See if people really want to built a base.
• Give the players a way to build a base the way they want.
• Don’t force the characters to stay at the base, but don’t let them ignore it forever either.
• Give the players a way to spend gold, but with how wonky gold can be in D&D, don’t let huge amounts of gold break the system.
• Let the bastion give advantages to adventurers, but don’t let them be too powerful too early.
• Make the system just realistic enough that it is believable, but not realistic enough that it bogs down the game.
• Give the DM a balanced framework that doesn’t cost them too much time.

Looking at it with these design goals in mind, I like the system, though it could use some work. The main problems I see come up in this thread are:

• D&D campaigns last a very short in-game time. Constructing a decent building takes more time.
• Though people accept hit points, sorcery points, ki points, damage points, creature types, ability scores, spell slots, spell levels, hit dice, experience points and more, bastion points is weird and nonspecific.
• This system doesn’t seem to be a money sink. Maybe because the money sinks don’t give mechanical benefits.
• Some facilities that seem ordinary are gated behind high levels because of their mechanical combat bonuses. People want to run a tavern.
• People think Strongholds & Followers is better. So far everyone that used it that I heard of, could not run it as is. Personally I couldn’t get it to work.
• The system seems too complicated because it is many pages.
• The system seems too game-y because it abstracts things.
• The system doesn’t fit with the exact type of base someone wants to build.
• This could be a chapter of 30 pages in the DMG for a system that doesn’t work in most campaigns.

I think people need to ask themselves what they want from a bastion system, and how much time they want to spend on it.

 

[Horwath]

I do wish that the Bastian tiers were not different from the tiers of play

agree,
tiers of play should be at levels 5,9,13,17 just as proficiency bonus.

 

[R_J_K75]

...Unlike basic facilities, special facilities can’t be bought; a character gains them through level advancement." Note that "special facilities" include Stables (minimum character level 9th) and Pubs (minimum character level 13th)...

I didn't read the UA8, I just skimmed it and when I saw it was 22 pages I didn't bother. So, is that what it said? If so, this is terribly misleading to new DMs at least, hilarious at best. 9th level stable master? Who is he, Iceberg Slim? Are they really saying that a PC with skills in 5Es equivalent of Animal Handling, Animal Training and survival skills need to be 9th level to run a stable, plant a geranium, or farm or pig pen? I could see a new DM inferring from this that each barkeep, stableboy, etc. is "x" level and not just a 0-3 level NPC. Just seems like more system than is needed and trying to explain it too much won't be beneficial and only lead to more questions. Sometimes the individual groups need to make it up themselves.

 

[bedir than]

agree,
tiers of play should be at levels 5,9,13,17 just as proficiency bonus.

Except those aren't the RAW tiers either.
5e is explicit about when the tiers are. The Bastian rules aren't a backdoor way to change the rest of the system