D&D (2024) Bastions in the 2024 DMs Guide

[Mirrorrorrim]

Still that wording that a character can like psychically rule their Bastion is just weird.

I have a very simple Uncommon magic item solution that I've already planned. When my players build their Bastion, one of the things they can do is acquire/create a pair of Sending Stones that your "major domo/seneschal" has the twin to.

Perfect for long distance "orders" that are forced to be short and to the point, so you can be efficient and not bogged down by pleasantries.

I also have a magic item in my campaign that is a pair of magically-connected Journals that two people can use to communicate via writing.

 

[grimmgoose]

"bastions are such a great extended way of fleshing out your character & who your character is. And even before there was anything like a bastion system I would draw out my in that I wish I'd owned or the apartent my character lived in & this fleshes that out to have meaning and purpose & can work with other players. So I have talked for very long about bastions without you, but tell me about the bastion system"

That opening ten billion percent does not engender hope that the changes were made in service of the GM's needs. Perkins Immediately going from there to talk about players sculpting the campaign is not a good sign for the remaining video coverage, nor does the phrase "it's off limits for the dungeon master".

It took almost six minutes to talk about the DM & that statement was that the DM has flexibility to accelerate or decelerate bastion turns... I'm starting to wonder who the heck this book is made for..

The closest I could see as an effort to sell these as a thing useful to GM's was mentioning that it was a place for players to dump gold. Nearly the entire video was talking about PCs. Can wotc maybe make the next DMG video for DMs instead of perma-exclusive-players?

I’ve said it before, but 5E is a player-focused edition. DMs are an afterthought at best, or second-class citizen’s at worst.

WOTC designs with “what will the players want?” and only minimal attention paid to “what would make the DM’s job easier?”

It’s a bold short-term strategy, but after 10 years of it, I’m pulling both of my groups away from 5E. I’ll spend my money on systems that make me feel valued.

 

[Sulicius]

Can anyone point to this psychic link to the bastion?

All I can find is this:

The Maintain order is unusual; it is issued to the whole Bastion rather than to one or more special facilities. If a character isn’t in their Bastion on a given Bastion turn, the Bastion acts as though it was issued the Maintain order on that turn.

That is totally reasonable.

 

[Sulicius]

I’ve said it before, but 5E is a player-focused edition. DMs are an afterthought at best, or second-class citizen’s at worst.

WOTC designs with “what will the players want?” and only minimal attention paid to “what would make the DM’s job easier?”

It’s a bold short-term strategy, but after 10 years of it, I’m pulling both of my groups away from 5E. I’ll spend my money on systems that make me feel valued.

The idea is that a DM doesn't have to go into the minutiae of running the bastion or building it, making NPC's for it.

That sounds like a really nice thing for a DM while they prep for the next adventure.

 

[Osgood]

While I am intrigued by the idea of Bastions, I wasn't a fan of the UA version (and was very disappointed there was a never a second pass). My specific mechanical issues aside, I feel the system would be tough to integrate in most of their published adventures; I'll be curious to see if they incorporate bastions. I also found the part about flavoring bastions differently in different settings interesting--they specifically mentioned Ravenloft, does that mean a future Ravenloft product is in the works?

 

[Arilyn]

Interesting. My preference is for a stronghold to be a thing in the world subject to the same setting events everything else is, but some folks like a more narrative take on the idea.

I don't know how the rules changed, but in the UA, bastions were very abstract. One I didn't like was that Bastion Events only happened when players were away.

There was no way to appoint a steward and the meeples could just up and leave on a bastion event roll. This might result in no income from that room but next turn, new meeples arrive, even though players aren't there and no steward. But we were told we can roleplay our meeples, give them personalities, etc. They could randomly come and go far too fast for that to work. Hopefully, the new Bastion system has addressed these problems.

 

[MarkB]

While I am intrigued by the idea of Bastions, I wasn't a fan of the UA version (and was very disappointed there was a never a second pass). My specific mechanical issues aside, I feel the system would be tough to integrate in most of their published adventures; I'll be curious to see if they incorporate bastions. I also found the part about flavoring bastions differently in different settings interesting--they specifically mentioned Ravenloft, does that mean a future Ravenloft product is in the works?

Some of the published adventures are more travel-intensive than others. In Rime of the Frostmaiden the Ten Towns are very much a hub that the players will return to regularly, having probably developed ties to one or another in the first part of the game. I could easily see players establishing bastions there, or at one or two nearby locations, and am a little sad that I didn't have these rules to hand the last time I ran it.

 

[Kinematics]

Looks like the list of special facilities is identical to the playtest. What few details they gave about the facilities implied not much, if anything, has changed from the playtest. That's rather disappointing.

While I like the broad concept of the Bastion system, I'm kinda inclined to rebuild it.

 

[Nefermandias]

The cool thing about a bastion is, future characters can be characters that come from there. A bastion can be the home of generations of characters, all relating to each other in some way.

Wr have been doing that for ages, without the need for any special systems. This is just the natural development of any campaign with a fixed home base.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I’ve said it before, but 5E is a player-focused edition. DMs are an afterthought at best, or second-class citizen’s at worst.

WOTC designs with “what will the players want?” and only minimal attention paid to “what would make the DM’s job easier?”

It’s a bold short-term strategy, but after 10 years of it, I’m pulling both of my groups away from 5E. I’ll spend my money on systems that make me feel valued.

I think you and Tetra are totally wrong.