D&D (2024) Bastions - What did you tell WotC when you did the Bastion Survey?

[Zaran]

Ok, so I haven't come to these forums in the last 8 years but after listening to the The Tome Show podcast about chapter 8 of the DMG has made really curious. Chapter 8 is about Bastions. And I remember when I filled out the Unearthed Arcana survey I gave this system terrible marks. And when I got my DMG I was dismayed that it pretty much hadn't changed from the UA. So I am curious if other players thought this was a great addition to D&D or did everyone say basically the same things that I did and WotC just ignored it.

So some basic things that I remember that I said.
1. Why does it start at 5th level? Dragon Heist gives the players a home base at the beginning of 2nd level. It starts out as a pub (we will get back to this)
2. Why does it not have more money sinks? The game needs ways for the players to spend their money that they get. I know there are small ways to spend money but most of them are meaningless.
3. Why are there arbitrary level requirements!? And why is the Pub level 13?! We get one at level 2 in an official adventure! And why can I get a gambling den before I can get a pub?
4. I get that its designed to be separate from the adventure. But its so separate that its a waste of time and the mini-game that was offered to us isn't fun. And the benefits of the bastion are infinitesimal. Oh gee I can have an arcane focus crafted at level 5? Joy! The orb costs 20 gold. I'm so glad that I can save that vast amount of coin while I am gone for a week.
5. Generally I made it known that I hated this whole system. It did not give me any ideas. It did not excite me to try it out. It feels like a total waste (the final product is 20 pages!) I so wish those were pages that they used for other things.

The Tome Show has more views on this that I didn't even think about. I encourage you all to go listen for yourselves Its the Edition Wars episode 136. If you haven't been listening to it already I encourage you to check it out.

Again, I'm curious if there people out there that can find merit to this system? Because I feel like this whole thing should have been scrapped I think it actually deters from something way more useful to our campaigns.

 

[dave2008]

I told them to integrate it into the "stronghold" rules that were already in the 2014 DMG. I think I had some other comments, but that is all I remember.

Wait, I also said it should be more of a money sink too.

I do find merit in the system and would use it (and the 2014 rules) as a starting point if it was something my players are interested in (it is not). I said it was a decent starting point, but need work and integration into the existing rules.

 

[pukunui]

My feedback was something along the lines of "Why are you reinventing the wheel when you've got a perfectly good system in the Acquisitions Inc book?" The Acq Inc franchise system is fantastic and would be super-easy to divorce from the Acq Inc branding as a simple but fun stronghold management system that comes with upgrades and downtime activities. It's possible there was some kind of rights issue with Penny Arcade but I dunno. I would have much preferred something like that to the bastion system that we got. I can't really see myself using those rules as written. They still feel pretty half-baked.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ok, so I haven't come to these forums in the last 8 years but after listening to the The Tome Show podcast about chapter 8 of the DMG has made really curious. Chapter 8 is about Bastions. And I remember when I filled out the Unearthed Arcana survey I gave this system terrible marks. And when I got my DMG I was dismayed that it pretty much hadn't changed from the UA. So I am curious if other players thought this was a great addition to D&D or did everyone say basically the same things that I did and WotC just ignored it.

I always answer WotC's surveys, but in that case I think my answers were probably all "I don't know" because my general feedback was that for me a bastion system was utterly useless, not because I want to deny my PCs to get a stronghold if they want one, but because I absolutely don't want rules to tell me what or how should l do that and especially not at what levels certain things must happen.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nothing. Doesn't really interest me, so I'm not the target audience. So it wouldn't be fair to comment.

 

[Horwath]

reworked bastion building amount to:

1 at level 3. this is a good starting level for it. at 3rd level characters stop being trainees.

2 at level 5.

3 at level 7

4 at level 9 and later as normal.

Pub needs to be "level 3" building, but without magic bonuses, maybe lowest healing potion once per turn.


As for level requirements, I get them, you dont want to hand out teleportation circles at level 5, but maybe some needs to be adjusted. and no level requirement over level 13.

 

[Sulicius]

reworked bastion building amount to:

1 at level 3. this is a good starting level for it. at 3rd level characters stop being trainees.

2 at level 5.

3 at level 7

4 at level 9 and later as normal.

Pub needs to be "level 3" building, but without magic bonuses, maybe lowest healing potion once per turn.


As for level requirements, I get them, you dont want to hand out teleportation circles at level 5, but maybe some needs to be adjusted. and no level requirement over level 13.

The Storefront is probably a good facility to reskin as a pub.

 

[Stormonu]

I was rather frustrated that they barely changed anything from the UA. I think they just wanted a yes/no like and not criticisms and must have reached their magical approval rate to put them in.

I plan to use a form of the bastion rules, but I'm going to be looking back to the 2E Castle guide, Birthright and the 3E Stronghold Builder's guide for better base systems - though somewhat simpler to implement.