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.

 

[MarkB]

Considering the sheer quantity of rooms the map as displayed is certainly an example of combined Bastions

I'm amused that the Pub in that map, which essentially needs to be publicly-accessible to fulfil its function, can only be accessed through the kitchen. Somebody wasn't planning ahead.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I'm amused that the Pub in that map, which essentially needs to be publicly-accessible to fulfil its function, can only be accessed through the kitchen. Somebody wasn't planning ahead.

I guess the kitchen maids will have to drink a lot to keep the pub in business!

 

[mamba]

I guess the kitchen maids will have to drink a lot to keep the pub in business!

on the upside the barracks are only accessible through the pub, so they will get business that way

 

[Chaosmancer]

Baskets and mirrors have no agency in the game world; they don't perform actions of narrative consequence on behalf of players. In the 2024 rules we've seen so far, only player characters, their pets (familiars, etc.), and their Bastions can do that.

When a rules element is a means players use to perform actions in the game world, my preference is for that element to support as many narratives as possible. The game rules for inanimate objects aren't relevant to this particular preference.

And it can? It can support any narratives you want it to support. What does that have to do with them deciding to call the mechanical thing that can be a coffeehouse a "pub" in the mechanics?

 

[Queer Venger]

Im curious how this can be adapted to my spell jammer campaign. I was conceptualizing having objects, like magical globes that the crew can access kind of like a holodeck in Star Trek, but these being Demi-planes.

 

[Horwath]

I'm thinking about optional new feat for this.

Legendary leader:
requires level 8+
+1 ASI
number of facilities in your bastion is now 2×your prof bonus
all costs are reduced by 10%

 

[Demetrios1453]

I can't speak to the main complaints. My complaint about Bastions was something which didn't seem to bother too many other posters, probably because it was a problem I had with the narrative, not the mechanics:

The Bastion system uses game mechanics which, to me, seem disassociated from the names the designers have assigned to them. For example, the word "Pub" is now codified to mean a particular special facility with very specific, narrowly-defined rules. Those rules reflect the designers' narrative about the role pubs play in the world, but they provide almost no flexibility.

The new background rules do the same thing when they attach a limited selection of ability scores to each background. The word "Farmer" now means someone who farms and also gains one of a few specific, narrowly-defined ability score increases as a result of farming. Those rules reflect the designers' narrative about the farming lifestyle, and they provide little room for other narratives.

I understand that some amount of this has to be grandfathered in, since, for example, the word "Fighter" has always referred to a narrowly-defined package of class features. But modern classes tend to be at least somewhat flexible; each of them supports multiple character narratives (through subclasses, for example). To me, Bastions and the new backgrounds feel inflexible, by comparison.

That's why the have started to capitalize game terms now. A Pub-with-a-capital-P is a particular game version. A pub-without-a-captal-p is a normal, everyday pub with no specific game definition. Same with any other term that gets a specific, capitalized definition.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

It also makes for a separate "character" that a player controls and can equip with magic furnishings. The party could always adventure for magic items to equip on their persons, but now there's a reason to for adventuring for magical tapestries, mystic wardrobes, animated statues, etc. It opens the door for a whole other category of treasure that is worth going on an adventure for.

I'm reminded of a 3.x character I made just because. A dwarf sorceror. Yes, he had an 18 Con, and max CHA (16?)

He was a sorceror but he thought he served the great Rat spirit and he was a Rat shaman (stolen from Shadowrun). They find some treasure, including a 500gp tapestry. Ho hum for most people, who cares. I decided he was so dingy, he thought it was a cloak. He ended up wearing the tapestry, and a black velvet hat with a large ostrich feather, blasting people in combat, having more HP than the fighter did, even as a sorceror.

 

[Epic Meepo]

And it can? It can support any narratives you want it to support. What does that have to do with them deciding to call the mechanical thing that can be a coffeehouse a "pub" in the mechanics?

When I'm using a game to tell a story, I get cognitive dissonance every time I have to reference the rules using terminology which is completely unrelated to what's going on in the narrative. For me, the names of rules elements matter.

Of course, I realize other people process language differently, so plenty of people aren't going to be bothered by this. If anything, based on the discussion that went on during the playtest, I suspect I'm in the minority here.

I doubt I can effectively explain how I'm bothered by disassociated mechanics to anyone who isn't already aware of and bothered by disassociated mechanics. The experience is too subjective. So I'll give you the last word if you want it. I don't know that there's anything else for me to say.

 

[Epic Meepo]

That's why the have started to capitalize game terms now. A Pub-with-a-capital-P is a particular game version. A pub-without-a-captal-p is a normal, everyday pub with no specific game definition. Same with any other term that gets a specific, capitalized definition.

That's helpful for people who are reading the rules or who are playing by post (assuming anyone who's visually impaired has a screen reader which somehow calls out capitalized words; I don't use screen readers, so I don't actually know if that's a thing or not).

But when I'm communicating to my players in person, I can't audibly capitalize the words I'm speaking. The words "pub" and "Pub" are pronounced identically. On those odd occasions where I have to distinguish between the two, I have to awkwardly indicated that I mean "Pub with a capital P" or "pub with a lower-case p."

I think Bastions would have benefited from the 4e monster naming convention, wherein individual monster stat blocks were rarely called by a single name. Many stat blocks were identified with a pair of compound words that would probably never come up in any in-character conversation except when talking specifically about that one monster with that one stat block. Whenever someone started speaking in clunky compound words when referring to a monster, that was a verbal cue that they were referencing something that lined up with a specific rules element of the same name.