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.

 

[James Gasik]

Huh? Are you saying that it's unrealistic to for some people to be unflaggingly loyal to others? To never betray them? That only betrayal is realistic?

I guess what's missing is the reason why followers are so loyal. What did the PC do to earn such fanatical devotion?

If you care about the narrative of the game, this is something that needs to be established, and it's hard to imagine the average murderhobo acquiring followers of such integrity.

Perhaps if you are the Chosen One, highly placed in an organization or faith, have godlike Charisma, or personally saved the lives of every one of your followers (and/or their loved ones) you could justify it, but that's not something "Bob the Fighter" should be able to expect.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh? Are you saying that it's unrealistic to for some people to be unflaggingly loyal to others? To never betray them? That only betrayal is realistic?

No, just that forced impossibility of betrayal is unrealistic.

 

[M.L. Martin]

That does sound like a good system. Was it added recently? I've never seen it in any of my Savage Worlds books (but I did miss the most recent edition)

It's been showing up (with genre-specific flavoring) in the redone Companions for the Adventure Edition.

Also, Sam DOES leave after Frodo msitreats him. He comes back when he realizes Gollum set him up, but still.

Jacksonian heresy!

 

[AnotherGuy]

There may be a downtime tables introduced within the DMG which determine certain complications which could arise with a character's henchman/henchmen

i.e. leaves on a family emergency, inherits a plot of land, retires, love calls them away, minor/major disagreement with one of the characters in the party (personal or ideological), dies accidentally or on purpose...etc

It doesn't necessarily have to be betrayal that pulls them away.
If such a tables do not exist within the DM and players could sit down jointly and create such mechanics for their games, should they so wish.

And tables do not necessarily have to be bad options only. You could have celebration of a staff's child/wedding, cash windfall from the Bastion's operating activities, henchman brings their friend/brother to help, gain connection through henchman to a good horse-breeder, herbalist...etc

But I imagine the DMsGuild will see a flurry of creative content to address things like this.

 

[Lanefan]

From my reading of this, the DM basically has to give the player a bastion as a reward (even if it’s nothing but a plot of land). So it’s quite within the rules for the DM to not give a player a bastion.

And if the player proactively decides to have a character build a stronghold anyway, what then? I mean, it might not get all the "bastion" mechanical benefits but otherwise, nothing changes; and IMO it's not the DM's place to disallow the player from having a character build/buy/take over a stronghold of some sort.

 

[Lanefan]

Huh? Are you saying that it's unrealistic to for some people to be unflaggingly loyal to others? To never betray them? That only betrayal is realistic?

Not at all.

What's unrealistic is for ALL people to be unflaggingly loyal etc., which seems to be the default for this system.

 

[Imaro]

Not at all.

What's unrealistic is for ALL people to be unflaggingly loyal etc., which seems to be the default for this system.

I think the default is that said loyalty is determined randomly. A bastion event can lead to a hireling or defender leaving the bastion, but the DM isn't supposed to just "gotcha" a player at their whim.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I think the default is that said loyalty is determined randomly. A bastion event can lead to a hireling or defender leaving the bastion, but the DM isn't supposed to just "gotcha" a player at their whim.

Agreed. The Bastion events table is like a wandering monster table that randomizes encounters for verisimilitude. If a DM decides to utilize rules for random encounters, the DM shouldn't also get to change a friendly encounter into a hostile one on a whim. The entire point of the randomization is that the simulated world decides whether an encounter is friendly or hostile, not the DM.

 

[Lanefan]

I think the default is that said loyalty is determined randomly. A bastion event can lead to a hireling or defender leaving the bastion, but the DM isn't supposed to just "gotcha" a player at their whim.

The problem I have with that is that when this month's bastion event tells us that the third guard on the right was in fact an agent working against the party all along and has now left the bastion, I (or I and the player) now have to ret-con whatever underhanded deeds this agent did (if any) while at the bastion and-or how much info was passed along to the character's enemies.

Ret-cons of any kind are a complete non-starter for me, as there's no way of knowing what knock-on effects those ret-conned events might have caused had they been allowed to occur in proper sequence. As in, "Oh, look - it turns out Celesta wouldn't have come on that last adventure because she was busy sorting out a murder at her stronghold" thus invalidating the entire adventure you all just played through. No thanks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem I have with that is that when this month's bastion event tells us that the third guard on the right was in fact an agent working against the party all along and has now left the bastion, I (or I and the player) now have to ret-con whatever underhanded deeds this agent did (if any) while at the bastion and-or how much info was passed along to the character's enemies.

Ret-cons of any kind are a complete non-starter for me, as there's no way of knowing what knock-on effects those ret-conned events might have caused had they been allowed to occur in proper sequence. As in, "Oh, look - it turns out Celesta wouldn't have come on that last adventure because she was busy sorting out a murder at her stronghold" thus invalidating the entire adventure you all just played through. No thanks.

I think the right random table can provide a compromise here, where some effects can be randomly determined, while others needs to be set up in advance or logically occur based on events in the setting.