D&D (2024) Bonus Unearthed Arcana Reveals The Bastion System

A 'bonus' Unearthed Arcana playtest document has appeared, and it shows off D&D's upcoming Bastion System.

This October, we’re bringing you a special treat. While we’re continuing to develop and revise public playtesting material for the 2024 Player’s Handbook, we’d thought you’d enjoy an early look at what we’re cooking up for the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide.

The coming Dungeon Master’s Guide will be the biggest of its kind in decades and contain an assortment of new tools for DMs and their tables. In Bastions and Cantrips, we’re showcasing one of these tools, the Bastions subsystem. Dungeon Masters and their parties can use this subsystem to build a home, base of operations, or other significant structure for their characters.

And if you’re raring to test out more character options, we’re also including revisions for 10 cantrips in this playtest packet.

Claim Unearthed Arcana now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

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[Maxperson]

Most of the D&D tables that I play in are living campaigns, where new characters are the kids of semi-retired characters and other interrelationships. Where the player comes from and the "bonds" that a character maintains are central to our experience of D&D immersion. Also, running businesses and similar happen. We tend to have so many bonds, we need more space to distinguish between persons, groups, and locales. For us, a Bastion system is exciting and useful, and central.

While a bastion can have a business in it, businesses =/= bastions. You can open a shop or pub at level 1. And while I do appreciate how the Bastion system can help your group, the UA shows that it is not intended for the things you are going to use it for.

You tinker with things, though. I'm sure you can tinker with the bastion system and come up with something that will allow what you are looking for.

 

[Yaarel]

While a bastion can have a business in it, businesses =/= bastions. You can open a shop or pub at level 1. And while I do appreciate how the Bastion system can help your group, the UA shows that it is not intended for the things you are going to use it for.

You tinker with things, though. I'm sure you can tinker with the bastion system and come up with something that will allow what you are looking for.

Heh, I only tinker when I feel I have to. I would love to use D&D rules as-is. I normally do. I feel creating new "backgrounds", spells, and magic items, and discretionary skill and tool adjudication are part of the rules-as-written. Most of the time these are enough to do something relevant to the setting and style.

For the Bastion UA, a concern is, it doesnt fit within the normal rules of D&D. For example, that pub built and operated at level 1, should be bastionizable with "special facilities" at level 5.

It seems best if certain Bastion benefits are gated by tier, rather than by bastion points.

 

[kigmatzomat]

While a bastion can have a business in it, businesses =/= bastions.

The UA Bastion is a vast array of things it could be, and nothing it must be. It's totally possible to have Bastions with zero overlap.

Want businesses? Take nothing but Storehouses, Stables and Workshops.

Need a Thieves guild? Use Guildhouse, Gaming Den, Storehouse and a Pub

Want to buy the proverbial farm? Build a church? Wizard tower? Fortress? Druid Grove?

All of those can be Bastions and none of them are wrong, which IMO means it is a decent concept worth investigating further.

 

[kigmatzomat]

For the Bastion UA, a concern is, it doesnt fit within the normal rules of D&D. For example, that pub built and operated at level 1, should be bastionizable with "special facilities" at level 5.

It seems best if certain Bastion benefits are gated by tier, rather than by bastion points.

I think that tavern at 5th level can convert to a Storehouse (generic trade mechanism) which will earn you increasingly greater profit as you level.

The in-game explanation (which mimics reality) is you use your contacts/resources to acquire exotics food & drink (with increased mark-ups). Some of that high markup is the overpayment by people who want to suck up to you for some reason.

 

[Maxperson]

For the Bastion UA, a concern is, it doesnt fit within the normal rules of D&D. For example, that pub built and operated at level 1, should be bastionizable with "special facilities" at level 5.

Do you see anything in the UA that would prevent that? The only issue I can see would be that if you open a pub at level 1, there might not be enough space in the area for you to continue adding new bastion rooms due to the city layout, but I don't see anything that says that your pub can't be the bastion you gain at level 5.

It seems best if certain Bastion benefits are gated by tier, rather than by bastion points.

They're currently gated by both kinda sorta. Bastion points are used to buy things from your special rooms, special rooms are gated by tier.

 

[Maxperson]

The UA Bastion is a vast array of things it could be, and nothing it must be. It's totally possible to have Bastions with zero overlap.

Want businesses? Take nothing but Storehouses, Stables and Workshops.

Need a Thieves guild? Use Guildhouse, Gaming Den, Storehouse and a Pub

Want to buy the proverbial farm? Build a church? Wizard tower? Fortress? Druid Grove?

All of those can be Bastions and none of them are wrong, which IMO means it is a decent concept worth investigating further.

This doesn't disagree with my post.

All I was saying is that while a bastion can have a business, farm, grove or whatever, those things don't inherently equate to being a bastion. Your monk with his bastion farmhouse and fields will be down the road from Farmer Bob with his non-bastion farmhouse and fields.

 

[Yaarel]

Do you see anything in the UA that would prevent that? The only issue I can see would be that if you open a pub at level 1, there might not be enough space in the area for you to continue adding new bastion rooms due to the city layout, but I don't see anything that says that your pub can't be the bastion you gain at level 5.

The Bastion should explicitly be able to add floor space to an existing place, such as a pub or a home, or add a special facility to a pirate ship or wherever. In an urban space where the lot space is limited, a player can add a second or third floor upward, or a secret area underground.

The Bastion shouldnt force a player to choose between Kitchen, Bedroom, and Washroom. Any (noncondemnable) living space requires all three. Buy the floor space − furnish it freely, including whatever is relevant to the purpose of the real estate.

A player might have several Bastions, one a home, one a business, one a hideout, one in an other plane, wherever for whatever. A Wizard School would combine all of these into a single Bastion.

They're currently gated by both kinda sorta. Bastion points are used to buy things from your special rooms, special rooms are gated by tier.

Yes. I like the level gating, especially like the tier-gating.

But the bastion points cause weird accounting problems. Like never spending them because of the desirability of saving up for a Resurrection, and then never spending the points again because saving up for good magic item. So that the points are almost worthless for anything else. It would be better if the Resurrection simply came on line at the appropriate tier. Then any "special facility" supplies a choice of thematic magic item ("that you and the DM agree on") at the appropriate level. Rather than generating yet-more gp, which needs things to spend on in the first place, focus the benefits on Lifestyle status, relevant professional influence, depending on proficiencies, background, facilities, and Bastion: political, underground contacts, magical research, sacred community, international or interplanar contacts, etcetera − things that inspire players to go on an adventure.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The Bastion shouldnt force a player to choose between Kitchen, Bedroom, and Washroom. Any (noncondemnable) living space requires all three. Buy the floor space − furnish it freely, including whatever is relevant to the purpose of the real estate

It doesn't. It forces them to decide which ones they will pay money to add. A player gets a 400sf and a 100sf Basic facility for free (500gp & 1,000gp), then can buy more Basic facilities. (UA p.5 "Adding a Basic Facility" )

Bastion should explicitly be able to add floor space to an existing place, such as a pub or a home, or add a special facility to a pirate ship or wherever. In an urban space where the lot space is limited, a player can add a second or third floor upward, or a secret area underground.

Players can expand basic facilities with gold. (UA p.5 "Enlarging a Basic Facility")

Some special facilities can be expanded using their own rules. Though it may be possible to get multiples of the same facility. Like 3 Menageries for a zoo.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

My idea on how a bastion might evolve, based on those rules so far.

So lets say the at 5th level, a character gets an apartment building in Sigil, maybe a ruined one but there's rooms that are available to use as a Bastion.

So the 2 free basic facilities for their apartment is a Bedroom and a Washroom (the cramped room). There's other tenants in the building (some who could be other PCs). Let's the say the character is a Bard, so they go for a Workshop and Library as the special facilities.

Along the way they build (or repair) a couple of more basic facilities, like other Bedrooms, a Parlor, a Kitchen, a Storage room, and a bigger washroom. And then they reach 9th level, so they convert or reclaim some rooms as a Theater (because they're a Bard of course) and a Trophy Room (related to all of the Bard's exploits), and the Workshop becomes a Scriptorium. At 9th level the apartment building is looking a lot less ruined as there's been quite a lot of renovations.

At 13th level despite a lot of people hanging around the building for performances and drinks, they get one of the rooms converted into an "official pub" as the apartment bastion (or at least their part of the apartment) becomes the place to hang out at. Along with getting a pub, the Library becomes an Archive. As a legendary planewalker at 17th level, they have a new room attached to the apartment bastion, and get a Guildhall (as an adventurers guild, since entertainers aren't that valuable) to attract some novice planewalkers.

 

[Yaarel]

My idea on how a bastion might evolve, based on those rules so far.

So lets say the at 5th level, a character gets an apartment building in Sigil, maybe a ruined one but there's rooms that are available to use as a Bastion.

So the 2 free basic facilities for their apartment is a Bedroom and a Washroom (the cramped room). There's other tenants in the building (some who could be other PCs). Let's the say the character is a Bard, so they go for a Workshop and Library as the special facilities.

Along the way they build (or repair) a couple of more basic facilities, like other Bedrooms, a Parlor, a Kitchen, a Storage room, and a bigger washroom. And then they reach 9th level, so they convert or reclaim some rooms as a Theater (because they're a Bard of course) and a Trophy Room (related to all of the Bard's exploits), and the Workshop becomes a Scriptorium. At 9th level the apartment building is looking a lot less ruined as there's been quite a lot of renovations.

At 13th level despite a lot of people hanging around the building for performances and drinks, they get one of the rooms converted into an "official pub" as the apartment bastion (or at least their part of the apartment) becomes the place to hang out at. Along with getting a pub, the Library becomes an Archive. As a legendary planewalker at 17th level, they have a new room attached to the apartment bastion, and get a Guildhall (as an adventurers guild, since entertainers aren't that valuable) to attract some novice planewalkers.

That seems to me, the general idea for a Bastion. It can probably start at level 1 as a home project. (Even Sigil might start at level 1. If I understand correctly, the adventure there starts at level 3.) The construction aspects and managing it, can easily be in the Players Handbook. Then the "special" aspects can be in the DMs Guide and allowing DM discretion.

It occurs to me, instead of calling the level 13 Bastion feature "Pub", a great name for the concept is "Hang Out" − the place where all the rich and famous − and underground economies − like to mix it up.