Level Up (A5E) LU Strongholds or D&D Bastions?

[Waller]

I haven't fully explored either of these. Can anybody who is familiar with both give a quick summary of the differences?

 

[Ondath]

I haven't fully explored either of these. Can anybody who is familiar with both give a quick summary of the differences?

I've only taken a quick peek at the bastion rules, but from what I see:

LU Strongholds are better money sinks. With Bastions, you only pay a pretty small sum for "basic" rooms, which are cosmetic. The rest you either automatically "earn" when you gain a level, or spend Bastion Points (I think, don't quote me on the second method) Especially given the exponential growth of gold in 5E, this just means your characters will get more powerful, but still not have any big thing to spend their money on. Oh also, because you can spend BPs to get magic items, the Bastion system also destroys another gold funnel, i.e., magic item crafting.

Compare that with Level Up where the highest-tiered stronghold is so expensive that adventurers can't get it following the official gold-per-level tables. You can multiply costs by increasing quality, adding special features like making your stronghold hidden or flying... It's the perfect gold sink.

Bastions provide (IMO) more fun abilities. The stronghold concepts in LU are great. And I do think the abilities they offer are quite balanced. But as a downside, they're a bit... mundane. The training hall can help you train a weapon proficiency faster, or retrain your class features and that's about it. The Bastion equivalent, Training Area, is first of all more diverse in its flavour: It isn't just training grounds for soldiers, but it can be a music hall or a trap gauntlet. And the abilities it gives you are pretty interesting: You hire an expert trainer, and anyone who trains under them gains a unique cool ability for the next week: Gaining an instrument or skill proficiency, dealing/reducing unarmed strike damage... I have to admit, these are better than "weapon training is reduced to 1 month (who spends one month of downtime just to be proficient with a Maul?), also you can retrain subclass choices".

So I think the Strongholds are still better balanced, but I have to admit that I like the Bastions' flavour more.