We've decided to start using Bastions. The Players are already 9th level, so they will have some pretty advanced bastions to begin. It has already been fun. The rules are fairly straightforward, and we've already bent a few (metaphorical walls, custom facilities). But I am interested in other DM's perspectives on the system. Namely do you intend or already run the bastions as sort of parallel mini-games, limited to the rules for them, OR do you incorporate them into your larger campaign.
My players are keen to add elements to their bastions that are no in the rules. Mundane things are straightforward enough (extra bedrooms, a music hall, a prison, etc.. ) Soon enough they may want to be hiring additional hirelings, or sending their friendly NPCs to live in the bastions. They may also want to cast spells (alarm, forbiddance, arcane lock, etc) on and in these places. I don't have a problem with that. But I wonder whether any of that should impact the bastion rules. I am confident I can navigate it, but I am interested in others perspectives.
Namely do you intend or already run the bastions as sort of parallel mini-games, limited to the rules for them, OR do you incorporate them into your larger campaign.
I plan to incorporate them into my larger campaign.
I'm a fan of the Birthright campaign setting (TSR 1990s stuff) and always have that layer as an option in my game (be the King, Hierophant, Grand Wizard, etc.). Bastions proves to be a solid middle ground for players. Useful and has utility, but does not dip hard into the politics.
I do not plan on using Bastions. If my players do get a home base, it's going to be one that is likely to get attacked. But more importantly Bastions exist to give PCs gold and magic items. Crafting is fine with significant downtime between adventures, but my campaign is 100% lasting no more than a year in game time. (An event occurs in a year) They will likely end up having downtime or a trip to the Feywild to speed that time up depending on how fast they level.
I think it does make magic items a bit more complicated because if one player spends three months making a magic item and other players or themselves find a more powerful item, then it's just wasted.
Tentative NPC Defender ruling. If there is an additional NPC of CR3 or higher, they can act as a Defender if the Bastion is attacked if a Martial. Or act like a stocked armory if they are a spell caster. The party in my game has a were-weasel expert (sidekick rules) who is at least CR3 as well as a Bard (
Tentative NPC Defender ruling. If there is an additional NPC of CR3 or higher, they can act as a Defender if the Bastion is attacked if a Martial. Or act like a stocked armory if they are a spell caster. The party in my game has a were-weasel expert (sidekick rules) who is at least CR3 as well as a Bard (
If you’re going to let them be defenders, there should be a chance they’ll die. If my players just wanted to let the NPC be there for flavor, sure. But if there’s a mechanical reward, there’s got to be a risk as well. For that reason, I wouldn’t allow NPCs as guards. It just adds on layers on complexity and die rolling with little payoff in terms of fun. (And who wants to find out a beloved NPC died off camera to bad luck.) As it is now, if the bastion is attacked, a couple red shirts die, and you recruit more next week. Pretty simple and straightforward. Add too many variables and the whole thing starts to become a real pain.
So you can say the NPC was off visiting their family, or out for the day for whatever reason, and not deal with the extra stuff.
As for spells. Sure they can cast them. I’d look at the effects case-by-case, but maybe the result is something like, 1 or 2 fewer guards are killed in an attack. Or some other impact on a bastion event happens.
It seems like you addressed why I shouldn't have them die in an attack. No one would want that.
The mechanical reward is pretty slim, so I am not too worried about that. And from a story perspective, the party get's back, finds out the bastion was attacked. They trusty NPCs is getting patched up. If the bastion suffered a facility lost the NPC says that they did their best but there were too many of them (or whatever). If they succeeded, but were lost, they are out of action until another week passes.
It sounds like you are arguing to keep the Bastion Mechanics separate from the Campaign Mechanics/Story. I get that, for the reason you gave. It is extra accounting. But I think it will open the door to more interesting Role Play down the line, if they can convince an enemy to join them and live at their bastion (or whatever.). It is nice for me as a DM to have a place to "park" npcs that were traveling with the party, but are a lot work to manage when combat happens.
I like your idea, I just wouldn’t do it through a bastion event. If you want it to be story related, then you plan it out as part of the story. It wasn’t a faceless group of bandits who attacked, it was minions of the bad guy. And the bad guy planned it for that time because they knew the PCs would be away. Then, if someone dies, they’re dying for a reason and the death will matter, instead of just, the dice told me to kill this beloved NPC. So it becomes a known enemy who killed him and not just Bandit No. 3. And now the party has even more reason to go after the bad guys.
You use the random bastion events to make the place feel more alive when you don’t have the time or energy to plan out an actual event, is my take on it.
I’ve not run one as a DM, in this edition. In 1, 2 and 3, and BECMI, I had groups with bases we’d built. Just not with the current rules, though. So there weren’t random events, at least not that I recall. But we used the base as a plot point, basically.
But I’m in one as a player, now. We’re doing some house ruling so things are getting built more slowly, but had a random roll kill our pet triceratops. It was very frustrating. The DM was actually very kind and re-rolled since there was nothing we could have done differently where it might have lived.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
We've decided to start using Bastions. The Players are already 9th level, so they will have some pretty advanced bastions to begin. It has already been fun. The rules are fairly straightforward, and we've already bent a few (metaphorical walls, custom facilities). But I am interested in other DM's perspectives on the system. Namely do you intend or already run the bastions as sort of parallel mini-games, limited to the rules for them, OR do you incorporate them into your larger campaign.
My players are keen to add elements to their bastions that are no in the rules. Mundane things are straightforward enough (extra bedrooms, a music hall, a prison, etc.. ) Soon enough they may want to be hiring additional hirelings, or sending their friendly NPCs to live in the bastions. They may also want to cast spells (alarm, forbiddance, arcane lock, etc) on and in these places. I don't have a problem with that. But I wonder whether any of that should impact the bastion rules. I am confident I can navigate it, but I am interested in others perspectives.
I plan to incorporate them into my larger campaign.
I'm a fan of the Birthright campaign setting (TSR 1990s stuff) and always have that layer as an option in my game (be the King, Hierophant, Grand Wizard, etc.). Bastions proves to be a solid middle ground for players. Useful and has utility, but does not dip hard into the politics.
View my StartPlaying.Games profile to see my games!
I do not plan on using Bastions. If my players do get a home base, it's going to be one that is likely to get attacked. But more importantly Bastions exist to give PCs gold and magic items. Crafting is fine with significant downtime between adventures, but my campaign is 100% lasting no more than a year in game time. (An event occurs in a year) They will likely end up having downtime or a trip to the Feywild to speed that time up depending on how fast they level.
I think it does make magic items a bit more complicated because if one player spends three months making a magic item and other players or themselves find a more powerful item, then it's just wasted.
Tentative NPC Defender ruling.
If there is an additional NPC of CR3 or higher, they can act as a Defender if the Bastion is attacked if a Martial. Or act like a stocked armory if they are a spell caster. The party in my game has a were-weasel expert (sidekick rules) who is at least CR3 as well as a Bard (
If you’re going to let them be defenders, there should be a chance they’ll die.
If my players just wanted to let the NPC be there for flavor, sure. But if there’s a mechanical reward, there’s got to be a risk as well.
For that reason, I wouldn’t allow NPCs as guards. It just adds on layers on complexity and die rolling with little payoff in terms of fun. (And who wants to find out a beloved NPC died off camera to bad luck.) As it is now, if the bastion is attacked, a couple red shirts die, and you recruit more next week. Pretty simple and straightforward. Add too many variables and the whole thing starts to become a real pain.
So you can say the NPC was off visiting their family, or out for the day for whatever reason, and not deal with the extra stuff.
As for spells. Sure they can cast them. I’d look at the effects case-by-case, but maybe the result is something like, 1 or 2 fewer guards are killed in an attack. Or some other impact on a bastion event happens.
It seems like you addressed why I shouldn't have them die in an attack. No one would want that.
The mechanical reward is pretty slim, so I am not too worried about that. And from a story perspective, the party get's back, finds out the bastion was attacked. They trusty NPCs is getting patched up. If the bastion suffered a facility lost the NPC says that they did their best but there were too many of them (or whatever). If they succeeded, but were lost, they are out of action until another week passes.
It sounds like you are arguing to keep the Bastion Mechanics separate from the Campaign Mechanics/Story. I get that, for the reason you gave. It is extra accounting. But I think it will open the door to more interesting Role Play down the line, if they can convince an enemy to join them and live at their bastion (or whatever.). It is nice for me as a DM to have a place to "park" npcs that were traveling with the party, but are a lot work to manage when combat happens.
I like your idea, I just wouldn’t do it through a bastion event. If you want it to be story related, then you plan it out as part of the story. It wasn’t a faceless group of bandits who attacked, it was minions of the bad guy. And the bad guy planned it for that time because they knew the PCs would be away. Then, if someone dies, they’re dying for a reason and the death will matter, instead of just, the dice told me to kill this beloved NPC. So it becomes a known enemy who killed him and not just Bandit No. 3. And now the party has even more reason to go after the bad guys.
You use the random bastion events to make the place feel more alive when you don’t have the time or energy to plan out an actual event, is my take on it.
What has been your experience with the bastions and player involvement?
I’ve not run one as a DM, in this edition. In 1, 2 and 3, and BECMI, I had groups with bases we’d built. Just not with the current rules, though. So there weren’t random events, at least not that I recall. But we used the base as a plot point, basically.
But I’m in one as a player, now. We’re doing some house ruling so things are getting built more slowly, but had a random roll kill our pet triceratops. It was very frustrating. The DM was actually very kind and re-rolled since there was nothing we could have done differently where it might have lived.