I've been looking over the bastion system and I have a couple thoughts.
1. There should be basic versions of the special facilities. If you want a pub but it doesn't add magical booze, or spies or whatever you should be able to just add it for cash like a basic facility. A pub is kind of easy for a DM to wing and could use the normal basic facility costs. give it some noncombatant hirelings and say it breaks even with profits. But an observatory likely should cost more to add, so you can observe wild space etc but you don't get any blessings, you want a demiplane but don't need temp hit points from it etc. Permanent magic circle at least you can do on your own. But the rest require a bit more buy in from a DM willing to roll with it and create rules and costs whole cloth. And I'll freely admit i am a lazy DM, after my 40 at work I do not want to do anything.
2. There probably should be some actual negative events, you were attacked but win really isn't. The 2 that sort of are with criminal and lost hirelings, so you lose 1 turn on 1 facility. Woo. I get this is partly old man me and i'm used to BECMI/1e/2e style "bastions" where they could get razed to the ground while you were away, but I feel there should be a bit more bite to these. Or at least have 2 tables, the nothing really goes wrong table for when you are away, the crap hits the fan table while you are there and can actually act to prevent it with more risk and reward in the something happens section of the d100 roll.
I mean, there's no need to create an extensive list of basic facilities when they're just decorative, so not sure they really needed to spell that out. As for the negatives, personally I'd rather not have a bunch of major consequences hanging on a random roll of the dice while my character is way off away from things.
I mean, there's no need to create an extensive list of basic facilities when they're just decorative, so not sure they really needed to spell that out. As for the negatives, personally I'd rather not have a bunch of major consequences hanging on a random roll of the dice while my character is way off away from things.
I don't necessarily consider a library or a research lab, etc purely decorative. It might not have some weird charm bonus, but they are functional things in the game.
Books (at least, “accurate non-fiction” books) now have mechanical benefits (+5 to Intelligence checks about the topic of the book), as well as a price (25 GP), so you could just use a basic facility room and stock it with books your character has found or bought.
Books (at least, “accurate non-fiction” books) now have mechanical benefits (+5 to Intelligence checks about the topic of the book), as well as a price (25 GP), so you could just use a basic facility room and stock it with books your character has found or bought.
Okay so you can handle a library on the back end. How about an observatory, or a demiplane where you don't have to recast the spell every time but its just a door only you have access to, how about a greenhouse,(maybe there are costs for crops in a book). And even if you can with a greenhouse its a lot of extra work when they could have just had 2 costs one for a basic greenhouse one for the one that produces magic fruits of lesser restoration.
Total tangent but what does the bastions imply about the setting if anything, do all real taverns have a magic booze, are you going to walk into towns and everyone is 12 foot tall because they all drink the magic booze of enlargement.
So, the thing here to understand is that Basic facilities should not provide any real form of mechanical benefit, as the system was designed for the DMG. The point of separating Basic and Special facilities and only granting Special ones at level intervals is to keep the options balanced between various party members, which allowing people to purchase additional facilities with mechanical benefits undermines. Your table is free to play it out differently, of course, but there's a reason the official design only gives benefits from the fixed progression of Special facilities. Personally I think it's good to set some hard limits so the complexes can't grow massively unwieldy or allow some power-gaming munchkin to backdoor some crazy combo of features in on the DM.
Total tangent but what does the bastions imply about the setting if anything, do all real taverns have a magic booze, are you going to walk into towns and everyone is 12 foot tall because they all drink the magic booze of enlargement.
I think at that point we’re in the territory of “Not every bard, plucking pavanes on their lute, is a Bard”. The existence of the extraordinary does not preclude the predominance of the ordinary.
Yeah, considering you need to be 3rd tier to have the facility built, I think we can safely assume you're not sourcing the magical brews from an ordinary brewer.
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I've been looking over the bastion system and I have a couple thoughts.
1. There should be basic versions of the special facilities. If you want a pub but it doesn't add magical booze, or spies or whatever you should be able to just add it for cash like a basic facility. A pub is kind of easy for a DM to wing and could use the normal basic facility costs. give it some noncombatant hirelings and say it breaks even with profits. But an observatory likely should cost more to add, so you can observe wild space etc but you don't get any blessings, you want a demiplane but don't need temp hit points from it etc. Permanent magic circle at least you can do on your own. But the rest require a bit more buy in from a DM willing to roll with it and create rules and costs whole cloth. And I'll freely admit i am a lazy DM, after my 40 at work I do not want to do anything.
2. There probably should be some actual negative events, you were attacked but win really isn't. The 2 that sort of are with criminal and lost hirelings, so you lose 1 turn on 1 facility. Woo. I get this is partly old man me and i'm used to BECMI/1e/2e style "bastions" where they could get razed to the ground while you were away, but I feel there should be a bit more bite to these. Or at least have 2 tables, the nothing really goes wrong table for when you are away, the crap hits the fan table while you are there and can actually act to prevent it with more risk and reward in the something happens section of the d100 roll.
I mean, there's no need to create an extensive list of basic facilities when they're just decorative, so not sure they really needed to spell that out. As for the negatives, personally I'd rather not have a bunch of major consequences hanging on a random roll of the dice while my character is way off away from things.
I don't necessarily consider a library or a research lab, etc purely decorative. It might not have some weird charm bonus, but they are functional things in the game.
Books (at least, “accurate non-fiction” books) now have mechanical benefits (+5 to Intelligence checks about the topic of the book), as well as a price (25 GP), so you could just use a basic facility room and stock it with books your character has found or bought.
Okay so you can handle a library on the back end. How about an observatory, or a demiplane where you don't have to recast the spell every time but its just a door only you have access to, how about a greenhouse,(maybe there are costs for crops in a book). And even if you can with a greenhouse its a lot of extra work when they could have just had 2 costs one for a basic greenhouse one for the one that produces magic fruits of lesser restoration.
Total tangent but what does the bastions imply about the setting if anything, do all real taverns have a magic booze, are you going to walk into towns and everyone is 12 foot tall because they all drink the magic booze of enlargement.
So, the thing here to understand is that Basic facilities should not provide any real form of mechanical benefit, as the system was designed for the DMG. The point of separating Basic and Special facilities and only granting Special ones at level intervals is to keep the options balanced between various party members, which allowing people to purchase additional facilities with mechanical benefits undermines. Your table is free to play it out differently, of course, but there's a reason the official design only gives benefits from the fixed progression of Special facilities. Personally I think it's good to set some hard limits so the complexes can't grow massively unwieldy or allow some power-gaming munchkin to backdoor some crazy combo of features in on the DM.
I think at that point we’re in the territory of “Not every bard, plucking pavanes on their lute, is a Bard”. The existence of the extraordinary does not preclude the predominance of the ordinary.
Yeah, considering you need to be 3rd tier to have the facility built, I think we can safely assume you're not sourcing the magical brews from an ordinary brewer.