Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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For any players who fancy themselves an entrepreneur or those who would like to engage in commerce on the side - talk with your DM to see if they allow the following.
What to make:
By RAW a bastion order allows the Workshop Special Facility to create "1 item per bastion order... " we'll that's a bit of a downer really as there are not as many items that you can readily make profit from. Say it takes a bastion turn (technically 5 days) for the Workshop to create a heavy crossbow. It all depends on the setting as to how much you can sell it for. Most games I played in allow me to sell the item back (if in good condition) at the price indicated in the PHB - that is 50GP. At other time - half that price (25GP)... but it cost 25GP to make the crossbow in the first place so you'd make 25GP at best or at worst, break even...
To ensure that you turn a decent profit I propose that you arrange to have the Workshop hirelings work on making the "Silk" trade good worth 10 GP per lb (2024 DMG - Chapter 7: Trade Goods). As far as I can tell you're not limited to creating just 1lb of silk but you should discuss with the DM first before going further as the rest assumes that you got the all clear from the DM to do so.
In addition to the 3 hirelings that come with the Workshop Special Facility - hire 4 more hirelings at the expense of (at least) 2 GP per day (2024 PHB - Chapter 6: services-> Hirelings). I'll assume that the wage is 2GP per day for argument sake and you can do the math to match your setting to see if it's worth it.
The idea is to have your hirelings make silk for the storehouse special facility to sell.
The hirelings should be able to create the silk trade good at half the cost + labour that you can use the Storehouse Special Facility to "sell" at 10% profit at level 5, 20% at level 9 and 50% at level 13.
The number of hirelings you should have on contract should be proportionate to the amount stock the storehouse can sell at any given bastion turn - that is to say 500 GP at level 5, 2,000 GP at level 9 and 5,000 GP at level 13.
Given the option of creating just under or over the storehouse limit, pick 1 hireling under as any surplus stock will do you no good.
At level 5 you'll be paying 301 GP in costs for labour and material to create 490 GP worth of silk which will sell for 539 GP when sold for a profit of 238 GP - a far cry better than 50GP for each bastion turn.
Things to bear in mind:
As a DM I would say that the workshop already has a full staff from the start and that additional Workshop workers can't be hired. The only way to get more workers would be to enlarge the Workshop.
Also, producing woven silk cloth in a pre-industrial setting is extremely labor intensive. Read up on the process. It's fascinating. Allowing the production of a single pound of silk cloth in a single bastion turn is already beyond generous.
I believe that it is not poor form as oversupply is an issue. Not sure what time period you are referring to. The supply & market for a country's industry is a huge difference for a Bastion. Making a generic assumption, the Chinese silk industry couldn't supply the world because the market was the world of Billions of people.
Is the Bastion's market world wide? Is the Bastion shipping product world wide? How many people in that world? If you are not a small cog in a world wide shipping endeavor, then the over supply argument is valid.
If you don’t anything else, everything is a homebrew question. I’ve been trying to get my to at least learn pathfinder, because puts so much of 5es problems into perspective, making it easier to explain why I refuse to homebrew certain things.
You are mostly correct. Each Bastion Special Facility can only be chosen once unless their description says otherwise. The Storehouse cannot be chosen more than once. However, you can also make money using the Gaming Hall (averages 73.5 GP per 7 days), Kundarak Vault (Eberron: Forge of the Artificer), and Stable. The Gaming Hall is a bit random, but the other two are basically more Storerooms.
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My houserulings.
Bastions are a "free", extra on top of normal loot.
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They are extra and can result in a net profit. They are a straight upgrade over not using them as you aren't giving anything up to use them. It's not using a limited resource like a Feat choice, spell known, or attunement slot.
They may be underwhelming, but in terms of balance, they are far from "extremely underpowered" and can be quite the opposite depending on the frequency of Bastion turns in your game.
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The operative word there is “expand” as opposed to “acquire”. And basic facilities give you no mechanical benefit and thus have no use to begin with. Ergo, the point that you are in fact getting something for nothing from bastions stands.
I agree it’s RAW to only have one storehouse. But I’d allow a second one. From level 5-8 a storehouse can net you 50hp/week, so now you get 100. Not a big deal. And there’s the opportunity cost of giving up some other facility.
I realize the numbers go up from 50, but they’re still pretty low for the tier of play involved. And there’s still the fact that gold really isn’t all that meaningful. At least not generally.
No, it’s not spectacular- see again “something for nothing”. However, 1 healing potion a week is objectively an upgrade from 0 healing potions a week.
Again, however much value you choose to assign to it is immaterial to the point made earlier unless you’re arguing it provides no value at all, in which case you’re simply wrong. It’s a freebie bonus requiring no resources from the player/character to perform its basic functions.
At level 9+, multiple facilities allow crafting Common and Uncomment magic items. Some of them are quite good. Combined with a Storeroom, the cost of the magic items can be partially or completely mitigated by income created by the Bastion.
At level 9, if you are crafting one uncommon magic item per turn, that will cost you 200 GP or 400 GP per two turns, completely covered by the Storehouse. If it's a consumable item other than a Spell Scroll, it will only be 200 GP per two turns.
You not only get free magic items, but reliable access to really good ones, Broom of Flying, Lantern of Revealing, Dust of Disappearance, Potions, etc. There are so many good options. Plus, a Wizard can use it to mill out scrolls to add to their spell book. If you have a Wizard in the group, consider whether it is worth it to have multiple Bastions with Scriptoriums to mill out Wizard scrolls faster and then replace the spares later. Each level 1 Spell Scroll created by Bastion with a Storehouse would be offset by the 25 GP average income per turn from the Storehouse. Level 9 onwards, the income from the Storehouse overtakes the cost of any Spell Scroll that can be created by a Scriptorium.
When you have multiple facilities crafting magic items, the Storehouse mitigates the costs but will struggle to completely cover them until later levels. Once you hit level 13, you cannot craft so many magic items that it exceeds the income provided by a Storehouse due to the restriction on the number of special facilities per Bastions unless one Storehouse is funding multiple Bastions.
Free and reliable access to useful and abusable magic items is pretty awesome.
Edit: Corrected math for level 5 Storehouse.
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To revisit this from the start, it is worth noting that if you get trade goods in your adventures, you should talk to your DM about directly stocking it in a Storehouse to reduce the cost of stocking it or to directly sell the trade goods.
By RAW, only one Storehouse is allowed per Bastion. On paper, the Stable fills the same purpose, but due to being restricted to 3 or 6 Large Animals, it will never match the income of a Storehouse (the best value comes from 3 or 6 Warhorses). If you are using Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, the Kundarak Vault is effectively a second Storehouse. The Guildhall can also bring in gold, but it is much less than a Storehouse depending on how much mileage you can get out of a Thieves' Guild. Technically, the Workshop can craft expensive adventuring equipment that you could turn around and sell, but time required makes the turn around trivial.
There are other ways to break the game with Bastions other than by attempting to hoard gold.
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Not quite. The context matters. It wasn't my opinion. It was my estimation of your opinion based on your prior post. Yes, I used the words "underwhelming" first, but it was clearly describing your opinion of Bastions being "extremely underpowered".
followed by:
Once I did the number crunching for this thread, I changed my opinion from "It's free stuff you wouldn't have" to "It's pretty awesome". Some of the specific Special Facilities are pretty lame, but not all of them and not Bastions in general. If you don't want to use Bastions because they are "extremely underpowered" additions above and beyond what characters normally have, that's up to you.
However, the benefits of individual facilities vary depending on the frequency of turns. So, a weak facility can become stronger with a shorter interval and a strong facility can become weaker with a longer interval. I assume 7-day Bastion Turns because that is what the DMG suggests. A DM can decease this interval to pump up some of the Bastion facilities if they want to. Storehouses and other facilities that provide a benefit per turn would be boosted while anything that has an independent time requirement (such as crafting magic items) should remain as strong.
It's not as flashy as some of the other things characters can find on your adventures, but it could be very impactful. Also, a player could try seeing if their DM would allow combining a Bastion with, for example, a Turtle Ship Spelljammer for a mobile, armed base. I think the cargo hold would fit a small Bastion.
Opinions aren't necessarily right or wrong (they can be based on misunderstandings or misinformation, but that is different) and being able to change our opinions is how we grow as individuals. Thank you for acknowledging my adaptability. I appreciate it.
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