Arcane Bastions can build magic observatories to examine the cosmos and communicate with beings across the multiverse or construct an entire pocket dimension within which you can conjure objects from nothing.

Expert Bastions can form major guild halls that have an effect on surrounding communities or construct a workshop that can make small trinkets for you.

Martial Bastions allow you to raise entire armies.

But what do Holy Bastions really offer? You can make a talisman that lets you save on up to 1,000 gold on material components once a week which is nice. You can make holy water and temporary magic items at the cost of gold which is... Alright, I suppose. Everything else just gives you healing spells as a single free cast once a week, which feels kind of boring and very samey. It also doesn't quite scratch that itch that I think divine/primal casters have when it comes to forming their own temple.

Personally, I think there's room for more.

Of the existing facilities I'd like to see Sanctuary actually serve the function of its namesake. Perhaps consecrate the ground the Sanctuary is built on, if not the entire bastion. It could also have a special effect when the refugee event occurs, as you have a specific place within your bastion to offer for them to stay and be safe.

For the Sacristy I'd just like the magic items to not lose their power after a week. I dunno if that'd be overpowered or not, but almost all of the Holy Bastion facilities only empower you for a week and then you must return to resupply on the benefits already.

I also feel there are some things that could be added to make the player's Holy Bastion feel more influential. Obviously, it shouldn't give you something as grand as an army. But the whole point of a religious facility is to gather supporters and lend aid to local towns. Some examples:

A facility that lets you recruit followers of your faith who can perform first-level spells from whatever spell list the owner has access to.  These disciples could then be activated to go out and offer aid to local villages/communities similar to how the guilds operate. I don't know what kind of benefit this can have for the player. I suppose gold income works but it feels a little weird in this context. It could also have special interactions with the Refugees, Requests for Aid, and Friendly Visitors events.

I'd also like some sort of altar that can be built that allows the player to commune with their god/nature. Have it be a casting of Contact Other Planes/Commune with Nature. It'd also be cool if you could make sacrifices on your altar to gain boons from your god. Say, you sacrifice something of X value in gold to get your god/nature to offer you a boon. Predict the weather, change the weather, and enhance the productivity of other facilities on your bastion. Maybe even enhance the production of the bastions of your friends too. Or you could spend X value in gold in exchange for a spell of X level to be cast.

Anyway, those are some of my ideas. Anyone else have any thoughts on what could be done to make holy bastions a little more exciting?

 I suppose gold income works but it feels a little weird in this context. 

Why? Most organized religions use various tactics to get money from their followers to support their hierarchy and infrastructure. The Vatican didn't get built by volunteers. There are at least a dozen millionaire preachers in the USA (probably way more but I can't be bothered to look up stats).

Quote from Agilemind >>

 I suppose gold income works but it feels a little weird in this context. 

Why? Most organized religions use various tactics to get money from their followers to support their hierarchy and infrastructure. The Vatican didn't get built by volunteers. There are at least a dozen millionaire preachers in the USA (probably way more but I can't be bothered to look up stats).

While this is definitely true to history it's also not quiiiiite the fantasy I think most people have in mind when they roll a cleric blessed by the gods to fight against the forces of evil in the world.

It's also just a little boring to have your monastery mechanically function the same way a bakery or brewery does. More money is nice but I'm sure there's something more interesting you can do with the concept.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

Quote from Agilemind >>

 I suppose gold income works but it feels a little weird in this context. 

Why? Most organized religions use various tactics to get money from their followers to support their hierarchy and infrastructure. The Vatican didn't get built by volunteers. There are at least a dozen millionaire preachers in the USA (probably way more but I can't be bothered to look up stats).

 

While this is definitely true to history it's also not quiiiiite the fantasy I think most people have in mind when they roll a cleric blessed by the gods to fight against the forces of evil in the world.

 If they are a cleric blessed by the gods to fight against the forces of evil, then why are they spending time building a temple and recruiting acolytes? If you're recruiting acolytes then logically it seems to be you should be raising money to support your fight against evil as well (a huge chunk of all charities/activist organizations is raising money).

Quote from Agilemind >>

 If they are a cleric blessed by the gods to fight against the forces of evil, then why are they spending time building a temple and recruiting acolytes? If you're recruiting acolytes then logically it seems to be you should be raising money to support your fight against evil as well (a huge chunk of all charities/activist organizations is raising money).

I mean, this question kind of goes hand in hand with the entire bastion system. That's why it is an optional feature.

Though true. Having your acolytes accept donations while out healing the sick and helping the helpless so you can fund your adventuring would be a fine way to look at it. And it can be less boring if the facility also has an effect when certain events pop up, as I suggested above. Having your acolytes take care of refugees or offer blessings to notable guests could make for interesting roleplay.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

While this is definitely true to history it's also not quiiiiite the fantasy I think most people have in mind when they roll a cleric blessed by the gods to fight against the forces of evil in the world.

 I dunno man, if I were to ever roll a cleric - and I'm pretty allergic to piousness and religion - I'd RP as either Rodrigo Borgia, being thoroughly pragmatic and corrupt, but for a good cause, or Vladimir Lenin, and preach the ideas of communism and world revolution, because that's just insane enough to shake up a classic fantasy setting.

Quote from kamchatmonk >>

 I dunno man, if I were to ever roll a cleric - and I'm pretty allergic to piousness and religion - I'd RP as either Rodrigo Borgia, being thoroughly pragmatic and corrupt, but for a good cause, or Vladimir Lenin, and preach the ideas of communism and world revolution, because that's just insane enough to shake up a classic fantasy setting.

That is fair. I'm not much of a cleric player either. The one cleric concept rattling around in my head is a Cleric of Tiamat who reveres her as the personification of violent change, radical self-improvement, and cut-throat capitalism. Accumulating gold would very much be in line with that mentality.

That said, the Holy Bastions also fail a wee bit if you're playing a less conventional cleric. Everything focuses on giving you healing spells. It'd be cool if you had a choice when you build the facility between a healing spell or a spell that inflicts harm so you could play more of an evil death cleric or a violent cleric of war/paladin of conquest.

Also, forge clerics should definitely be able to build a smithy in their bastion.

Druids also kind'a get the short end of the stick. Everything has a strong holy theme to it but there's no sacred grove. On the one hand, I feel like the primal casters should've gotten at least one or two unique buildings, but I get mostly lumping them in with divine casters too. It only takes a little reflavoring to turn the Sanctuary into a Grove or the Sanctum into a secret lair hidden inside an old cave or behind a waterfall.

Well, it's worth noting that the later healing options are significant. A free casting of Greater Restoration or Heal that you have banked for a week is not nothing, as is the equivalent of removing the gp cost from a cast of Heroes' Feast or Resurrection that banks indefinitely.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

Also, forge clerics should definitely be able to build a smithy in their 

 Yes. Also war clerics should be able to have war rooms, along with war magic wizards. 
Personally, I’d get rid of all the class-based, or pseudo class-based prereqs. If I’m playing a religious fighter, why can’t I have a reliquary (to say nothing of celestial warlocks or divine soul sorcerers)? It would be a pretty fun rp choice. Right now, I’m playing a warlock with the chef feat, having a bakery makes much more sense for that character than any of the arcane options. 
I think the limited number of special buildings should be enough of a throttle they don’t need to add in class ones as well. 

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Well, it's worth noting that the later healing options are significant. A free casting of Greater Restoration or Heal that you have banked for a week is not nothing, as is the equivalent of removing the gp cost from a cast of Heroes' Feast or Resurrection that banks indefinitely.

The healing options are definitely not nothing, but the fact that every holy facility offers a healing spell makes it feel samey and boring. At least to me. As if the designers couldn't think of anything new for each facility so they all do basically the same thing.

And because all the facilities do mostly the same thing if the adventure is a week's travel from your bastion or more you basically lose all your bastion benefits. At the very least it'd be nice if there wasn't a time limit on when you can use your one-use spell.

I can see the issue with the time limit on the spells, yeah. And, I hate to break it to you, but healing is very much the holy/druidic "thing" in D&D.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

I can see the issue with the time limit on the spells, yeah. And, I hate to break it to you, but healing is very much the holy/druidic "thing" in D&D.

 They could switch it up a bit and still be cleric-y. Like a cast of commune while you’re in a building would be appropriate and feel like something that could/should happen in a chapel type facility for higher levels. Or a free bless or bane for lower levels. 
Or free casts of ceremony while you’re there would be thematic. I’d maybe just add that to any/all of them as basically a ribbon ability. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

 Yes. Also war clerics should be able to have war rooms, along with war magic wizards. 
Personally, I’d get rid of all the class-based, or pseudo class-based prereqs. If I’m playing a religious fighter, why can’t I have a reliquary (to say nothing of celestial warlocks or divine soul sorcerers)? It would be a pretty fun rp choice. Right now, I’m playing a warlock with the chef feat, having a bakery makes much more sense for that character than any of the arcane options. 
I think the limited number of special buildings should be enough of a throttle they don’t need to add in class ones as well. 

I think a lot of these issues could be resolved if tool proficiencies also counted for what facilities you could build. Expertise in Sleight of Hand or Perception doesn't make a ton of sense for one's ability to run a bakery, but cooking tool proficiency definitely does.

Quote from Xalthu >>

 They could switch it up a bit and still be cleric-y. Like a cast of commune while you’re in a building would be appropriate and feel like something that could/should happen in a chapel type facility for higher levels. Or a free bless or bane for lower levels. 
Or free casts of ceremony while you’re there would be thematic. I’d maybe just add that to any/all of them as basically a ribbon ability. 

That would actually be very fun. Being able to perform marriages and funeral rites at your bastion would make for some fun roleplay opportunities. NPCs could come to your bastion to get married or have their coming-of-age ceremony performed by your character or your acolytes.

In another thread, I suggested a graveyard too. That could be a divine/druidic spellcaster facility where the local villagers bury their dead in the consecrated grounds of your bastion. You could receive payment for taking care of the dead or use the graveyard as a source of fresh bodies if you're a Death Cleric or Spore Druid.

I can agree it sounds as a good idea but it may need more work. 

Maybe there is some gameplay loophole about players alternating PCs to unlock facilities. And what abou "inherited" bastions, where players change lower-level PCs but using the same Bastion?

My suggestion is the no-upgraded facilities should can be unlocked in 5th level but here the benefit would be smaller. 

Why not to recover the game mechanic of planar touchstones from 3.5 Planar Handbook? Then the "no-facility" building would work as an immovable magic-item. Or we could recover the game mechanic of bondend magic item and magical localitations from Dungeon Master's Guide II (3.5). 

If something I have learnt with city-building and shop-keeping sim videogames is to keep the interest by the player then a reward has to arrive from time to time. 

I think each element should be designed for fuction and allows "form" to come from the character. I really think some of the prerequisites are "off" in the playtest and combined with poor flavor descriptions it causes a dissonance.

A chamber for healing owned by a mage would look different than one for a cleric. 

A alter for a secret warlock has a dark chamber where they preform  rituals. But a cleric alter is out in the open where marriage is preformed. 

So, although these very much mirror my responses to the survey, here are some of the things I am working on.

I've tied Bastions to Renown -- the optional score in the game -- for when they are acquired. It also means they can be lost, since Renown can fluctuate based on the relation of the PCs to the wider world around them. This is more deeply involved in the how the broader world operates,

I've added a few additional "basic" facilities, operating on the thinking that a bastion can be any kind of building, and different kinds of being have different kinds of rooms in them. A Conservatory, for example.

I have a set of "craft skills" that narrow the hundred plus guilds into a set of groups, who share common features and needs. The skill groups are all tied to a particular Ability Score that becomes important in the crafting system later (not going to go into that here):

Working off those crafting skills, I developed out a set of Specialty rooms. Some were easy, lol -- not really much call for Handiwork (embroidery, crochet, knitting) or Peasantry (Farming, Fishing, herding) in such places, and the Pub, Smithy, and others already existed -- and why they didn't make more workshops when different crafts have very different needs, as they illustrate with those, idk -- so a lot of it was just breaking the overall set up down.

what I ended up with was a LOT more options that I am still working on, and for the most part I have abandoned a lot of the "fancy" ones because there's no larger system to support them (Teleportation circles, dimensional spaces, etc -- how the f* are Players able to create these things? There's no spell they have access to that allows it in the game.), but shifted a few things around. It is totally set up to be specific to my game word, but it might give ideas.

 I should also note that they become a way for the PC to "earn a living" by generating coin for them, and that they can be existing buildings (Decrepit, Older, Recent) or new construction (with time it takes to build being based on the size of the squares and the materials used (woods and stones)), but that they have to be a reward or a boon from some Leader.

So, to be eligible, they have to reach a certain level of Renown, then they have to earn it through actions. Essentially I am using it as a home base structure, and still keeping the general design principles the same, while expanding the overall goal and smoothing out the strange bumps.

Still uses bastion points, and all that -- but I also am looking into the possible Events, which I haven't reached yet.

It's very noticeable that Sanctuary and Sanctum are literally the same facility, right? Right down to the name, even. 

In the feedback survey I suggested combining the two and having it just automatically upgrade as you level up.
Same with garden/greenhouse.

Anyway, as benefits money should work as tithes.

Maybe you're not trying to build a megachurch to scam your flock like the americans on TV, but there should still be a collection plate to fix the church roof and keep the priests fed, or whatever. Excess money can be used to upgrade your facilities to be bigger or build walls 

Most guildhalls should produce gp. Most of these are businesses, after-all.
Masonry especially. Yeah it can speed up building walls around your bastion. 
Then what? I disband the guild and fire everyone? 
I only need the one wall building. What's the purpose of the guild after that's done?

Well presumably the guildmembers pay their guild dues and I get a trickle of GP coming in to spend on bastion upgrades, right?

Also, kinda weird that the pub gets magic beer but the brewers guild doesn't.
 

Quote from SaurianDruid >> 

 Druids also kind'a get the short end of the stick. Everything has a strong holy theme to it but there's no sacred grove. On the one hand, I feel like the primal casters should've gotten at least one or two unique buildings, but I get mostly lumping them in with divine casters too. It only takes a little reflavoring to turn the Sanctuary into a Grove or the Sanctum into a secret lair hidden inside an old cave or behind a waterfall.

 Not really. A sanctuary could be a sacred grove. There's nothing that says "Btw this is a stone church with Christian trappings like a vestuary and holy symbols on the walls " we just sort of... view it that way by default.

A druid bastion could easily be a garden, a laboratory and a sanctuary, all fluffed as a natural grove, an apprentice herbalist who makes healing poultices and a shrine to Silvanus.

 Edit: I meant to bring it up in the survey but I forgot. 

Sacristy's 'regain a cleric spell on a short rest' thing seems worthless. I'm at my bastion, what do I care about short rests? 

Quote from Iamnuff>>

 Not really. A sanctuary could be a sacred grove. There's nothing that says "Btw this is a stone church with Christian trappings like a vestuary and holy symbols on the walls " we just sort of... view it that way by default.

A druid bastion could easily be a garden, a laboratory and a sanctuary, all fluffed as a natural grove, an apprentice herbalist who makes healing poultices and a shrine to Silvanus.

 Edit: I meant to bring it up in the survey but I forgot. 

Sacristy's 'regain a cleric spell on a short rest' thing seems worthless. I'm at my bastion, what do I care about short rests? 

This is what I mean when I said, "with a little reflavoring". It's not hard to imagine these facilities in a druidy skin. I just wish there was an option or two that were more overtly nature-themed. A sacred tree that can be used for a free casting of Commune with Nature and be used for Treestride, as an example. Or a Gathering Stone where druids and rangers from afar congregate to share wisdom with one another under your roof.

The Menagerie is the most nature-themed facility in the UA and it is... Kind of awful. Like, really bad. Pay 3,000 gold for a glorified pet that can only die in case your bastion gets attacked. It's a worse Barracks you can't get until level 17. It also can't be built multiple times, preventing me from fulfilling my dream of bringing Jurassic Park to Faerun.

Some of the Martial stuff isn't great either. 

Armoury is worthless without the Barracks (no point having equipment without troops) and it costs 1300gp to outfit  a single (small) barracks worth of troops... for one event. 
Because they apparently throw their grear in the trash as soon as it gets dirty. 
The mechanical benifit of having armour isn't even that good either. 

Even the Smithy only halves that cost, but that requires me to have three special facilities, and at lvl5 you only get two. 

The training field gives buffs which take 1 week to gain, then last 1 week. Some of these could be useful. 

But weapon proficiencies? That doesn't make sense in fluff or mechanics.
What kind of weapon-master expert-trainer am I hiring that's so boring that I'll forget everything he taught me after 7 days? Did I get hit over the head?
And why would I want to gain a weapon prof for 7-days, exactly? What's the point in that? 

You can already train to gain new weapon proficiencies. It's one of the downtime mechanics that nobody uses because nobody does downtime.
Just have the Training Field make it faster and cheaper, then we can finally teach the idiot sorcerer how to hold a sword.

Also, the rule about 'if you're not present, all they do is Maintain' seems like a huge drag. You shouldn't be able to give new orders, but Standing Orders is only common sense. 

Lets say I've got two Expanded Barracks (so a total of 50 guard capacity) and zero current guards. (because I got the dragon event and unwisely tried to put it in my menagerie)

I show up in my bastion, give an order to recruit and then leave on an adventure. I come back six weeks later after a trip through hell to fight an archdevil, and i find that I rolled a 2 and a 1 on my recruitment actions... and then my recruiters/captains just... didn't bother recruiting after that first week because I wasn't around to tell them to keep doing it. 
It's been six weeks and i'm at 3/50 guards because my idiot hirelings forget what their jobs are if i'm not constantly around to remind them.
The smith made one set of 20 arrows and then gave up and has been sitting around on his ass for the last six weeks. 

It just makes them sound lazy.
Same for traders with the Storehouse, or the Garden or Greenhouse.

At least the priest has other things to be doing than carving holy symbols over and over and selling them. What's the excuse of the guys running the gambling hall? 
It's literally their only job! 

Aside from that, does anyone else think the stable is too small? 
it can hold 3 large animals (horses) or 6 medium (mules)

My current party is five people. If one of us is getting a horse, we ALL want horses. So it needs five large slots, minimum.
The expanded stable should have ten, so i can have my guards mount up and patrol the area, or have my storehouse traders buy a wagon or something.

All that being said, I do like the idea of Bastions and I love the idea of multiple players combining their bastions into a single thing. 

Like the Noble Fighter's reclaimed bandit fortress having a training field and a barracks assigned by him, but the paladin setting up a smithy and armoury, the wizard taking over one of the fortress's towers for his arcane library, and the cleric taking over a couple of rooms for a church sanctuary
And I guess the rogue running a storeroom/trading thing. All ringed by a single stone wall. 

Everyone having separate bastions sounds like a pain, both to manage and to visit. The group having one big cool bastion that has separate sections that were clearly influenced by diffrent party members is cool, and the fact that each player only needs to manage a small part of it keeps it simple and easy to handle.
Also, it lets you get way more facilities going in one place, giving you a lot more synergy. 

I don't know how events work if you're all living in the same castle tho. Does one of you roll? do you all roll?