“When the line must hold, bring the weapon that was built to answer both the charge and the breach.”
Description
The Bastion-Pattern Assault Rifle is a very rare combat longarm designed for disciplined operators who need one weapon to dominate shifting ranges, fortified interiors, and violent close-quarters engagements. Its silhouette is compact and purposeful, with a bullpup-style frame, thick shoulder stock, reinforced receiver, and an underbarrel launcher assembly mounted beneath a vented foregrip. The result is a rifle that feels dense, balanced, and brutally practical, compressing the authority of a full assault rifle into a shorter fighting profile that excels in corridors, trenches, ship decks, and broken urban ground.
The rifle’s construction favors rugged service over ornament. Matte black steel and dark composite components give it a stern, professional appearance, while the wood-toned foregrip accents hint at custom craftsmanship or limited-production refinement. Its top rail runs nearly the full length of the receiver, allowing for advanced optics and sighting attachments, and the stock is broad enough to absorb hard recoil without sacrificing mobility. In the hands, the Bastion feels stable and commanding, with its center of mass tucked close to the shooter for rapid transitions and better control during automatic fire.
As a Very Rare weapon, the Bastion-Pattern carries layered enchantments woven through its chamber, recoil system, and barrel spine. These workings do not make the rifle flashy. They make it dependable in the ways that matter most. Bursts stay tighter. Sightlines remain cleaner. Impacts land harder. Even under pressure, the rifle seems to preserve its discipline, rewarding a shooter who understands positioning, controlled aggression, and the value of ending a fight before the enemy can recover.
On Aetheris, assault rifles are very rare as a weapon class, far rarer than common pistols, revolvers, or most traditional longarms. They require advanced metallurgy, consistent ammunition standards, precision chambering, and tactical doctrine that only a handful of master forges, state arsenals, or elite guild workshops can sustain. A rifle like the Bastion-Pattern would therefore be entrusted only to high-ranking strike leaders, caravan war-masters, fortified-city response units, elite guild enforcers, or rare private contractors with access to extraordinary patrons and restricted supply lines.
Magical Properties and Features
- Enchanted Rifle Ballistics
The Bastion-Pattern Assault Rifle grants a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon.
Its very rare enchantment reinforces chamber alignment and stabilizes recoil, allowing the rifle to maintain brutal consistency in both single fire and automatic bursts.
- Bastion Burst
The rifle’s internal recoil lattice compresses force and drives it forward with punishing effect.
Once per turn, when you hit a creature with this weapon, the attack deals an additional 2d8 force damage. If the target is within 60 feet, behind cover, or wearing medium or heavy armor, this extra damage becomes 3d8 force damage instead.
- Laneholder’s Sight
The Bastion-Pattern was built to dominate the contested middle distance where assault rifles become terrifyingly efficient.
Attacks made with this weapon against creatures within 90 feet ignore half cover and three-quarters cover. In addition, attacks against creatures in dim light, smoke, or light battlefield obscuration do not suffer disadvantage, provided you can otherwise perceive them.
- Bullpup Close Control
Though unmistakably a rifle, the Bastion remains deadly when the fight collapses into personal distance.
You do not suffer disadvantage on ranged attack rolls made with this weapon while a hostile creature is within 5 feet of you, provided that creature is no more than one size larger than you. In addition, after you hit a creature within 30 feet, you may move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks from that creature.
- Stabilized Follow-Through
The rifle rewards disciplined fire rather than panic.
If you hit with your first attack using this weapon on your turn, you gain a +2 bonus to the next attack roll you make with it before the end of your turn. If that second attack hits the same creature, it cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn.
- Underbarrel Breach Charge
Mounted beneath the barrel is an arcane-assisted launcher designed for barricades, clustered threats, and sudden battlefield correction.
As an action, you may fire a breach charge to a point you can see within 60 feet. Each creature within a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier). On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 force damage and is pushed 10 feet away from the center. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and is not pushed.
This effect also deals double damage to objects, mundane doors, barricades, and fortifications in the area.
Once this property is used, it cannot be used again until the next short or long rest.
- Holdfast Sequence
As a bonus action, you may awaken the rifle’s deeper combat sequence for 1 minute. While active:
- The bonus damage from Bastion Burst increases by 1d8
- Your attacks with this weapon score a critical hit on a 19 or 20
- The first time each turn you hit a creature with this weapon, its speed is reduced by 15 feet until the start of your next turn
- You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened while wielding the rifle
Once this property is used, it cannot be used again until the next dawn.
Weapon Bonuses
Attribute Bonus: None
Magic Bonus: +3 to attack rolls and damage rolls
Skill Bonus: Advantage on ability checks related to maintaining advanced rifles, clearing jams, appraising restricted military firearms, or breaching doors and fortified positions with the weapon
Proficiency Bonus: Requires proficiency with firearms
Drawbacks and Risks
- Restricted Armament
A rifle like this is not common gear on Aetheris.
Possessing one openly may attract the attention of military arsenals, guild quartermasters, city authorities, smugglers, collectors, and rivals who understand exactly how rare assault rifles truly are.
- Specialist Maintenance
The Bastion-Pattern’s chamber, recoil system, and underbarrel launcher require disciplined upkeep.
If heavily fouled, badly neglected, or exposed to severe environmental damage, the DM may rule that one of its magical features temporarily ceases functioning until the weapon is properly cleaned and serviced.
- Ammunition Burden
Like all true assault rifles, the Bastion encourages sustained confidence under fire.
A careless wielder may deplete ammunition quickly, especially if they rely too heavily on automatic fire or breach charges instead of disciplined shot placement.
Lore and History
The Bastion-Pattern likely emerged from a forge tradition obsessed with battlefield versatility, answering a question only a few arsenals on Aetheris are advanced enough to ask: how can one rifle hold a lane, clear a room, and break a barricade without surrendering control? Because assault rifles remain very rare across the world, weapons of this class are almost never mass-issued. Instead, they are reserved for those expected to confront layered threats: trained enemy squads, fortified choke points, armored shock troops, and urban kill-zones where the wrong longarm can get a wielder killed in seconds. In whispered accounts, rifles like the Bastion-Pattern appear wherever disciplined violence must arrive compact, immediate, and overwhelming.
Additional Roleplay Features
- Weapon of Serious Authority
The Bastion-Pattern looks like it belongs to someone trusted with ugly decisions.
NPCs familiar with firearms may assume its bearer serves a powerful guild, military cadre, elite caravan guard, or sanctioned strike unit.
- Compact Siege Profile
Its underbarrel launcher and bullpup frame give it a distinctive identity somewhere between rifle and breach tool.
This makes it especially memorable in scenes involving fortress assaults, ambushes, and urban operations.
- Rare by Category
Because assault rifles themselves are so uncommon on Aetheris, the weapon carries a built-in aura of restricted doctrine and advanced supply.
It feels less like a mere item and more like evidence that its owner has access to systems, patrons, or institutions most people never touch.
Weapon Information
Weapon Type: Assault Rifle
Rarity: Very Rare
Weight: 9 lb.
Market Value: 13,200 gp
Black Market Value: 22,000 gp
Attunement: Not required
Summary of Weapon
The Bastion-Pattern Assault Rifle is a Very Rare +3 combat rifle built for lane control, close-quarters adaptability, and breaching power. With force-laced burst damage, exceptional anti-cover performance, movement and reaction-denial synergy, a powerful underbarrel breach charge, and an awakened holdfast state that improves lethality and battlefield suppression, it stands among the most dangerous and uncommon firearms likely to exist on Aetheris. It is not merely a rare rifle. It is the kind of weapon issued when the people giving the order expect resistance to come layered, armored, and very sure of itself.
Combining a high rate of fire with rifle-grade ballistics, the Assault Rifle is a staple weapon for all modern militaries. Dozens of variants exist on this general design, but all share the traits of a flexible and formidable weapon.
This weapon has the following mastery property. To use this property, you must have a feature that lets you use it.
Automatic. When you make an attack with this weapon, you can choose to make two attacks instead. These attacks are always made with Disadvantage, regardless of circumstance. You can’t replace these attacks. If this weapon has the Ammunition property, these attacks use twice the normal amount of ammunition.
Notes: Bonus: Magic, Damage: Force, Damage: Force, Weapon Property: Loading, Weapon Property: Range, Weapon Property: Two-Handed, Weapon Mastery: Automatic (Assault Rifle), Damage, Buff, Combat, Ammunition, Two-Handed, Reload, Firearm, Automatic
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