D&D 2024 Bastions Guide

Introduction

Bastions are an optional subsystem in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. A Bastion is a home, stronghold, or place of power that belongs to a player character, built up over a campaign through facilities that let its owner craft magic items, conduct research, recruit defenders, and generate income while the party adventures elsewhere.

For the DM-only rules this chapter assumes (NPC creation for hirelings, treasure tables referenced by crafting orders), see the DM's Toolbox guide and the Treasure guide. Return to the Dungeon Master Guides hub for the full chapter map.

Gaining a Bastion

Bastions are opt-in twice over: the DM decides whether they're available in a campaign at all, and individual players can opt in or out even when the DM allows them. There's no requirement that every character in a party owns one.

If Bastions are on the table, a character gains theirs at level 5. The shape and function are entirely up to the player - a Wizard might build a tower, a Cleric a shrine, a Fighter a fortified keep, a Rogue a guildhall - and a character isn't locked into their class's obvious pick; a Paladin's Bastion might look like a Cleric's shrine crossed with a Fighter's stronghold. Multiple player characters can also combine their Bastions into a single larger structure (see Combining Bastions below).

Bastion Turns

As time passes in the campaign, players take Bastion turns to represent activity happening at their Bastion, whether or not the character is physically there. By default, a Bastion turn happens every 7 days of in-game time - during a long journey away from the Bastion, a stretch of downtime between adventures, or even a single night's rest at home if a full week has passed since the last turn. A DM can slow the cadence (to monthly, for instance) for campaigns with long gaps between adventures, so players aren't issuing a flood of orders and reaping outsized benefits all at once.

On a Bastion turn, a character issues a Bastion order to one or more of their Special Facilities, or the Maintain order to the whole Bastion. If the character isn't present and can't reach their hirelings with Sending or similar magic, the Bastion defaults to the Maintain order automatically for that turn.

Bastion Map and Combining Bastions

Players are encouraged to draw their own Bastion floor plans using the same techniques used for dungeon maps, laying out Basic and Special Facilities on 5-foot squares. A Bastion can add a few free extras beyond its facilities: doors and shuttered windows (including locked or secret doors, or portcullises), closets inside a facility, and corridors, ramps, or staircases connecting facilities. Defensive walls cost 250 GP and 10 days to build per 5-foot square of wall, stand 20 feet high, and can include a walkway - a fully enclosed Bastion behind defensive walls reduces by 2 the number of dice rolled when determining Bastion Defender losses during an attack.

Combining Bastions. Two or more player characters can merge their Bastions into a single structure. This doesn't change how many Special Facilities each character has or who issues their orders - each character's hirelings stay tied to their own Bastion. Bastion Defenders are the exception: if one character's Bastion loses defenders in an event, another character in the combined structure can absorb some or all of those losses onto their own roster instead.

Facility Space

Every facility, basic or special, occupies a space category that caps its maximum area:

Squares can be stacked across multiple stories rather than laid out flat on one floor.

Basic Facilities

A Bastion starts with two free Basic Facilities - one Cramped, one Roomy - chosen from Bedroom, Dining Room, Parlor, Courtyard, Kitchen, or Storage. A Bastion can have more than one of the same type. Basic Facilities have no mechanical effect; they're set dressing that gives a table a concrete setting for roleplay, character introductions, and in-character conversation between sessions.

A character can add new Basic Facilities or enlarge existing ones by spending money and time - no in-game benefit follows from doing so, but it's a way to grow a Bastion cosmetically:

Special Facilities

Special Facilities are where Bastion orders actually produce benefits. A character starts with two, chosen from whatever they qualify for at level 5, and gains more at higher levels rather than buying them:

Each new Special Facility becomes part of the Bastion immediately on reaching the triggering level, and each time a character levels up, they can swap out one existing Special Facility for another they qualify for. Each specific facility can normally only be chosen once per Bastion.

Every Special Facility has a level requirement and sometimes a prerequisite - an Arcane Study, for instance, requires the ability to use an Arcane Focus or a tool as a Spellcasting Focus. A Special Facility comes staffed with one or more hirelings who run it, maintain it, and carry out the orders issued to it; the facility itself generates enough income to cover their pay.

Special Facilities by Level

Facility Highlights

A few facilities are worth calling out for what they add beyond a basic order:

• Arcane Study. After a Long Rest at the Bastion, its owner gains a magical Charm letting them cast Identify without a spell slot or Material components. The Craft order can produce an Arcane Focus, a blank book, or (at level 5+) a Common or Uncommon magic item from the Arcana tables.
• Barrack. Houses up to twelve Bastion Defenders (twenty-five if enlarged to Vast). The Recruit order adds up to four defenders per issue at no cost.
• Armory. Stocking it (100 GP plus 100 GP per Bastion Defender, halved with a Smithy present) upgrades every d6 rolled for Bastion Defender losses in an attack to a d8 - tougher odds of surviving a raid, but the stock is spent after any attack and needs restocking.
• Archive. Grants one reference book that provides Advantage on a specific Intelligence check category (Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion), and its Research order works like the Legend Lore spell over 7 days.
• Teleportation Circle. A permanent circle that can invite a specific spellcaster from another linked circle to visit for up to 14 days or until they cast a spell for the Bastion's owner - though the visiting spellcaster won't help defend the Bastion if it's attacked.
• War Room. Comes with two loyal Veteran Warrior lieutenants (more can be added) who each reduce Bastion Defender losses by 1 die if housed at the Bastion during an attack.
• Menagerie. Creatures kept here can optionally count as Bastion Defenders, or be left to act on their own nature and stat block instead.

Eberron: Mobile Bastions and House-Linked Facilities

Eberron: Forge of the Artificer (Eberron) adds one structural option and a set of setting-specific Special Facilities on top of the rules above, for a campaign built around dragonmarked houses, artificers, or life on the move.

A mobile Bastion trades a fixed location for a vehicle: a sailing ship, a lightning rail car, or an airship, at the DM's discretion. It needs a Special Facility that provides propulsion (the Eberron-specific Lyrandar Helm, Navigator's Helm, or Orien Helm facilities all qualify) and can't have defensive walls. Combine mobile Bastions with matching propulsion facilities and issue their Empower orders together to travel more than 8 hours a day, with hirelings trading shifts. Traveling with the Bastion exposes it to the same encounters and obstacles as any other journey, including the risk of temporarily losing access to a facility, propulsion included.

Eberron also adds several house- and campaign-linked Special Facilities: the Artificer's Forge (crafts magic items with hireling assistance, requires Artisan's Tools as a Spellcasting Focus), the Construct Forge (recruits Constructs, including a Warforged Titan at the top end), the Inquisitive Agency, the Manifest Zone, the Museum, and three Renown-gated house facilities: the Dragonmark Outpost (Renown 10+ with any dragonmarked house), the Kundarak Vault (Renown 15+ with House Kundarak, extradimensional storage and trade), and the Orien Helm (Renown 15+ with House Orien). See Dragonmarked House Renown for how a character reaches those thresholds.

For the full Eberron setting, including which houses and factions these facilities connect to, see the Eberron hub.

Ravenloft: Haunted Bastions

Ravenloft: The Horror Within (Ravenloft) adds an optional Haunted Bastions system for a campaign that wants its downtime to carry the same dread as its adventures, plus a set of Gothic-horror-themed Special Facilities.

If a DM uses this system, a character's first Special Facility starts Haunted. From then on, whenever a character gains a new Special Facility, replaces one, or issues an order to an already-Haunted facility (or a Maintain order to the whole Bastion), there's a chance - a coin-flip on gaining or replacing a facility, a 1-in-6 on an order or Maintain - that a facility becomes or remains Haunted and a random Bastion Haunting triggers. Hauntings range from mixed blessings (a Friendly Ghost that doubles a facility's output for 14 days, a Spectral Vision that works like Legend Lore, Vistani Visitors offering an Augury or tarokka reading) to real setbacks (a Poltergeist that shuts down Empower and Research orders for the turn, a Living Dead event that spawns an Attack Bastion encounter, though at reduced severity). A Bastion can only experience one haunting per turn, and an Ancient Altar facility (below) is the direct way to purge a haunting instead of waiting it out.

Ravenloft also adds several Gothic-flavored Special Facilities: Rookery and Séance Parlor (level 5), Ancient Altar, Cabinet of Curiosities, and Infirmary (level 9, Infirmary requiring proficiency in Medicine), and Lightning Generator and Spirit Vault (level 13). The Ancient Altar is the system's centerpiece for a Haunted Bastions campaign: its Empower order can purge a Haunted facility outright through a 7-day ritual and a worthy sacrifice (1,000 GP or a fresh, non-Construct/Undead corpse), and spending a Long Rest there grants a temporary Charm letting you cast Hunger of Hadar without Material components.

For the full Ravenloft setting, including the Domains of Dread these hauntings draw their menace from, see the Ravenloft hub.

Orders

On a Bastion turn, a character issues one of these orders to a Special Facility (or Maintain to the whole Bastion):

Bastion Events

Every time a character issues the Maintain order, the DM rolls once on the Bastion Events table to see what happens at the Bastion before the next turn:

Half the table is harmless flavor (All Is Well rolls on its own d8 table of minor, non-mechanical happenings). The rest range from real threats to windfalls:

• Attack. A hostile force strikes the Bastion but is repelled. Roll 6d6; each die that shows a 1 kills one Bastion Defender. If the Bastion has none left, one randomly determined Special Facility is damaged and offline until the next Bastion turn.
• Criminal Hireling. A hireling's past catches up with them. Pay a 1d6 x 100 GP bribe to keep them, or they're arrested and replaced at no cost - though the facility they staffed is unusable until the replacement arrives.
• Extraordinary Opportunity. A chance to host a festival, fund research, or appease a noble. Pay 500 GP to seize it and roll again on the Bastion Events table (rerolling a repeat of this same result), or decline and nothing else happens.
• Guest. A Friendly guest arrives - a renowned figure who leaves a letter of recommendation, someone seeking sanctuary who pays 1d8 x 100 GP, a mercenary who becomes a free Bastion Defender, or a Friendly monster guest who defends the Bastion once if it's attacked during their stay.
• Magical Discovery. Hirelings find or create an Uncommon Potion or Scroll at no cost.
• Refugees. 2d4 refugees seek shelter, paying 1d6 x 100 GP for hospitality until rehoused or until the Bastion is attacked.
• Request for Aid. Sending Bastion Defenders to help a local leader risks losing one if the group's combined 1d6-per-defender roll comes up under 10, though the problem gets solved either way with a scaled reward.
• Treasure. The Bastion acquires an art object or magic item, rolled from the Treasure guide's gemstone and art object tables or a rarity-appropriate magic item table.

Fall of a Bastion

A character can lose their Bastion in three ways:

• Divestiture. Voluntarily giving it up - hirelings are released and the site is eventually vacated, looted, or burned.
• Neglect. Issuing no orders for a number of consecutive Bastion turns equal to the character's level (typically because the character is dead or otherwise out of commission). Hirelings abandon the site and it's eventually looted.
• Ruination. Drawing the Ruin card from the Deck of Many Things instantly costs a character their Bastion, with the player choosing the specific fate (sacked by enemies, destroyed by an earthquake, or similar).

However a Bastion falls, its owner can start a new one later - even amid the ruins of the old one - using the Special Facility Acquisition table to determine how many Special Facilities it comes with, plus the standard two free Basic Facilities.

Related Guides

For hireling and NPC creation this chapter assumes, see the DM's Toolbox guide. For the treasure tables Bastion Craft orders and Treasure events reference, see the Treasure guide and the Best D&D 2024 Magic Items guide. For fitting Bastion downtime into a longer campaign arc, see the Creating Campaigns guide. Return to the Dungeon Master Guides hub for the full chapter map.