One D&D vs 5e DMG: Strongholds & Bastions
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- Опубликовано: 8 июн 2024
- Let's find the 5e Stronghold rules hidden in the 2014 DMG, then decide if One D&D Bastions are an improvement or just a new direction! ▶️ More below! ⏬
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00:00 "One D&D: 2024 OR ELSE"
00:26 Bastions should be cool, but...
01:19 navigating the 2014 DMG
03:56 quick impressions of 5e strongholds
07:00 expectations for One D&D (then sponsor)
08:10 crackin open a cold PDF with the boys
11:26 quick thoughts on "Bastion Points"
12:42 gold + bastion points = ?
14:21 level problem, orders, facilities
17:51 answering the title question
19:31 a fun part!
#onednd #dungeonsanddragons 
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Oh BTW, an Abbey is an advice columnist.
WotC's design team is so weird to me. Like they'll explicitly ignore vital rule subsystems (like ship combat in Spelljammer) where their attention is desperately needed and some moderate complexity would be welcome. Then they'll dump lots of design work into something like this, but they're terrified to let anything interesting happen. So you'll invest your energy into dealing with these more complex rules and your reward is... a regular arcane focus worth 10 gold. Woooow WotC, what a wonderful use of both of our time 🙄
That's what happens when management is so famously toxic that everyone with real creative ideas leaves to make to own games.
And they ignore basic rules they have already written like schools of magic... I noticed they changed Acid Splash to evocation... but the wording still says "create" which is clearly within the wheelhouse of the conjuration school... Goodberry is still broken too. I know I am one of the older guys that thinks schools matter...
I mean... yeah. Look at Strongholds & Followers. It's great! It doesn't waste your time, the section for each kind of stronghold is short and well thought out. It does include things like tables for discovering and researching new spells in your wizard tower, but if you were making a tavern, you wouldn't have to read that section! Thanks for another fun video!
I appreciate the testimonial! haha, "well thought out" is definitely part of MCDM's brand. Their stuff does tend to be crunchier than I prefer, but I will check it out!
MCDM constants puts out great stuff. The Kingdoms and Warfare book is my absolute favorite. Definitely better than anything Wotc is putting out.
Personally I only use it to get some ideas, my system is more simple. But I think Stronghold and Followers is still way better than that UA Bastion thing. Honestly, if my players say "I want to open a pub in town" I won't say "no you need to be level 13 for that", that's completely stupid.
Came here to say that
No offense, but not including S&F in this video is a serious oversight.
I really like the idea of slowly building up a bastion throughout a campaign then protecting it from an onslaught as the finale of the campaign.
Check out the Kingmaker campaign if that's something you'd be interested in. It's a fully fleshed out Pathfinder adventure module that has an official D&D 5e conversion. The party sets out into a land ruled by feuding warlords, establishes their own presence there, and defends and grows their kingdom, all over the course of a long-running high fantasy adventure.
um we all do that anyways, nothing new here
Smells pretty familiar for those of us who are Matt Colville fans.
I even have the pdf of Strongholds & Followers.
Back in the early days of 5e, I cobbled together a system to run a knightly fiefdom, using 3 in game parameters: the price of full plate armour (1,500gp), the price of a pound of wheat (1cp), and the cost of a noble estate (25,000gp).
It kinda worked, if you assumed a hide of land (the amount of land in a given area that can support a family - 10 people, 4 workers and 4 dependents) was worth 1,000gp, so the fiefdom had 25 hides.
If using early modern farming techniques (field rotation, giving a field 1 year in 3 to restore itself, and plant clover and turnips and let pigs forage), it was enough to replace the armor and a warhorse every 4 years, which seemed reasonable.
So this gave a village of around 200 (including dependents), with maybe 10 footmen and 1 knight.
Complicated to research and make, but ended up being only 3 pages long, including upgrades. Of course I barely used it, and now it's lost somewhere in the dungeon of my hard drive...
What a cool project though! That's the story of most homebrew/worldbuilding work. If you ever find it, you should consider tidying it up, adding some royalty free art, and posting it on DTRPG!
That sounds really cool and very "pendragon-esque"!
Yes! Please do share it if you ever find it again!
@@armorclasshero2103 I will delve into the catacombs, then, and see what haul I can find :)
@@KlijpoI’m eager to hear the results of this delve
4:30 they really were trying to capture the feeling of owning a real restaurant
9:21 This got me wondering, "what IS the breakdown of rules in MCDM's Strongholds and Followers?"
So I grabbed my book off the shelf:
STRONGHOLDS - pages 8-67, covering the base rules in pages 9-15, followed by different types of Stronghold with individual benefits from pages 16-49. Finally the last 27 pages cover class-specific Strongholds.
The rest of the 268 pages focus on Followers gained by erecting a Stronghold, an adventure to introduce Strongholds into your game by reclaiming a castle, and appendices with new monsters, items, and a simple warfare minigame (which would be revised in Kingdoms and Warfare to be more robust) to represent defending your new Stronghold.
Definitely not a rules light product, but the core rules are relatively straightforward, even if the whole book reads like a multi-hour Matt Colville YT video 😅.
Keep up the great videos, Bob! I love watching them as part of my breakfast routine.
OSR games just gave characters strongholds at 9th level. In BECMI the whole point of mid level play became domain maintenance. The rules were fairly crunchy but concise, though probably still not everyone's cup of tea, since they were ignored or glossed over fairly often by many groups.
they were appropriate for how different subsystems are in BECMI, but they are as non-5e as MCDM's attempts.
See this is why I homebrewed my own system for keeps/PC businesses. I love designing PC home bases but didn’t want a 2-300 page book. Like you, I'm not sold on linking building development so closely to player level, I think it makes more sense (and makes a better reward for players) to tie features and the size of the building to gold cost, which naturally scales as the players level and which can be controlled by the DM more precisely.
Sounds like we're on the same page!
Yep; in fact before this "One D&D" sh**show, I created 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group (I don't have a group unfortunately).
Anyway, 1 of those characters is a Female Half-Sun Elf Half-Moon Elf Sage background Ranger (planning Drakewarden Sub-Class). Part of her goals is to learn as many languages/lore as possible and collect none-dangerous Artifacts as well as books, eventually she wants to build a Educational Museum/Library/Residence/College in her Homeland filled with things she found and others may have donated. Doing that after she retires from adventuring she can run that educational place and reside in it, teaching new Adventurers and the common citizens of her Homeland.
Bob: do you like the direction of this bastion?
me: no
Bob: Should i have just looked at Strongholds and Follower instead?
me : YES!
anyway I love this intro is so funny and so true great job Bob
I like the idea behind them and can see myself using them, but I feel like I will end up modifying them. Like, I like the idea behind the Bastion Turns, Points, and the idea behind letting players design their bases with each room given a set number of squares. The last one providing a heck of a lot of creativity from the players.
I love your videos, and man do I absolutely love the dice tower kickstarter!!!! However, I'd be that DM that wants the really big book. I wish you'd just glanced through it, even a little. Still, you've given me a great idea for a side game, for when our DM is unable to play. Thank you very much.
I remember Stronghold Builders Guide being pretty neat. The most fun part by far was the various magic items for Strongholds. Not magic items to keep in your Stronghold but that were part of your Stronghold. Magical gate and walls and rooms and stuff. Very cool ideas.
Ad&d also had the Castle Guide which I remember being way way overly detailed but would probably make some of the more technically inclined or obsessive players happy
I absolutely loved that book and will still reference it for my 5e games. The costs were specific and reasonable for 3e, it included individual room maps, full descriptions of each room and type of building... It's all the stuff you needed in a softcover book less than 100 pages.
I think your buildings get built faster when you're there because the workmen know you're there, so they're not slacking off.
Bob, I love your varied use of music to convey your ideas. It works really well with the fun vibe of your channel.
(Note: I deliberately avoid the joke about where the term "underscoring" comes from, because I don't mean to be snarky. But I award myself full points for it nonetheless.)
I read the rules cover to cover like books, and I had no idea 2014 bastions were a thing. lol
Overall I really like the versatility and options to make them do things. Feels like the main thing players are supposed to do are map everything out, name literally everyone, and make a personal space they designed entirely for themselves.
My one complaint is that the prerequisites are unnecessary. It already implies that a specialist will be hired to run the areas that require specific skills while you are away. If hes hiring a cleric either way, I dont see why my warrior or tempus or my hunter of malar cant have shrines in their fortress/ hunting lodge.
I love that you just casually tossed together a (to me at least) way more compelling home base supplement while working on this video. I'm definitely going to check that out.
If the facilities had a few more interesting uses, we could have them in the cities for player to use at a cost. (Yes i would like i you checked out Strongholds and Followers, if only on a quick read)
Good point! And yeah, I'm going to give S&F a read sometime soon
@@BobWorldBuilder keep in mind strongholds & followers is not the same as kingdom & warfare, so you'd waste twice the time on something like 500+ pages of unnecessarily bulky non-5e design content. :)
Also, look at Acquisitions, Inc. That goofy book has some great gameplay-inspiring ideas for how to procure, use, and upgrade a stronghold
I did a cursory readthrough of a few stronghold systems for 5e, though have not thoroughly tested any of these myself (I'm kind of doing a messy kitbash of Strongholds & Followers and A5E in my current game). For what it's worth, these were my thoughts:
MCDM's Strongholds and Followers: Remember this is not a product of current MCDM's rigorous design and testing process, but Matt Colville's 20 year old homebrew rules updated and polished for 5e. They're perfectly workable, just don't expect something quite as finely tuned as Flee Mortals or the Beastheart. The bulk of the rules focus on how strongholds improve your class features in unique ways, and the kind of military units and specialist followers you attract. Half the book is devoted to an adventure, magic items, and monster statblocks, and then a warfare system (never tried it, and the system in Kingdoms & Warfare is more polished.)
Level Up Advanced 5e's Strongholds section of the Adventurer's Guide: These rules are very lightweight and straightforward. A lot of good detail of the benefits the wide variety of strongholds can provide, but no systems for defending them or random events, etc. The main drawback is most of the benefits are highly tied into other A5E subsystems, so if you're not using all their rules you might have to homebrew alternative benefits.
Walrock Homebrew's Fortresses, Temples, & Strongholds: Available on DMsGuild. Another lightweight and straightforward set of rules. All strongholds have a number of room slots, to which the player can spend more money to build special purpose rooms (armoury, barracks, scriptorium, chapel, etc.) that provide benefits. This gives Walrock's strongholds a lot of customization and modular options. All the benefits are based on the existing 5e rules and if some seem a bit powerful, almost all of them require the character to be in their stronghold or within a long rest's distance away. I wish I could go back and use these for my current game, as it provides similar types of benefits as the UA Bastion rules, but without level gating or having to learn a new system.
Great video Bob!
Nice! Thank you for this summary! Sounds like a combo of A5e and Warlock's version are what I'd be looking for. And I'm also more curious about S&F now bc a bunch of other comments suggested taking a look.
@@BobWorldBuilder I would strongly recommend checking out WH's Fortresses, Temples and Strongholds if you're looking to explore base building any further. I'm a little sad to not see it recommended by more people and honestly i think deserves a spotlight all its own despite it being a few years old. It really strikes a great balance between being easy to understand, having clean and lightweight rules, and being both narratively evocative and highly customisable. Its the only one of the bunch that immediately ticked all the boxes and got me excited to include base building in my game.
The only time there was a keep built in a game I was in was the very first 1e AD&D campaign my cousin and I played. It was only the two of us in that campaign. No one in the 2e AD&D campaigns wanted a keep. I hadn't looked at strongholds in the current DMG because they haven't been needed.
Still, there was a time in a short Tal'Dorei campaign, when the party took over Utgarde Keep close to Mt Gatshadow but the game ended shortly after that. In a Midgard campaign, someone got a keep thanks to the Deck of Many Things, but left the game before an attempt was made to claim it.
Overall, I'm not convinced by the direction 6e (as I call it) is taking. The Bastion idea isn't a bad one, but it looks very rough at the moment.
If the PCs want a keep or castle, there are any number of ruins aka fixer-uppers dotting a fantasy landscape. AD&D has some guidance for strongholds. I copied the troop tables from Dragon #99 (July 1985) a while back just in case. Mr Yates was good enough to take climate and terrain into consideration. Those tables can be adapted for other classes. Then there's Strongholds & Followers which I backed. Something could be used from that book, too.
In the meantime, the players will do their thing and perhaps get their little castle when next the Deck of Many Things appears.
Yeah I think homebases aren't that popular to begin with, but they could be! And it makes sense for D&D to have their own rules for it, but like you said, this playtest version seems pretty rough.
The rule that “any player who gets to level 5 gets a stronghold” is an old rule from 1e. At level 5 players were the équivalant of dukes etc.
I feel like this is going to be linked heavily into the VTT. It seems way too videogame-ified not to be. Otherwise it looks too convoluted to be practical at the table.
I wonder how much the 'bastion expansion pack' will cost lol
Adventurer conqueror king system actually positively incentivizes you to have a stronghold by awarding xp for it. Not to mention that system is designed to seamlessly integrate strongholds into the game.
The adhesion to the level rules is more in observance of tiers of play rather than assigning things as a level advancement benefit. I do appreciate that they explicitly state all over the place that this is something you collaborate with the DM on
It was interesting choice to them use the word Abbey. But on the other hand, it can be a monastery or convent, but sometimes also a nunnery, which partly explains the choice. Of course, the DMG could have included a short guide and a dictionary about settlements and specific buildings, such as that keep is not a synonym for stronghold, motte-and-bailey, castle, fort or bastion, but rather their main residential building which may resemble a tower.
I actually love these bastion rules. They need a couple tunings but nothing major. They're not too complex to be unmanageable, but they're complex enough to scratch that base management itch. Also just wanted to point out that it IS actually clarified that special facilities come for free at the specified levels, 2 at each, if I recall correctly. Great video as always, keep at it
Nice, thanks for that clarification! Yeah I feel like it's more usable than what's in the 2014 DMG, but just more complex than I personally prefer. At the very least, I can it inspired me to write my own rules for bases!
At the end of the day I think this is the most important thing, building a strong base to either be used or inspire new ones by others is the essence of TTRPG rule books@@BobWorldBuilder
From the five dungeon masters guide, the time it takes to build a large castle, and the added time it takes if you’re not there, make perfect sense to me.
First of all, 1200 days is about four years give or take, and if we look historically at how long castle would take to build, that feels about right. Might even be a little bit short. At least two build an entire palace/castle.
But as far as whether you’re there or not and how long it takes? If you’ve ever had contractors work for you, or ever build a house, you understand That time changes when the person paying the bills is there.
It’s not so much that you know how to do their job and can tell them how to do it better and faster, it’s that when the owner isn’t there, maybe the workers don’t show up? Maybe they take longer lunches? Maybe there’s some question that needs answering, and even though you’re not an expert, as the owner you’re still the only one who can make the decision, and so if you’re not there, the decision doesn’t get made until you come back.
Today, if you had an issue like that, you would just call the person on their smart phone. But back then? There was no way that you would get to learn about an important question that was holding up work until you returned. I actually think multiplying by three is probably too little.
Good stuff! I'm just about to start our next session and having a strong hold is what I'm going to be implementing. This helps flesh out that line of thought for sure.
Side note, you rock
As in bases and businesses*
Thanks very much!
I personally really like the direction they are going with Bastions. I think it's incredibly fun to build a whole small settlement for yourself, but there still are aspects that I don't like - some facilities feel very unrewarding like the theater; the fact that each character has one instead of all characters coming together to make one single bastion that is bigger and better; Bastion Points feel like a very poorly thought out system and I will be dropping it when I use these rules; Levelgating some facilities is just boring.
I have ideas for a long campaign where the characters will have to spend a bunch of time managing their own village, building better houses, establishments, and most importantly recruit workers. I find it much cooler that you have a favorite barkeep NPC that you managed to persuade to come and work at your tavern, instead of just having a tavern with some random NPC you don't really care about. So when I run my version of these bastions, it will be more important for the characters to be on the lookout for NPCs they would like to recruit. It would be even cooler if the characters first need to find capable builders to build buildings as well.
All in all a great frame work but as most things WOTC it's kind of poorly thought out. Good direction, interesting ideas, not the best implementations. While I do understand that they try to design stuff to be as "don't think about it just plug and play it", as you said in the video to me the roleplay is important more than the ease of use.
I think you should give Strongholds & Followers a try. It has everything you were talking about, but explained clearly. Plus there ia something special for each class, just 20-30 pages, but 1 or 2 pg per class, so you don't have to read everything, plus an outstanding adventure with Belledrone and Sir Pelliton, plus a ton of new monsters, plus new magic items, plus a follower/minion system, plus a little bit of crafting. And the Art the Art is muaaah fantastic! I'm a fan, what can I say.
Great video! I've always loved the idea of players being able to own and operate strongholds or things of that nature, but it always feels so tedious to actually run.
Side note, wearing headphones I can hear a constant low rumbling throughout the video (sounds like a microphone stand being jostled or something like that). You should put a hipass filter on your audio track at around 40-60 Hz to clean that up, it's a little hard on the ears with headphones on.
Yeah when I listened to the raw audio with headphones I noticed this too, I think I was bouncing my leg or something the whole time xD Didn't think about trying a filter, and unfortunately you can't edit audio once it's uploaded.
Here's how a player who wants a stronghold decides to get one with Strongholds & Followers:
1. Open to the table of contents. "Do I want a Keep (martial, military), a Tower (arcane research), a Temple (divinity), or an Establishment (tavern, anything else)."
2. Player reads literally 1 or 2 pages for the type they chose.
3. Player then flips to the section of stronghold benefits by class, for their PC's class. Reads another 1-2 pages.
Done. All the other pages in the Strongholds section are just descriptions of Matt Colville's reasoning behind why he wanted to make the book, what his general design philosophy around the book was, suggestions for how strongholds could interact with the game world and story of the campaign, and so on. There's a reason why he has since described S&F as "polished homebrew."
I don't want to sound like I'm shilling S&F here - I actually don't really like the book overall because of 2 major reasons: it was literally the first product MCDM made and it was back before they thoroughly playtested all of their work, and the book makes a major assumption that your stronghold-owning players are interested in raising units for warfare. Because the designers couldn't really justify the existence of rules for strongholds without them interacting with the game world in some way beyond "just go figure it out, DM!"
S&F warfare is essentially the beta version of what came later in Kingdoms & Warfare...but then the problem is that book is so different to S&F that they aren't compatible!
If you ignore the warfare stuff entirely, well, now you have the same problem from the 2014 DMG - the stronghold is now basically just an excuse to drain gold from players (with a few extra little benefits).
I've still not spent a lot of time doing research on a stronghold system for 5e that works perfectly for my table and me. I'm actually someone who likes a lot of rules crunchiness, but the OneD&D Bastion system just doesn't interest me, for whatever reason. I'm glad to see you made your own damn supplement though!
Well those steps sound more straight forward than I would have thought. I know MCDM materials tend to be a little crunchier than I prefer, and yeah, S&F was the first big 5e kickstarter so it makes sense that it's not as polished. After a bunch of recommendations here though, I will probably still take a look!
@@BobWorldBuilder The way I consider S&F strongholds, and the way others in the community describe them, is that a stronghold is basically a big magic item. When the PCs are at their strongholds/within 1 mile of it, they can take their own crazy lair actions like certain monsters can. And pick out additional little benefits like, if you have a Keep, you can choose "Reach Training," which allows you to push a creature 5 ft. if you hit them with a reach melee weapon. Little stuff like that, but hey, maybe it's up your alley.
bastions seem awesome in concept but I feel like a lot of people would just forget their bastions exist most of the time
I agree 💯 that strongholds and magic items should be things you acquire via adventuring. In the Hobbit, the dwarves retaking Smaug's lair and getting the Arkenstone feels earned. That characters might level up afterwards should be just a coincidence.
This appears to be a simplified version of many of the concepts found in "Strongholds & Followers". The main differences is "S&F" has class play a larger role in developing your stronghold and the services you gain from your stronghold are tied to the followers you attract/recruit instead of building a room. It does say you have to provide workspace for your follower to get their benefits. I would like to see your thoughts on the MCDM rules.
Not just the 2014 DMG language on strongholds, there also exists a template for headquarters/bastions in another official WoTC DnD product, Acquisitions Incorporation, that they seem to have forgotten about. They could have taken out some of the humor based language from that and have a fun, a little more simpler system for bastions than what is in this UA.
Rolemaster has Castles and Ruins. That system is very detailed and full of information. Another time D+D dropped the ball. That will be my next book review.
I feel like these rules would make a lot more sense in a west marches style game, where as players start to expand their influence they can establish bastions in the wilderness to make ‘safe zones’ and other players can use them on their travels as stopping points
This is a very timely video. My players have been granted the title of thane and I’m hoping they get into stronghold building.
TSR D&D. So simple to learn, and already had everything you could want in simple rules and cost for building anything you want. Plus rules for mass warfare and defenses. Wotc D&D seriously lacks in this and a lot of areas
I would have been impressed if wotc just converted becmi into 5e mechanics. It could be better, but that would be an honest effort.
I’d really appreciate a look through of “Strongholds and Followers”. I wonder if Shadowdark will get some kind of base supplement. Great work as always!
Let's just say: I'm excited for Bases and Businesses
There is one thing I'll say about Bastion Points over just plain gold. In Starfinder you have money-currency and then Build Points for your ship. During testing the designers found that if they didn't do this players would use all their currency for weapons and equipment and neglect their ships, or spend all their money on ships and neglect their equipment. WotC could easily have bastions be upgraded with BP and then have a gold sink to speed things up or attract new followers or whatever. This is very "gamey" but actually could be a fine design.
That was pretty entertaining. It got me thinking about how I would handle that in my DCC campaign since my PCs have been wanting to build a base since they were 0-level and penniless!
That Catan gag killed me. I had Bob and Co. sign some Catan pieces at a game convention recently.
I think this UA is pretty awesome, as long as you take some of the stuff as suggestions and be chill about how you run it. Lots of cool ideas and opportunities for your players to do more stuff, and have a bit more of a stake in the world. I’m going to have my players clear a “haunted” house, then after it’s repaired, it can be the start of their shared bastion. It gives me enough of a framework for ideas of what’s possible and ideas about balance, and I can run with our party’s own ideas from there.
Kobold Press's "Tome of Heroes" includes a section on this sort of thing in its chapter about adventuring rules pp 214-242. There are charts of potential complications, profits, downtime activities, etc. for different types of lands and holdings. They're super handy to have as guidelines for deciding what outcomes make the most sense within any DM's given world, but they can be a bit crunchy, so I wouldn't recommend employing every micromanagement downtime option unless all the players are on board with playing Sim Farmville on a particular given night.
there are things I liked about the stronghold design, and things I didn't, tbh I liked it a bit more than strongholds and followers, it's less tied to specific classes (than S&F), it could be less tied to dnds class system and I'd like it more if it wasn't so tied to character advancement,(but like you have a preference for rules-lite I have a preference for classless or class-lite and levelless) but I like that the bastions are nicely modular, and the events are pretty cool
I think it would be fun if you did a quick review of Strongholds and Followers
Acquisitions Incorporated has really fun mechanic for maintaining a "franchise" but even the book says the rules could work for a non-Acq Inc game base as well. While the book is meant to be fairly silly the base mechanics are really cool!
I'd like to see this compared to versions of Strongholds from older editions.
Of all the things that One D&D has done or changes I am really into this concept of Bastions. They sound fun and they give character something else to spend their gold on. I am assuming the magic items that can be found are limited in type of power levels. Hoping this concept is expended.
My favorite part is they the DMG list has Temple (small) and Temple (big) but under Building a Stronghold there is only 1 temple option for 50k gold and 400 days
Bardic Quest (UK DM)- Does a thorough review over a couple of videos - well worth a watch.
Actually had a game where the players start (LV1) at an abandoned tower. That was their bastion and safe location. It wasn't in good shape, and the intention was they'd gradually build it up
I like the concept of the bastions, I think more work is needed though. Not everyone has a bastion, now everyone should have a bastion. Kinda weird its tied to level, I somewhat get it though.
I might be the only one, but I absolutely *love* the Bastion system *specifically* because of it's complexity! The concept of a "home" (and the ability to customize said home) is really important to me, both in real life and in games, and DnD 5e dosen't really have anything to scratch that itch. The strongholds in the 2014 DMG are *far* too simple and inconsistent for me to enjoy them: the system just isn't rigid enough. Bastions, on the other hand, allow the perfect amount of complexity, mechanical benefits and freedom of customization, while still being simple enough to understand and memorize. The moment I saw this playtest, my head started bursting with ideas for different Bastions, and so far, designing them has been *incredibly* fun and rewarding!
THAT SAID, there are also a lot of things that need to be changed, because at the moment, some parts of the system aren't particularly well thought of, such as the level cap thing. Like seriously. *What??* *WHY* do I need to be level 13 to build a *pub?* *WHY* so I need to be level 13 to build a *thropy room?!* Why can't lower level adventurers have an offical place to store all the cool things they have found during their adventures?! *WHY* do I need to be level 9 to build a *stable?* You know, that place where you keep horses and sh!t. Do you mean that every settlement in Faerun that has a stable also has a 9:th level character living in them? And that every settlement with a pub has a 13:th level character living in them?? Like, seriously, the level requirement system needs to go, (preferably along with any other special requirements for any special facilities, to allow for more customization and creative freedom) and either be replaced with gold costs or bastion point costs. Moreover, the whole level progression system for Bastions needs to go as well, along with the limit of how many special facilities you can have. Also, I'd say erase the rule that prevents some special facilities from being expanded. What if I want to have a Vast trophy room? Why shouldn't I be able to expand it? What is preventing me? It just makes no sense.
*HOWEVER,* the *MOST* important thing that needs to go is the *FREE RESPAWN AT YOUR BASTION ONCE PER LEVEL.* I'm being serious, it exists. No explanation or anything, you can just do that once per level. Like straight from a videogame. 😑 I don't think I have ever seen a bigger immersion breaker in DnD, lmfao.
So yeah, there's things that need refining here, (including some smaller ones I didin't mention), but overall, I'm in love with this new base building system. With some adjustments, I can see it being something great! Here's hoping it's here to stay.
It's not a problem gain a bastion at level 5 if the DM want, a few lines earlier you read "it's up to dm when bastions will be avaliable", it's just a guideline
Strongholds and Followers is great, but likely more crunch than you are after. It is worth checking out for inspiration though (all in all its not that large in general as a large chunk of the book is the warfare system).
I know I'm not everyone, but on my big sound system I can hear stuff hitting the microphone arm and just a general low frequency random thumping. if you slap a high pass filter on your audio for like 65-70hz and above you would save some bandwidth on your video bitrate and my ears/sanity when watching on my desktop ;)
Keep up the great work! Thanks for going over all this UA so I can know what to spend my time on ;)
I personally love the bastion points system, It's something I've been wanting to implement and has all of the tools that I'd want to do that, albeit being flexible enough to bend it to my game. It could use some tweaking, but I think this is one of the best things from the playtest so far.
On the one hand, it's certainly something that did not feel very fleshed out in the D. M. G and I appreciate having a few concepts to play around with. On the other hand, as presented in this playtest, it's very game-ified, It feels like a Mini game that you would have in a video game R. P. G. But like with many things presented in the core rules, I look at it as a jumping off point. It's there for you to use as is, but it's often more useful as a piece of inspiration for you to create your own rules/ mechanics. I will probably use some of these concepts, but not the actual mechanics as presented.
I have never (nor do I think I would ever) use the hard rules for Strongholds and Bastions. I don't personally feel I would need it, and I think it adds too much unneeded complexity to a game. I used the adventure The Wild Sheep Chase for my group earlier on, and they ended up taking over the treehouse from the adventure. I let them sell off the equipment they couldn't use, and allowed them to use it as a home base. It is basically just a stopping point for them where they can rest that is on the outskirts of the local town. We have had some great things happen with it too, as on one occasion I had them arrested from it by the local town guard due to the way they acquired it (and a large number of semi-made up charges against them). It was a great session and they all had a ton of fun with it.
I do like the idea of having the home base have some utility to it, but I feel that would be something I would just homebrew as needed, or let my players suggest things they would like it to do and consider if it could reasonably do that or not. I could see it being a useful source of crafting potions, for example, but I don't know that I would let them get magic items otherwise from it. But if my players could come up with a scheme where they craft potions and create some trade agreement with the town to supply them with healing, I could see that working out to a trade agreement that would grant a magic item that the town acquired every X amount of potions. But I would want it to all be player driven and let them figure out how they would want it to work, then I would adjudicate it.
Overseeing the construction of these structures (5E version) seems a great excuse for where that one character went who is no longer active in the party.
This UA packet coming out is really helpful for me. I planned to allow my players to rebuild an abandoned town and make it their own, finding and meeting NPCs looking to start up their own businesses or finding a place to work, and sending said NPCs back to the town to open their services.
So far Bastion Rules look to be heavily gamified so they can turn D&DBeyond/OneD&DVTT into a MMORPG.
Edit 1: Though I can see some good ideas that can be homebrewed into nice & not-too-complicated Base system.
Edit 2: And we have to remember that this is UA, so it might improve before release.
You might like the downtime activities written for the game 'Through Ultan's Door'. They each have those event tables you mentioned, are rules light and a lot of fun.
Now I feel compelled to change my homebrew files folder to "table of handbooks"!
The level 5 thing is likely because someone on the D&D design team watched an old Colville video where he talked about how back in earlier editions around level 5 was where Fighters started getting stuff like followers and strongholds as part of their design space/power budget to set them apart from Wizards who got to start throwing around lightning bolts and summoning meteor swarms.
...or they knew about the level 5 thing he was referencing. Because it's a D&D thing and they are D&D. They self reference to older editions constantly, this is nothing new. Dig through the monsters and you find near constant references to 2e especially, but to all editions frequently. Many of 5e's best ideas were taken from previous editions or expanded upon versions of old mechanics.
Complex, but serviceable. I am surprised that they haven't considered taking ruined buildings or abandoned locations and turn them into Bastions. For instance, turning a dungeon into a Bastion. It opens the doors to possible "Bastion Wars".
However, the rules could be streamlined as you said and a bit simpler. I think they are trying to turn D&D into "Playing House" but with castles and forts.
Honestly, I’d be up for what you suggested. A small list of available options, with costs and profits for each, a minor and major benefit based on maybe effort or cost, and a chance for a complication
I think what they're doing helps give people a general structure. Any of that can be expanded or changed, but inspiration is always* useful.
I enjoyed the silly style you had for this video.
As you were going through the video I thought to myself, "Perhaps Bob should make a supplement about strongholds/bastions," and then you told us you already made one. Whoa! 😯
Strongholds & Followers is beefy, but it's not actually super complicated and it doesn't waste your time, and at least a 3rd of the book is an adventure and monster stats.
Complete Campaign for Pathfinder has not only a system for building your own strongholds but a system for running a business
I love MCDM. But if my players want a stronghold I'll take a look at the Bastion UA first. I've read a lot of S&F and still don't quite get it. Which makes sense. Matthew Colville thought running 4e was easy. Oh another thing I thought was funny about this: MCDM: "We can do the Monster Manual better than WoTC", WoTC: "We can do Strongholds and Followers better than MCDM". (Just some drama that took place in my mind and thought was entertaining... Maybe I should just watch more RUclips.) Love all your content Bob! Please keep up the great work!!!
Thanks for the video! I love the little red flag graphic\sound effect. That's so what I do in me head when I read or see something like "wait what?" . . . .to me I' e always struggled with wanting to give a stronghold to my players (depending on group) and I didn't even know there were rules for that in DMG but. . . So far I'm not stoked about what you've showed here. It's . . . .toooo specific and I get they want to give guidelines for new DMs. . .this just . . . I think I'll do what I always do and use what I like\is useful and leave the rest.
Fragged Kingdoms, an indi RPG from Australia has a robust settlement/downtime/crafting system for those who want to delve into these kinds of things.
Watching you go through the ass-backwards DMG was great catharsis. Thank you.
Most campaigns I've run have the PCs locked into an intricate web of conflicts that won't allow them to back off and establish a bastion. I'm thinking of Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation. How can you consider running a bastion in either of these campaigns? At fifth level, you are cutting through the jungle and suddenly you acquire a bastion. I think this system might work best in a campaign that requires it, not a general campaign where the DM typically wants to make every session as invigorating as possible. That being said- I like it and I hope to try it out.
Please do a video on strongholds and followers. ❤
Maybe the bastion being tied to level is sort of like getting a knighthood from the various grateful people you've helped?
It is a bit of an oversight that having no defenders seem to result in nothing negative happening.
In fact, you don't get your defenders killed if you have none! But you still fight of the attackers... somehow? Flawless victory! 🤔
Has potential though, so it should be good to use with some tweaks. I enjoy it when players want to lay down roots somewhere in the world.
Please check out the OD&D Rules Cyclopedia!
It not only has rules for bastions, but even being a landowner and managing your lands. Depending on the country's laws only fighters become nobles or some others can too. You can become so filthy rich you can construct HUGE magical items, like a submarine, flying viking ship or even a flying castle!
Imagine finding a treasure hoard including ALL of 2E (ADnD) most of 3E/3.5 and for OD&D this one book that contains everything you need. We of course started with that, and later assumed the advanced game to be more complex but better. We also used the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set and a gazetteer (Glantri).
Later a bit disappointed by many of the changes and the amount of trash and gimmicks you don't need. Guess OD&D spoils you! Off course some thing got improved, but easy to incorporate as homebrew. Only the Dark Sun campaign topped the Mystara one.
5E looks as a fixed version of 3E, but we never tried it. (4E was a failed kids game.) Instead just use this homebrew overhaul of 3E that combines all editions.
I agree that tying this to character level is weird with one exception. If these were structured so they were choices the player needed to make when the character leveled up. Meaning, the bastion would expand the available character level options. That way the bastion still "grows" without the character getting exponentially more powerful without having any cost.
While I have Strongholds & Followers and consider it pretty good product, I really haven't used it. That is due to the fact that none of my players have ever indicated interest. Also, it's complex enough that it starts becoming the campaign. That isn't bad, but clearly steers the players toward certain styles of campaign play.
Great video. But was I the only one that heard weird bass thumps at differing parts throughout?
My Savage Pathfinder group just invested in rebuilding a ruined keep that they came across during the last arc. They're also investigating opportunities to get into trade. Thankfully, the Fantasy Companion has Stronghold rules, and a third-party supplement has some organization rules I can use for the Noble House and merchant company (and probably the thieves' guild that the rogue wants to build, though I haven't decided whether that will be part of the House or its own thing). Innately, the SW Stronghold rules don't involve gold except on a special event that's meant to be an adventure hook, basically, HOWEVER, these players were looking for something to spend a pile of gold on that they had accumulated over that arc, so I put together some numbers from Colville's Strongholds and Followers, the Savage PF magic item rules for a teleport circle, and the "usual place" for some other line-items.
None of this stuff is actually in play QUITE yet, but we'll probably go over it next session. One of the things I like about Savage Worlds' handling of Strongholds is that each one has a drawback of some kind, and a bonus of some kind, and these are sort of irrespective of what the stronghold actually IS. (In the case of my Savage PF maniacs' ruined keep, it's pretty remote--about 10 days distant from their usual home base. Their boon, on the other hand, is the ghost of the last Lord of the place, whose hubris casued it to fall into ruin, and he is consigned to remain a shade to help assure that the same fate doesn't befall its new stewards.) But the FORM of the stronghold is a small keep, and the PCs decided they wanted a barracks for some dedicated defenders and stables for animals (which provide specific benefits. As they Advance, they can add things like gardens, further fortifications, a training area, a 'Sanctuary' (generic term for a religious facility), a library, a hospital, or even a monument to inspire the heroes (with their own greatness, I guess?).
All that is to say, if you ran Savage Worlds, I bet you'd appreciate them! They're fun without being overly complicated.
Personally, my favorite Stronghold supplement is Walrock Homebrew's. It's got a more sensible execution with categories of stronghold that echoes the DMG (with descriptions!). Each Stronghold has a number of available rooms, and then a list of rooms you can buy with their little benefits.
And honestly, I don't actually like MCDM's S&F book. It too, feels gamey, and just boils down to giving characters lair actions and a followers subsystem.
Crawford being an overbearing referee in his home games would make me laugh so much. He's so slick on camera.
Ive never heard of wizard without a wizards tower. Ive always thought they would be able to manifest or declare a permit place at a certain level to be their tower.
Check out City and Wild from the dms guild. It has a section in the middle regarding Strongholds and building them which were adapted from a 3rd edition book that covered the same topic. Just one of two page of general rules and then a list of the components that were translated to 5e.
Would love to see your opinion on it and perhaps on the book as a whole since it introduces a lot of interesting concepts that can be very modular to a game.
The bastion ideas seem cool, but I think I thought of Deep Space Nine sort of thing than the party running it.
i really recommend looking at older editions especia;ly as were tied to followers systems in 1st or earlier eds
then chuck them and play pendragon/steal rules and use seasons or years for your domain turns
OD&D (Vol 3, pg 20, 1974), B/X (1981) and BECMI (1983), AD&D, etc. all had building Castles & Strongholds as a function of play, mostly higher level wilderness and domain play. I'm guessing this sort of fell off the map in 3E? Not sure (I only have ever played B/X, 2E and 5E). Daddy Rolled a 1 did a recent excellent vid on some of the history of D&D and Strongholds, "Is Wizards of the Coast Bringing Back Domain Level Play?" Definitely recommend looking at past editions to understand some of the idea behind what they are doing - plus it is always fascinating to look back.
I'd love if they actually take the bastion system and adapt in something like the stars without number faction turns system. I'm glad bastions exist beyond "Oh these exist just to drain money" but really I think if they're gonna try to make domain level play comeback in 5e the factions system from stars without number is just the best way to do it.
I also wish they'd acknowledge fabricate and wall of stone in these rules because construction would be so so much faster in D&D than they give it credit for.
Basically it's a return towards the TSR let's call them level 7-9 followers rules, but updated and somewhat gamified. Truthfully I'd go with level 5 is when it's "complete" for the level 5 people, but it's been being built since about level 3. Basically those 2 levels are supposed to kinda be where you really go from being Jo/e the Adventurer towards Jo/e The Local hero. Also kinda seen it done elsewhere where yeah you get followers and something akin to BP where there was interviews for followers, and the building took less time (because magical means in a magical-ish city) but man the ease at which you can plan for the level 5 "you get it", is a long enough time to do so (even in starting at level 3 games) that the DM can reasonably come up with way to work it into the adventure.The events could use some work, but ultimately about half my games that have gone all the way included a "bastion" of some dort, and man, the RP between Hirelings and the players got to the point that there were actually entire months where we were pretty much RP heavy, and have in fact changed the course of the campaign.
This bastion thing looks great.
I like the concept, one thing I think would be cool, is if they incorporate a background or 2 into the bastion system, allowing the player to operate a bastion a tier earlier than other characters. I think it would be appropriate to not give this background a feat like many of the new backgrounds are already giving in onednd. Adventures come in all shapes, sizes, and varying ages. Who’s to say someone didn’t own a house, business or run a garden before taking up adventuring for one reason or another.
I think its a good idea, but I would like it to feel more story driven. Sure they have some hooks, but like you said it's all Level based.
A 289 page book on strongholds and followers COULD be concise depending on the number of buildings covered. Say 50 different types of structures or businesses each with a one page map, two paragraphs of description and some stats for construction costs, sale price, upkeep costs, potential profits and losses, typical staffing requirements, etc. So 100 pages, but really only two pages per stronghold leaving 189 pages for followers, which again might be two pages each for a blacksmith to undead