The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons has a whole chapter on Bastions, character homes/fortresses with special abilities and characteristics. We’ve been discussing them extensively and I have thoughts.
The Maintain Bastion Order is broken. It prevents the Bastion from conducting any business (generating income or performing other useful tasks), and invites attack. Per the rules, Bastion Events only occur during Maintain weeks, which means if a Bastion is never idle (Maintaining), it will never be attacked. Great! Just set standing orders and you don’t need any Bastion Defenders.
One alternative is to roll 1d4 weekly. On a 1, roll again on the Bastion Events table; on 2-4 nothing happens. “All Is Well” has a 50% probability on the Bastion Events table, so my suggestion provides a 12.5% chance of some event, an 87.5% chance of no event, and a 1.25% chance of Attack any given week. This is equivalent to having the Bastion Maintain one week in four, compensating for the fact that characters have no reason to Maintain.
Another option is to simply roll on the Bastion Events table every week. The risk here is that several consecutive Attacks could kill all Bastion Defenders and disable one Special Facility. The odds are absurdly low, though. Attack is a 5% probability on the Bastion Events table, losing 6 attackers in a single Attack is a 1/36 = 2.78% chance, and it would take 3 worst-case Attacks to kill all 12 Bastion Defenders and damage the Bastion itself. Just Recruit whenever below maximum Bastion Defenders, and all should be well. In the worst case the damaged Special Facility will be back online after a week.
Attack
- An Attack is processed by rolling 6d6. For each 1 rolled, a Bastion Defender dies. A full Barracks holds 12 troops (and can Recruit 4 in a week), so a Bastion can survive 2 consecutive worst-case (1/36 chance) attacks without losing all defenders and taking structural damage or losing any functionality. Obviously, under the DMG rules the first thing to do after an attack is to Recruit more (free) troops, so the Bastion itself is never damaged or disabled. This makes a no-brainer standing order if the character is away and out of contact. Under the DMG rules, Attacks do not occur during Recruit turns (only Maintain), so the Bastion itself would never be at risk.
Defenses
- Barracks hold up to 12 solders at the base Roomy size, or 25 at the Vast size (2,000gp upgrade). The free Recruit action adds up to 4 Bastion Defenders per week.
- An Armory only provides one benefit: The “Trade: Stock Armory” order costs 100gp + 100gp/Bastion Defender. When Bastion Defenders are so armed, rolls to kill them are 1d8 instead of 1d6; the stock is lost after an attack. With a Smithy this cost is halved. If Recruit is always available there is no reason for an Armory. Hiring, keeping, and losing Bastion Defenders does not cost anything, and so long as there are any Defenders, the Bastion functions normally. There are many better Special Facilities.
- A Menagerie can house 4 Large creatures, or up to 16 Small/Medium creatures. Each can be a Bastion Defender if desired.
- A War Room houses 2-10 Lieutenants and their Guards or Mounted Guards. Each Lieutenant reduces the number of dice rolled to kill Bastion Defenders. If 6+ Lieutenants stay at the Bastion (not roving or waging war), the original Barracks and Armory are no longer needed.
- The Smithy is lucrative — at L5, each week it can produce a 1,500gp set of Plate Armor for 750gp in materials. [Update 2024/12/13: I didn’t realize that, per the Player’s Handbook crafting rules, this would take 2 smiths 75 days, for 10gp/day profit.]
- Defensive Walls (250gp per 5′ square) reduce the number of dice rolled by 2. For a large Bastion the cost is both high and unnecessary.
- The Guest and Request for Aid Bastion Events also use Bastion Defenders.
Attack Roles and Costs
- With 12 Bastion Defenders (full Roomy Barracks), an Attack is 6d6 but does not cost anything or disable the Bastion (unless all Defenders are killed).
- With 12 Defenders and a stocked Armory, an attack is 6d8 and restocking for 12 Defenders costs 1,300gp.
- With 25 Defenders and a stocked Armory, an attack is 6d8 and restocking for 25 Defenders costs 2,600gp.
- With 12 Defenders and a stocked Armory and a Smithy, an attack is 6d8 and restocking for 12 Defenders costs 650gp.
- With 25 Defenders and a stocked Armory and a Smithy, an attack is 6d8 and restocking for 25 Defenders costs 1,300gp.
Our Decision
Our party opted to combine our Bastions into a single large building so one Barracks can defend us all, and we share other defensive facilities (Smithies). We don’t have an Armory or Defensive Walls.