I do love the idea of ending a session, saying - 'take a bastion turn; let me know what the result is, and let's pick up next time.' That gives plenty of room to offer the player a self-chosen narrative, allow it to be a simple mechanical benefit, or - as you say - plan an encounter, or even a whole session+ based on the result. Also re: moving bastions, we can definitely look to the 5e Planescape adventure Turn of Fortune's Wheel and the moving castles of the Outlands.
Your videos invariably leave me with more ideas than I know what to do with! Thank you for the inspiration you provide. I am running an entire campaign more or less based off something that sprung to mind from an old video of yours (don't ask me what, the origins are lost to the mists of time!) Reskinning bastion rules is great, and I look forward to hearing more. My thoughts are for different flavours - urban bastions that are inside existing cities, rural bastions that could be an entire town, or a keep that overlooks a town, and remote bastions fortress of solitude-style, with different events and rules for each. Trading from the fortress of solitude is hard, but the place is much, much safer, for example.
I hadn't really looked into the Bastions, but this video made me realize that I've been using these already. Having mechanics might make my players more interested in the creation. This is a very inspiring video. Thank you.
In my current campaign a party ally was just gifted a barony as his fief by the Emperor. Party will be helping him develop it, but soon a rival lord and guild master will be marching an army against them, so building the bastion is part of preparing for a war arc.
Have you considered integrating the Advanced Backgrounds from the Campaign Guide with Bastions? It looks like there's a lot of overlap, particularly with Holdings as Facilities and Progressions standing in for Bastion turns.
@@GhostfireGaming For the Professions section of Advanced Backgrounds, while the Standard Background in the new PHB would suffice as a base with which to work, I think you could use the Custom Backgrounds rules to greater effect, focusing on the skill and tool proficiencies portion. You also have some of the Traits from the Heritage system that are synonymous with skills, as well as the skills you get from your class choices. In other words, from where the skills originate is not as important as which skills are prerequisites for each Profession, and then which Bastion/Holding applies.
I play-tested the UA Bastion rules in my campaign and really liked how much my players enjoyed interacting with and creating NPCs and dealing with my own bastion events. I would love to hear more of your ideas!
How about a Monster Hunter Bastion advanced facility such as a Vivisectorium? You can bring cadavers or body parts from monsters you have fought and bested back to the Vivisectorium in order to dissect them yourself, or have hirelings do it for you, to further advance your understanding of that type of creature (Undead, Fiend, Aberration and so forth) and garner extra benefits from your Monster Hunter's grimoire when you face that sort of creature in the future. You might need to dissect a certain number of a particular creature type before you are able to add it to your selection of types of monsters you are skilled at hunting as part of your class progression process. You could even tie it into quests by having the ability to learn information about the origin or nature of a creature from its remains (or the remains of one of its victims) from study in the Vivisectorium that could lead the party to a new quest.
How would you handle a (for example) a 5th level character taking over a 9th level character's bastion? Maybe Level 9 was the BBG and the PCs defeated him. Would those level 9 facilities just become inactive until our PC hero advances to high enough level to reactive them?
I literally played through this quest yesterday. Haven't played the Witcher in 5 years but I reinstalled it this week to play it on Death March and get the plat
So Ben I take it you going to be giving us new Bastions rules in the 2024 Grim Hollow books? Awesome video by the way and thank you for your hard work.
I love your bastion events. I’m DMing a Ravenloft campaign, but I decided to put the Deck of Many Things into it. One of the PCs drew the Throne card, which gives you a keep that you first need to clear the monsters out of. I decided to make it so the keep is in its own private domain, which only follows some of the rules of the other domains, and they can access it through a magic tattoo that appeared on the character who drew the card. They finished clearing it out in our last session. I’m planning to let them use it as a bastion.
I have a bunch of old Magic the Gathering cards. I took a few standouts and made my own Deck of Many Things. When players draw from it, I pick a selection of cards and fan them out for the player to pick from. Similar to how Matt Mercer handled the deck on Critical Role. I try to get players to draw the Temple of the False God card as early as possible to give them a keep. Then, I start adding cards for secondary buildings/facilities, NPCs that come and live in the bastion, and even monsters to populate a dungeon. When they draw the Cellar Door card, a door appears in the back of the bastion kitchen. Behind the door is a stairway that leads down to a fun house dungeon full of any Shivan dragons, Sengir vampires, wurms, liches, or horror cards the players drew. It helps that I run the deck like it is a domain of dread all by itself. Once you start drawing from the deck, the deck does everything it can to keep you drawing.
I'm planning my third campaign after playing with my friends for about 10 years now and before I knew bastions were going to be such a big thing in the new DMG I knew I wanted my players to have a space of their own while still allowing them to travel across this European like continent without feeling like they had to spend so much time traveling back to get things done. In a sort of session zero I spit balled the idea of a personal train that they could use to travel but also have their space nearby and have cool scenarios like some horrible flying creatures attack them while traveling to a new country. They immediately went nuts over the idea and just kept chanting train over and over again. I couldn't even get to the more horror aspects of the campaign lol. It's nice to see that they'll have some rules in the book that will help me flesh out this idea even further to add some fun mechanics to it!
What if the PCs have ownership of bastions at lvl1? At the start of the campaign? As part of the character creation you are choosing your species, class, background - and one bastion facility at the city of X? Maybe the PCs are living in the same city. Each PCs have some property in this city. And have some "hirelings" - fellow neighbours, collegues, etc. Maybe you introduce your setting, the campaign starter - but the players are responsible for figuring out the starting location. How much more could be the players could be invested in the campaign's starting area if they have somekind of ownership in this location?
I'm really glad you think these ideas deserve to be in Grim Hollow Transformed, though Bastions unlikely to appear in the new D&D SRD we unfortunately can't include them.
I am a huge fan of the opinion in this video that GMs should make Bastions bespoke to the setting. It'll help embed them much more. I hadn't considered that concept, but I think it could make the system sing for me
Here's a good story hook for Bastions: Frequently, 'heist' campaigns are about the party pulling off the heist. What if the heist was pulled on the *party* at their Bastion(s) while they were away on a throw away adventure? Give the party a valuable item in a previous adventure, they then store in their Bastion and then they have to figure out how the theft was accomplished and get the treasure back.
As much as Bastions is interesting I have been using something similar to this for the last 40 years. A tavern, a Shop or a fortress you know those money sinks that we need to spend that gold on lol
I always wanted a Bastion mechanic in D&D, but my DMs said it was dumb cause adventuerers are always on the move. "It's not like we're sailing a ship!" Meanwhile, my Necromancer in 3.5 was making blueprints of animating a Giant Skeleton and modifying it to have a building/fort built into Its ribcage and have it double as Stoneplate Armor like Dwarves would wear. That image alone was all the reason I needed to master Corpsecrafting.
I think I may be selfish with my bastion. I want a New York style brownstone in Waterdeep for my half Drow noble Bronze Draconic sorcerer Arcane Archer which is at 11th level currently. So it will have a arcane study. Training area archery range in the basement. A greenhouse on the roof. The teleportation circle either in the primary bedroom or sub basement. Since my bastion will be in Waterdeep the chances of an Orc raid will probably not happen.
Re: moving bastions at 10:15 - I always wanted to set up a storyline around an adventuring party doubling as a traveling actor's troupe and the wagon for the troupe is mechamagical transforming stage complete with foley effects and trap doors and other fun automatons (like an orchestra), all accessories that be added as the party (now bastion) levels up, and the video clip at 12:00 was it! what was that from?
I do love the idea of ending a session, saying - 'take a bastion turn; let me know what the result is, and let's pick up next time.'
That gives plenty of room to offer the player a self-chosen narrative, allow it to be a simple mechanical benefit, or - as you say - plan an encounter, or even a whole session+ based on the result.
Also re: moving bastions, we can definitely look to the 5e Planescape adventure Turn of Fortune's Wheel and the moving castles of the Outlands.
I'm gonna bring this up in my own video this week, but yeh I think Bastion turns are perfect for in between sessions
Want more of your bastion events! :)
Yes, I would love to see more homebrewed bastion options!
Your videos invariably leave me with more ideas than I know what to do with! Thank you for the inspiration you provide. I am running an entire campaign more or less based off something that sprung to mind from an old video of yours (don't ask me what, the origins are lost to the mists of time!)
Reskinning bastion rules is great, and I look forward to hearing more.
My thoughts are for different flavours - urban bastions that are inside existing cities, rural bastions that could be an entire town, or a keep that overlooks a town, and remote bastions fortress of solitude-style, with different events and rules for each. Trading from the fortress of solitude is hard, but the place is much, much safer, for example.
I hadn't really looked into the Bastions, but this video made me realize that I've been using these already. Having mechanics might make my players more interested in the creation.
This is a very inspiring video. Thank you.
In my current campaign a party ally was just gifted a barony as his fief by the Emperor. Party will be helping him develop it, but soon a rival lord and guild master will be marching an army against them, so building the bastion is part of preparing for a war arc.
Have you considered integrating the Advanced Backgrounds from the Campaign Guide with Bastions? It looks like there's a lot of overlap, particularly with Holdings as Facilities and Progressions standing in for Bastion turns.
It's a good shout! I hadn't yet thought of how those two systems could mechanically interact, but there's definitely some thematic throughlines.
@@GhostfireGaming For the Professions section of Advanced Backgrounds, while the Standard Background in the new PHB would suffice as a base with which to work, I think you could use the Custom Backgrounds rules to greater effect, focusing on the skill and tool proficiencies portion. You also have some of the Traits from the Heritage system that are synonymous with skills, as well as the skills you get from your class choices. In other words, from where the skills originate is not as important as which skills are prerequisites for each Profession, and then which Bastion/Holding applies.
The moving bastion ideas are awesome!
I'm glad you like 'em! Definitely something I want to offer players at my table.
Fantastic video, Ben & GG Team! Super inspiring, great ideas, can’t wait to add these into my game. Keep the bastion ideas coming!
I play-tested the UA Bastion rules in my campaign and really liked how much my players enjoyed interacting with and creating NPCs and dealing with my own bastion events. I would love to hear more of your ideas!
How about a Monster Hunter Bastion advanced facility such as a Vivisectorium? You can bring cadavers or body parts from monsters you have fought and bested back to the Vivisectorium in order to dissect them yourself, or have hirelings do it for you, to further advance your understanding of that type of creature (Undead, Fiend, Aberration and so forth) and garner extra benefits from your Monster Hunter's grimoire when you face that sort of creature in the future. You might need to dissect a certain number of a particular creature type before you are able to add it to your selection of types of monsters you are skilled at hunting as part of your class progression process. You could even tie it into quests by having the ability to learn information about the origin or nature of a creature from its remains (or the remains of one of its victims) from study in the Vivisectorium that could lead the party to a new quest.
Cool stuff
Come on, make the video!
I love GH and I love the idea of Bastions, so a GH Bastion is a definite sale!
How would you handle a (for example) a 5th level character taking over a 9th level character's bastion? Maybe Level 9 was the BBG and the PCs defeated him. Would those level 9 facilities just become inactive until our PC hero advances to high enough level to reactive them?
His name's Bastion. He's my brother's dog. Well I guess he's mine now.
I literally played through this quest yesterday. Haven't played the Witcher in 5 years but I reinstalled it this week to play it on Death March and get the plat
So Ben I take it you going to be giving us new Bastions rules in the 2024 Grim Hollow books?
Awesome video by the way and thank you for your hard work.
I love your bastion events.
I’m DMing a Ravenloft campaign, but I decided to put the Deck of Many Things into it. One of the PCs drew the Throne card, which gives you a keep that you first need to clear the monsters out of. I decided to make it so the keep is in its own private domain, which only follows some of the rules of the other domains, and they can access it through a magic tattoo that appeared on the character who drew the card. They finished clearing it out in our last session. I’m planning to let them use it as a bastion.
I have a bunch of old Magic the Gathering cards. I took a few standouts and made my own Deck of Many Things. When players draw from it, I pick a selection of cards and fan them out for the player to pick from. Similar to how Matt Mercer handled the deck on Critical Role.
I try to get players to draw the Temple of the False God card as early as possible to give them a keep. Then, I start adding cards for secondary buildings/facilities, NPCs that come and live in the bastion, and even monsters to populate a dungeon. When they draw the Cellar Door card, a door appears in the back of the bastion kitchen. Behind the door is a stairway that leads down to a fun house dungeon full of any Shivan dragons, Sengir vampires, wurms, liches, or horror cards the players drew.
It helps that I run the deck like it is a domain of dread all by itself. Once you start drawing from the deck, the deck does everything it can to keep you drawing.
Love your event ideas! Thanks for the kind mention!
Thanks for crunching the numbers! 😄 It was invaluable.
These concepts are great! Thanks for the amazing ideas about bastions!
Do a whole PDF!
Please do a video with your custom bastion ideas/facilities
I'm planning my third campaign after playing with my friends for about 10 years now and before I knew bastions were going to be such a big thing in the new DMG I knew I wanted my players to have a space of their own while still allowing them to travel across this European like continent without feeling like they had to spend so much time traveling back to get things done. In a sort of session zero I spit balled the idea of a personal train that they could use to travel but also have their space nearby and have cool scenarios like some horrible flying creatures attack them while traveling to a new country. They immediately went nuts over the idea and just kept chanting train over and over again. I couldn't even get to the more horror aspects of the campaign lol.
It's nice to see that they'll have some rules in the book that will help me flesh out this idea even further to add some fun mechanics to it!
What if the PCs have ownership of bastions at lvl1? At the start of the campaign? As part of the character creation you are choosing your species, class, background - and one bastion facility at the city of X? Maybe the PCs are living in the same city. Each PCs have some property in this city. And have some "hirelings" - fellow neighbours, collegues, etc. Maybe you introduce your setting, the campaign starter - but the players are responsible for figuring out the starting location. How much more could be the players could be invested in the campaign's starting area if they have somekind of ownership in this location?
I would love to have another video for a bunch of suggestions for events and the like! If I could, I would subscribe more than once!
You should put these ideas in the Grim Hollow revised.
I'm really glad you think these ideas deserve to be in Grim Hollow Transformed, though Bastions unlikely to appear in the new D&D SRD we unfortunately can't include them.
OOh some dark fantasy options for bastions? Don't mind if I do~
I am craving more Aetherial Expanse content. A video focused on bastions and events for that style of campaign would be awesome.
Bastions have always been a part of the games I have been a part of since 3.5 e we just called it our base. I love building on these ideas
I am a huge fan of the opinion in this video that GMs should make Bastions bespoke to the setting. It'll help embed them much more. I hadn't considered that concept, but I think it could make the system sing for me
Gods darn it, got sniped by 24 hours for the Bastion video release
Can never have too many ideas for folks to draw on when creating the DnD campaign of their dreams!
Please do more, love your ideas
Been missing the videos :)
This was a great suprise. Amazing!
Here's a good story hook for Bastions: Frequently, 'heist' campaigns are about the party pulling off the heist. What if the heist was pulled on the *party* at their Bastion(s) while they were away on a throw away adventure? Give the party a valuable item in a previous adventure, they then store in their Bastion and then they have to figure out how the theft was accomplished and get the treasure back.
this might be something worth looking into from Oned&d
I refuse to use that ridiculous name, preferably the more sensible one instead: 5.5e
@@guyman1570 the fact that it is so ridiculous is why i continue to use it. we need to remember that WotC has made a mockery of this hobby
As much as Bastions is interesting I have been using something similar to this for the last 40 years. A tavern, a Shop or a fortress you know those money sinks that we need to spend that gold on lol
Yup, please do a whole vid. And support doc, pointy hat style :)
I always wanted a Bastion mechanic in D&D, but my DMs said it was dumb cause adventuerers are always on the move. "It's not like we're sailing a ship!"
Meanwhile, my Necromancer in 3.5 was making blueprints of animating a Giant Skeleton and modifying it to have a building/fort built into Its ribcage and have it double as Stoneplate Armor like Dwarves would wear. That image alone was all the reason I needed to master Corpsecrafting.
I think I may be selfish with my bastion. I want a New York style brownstone in Waterdeep for my half Drow noble Bronze Draconic sorcerer Arcane Archer which is at 11th level currently. So it will have a arcane study. Training area archery range in the basement. A greenhouse on the roof. The teleportation circle either in the primary bedroom or sub basement. Since my bastion will be in Waterdeep the chances of an Orc raid will probably not happen.
Will love one vid of idias
Re: moving bastions at 10:15 - I always wanted to set up a storyline around an adventuring party doubling as a traveling actor's troupe and the wagon for the troupe is mechamagical transforming stage complete with foley effects and trap doors and other fun automatons (like an orchestra), all accessories that be added as the party (now bastion) levels up, and the video clip at 12:00 was it! what was that from?
Love the new content ❤
I wanna dm a saltmarsh campaign with ships using bastion mechanics
BEN WE NEED TO TALK, WE LOOK VERY SIMILAR