The latest UA for the 2024 Core Rulebooks throws us something profoundly new: a whole new gameplay system that is to be found in the DMG. Part of the fantasy in D&D, especially as one climbs to higher levels, is to see your player characters become movers and shakers in their fantasy worlds. While yes, you can have a campaign that goes all the way to level 20 just exploring and traveling from place to place, many campaigns at some point have the party set up a home base (urban campaigns, like those set in Ravnica or Sigil-focused campaigns in Planescape certainly lend themselves to this).
This system is big and new, and so I don't think I can do a full comprehensive breakdown of the system here, though I'll do what I can.
Somewhat like the Starship system in Starfinder, your "budget" to create a bastion is pleasingly divorced from the regular gold economy - sort of. Basically, building the Bastion happens as a result of leveling up, starting at level 5, but expanding it and sometimes making use of its facilities requires the investment of gold.
Honestly, this might not be such a bad thing, because if you're not a Wizard and you've gotten the best equipment that gold can buy (which usually excludes most magic items, which have to be found, typically) you usually run out of things to spend your gold on other than the occasional costly spell reagent.
Interestingly, each player gets their own Bastion, though the rules suggest you can easily build them together to have a singular group headquarters. But this does allow for a little independence and separate flavoring. A Wizard could go the classic route and have a tower, while a Monk might build a monastery or a Fighter might built a fort. An Artificer probably has some kind of workshop (though we'll get into the specific facilities, one of which is the Workshop, which Artificers ironically don't qualify for unless you count tool expertise as a kind of skill expertise).
For the most part, maintaining the Bastion is free - you have hirelings that keep the place running, but the assumption is that the business that they get up to is self-sustaining and pays their salaries.
Bastions function a bit like downtime activities, and usually get to take a "turn" every seven days, which allows players to set the facilities and their hirelings on a course of action that will have some benefit, most of which don't require the player character to be there.
Bastions accrue "Bastion Points" or "BP" on each of their turns - each special facility contributing a certain number on each Bastion turn. Different facilities roll a different die when they fulfill an order, or just 1d4 if they are told to simply "maintain." When a character levels up (or when they hit the XP required for an Epic Boon) BP can then be traded in for various things, but primarily magic items - including up to legendary quality items (though I suspect that it will take a long time to acquire the 700 BP required to get one). The DM of course remains the arbiter on whether a magic item can be attained, but this provides a way for the players to seek out and target a particular magic item.
BP can also be spent to spread word of how great the player character is, giving them advantage on charisma checks, or 100 can be spent to resurrect them if they die.
Indeed, the idea here is to encourage players to get creative on building their own locations and NPCs, which I think is fantastic. Most facilities come with at least one Hireling NPC, and the player is encouraged to come up with the name and personality for that character.
Facilities come in the basic or special varieties. Basic facilities are mundane rooms like kitchens or bedrooms, and are there primarily for flavor purposes. Special facilities have a function, which we'll list in an abbreviated manner. Rooms range from Cramped (4 5x5 foot squares) to Roomy (16) to Vast (36), and gold can be spent expanding facilities to larger sizes if needs be - which can have a mechanical benefit on some rooms.
Bastion defenders can also be hired, and serve to defend the bastion in the event of an attack. Again, these are supported by the budget of the bastion, so no bookkeeping required by the players.
On your bastion's turn, you can give orders to each of your special facilities. These facilities have level requirements, and you start with two, getting two more at level 9, one more at level 13, and another at level 17. (Basically, it's your PB other than starting with only two at level 5).
Facilities have level requirements and sometimes other prerequisites - such as needing to be able to use an Arcane focus to have an Arcane Study facility (which makes it nice that Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights can now use those).
The orders you can give your facilities are as follows, and the facilities can, I believe, each do only one of these other than Maintain, which is a catch-all when you don't want to do anything in particular).
Let me do a quick rundown of facilities:
Level 5 Facilities:
Arcane Study
Requires the ability to use an Arcane Focus. Can Craft blank books and arcane foci, which can be sold for gold. Also lets you cast identify once for free if you spend a Long Rest here.
Armory
No requirement. Lets you Trade to arm your bastion defenders, making it less likely you'll lose any if your bastion is attacked.
Barracks
No requirement. Lets you Recruit to add four bastion defenders to your bastion, with room for up to 12 (or 25 if you upgrade the facility to Vast for 2000g.)
Garden
No requirement. Lets you Harvest to gain Decorative plants (which can be sold for gold,) Food (which can also be sold), Herbs (enough to make a single potion of healing) or Poison (enough to make two vials of Antitoxin or one of Basic Poison). You can swap what the garden is growing but this takes 21 days. You can also enlarge the garden to vast for 2000g and you can have two crops growing at once, or two of the same.
Library:
No requirement. Lets you Research to gain information about legends, events, locations, people, creatures, or famous objects. You get up to three accurate pieces of information about the topic, determined by DM.
Sanctuary:
Requires the ability to use a Holy symbol or Druidic focus as a spell focus. Lets you Craft to create a Sacred Focus (a Druidic Focus or Holy Symbol) that can be sold (or used, of course). If you spend a long rest within the bastion, you can cast Healing Word once for free at half your level, rounded down
Smithy:
Requires Fighting Style or Unarmored Defense. Lets you Craft to create twenty pieces of simple ammunition or a simple weapon at half the normal cost. You can also spend 14 days and 800 gold to make a simple Masterwork Weapon, which is nonmagical but permanently becomes a +1 weapon if the Magic Weapon spell is cast on it. You can also craft a suit of Medium or Heavy armor, 20 caltrops, a 10-foot chain, a crowbar, a grappling hook, a hammer (regular or sledge,) 4 horseshoes, a hunting trap, a set of manacles, a miner's pick, 10 iron spikes or pitons, an iron pot, a metal Shield, or a shove. The work takes 7 days or 21 days for a suit of armor, all at half cost. Or! You can make a martial weapon after 14 days at half price, or a masterwork Martial weapon, which takes 21 days, and has the same benefit of becoming permanently magical if Magic Weapon is cast on it.
Storehouse:
No requirement. Lets you Trade to acquire up to 500g worth of nonmagical items, or you can have them sell these items off with a profit. At level 9, the total you can buy and sell increases to 2000g, then 5000 at level 13. At level 5, you get a 10% profit on selling these things. At level 9, the profit is 20%. At level 13, it's a 50% profit, and at level 17, you make a full 100% profit.
Workshop:
Requires Expertise in a skill. Lets you Craft a tiny nonmagical object that can be made with Carpenter's Tools, Cobbler's Tools, Glassblower's Tools, Mason's Tools, Potter's Tools, Tinker's Tools, Weaver's Tools, or Woodcutter's Tools. The process takes 7 days and costs nothing as long as the object is not worth more than 10g. If it's more, you pay half the item's cost. If you spend a Short Rest int he Workshop, you get Heroic Advantage (the new name for Inspiration) and can get this benefit once per long rest.
So, that's all the facilities you can get at level 5. There are several others that you can get at level 9, 13, or 17, which we'll get into in later posts.
Broadly speaking, I think this probably works better as a more mechanically simply form of Downtime. It does still require players and DMs to track time, which can be a challenge, but I think there's a lot of fun to the concept here, and it's something genuinely new, which has been somewhat lacking in this playtest.
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