William Brandes Stoddard
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Updated Bastion Special Facilities, Part One
🕑 Added 2025-12-12 17:27:50 +0000 UTCI had fun revising the first few Bastion Special Facilities in my previous post, so today I’m doing a few more. I’m still not sure what I want to do with the Barrack, beyond adding an -s to the end as most English speakers would, so I’m starting with the Garden.
Improving Bastions | Updated Special Facilities pt 1
A quick note up-front: I am aware that some of the BP to GP conversion math is bad right now. I need to get the core ideas in place before I can be sure what I want some of the math to do. Feedback on that is okay but I have no illusions.
Garden
Bastion Facility (again, cutting nonsense level requirements)
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 1
Order: Maintain 2d4 (spring, summer, and fall only), Harvest
In most Bastions, gardens need to be open to the sky for light and rain, though clever irrigation and a magical or technological light source can suffice as well. A garden needs regular tending, usually carried out by the hirelings that work here. The garden generates extra Bastion Points because it contributes to the supplies of other facilities and the whole Bastion as part of Maintain orders.
You decide what the garden grows. There are several general options, or you can grow rare and potentially magical plants and fungi from seeds or spores that you have discovered in your travels. When you change what is planted in the garden, you can’t use its Harvest action for three Bastion turns.
Harvest: Produce. You can’t use this action during winter months.
Decorative Plants: You can create two bouquets of flowers, two vials of Perfume, or two Candles for 1 BP, to a limit of 10 BP per Harvest action in this garden. (The Candles come from pollinators that produce usable wax.)
Edible Plants: You can create ten days’ worth of Rations for 1 BP, to a limit of 10 BP per Harvest action in this garden.
Healing Poultice: You can expend 10 BP to create ten Healer’s Kits or one Potion of Healing.
Poison: You can expend 5 BP to create one vial of Antitoxin, or 10 BP to create one vial of Basic Poison.
Rare Plants: You can harvest a copy of a rare plant or fungus for 2 BP, to a limit of 10 BP per Harvest action in this garden. The rare plants have their own rules for use in crafting.
Upgrades
As part of a Vast facility that also requires two additional hirelings, you can add a second selection from the Produce list above, or you can combine the Garden with a Greenhouse or Sanctuary. The combined special facilities count as only one special facility for the number you can have in your Bastion.
Greenhouse
Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Cramped or Roomy
Hirelings: 1 (Cramped) or 2 (Roomy)
Order: Maintain 1d4 (Cramped) or 1d8 (Roomy), Empower, Harvest
A greenhouse adds glass walls and a roof over a garden, protecting the plants from harsh weather, but also requiring more work to water the plants. Because of the controlled conditions, you can grow things here that might not grow in your Bastion’s normal clime.
Harvest: Rare Produce. Once you use this action, you can’t use it again for 1d4+1 Bastion turns.
Healing Tinctures. You can expend 25 BP to create a Potion of Healing (Greater). If you also have a Laboratory, you can create a Potion of Superior Healing for 50 BP.
Other Potions. If you have a formula, you can create a Common potion for 10 BP and an Uncommon potion for 25 BP. If you also have a Laboratory and a formula, you can create a Rare potion for 50 BP.
Empower. If your creature type is Plant, this is a very comfortable place to rest. When you use the Empower action, you gain 3 Rich Earth dice, which are d8s. When you regain Hit Points from any source, you can expend a Rich Earth die to roll it and gain the result as Temporary Hit Points.
Sanctuary
Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 0 or 1
Order: Maintain (1d4, or see below), Craft, or Empower
A sanctuary is a place of contemplation and religious devotion, typically decorated with symbols and artwork representing a god, pantheon, or lineage of ancestors. If you have the Acolyte Background or the ability to use a Holy Symbol or Druidic Focus as a Spellcasting Focus, the Maintain action grants BP equal to your Proficiency Bonus rather than 1d4.
Empower: Bastion Blessing. Your hireling prays and makes offerings here several times a day for seven days, expending a total of 14 GP of goods. Your Bastion receives a Blessing of Solace for 21 days. When you take Bastion actions during this time, you can reroll any die result of 1 from the Maintain action. When you roll a Bastion Event result, you can end the duration of the Bastion Blessing to roll again, choosing one result to keep.
Craft: Sacred Focus. You can expend 1 BP to create a Druidic Focus or Holy Symbol, to a limit of 10 per action. You can expend 50 BP to enchant an existing Druidic Focus or Holy Symbol: while you wear or wield the item and you are attuned to it, you gain a +1 bonus to spell attack rolls and the saving throw DCs of your spells. If you also have a Sacristy, you can expend 100 BP to give the item a +2 bonus instead. If you have a formula for a magic item that is a Druidic Focus or Holy Symbol, you can make a Common item for 20 BP, an Uncommon item for 50 BP, or a Rare item for 100 BP.
Upgrades
As part of a Vast facility that requires 1 additional hireling, you can combine the Sanctuary with a Garden or a Sacristy. The combined special facilities count as only one special facility for the number you can have in your Bastion.
Smithy
Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 2
Order: Maintain (1d6), Craft
The smithy contains all of the materials necessary to shape and temper ordinary metals, especially bronze, iron, and steel. This includes a forge, anvil, quenching bath, tongs, and hammers of varying weights. If you have the Guild Artisan Background or levels in the Artificer class, the Maintain action grants BP equal to your Proficiency Bonus rather than 1d6.
Craft Options
Mundane Goods. The hirelings craft anything that can be made with Smith’s Tools. You can expend 1 BP to replace 5 GP in production cost.
Magical Goods. You can expend 50 BP to make a Weapon, +1 or 50 BP to make Armor, +1 or Shield, +1. If you have a formula, you can make Common magic weapons, armor, and Shields for 20 BP and Uncommon for 50 BP. If you also have a Laboratory and a formula, you can make Rare items of those types for 100 BP.
(Side note: I’m taking it as read that most formulas require proficiency in one or more of Arcana, Nature, or Religion to use.)
Upgrades
As part of a Vast facility that requires 1 additional hireling, you can combine the Smithy with an Armory, a Workshop, or a Storehouse. The combined special facilities count as only one special facility for the number you can have in your Bastion.
With magical improvements to the forge (TBD), you can forge adamantine and mithral here.
Storehouse
Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy or Vast
Hirelings: 1 (Roomy) or 3 (Vast)
Order: Maintain (1d6), Trade
A storehouse offers storage, presumably organized but D&D can’t teach you clean to your room, for the goods that keep the Bastion running. A central storage location offers ease of use throughout the Bastion and better understanding of what you have or lack. The largest Bastions may need multiple Storehouses.
Trade. You can buy and sell large numbers of items and trade goods with money. You can expend 10 BP to wield political influence, securing a 10% markup or discount (whichever is in your favor) on up to 1,000 GP, or 20 BP for a 10% adjustment for expenditures over 10,000 GP. A Vast Storehouse can expend 30 BP for a 10% adjustment on expenditures up to 100,000 GP.
Restock. You can restock each of your special facilities and offer donatives to each of your hirelings. For every 10 GP you spend, you gain 1 BP, up to 50 BP per Bastion turn.
Resist Siege. A fully stocked Roomy Storehouse can hold 720 person-days of food. A fully stocked Vast Storehouse can hold 1,620 person-days of food.
Design Notes
The pieces of this are still coming together for me. As I mentioned above, the BP : GP economy is very much up in the air, and I’m not clever enough to foresee problems. (Translation: I haven’t done this enough times to have a lot of built-in mental shortcuts.)
My general thought is that the core Bastion rules stay so low-touch to the rest of the rules because all you’re spending is time. That is, there are very few ways to usefully spend money on your Bastion, and essentially none on your Bastion turns. Making your Bastion into a very favorable market that also has a time-linked currency (BP) means you can offer more throughput, because some choices lock out or delay others.
Eight special facilities down, twenty-one to go. (That’s before taking new special facilities, like the ones in the new Eberron book, into account.)
