Bastions inDungeons & Dragonsare a way for players to have their base of operations, where they can craft items, gather allies, and research all kinds of information. These structures can be attacked, either through random events or whenever the Dungeon Master deems it necessary for the plot.

Since players can combine their bastions to form a singular, massive structure, one of said players could craft their own base to become a bulwark of defense, protecting the bastions of the entire party. Several facilities serve some form of defensive purpose, letting you create the fortress of your dreams.

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Why Make A Defensive Bastion?

If you readthe description of bastionsin the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide carefully, you’ll see that it is ratherdifficult for the bastion to be attacked.For starters, the bastion canonly be attacked if you don’t issue an orderin a given week, something easy to solve withspells like Sendingno matter where you are in the multiverse.

There is also the fact that your bastion being attackedisn’t that big of a deal.If you lack any defenders,one of your facilities gets destroyed, but itfixes itself after a week; if you weren’t issuing orders anyway, you could forgo taking bastion turns for a month and not see too many repercussions.

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Roleplay

Your bastion isyour character’s home, and the NPCs you fill it with might have deep ties to them, their personality and desires. If you make one of your hirelingsyour character’s spouse, then you would certainly want to keep them safe, sincea bastion attack could prove lethal to them.

House Rules

Your Dungeon Master mightnot use bastions exactly as describedin the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide chapter,making attacks more frequentand troublesome than the rules as written. They might also target your bastion withan attack outside the random events table, particularly if it fits the narrative.

That last example will happen more often than you think, especiallyat higher tiers of play, since your party will likely be made up ofrenowned heroes of the land.Evildoers wanting to hinder the party will often look tosabotage their base of operationsthrough several nefarious means.

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Bastion Level Five

When you finally unlock your bastion, you should decide who among your party members willbuild the defensive bastion.It doesn’t make sense for more than one of you to do it unless your Dungeon Master rules that defenders of one bastioncan’t protect a different one.

You might be tempted tobuild walls all around your bastion, but unless you build a very thin, very tall tower, the cost of enclosing a bastion with walls isfar more expensivethan simply replacing any defenders that die. This is without mentioning how big bastions getwhen players join them, making the cost of walking everything up only possible at the higher tiers of play.

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Special Facilities

The main facility that you’ll base your entire bastion on is the barrack,the only way of getting defendersat level five. Whenever you take a bastion turn,you can recruit four new defenders, and the basic barrack can hold up to 12.

You don’t have to feed or pay themin any way, and they automaticallydefend your bastion against any threats.You canexpand your barrackat any point for 2,000 gold pieces, at which point it canhold up to 25 defenders.

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Since you’re able to have more than one barrack, it is a good idea to gettwo barracks at level five, instantly gaining eight bastion defenders from the get-go. This is a particularly good idea if your Dungeon Master establishes the campaign asa treacherous land where you’ll often be attacked.

You could add an armory instead of two barracks, but the point of the armory isto equip your defenders(for a gold cost) so they don’t easily die.It doesn’t guarantee that they’ll survive an attack, making it a rather costly addition when you can just have more free defenders.

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a bastion being built.

Bastion Level Nine

You canadd two more special facilitiesat this level, with several new options being unlocked. Most of themdon’t offer new ways to defend your bastion, though, so you could consideradding even more barracksto your bastion, possibly forming a small army to protect your lodgings.

While the armory was costly before, at level nine you’re able to addboth it and the smithy, making equipping your defenders something not so demanding. This is becausehaving a smithy reduces by half the cost of the armory services, and at level nine,the smithy can even craft magical weaponsfor you.

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The only other interesting option at this level isthe teleportation circle, mostly becauseonly one bastion needs to have itfor everyone to benefit from it. If you’re building a bastion focused on defense, you canlet everyone else deal with researchor money making, and having a teleportation circle in your bastion can help them save a facility slot.

Bastion Level 13

By this level, you’ll knowif your investment in defense is working, if you need to double down on it, or if you’ve gone too far. If you want to shift the focus of your bastion,you may change one of your special facilities each time you level up, making it a great way to experiment with different combinations of facilities.

The meditation chamber isan indirect way to protect your bastionsince it lowers the chances of it ever being attacked. By having your hirelings meditate there, you’ll be able toroll twice whenever a bastion event happensand choose the result that most benefits you.

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a bastion being finished.

This, of course,can’t prevent your Dungeon Master from forcing an attackon your bastion, but it is ideal if you expect to take some time away from your bastion in the following adventures. You might be tempted tohave a menagerie as wellsince you can recruit animals there that work as defenders, butthey aren’t free and don’t have any special abilitiesover a regular defender, so it is a waste of space.

Bastion Level 17

The special facilities unlocked at this pointdepend highly on what your character can do, some needing a spellcasting focus while others asking for some sort of expertise. While there aren’t that many new ways to defend your bastion here, the options on offer are stillthe most interesting thus far.

The easiest facility to qualify for is the guild hallsince you only need to have expertise in one skill, somethingattainable through several feats.From the examples given by the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, the ideal one for defensive bastions is the Masons’ guild, letting youbuild walls around a bastion(either yours or one of your party members)for free.

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a group of adventurers at a high level bastion.

If you wantan army that can follow you into battle, then the war room is better suited for you, assuming you have a fighting style or the unarmored defense feature. You canhave an army in the hundreds ready to fight for you, and while you’re able to have just as many free bastion defenders by this point, your Dungeon Master might not let them leave the bastion at all.

An image of a bastion in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.