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With the introduction of bastions in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide,Dungeons & Dragonsplayers can now establish their own bases of operations, complete with customizable facilities. For sorcerers, creating a bastion isn’t just about having a place to rest—it’s about amplifying their magical power and creating a hub for arcane mastery.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best ways to build a bastion for sorcerers, from selecting the most effective facilities to maximizing your magical research and defenses. Whether you seek to protect allies or enhance your spells, this guide will help you make the most of your bastion.
Bastion Level Five
Once you unlock your bastion at character level five, you get to choose betweenseveral special facilities to make up your bastion.You also choosethe look and feel of the place, as well as a few basic facilities, but those don’t have any impact on gameplay.
Special Facilities
Since sorcererscan use an arcane focus, they get access tothe arcane study, a place where they cancraft books, foci and gain a free use of the Identify spellfor seven days.
The spell option isn’t much sinceIdentify is often cast as a ritual, but as a sorcerer, this gives you the option ofnot having the spell on your listsince you learn so few per level already.
For more general purpose facilities,the garden is a solid choice.you may get resources from it every seven days, ranging frompotions of healing to rations, and you don’t need to remain in your bastion to gain the benefits.
If you don’t plan to stick around long in your bastion,having a barracks is a mustsince it isthe only source of bastion defenders.You can alsobuild protective walls around the bastion, althoughthey are rather expensiveand can’t prevent attacks on your bastion; it ismore cost-efficient tojust replace the defenderswhen they die.
Recommended Spells
Most sorcerers don’t have spells relevant to bastions, butaberrant sorcerers do: they learn the Sending spellat level five. Since this lets yousend messages regardless of distance, you cansend orders to your bastion from anywhere, preventing it from ever being attacked.
You could also send bastion orders for the other members of your party, as long as the Dungeon Master allows it.
Bastion Level Nine
Level nine is a big moment for bastions, since you can gaintwo new special facilities, older onesgain new effects, and many othertypes of facilities are unlocked. As a sorcerer, you also start learning spells that can be useful for keeping your bastion running, or to run back to it.
Keep an eye on facilities you may have added at level five, even if they aren’t ones described in this guide. The arcane study, for example, cannow be used to craft common and uncommon magic items; you do need to pay for the cost of the item, but it lets you make all sorts of builds without having to rely on your Dungeon Master.
The scriptorium is a facility without prerequisites, but characters without access to certain spells won’t have much use for it. This is because this facility lets youcraft spell scrolls from the wizard and cleric lists, but you need to have the spell in your spell list to be able to cast it.
These aren’t any spells;they have to be level three or lower, but players who are used to planning ahead canuse their bastion turnsto build up several scrolls.
You could stock up on scrolls of Fireball for when you run out of spell slots, but you still want to rain fire on your foes.
The other facility you should take isthe teleportation circle, mostly because at level nine,you also have access to the spellof the same name. If several players in your party have bastions,you don’t need more than one circle, letting you act as a means of transportation for everyone.
Replacing Facilities
If you don’t like any of the choices you made regarding your facilities,you’re able to swap them each time you level up.If you picked the garden at level five, we recommendswapping it for the greenhouseonce you hit level nine; you can gaina potion of greater healing for freeevery seven days this way.
Sorcerers can learnTeleportation Circle at level nine, so even if yourDungeon Master isn’t using those circlesin every major settlement, you may still use the spell toquickly go back to your bastion; in this scenario, you will still need to walk back to where you were, though.
Bastion Level 13
At level 13, you gain access to some ofthe best facilities on offer, but you canonly add one.If you like more than one of them, and you don’t use your old facilities often, remember thatyou can swap them each time you level up; don’t be afraid to experiment.
The meditation chamberis one of the better facilities on offer, particularly ifyou can’t communicate often with your bastion.With its empower feature, you canroll twice and choose either resultwhen deciding on a bastion event, avoiding any attacks more often than not.
As a sorcerer, however, you alsogain access to the observatory, a source of charms that can aid you in your adventures. The main use of this facility is tostack charms of heroism and vitalityon each party member, being always ready to face any foe.
A level 13 sorcerer gains access to even more powerful transportation spells:Teleport and Plane Shift. Teleport and Teleportation Circle are basically the same thing, exceptTeleport is instant and a seventh level spell, so it is mostly meant for emergencies.
Plane Shift is the needed additionhere since your adventures will likely take youall over the planes of existence.Since Plane Shiftcan target teleportation circles, you have a safe way to escape Avernus once you’re done with your hellish adventures.
Bastion Level 17
You can addone final facilityto your bastion at level 17, with the most exclusive options being now available. You can potentiallygain more than one of these facilitiesby replacing old ones, but it is hard to be eligible for more than one without multiclassing.
Sorcerers gain access to the demiplane, which manifests in your bastion as a door you can freely move. The space inside is vast, and you can spend a long rest there togain temporary hit points equal to five times your level, an absolute boon for any caster.
If you takea feat that gives you expertise, you can also gain access tothe guildhall. It allows you toform a guild and send them on simple yet important missions; the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide has several options on offer, but you can alsocreate a special guild with your DMthat fits your needs.
If you havethe demiplane facility and the Demiplane spell, your Dungeon Master might allow you tocombine the two, giving you another way to access your bastion and interact with it in special ways. Of course,the rules as written don’t allow for this interaction, so it is ultimately up to each individual how they interpret it.
