The late 19th century was all about ducks, but in the enlightened age of Generic Fantasy Times we know better
ANOTHER RORY GUEST POST!
With the release of the 5e 2025 Dungeon Masters Guide, Bastions are official and can be easily acquired at 5th level for any DM who sees fit to include them! Are they a little half baked? Perhaps! Is it mostly useless to recruit defenders and build walls for your Bastion? Yeah, pretty much! Are some of the facilities you can build almost entirely useless? YES (I’m looking at you Armory)!
On the other hand… Can Bastions actually make you quite a bit of easy money? Most Certainly! Are there actually quite a few facilities available that provide a host of useful buffs and abilities? Yes… but let’s go back to the easy money thing. Imagine if you will an adventurer motivated by the desire to make fat stacks of gold and platinum. Perhaps this adventurer has a kind heart and wishes to support the local orphanage. Or perhaps they simply want to buy a lot of sweet magic items and throw their money around like it was water, bribing their way to success, wearing the finest clothes, and throwing lavish parties. Either way, money is pretty useful in D&D and it’s no surprise players would want to acquire more of it, especially with the new rules for buying and crafting magic items. I’ve looked through all the special facilities in the new DMG, and below are the most profitable special facilities for each level range:
TLDR: Start with a Gaming Hall and Garden, pick up a Storehouse and Stable at level 9, and then grab a Guild Hall at level 17 for most impactful gains. Much longer explanation below!
Levels 5-8: At level 5 you can choose 2 specialized facilities at no cost. Every week that you spend with some kind of access to your bastion (generally being able to stop by in person at the beginning of the week is enough), you can give special commands to these facilities to make you that sweet sweet lucre. The most profitable at this level are:
Gaming Hall (73.5 gold/week): The payout is random each week, but if you do the math, this facility makes you 73.5 gold a week on average, which isn’t bad!
Garden (50 gold/week): You can make a lot of stuff with a garden, but from a pure profit standpoint selecting Poison is your best bet. You can create two vials of Antitoxin or one vial of Basic Potion a week. If you actually need those items, awesome, you’ve just netted 100 gold of value. If not, the standard rules let you sell those items for half price and net a pretty decent 50 gold.
Should you enlarge your garden? For a mere (lol) 2,000 gold you can expand the size of your garden to Vast size and effectively maintain two gardens instead of one, which would double your weekly profit to 100 gold. Probably this isn’t worth it unless you expect to stay in the 5-8 level range for quite some time, as it would take literally 40 weeks to recoup you expenses and turn this into a profitable endeavor. Probably don’t bother.
Total Profit per Week: 123.5 Gold!
Levels 9-12: At level 9, you unlock 2 more special facilities, increasing your total to 4! More importantly, you unlock some nice options for making substantially more money. Here are the top 4 most profitable facilities at this level:
Storehouse (200 gold/week): At level 9, the Storehouse requires you to invest up to 2,000 gold every other week having your hireling buy supplies. The next week, your hireling can sell them at a 20% mark-up (so 2,400 gold). So you net 400 gold every two weeks, which means your weekly profit is 200 gold. A nice upgrade over the level 5 options!
NOTE: I am assuming you have 2,000 gold lying around to invest in a Storehouse and realize maximum returns, which is a pretty big assumption at level 9. This might be something where you enlist the aid of other PCs to get the money initially and share the profits with them until you can pay them back. And it does mean keeping that money in reserve. But on the other hand, if you really need the money at some point you can always cash it out (a big advantage over the sunk cost of enlarging a facility) and turn the Storehouse in for another special facility the next time you level. I can envision some campaigns where it makes sense to wait until level 13 to pick this up, where the returns pay for the initial (and totally recoupable) initial investment after 4 weeks.
Greenhouse (125 gold/week): One of the options of the Greenhouse is to produce one of a variety of poisons for free each week. The most expensive of these are Pale Tincture or Malice, which each have a value of 250 gold. Now, if you actually need one of these poisons, that’s terrific value. But if not, simply sell it to a merchant for half price, so 125 gold (perhaps you should work with the DM to make contact with a fence or other less than reputable merchant who won’t balk at buying nefarious poisons every week).
Stable (120 gold/week): The Stable leaves perhaps a little room for interpretation and some DM discretion on available mounts, but I believe a good faith reading of it treats this similar to the Storehouse where you have room for up to 3 large creatures (or 6 medium creatures). So every other week at level 9, your hireling spends 1,200 gold buying 3 warhorses and then the next week sells them for a 20% mark-up (1,440 gold). So you net 240 gold every two weeks, which means your weekly profit is 120 gold. A close third, right behind the Greenhouse!
Should you enlarge your Stable? Similar to the Garden, you can enlarge your Stable to Vast size for 2,000 gold, which allows you to store 6 large animals, doubling your weekly profits. Once the Stable is built, it takes just under 17 weeks to recoup your expenses and turn this into a profitable endeavor. What makes it more attractive is that the Stable is the 2nd most profitable facility at level 13 and 17 (and recoups even faster at those levels, in less than 7 weeks and 4 weeks respectively), so it’s a good long-term investment. Now, one possible monkey wrench is that it PROBABLY takes time to actually enlarge your Stable from Roomy to Vast; the DMG doesn’t actually tell us how long it takes to expand a special facility from Roomy to Vast, but presumably it takes 80 days (about 12 weeks!), which is how long a basic facility takes to enlarge from Roomy to Vast. So is it worth it? That’s ultimately a question of how high level you think the campaign will go and how liberal the DM is with time passing in the campaign. If you expect to hit level 20 and spend, say, a year of game time doing it, it’s a no brainer. In a “typical” campaign that peters out around level 12 or so where perhaps a few months of in-game time passes, probably don’t bother.
Gaming Hall (73.5 gold/week): The Gaming Hall rounds out the list at number 4, which is nice because you can only swap out facilities once per level, and at 9 you’ll probably want to swap your Garden for the Stable above. It still makes you 73.5 gold a week, which is a fairly modest increase to your weekly income at these levels (about 15-16%). I could totally understand swapping it out for something with more utility at level 10.
Total Profit per Week: 518.5 Gold (assuming no enlarged Stable)!
Levels 13-16: At level 13, you unlock 1 more special facility, increasing your total to 5! Even better, the Storehouse and Stable increase in effectiveness, allowing you to rake in way more gold per week. The spigot is really flowing now, folks!
Storehouse (1,250 gold/week): From level 13 on, the Storehouse is so profitable, you could be forgiven for not bothering with any of the other special facilities for income and focusing on some of the nice buffs and free spellcasting that you can get from other special facilities. At this level, your hireling can invest up to 5,000 of your gold in supplies and sell them with a mark-up of 50% (7,500 gold)! So you net 2,500 gold every two weeks, which means your weekly profit is 1,250 gold. It’s really really nice.
Stable (300 gold/week): At this level, the mark-up on the Stable is 50%. So your hireling still spends 1,200 of your gold, but now it returns 1,800 gold. So you net 600 gold every two weeks, which means your weekly profit is 300 gold. Not terrible, but a distant second to Storehouse. Of course, if you did have the time and inclination to upgrade enlarge your stable, your profit is double or 600 gold a week, which is pretty sizable.
Greenhouse (125 gold/week), Gaming Hall (73.5 gold/week), Garden (50 gold/week): Not much to say about these, they are unchanged from previous levels. But if you are really keen to maximize your profits, these are the ones to go for.
Total Profit per Week: 1798.5 Gold (assuming no enlarged Stable or Garden)!
Levels 17+: At level 17, you unlock 1 more special facility, for a grand total of 6 lucky-lucre lairs! Storehouse and Stable see some nice upgrades here, and you Guildhall injects some extra cash as well.
Storehouse (2,500 gold/week): At this level, your hireling still invests up to 5,000 of your gold, but now they can sell it for a 100% mark-up, doubling your overall profits from 1,250 gold a week to a hefty 2,500 gold a week! Not bad, just try not to dwell on the rubes who are paying a 100% mark-up for your totally ordinary trade goods (or invent some story about how your hireling select only the BEST trade goods and sell them to only the most DISCERNING clients, whatever makes you sleep at night).
Stable (600 gold/week): Same deal, your hireling can now sell your pure-bred-cruelty-free-definitely-not-from-a-horse-mill horses for a 100% mark-up, which doubles your profits. This is the level where it really pays to upgrade your Stable, assuming you anticipate the campaign continuing at least another 4 months or so.
Guildhall (500 gold/week): Finally, you can realize your dream of being the head of the wealthy, all powerful, and vindictive Bakers’ Guild, squeezing out 500 gold a week creating baked goods for prestigious events. If in balance, you believe a favor will be more valuable (i.e. profitable) by all means take that option instead. Of course, the high risk option is to go for the Thieves’ Guild instead and steal priceless (well nearly priceless) artifacts that you can sell for tens of thousands of gold every week, but that requires some more buy-in from the DM :).
Greenhouse (125 gold/week), Gaming Hall (73.5 gold/week), Garden (50 gold/week): These are still the best options if all you care about is those sweet sweet gold pieces. But by this level, we’re talking about an overall boost of 7% to your income from these 3 facilities, so maybe it’s time to look elsewhere as there really are some cool special facilities available at this level. Though I’ll be honest, I legitimately like the idea of playing a rogue or bard who is the head of a seedy Gaming Hall, so I might keep that bad boi for roleplaying reasons.
Total Profit per Week: 3848.5 Gold (assuming no enlarged Stable or Garden)!
Is it Worth It? So making money is fun and all, but like, does all this money really move the needle? Let’s find out!
I’ll be using the recommended starting equipment values in the PHB as a guideline here, which has a few flaws for a number of reasons (they only increase at 2, 5, 11, and 17 for one), but a lot more straightforward than cobbling together values using the DMG treasure tables:
Levels 5-8 (Roughly 10% per week of starting equipment value per week): The recommended starting equipment for a level 5 character is 1,137.5 gold between actual cash and magic items. The 123.5 gold you can per week is about 10% of that value, which seems like a pretty decent return at these levels, especially for a campaign with lots of downtime. And certainly picking up a couple potions of healing every week or an uncommon magic every 4 weeks seems pretty attractive.
Levels 9-10 (10-45% of starting equipment value per week!): At these levels, the recommended starting equipment is STILL 1,137.5 gold worth of equipment! But your income has gone up to 518.5 gold per week, allowing you to nearly double that value in a mere two weeks! Now, in practice a level 10 character actually playing the game is going to have a lot more money than a level 5 character so the actual percentage is probably close to the next step up, which brings the return closer to 10% (still not bad!).
Levels 11-12 (Roughly 5% of starting equipment value per week): At these levels, the recommended starting equipment is worth 11,775 gold, which makes your income of 518.5 gold a little less than 5% of this value. Not totally irrelevant, but a lot more dependent on how quickly time passes in the campaign.
Levels 13-16 (Roughly 2-15% of starting equipment value per week): At these levels, the recommended starting equipment is still 11,775, but your weekly income has gone up to 1798.5 gold. So now your returns are in the 15% range of your starting value, or at least someone between there and what you would expect to start with at 17, which brings the return closer to a paltry 2% (though note a big chunk of that is tied up in a single magic item)!
Levels 17+ (Roughly 5% of starting equipment value per week): At these levels, the recommended starting equipment is worth an impressive 78,775 gold, but your income has gone up to 3848.5 gold. This puts you back into the 5% range, though of course it will fall off every level. One potential plus side is that I think there is a certain type of campaign where time flows more freely at higher levels as the DM lets big events (such as wars and construction of strongholds) play out, which may be beneficial depending on how the DM handles Bastion turns.
Another way to look at this is what kind of magic items can you buy with the income you have?
Levels 5-8: You can buy an uncommon magic item such as a +1 Weapon or a Headband of Intellect every 4 weeks or so. If the DM actually lets time pass during the campaign (rather than micromanaging every day as happens in some campaigns), this feels like a decent return, and of course if you have actual downtime to craft your own items, that’s extra value.
Levels 9-12: You can buy an uncommon magic item once a week or a rare magic item such as +1 Armor or a +2 Weapon or Shield once every 8 weeks. Being able to pick up uncommon items like candy sounds nice, but I’m not sure I trust a DM in most campaigns to make 8+ weeks pass during these levels.
Levels 13-16: Finally, you can buy a Rare magic item roughly every 2 weeks. Considering the recommended starting values of between 1 Rare magic item at 13 and 4 at 17, this seems pretty impactful and a good way to, say, pick up additional secondary +2 Weapons, upgrade to a +2 Shield, or pick up a Belt of Hill Giant Strength.
Levels 17+: You can start picking up Rare magic items like candy, which isn’t bad. More importantly, if time does flow relatively freely, you can snag a Very Rare magic item (theoretically) every 10 weeks, or twice as fast if you use that time to craft them. Considering we’re talking about +3 Weapons, +2 Armor, and things like a Belt of Fire Giant Strength, that sounds pretty sweet!
Takeaway: Keeping all this in mind, my sense is that it probably is worthwhile to focus 2-3 of your special facilities on making money for the highest impact and then use the remaining slots on buildings that give cool buffs or other abilities. Being able to buy and craft magic items is a huge game changer for 5e, as it provides a very obvious and useful money sink, and I expect in most campaigns this extra income will be relevant enough to focus on the high impact income generators.
Caveats and Recommendations: A big caveat with all the information above is that you need to be able to actually check in with your Bastion to give special orders. Otherwise, your entire Bastion takes the maintain order, which by my rough calculations nets less than 100 gold on average a week! Luckily, there is a pretty easy workaround here. Just buy a set of Sending Stones for 400 gold (or craft some for 200!), which allow you to cast the Sending spell once a day between the two recipients of the stone (yourself and one of your trusted hirelings). The DMG specifically mentions the Sending spell as a way to keep tabs on your Bastion and continue giving special orders so by the book this is totally legitimate.
Of course, as a DM I am not sure I would allow my players to give orders just using the Sending Spell. As a 3rd level spell (and a relatively easy to purchase magic item), that strikes me as a trivial way to bypass the need to physically travel to your Bastion, and it also removes entirely any risk of your Bastion getting attacked or having wacky random events (most of which are already not very impactful anyway). Honestly, when I run Bastions in my next campaign, I will probably rework the system to require visiting the Bastion in person to give orders and make some of the random events (such as Attack) potentially nastier as well, but let’s save that for another blog post.
Anyway, if any of my math seems off or I missed an obvious way to MAKE BASTIONS PAY (TM), please let me know in the comments! I’m also curious if folks plan on using Bastions in their campaign. I know I certainly do, though the end results may have some simple but impactful house rules to give the whole system more teeth. Let me know!
I don’t play 5e so I don’t have the book, but I’m always interested in new stronghold/domain rules. I’m curious what “unlock” means here. Does a character have to reach an arbitrary level limit to be allowed to build certain structures? Is a level 8 character prohibited from building a storehouse or greenhouse? If so, how is this restriction justified in the rules?