I see them recommend “six to eight” Bastion turns for each character level and it gives me 'Nam flashbacks to every argument over why random combat is broken because modern tables don’t have the time to run a full adventuring day of combats anymore. This is in the same breath that they’re saying that character levels, going off of exponential XP requirements, should take roughly the same amount of in-game time to accomplish? Nay says I. Let’s see, free magic items if the DM says yes, how incredibly Monty Haul of WotC. 100 Points for a free revive, how incredibly mobile game of WotC! I can smell the “under-monetized” quotes hovering around the VTT already. All in all, how I feel about the Bastion system is how I feel about all of the UA playtests: a good springboard for better ideas, a neat guide for a DM that doesn’t have the better mechanics converted from a previous edition, and a whole lot of bad ideas that smell like they read too many Reddit posts instead of playtesting any of the mechanics. I still remember Jump Action stuck around for way too long.

As for the cantrips, they’re hit and miss. Generally speaking: approve of Acid Splash, Blade Ward, Friends, and Produce Flame; disapprove of Shillelagh and True Strike; don’t entirely understand the changes to the rest. Why is Poison Spray suddenly a Necromancy cantrip besides “poison bad?” I can see removing Chill Touch’s range or anti-undead capabilities, but not both (also, normalize Necromancy spells being disruptive to undead). Shillelagh scaling better than Monk’s Martial Arts Die on top of using a spell mod for hit/dmg is mean. I liked using Shocking Grasp to preemptively stop reactions, since it was one of the few non-Counterspell outs to Counterspell/Shield/Silvery Barbs, and taking away metal advantage makes it feel so plain and makes it worse at hitting exactly what it wants to hit: metal-plated martials that are good at Opportunity Attacks. Spare the Dying, as most cheap healing, was balanced by the fact it’s at touch-range, so having it increase in range when Healing Word still exists is just… grasping for QoL I guess? True Strike just isn’t True Strike anymore, and it’s weird that it’s giving every full-caster besides Cleric and redundant Druid a radiant-damage melee attack. It could have so easily been anything remotely similar to the original idea: a Bonus Action that made a target’s AC 10 + DEX for your next melee weapon attack as you go right for the part with no armor (Verbal component so no Stealth abuse); Reaction on a missed melee attack against you gives you a single auto-hit with a weapon on your next turn as you see the opening; an Action that a la SCAG attack cantrips includes a weapon attack but with magically-guided advantage. Literally anything more original than “Shillelagh but Radiant.”

After having a bit of time to stew over the bastion system, I’m not that excited by it.

My only major critique is the fact it generates specific magic items, 5e was designed around not giving players inherent access to specific items and some builds can get a little nuts once they’re added. Although artificers can generate them through their replicate magic item option, it’s still limited and requires investing into that class. Although sourcing a magic item can be done in downtime, that’s not as codified and easy as this is.

My main thoughts overall is that this just isn’t that exciting, oftentimes specific sourcebooks and adventures have a tertiary system such as the relationships in strixhaven, franchises in Acquisitions Incorporated or the dark gifts from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. A key reason that these don’t see wide adoption is that because by necessity they’re optional, the game is perfectly balanced to not need them. I think the only fix to this feeling is to have it more integrated through character options such as spells, feats and perhaps even a bastion specific subclass or two, but this content isn’t suited for the DMG and rather a bastion centric sourcebook. The other thing that could cement it is if a few major adventures across the lifetime of

A couple of other things on my mind is simply that I like that fact the bastion scales with level but I don’t love that it scales with time and gold. A 1-20 campaign can last anywhere from a month to a lifetime in the game, and the amount of gold that is rewarded is totally dependent on the campaign and the story, typically fighter may be able to afford full plate armor at level 6 but that’s not codified anywhere, while a monk kr barbarian’s AC scales naturally with leveling, not just is this one of those hiccups in 5e’s design but finances will be incredibly different in a bastion centric campaign. The paladin may need to choose between +1 armor and a better home while a monk will get both. I’d have like to have seen a system totally removed from time and money and pinned entirely to leveling.

None of these really matter too much to me, except maybe the magic items, as it could open the game to problematic builds which new DMs may not catch and stop, and otherwise these new rules are very new DM friendly which is nice to see.

Funny thing that popped up in my mind while reading the revised cantrips.

Produce flame “emits no heat and ignites nothing”, yet you can hurl it at a creature to deal fire damage.

Which begs the question: what is fire damage in DnD canon, if not heat or fire?