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.