How To Build A Sorcerer Bastion In DND

With the introduction of bastions in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Dungeons & Dragons players 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 between several special facilities to make up your bastion. You also choose the 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 sorcerers can use an arcane focus, they get access to the arcane study, a place where they can craft books, foci and gain a free use of the Identify spell for seven days.

The spell option isn’t much since Identify is often cast as a ritual, but as a sorcerer, this gives you the option of not having the spell on your list since you learn so few per level already.

For more general purpose facilities, the garden is a solid choice. You can get resources from it every seven days, ranging from potions 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 must since it is the only source of bastion defenders. You can also build protective walls around the bastion, although they are rather expensive and can’t prevent attacks on your bastion; it is more cost-efficient to just replace the defenders when they die.

Recommended Spells

Most sorcerers don’t have spells relevant to bastions, but aberrant sorcerers do: they learn the Sending spell at level five. Since this lets you send messages regardless of distance, you can send 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 gain two new special facilities, older ones gain new effects, and many other types 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, can now 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.

Special Facilities

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 you craft 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 can use their bastion turns to 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 is the teleportation circle, mostly because at level nine, you also have access to the spell of 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 can swap them each time you level up. If you picked the garden at level five, we recommend swapping it for the greenhouse once you hit level nine; you can gain a potion of greater healing for free every seven days this way.

Recommended Spells

Sorcerers can learn Teleportation Circle at level nine, so even if your Dungeon Master isn’t using those circles in every major settlement, you can still use the spell to quickly 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 of the best facilities on offer, but you can only add one. If you like more than one of them, and you don’t use your old facilities often, remember that you can swap them each time you level up; don’t be afraid to experiment.

Special Facilities

The meditation chamber is one of the better facilities on offer, particularly if you can’t communicate often with your bastion. With its empower feature, you can roll twice and choose either result when deciding on a bastion event, avoiding any attacks more often than not.

As a sorcerer, however, you also gain access to the observatory, a source of charms that can aid you in your adventures. The main use of this facility is to stack charms of heroism and vitality on each party member, being always ready to face any foe.

Recommended Spells

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, except Teleport is instant and a seventh level spell, so it is mostly meant for emergencies.

Plane Shift is the needed addition here since your adventures will likely take you all over the planes of existence. Since Plane Shift can target teleportation circles, you have a safe way to escape Avernus once you’re done with your hellish adventures.

Bastion Level 17

You can add one final facility to your bastion at level 17, with the most exclusive options being now available. You can potentially gain more than one of these facilities by replacing old ones, but it is hard to be eligible for more than one without multiclassing.

Special Facilities

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 to gain temporary hit points equal to five times your level, an absolute boon for any caster.

If you take a feat that gives you expertise, you can also gain access to the guildhall. It allows you to form a guild and send them on simple yet important missions; the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide has several options on offer, but you can also create a special guild with your DM that fits your needs.

Recommended Spells

If you have the demiplane facility and the Demiplane spell, your Dungeon Master might allow you to combine 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.