What Spells Should You Get Visiting Spellcasters To Cast In Your Bastion?

Getting the most out of your bastion’s teleportation circle.

Bastions are a brand new mechanic for D&D 2024 that allows you to build a base of operations. Within that base are a load of rooms and facilities you can create to gain all kinds of perks. You can read all about them in our guide to bastions.

One of the more curious facilities available is the teleportation circle. This becomes available at level 9 and let’s you invite a spellcaster to come stay at your bastion.

During their stay, you can ask this spellcaster to cast a spell for you. There’s a 50% chance that the spellcaster will accept your request. At first, this is limited to casting a level 4 spell, but onc you got level 17, they can cast spells up to level 8.

But with 391 spells available, the question is, which spells do you ask the spellcaster to cast? Well I’ve gone through all the spells available to give you some good ideas for exactly that!

How do we narrow down our spell options?

Not every spell is going to be appropriate for your esteemed guest to cast in your bastion. There’s no point having them cast a fireball for instance, they’ll just singe the drapings!

So how can we narrow down our options? Below are a few things to consider when picking your spell:

It’s got to meet the spell level requirements
Combat spells will mostly be useless
Consider period of effects. Any spell effects will have to last until they’re needed for them to be worth taking
Be careful of spells where the caster only gets the benefits

This rules out the majority of the 391 spells in the Player’s Handbook, but there are still some interesting options available that could be useful.

Primarily, it means we’re either looking at information gathering, long lasting effects or instantaneous effects where being in your bastion doesn’t matter, like transportation spells.

You may also find that if your bastion is in the vicinity of a lot of your adventures (say, in the middle of a city) you may have a wider range of options if you know you can be in the action in less than say an hour. I expect this to be rare though so have assumed you’ll need the effects of the spell to last longer than this.

In many instances, you’ll want this to tackle spells you don’t expect to use often so haven’t got in your spell list, or to preserve high level spell slots. Just be aware that whatever spell is cast, you must front the costs of the materials required (which in some instances, will be as much as 1,000 – 1,500gp).

Best spells up to level 4

A wizard crafting a potion — Wizard casting a spell: Wizards of the Coast

If you’re still under level 17, you’ll be limited to level 4 spells from your arcane ally. This doesn’t leave you with a huge number of options with a lot of the most useful spells coming in at level 5 and beyond.

But, these are some spells I’d consider:

Aid for extra hit points

3 allies gain extra hit points and these aren’t temporary hit points so you can stack this with other bonuses that apply temporary hit points too.

Aid gets more powerful when cast with a higher spell slot. You don’t need to worry about preserving spell slots so if you use this, you might as well have it cast as a level 4 spell (or level 8 once you hit level 17). This means 15 extra hit points each for the duration. Just be aware of that 8hr time limit!

Divination for information gathering

Get a cryptic answer about an event occurring in the next 7 days. A good way to find out about the plans of the BBEG. Your mileage out of this one may depend on your DM and how quickly they can think on their feet and how generous they’re willing to be about revealing their master plans…

Identify for learning about an object

Not every party has enough spells prepared to use up on identify so you may be lugging around magical items without knowing what the heck they do or whether they’re cursed.

Thankfully, you can pop back to your bastion and invite a friendly wizard to do this for you.

Remove curse for getting rid of curses

Your barbarian just had to go and pick up the creepy looking axe without checking what it does, again!!! If only you had an easy way to remove curses…

Thankfully, now you do. Just pop to your bastion and invite a spellcaster over who’ll sort out your cursed barbarian in a jiffy.

Sending for messages across large distances

Communicate with a distant lover, I mean helpful ally from far away. Perhaps there’s important information you need to know or a warning that needs to be given. You can even target enemies and have a bit of fun toying with the BBEG if you’re really cunning, especially if they’re quite superstitious…

Best spells up to level 8

Witch creating a potion — Tasha using her bubbling cauldron: Wizards of the Coast

You get a lot more options once you hit level 17 and can invite a spellcaster that can cast spells up to level 8 (sorry, no constantly repeating wish, which may be why you can’t request level 9 spells).

Once you hit level 17, I’d consider using these spells:

Animal shapes for giving the party animal abilities

Perhaps you need to give the whole party a different ability like flight or a swim speed. Animal shapes will let you turn the whole group into animals. You’ll also get a big pile of temporary hit points for your troubles too.

Antipathy/sympathy for preparing for big boss fights

If you know what enemies you’re going to face, you can cause many of them to be charmed or frightened of a member of the party. A great way to nullify the effectiveness of enemies, and it lasts for 10 days. The big limitation is you have to name the creature type.

Awaken for getting a beast or plant buddy

Build your own treant! Get yourself a beast or plant ally for aid in combat or with other things. You’ll need to bring such a creature to your bastion. But it’s not hard to have a tree within that vicinity.

The spell references the awakened shrub and awakened tree stat blocks from the Monster Manual, but we don’t have that yet so we’ll have to see how powerful these creatures become. You may want to check with your DM before using this spell as the creature will be charmed by the spellcaster, who could opt to tell the creature to aid the party, but you may want to check how your DM would treat this situation.

Commune or contact other plane for information gathering

Need to know something? Why not ask a super powerful being what they know. These information gathering spells can be incredibly useful at various points as you plan your next move.

Dream for conversing during sleep

Send a message to someone in a dream state. You can shape the dream to make this as impactful as possible, perhaps pretending it’s a vision or a message from a god to try to influence someone.

Heroes’ feast for buffs all day

24hr buff for the whole party. Great if you know you’re going to fight something tough, especially if you know it likes to use poison or the frightened conditions. You’ll get a solid number of extra hit points too.

Legend lore for finding out about something or someone famous

Learn about a famous magical weapon or a renowned spellcaster so you’re armed with information to wield, oppose or even align yourself with them.

Mind blank for psychic protection

Expecting to go fight some mind flayers, or maybe some fey or similar psychic nasties? Get one of your party protected from their psychic powers.

Mirage arcane for transforming the look of your bastion and it’s lands

You could only do this for the land around your bastion. But this can be great for tricking NPCs and enemies. Imagine a drow army coming to attack your bastion and discovering nasty looking battlements. They may be dissuaded from thinking this is an easy target. Or perhaps a visiting dignitary is coming. Cast this to impress them with a lavish stronghold that demonstrates your incredible wealth.

Plane shift for traversing the multiverse

Need to head to another plane of existence? Not a problem. A passing mage should be able to hook you up with inter-planar travel.

Raise dead, resurrection or reincarnate for bringing back dead allies

Did you have an ally die on you? Why not raise them from the dead with one of these spells.

Scrying for information gathering about a known individual

Want to know about your enemy? Just have your visiting spellcaster scry them. You’ll have the best chances of this working if you can acquire something related to that individual like a picture or piece of hair.

Simulacrum for a semi-permanent extra ally

Talk to your DM before you use this one. It states that you can create a copy of someone that obeys the commands of the caster. In theory, the caster could tell the simulacrum to obey the commands of a party member, but it’s debatable whether this would be allowed by the DM so speak to them first.

Just be aware that without the spellcaster at your side, you can’t heal the copy.

Tasha’s bubbling cauldron for free potions (sort of)

Free isn’t quite accurate as you’ll need to invest in a golden ladle for the low price of 500gp! This won’t cover the costs of the potions from one casting, but if you use this spell consistently, then the money saved could be worth the investment.