# Do castles make sense in a world of dragons & spells?



## countgray (Mar 10, 2010)

Do traditional castles make sense as defensive structures in a fantasy world of dragons and spells?

Our images of fantasy worlds are rife with castles, but the more I think about, the less they seem like impenetrable fortresses in a world with dragons, gryphon-riders, and spells.  Traditional castles, and walled cities, were designed to protect from armed men on foot, horse and chariot trying to enter in a horizontal direction.  They were also meant to give the defenders higher ground from which to attack at range with arrows and boiling oil and such, from behind arrow slits and crenellations which protected them from return fire. Castles are well equiped for those purposes.  But to paraphrase Wrath of Khan: this pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.

Rather than lateral attack from swords, arrows, ballistae and battering rams, fantasy defenders need to worry about aerial bombardment. In a world of dragons, flying demons, gryphon-riders, and sorcerors slinging spells, it strikes me that a traditional castle would serve the defenders poorly. A simple Magic missile spell strikes your target without fail, if the wizard can see the archer peer out the arrow slit, then bam, he can strike unerringly and wear him down. Dragons breathing fire from above could take out troops on ramparts, set fire to wooden roofs, land in courtyards and munch with impunity.  Winged cavalry would have superior position above the castle defenders, and could drop missles, flaming bags of pitch, blast fireballs and lightning strikes down over the walls and gates.

In fact, I recently saw Prince Caspian, which had the most beautiful and creative use of gryphons I have ever seen. Their stealth gryphons dropped advance scouts and strike troops onto the castle walls and tower tops in the dead of night--allowing them to sneak into the castle to lower gates, sabotage castle defenses, even give them the opportunity to assassinate leaders without any notice or alarm sounding.

All this makes me think that a practical, realistic fortification in a typical fantasy world would have to look very different than a medieval castle. I have no idea what shapes and designs would actually work and prevail in such a world, they would certainly be time tested and function better than what I can come up with my imagination. But here are some thoughts to consider:

1. The Dwarves got it right! Underground delves and citadels hewn deep into mountain rock would provide ample protection from aerial assault.

2. Think London during the Blitz. Air-raid shelters, bunkers, underground tunnels and chambers you could hole-up in with a few feet of rock or concrete between you and the explosions above.

3. What about advance warning systems? Like the air-raid sirens announcing tornadoes and missile attacks?  Watchful troops stationed on nearby mountain tops with bonfires (a la Lord of the Rings), might give you a few minutes notice to prepare for that dragon swooping in. But you might want some divination spells set up around the perimeter, at different distances, especially magic mouths, glyphs of warding and such. Heck, I think simple nervous, squawky birds in cages set around the ramparts would be good warning, ones with keen eyesight, the typical prey of hawks and other raptors, ones that will freak out when they spy a dragon in the distance. These, or something like them, would be mandatory I think.

4. No wooden roofs. You want slate, or maybe iron-jacketted beams with steel and stone lintels and supports. Non-flammable materials.

5. No exposed rampararts, no flat tower tops. Those picturesque crenellations would be useless and thus would not be seen in a fantasy world. All towers and walls would have roofs to protect the soldiers; probably angled roofs to deflect missiles and shed acids and liquids over the side. Towers might still have those iconic, conical roofs.  With generous eaves.  But domes would probably work even better.  Onion domes might be better still, as they would make it difficult for a flying critter to find purchase, and the lateral bulge, so good for shedding snow during the winter would serve equally well to divert fire, noxious liquids, missiles and other dangers from falling down the wall into the windows below. 

6. You want windows you can shutter in a hurry, probably steel shutters, to protect against dragon flame and hurtling fireballs. Magical protection highly recommended, including anti-magic shells, magically durable glass, large-radius circles of protection, etc. I hear gorgon's blood mixed with paint prevents teleportation.

7. Not sure the traditional walls and courtyard setup of a castle would work all that well.  Perhaps something like the Colliseum with a stone dome on top, or something like modern superdome-style stadiums (stadia?) would provide more comprehensive protection to those within.  Pyramids, ziggurats, maybe even giant bee-hive shapes strike me as much better suited to aerial defense. Gaudi once designed some paraboloid skyscrapers; those shapes might provide impressive integrity and defensibility.  Perhaps even the Sydney Opera House might serve as a model for effective fortification design in a fantasy setting.

8. Extra-dimensional spaces, gates and portals are a major consideration. Troops storm in to find an empty castle? Ah, they forgot to look in the 4th floor linen closet which hides a door to Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion where the king's court retreated! But it's not merely a consideration for defense, but for offense too. Imagine a trojan horse, clown car, treasure chest or cooking pot with 40,000 troops streaming out. Or the ambassador's pocket has a portable hole sewn in it containing swarms of stirges, battle sprites or a giant killer ooze.

I haven't even gone through the list of D&D spells that might have implications for use in sieges and defensive architecture. I don't even know where to begin with "wish" and "miracle".

What do you think?  How would D&D style magic and mystical beasts realistically affect the predominant architecture of a fantasy world?

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/images/bluprint.jpg http://www.gc.cuny.edu/images/hotel_render.jpg http://www.gc.cuny.edu/images/hotel.jpg


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## S'mon (Mar 10, 2010)

It depends on the prevalence of magic and monsters.

I've never found flying monsters to be much of an issue; they're pretty rare IMCs, and most are few in number and vulnerable enough that they can't effectively assault a serious castle.  A really big dragon can take out a castle, but that is just as it should be IMO.

The big issue I saw pre-4e was with spellcasters; an 8th level 3e Wizard or Sorcerer can Fly with Improved Invisibility over a castle and rain down Fireballs.  A 1e Magic-User with a Wand of Fireballs can send dozens of fireballs into the castle.  4e pretty well fixed this by limiting spell ranges and effectiveness, at 'normal' levels a Wizard can no longer make himself immune to mundane threats and doesn't have the firepower to take out a castle.

Re castle defenses - flat rooftops are vulnerable to flying attackers, so you might see more use of sloped roofs, but if flyers are rare then the ability to put masses of archers up there to rain down fire on enemy ground troops may outway the downside for the defender.

Overall, with 4e I no longer see a credibility problem for traditional castles.  A lot is up to how the GM stats things - do you want to make archers behind arrow slits easy to hit, or do they have superior cover + total concealment?  Do you want PCs to be able to break down the castle gate & portcullis?  Are the walls easy to climb?  A castle can be reasonably statted to be effectively immune to likely threats.


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## S'mon (Mar 10, 2010)

countgray said:


> In fact, I recently saw Prince Caspian, which had the most beautiful and creative use of gryphons I have ever seen. Their stealth gryphons dropped advance scouts and strike troops onto the castle walls and tower tops in the dead of night--allowing them to sneak into the castle to lower gates, sabotage castle defenses, even give them the opportunity to assassinate leaders without any notice or alarm sounding.




I saw it recently too - an interesting battle which showed both the strength and vulnerability of 'magical' attack (sans fireballs) on a 'mundane' castle.  Flight is great for giving the element of surprise, but masses of mundane troops can still turn the castle into a killing zone for the attacker.

IMC there's an orc-occupied hill fort.  The PCs could take on the orcs - if they could just get in there... I'm interested to see how long it lasts, and what plans if any the PCs come up with to deal with it.  They're currently 3rd-4th level and don't seem in any hurry to take it on.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 10, 2010)

I agree with S'mon. A lot depends upon the prevalence of flying beasties and magical items like wands, etc. 

As he says, 4e basically removes the issue of magic users.

I think that a very interesting ommission from the 4e rules are ritual warfare magic - rituals which attackers can use to cast massive fireballs and rituals which defenders can use to proof their castles against said fireballs, rock to mud and other 'traditional' D&D attacks on castles.

Then it would be possible for PCs to be the commandos sent to spoil the other sides rituals in order to foil the attack/foil the defence.

Cheers


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## Nightson (Mar 10, 2010)

To use wargaming terminology, a dragon costs a lot of points, even if it takes out a bunch of archers, if the ballista takes it down, the castle has come out ahead.  

The general issue with the D&D universe is that the countermeasure aren't created.  There aren't exactly a bunch os magical defensive spells aimed at castle commanders.


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## PaulofCthulhu (Mar 10, 2010)

Castles vs Flying Monsters & Magic?

Castles vs Flying Monsters I wouldn't see as an insurmountable problem. The beasties can be shot down. Just have improved turrent & roof defenses with some form of missile projector, maybe some spiky or non-euclidian roofing. 

Castles vs. Magic - is where it mainly falls down. It's why castles stopped being used in Europe as a serious form of defense after the advent of cannon.

- Unless perhaps you have a HUGE fortress, rather than the commonly percieved medieval-style castle. Those have very thick walls. There's a few on the coast of Britain.

Castles vs. Magic probably needs magic castles... certainly in the D&D worlds.


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## CharlesRyan (Mar 10, 2010)

Like other posters, I agree that it totally depends on the nature of your campaign and what's going on in it.

Building a crenellated wall around a town may be useless when it's assaulted by dragons and high-level spellcasters. But is that the common threat, or are the townspeople really more worried about monthly raids by roving bands of goblins?

Defences will be optimized toward the most worrying sort of attack--and they'll be the least expensive defensive solution that fits the bill. If "exotic" sorts of defenses are commonly needed and not too difficult/expensive to create, the OP is right--that's what should be common. But if a simple crenellated wall will hold out most of the expected attackers, I think it still has a place in the campaign world.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 10, 2010)

Threads like this remind me of the quite in Civ4 when you discover masonry "It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls"
Defenses will evolve to counter the threats that present themselves and will have a sophistication to match threats based on the wealth and importance of the location. 
So the unimportant border town will have a wall to keep out the goblins, the important pass fortress will have additional anti-dragon stuff and the imperial capital will have everything and with extra knobs on.

To meaningfully discuss the topic you need to be clear on the available threats. D&D (at least in 3e and 4e) never listed much in the way of defensive measures to many of the offensive magic available. 4e is in fact pretty silent on the nature of battle magic rituals entirely, all that is listed is the kind of stuff adventures would find useful. 
As for beasties, well it depends on how common they are and every DM has their own ideas about that.

In short if flying beasties are common then defensive structures will be closed from the air and feature designs that make life difficult for anything to land on the roof as well as means to attack airborne threats. 
If siege magic is common then counter siege wards will be common also.
If neither is a problem and the pronciple attack vector is ground troops then the fortresses will be like that of medevial europe except in earthquake zones where they will be more like Japan.


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## Umbran (Mar 10, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Overall, with 4e I no longer see a credibility problem for traditional castles.  A lot is up to how the GM stats things ...




I largely agree with what you say above.  I'll add one note here - rituals.  Most of the 4e powers aren't such a big deal for castles, but rituals open a door for castle-busting magics if the GM wants them.


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## MichaelSomething (Mar 10, 2010)

In the face of reliable magic and monsters, WWII style bunkers and fortifications are the way to go.  If they're unconventional methods, then a castle should be fine most of the time but the smart rulers would have back up plans in the event a dragon felt like attacking.


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## Jack99 (Mar 10, 2010)

Umbran said:


> I largely agree with what you say above.  I'll add one note here - rituals.  Most of the 4e powers aren't such a big deal for castles, but rituals open a door for castle-busting magics if the GM wants them.




Yeah, like using Raise Land (125k gp) and raising the land around the castle (or even around town) somewhere between 1 and 10 miles up in the air, and then let them starve to death. Baring their own magic, ofc. Still might make for an interesting battle, in fact, I think I will add this to my campaign, once I have figured out what happens.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 10, 2010)

The Dragon Magazine 1982 forum column called-it wants it's topic back.

Badoom-pa!

Good to see this being discussed again. Will check it out when time permits.


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## diaglo (Mar 10, 2010)

to me it is all about rarity of use.

castles work to keep the mundane common things out.

if everyone has a fireball or passwall spell then no need for a waste of money and resources on a castle.

if every attacker is a flying dragon. again don't bother.

but dragons and casters shouldn't be the norm in a campaign using castles.

much like horse and buggies. why have a horse and buggy if you can teleport all your goods or self to the next town without risk of banditry. teleport ain't on everyone's spell list. and the overuse of it will kill certain industries.

have a cause and an effect on the market when you flood it with stuff. like magic, special monsters, or a dragon hoard of treasure.


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## Klaus (Mar 10, 2010)

A while ago I imagined how a castle might defend against these odd invaders (specifically for an Eberron campaign).

Towers would have a steel frame dome that two soldiers could push a lever to cause a steel shell to encase the tower top (with arrow slits and ballista slits spread about).

In addition to ballistas and catapults, new siege engines would throw nets or bundles of rope that latch onto a flying creatures' wings.

Castle walls would have tiny holes in them leading to plumbing that led to large containers of alchemist fire, alchemist spark or even holy water. Turn your enemy's undead horde into holy goo!

Courtyards would have steel chains crisscrossing above them, reducing the window for a flying creature to land. A crueler variant uses barbed chains.


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2010)

countgray said:


> Do traditional castles make sense as defensive structures in a fantasy world of dragons and spells?




Yes, but not all traditional castles structures make sense.  As you indicate, the castles of a fantasy world would have to take into account additional dangers.  However, technology existed in ancient castles to defend against technological attack that can be repurposed for defending against ariel attack or invisible inflitrators.  That technology would be employed more universally in a fantasy setting to secure gatehouses from commando raids, and to provide defence against flying attackers.   Arrow slits, shuttered windows, hoardings, and counter-seige weaponry still make excellent defences against fantastic attack - 90% 360 degree cover and prepared fighting positions are even more important (not less) when the missiles increase in power.



> Rather than lateral attack from swords, arrows, ballistae and battering rams, fantasy defenders need to worry about aerial bombardment. In a world of dragons, flying demons, gryphon-riders, and sorcerors slinging spells, it strikes me that a traditional castle would serve the defenders poorly. A simple Magic missile spell strikes your target without fail, if the wizard can see the archer peer out the arrow slit, then bam, he can strike unerringly and wear him down.




But magic missile is a close range spell.  Long before the wizard could get into range, a skilled archer could skewer him with bolts and arrows.  This means that the wizard must approach invisibily or behind cover.  But if invisible, then his presence is likely to become clear as soon as he attacks unless he's a quite high level wizard indeed.  



> Dragons breathing fire from above could take out troops on ramparts, set fire to wooden roofs, land in courtyards and munch with impunity.  Winged cavalry would have superior position above the castle defenders, and could drop missles, flaming bags of pitch, blast fireballs and lightning strikes down over the walls and gates.




All of this is true.  But threats of fire and plunging missiles were not unknown in the middle ages.  The technology existed to counter them.  All the fantasy situation changes is the relative importance of the technology.



> In fact, I recently saw Prince Caspian, which had the most beautiful and creative use of gryphons I have ever seen. Their stealth gryphons dropped advance scouts and strike troops onto the castle walls and tower tops in the dead of night--allowing them to sneak into the castle to lower gates, sabotage castle defenses, even give them the opportunity to assassinate leaders without any notice or alarm sounding.




But again, technology existed to counter this threat.  The threat of a castle being inflitrated was not unknown at the time.  The means to lock down a sector of a castle so that the remainder of the castle could isolate it self from the inflitrated sector and then, from a superior position counter attack the exposed attackers existed.  This is why keeps were designed with concentric defenses, why major towers were built with there own mini-gates houses and sometimes drawbridges, and why inner courtyards were covered with arrow slits by the main keep.



> All this makes me think that a practical, realistic fortification in a typical fantasy world would have to look very different than a medieval castle.




I think that they would look very different from some castles, but that most of their features would be entirely familiar to expert castle architects of the middle ages.  The one major difference other than the ubiquitousness of permenent hoardings would be that fantasy castles would have to be designed to counter-attack aerial attackers, which means you might see shuttered arrow slits in the roof of hoardings, skyward pointing balistas, and greater emphasis on being able to quickly pivot such weapons.

I think you get it mostly right so far as you go, except you need more familiarity with actual castle defences.



> Those picturesque crenellations would be useless and thus would not be seen in a fantasy world. All towers and walls would have roofs to protect the soldiers; probably angled roofs to deflect missiles and shed acids and liquids over the side.




What you seem to fail to realize is that walls and towers would be roofed in the anticipation of a seige or attack anyway.  Your image of a castle is based off the ruins of castles.  You think of walls and towers as not having roofs because the hoardings were made of wood and generally haven't survived.  The main difference is that rather than building the hoardings right before the battle as temporary structures to save on maintenance costs, they would be built as permenent and essential structures from the beginning.

A courtyard presents some danger as a place to land attackers, but you fail to realize that one of the primary purposes of a courtyard was to provide a space in which to contain an attacker where they would be exposed and without cover from defensive fire.  It doesn't really matter whether the attacker got into the courtyard by going through the wall or over it, the castle is going to be designed such that you can kill whoever got there.

I really think the main threat that 'low level' warriors have difficulty facing is invisible attackers.  Successful castle defense is going to have dedicated systems for responding to invisible threats.  The front line of this defense is probably going to be trained creatures with the _scent_ ability, and ideally sectors of the castle that purge invisibility spells when they are entered, backed up with the castles own spellcasting defenders to respond to these threats.

My biggest complaint against D&D is that the standard spell list makes protecting an individual no harder than attacking one, but makes attacking an area much easier than defending it.  I would very much like to see more permenent spells (or spells that can be made permenent) which defend areas and structures, and I believe that such spells ought to be roughly comparable in level to the spells they defend against.  That is, there ought to be relatively low level spells (4th and under) that defend areas against invisibility, divination, teleportation, fire, and so forth.   There are some mundane things that counter these effects (lining structures with lead, the aforementioned gorgon's blood in the mortar) but I think that 'defensive magic' is an area insufficient interest has been placed in because its seldom of use to a PC (until relatively late in their career and they start building strongholds of their own).


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## Ariosto (Mar 10, 2010)

Do fortifications make sense in a world of nuclear weapons? Do minefields and barbed wire, walls and trenches and tank traps make sense in a world of aircraft? 

It is not a matter of having a perfect defense (which a fortress never was). It is a matter of having a cost-effective defense -- something that somehow slows down an attack and/or makes it more costly -- versus expected threats. It can also be a matter of visible power projection that intimidates potential trouble makers internal or external, perhaps as a reminder of powers held in reserve.


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## Teemu (Mar 10, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I think that a very interesting ommission from the 4e rules are ritual warfare magic - rituals which attackers can use to cast massive fireballs and rituals which defenders can use to proof their castles against said fireballs, rock to mud and other 'traditional' D&D attacks on castles.



Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide has a small section on circle magic, which can turn a power into a war spell, a ritual like spell that has better range, area, damage, etc. 

I also remember reading somewhere about using skill challenges for mass combat, and skills like Arcana and Religion could be used for war rituals.


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## Jack7 (Mar 10, 2010)

> I think that a very interesting ommission from the 4e rules are ritual warfare magic - rituals which attackers can use to cast massive fireballs and rituals which defenders can use to proof their castles against said fireballs, rock to mud and other 'traditional' D&D attacks on castles.
> 
> Then it would be possible for PCs to be the commandos sent to spoil the other sides rituals in order to foil the attack/foil the defence.




PS, that's an interesting idea for a number of reasons, and could be employed in a number of different ways. Both tactically and strategically.




> My biggest complaint against D&D is that the standard spell list makes protecting an individual no harder than attacking one, but makes attacking an area much easier than defending it. I would very much like to see more permenent spells (or spells that can be made permenent) which defend areas and structures, and I believe that such spells ought to be roughly comparable in level to the spells they defend against.




It's an interesting set of observations. I'm assuming that area defense is considered so much more problematic because of the idea of equating magic with technological and scientific power/physics. For instance in order to safely secure an area the defensive measure must either be in effect at all times (to protect against ambush and sneak attacks), have a corresponding or parallel system of Early Detection and Warning, or be able to anticipate and thwart attacks ad hoc, or at least moments before such an attack is successfully executed. It is useless to raise even a perfect defense too late to be truly effective, no matter how grandiose in nature, or impressive in theory. All of these strategies would require enormous energy and manpower reserves (as do real word defensive measures), whereas offensive attacks are of relatively brief duration, if successful (nor requiring protracted siege or battering), and can be concentrated into a relatively small area for maximum destructive effect. (Defense is often as much a matter of dispersing force, which requires huge amounts of energy and/or materiel, as it is of avoiding force, which is generally much easier to accomplish, but effective offense is almost always a matter of the concentration of force.) Defense eyes a much more energy intense (in the long run, defense is a slow burn of energy, offense an acute and violent one) and problematic function than is offense. (Though depending on circumstance and the forces and weapons involved an effective defense may be much easier to execute than an effective offense, once the actual circumstances of the engagement are known.)

But that set of analyses is naturally dependent upon equating magic with science and technology and physics, of which I personally am not a huge fan. Still, just as a pragmatic matter, there are many inherent problems associated with effective and long term area defense and I can see how many would naturally equate high cost and restrictive energy consumption rates with such a set of problems.


As for the Castle idea itself I agree with those who have said the actual situation would be circumstantial, and dependent upon "conditions upon the ground."

And I agree with those who state that castle, and defensive design parameters would naturally adapt to any change in conditions of offensive strategy and tactics.  Then again, to take the analogy a bit further, one could easily adapt the castle (the nature of a fixed, tough, concentrated fortification) into a trap (tricking the offensive force into attacking an area or fixed target which is designed only to slow or attrit the enemy while the real counter-attack is then delivered external to the presumed target - as Caesar did in Gaul), and into a facade. For instance underneath the castle could easily be an underground system of countermining, reserve forces, supplies, a transpiration and communications system, etc. 

Then again with sufficient magic, or with cooperative magic, need castles be fixed emplacements as we normally think of them? Could they not become mobile command centers, perhaps even a type of FOB able to be transported or teleported into and out of the areas of an engagement as necessary? One could even imagine, with enough power expenditure, or trasnformative magic, a walking castle, or one that transforms into other things.

Castles could be adapted as to design and function to serve any number of new and necessary roles as regards both defense and counterattack/countermeasures. How effective these countermeasures might be and for how long they would function effectively against offensive forces would depend a great deal on espionage and communications and security. But I suspect castles could be redesigned, or modified in design, or altered in function to where they become less instruments of fixed emplacement and fortification, and more a sort of multi-purpose operating base from which could be launched both effective defensive measures and effective counterattacks/countermeasures. (Of course such castles might be very rare and the exception to the rule, most castles may remain more or less traditional in design and function, but some castles could become an entirely new kind of thing.)

You'd just have to think of Castles not as what they appear to be traditionally, and more of what they could become out of necessity or new use.


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## Dausuul (Mar 10, 2010)

S'mon said:


> It depends on the prevalence of magic and monsters.




Yeah, this is really what it comes down to. In a low-magic world, castles work pretty much the same as always. Wizards are rare, mysterious, and not inclined to let themselves be used as artillery pieces. A bold and daring hero might tame a griffon and use it for a mount, but nobody is fielding armies of griffon cavalry. Dragons are terrifying incarnations of elemental fury; the idea of recruiting one into your army is a joke. All in all, warfare looks mostly like it did in the real medieval era.

In a high-magic world, with most powerful nations having a spellcaster corps, aerial forces on winged mounts, and so on and so forth...

Castles are still functional but require some adjustments. To ward off aerial bombardment, there would be a trend toward self-contained, roofed keeps rather than the elaborate arrangements of baileys and curtain walls seen in later-era real-world castles. In cases where there _were_ curtain walls, the battlements would be roofed and there would be protected passageways for defending troops to move around in. Most castles would have heavily protected "eyries" to accommodate friendly flyers.

While D&D magic can substitute for modern technology to a degree, there are some key differences. In particular, a _fireball_ spell lacks the "punch" of high explosives when attacking fortifications. Mid-level wizards, or lowbies with charged wands, can blast unprotected defenders off the castle walls, but actually bringing down the walls themselves takes serious mojo... even in a high-magic world, wizards capable of such spells are not common, and you probably wouldn't want to risk them on the front lines.

The biggest danger is wizards who are capable of teleporting or opening portals directly into the enemy keep, bypassing the defenses entirely and allowing invaders to pour in. To help defend against this, castles could be divided up with "bulkheads," so that a breach in one sector could be sealed off and the invaders contained--much like a submarine or a spacecraft sealing off a hull breach. Each sector would be capable of functioning independently, with its own food supplies, armory, sleeping quarters, latrines, and so forth.

(Edit: Per Celebrim, apparently most of this was standard operating procedure in the real world! Medieval armies were more sophisticated than we give them credit for.)

Of course, there is also the question of defensive magic. If it's possible and reasonably economical, anti-teleportation wards would be standard operating procedure on every substantial fortification; a couple of rooms would be exempted for the benefit of friendly wizards, but those rooms would be designed so the defenders can turn them into killing zones if hostile casters try to port in. Castles would maintain stockpiles of spell/ritual components for defending wizards.

In the extreme case, major castles would maintain a network of teleportation circles, allowing each castle to bring in thousands of defending troops at a moment's notice! This might actually be the thing that changes castles more than anything else. If every castle can be reliably reinforced via permanent portals, then there's no need to waste space on supplies or even living quarters for more than a skeleton crew... and to a great extent, no need for a castle at all. Most castles would be designed around protecting the portal itself. "Real castles" would be limited to a handful of truly massive fortifications at the heart of the realm, where the king and nobles reside with the bulk of their armies.



Jack7 said:


> Then again with sufficient magic, or with cooperative magic, need castles be fixed emplacements as we normally think of them? Could they not become mobile command centers, perhaps even a type of FOB able to be transported or teleported into and out of the areas of an engagement as necessary? One could even imagine, with enough power expenditure, or trasnformative magic, a walking castle, or one that transforms into other things.




The Dragonlance novels had this with the flying citadels, which totally wrecked the defensive plans of people accustomed to more traditional modes of warfare. In fact, the whole Chronicles trilogy is a case study in what happens when you drop a high-magic army (the dragonarmies) into a low-magic world (post-Cataclysm Krynn).


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## Rykion (Mar 10, 2010)

Castles might look a bit different, but they certainly still make sense in a fantasy world.  They're perfectly suited against mundane ground-based enemies.  Ballistas and netting could be added to help defend against aerial attacks.  In a high magic world, I'd expect a castle to be warded against hostile magic and wizards would be included in the forces defending it.


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## RangerWickett (Mar 10, 2010)

If the attackers have dragons (or 'insert magical threat here'), why don't the defenders?

I recall way back we had a fantasy arms race thread, which led to weird innovations like hedgerows of roses and other thorny plants surrounding a town, to make it easier for druids to entangle attackers. And someone recommended capturing a medusa and putting it in a room with no ceiling but four solid walls. In peacetime you keep a tarp over it, but during battle you leave it open to the sky.


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## Bullgrit (Mar 10, 2010)

Ariosto said:
			
		

> Do fortifications make sense in a world of nuclear weapons? Do minefields and barbed wire, walls and trenches and tank traps make sense in a world of aircraft?





			
				RangerWickett said:
			
		

> If the attackers have dragons (or 'insert magical threat here'), why don't the defenders?



My first thoughts on reading the OP were the above points.

Why have we fences in a world with helicoptors? Why do only attackers have 8th-level wizards with wands of fireball?

It's like the old argument about how a 20th-level fighter can just wade through an army single-handedly. The argument always assumes that the army doesn't have any leveled characters on its side.

Bullgrit


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2010)

Jack7 said:


> It's an interesting set of observations. I'm assuming that area defense is considered so much more problematic because of the idea of equating magic with technological and scientific power/physics.




I don't think so.  D&D's palette of traditional spells are focused on dungeon exploration and designed with balance with regard to dungeon exploration in mind.  They were balanced according to percieved utility in those dungeon environments.  The larger effect on society doesn't seem to have been a strong consideration, nor does there seem to have been any underlying theory on the complexity of the magic or the energy involved.  

I think that area defensive magic was overlooked primarily for two reasons:

1) It would have seemed to have been primarily 'screw the PCs' magic which took away options from PC spellcasters.
2) The PC's themselves had no use for it in a dungeon environment.

I think that because in part, area defensive magic does exist but only in forms which are useful to dungeon exploration and general adventuring.  If you look at what we have in area defensive magic, we've got alot of stuff, among other things: Alarm, Arcane Lock, Antipathy, Consecrate, Dimensional Lock, Fire Trap, Forbiddance, Guards and Wards, Hallow, Ironwood, Misdirection, Faithful Hound, Magnificent Mansion, Private Sanctum, Nondetection, Obscure Object, Sequester, Tiny Hut, Zone of Silence, Zone of Truth.  But pretty much all of that is designed toward creating a temporary defensive 'camp' for adventurers on the move, or else for assisting in the defense of a place by a few skilled individuals.  As a means of creating a more permenent defense it all fails various tests of one sort or another: duration, availability, area of effect, cost, and/or livability.  An arcane lock is really great for a wizard defending his tower, but not nearly as useful as a spell lock which can be opened using a more general key (spoken word, wearing a particular uniform, time of day, etc.).  Faithful hound is an amazing spell for defending a doorway or passage against invisible invaders, but its duration is geared toward 'while the mage sleeps' and its availability (5th level) makes it problimatic as a common defense against the much more readily available 2nd level spell (Invisibility).  And so on and so forth.

It seems to me that for game purposes, its logical to assume that a particular magical attack can be countered by a defensive spell of similar level.  Likewise, we have a very obvious reason for wanting to imagine that the fantasy world has alot in common with the real world and that the impact of magic need not be so great on the setting that it becomes unrecognizable except by design.  It seems to me that balanced defensive spells can be created that fulfill these goals.

It's important to note that I came to these conclusions not by being a DM, because the DM can create whatever defences he thinks he needs by fiat.  Cost and practicality are no real obstacles to a DM because the DM has effectively unlimited resources to create suitable challenges with.  I came to these conclusions being a PC, because as a PC you soon find that adequately or even minimally defending your possessions and retainers from magic with available techniques is cost prohibitive.  

It's not just castles.  Castles can be made to defend against dragons and fireballs without too much fuss, but they are difficult to impossible to secure against invisible attackers and dimensional travel.  Sailing vessels by being mobile do better there, but are almost impossible to secure against magical fire attacks.  And so forth.  It's not just a matter of sufficiently high level spell casters can wreck havoc.  That doesn't bother me.  It's that a spell-caster of a given level has trouble frustrating attacks by a spell-caster of lower level because there aren't suitable defensive long duration spells available to do so.  They need not be as proactive as Faithful Hound.  An until discharged duration spell that cast glitterdust on invisible interlopers would do the trick.  A spell that cheaply granted long duration fire resistance to objects according to their weight would go along way toward suggesting how societies delt with pervasive ability to conjure fire.



> Then again with sufficient magic, or with cooperative magic, need castles be fixed emplacements as we normally think of them? Could they not become mobile command centers, perhaps even a type of FOB able to be transported or teleported into and out of the areas of an engagement as necessary? One could even imagine, with enough power expenditure, or trasnformative magic, a walking castle, or one that transforms into other things.




I don't have a problem with such legendary scale things as a flying castles and buildings that walk about on bird legs, I just have no desire for them to be so prevasive that they first lose their sense of awe and wonder and secondly transform society beyond the point were it can be easily related to by the player or easily imagined by the DM.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Mar 10, 2010)

As always, folk completely misunderstand one of the main reasons  to have a defensive base like a castle:

It's not the thickness of the castle walls that is important, it's how damn good it's PATROLS, spy network, supply line are, and it's strategic use that are really important!

What use are super dooper antidragon defences if you don't have patrols and spies to tell you you're gonna be invaded by gibberling hordes, not local dragons?

What use are adamatine walls when an assassin poisons your elites/leaders?

And so on.

So folk really need ot think what a castle is ABOUT, not just it's D&D stats 

also, for 4th ed, rituals, damn right they are useful, rituals of warding, inviisbility dispelling, poison finding, summon guardian elementals (best alarm is a screaming archon chopping up some infiltrators), guarding your water supply from contamination etc (last one is CRUCIAL)


Just a question of perspective 

and dragons? fire proof wires stretched between turrets coated with adamantine spikes and anti-dragon poisons...


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## Truth Seeker (Mar 10, 2010)

All things have their place, in where you want it.

Castles against Dragons and spells...it gives such opportunity for the foes to try to take one down. Especially in a fantasy setting. Any builder worth their salt, better have learnt the lessons of the past to prepare for better defense for the present and the future.

Plus...capitals of power (kingdoms who hold sway) need to have them around, to show their...clout.


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## frankthedm (Mar 10, 2010)

Castles work because fantastic & wondrous problems that circumvent castles are supposed to rare enough to still _be_ fantastic & wondrous in the game world.

If a setting has a problem with invisible fliers, then more _invisibility seeking_ balista bolts that _Targeted dispel_ whatever they are about to hit are needed, not fewer castles.

Plus, if air attacks are a problem, that is why you build elaborate underground bases. AKA Dungeons


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2010)

frankthedm said:


> If a setting has a problem with invisible fliers, then more _invisibility seeking_ balista bolts that _Targeted dispel_ whatever they are about to hit are needed, not fewer castles.




Doesn't work.  Because the cost of creating invisibility seeking balista bolts that targeted dispel whatever they are about to hit compared to the cost of invisibility, means that they are no more and probably less effective of an answer than building invisibility and fire proofed fortifications.  The one is as easy to evade and cheaply destroy the value of as the other, _but at least the fortification provides more mundane defense at a similar cost_.  

I mean magical items are seriously expensive, both in terms of cost and availability of the casters that can create them.  The fact that I can concievably turn a whole castle into a magic item with whatever property I desire does not in itself justify the existance of castles.  

The question I'm asking is more along the lines of, "If 3rd or 5th level spellcasters are reasonably common threats, why hasn't society evolved magical defenses suitable to thwarting 3rd or 5th level spell casters."  I'm not asking how society defends against 20th level wizards, because the answer to that is obvious ('With other 20th level wizards.').   I'm focusing on the fact that in just about every campaign, in practice low level spellcasters are fairly common but defenses against these low level attacks are generally limited only to the presumably rare very high level spell-casters.  Obviously, if your campaign world is such that every shopkeeper is a 9th level wizard, the answer to this question can be much more direct but it raises other questions like, "Why does your world superficially resemble a world where magic is rare to non-existant?"


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## Dausuul (Mar 10, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Doesn't work.  Because the cost of creating invisibility seeking balista bolts that targeted dispel whatever they are about to hit compared to the cost of invisibility, means that they are no more and probably less effective of an answer than building invisibility and fire proofed fortifications.  The one is as easy to evade and cheaply destroy the value of as the other, _but at least the fortification provides more mundane defense at a similar cost_.
> 
> I mean magical items are seriously expensive, both in terms of cost and availability of the casters that can create them.  The fact that I can concievably turn a whole castle into a magic item with whatever property I desire does not in itself justify the existance of castles.
> 
> The question I'm asking is more along the lines of, "If 3rd or 5th level spellcasters are reasonably common threats, why hasn't society evolved magical defenses suitable to thwarting 3rd or 5th level spell casters."  I'm not asking how society defends against 20th level wizards, because the answer to that is obvious ('With other 20th level wizards.').   I'm focusing on the fact that in just about every campaign, in practice low level spellcasters are fairly common but defenses against these low level attacks are generally limited only to the presumably rare very high level spell-casters.




As you yourself pointed out, it really depends on how comprehensive you consider the spell list to be. D&D spells are strongly focused on practical adventuring. Other types of magic are scanted or ignored, but it's not unreasonable to assume they exist... for example, there might be a ritual that wards a structure against teleportation, requiring a year to complete (hence not something PCs are likely to have or use) but castable by a 3rd-level wizard.

Personally, I think D&D would benefit from an effort to expand PCs' horizons, just a little bit. The relentless focus on all dungeons all the time kills my interest after a while. 2E and BECMI tried to push the envelope some, but they didn't push it very far, and when WotC took over, everything that didn't relate to the dungeon or its surface equivalent got cut.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Mar 10, 2010)

I will agree with others posting here.  Castles are an outward sign of power, extremely useful against mundane attacks, and that can have its own magical and aerial defenses when needed.  They are superior to underground caverns because the fact is, most of the population in the game worlds are surface dwellers.  They need space, they need plants grown in large fields in the sun, they need land for animals to graze in.  

Castles are superior to underground fortresses in other ways as well.  They can see forces coming from a longer distance.   Teh height advantage from the walls give your archers and siege engines superior position and range.  While castles are less defensible, they provide greater opportunities to be able to break a seige; you can attack from the walls to clear a space to let a counter attack sally forth.  How would you do that from an underground fortress?  Sure, you can have secret exits, but if the enemy finds and covers them, you are trapped for certain.  

Last of course is that where there is magic and flying creatures for air assault, there is magic and burrowing creatures that can attack underground fortresses as well.  

Last point, castles look cool.


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## Celebrim (Mar 10, 2010)

Thornir Alekeg said:


> Castles are superior to underground fortresses in other ways as well.




Typical D&D Dwarven fortresses suffer from unrealistic designs in alot of ways, especially when you compare them to Tolkien's dwarven cities that inspired them.

If we take Erebor and Moria as typical, dwarven cities had alot of features that were deemed essential for livability that your typical D&D dwarf built fortress lacks.  For example, Moria had windows carved into the side of the mountain to let in light into the residential parts of the city.  These windows become points of entry for magical attackers that constitute not really more significant of a barrier than a castle wall.  Erebor fell to Smaug in part because the dwarves on watch outside the fortress could not communicate with the dwarves inside, resulting in a haphazard and poorly coordinated defense and dwarves being ambushed peicemeal.  The problem with most D&D dwarven strongholds is that in an effort to make them as assault proof as possible, they are turned into airless, lightless, waterless vaults with no provision for getting in and out on a daily basis.  Once you start adding things like air shafts to convey fresh air into the city and let smoke out, water for drinking and sanitation, windows to let in light, observation towers to survey the land, and so forth, you end up with a castle with unusually thick walls.


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## Obryn (Mar 10, 2010)

Castles aren't in fantasy worlds because they're completely effective or sensible.

They're in fantasy worlds because the pseudo-medieval genre basically demands them.  They're narratively and thematically appropriate, regardless of their effectiveness.

With that said, there are fantasy worlds without castles.  But those aren't generally considered traditional fantasy, either.

-O


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 10, 2010)

I think 4e has a much bigger issue then rituals - races.

You can always claim that high levels wizards are rare, but an entire army of level 1 eladrin foot soldiers can just teleport through all the defenses of the castle.


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## S'mon (Mar 10, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I think 4e has a much bigger issue then rituals - races.
> 
> You can always claim that high levels wizards are rare, but an entire army of level 1 eladrin foot soldiers can just teleport through all the defenses of the castle.




Don't they need line-of-sight?


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## Stoat (Mar 10, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I think 4e has a much bigger issue then rituals - races.
> 
> You can always claim that high levels wizards are rare, but an entire army of level 1 eladrin foot soldiers can just teleport through all the defenses of the castle.




It's a relatively short ranged power that requires line of sight.  The defenders should be ok if they're careful about where they put their windows and they keep their walls high enough.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 10, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I think 4e has a much bigger issue then rituals - races.
> 
> You can always claim that high levels wizards are rare, but an entire army of level 1 eladrin foot soldiers can just teleport through all the defenses of the castle.



Feystep requires line of sight and that the ramparts are more than 30 feet tall, the reall issue with Eladrin is jail. Dark Oubliettes seem to be the only answer.

Randon thought: does feystep preserve velocity?  'Casue if it does not, then you could use catapults to fire eladrin at the walls and when their trajectory gets close enough they feystep to the walls, safely shedding their momentum.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Mar 10, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> Randon thought: does feystep preserve velocity?  'Casue if it does not, then you could use catapults to fire eladrin at the walls and when their trajectory gets close enough they feystep to the walls, safely shedding their momentum.



The training exercises would be... messy.


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## interwyrm (Mar 10, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> does feystep preserve velocity?  'Casue if it does not, then you could use catapults to fire eladrin at the walls and when their trajectory gets close enough they feystep to the walls, safely shedding their momentum.




I like your style, kid. Flavor text suggests otherwise though. If eladrin are taking a quick step through the feywild, I'd expect that a falling eladrin continues to fall through the feywild - which means they just end up teleporting 30 ft down.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 10, 2010)

countgray said:


> Do traditional castles make sense as defensive structures in a fantasy world of dragons and spells?
> ...
> 
> All this makes me think that a practical, realistic fortification in a typical fantasy world would have to look very different than a medieval castle. I have no idea what shapes and designs would actually work and prevail in such a world, they would certainly be time tested and function better than what I can come up with my imagination.




I think this is a great mental exercise. Certainly castle architecture in Europe was very dynamic with defenses evolving rapidly as offense changed. The high castle period that most people think of when thinking of castles was roughly 1150 to 1350. Not very long really and very much shaped by technology. Magic ought to have similar effect.

A lot will depend on your prevelance of magic and siege-lore but I find it personally hard to believe magic wouldn't have a significant effect.

I imagine castles becoming more closed on themselves with less open spaces and more of the look of tiered, interconnected blockhouses with one unit providing protection for the next (including protection over the roofs) and no large interior spaces like a courtyard. So more towers and keeps and less sprawling walls that can be hopped over with magic. Compartmentalization to mitigate abilities that allow you to penetrate walls. Alternately, maybe no expensive fortifications: if big stone castles are easily subverted with magic, why build them? 

When considering magic and creatures, always good to consider in addition to flight, powerful earth/stone battering spells and creatures (elementals for instance) as well as underground creatures. In addition to providing access to the inside of a castle, an umber hulk could quickly excavate a mine for classic undermining operations.

And then the nature of the defenders may shape the fortification: griffon riders need places to house the griffins as well as launch and retrieve them. A castle with some giants in the garrison would have to accomodate them.

Lots of fun stuff to play with. I like castles and wouldn't run a fantasy world without them but usually modify them from the classic forms to meet at least the obvious threats.


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## howandwhy99 (Mar 11, 2010)

3 dimensional movement changes defensive design.  As does gravity.  Castles rarely have open tops for a reason too. And a dwarf hold is just as susceptible to attack as any other location in a 3D world.  It's all a matter of movement type.  Flying occurs through gaseous elements and is often thought of as the most common form of 3D movement.  Actually, I think swimming through liquid elements is the most common and certainly a consideration in terms of fortification when in an aquatic environment.  Tunneling and earthgliding are less common and often more difficult forms of movement and are usually not as often considered in defensive design.  That dwarves and dwarf holds would design for such attacks makes sense.

All of this overlooks a 4th kind of movement as sort of brought up at the end of your post: extra-dimensional.  Teleporting into the throne room of a castle is just as weak a defense as leaving the front gate open or having no walls.  The enemy can potentially come to you anywhere.

My way of handling this is by rating each resource and defense against them upon a power scale.  I use 1-10 which corresponds to the levels available in the world for almost everything: monsters, PCs, traps, spells, powers, magic items, and territory just to name a few.

There are forms of defense against all of these attacks in D&D, if you just look back at its' design.  (Entering a territory/terrain is just as much an attack/invasion as any other kind of encroachment on others' resources).  For me, when setting up combats I set equal forces against each other and let the PCs be the unaccounted for variable.


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## Obryn (Mar 11, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> Feystep requires line of sight and that the ramparts are more than 30 feet tall, the reall issue with Eladrin is jail. Dark Oubliettes seem to be the only answer.



...or hoods. 

-O


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 11, 2010)

Obryn said:


> ...or hoods.
> 
> -O



He can't feed himself through a hood...  Maybe a mask that just covers the eyes. I wonder was the man in iron mask an eladrin.


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## Mark Chance (Mar 11, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Castles can be made to defend against dragons and fireballs without too much fuss, but they are difficult to impossible to secure against invisible attackers....




_Invisibility_'s utility for infiltration can be thwarted by closed doors and guard dogs.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 11, 2010)

But Dungeons do   - It is Dungeons and Dragons, not castles and dragons.  

As others have said, it all depends on your view of the game world and what you have put into it.  With magic, there is a counter for every foe or attack, if you think long and hard about it.  Is this a failure of game building?  No, it is just too many veriations and options to be addressed in a game.

One of the easiest of spells can cause all sorts of interesting effects for defence & security, animate object.  Just think on it.


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## dogoftheunderworld (Mar 11, 2010)

That's why all th ehigh level NPCs have to call on lowly adventurers to get the mcguffin.  The NPCs have to stay and protect the castle!


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## Celebrim (Mar 11, 2010)

Mark Chance said:


> _Invisibility_'s utility for infiltration can be thwarted by closed doors and guard dogs.




That was my suggestion.



			
				celebrim said:
			
		

> Successful castle defense is going to have dedicated systems for responding to invisible threats. The front line of this defense is probably going to be trained creatures with the scent ability...




Guard dogs are an available low level solution.  Additional hardening of the access to gate houses and internal checkpoints using techniques similar to those used to control the flow of prisoners help but also increase the time required to shift defenders to defend a breach.  These technique are more along the lines of 'make do with what we have' rather than really good solutions.  Once you have a serious security breach into internal living spaces, having gaurd dogs and checkpoints everywhere reduces live ability to the point that it no longer seems appropriate simulation.  Large doors that see high traffic are breached fairly easily except during a seige, and the whole point of the invisible approach is to try to achieve surprise.  Truly succesful defense then involves having invisibility countermeasures and alarms at major corridor intersections and important gates, and an anti-infiltrator task force (guard dogs, low level wizards with glitterdust, fighters trained in blindfighting, high-ish level NPC's, etc.) ready to respond to threats.

The main thrust of my comments is that if you want to minimize the impact invisibility has on defensive design, that you need to make those magical countermeasures relatively cheap, long duration, and available at relatively low caster level.  I think there is some justification for this.  Magic Mouth provides a template for what can be done in terms of duration (triggered spell that is permanent until discharged at 2nd level, 1st level for Bards), and Faithful Hound provides a fairly high level example as a cap on how effective a lower level countermeasure may be.  Alarm doesn't have the nice 'permenent until discharged' or 'trigger' effects, but it isn't fooled by invisible creatures either.  See invisibility is a 2nd level spell, so detecting invisible creatures shouldn't be particularly high level.  Glitterdust provides an effective countermeasure to invisibility as a 2nd level spell.   Put this all together and its suggests that spell based invisibility counter measures with all the desired properties ought not to be more than 3rd or 4th level.  

Permenent until discharged 'Alarm': This could be a 2nd level spell, and while you couldn't defend trafficed corridors with it, its an effective countermeasure in ventilation, pipes, and sewers. 
'Magic Mouth' with 'see invisibility' feature, triggered to go off when an invisible creature comes in range: Probably 3rd level, and is an excellent counter measure for internal intersections and large halls where you can station sentries but doors aren't practical.
'Glitterdust' with 'permenent until discharged' duration: This would be about 4th level, and is an excellect countermeasure at large entry points where at least some of the gaurds are shielded behind fighting positions.  Can also be combined with any of the above to summon additional help, so a castle which has a 7th level mage dedicated to its defense (which even most 'grim and gritty' sorts of campaigns usually won't balk at too much) can still make a major hastle without spending alot of XP.
'Arcane Lock' with specified trigger: At 3rd level you could have an improved arcane lock, where the pass trigger can be specified by the caster to be something other than 'self'.  For example, the tigger might be, "Pass only humans wearing this uniform and holy symbol, and who speak the word XYZZY".  This provides excellent access control while still allowing freedom of movement for the inhabitants.
Faithful Hound: Available at 5th level, but doesn't have the 'cast it and forget about it' feature that so important in a defensive spell.  High level characters might have this spell available (probably on scrolls) to guard leaders, wells, and other critical points of the defence.  Also, at 9th level and higher, you can start making at least some of the above effects permenent, which has a high up front cost but means you don't generally have to replace the spell once it is triggered.

After that, consideration must be made to locking down a castle from teleportation attack...


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## El Mahdi (Mar 11, 2010)

deleted


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## Dausuul (Mar 11, 2010)

The simplest way to foil _invisibility_, with minimal impact to livability, is with a bag of flour, powdered chalk, or similar substance, deployed at each entrance to the castle and perhaps at checkpoints inside. For the cost of some chalk, a pail of water, and a towel (so guests can wipe the chalk off their feet once inside), you can make life very difficult for invisible intruders. Moreover, you can deploy this defense as needed and mop it up when the threat recedes.


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## Steel_Wind (Mar 11, 2010)

As many have mentioned, it depends upon the nature and scale of magic and flight, generally, in your campaign world.

This dependency in the verisimilitude of the campaign world is, I might add, one of my principal complaints about 3.xx.  The extremely high powered nature of the game and the default assumptions in the Rules as to the  ready availability of magic items (which 3.xx treat as a simple commodity) within the game world is, without doubt, at odds with the supposed medieval feel of the game world when evaluated on a logical basis.

So, are castles consistent with the sheer power in 3.5 and magic items which are bought and sold as a commodity? Nope. They are not. If verisimilitude is your aim, it's not even remotely _close_.

There is no law of FRP gaming which ways that this must bother a DM or the players. If everybody is perfectly comfortable with the inconsistency, and you want to _say_ it works, go ahread. 

But on a rational basis, these structures (and indeed, much of the underlying social/political system in a medieval society) just *does not make sense *within the uber_powered default assumptions in the 3.5 rule system.

Gameist design principles certainly won out over simulationist world building when considering this aspect of 3.xx.  For most this is fine and is just hand-waved away; for a minority it is not fine and requires significant re-thinking the assumptions in order to make some sort of supposed "sense". 

Where an individual stands on the Gameist/Simulationist spectrum is a matter of personal preference. There is never a right and wrong to a person's preferences.  I would argue, however, that there most definitely *can be *a right and wrong when trying to justify a gameist design principle and pass it off as reasonable simulation. 

If the logical inconsistency does not bother you, then it doesn't; however, if it does, then you will need to adjust the default assumptions in the 3.xx Rules system (or, alternatively, adjust the socio-political and military structures in your game world). *shrug*


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## interwyrm (Mar 11, 2010)

DiCaprio's a good actor at least 



Celebrim said:


> Guard dogs are an available low level solution.




This has been my experience in Dwarf Fortress (in which the primary enemies are goblins). A lot of times, they come in sneaking - invisible for all purposes. I solve this by chaining dogs up at the entrance.

Another solution is to trap the hell out of all entrances... but that's less fun, and if the enemies can avoid traps, it doesn't work so well.

A possible solution for light with less risk of teleportation in a subterranean fortress is to use glass ceilings in large caverns. Enemies teleport to the other side, and then plummet to their deaths.

Another possibility (which requires a bit more realism) is to consider that medieval glass is not like modern glass. It's all melty and you can't really see through it. I would argue that you can't use that sort of glass for line of sight, but that it still provides lighting.


Something else to consider is multi-racial dwellings - a human castle on top of a dwarven fortress. Humans worry about aerial attackers, and the dwarves have got the burrowers covered.


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## Dausuul (Mar 11, 2010)

Steel_Wind said:


> If the logical inconsistency does not bother you, then it doesn't; however, if it does, then you will need to adjust the default assumptions in the 3.xx Rules system (or, alternatively, adjust the socio-political and military structures in your game world). *shrug*




What inconsistency? What, specifically, is inconsistent? As many here have pointed out, castles still make sense in a high-magic world, just as fences and trenches still make sense in a world of jet fighters and ICBMs.

(You know what _doesn't_ make sense in a high-magic world? Polearms. Polearms are utterly unwieldy weapons except when used in close formation, and in a world where fireball-slingers are common, close formation is suicidal. While castles might still exist, I would expect battles in the open field to look a lot more modern than medieval.)


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## Theo R Cwithin (Mar 11, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> Feystep requires line of sight and that the ramparts are more than 30 feet tall, the reall issue with Eladrin is jail. Dark Oubliettes seem to be the only answer.






Obryn said:


> ...or hoods.
> 
> -O




... or gouge out their eyes.

_"Preeetty little eladrinnn won't be needing thossse preeetty little eladrinsess' eyesess anymore, will he hee heee?"  _


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## Celebrim (Mar 11, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> The simplest way to foil _invisibility_, with minimal impact to livability, is with a bag of flour, powdered chalk, or similar substance, deployed at each entrance to the castle and perhaps at checkpoints inside. For the cost of some chalk, a pail of water, and a towel (so guests can wipe the chalk off their feet once inside), you can make life very difficult for invisible intruders. Moreover, you can deploy this defense as needed and mop it up when the threat recedes.




Foiled by spider climb or flight, both available at low level and both part of a generally useful infiltration suite of spells.  Doesn't actually therefore put a huge burden on the infiltrator.

Furthermore, while the impact on livability is low, its really annoying to live with as sooner or later the powder will get everywhere.  I know that's what maids are for, but still.  I can see this tactic deployed only in response to a known infiltration, not as a standing defense.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 11, 2010)

the_orc_within said:


> ... or gouge out their eyes.
> 
> _"Preeetty little eladrinnn won't be needing thossse preeetty little eladrinsess' eyesess anymore, will he hee heee?"  _




The idea certainly has merit, however, there are situations where you want to keep the ealdrin intact and so put him in a sphercial tower, transparent in all directions and all standable surfaces are 31 feet away


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## Celebrim (Mar 11, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> (You know what _doesn't_ make sense in a high-magic world? Polearms. Polearms are utterly unwieldy weapons except when used in close formation, and in a world where fireball-slingers are common, close formation is suicidal. While castles might still exist, I would expect battles in the open field to look a lot more modern than medieval.)




This is part of the general case of, 'If fireball is common, traditional infantry tactics are obseleted.', that D&D has long had problems with.  A former DM of mine went exactly in that direction, such that fantasy warfare more resembled WWI and WWII than ancient warfare.

Since I consider that an undesirable result (at least for my campaign), I have this:

*HEAVY INFANTRY [GENERAL, TACTICAL, FIGHTER]*
You are trained to perform as heavy infanty.
*Prerequisite: *Tactics 4 Ranks, Base attack bonus +1
*Benefits: *You are capable of performing the following tactics.
_Legionaire:_ When formed in a shield wall, you gain a +2 bonus on reflex saves against spells or spell-like effects, and you are treated as possessing evasion. (If exposed to any effect which allows a reflex save for half damage, on a successful save the character takes no damage.)
_Professional:_ You can take 10 on a tactics skill checks to fight in Close Formation, Fight in Ranks, Form a Phalanx, or Form a Shield Wall regardless of distractions.
_Weight of the Formation: _You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to hit for each rank of heavy infantry formed up behind you, to a maximum of a +3 bonus.

Not all of that is understandable outside of context, but what it does that is relevant to your point is give _evasion_ to members of a formation, thus countering the tendency of fireball to increase dispersion and returning the simulation to a more intuitive state (ei, fantasy warfare remains more like the ancient warfare that helped inspire the game).


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## S'mon (Mar 11, 2010)

I'd think bead-curtain doors would be an effective way of spotting invisible inflitrators.

Spider Climb & Fly are usually bigger problems for the defense though, IME, along with the huge disparity between high and low level characters.   The usual thing in high level pre-4e IME was for a squad of high level characters, possibly PCs, to fly into the castle and then simply kill all the defenders.   This kind of thing seems much less likely in 4e - a few dozen 3rd level human guards or their 11th level minion equivalents in a well defended location are a tough prospect for PCs below Epic level.


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## coyote6 (Mar 11, 2010)

For regular _teleport_ (i.e., not dimension door or greater teleport), where you have to have an accurate mental picture of your destination, rearranging the furniture and changing the decor a lot can lessen the chances of incoming teleports succeeding. Add illusions to really mess with things. Plus, the fashion forward members of your court are kept happy. 

Also, you can't teleport into a solid object, right? I've wondered if hanging paper strips or strings everywhere in your important areas, such that no area large enough for a teleporter doesn't have a string hanging in it, would be effective. No one could teleport into that area without having their body intersect a solid object, so that ought to prevent teleports from working. Be a bit annoying, and would tangle up the spikey armor types horribly, but hey, if it keeps out the assassin wizards...


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## Ariosto (Mar 11, 2010)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> in a world where fireball-slingers are common, close formation is suicidal.



YMMV, perhaps depending on rules-set, but ...

Unless the formation is also _deep_, as in the multiple ranks typical with a pike phalanx, it tends (at least in old D&D) to be rather a waste of fireballs in my opinion. I would rather target that limited resource at high-level fighters and monsters. The heroes and superheroes and lords, as well as their retainers, can cut through masses of normal men like hot knives through butter, putting the survivors to panicked flight -- and do that from sunup to sundown. For that matter, ordinary troops are capable of dealing with their ilk (but not so much of taking on trolls and giants and other fantastic figures, much less those immune to non-magical weapons).

In 1E AD&D, it just becomes more and more "overkill" even versus deep formations of mundane men at arms as the caster rises in level. The number of 3rd-level spells a magic-user can prepare hits 5 at 13th level and does not increase again until 26th.

In any case, I would say that more common impediments would be bows, catapults, cannon, crossbows and handguns -- none of which did away with pikes until the introduction of the socket bayonet spelled the replacement of "pike and shot" formations with shallow lines maximizing musket firepower (by retaining tight files).

Also, many polearms (the halberd, for instance) would be used in rather loose formations, as indicated in the 1E PHB.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 11, 2010)

interwyrm said:


> Another solution is to trap the hell out of all entrances... but that's less fun, and if the enemies can avoid traps, it doesn't work so well.




And traps would likely have a good chance to trap friendlies or at least cause wear-paths that might make it clear where the traps are.

I had some pit traps concealed in a murky pool of water guarding a goblin lair once. The players had a chance to notice from the mud tracked from the pool that the goblins all entered and exited the pool on one side to avoid the pit.

For detecting invisible folks, could be noise maker or other signalling trap rather than a harmful one of course.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 11, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Unless the formation is also _deep_, as in the multiple ranks typical with a pike phalanx, it tends (at least in old D&D) to be rather a waste of fireballs in my opinion. I would rather target that limited resource at high-level fighters and monsters. The heroes and superheroes and lords, as well as their retainers, can cut through masses of normal men like hot knives through butter, putting the survivors to panicked flight -- and do that from sunup to sundown. For that matter, ordinary troops are capable of dealing with their ilk (but not so much of taking on trolls and giants and other fantastic figures, much less those immune to non-magical weapons).




It will depend on the particular army compositions of course but having a 20' radius chunk of men fall (or several for multiple fireballs from multiple casters or one firing sequentially) is likely to have a very detrimental effect on morale. Cause a unit to panic and things can fall apart quickly, despite the overall numbers.

Or consider a not so rare encounter in the middle ages where well trained and armed infantry could hold off heavy cavalry (such as at Hastings which was a near-run thing for William). Punch a hole in the infantry line with some fire balls as the cavalry charges up and suddenly the cavalry is much more effective again. The standard tactic of dispersing units in the face of area of effect attacks also makes infantry much less likely to resist cavalry so it can be a quandary for them.

I always thought horrid wilting was much nastier against armies in the later systems for high level casters.


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## Ariosto (Mar 11, 2010)

> Also, you can't teleport into a solid object, right? I've wondered if hanging paper strips or strings everywhere in your important areas, such that no area large enough for a teleporter doesn't have a string hanging in it, would be effective. No one could teleport into that area without having their body intersect a solid object, so that ought to prevent teleports from working. Be a bit annoying, and would tangle up the spikey armor types horribly, but hey, if it keeps out the assassin wizards...



Taut wire -- like a cheese slicer -- is what I recall from a long-ago article on the subject in _The Dragon_ (or maybe _White Dwarf_, as I think it came up in each _at least_ once).

Another thing I recall is the general utility of underground strongholds -- so perhaps your dungeons could _follow from_ your dragons, eh? (There was a movie a few years ago -- "Reign of Fire"? -- about post-modern humans whose civilization had been destroyed by _very_ powerful dragons.)


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## Ariosto (Mar 12, 2010)

> It will depend on the particular army compositions of course but having a 20' radius chunk of men fall (or several for multiple fireballs from multiple casters or one firing sequentially) is likely to have a very detrimental effect on morale.



Yes, indeed. I just have typically not found that the best use of 20% or more of an m-u's stock of fireballs.

Greek fire, "carcass" munition, chain or canister shot from cannon, organ guns, or (a real crowd pleaser) flaming pigs are probably more cost effective (if less impressive in a single shot).

YMMV, of course, depending on just _how_ common fireballs are relative to other things -- and how much monsters and high-level characters figure in the battle.

If there's a battalion you absolutely positively need gone this minute, then a _fireball_ is probably the way to go. Barring that, I would rather go for more powerful targets. A chance to blow away an *enemy mage* is usually by _far_ the best opportunity! Even if he makes his save, that's (in OD&D with Supp. I, B/X or AD&D) on average 70% of full HP gone (if of the same level, up to "name" after which it's an even harder blow). Of, course, you'll want to maneuver such that he's discouraged from replying in kind if he _does_ survive ...


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## Silver Moon (Mar 12, 2010)

Interesting how this thread seems to focus on magical creatures and wizard spells.  To me the great equalizer on these D&D worlds are the clerics and deities - they're the ones who can negate any and all defenses.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 12, 2010)

countgray said:


> Do traditional castles make sense as defensive structures in a fantasy world of dragons and spells?
> <snip>
> 
> 1. The Dwarves got it right! Underground delves and citadels hewn deep into mountain rock would provide ample protection from aerial assault.
> ...




My personal take on it for the past 15 years has pretty much been this.

Frequency of a particular monster type has little to do with it: consider how many creatures have flight inherently...and then how many can learn spells or powers that give them that ability.

Of course, there's also the tunnelers and incorporeal beings to deal with...

But as long as you can protect against one avenue of attack, you'd do so.  IOW, fantasy strongholds would more likely resemble those of WW1 on than Neuschwanstein or Dunluce.


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## Set (Mar 12, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Of course, there's also the tunnelers and incorporeal beings to deal with...




Back in ye olde days, there were odd ways to attempt to prevent people from travelling ethereally or astrally through one's castle walls (gorgon's blood mortar, or a layer of some living tissue), or scrying into sealed areas (thin layers of lead), etc.

If the game is going in that direction, I'd try to come up with similar 'fixes' to the most common issues.  Castles would have underground connecting chambers, so that a fireball raining down from above during a siege might not find a bunch of people standing exposed.  Catapults and ballista would hurl not just rocks and big spears, but weighted and barbed nets, or catapult-sized doses of tanglefoot goop at large flying attackers, causing them to drop to the ground (gravity for the win).  Incorporeal undead might find a layer of blessed silver worked into the mortar, that either bars their passage, or just burns them if they do force their way through.

Other defenses would depend on the commonality of exotic dangers.  If the local Salamanders like to send Thoqqua burrowing up into the castle so that they have easy routes past the defenses, perhaps some sort of dwarven-built system of tunnels beneath the castle that are filled with a massive reservoir of water, that drowns any burrowing Thoqqua who comes up (and quite possibly leaves it juicy and tender, steamed to perfection for the maintenance crews dining pleasure).  More magical solutions could include glyphs of warding placed in various subterranean pockets that inflict Cold damage (a nasty surprise for Thoqqua), a magically maintained series of storage tunnels that are kept at brutally cold temperatures (yes, our basement freezer-storage also doubles as a no-Thoqqua zone), or, if the monsters sent upwards are conjured thoqqua or earth elementals and not 'free-roaming,' a simple massive Hallow-backed Magic Circle of Protection from evil, that prevents summoned creatures from pushing their way up into the warded area.

But if none of this has ever happened in the area, there's no reason to waste all of this work (although the Hallow - Magic Circle is probaby a lot easier to accomplish in a hurry than the flooded tunnel schemes...).  Similarly, if the local area isn't reknowned for it's dragon attacks, spending a bunch of money on tanglefoot catapult shot might not be the best investment (just a few, 'cause ya never know, and you've got an alchemist on retainer, right?).

And there's always the possibility for more exotic solution.  I vaguely recall some story from WW2 about a building being hidden from long-range bombardment by a giant canvas painting of the city backdrop that was dropped down the side from the ceiling, making the building impossible to see for the operators of the giant guns outside the city.

A permanant glamer could accomplish a similar feature, with only those who work in the keep knowing that the central building is on the left side of the courtyard, not the right, and that bombardment of the 'keep' on the right will just destroy the gardens.  Even many of those working in the keep as serving staff might have no idea, as they enter a series of switch-abouts while passing through the gates and get thoroughly turned about in the process, being led to believe they are entering from another side entirely.

The game has pretty much endless options for item enhancement (just as one could use blindness/deafness to create a thundering weapon) or for the research and creation of new spells entirely for castle defense.  Between that, alchemy, and artificial limitations added to the system (such as lead sheets, gorgon's blood mortar, etc.), it shouldn't be too difficult to make a castle defensively viable.


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## Turtlejay (Mar 12, 2010)

All this dragon talk, but I think a Bulette would be more hazardous to a castle, personally.  Better than a sapping team!  You all defend against dragons, I'll ride my Bulette at the head of an Ankheg army and take your castle. . .

Of course, I'd say magic, like technology, is just another arms race.  As soon as one side deploys fireballs, the other develops countermeasures, ad nauseum, etc, until the advent of the magic nuke ushers in the magic cold war.  Scary times.

Jay


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## Mark Chance (Mar 12, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> The idea certainly has merit, however, there are situations where you want to keep the ealdrin intact and so put him in a sphercial tower, transparent in all directions and all standable surfaces are 31 feet away




Impossible. All measurements must be in increments of 5 feet, or, more precisely 1 square. For much the same reason, you can't actually have a round tower.


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## interwyrm (Mar 12, 2010)

Mark Chance said:


> Impossible. All measurements must be in increments of 5 feet, or, more precisely 1 square. For much the same reason, you can't actually have a round tower.




Well actually, due to the way diagonals work... a cube is actually a sphere.


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## Mark Chance (Mar 12, 2010)

interwyrm said:


> Well actually, due to the way diagonals work... a cube is actually a sphere.




And a square is a circle. Imagine how messed up geometry, architecture, et cetera are in a D&D world. Carts with square wheels. No arches or domes. What a mess.


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## countgray (Mar 14, 2010)

Set, I like your thinking and that is exactly the point I was trying to make and the innovations I was trying to elicit.  My point is not that castles are useless or set decorations for a game, but that in a fantasy world they would have to adapt and look somewhat different to the way we traditionally expect them to look.

Some posters have argued that a fantasy castle need not look any different than a medieval castle for the reason that, even in a fantasy world, fantastical threats will be uncommon and the majority of threats posed will be traditional threats faced by medieval societies, barbarian raiders, goblin hordes, etc. which are not that different from human foot soldiers.  While I think traditional threats are indeed some of the perils, perhaps even the most common ones, that fantasy castles must guard against, I think it misguided to hand-wave away the prospect of more fantastical opponents as "uncommon."

History has shown us that whenever a superior military technology or tactic has been discovered, it is quickly adopted and becomes not only common but the norm. There is every reason to assume that if there are creatures that can be easily bred or recruited, trained, and used for military purposes that they will be used for exactly that.

Medieval armies had cavalry; even very ancient armies used chariots and horses. Raising a herd of pegasi or other flying steeds can't involve all that much more cost and effort, and if the creatures exist and can be used to advantage, armies will do so.  It is almost a given that flying mounts (or flying soldiers) would be an integral component of fantasy armies.  Even such terrible creatures as Dragons could be selectively bred, over time, for temperment and controllability, so as to domesticate them--at least for the purpose of military conquest.

Any dark lord worth his salt would make sure that his invading army is as nasty and ferrocious as he can muster.  To the extent that he can employ uncommon tactics, tactics which the defenders are not anticipating, and which their castles were not built to guard against, he will do so.  Smart evil overlords will use every tactic at their disposal, no matter how sneaky or unconventional.  If it is possible in that world, you have to assume it will be in their arsenal. I would expect even the lowly, local goblin horde to have bat-riders or to ally with cloakers to a attack a castle from the air.

To that end, I think castle builders will need to anticipate not only conventional attacks, but as many unconventional attacks as their imagination can devise.  With that in mind, I can conceive of a number of potential opponents that fantasy castles would have to address. (Not including spells and magical effects, as I think they deserve a separate post):

Flyers: Pegasi, gryphons, hippogriffs, manticores, chimeras, dragons, drakes, rocs, giant eagles, giant bats, giant wasps, stirges, harpys, fiends, sylphs, gargoyles, cloakers, sprites, angels, air elementals, etc.

Burrowers: Dwarves, gnomes, bullettes, ankhegs, giant moles, dragons, and other diggers could be used to excavate tunnels underneath fortifications allowing access not only for them but for the normal legions that could swarm in behind them.

Phasers, and Incorporeal creatures: Earth elementals, xorn, ghosts, vampires, air elementals, etc. that can phase through rock, walk through walls, turn into gas or mist and seep through windows and cracks. All these methods frustrate the protection afforded by thick walls.

Diminuitive creatures: Sprites, sturges, insect swarms, snakes, creatures that can turn into insect swarms, shape shifters that can reduce their size and then grow big again. All these creatures, especially if they can fly and swarm in large numbers, can present harder targets to hit, are harder to spot, and can gain access through arrow slits, chimneys, drain pipes, and small openings that larger oponents could not squeeze through or that castle builders might not ordinarily consider as a vulnerable point of easy access.

Liquid creatures: water elementals, lava creatures, battle oozes.

Invisible creatures: [you can't see the list 'cause it's invisible] 

Extradimensional movement: Ethereal, Astral travel, shadowwalk, feystep, gates, portals, summoning, etc.

The architecture of a fantasy castle would need to be adapted to defend against these dangers and more if it were to be an effective redoubt in a fantasy world.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 15, 2010)

countgray said:


> Some posters have argued that a fantasy castle need not look any different than a medieval castle for the reason that, even in a fantasy world, fantastical threats will be uncommon and the majority of threats posed will be traditional threats faced by medieval societies, barbarian raiders, goblin hordes, etc. which are not that different from human foot soldiers.  While I think traditional threats are indeed some of the perils, perhaps even the most common ones, that fantasy castles must guard against, I think it misguided to hand-wave away the prospect of more fantastical opponents as "uncommon."
> 
> History has shown us that whenever a superior military technology or tactic has been discovered, it is quickly adopted and becomes not only common but the norm. There is every reason to assume that if there are creatures that can be easily bred or recruited, trained, and used for military purposes that they will be used for exactly that.




Not only that, but just because one _particular _threat is uncommon or rare doesn't mean that the number of potential foes with essentially the same abilities is rare as well.  IOW, a particular flying foe may be in and of itself quite the rarity...but flying itself is quite common.

Just think of what would happen once a single Kobold Sorcerer learned Dimension Door or Fly, for instance...and if he was part of "Tucker's" tribe, look out!  That spell would probably be disseminated through the entirety of the tribe's qualified spellcasters...and possibly their allies as well.



countgray said:


> <snipped excellent details>




The problem that I see is that there may be only one or two strongholds in the world built with the bankroll to protect adequately against ALL of those threats.  At some point, the gold runs out and the compromises must begin.

Into that gap comes training and personnel.  Instead of making your stronghold proof against earth elementals, you might train/hire those who can combat/control/rebuke them.  Instead of making your stronghold proof against phasers, you might equip a special squad or 2 with the weaponry to fight such foes.


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## countgray (Mar 15, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> there may be only one or two strongholds in the world built with the bankroll to protect adequately against ALL of those threats.  At some point, the gold runs out and the compromises must begin.



Well, castles (and other types of fortifications) have always been an expensive proposition, and both rich people and governments have bankrolled them for centuries, millennia even. 

I think that innovative defenders would gradually come up with techniques for defending against these new offensive strategies as they are introduced.  It wouldn't need to be built all at once.  Surely they would figure out cost-effective, simple defenses for fantastical attacks would evolve with time through trial and error.  I'm not sure that we can figure out what all those defenses would be in this thread in a brief period of time.  But I think castle architects would figure them out given time and impetus.

Castles are never built in a day.  If money runs out and the protection it affords is not adequate, they can keep adding on and making improvements, over centuries if need be.  I don't think that money is necessarily a limiting factor.  Especially when there are spells and magical creatures that can help defray construction costs.  Some of these were enumerated in the _*Stronghold Builders Guidebook*_.  If you can summon demons and elementals and celestials, then the construction may go even quicker.

Plus, a lord can use his serfs for little or nothing in pay.  Especially if the serfs are motivated to help construct the castle that will protect them in case of attack.

I would think dwarves would be extra helpful with such things as excavation, engineering and stonework, so all the more reason to include them in your community and foster good relations with the people down below.  They might be wooed with agricultural products and grain for their beers.

So there are things an enterprising lord could do to reduce construction costs.


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## Ariosto (Mar 15, 2010)

countgray said:
			
		

> Raising a herd of pegasi or other flying steeds can't involve all that much more cost and effort



Yes, it can!

For a start: There was only one Pegasus! His brother Chrysaor was like either a man or a boar in form, possibly winged. They are usually said to have sprung from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa. Chrysaor is the father of Geryon. Monsters in Classical mythology tend to trace their origins back to Gods (Athena and/or Poseidon in this case), and not to breed true.

Dark Lords of course want fearsome aerial cavalry regiments, or at least such a handful of terrors as Sauron mustered in his nine Nazgul. Unfortunately, their programs often yield such disappointments as Owlbears or Perytons.

It's a matter of one's taste in Fantasylands. Some people like the sort in which one can get a deal (even with bad credit!) at Cal's Used Leathery Winged Avians on Chimera Row.

Others prefer the sort of world in which it is a heroic quest, or at least a mighty patron's gift in aid of such, to acquire a hippogriff mount.

_"How shall we find this steed? Few they be, and high they fly above the world, and come to birth but one in three hundred years."

"But if thou be aught less than greatest, beware that steed, and mount only earthly coursers. For if there be aught of dross within thee, and thine heart falter, or thy purpose cool, or thou forget the level aim of thy glory, then will he toss thee to thy ruin."_ 



> The architecture of a fantasy castle would need to be adapted to defend against these dangers and more if it were to be an effective redoubt in a fantasy world.



Again, it depends upon the nature of the fantasy world -- and upon the purpose of the fortress. 



> It is almost a given that flying mounts (or flying soldiers) would be an integral component of fantasy armies.



As a rule of thumb, I reckon it should be about as much or little a given for NPCs _of similar stature_ as it is for player-characters.

The more common it is to keep a stable of wyverns or a pet purple worm, the harder it is likely to be for PCs to stand out as legendary figures.

If fantastic forces are few and far between, then so probably are their appearances in action. Where they pose a threat is where their commanders have so much at stake as to warrant risking such assets.

Strategy is rarely a matter of it being desirable (or even practically feasible) to do everywhere everything theoretically possible. Investment in defense or power projection is wisely contingent upon having something of appropriate value to protect or gain.


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## Filcher (Mar 15, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> He can't feed himself through a hood...  Maybe a mask that just covers the eyes. I wonder was the man in iron mask an eladrin.




FWIW, when we capture eladrin we just carve out their eyes. Doesn't everyone?


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## Filcher (Mar 15, 2010)

countgray said:


> Raising a herd of pegasi or other flying steeds can't involve all that much more cost and effort, and if the creatures exist and can be used to advantage, armies will do so.




With all our modern know-how, reintroduced California Condors have only just now built the first condor nest in the Pinnacles in more than 100 years ... we're having an even harder time breeding pegasi in captivity. And don't even think about trying to breed war pandas. 

When Hannibal tried to march his game-changing war elephants across the Alps, most of them died.


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## countgray (Mar 15, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> There was only one Pegasus!



Sadly, the Pegasus brand has become genericized, and now applies to all avian equines.  Pegasus tried to enforce his trademark in Pegasus v. Gygax 1979, but lost on appeal to the 3rd circuit.  While there may have been only one Pegasus, there are now many, many pegasi.







Ariosto said:


> it depends upon the nature of the fantasy world -- and upon the purpose of the fortress.



Well, for the purposes of this thread, we shall assume a world with creatures, spells and magic comparable to that of D&D, specifically that which can be found in the Monster Manual(s), Players Handbook(s) and DM's Guide(s) of whatever edition you prefer.  The purpose of the fortress is to defend the inhabitants against the same.  I think that gives us a good point of reference for discussion.

No point in discussing low-magic worlds.  We will stipulate that, in low-magic worlds, castles can remain the same as always and thus low-magic worlds need not be further mentioned in this thread.







Ariosto said:


> The more common it is to keep a stable of wyverns or a pet purple worm, the harder it is likely to be for PCs to stand out as legendary figures.



Granted that is true, but I'm not really interested in talking about how the DM or the author wishes it to be, or needs it to be to serve dramatic purposes, rather, I am interested in how a hypothetical society that lived in a world governed by D&D rules as their physical laws and their everyday reality, would realistically (to the extent we can imagine it) defend against the hazards and perils such a system would impose.







Ariosto said:


> Strategy is rarely a matter of it being desirable (or even practically feasible) to do everywhere everything theoretically possible. Investment in defense or power projection is wisely contingent upon having something of appropriate value to protect or gain.



Point taken. For the purposes of this thread, let's assume the something of value to protect would be the lives of the defenders under siege in the castle.  While you are right that those defenders cannot do everything everywhere theoretically possible, I am just interested in what they could practically do to defend against a broad range of attacks that are available to evil conquerors under D&D rules.


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## S'mon (Mar 15, 2010)

countgray said:


> Well, for the purposes of this thread, we shall assume a world with creatures, spells and magic comparable to that of D&D, specifically that which can be found in the Monster Manual(s), Players Handbook(s) and DM's Guide(s) of whatever edition you prefer.  The purpose of the fortress is to defend the inhabitants against the same.  I think that gives us a good point of reference for discussion.
> 
> No point in discussing low-magic worlds.




No no no - I have around 26 years of experience GMing Gygaxian fantasy worlds with the magic and monsters of 1e/OD&D Monster Manual, including dozens of PC vs NPC castle sieges and battles.  Monsters have *never* been a major factor, for a host of reasons, some similar to why there were never war tigers, flights of sea eagles, or even (sub Saharan) African war elephants, IRL.

Just as IRL, most animals & monsters are not domesticable.  They won't breed in captivity.  They aren't trainable.  Powerful magic can overcome these problems, but there are usually much more efficient uses for powerful magic that don't require years of investment.

Secondly, for the minority of animals that will breed in captivity and are trainable (mostly horse analogues like Pegasi and Hippogriffs) they take a huge investment in time, skill and money, following the RAW, to get something that is about as useful as a Fly spell, and can be easily shot down.  After ca 25 years of GMing high level D&D, it was only a couple years ago that I saw a player express interest in a flying mount as one of her Ranger cohort critters - a Griffon she acquired during a several-year time jump.  And she used it for scouting, not fighting - it was far too valuable to risk in combat.

Spells, by contrast, are easily acquired, and far more powerful and flexible.  Invisibility, Fly, Fireball at lower levels; at higher levels Rock to Mud and other mighty magics.  These are the real threats to fortresses, not monsters.

Now, you can create a fantasy world where monsters are routinely breedable and trainable.  There are certainly examples IMC - the Makyan Barbarian War Bison, the Marrakeen Zeereshi giant lizard cavalry, occasional flying mounts like the ranger with her griffon.  But it's entirely the GM's choice whether these change the nature of battle & fortification.  That is *not* the case with pre-4e magic; in the absence of extensive house ruling it *will* cause major changes.


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## Celebrim (Mar 15, 2010)

I agree with S'mon.  Monsters generally aren't game changers in and of themselves, and are even less game changers in 3e than they were in 1e when damage resistance was absolute rather than being some thing like 10/+1 or 10/magic.  Pegasi don't generally represent a gamechanging threat.  They are 2HD monsters with relatively poor AC and a relatively small hit point reserve before they are shot out of the sky.  If they come into range of traditional archers, they have serious problems.  I suppose there is a threat of 'high altitude bombing', but its no worse than trebuchets.  If the presence of relatively rare but useful aerial forces creates a situation analogous to mid-WW-I aircraft, so much the better, since mid-WW-I is itself analogous (and was recognized as analogous) to medieval knight-craft.

Likewise, even among DM's playing Gygaxian D&D, there is a broad range over how commonly monsters appear 'on the market' and how often they are used by armies.  There is no single standard interpretation.

The real game changers are ubiquitous low level spells like invisibility, fly, and fireball which appear fairly reutinely in even low magic worlds.  I'm sure they exist, but I've not encountered the DM that created a world that was so low magic that 5th level M-U's were epic and unknown.  If there was a world this low magic, it would create it own unique difficulties.

The real test in my opinion is whether your world appears to be one where the PC's are the first to ever test the societies ability to defend itself against magic.  I would suggest that for most DM's, they reach a point where they realize this is true and they have to invent solutions to magical threats.  I believe that the reason that this is true is that historically the text of D&D has done a very poor job communicating what steps are or might be taken to defend against magical threats.


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## Stoat (Mar 15, 2010)

Two points:

1)  I largely agree with Celebrim that flying monsters usually suffer from low hit dice and poor AC, which makes them less of a threat than they might immediately appear.  Further, if flyers are a commonly encountered threat, I suggest it makes more sense for the defenders to train up their own flyers instead of trying to build elaborate static defenses.  

2)  While 5th-level Mages may be relatively common, and it would be fairly easy for such a mage to infiltrate a conventional castle using invisibility, fly, spider climb, etc.  I'm not sure what the mage is going to do once he gets in.  He'll have to devote most of his spell slots to defense/infiltration with relatively few left over for offense.  Even if he can compensate for offense with items (a wand of fireball or lightning bolt might be good) his hit points won't let him stand and fight once he blows his invisibility by attacking.  He might cause a lot of damage up front, but I don't think he'll last long.

A lower-level wizard might do better by poisoning the well, sabotaging siege equipment, starting mundane fires, opening the gate, etc. etc.  BUT a lower-level thief or rogue can do the same thing.  Given the rogue's ability to climb walls, hide and move silently, plus the rogue's better hit points and ability to take out lone guards silently with backstab, I think I'd rather hire a 5th level rogue to infiltrate Castle Perilous than a 5th level wizard.


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## Filcher (Mar 15, 2010)

It seems that with the exception of dogs and cats, most domesticated animals are herbivores. (Correct me if I'm wrong, pls.) So I guess I'd expect the same from my game.

But even assuming you breed and train a suitable number of carnivorous monsters to make an effective war unit, feeding them in the off season has got to be hell. 

A flight of dragons? Who the heck feeds those things?


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## El Mahdi (Mar 15, 2010)

deleted


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## Celebrim (Mar 15, 2010)

Stoat said:


> While 5th-level Mages may be relatively common, and it would be fairly easy for such a mage to infiltrate a conventional castle using invisibility, fly, spider climb, etc.  I'm not sure what the mage is going to do once he gets in.  He'll have to devote most of his spell slots to defense/infiltration with relatively few left over for offense.  Even if he can compensate for offense with items (a wand of fireball or lightning bolt might be good) his hit points won't let him stand and fight once he blows his invisibility by attacking.  He might cause a lot of damage up front, but I don't think he'll last long.




Military tactics are often driven by economics.  An armored mounted knight makes sense only if the cost of training, equiping and maintaing the knight in the field is less than the cost of training, equiping and maintaining an equivalent force with a different composition.  If an armored knight is easily countered by a much less expensive unit, say peasant with a crossbow, then force composition will necessarily shift toward a larger force composed of less expensive units.

In D&D, the question has always been, does a force of low level wizards equipped in a relatively expensive fashion (scrolls, wands, etc.) have so much offensive punch, that it obseletes non-arcane soldiery as a main battle force.  Under unmodified 3e RAW, and to a lesser extent under 1e, a pretty strong case can be made that it does.  Since most DM's would not consider a world were army normally means 'a small force of flying invisible wizards with wands of fireballs' to be a desirable outcome, the question becomes what happens in your campaign world to prevent that outcome.

1) 'Wizards are really rare': One answer is that for every 5th level wizard there are 100 or so 5th level fighters, so the impact of Wizards is relatively small.  The problem I see with this answer is that doesn't typically conform to player experience.  Few DM's are so stingy with NPC spellcasters that there isn't a low level wizard or two in every community, to say nothing of what might be present in larger communities.  
2) 'Wizards don't participate in politics': Another answer is that wizards just aren't willing to fight on behalf of the community, or our culturally forbidden to do so.  This answer also has several problems, the first of which being that its an unstable situation.  The first culture to break the rules gains a pretty significant advantage.  Also, and even harder to get around, it again doesn't conform to player experience.  The PC's not only encounter wizards as foes with political interests, the PC's themselves might be arcane spellcasters serving essentially as mercenaries in the employ of some political interest.
3) 'Something is wrong or missing in the RAW': This is my answer, mainly because it in part addresses the question of 'Are spell-casters just better than non-spellcasters?' that starts cropping up as PC level increases.  The problem with this answer is obviously, 'Ok, but what is wrong or missing?'

Now, in 4e, this problem doesn't really come up, because 4e doesn't worry really about the simulation level effects of its rules, or really about the question of, "How do NPC's interact with other NPC's?" at all.  And, that's another approach you can take.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 15, 2010)

Stoat said:


> Two points:
> 
> 1) I largely agree with Celebrim that flying monsters usually suffer from low hit dice and poor AC, which makes them less of a threat than they might immediately appear. Further, if flyers are a commonly encountered threat, I suggest it makes more sense for the defenders to train up their own flyers instead of trying to build elaborate static defenses.




Defenders training their own flyers is an excellent point and one likely to happen in a "real" fantasy world. New military technology may allow an advantage to one side in the short run but in the long run others will acquire it (or be eliminated and no longer matter).

But it does raise several points: rulers have finite resources and if you spend more one place, you have less money for other places. Raise a large flying force and you might not be able to afford the big stone castles, for instance. Or perhaps just as important: you might not see the need for the castle.

For much of the middle ages, the castle served as a place to project force from, for controlling an area or for preserving forces that an invader could not affort to bypass. If you can fly your force in from a distance, do you need the castle?

On the other hand, one would think that a flying creature needs a huge amount of high energy food (meat). It might be very expensive to maintain flying forces in large numbers or for long. Maybe they are more for recon.

Some years ago I ran a campaign where the premise was that the players were playing a people conquered by invaders who had used griffins to overthrow the old regime. But decades had gone by and the griffins were much fewer in number now since they were so expensive to maintain and the balance had changed although the conquered did not realize it yet.

Anyway, I love a big stone castle as much as anyone and I use them. I try to address the most egregious aspects of "castles in a fantasy world" but I also realize that in a world of real magic and creatures people would figure out ways to use them that would probably leave little place for castles as most of us imagine them from the high middle ages.


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## Filcher (Mar 15, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Military tactics are often driven by economics.  An armored mounted knight makes sense only if the cost of training, equiping and maintaing the knight in the field is less than the cost of training, equiping and maintaining an equivalent force with a different composition.  If an armored knight is easily countered by a much less expensive unit, say peasant with a crossbow, then force composition will necessarily shift toward a larger force composed of less expensive units.




Agreed. 



Celebrim said:


> In D&D, the question has always been, does a force of low level wizards equipped in a relatively expensive fashion (scrolls, wands, etc.) have so much offensive punch, that it obseletes non-arcane soldiery as a main battle force.  Under unmodified 3e RAW, and to a lesser extent under 1e, a pretty strong case can be made that it does.  Since most DM's would not consider a world were army normally means 'a small force of flying invisible wizards with wands of fireballs' to be a desirable outcome, the question becomes what happens in your campaign world to prevent that outcome.
> 
> 1) 'Wizards are really rare': One answer is that for every 5th level wizard there are 100 or so 5th level fighters, so the impact of Wizards is relatively small.  The problem I see with this answer is that doesn't typically conform to player experience.  Few DM's are so stingy with NPC spellcasters that there isn't a low level wizard or two in every community, to say nothing of what might be present in larger communities.
> 
> 2) 'Wizards don't participate in politics': Another answer is that wizards just aren't willing to fight on behalf of the community, or our culturally forbidden to do so.  This answer also has several problems, the first of which being that its an unstable situation.  The first culture to break the rules gains a pretty significant advantage.  Also, and even harder to get around, it again doesn't conform to player experience.  The PC's not only encounter wizards as foes with political interests, the PC's themselves might be arcane spellcasters serving essentially as mercenaries in the employ of some political interest.




I wonder if one solution is a blend of 1 & 2. In that: 

1. Wizards are "rare." No more than 1 for 100 mundanes. 

2. Wizardry takes work. Years of practice. (This isn't borne out in our games, sadly.) 

So if I am rarity, and I've worked years to even master a light spell, no way in this world or the next am I going to risk all that for a bit of nationalistic glory. 

Temporal power? Gold? A mage wants not these things. I'm after absolute mastery of the multiverse.  

Some might, but they are *really* rare. So this then allows us to rationalize the 1 in 1000 model that permits the use of castles. 

Maybe?


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## Ariosto (Mar 15, 2010)

countgray said:
			
		

> For the purposes of this thread, let's assume the something of value to protect would be the lives of the defenders under siege in the castle.



Doublespeak, Department of, procedure, standard, Mark I. But *why* is castle X there in the first place, and who and what is there with an interest in besieging it?

If you really want to talk about what "makes sense", then -- to the extent that the elements have real-world analogs -- you cannot well dismiss real-world experience.

If you really want to talk about what makes sense in the context of a *Dungeons & Dragons* game, then you cannot well dismiss actual play experience. If there is advantage to be had, then count on players taking it! D&D is "survival of the fittest" on overdrive.

At least it used to be so. If the "magic economy" in 4e (plate +1, leather +1, same price!; no incentive to make ritual scrolls for sale; etc.) is "D&D rules", then certainly so are the Original and Advanced games' assumptions.

If you just want to shoot the breeze about whatever measures and counter measures people posting here can theoretically contrive, then you may as well simply drop those conceits -- contentiously dismissive claims that distract from your desire.

By pressing an argument that castles do _not_ "make sense in a world of dragons and spells" -- and arbitrarily, against all evidence, insisting that the world must (in what becomes a _circular_ argument) conform in every respect to the needs of your case -- what do you expect?

What I think one reasonably ought to expect as a consequence is counter-arguments.


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## Dausuul (Mar 15, 2010)

Filcher said:


> Temporal power? Gold? A mage wants not these things. I'm after absolute mastery of the multiverse.




This brings up an interesting possibility, which is that wizardry might favor practitioners who do not concern themselves with material things. Perhaps too much focus on matters of the temporal world diminishes a wizard's power in the mystical world.

Hence, the majority of wizards are loners with little connection to society; ivory-tower scholars, hermits living in the wilderness, witches in huts at the far edge of town, et cetera. A handful might decide to become wizard-kings, probably to secure more resources for their rituals or to take advantage of the mystic connection between the king and the land; but even these are apt to leave the mundane details of running their kingdoms to subordinates while they themselves study the stars and probe into forbidden mysteries. (This tends to undermine their effectiveness as kings, of course, which is why every kingdom on earth is not ruled by an arcane monarch.)


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## S'mon (Mar 15, 2010)

What I've seen a lot IMCs re the use of low-medium level Wizards in attacking a castle:  they don't.  Even 30 level 0 men-at-arms are a severe threat to a lone M-U 5.  What actually happens is that the M-U 5 casts Fly and Invisibility on the attacking army's best Fighter (often a PC), he flies into the castle and kills the defenders.  

To be safe you need a couple of M-U 5s or 1 M-U 6 so you can do this to at least 2 high level champions; a lone attacker might just roll a '1' on his saving throw vs Command by a 1st level Cleric in the castle, or vs Charm Person from an M-U 1.


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## Ariosto (Mar 15, 2010)

The enemy has a 5th-level (or even 6th- or 7th- level) m-u? Is there some reason we lack a thaumaturgist of our own? No? Then it is basically a matter of who is quicker on the draw (assuming memorization of appropriately violent spells).



			
				marcq said:
			
		

> If you can fly your force in from a distance, do you need the castle?



"Yes!" is clearly the answer of, e.g., the U.S. in Iraq.

Look into the importance of fortresses in 18th-century European and colonial warfare. Look also at consequences of the employment in that of highly trained professional soldiers (probably not _more_ expensive or _less_ reliable than monsters and magicians, methinks).


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## Dausuul (Mar 15, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The enemy has a 5th-level (or even 6th- or 7th- level) m-u? Is there some reason we lack a thaumaturgist of our own? No? Then it is basically a matter of who is quicker on the draw (assuming memorization of appropriately violent spells).




Problem is, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the spell list as written massively favors offense over defense. This is of course an artifact of D&D's focus on the dungeon crawl. PC wizards are crawlers, not crawlees, so their spells are oriented toward infiltration and evasion rather than defense and detection.


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## S'mon (Mar 15, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> The enemy has a 5th-level (or even 6th- or 7th- level) m-u? Is there some reason we lack a thaumaturgist of our own? No? .




Yes.  The attacking force is vastly superior.  That's the whole point of fortifications: to tripwire a superior invading force, until reinforcements can be brought up.  Castle sieges & assaults are never battles between equal forces.  IRL castles could be held with tiny forces against large armies; that's why they were worth building.

Thus, if the defenders have M-U 5s, the attackers better have M-U 10s.  If the attacker cannot muster even local superiority at the point of impact there's no way they can expect to win the war.


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## Celebrim (Mar 15, 2010)

Filcher said:


> 1. Wizards are "rare." No more than 1 for 100 mundanes.




That's not enough.  I can already presume that there is 1 spell-caster per 100 commoners/experts, and this doesn't get us what we want.  In fact, it drives the reverse.  If the ration is 1 wizard per 100 mundanes, then the relative power becomes more concentrated in the hands of wizards rather than less.  This doesn't get us around the problem of player experience, which is that wizards while rare, aren't notably rare.  Also, as DMs we'd rather like a different answer than this because if wizards are really really rare, then it raises the relative importance of the PC spellcaster even beyond what we might like for the PC as protagonist/hero.  One of the classic problems with 'average NPC's are 0 level fighters model' is it doesn't address how the population protects itself from threats, and particularly from the PC's.  The classic examples of this are things like 'Keep on the Borderlands' and 'Village of Homlet', where at some point the player with a purely gamist approach to the game realizes that the 'good guys' have more treasure, and better treasure, and relatively less ability to defend it than the 'bad guys' and hense are a much more attractive option to kick the doors down and loot than going dungeon delving.



> 2. Wizardry takes work. Years of practice. (This isn't borne out in our games, sadly.)




No and isn't, and it's also irrelevant to whether M-U's would be used in battle.  Knighthood took work, years of practice (14 years of training, at least 7 of them in combat techniques), but despite its expense was deemed worth it because of the advantages that society obtained in point defense, operational mobility, and concentration of force especially in comparison to undisciplined troops.



> So if I am rarity, and I've worked years to even master a light spell, no way in this world or the next am I going to risk all that for a bit of nationalistic glory.




If we postulate that advantages in an arcane force or mitigated solely by culture and not some non-arcane countermeasure, then any society that successfully shifted that culture by appealing to nationalist pride, loyalty to the group, or whatever would obtain an overwhelming advantage against ones that didn't.



> So this then allows us to rationalize the 1 in 1000 model that permits the use of castles




Let me refer you back to earlier posts by me and note that quite the contrary, the RAW (especially in 3e) rationalize for the use of castles as an arcane countermeasure more than the rationalize for having an army composed of martial classes in the first place.  Assuming the existance of an army of marial classed beings, the castle is actually one of the ways you can most easily protect them.  At least in 3.0, arrow slits provide 90% cover, which in turn provides the all important _improved evasion_, meaning that lower level fighters actually have a decent chance of surviving fireballs and similar attacks.  Walls, roofs over your heads and closed gates provide barriers to invisible and/or flying attackers that make it harder for them to maximize the benefits of their advantage.  Massed missile weapons under these conditions can compete with spell casters.

The real question then becomes not so much 'Why castles?' as 'Why armies in the first place?'  The advantage of a castle is not really the same sort of advantage provided by a gun emplacement in an artillery position.  A castle doesn't directly defend or threaten the surrounding area.  The advantage is more akin to that provided by an aircraft carrier.  A castle provides a basis for projecting force through sortees from the castle, and for storing the means of that force projection securely.  This means that you cannot safely bypass a castle and leave it in your rear the way you could a fixed artillery position that didn't threaten you supply lines (think a cannon on an island you can safely bypass).  However, if non-arcane forces have no practical way of projecting force out into the field, then the castle is rendered obselete not by the fact that it can't protect a force, but that the very act of protecting that force is mostly meaningless.  If the castle cannot project force beyond the immediate vicinity of its walls, the castle could be bypassed and its inhabitants would remain beseiged and unable to leave nonetheless.  

I'm not sure that 'castles' would be completely obseleted even in this case, but their role would be very much closer solely to that of a saferoom, shelter or bunker, a place of temporary safety that the villagers could retreat to in event of attack.  And in that case, the 'castle' would probably evolve toward being more bunker-like.  The villagers would then huddle in the bunker like Keep, while the army (consisting mostly of spell-casters) would go defend against whatever magical threat (a monster, another army of spell-casters) was attacking.   But again, I don't think that this is a desired result, so we need better answers for how a small unit of fighters deals with a wizard of comparable level.


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## Ariosto (Mar 15, 2010)

S'mon said:
			
		

> Even 30 level 0 men-at-arms are a severe threat to a lone M-U 5.



Not if the mage has _protection from normal missiles_. In the absence of that, four hits should suffice on average. In AD&D 1st ed., let us say:

base 50% vs. AC 10
light crossbow +15% vs. AC 10, 15" (fireball range) is -25% for long range = 40%
heavy crossbow +20% vs AC 10, -10% for medium range = 60%
average is back to 50%
heavy crossbow, but m-u is detected while _invisible_ -20% = 40% (light = 20%)

So, a volley from 10 or 20 is on average deadly (14 points of damage vs. 12.5 hit points) to the _invisible_ mage.

See _Dungeon Masters Guide_ pp. 103-104 regarding "hiring non-player characters to cast spells or use devices". Note that risk is mentioned as likely to increase fees fivefold or more, if not outright refused.

A basic assumption of _that_ game -- expressed in the sections on henchmen and hirelings as well -- is that characters possessing class levels and capable of advancement due to experience points are *extraordinary, independent and ambitious*.

In other words, when 6th-level 'magicians' and 'myrmidons' take the field, it is not as mere "rank and file". Such figures are at the least _allies_ of the principals, with their own interests in mind.


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## Ariosto (Mar 15, 2010)

S'mon said:
			
		

> That's the whole point of fortifications: to tripwire a superior invading force, until reinforcements can be brought up.



Just don't assume that the Ardennes is "impassable"!


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## Rykion (Mar 15, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Military tactics are often driven by economics.  An armored mounted knight makes sense only if the cost of training, equiping and maintaing the knight in the field is less than the cost of training, equiping and maintaining an equivalent force with a different composition.  If an armored knight is easily countered by a much less expensive unit, say peasant with a crossbow, then force composition will necessarily shift toward a larger force composed of less expensive units.



I agree with most of your points, but knights existed in the numbers they did because of politics and social conditions over economics or battlefield effectiveness.  Medieval nobles spent their nations' resources equipping themselves because they had the power to, and wanted to have the best gear.  Look at museums to see ornate suits of armor that cost a fortune and were all about bling over mere functionality.  Most nobles probably didn't really consider the fact it would save money and be more effective to train a professional army of peasants.  Even if they did, they would likely fear a trained and armed army of peasants might find it easy to usurp political power.

Heavy cavalry certainly had its place, but it wouldn't have been nearly as prevalent in an army primarily based on economics, military tactics, and battlefield effectiveness.


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## Celebrim (Mar 15, 2010)

Rykion said:


> I agree with most of your points, but knights existed in the numbers they did because of politics and social conditions over economics or battlefield effectiveness.  Medieval nobles spent their nations' resources equipping themselves because they had the power to, and wanted to have the best gear.




Maybe, but I think you need to step backwards from that argument for a second and ask how the society reached that point.  If heavy cavalry was ineffective on the battlefield, then the politics and social conditions wouldn't have evolved to that point.  There is some interplay, I agree, and I've simplified things to suggest that it is a simple matter of economics creating the military tactics, politics, and social conditions, but I think that reversing that and saying that its tactics, politics, and social conditions that create the military economics is no better and very likely a worse description.  Heavy cavalry was a legitimate technological response to the military situation Western Europe (and to a lesser extent Eastern Europe) found itself in after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  Heavy cavalry created the feudal situation at least as much, and in my opinion probably much more than the feudal situation created heavy cavalry.  Battles like Crecy and Agincourt indicate that those military and political models did outlive their usefulness, but that's true of pretty much every military model in history.  Given the wealth to do so, everyone always tries to 'fight the last war'.



> Look at museums to see ornate suits of armor that cost a fortune and were all about bling over mere functionality.




Yes, but by the time that such ornate armor was being produced, the role heavy cavalry had already shrunk.  In fact, by the time that you see fully articulated field plate, you are also seeing masses of discplined heavy infantry (pikes and muskets) being the primary mass of the army.  And even then, the 'bling' you disdain served a part maybe even the most important part  of the military function of the armor.  Late period heavy plate served the role of maintaining command and control by preserving the life of the commander while he was in direct control of the engagement.  Only while wearing battle plate and being mounted on a horse, could the field commander successfully fulfill a leader function and direct the battle.  The 'bling', while to a large extent serving a primarily political and personal function, also served the legitimate military function of visually distinguishing the commander as the commander.  Even today, we still have official 'bling' designed to serve in this capacity.



> Heavy cavalry certainly had its place, but it wouldn't have been nearly as prevalent in an army primarily based on economics, military tactics, and battlefield effectiveness.




Given the constraints of the middle ages - point defense versus raiding parties, low population density, poor centralized planning, little preexisting infrastructure (at least for Northern Europe) - I'm not sure that is the case.  I think it was an effective response to a military situation where the primary threats were essentially bandits (including other knights, but certainly including Vikings), and were there were few or no foes fielding displined heavy infantry.  The only foe that it dealt with poorly was the Monguls, and there the problem wasn't with its effectiveness in close combat (where it tended to be quite effective when it could achieve it), but with the fact that no sufficient means of command and control had been developed owing to the general success of the mass charge.  The Mongols beat the Europeans handily owing primarily to superior command and control., not to the inherent ineffectiveness of heavy cavalry (which was still kicking butt at least as late as the Seige of Vienna in 1683).


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## Rykion (Mar 15, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Maybe, but I think you need to step backwards from that argument for a second and ask how the society reached that point.  If heavy cavalry was ineffective on the battlefield, then the politics and social conditions wouldn't have evolved to that point.  There is some interplay, I agree, and I've simplified things to suggest that it is a simple matter of economics creating the military tactics, politics, and social conditions, but I think that reversing that and saying that its tactics, politics, and social conditions that create the military economics is no better and very likely a worse description.  Heavy cavalry was a legitimate technological response to the military situation Western Europe (and to a lesser extent Eastern Europe) found itself in after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  Heavy cavalry created the feudal situation at least as much, and in my opinion probably much more than the feudal situation created heavy cavalry.  Battles like Crecy and Agincourt indicate that those military and political models did outlive their usefulness, but that's true of pretty much every military model in history.  Given the wealth to do so, everyone always tries to 'fight the last war'.



I would say economics, social conditions, tactics, and politics all play important parts in what military units and defenses are used.  Heavy cavalry filled the void left by the professional armies after the fall of the Roman Empire, but it existed largely because those in power maintained the absence of other forms of professional troops.  There was a large economic factor in this, but it was the fact that resources were concentrated in the hands of a relative few who weren't very interested in sharing their wealth or power.  The harsh conditions of serfdom kept the vast majority of people's time devoted to subsistence farming and little else.  This in turn kept the noble dominated military status quo. The Hundred Years War included a lot of weapon inovations, but it also included in many ways the beginning of the rebirth of professional troops other than cavalry.


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Yes, but by the time that such ornate armor was being produced, the role heavy cavalry had already shrunk.  In fact, by the time that you see fully articulated field plate, you are also seeing masses of discplined heavy infantry (pikes and muskets) being the primary mass of the army.  And even then, the 'bling' you disdain served a part maybe even the most important part  of the military function of the armor.  Late period heavy plate served the role of maintaining command and control by preserving the life of the commander while he was in direct control of the engagement.  Only while wearing battle plate and being mounted on a horse, could the field commander successfully fulfill a leader function and direct the battle.  The 'bling', while to a large extent serving a primarily political and personal function, also served the legitimate military function of visually distinguishing the commander as the commander.  Even today, we still have official 'bling' designed to serve in this capacity.



Flags and heraldry served the same purpose at a fraction of the cost of the bling.  Fully articulated plate is fine, but it doesn't need enough gold and fine work to buy a small town, or equip and train a dozen soldiers.


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Given the constraints of the middle ages - point defense versus raiding parties, low population density, poor centralized planning, little preexisting infrastructure (at least for Northern Europe) - I'm not sure that is the case.  I think it was an effective response to a military situation where the primary threats were essentially bandits (including other knights, but certainly including Vikings), and were there were few or no foes fielding displined heavy infantry.  The only foe that it dealt with poorly was the Monguls, and there the problem wasn't with its effectiveness in close combat (where it tended to be quite effective when it could achieve it), but with the fact that no sufficient means of command and control had been developed owing to the general success of the mass charge.  The Mongols beat the Europeans handily owing primarily to superior command and control., not to the inherent ineffectiveness of heavy cavalry (which was still kicking butt at least as late as the Seige of Vienna in 1683).



The Vikings seemed to do pretty well for themselves.  By the time knights showed up to help the locals the Vikings were usually on their boats and on their way to the next raid.  A town would have been much better off with a well trained and at least somewhat equipped militia.  As I said, heavy cavalry has a place in an army, but it wasn't the dominate unit of Europe in the Middle Ages because it was cost effective.


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## Celebrim (Mar 15, 2010)

Rykion said:


> I would say economics, social conditions, tactics, and politics all play important parts in what military units and defenses are used.  Heavy cavalry filled the void left by the professional armies after the fall of the Roman Empire, but it existed largely because those in power maintained the absence of other forms of professional troops.  There was a large economic factor in this, but it was the fact that resources were concentrated in the hands of a relative few who weren't very interested in sharing their wealth or power.  The harsh conditions of serfdom kept the vast majority of people's time devoted to subsistence farming and little else.  This in turn kept the noble dominated military status quo. The Hundred Years War included a lot of weapon inovations, but it also included in many ways the beginning of the rebirth of professional troops other than cavalry.




I feel you have pretty much everything backwards.  For example, the fact that the majority of people's time was devoted to subsistence farming maintained the harsh conditions of serfdom.  As crop yields increased due to improved agricultural technology (deeper plowing, crop rotation, fallow fields, manure fertilization, more diverse crops, grain fed horses supplanting oxen as the primary till animals, improvements to yoke technology, watermills, etc.), peasants were able leverage this increased economic success into increasing political freedom, and in turn increased crop surpluses allowed nobles to began hiring large mercenary forces without fear of depleting the essential manpower needed for agricultural production.  Without the technical means of making Northern Europe support large populations, there was no way to make large professional armies cost effective.

And the heavy cavalry existed because in the wake of the collapse of Rome, it was the most effective military force in the area.  The heavy cavalry created the Counts and Dukes and Barons.  The Counts and Dukes didn't become powerful in the absence of heavy cavalry, and then create it afterwards to maintain that power.  Military success led naturally to political power.  It was those tribes which were able to field heavy cavalry which conquered their neighbors and established hegemony over the region.  That led to the feudal heirarchy.  The feudal heirachy did  not lead to heavy cavalry.  Collapse of the power of professional heavy cavalry because of technological changes in turn led to the nation state, because the aristocratic heavy cavalry could no lorger demand the same political authority.  Had the castle and heavy cavalry not been eclipsed technologically, they likely wouldn't have been eclipsed politically and socially either and the outcome of the Hundred Years war would have been decidedly in favor of the continuance of the fuedal system rather than against it.



> The Vikings seemed to do pretty well for themselves.  By the time knights showed up to help the locals the Vikings were usually on their boats and on their way to the next raid.  A town would have been much better off with a well trained and at least somewhat equipped militia.




And again, by the time that population density increased in Northern Europe to the point that it had real urbanization, not only did it have militias but the Vikings were no longer the threat that they once were.  When the point is protecting a loosely collected village of 80-200 subsistance farmers from a raid by 20-30 lightly armed and armored individuals, its not at all clear to me that a handful of locally maintained armored knights converging on the point of attack isn't the cost effective solution.



> As I said, heavy cavalry has a place in an army, but it wasn't the dominate unit of Europe in the Middle Ages because it was cost effective.




I still disagree.

However, not only are we now well off topic, but we are trending into a purely political discussion.


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## S'mon (Mar 15, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Not if the mage has _protection from normal missiles_. In the absence of that, four hits should suffice on average. In AD&D 1st ed., let us say:




I was thinking of 30 men in a fortress, with the M-U attempting to breach it and kill them.  A mid-level AD&D Fighter could kill them easily, and an M-U could defeat them easily in open terrain, but M-Us are/were very vulnerable in close quarters.


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## S'mon (Mar 15, 2010)

Rykion said:


> The Vikings seemed to do pretty well for themselves.  By the time knights showed up to help the locals the Vikings were usually on their boats and on their way to the next raid.  A town would have been much better off with a well trained and at least somewhat equipped militia.




During the high period of the Vikings there weren't much in the way of towns in most of northern Europe, and settlements certainly did have local militia - but they were not effective vs Viking warriors.  To stop them stealing your pigs - first you had to outnumber the Vikings at least 5:1, then you had to corner them, and then they'd kill or maim several of you for every one of them you killed.  It usually wasn't worth it - the cost was too high to kill raiders who'd be gone soon anyway.

Mobile heavy cavalry by contrast could expect to engage and defeat Viking infantry on their own terms, if they could catch them in time.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Mar 15, 2010)

There has been a lot of conversation about the impact of magic on offensive and defensive tactics as related to fortification.  I think the real question is the impact on strategy.

How do you take a fortification (be it a pallisade, castle, bunker, or underground lair)?  Preference would be 1) treachery, 2) isolate and starve them out, and finally 3) frontal assault.  Let us tackle these in reverse order.

Frontal assaults against prepared fortifications are almost always costly and risky affairs.  Let us assume that there are counters for anything that is not a new, game-changing magic (like, say, machine guns, submarines, or rifled barrels were briefly in the real world).  The only time magic would be overwhelming is if it was unexpected.  If you can't defend against a known attack, then why built a fortress at all?

Where magic really comes into play, though, is that it would seem to neutralize isolating and starving a garrison.  If you can magically create or teleport supplies, then you're basically immune to starvation.  Common disease is also not a problem.  Heck, with a magical portal, you can even regularly rotate out defensive troops to keep your garrison fresh and ready!  Obviously, reinforcing the garrison is also a possibility.

This makes treachery by far the most attractive way to take a fortification.  This suggests that magic that ensures loyalty will be very powerful -- things like Zones of Truth or a Mark of Justice triggered by treacherous acts.  Something like the Oath Rod from the Wheel of Time series by Jordan would be seen as almost a necessity.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 15, 2010)

> Do castles make sense in a world of dragons & spells?



As much sense as the dragons & spells make in the first place, I guess.


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## Rykion (Mar 16, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> I feel you have pretty much everything backwards.  For example, the fact that the majority of people's time was devoted to subsistence farming maintained the harsh conditions of serfdom.



The problem is that the serfs didn't own the land and only got to keep what was allowed by the nobles.  Plenty of non-nobles in the ancient world had less technology, but lived above subsistence level because they kept more of what they created.   Innovation eventually improved the common people's lot, but it was social/political as well as farming innovation. 


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> And the heavy cavalry existed because in the wake of the collapse of Rome, it was the most effective military force in the area.  The heavy cavalry created the Counts and Dukes and Barons.



It's still a chicken or the egg kind of dynamic.  Nobles needed heavy cavalry to exist, and heavy cavalry wouldn't exist in such numbers without the nobles.  Heavy cavalry is certainly elite and probably the best ancient/medieval unit 1:1, but the cost to train and equip each cavalryman compared to other troop types was much higher than that ratio.


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> I still disagree.



I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, and let this get back on topic.  


			
				S'mon said:
			
		

> During the high period of the Vikings there weren't much in the way of towns in most of northern Europe, and settlements certainly did have local militia - but they were not effective vs Viking warriors. To stop them stealing your pigs - first you had to outnumber the Vikings at least 5:1, then you had to corner them, and then they'd kill or maim several of you for every one of them you killed. It usually wasn't worth it - the cost was too high to kill raiders who'd be gone soon anyway.



I would suggest that well trained and equipped militia would have been more effective, and better serve the purpose.  If the Vikings regularly faced armed resistance they would move on to easier pickings.


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## Hereticus (Mar 16, 2010)

Castles make perfect sense, in both low and high magic games. Definitely in low magic, because of their defensive capability. Now for the high magic justification:

No ancient and powerful creature would attack the castle of a known high level character for fear of its own survival. Sure it may do a quick sneak attack or two then run, or a raid on surrounding lands. But it would not stick around long in open combat waiting for the eventual sneak attack to get it. It did not survive a thousand years just to die in futility.

Second, nobody even in today's world builds a military base without its own air cover. Sure a surprise attack by air will do damage, but the defender should have a horde of defenders to fight against an attacking horde. A low to mid level horde attack is no serious threat.

Regarding my first comment, I would not waste my horde against an ancient dragon or a flying lich at night.

In defending my castle, my most valuable assets (henchmen) are well hidden in extra-dimensional rooms. As son as the attack comes, the fodders and some mid-level defenders will be lost. But i will take out the leaders with my own sneak attacks.


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## Celebrim (Mar 16, 2010)

Rykion said:


> The problem is that the serfs didn't own the land and only got to keep what was allowed by the nobles.




Are you trying to define 'serfdom' to me?  Do you seriously think I need a definition of serfdom?



> Plenty of non-nobles in the ancient world had less technology, but lived above subsistence level because they kept more of what they created.




Name one.  Name any ancient world agricultural civilization were the majority of peoples weren't a) slaves and b) subsistance farmers.  Or, name any ancient world agricultural civilization that had less technology and higher standard of living than Europe which also had small amounts of arable land and a short growing season.  



> Innovation eventually improved the common people's lot, but it was social/political as well as farming innovation.




Well, I'm not sure that the common people were really that much better off under Nationalist Monarchies than they were bondsman to feudal lords.  The various changes in the political structure did little to effect the lot in life of peasant farmers, and the most notable result of the collapse of the feudal structure was a great increase in wealth disparity.  The rich certainly got richer as income expanded, and a true middle class began to grow, but it was a while yet before slavery would be ended or prosperity reached every level of society.  Still widespread serfdom was itself a gradual social/political innovation that replaced the traditional slave based models of the ancient world.  The manor was the natural outgrowth of the insula/plantation.  The manorial system itself was marked the gradual acquisition of greater civil rights by the coloni, principally the not to be underestimated right not to be sold away like cattle.  But I'm highly skeptical of the notion that Northern Europe had sufficient agricultural production prior to the 13th century to support Greek or Roman style heavy infantry militaries made up of free citizens (the free citizens themselves each being supported by the labors of large slave plantations) even if the social/political model had existed, or of the notion that stirrup based heavy cavalry was not the natural dominate military arm from the collapse of the Roman empire to the introduction of massed missile fire, cannon, and so forth during the late middle ages.  And I'm highly skeptical of the notion that social/political innovation alone, divorsed from the innovations in agricultural production, would have done much to improve the lot of the European peasantry.  If you want to talk about social innovation that had a real impact on the lives of the poor, you have to talk about things like the Cistercians - and even then that folds back into innovations in productivity.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 16, 2010)

DreadPirateMurphy said:


> This makes treachery by far the most attractive way to take a fortification. This suggests that magic that ensures loyalty will be very powerful -- things like Zones of Truth or a Mark of Justice triggered by treacherous acts. Something like the Oath Rod from the Wheel of Time series by Jordan would be seen as almost a necessity.




I'd add a 4th method: subterfuge and stealth which can look much like treachery (someone opens a gate somewhere). A small group of higher level commandos (aka adventurers) can accomplish the same thing as treachery in many cases. so to your "big brother magic" one would add the anti-intruder magic as well.

Seems to me you couldn't make that bullet proof so, like a modern naval ship, you would also seek to compartmentalize so that the loss of a section of the fortress by treachery or guile did not compromise the whole structure.

Maybe a fortress composed of multiple medium size towers rather than a large keep. This path might separate a lords dwelling from a military fortification since in a compartmentalized scheme, a big open hall and convenient chambers might be best in a separate, non-compartmentalized structure. A fortification that also serves as a lord's dwelling is  more a feature of Medieval Europe in any case.


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## S'mon (Mar 16, 2010)

Rykion said:


> I would suggest that well trained and equipped militia would have been more effective, and better serve the purpose.  If the Vikings regularly faced armed resistance they would move on to easier pickings.




The Vikings had the following advantages over their usual opposition:

1.  Size/physique 
2. Equipment - chainmail especially
3. Weapons Training

Potential disadvantages: inferior numbers, lack of cavalry.

Not much could be done about #1 given differentials in diet, climate etc.  #2 & #3 could be countered by developing a class of professional warriors - knights, sometimes themselves of Norse origin (Normans).

It wasn't the case that peasants were deliberately kept disarmed, untrained and helpless in the face of Viking raiders.  Usually the opposite was true - the local lord would be trying to get the peasants to train and fight, more warriors for him = more power.  And Yeomen and some peasants would themselves be descended from the Germanic warrior tribes who overran the Roman empire.

Look at Vikings vs Saxons in pre-Norman England.  The Saxons were not much different from the raiding-then-invading Danes, their ancestors came from almost the same place!  And the Saxons were willing and able to fight.  Yet for hundreds of years their hirds were not effective against the Vikings; eventually under a great leader they did defeat the last great Viking invasion at Stanford Bridge, only to be then immediately overcome by the Normans: Vikings-with-cavalry.


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## Rykion (Mar 16, 2010)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Are you trying to define 'serfdom' to me? Do you seriously think I need a definition of serfdom?



I'm sorry that you took offense.  Nothing I wrote was meant as anything but discussion of a topic, well an off topic. 

My position is simply that knighthood started as a way to guarantee that a nation had access to heavy cavalry.  Ancient cavalrymen had to be well off to afford horses and gear, but it wasn't until around the time of Charlemagne that they formed a true noble class themselves.  It was a good idea that worked, but a little too well.  As the practice grew, knights became the dominant professional military force because of their political and social power.  

I believe using the resources available to create a more balanced professional military that included well trained and equipped infantry as well as cavalry would have been more effective in most situations and more economical.  The vast majority of people would still be serfs, but a freeholder class of relatively small landowners would have been able to provide the soldiery.  Unfortunately, that class virtually disappeared as feudalism developed in Europe with the exception of the English yeoman.    


S'mon said:


> The Vikings had the following advantages over their usual opposition:
> 
> 1.  Size/physique
> 2. Equipment - chainmail especially
> ...



I certainly agree with all of this.  It's also important to point out that feudal states and the concepts of knighthood were still developing in the Viking Age.  The concept of knights as the "true" professional soldier hadn't spread throughout Europe.  The Vikings themselves were a good indication that a professional infantry force still had a place in warfare.


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## Dausuul (Mar 16, 2010)

Rykion said:


> As the practice grew, knights became the dominant professional military force because of their political and social power.




That seems backwards. Why would any ruling class want to put itself on the battlefield if it could avoid it? I'm aware of the warrior culture that grew up around knighthood, but cultural ideals that run up against practical necessity tend to lose out over the long term. When crossbows became popular as an answer to armored knights, the Church pronounced anathema on their use against Christian foes; that didn't stop people from using crossbows, though, because they _worked_.

If a large force of lower-class infantry is more effective and economical than a small force of aristocratic cavalry, then any kingdom relying on the latter is at a double disadvantage. Not only is their army inferior militarily, but they've also got their leaders out in the field getting shot full of arrows and hacked up with swords, while the enemy leaders are sitting safe in camp plotting strategy. It's hard for me to believe that in a fragmented and warlike society such as feudal Europe, centuries would pass without anybody figuring this out.

If the aristocracy is doing the fighting, it's because the state of war-making technology _demands_ expensive weapons and armor... or because the state of agricultural technology is so poor that only the aristocracy can afford to take time away from subsistence.

I find it much more credible that the political and social power of the knighthood arose from their military value than the other way around.


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## Celebrim (Mar 16, 2010)

Rykion said:


> I'm sorry that you took offense.




I'm seldom actually offended by anything, I just wanted to nudge you away from 'Origins of Medieval Civilization' 101.  I've read my Liber Historiae Francorum, my Charles Oman, etc.   We can assume we have read our primary sources, taken the survey classes, etc.   Let's assume as long as possible that we disagree over interpretation, and not the facts.



> My position is simply that knighthood started as a way to guarantee that a nation had access to heavy cavalry.




There won't be much contriversy in that position.



> As the practice grew, knights became the dominant professional military force because of their political and social power.




Dausuul has already said this, but that reverses the cause and effect of what you just stated in the previous sentences.  The reverse claim, that Knights became the dominant political and social power because they were the dominant military force, follows directly from what you just stated.



> The vast majority of people would still be serfs, but a freeholder class of relatively small landowners would have been able to provide the soldiery.  Unfortunately, that class virtually disappeared as feudalism developed in Europe with the exception of the English yeoman.




Without getting into a long military disertation, I think you are again reversing cause and effect here.  The essential question is, "Why didn't the English Yeoman disappear?"  While the answer is complicated by many factors, I think for these purposes the answer, "Because almost alone of the European freeholder class, the English (and Welsh) yeoman offered military advantage comparable to mounted knight." is a pretty good one.  And even so, its not clear that English Freeholders would have been wealthy enough to be able to equip themselves as heavy infantry and in the absence of widespread urbanization successfully drilled and practiced as such, or for that matter that small bands of dispersed heavy infantry would have been an appropriate strategic responce to the major military problems of the day.  Had this been the case, you have to ask why didn't some enterprising Lord create more 'knights'/'freeholders' on smaller parcels of lands who were duty bound to equip themselves as heavy infantry.  Or why did the Normans, having no prior cultural bias, so readily transform themselves in to a heavy cavalry culture instead of a heavy infantry one?


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## S'mon (Mar 16, 2010)

England's lower population density and relative poverty when compared to continental Europe - especially France - might be one reason for the Yeoman's survival.  It's notable that in Scotland, even poorer and more sparsely populated, knights were relatively unimportant and the spear Schiltron remained the dominant military element.

Another thought which occurs to me is that England was very unusual in feudal terms, with the whole country supposedly belonging to the King by right of conquest.  This gave the King a vested interest in maintaining the 'rights and liberties' of non-noble elements as a counterbalance to the threat of noble power.  And in general weaker nobles = stronger non-nobles = yeomen.  In a pure feudal system the king is just another noble, perhaps not even the most powerful, and the nobility will tend to seek to turn all the non-urban population into serfs.


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## Rykion (Mar 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> That seems backwards. Why would any ruling class want to put itself on the battlefield if it could avoid it? I'm aware of the warrior culture that grew up around knighthood, but cultural ideals that run up against practical necessity tend to lose out over the long term. When crossbows became popular as an answer to armored knights, the Church pronounced anathema on their use against Christian foes; that didn't stop people from using crossbows, though, because they _worked_.
> 
> If a large force of lower-class infantry is more effective and economical than a small force of aristocratic cavalry, then any kingdom relying on the latter is at a double disadvantage. Not only is their army inferior militarily, but they've also got their leaders out in the field getting shot full of arrows and hacked up with swords, while the enemy leaders are sitting safe in camp plotting strategy. It's hard for me to believe that in a fragmented and warlike society such as feudal Europe, centuries would pass without anybody figuring this out.
> 
> ...



I didn't mean to imply that knights' political and social power came first.  The practice I was talking about growing was the practice of heavy cavalryman moving from aristocrat to noble.  This certainly happend because cavalry were an  effective, and dashing, hammer to infantry's traditional anvil.  Their gain in political power also commanded more power and resources for themselves on the battlefield.  Limited resources guaranteed that cavalry's gain was infantry's loss, but eventually it led to almost complete neglect of infantry as a fighting arm.   

The aristocracy and nobles have historically been a big source of commanders and soldiers.  The nobility still largely lived by the sword, but knights certainly weren't the only troops on the battlefield.  There were plenty of mostly poorly trained and equipped commoners as well.  You'll also find that nobles were protected by chivalry and the system of ransom in ways commoners certainly weren't.  

People as a whole aren't logical.  Just because an idea or system becomes popular doesn't mean it is effective, economical, or true.  Bloodletting was a medical treatment for thousands of years, no matter the fact it hurt in far more cases than it helped.  Just because feudalism and knighthood became the status quo, doesn't mean it was one of the most effective systems possible.  It was pretty cool though.

I also should re-emphasize that I'm saying the ideal force would be an army made up of a balance of units, not "a large force of lower-class infantry."  Crossbows and guns were easy to use and so obviously effective that they served as a wake up call that there were other forms of useful military units.  I feel that the military would have been better served and more economical with a better balance of forces all along.  I do agree that the constraints of feudal Europe might have made it unfeasible.


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## Aldarc (Mar 16, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Doublespeak, Department of, procedure, standard, Mark I. But *why* is castle X there in the first place, and who and what is there with an interest in besieging it?
> 
> If you really want to talk about what "makes sense", then -- to the extent that the elements have real-world analogs -- you cannot well dismiss real-world experience.
> 
> ...



There is also the dimension of level. There may be one wizard for 1000 mundanes, but that wizard is only level 1. A nobleman may offer a wizard patronage, granting them housing and a place of study in return for providing counsel and defense. More powerful wizards may require more for their services. So the average magistrate's villa or castle may only have a level 2-3 wizard. Another possibility is that the nobility themselves may be the wizards. 

Towns and castles: the presence of magic users, whether they are rare or not, shifts combat and defense towards a much more modern direction. Wizards and sorcerers become medium-range artillery pieces. And while walls may not be built to keep wizards out, they could be used to keep riff-raff peasants, most dangerous beasts out of towns, and to create choke-points for attacking mundane infantry. 

As to magical protection, Eberron has the dragonmark of warding, whose guild houses focus on magical protection and defense.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 17, 2010)

Consider what happens on the ramparts of a standard RW castle assaulted by a force containing a single arcanist of moderate power.  Magic Missiles could pick off archers despite their cover.  A fireball- perhaps metamagically sculpted- would create a void into which attackers could pour.

A bit more powerful, and the spellcaster could Dimension Door in a few assasins/marines into a strategic location, resulting in poisonings, assassinations, and sabotage.

IMHO, the nature of threats available in warfare in any given fantasy realm is going to pressure the way war is prosecuted towards the models we see from WW1 on VERY quickly- trenches, bunkers, and so forth will dominate, rather than immense stone castles.

The money that would normally be spent on castles would be instead be spent on special weapon systems.  In a fantasy realm, that would mean the discovery and training of those who had access to magic, psionics, special abilities, or simply, the über-combat skills of a typical adventuring warrior.

And, FWIW, take a look at Harry Turtledove's excellent _Darkness _series, which depicts a world war set in a fantasy realm.  Good, good stuff.


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## Coldwyn (Mar 17, 2010)

Just a thought: The 4E teleport circle is a good reason for the existence of castles. I think a quick and easy access point to a nations magical trasportation would be guarded by a fortification. Also said fortification would be the communication hub for the region as well as a local trading centre.
Same would hold true for 3E. If a nations magic users would train their scrying on the castles, so to realiably teleport/circle teleport there, they would be major staging grounds. This would nearly render the whole attack/siege discussions as mood, because the type of attacker is meaningless as long as reinforments of the needed type can be teleportet in on short notice.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 17, 2010)

countgray said:


> Do traditional castles make sense as defensive structures in a fantasy world of dragons and spells?



If you absurdly apply all rules to their furthest, coldly logical extreme, no.  Castles would generally be expensive, frequently ineffective extravagences.  However, if the DM chooses to run a game according to the spirit of what he wants in his game world rather than allow himself to be restricted by the letter of rules, then the purpose and effectiveness of traditional stonework defenses remains the same.


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## Stoat (Mar 17, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Consider what happens on the ramparts of a standard RW castle assaulted by a force containing a single arcanist of moderate power.  Magic Missiles could pick off archers despite their cover.  A fireball- perhaps metamagically sculpted- would create a void into which attackers could pour.
> 
> A bit more powerful, and the spellcaster could Dimension Door in a few assasins/marines into a strategic location, resulting in poisonings, assassinations, and sabotage.




Here's where I see the disconnect.

A sixth level wizard is powerful enough to cast Fireball, but not Dimension Door.  He has four 1st level spells, four 2nd level spells and three 3rd level spells.  Those spell slots go fast.  Fly, Invisibility, Protection from Arrows, Mage Armor and Shield leave him with two 3rd level slots, two 2nd level slots and two 1st level slots.

His magic missiles do 2d4+2 points of damage.  His fireball does 6d6 (avg. 21).  

Assume he's got a robust constitution, and he's got about 27 hit points.  

He's no lightweight, but I don't think he renders castles obsolete.  

Now if there are ten or twenty of him, or if you give him equipment beyond the DMG wealth by level rules, that changes things.


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## El Mahdi (Mar 17, 2010)

deleted


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## S'mon (Mar 17, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> I'm sorry but, where did you get this information from?
> 
> The entire UK combined is only about 2.5% of the European land mass by area (which makes England itself even less), yet England throughout the Medieval period had a population of between 5% to 10% of Europe's total population.
> 
> For England to have a lower population density, it's population would have needed to be less than 2% of the total European population. I don't believe England's relative population was ever that low...




From here, AIR: Medieval Demographics Made Easy

I was comparing England to the rest of western Europe of course, not "Europe" which is normally taken as extending to the Urals.  Medieval France (118/sq m AIE), medieval Germany (78/sq m) both much higher population density than Britain (ca 30/sq m), or England.  Much of England was, and is, hills and moorland unsuitable for agriculture.  France by contrast is mostly tillable land

Edit:  Or to put it another way, 15th century France's 25 million population was nearly *ten times * that of England.

Edit 2: Medieval England did not have modern England's enormous predominance in population over the rest of Great Britain.  AIR 15th century England had around 3 million (down from ca 4 million right before the Black Death), to Wales & Scotland's 1.5 million combined.


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## El Mahdi (Mar 17, 2010)

deleted


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2010)

Stoat said:


> Here's where I see the disconnect.
> 
> A sixth level wizard is powerful enough to cast Fireball, but not Dimension Door.  He has four 1st level spells, four 2nd level spells and three 3rd level spells.  Those spell slots go fast.  Fly, Invisibility, Protection from Arrows, Mage Armor and Shield leave him with two 3rd level slots, two 2nd level slots and two 1st level slots.
> 
> ...




That wizard by himself doesn't render a castle obsolete.  The fact that he's not the only wizard in the world as powerful as that- along with all the other creatures in the world that can do pretty much the same thing- does.

Figure he can probably sweep the wall clear of archers, etc. with his first Fireball, possibly with archers helping KEEP it clear.  He could follow that up with MMs and other spells.  Planning for all that, the attacking force will have him do so and have troops ready to fill that void.

But lets say that the problem isn't the Wiz and a besieging army.  Lets say its a decent sized dragon.  Dragons are smart, at least as smart as humans. 

*With planning, a single dragon should be able to take down a RW castle within a week.*

All he has to do is drop rocks from altitude- its a tactic gulls and other avians use to break open armored prey, so a dragon could figure it out.  Essentially, he'd be acting as a trebuchet from an angle that the castle has no defense for.  A light load for a typical Adult dragon is equivalent to a small trebuchet round- a medium load could be as much as twice that.  Drop one of those from a dive or strafe and it doesn't have to worry about penetrating reinforced walls.  Its going right for the lesser strength inner walls, rooftops, people, stables, etc.

After a few days of tenderizing, he can use his spells & breath weapons to finish the job in an afternoon.

Now...lets say its not a dragon or a wizard.  Lets just say its a force of Elves riding giant Eagles.  They can rain down death in the form of arrows and (smaller) rocks just as easily from out of the range of the defenders because gravity is their friend.  They may even add the odd rotting corpse of a pig or cow to the mix.

Adding any kind of magic on the part of the elves shoves things further in their favor.

Now, obviously, magic on the side of the besieged helps all of this.  But the point remains: a strongpoint with open courtyards and uncovered battlements- IOW, a standard RW castle- is as good as useless in a world where flying hostiles are a real possibility.


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## Ariosto (Mar 18, 2010)

> That wizard by himself doesn't render a castle obsolete. The fact that he's not the only wizard in the world as powerful as that- along with all the other creatures in the world that can do pretty much the same thing- does.



Speaking from experience (in D&D games, but not 3e): "it ain't necessarily so". Why is it so hard to understand that _it depends upon the particulars_? Are people coming into this thread from some alternate universe in which all "worlds of dragons and spells" are identical?



> But the point remains: a strongpoint with open courtyards and uncovered battlements- IOW, a standard RW castle- is as good as useless in a world where flying hostiles are a real possibility.



How about an open-topped armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle? How about unarmored trucks, jeeps, universal carriers, motorcycles, bicycles, _horses_? I'm talking about the Second World War, in units for which flying hostiles were a lot more than a "possibility".

In real life, the "standard RW castle" was equipped with _hoardings_ for the ramparts. In real life, the courtyard got plenty of use during the vast majority of time when the castle was _not_ under attack -- and did not make the fortifications around it any less useful in time of need. In real life, those fortresses had roofs, and their walls were pierced with shooting ports.

"The things you think are useless, I can't understand." The castle still has its old uses. _Where and when_ one has some other purpose in mind, naturally one should consider other means. If you're facing brigades of T-34 tanks, then the Mannerheim Line may be a good choice (if you've got the know-how to build it). Versus a basically medieval army alone, or one accompanied by a few fantastic figures, a good old castle may do just fine.

Pull out _Swords & Spells_ or _Battle System_, or whatever rules set may be appropriate, and actually give it a go.

Then consider that in most cases a castle actually serves in battle for a tiny fraction of its occupation -- if ever at all. In the meantime, it is a lord's home and court, a (or _the_) center of manorial society.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> How about an open-topped armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle? How about unarmored trucks, jeeps, universal carriers, motorcycles, bicycles, _horses_? I'm talking about the Second World War, in units for which flying hostiles were a lot more than a "possibility".




Correct me if I'm wrong, but everything you just listed there is considerably more mobile and harder to hit than a castle.

They're not enormous sitting ducks.  They're mobile.  They're small.

IOW, they're still useful.



> In real life, the "standard RW castle" was equipped with _hoardings_ for the ramparts. In real life, the courtyard got plenty of use during the vast majority of time when the castle was _not_ under attack -- and did not make the fortifications around it any less useful in time of need. In real life, those fortresses had roofs, and their walls were pierced with shooting ports.




Wooden hoardings would be useless against a 200lb rock dropped by a swooping dragon, and might be a deathtrap if Flaming Sphere'd, Fireballed or DBFed, or if a Fire Elemental shows up inside...

A courtyard and its contents are a tough target for a land-based seige engine- its akin to shooting a basket in basketball.  But for an airborne opponent dropping rocks (and other ordinance), they'd all be easy pickings.  Proverbial fish in a barrel.



> Versus a basically medieval army alone, or one accompanied by a few fantastic figures, a good old castle may do just fine.




Once one force sees the effectiveness of "special units" others will follow that lead.  During WW2, both Allied and Axis forces occupied certain castles...mostly well away from the artillery and targets likely to be bombed (like factories or the main body of their forces, thanks to radio).  This compartmentalization- coupled with air-forces on both sides of the battles- meant that the castles were at relatively low risk of direct attack.

Look at a "floating fortress"- an aircraft carrier.  What happens to them when their planes are not airborne (for whatever reason)?  They get sunk.

But in a typical fantasy world, the castle is both headquarters AND base of operations.  IOW, a juicy target.  Once the efficacy of an air force proves its worth, you're going to start to see the same kind of reaction as you saw in the real world- distribution of forces; trenches; bunkers.



> Then consider that in most cases a castle actually serves in battle for a tiny fraction of its occupation -- if ever at all. In the meantime, it is a lord's home and court, a (or _the_) center of manorial society.




Consider that in a world full of air forces that we don't really reinforce any of our seats of power- a process that began as cannon and other artillery became dominant.


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## Ariosto (Mar 18, 2010)

"Air raid!"
"Quick, everybody -- stand around in the courtyard!"

Sure, happens _all the time_ in games I've played -- not!

Good luck dodging those high explosive loads, pal. I would rather take my chances with the rock.

Magic-users able to conjure fire elementals routinely join the army of every Baron So and So? Why? More to the point, _why do you assume that is so in most, much less all, other campaigns?_

Are there still _wish_ spells in 3e? Deities and demigods? I mean, obviously, if all you can build is a 'useless' underground bunker guarded by iron golems, storm giants and titans then you may as well just not erect any defenses at all, eh?

Oh, yeah: How come, while you're pulling high-powered magic and monsters out of thin air left and right, you can't spare a bit of enchantment for the _castle_?

Oh, no -- can't let 'em have towers of adamant and orichalc, mortared with ichor and warded with runes, because ... that wouldn't make sense?!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> "Air raid!"
> "Quick, everybody -- stand around in the courtyard!"
> 
> Sure, happens _all the time_ in games I've played -- not!
> ...




Didn't say people were out in the courtyard.  I said that targets like wells, stables and the like would be smashed to flinders by a few dropped boulders.  All the dragon would have to do to destroy or block access to something like a well is dive and drop for a pinpoint shot- a man-sized rock falling at terminal velocity packs quite the wallop, and would be coming in at an angle that a RW medieval engineer wouldn't have accounted for.  Or he could strafe and drop for a rolling cannonball effect.  Interior walls being what they are, they're not going to stop a 200lb boulder skipping along at 100+ft/rd.

Much smaller cannonballs did as much.



> Magic-users able to conjure fire elementals routinely join the army of every Baron So and So? Why? More to the point, _why do you assume that is so in most, much less all, other campaigns?_




Summon Monster 3 isn't exactly a rare & powerful spell, nor are Fireball, Flaming Sphere, Flame Arrow, etc.  And those capable of casting them- or similar abilities- are not exactly rare either.

What about those cheap Wands of MM and those capable of using them?

In a world with the pervasiveness of magic of a typical D&D campaign, those going to war are going to spend the money to have special units- wizards, monsters, whatever, because if their foe has none, the battle is as good as won.  And if their foe has some, and THEY none, the battle is as good as lost.

Flying is NOT a rare ability in the game.  If you can't defend against flyers, you have a gaping hole in your defense.

Magical Fire is so common that most power-gamers assume they're going to encounter flame resistant/immune foes that they prep for that eventuality.



> Are there still _wish_ spells in 3e? Deities and demigods? I mean, obviously, if all you can build is a 'useless' underground bunker guarded by iron golems, storm giants and titans then you may as well just not erect any defenses at all, eh?
> 
> Oh, yeah: How come, while you're pulling high-powered magic and monsters out of thin air left and right, you can't spare a bit of enchantment for the _castle_?
> 
> Oh, no -- can't let 'em have towers of adamant and orichalc, mortared with ichor and warded with runes, because ... that wouldn't make sense?!




Show me some spells that would be moderately common, affordably cast, etc. that would protect large targets like castles from aerial assault.  How many Wizards are going to want to cast enough Wish spells to protect a castle, given its cost?

And adamantine towers are going to be a LOT rarer and more expensive than simply building bunkers as opposed to a RW style castle.

Given a choice between bankrupting himself building an adamantine fortress and hiring 20th level mages to protect his castle from aerial assaults alone, and building bunker-style strong points, what rational ruler will opt for the former?


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## S'mon (Mar 18, 2010)

I certainly think that the hoardings that were common IRL would be ubiquitous in a world of flying creatures and area-effect spells.

Huge flying creatures that can fly above a castle and drop rocks on it would certainly be nasty, but dropping rocks from a great height is not a precision attack*.  IRL it was common enough that the besieger's trebuchets could drop rocks on the castle from out of range of the castle's defenses.  And trebuchets don't need to eat like a dragon does.  If they are destroyed, you just build more.  Aerial superiority is another way to make the defender's lives unpleasant, but I have not experienced it as a game changer.  The guys in the castle can stay hidden and if they have any offensive capability at all, they get to decide when and where to strike to take down the assailants when they least expect it.

Again, I have run dozens of AD&D-magic-level castle battles over the years, and big/flying monsters are not a major factor.  Low level spells (Fly, Invisibility) plus high level PC or PC-type assault teams are consistently the biggest risk to the castle.

*And even IRL, wells and other important bits are well of sight - wells are found in the bowels of the Keep, not exposed in the courtyard!  Mostly to prevent fouling of the water I suspect.


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## Ariosto (Mar 18, 2010)

> Summon Monster 3 isn't exactly a rare & powerful spell, nor are Fireball, Flaming Sphere, Flame Arrow, etc. And those capable of casting them- or similar abilities- are not exactly rare either.



In *your* campaign!

Gods, how bloody hard is that to understand?

See, in old D&D, _conjure elemental_ is a 5th level spell. We'll just ignore the really major difficulty in the original rules. To cast it at all requires at least a 9th level (Sorcerer) magic-user. Those tend in my experience to be pretty rare, because lower-level m-us tend to die like flies (often enough at the hands of rival mages).  Not that it matters much, seeing as how (per the 1E DMG) you can't recruit them as henchmen and they have little interest in being hirelings. A magic-user's effectiveness in combat is pretty well proportional to her or his ability either (a) to tell you to take your job and shove it; or (b) just to _take_ whatever you have that it turns out he or she actually wants.



> What about those cheap Wands of MM and those capable of using them?



35,000 gold pieces per such a wand is the 1E DMG default for buying loot from PCs. Buying from the one who buys from adventurers? Who knows? (The DM, but if you have to ask then it's not cheap.) Of course, the adventurers must _find_ them first (1 in 400 magic treasures by default). To _make_ one requires at least a 12th level Wizard. What is entailed is for the DM to decide. One thing is sure: recovery from the ordeal (however long it turns out to be) will require at least 40 days of complete rest in relative isolation.

Wizards are not typically in the habit of making magic items for _other people's_ henchmen.

 A first-level Prestidigitator to wield the wand? (A non-mage can use one, but must roll to hit.) By default, there's one seeking a patron per about 5,000 total population (so, up to 4,000 in 15th c. France) -- but it's really up to the DM what his or her world is like.

Anyway, 10.5 points of automatic hitting and up to 100 charges is certainly nothing to laugh at. Especially when your scar-faced henchman asks for a bigger cut of loot for "me and my little friend".



> Given a choice between bankrupting himself building an adamantine fortress and hiring 20th level mages to protect his castle from aerial assaults alone, and building bunker-style strong points, what rational ruler will opt for the former?



As the 20th level mages are "unobtainium" in all the games I've played, and as bankrupting oneself supporting them would be no victory anyway, I reckon I would look into what's actually feasible.

There is absolutely no reason one cannot have a castle _and_ a bunker! And 'dungeons', not just medieval style but D&D style. (That is, in fact, the solution that I have seen most often proven 'sensible' in play.)

Again, it seems to me rather odd that, with all the over-the-top-ness of your campaign, architects can't even get some magic rock. We want a rock! Yeah yeah yeah!

Not as odd, though, as the impregnability of your barrier against recognizing that magical worlds are not all stamped out in a factory from some Standard Pattern.


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## Dausuul (Mar 18, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Not as odd, though, as the impregnability of your barrier against recognizing that magical worlds are not all stamped out in a factory from some Standard Pattern.




Dude, I agree with your arguments, but chill. 

Castles will be useless, or use-impaired, only in a setting where both of the following are true:


Powerful spellcasters are common.
The spell list presented in the rulebooks is exhaustive (these are all the spells that exist) rather than representative (these are the spells that are generally useful for adventurers).
If the first is not true, then one cannot rely on having a high-level wizard available for offense or defense, and the army that _does_ have such a wizard will use him or her with great care. Or, more accurately, the wizard will use him- or herself with great care, since high-level wizards are smart enough to make their own decisions and powerful enough that they don't have to take orders.

If the second is not true, then defensive magic can be used to counter offensive. A castle with layers of defensive wards built up over decades or centuries (or even millennia, considering the sort of time scale many fantasy settings operate on) could be a tough nut for even a high-level wizard to crack.


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## Aeolius (Mar 18, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Show me some spells that would be moderately common, affordably cast, etc. that would protect large targets like castles from aerial assault.




You don't need spells. If the antagonist has access to flying mounts, there's a good chance that the lord/lady of the castle does also. They could afford to build a castle. The cost of raising a flock of hippogriffs or giant eagles would be trivial in comparison. 

This happens in my game all the time. 3D movement underwater is a given. That being said, many undersea races have aquatic caverns and the like, that they can retreat to in times of need.


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## Set (Mar 18, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> If the second is not true, then defensive magic can be used to counter offensive. A castle with layers of defensive wards built up over decades or centuries (or even millennia, considering the sort of time scale many fantasy settings operate on) could be a tough nut for even a high-level wizard to crack.




Alchemy can also provide cheaper lower-magic options.

A salve that makes wood hard to ignite, suddenly those wooden hoardings aren't so useless. (Plus, the vast majority of fire spells and attacks don't actually *start fires,* so, barring the few that do, like burning hands, you might not even need to do more than splash some water on the wooden barriers to keep them wet when a seige has begun.)

An alchemical compound of stinging nettle and foul-smelling alkaline plants that, when burned, creates thick clouds of stinging smoke that rise into the air and inconvenience those flying attackers. Possible downside is that an untimely wind could bring some of those clouds drifting back down to inconvenience your defenders... Flyers find themselves blinding by watering eyes, possibly even risking suffocation, and, if alchemy is used, and not just burning foul crap, the smoke might be specially designed to only affect the sort of creature that is attacking, like 'Wyvern-Be-Gone.'

A solution combining blessed silver (or gold) and holy water worked into the mortar, preventing shadows, wraiths and spectres from passing incorporeally into the keep and slaughtering everyone.

The tanglefoot catapult / ballista ammo, mentioned upthread, used to bring down winged flyers. The ammo itself barely hurts them, but gravity kills. Giant harpoons, fired from ballita, or spiked nets, fired from catapults, can do similar things without the alchemy.

The roofs of buildings can be adorned with magical glyphs, sigils, runes, symbols, scripts, etc. that cause havoc on any flyer who can read them, while being completley harmless to the defenders below, since they'll never be able to look down at the roof and see the big permanant Symbol of Be Stunned for One Round and Forget How to Fly and Fall Down and Die.

If the local area has ever displayed a problem with climbing foes using spider climb or similar abilities (giant riding geckos, or whatever) to motor right up the walls, they can be designed to have caltrop-like spikes in the upper sections, *or* have glyphs of warding that blast climbers right off the side of the wall, *or* be enspelled with some sort of grease effect (temporarily, again, perhaps via alchemical oils, or flat-out mundane grease from the kitchens!), or some combination of the above, so that those giant spider-riding fools end up falling off the walls to their death before they make it up to the defenders.

It's relatively easy to come up with counters for this stuff. The spells and alchemical items and mundane items in the PHB are great for attacking stuff right here and now, and not at all designed for making a position defensible for decades. It's a game designed for adventurers, who are more pro-active, and more likely to be assaulting a castle than defending one. And even then, there are a ton of spells that *can* be used to defend a castle (starting with Hallow -> your cleric spell here), and potentially unlimited spells and mundane and special equipment items that can be dreamed up by the retired adventurers who now live in that castle.


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## Celebrim (Mar 18, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Dude, I agree with your arguments, but chill.
> 
> Castles will be useless, or use-impaired, only in a setting where both of the following are true:
> 
> ...




Pretty much exactly.

My campaign has the following assumptions:

1) Spellcasters over 6th level are rare.  This is the 'PC's must remain special' rule. 

2) Conversely, spell casters of up to 5th level are sufficiently common and ordinary that they may be employed just as you would employ any other highly skilled craftsman.  Nobody is suprised by 1st and 2nd level spells.  

3) Defensive magic is generally easier or no harder than offensive magic.  This is the 'Magic the Gathering' rule meets the 'NPC's aren't completely helpless in the face of cunning PC's' rule.  Because of the inherent superiority of an active offensive plan of action, if a passive defensive strategy is to be viable it must be more effective than an offensive one.  Hense, combined with #2, defensive magic is common and ordinary.  You'd no more forget to secure your castle against basic magical attack than you'd forget to put a door in the gate.  While only the castles of the most important people would be designed to defend against unlikely threats, every country Baron can afford basic defenses against invisible creatures and magical fire and at least some protection from scrying in his private chambers.  On the other hand, you want to penetrate the residence of the ruler of a 2000 year old empire, and your going to find the magical protection at least as impressive as the obvious walls.  Note further that like the castles of the real world, the goal isn't to make the castle impentratable, but rather to make reducing the castle take long enough that help can arrive and the logistics of the seige are expensive to beseigers.

4) Magic has been a part of the setting for a long time.  There is nothing obvious that the PC's (or NPC's for that matter) can attempt that wouldn't have been tried before on many occassions.  Social custom, military architecture, magistrates and the law all assume the existance of magic.  Combined with #2, this means that no one is confused by simple illusions or invisibility in quite the way they would be in our world.  Everybody knows magic exists.  If the dog is barking and scowling and the door is opening on its own, even a moron thinks, "There is something invisible there!"  That might still be realling frightening thought, but any creature with more than 7 INT and something of a backbone tends to have as his next thought, "If the thing was really confident of its power, it wouldn't bother to make itself invisible.  Maybe I can stick a torch to it and make it go away."

5) Very high level wizards possessing god-like power tend to keep their heads down, precisely because the gods are not particularly happy with the whole idea of mortals with god-like power.  In particular, in usage of magic that threatens to return the world to 'the Age of Wonders' when high level magic was common, tends to set the gods in a real tizzy.  For example, a high level wizard would know that the gods don't really care if he builds a teleportation network between his sanctum and some other abode for his private use, but would know not try to build an intercontinental teleportation network accessible to everyone.  You can make a flying conveyance for your own amusement, but if you make a fleet of flying carriages and start charging fares beware.  If some upstart king decides to conquer the village you protect, you are perfectly free to teleport his army deep into the Desert of Tears to defend your property, but if you decide that you want to use your magic to create an army for the purposes of creating a new empire don't be suprised if a series of highly improbable events occurs that ends up in your death.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 18, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> In *your* campaign!
> 
> Gods, how bloody hard is that to understand?
> 
> See, in old D&D, _conjure elemental_ is a 5th level spell. We'll just ignore the really major difficulty in the original rules. To cast it at all requires at least a 9th level (Sorcerer) magic-user. Those tend in my experience to be pretty rare, because lower-level m-us tend to die like flies (often enough at the hands of rival mages). Not that it matters much, seeing as how (per the 1E DMG) you can't recruit them as henchmen and they have little interest in being hirelings. A magic-user's effectiveness in combat is pretty well proportional to her or his ability either (a) to tell you to take your job and shove it; or (b) just to _take_ whatever you have that it turns out he or she actually wants.




And mages killing each other off is certainly an aspect of *your* campaign and hardly typical.

When considering the effect of magic on a world, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to hew too closely to guides that were created to enable a *game. *Those guides are fine for what they are meant (suggestions on one way to run a world) but hardly are the bible of magic worlds and societies.

This post is about a mental exercise: what would happen to castles if there was magic and monsters in the world.

A DMG may claim mages would be rare and perhaps they would be in the typical realm. But can you image a Rome or any other conquering power not exploiting something as potent as a mage? It's how conquerors became conquerors: they couple a drive to expand with effective exploitation of available methods. Magic seems quite exploitable with the right infrastructure. Maybe few can pull that off but then, how many city-states in the ancient world had the wherewithal to become Rome? It just takes a few to show the way.


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## Celebrim (Mar 18, 2010)

marcq said:


> When considering the effect of magic on a world, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to hew too closely to guides that were created to enable a *game. *Those guides are fine for what they are meant (suggestions on one way to run a world) but hardly are the bible of magic worlds and societies.




No, but there is no bible for magical worlds and societies.  We can however deduce something about the 'typical' magical world and society by noting the following: "Castles exist."



> This post is about a mental exercise: what would happen to castles if there was magic and monsters in the world.




Sure, and I've been happy to participate in that mental excercise.  However, one problem with the mental excercise is that there is no bible for magical worlds and societies.  So, lacking any standard, everyone participating in the mental excercise has made certain assumptions about the magical society and based his analysis on that assumption.  And that's fine, but the answer you give is wholly dependent on the assumption.

I dont' have a problem with approaching the question in that way, but I personally prefer approaching the problem from the opposite direction.

1) We know magic exists as a given.
2) We know castle exist as a given.

What is the magical society like given those two facts?  What's important about this approach is that almost everyone assumes #1 and #2 first because they are the standard tropes of the setting, and only afterwards starts thinking about whether #1 and #2 are incompatible.  Some people here seem to want to give the answe, given #1, #2 must be false and they proceed to then invent the conditions for a magical society where this is true.  But, those assumptions depend entirely purely individual and utterly pliant opinions about the setting.  None of them strike me as having nearly as much reasonableness as, "It's a standard fantasy, ergo castles exist."  Therefore, I'm more inclined to say, "Given #1 and #2, what must the society and the magic be like to achieve this?"

Or more generally, what must be true about the magic of a magical society if the society in general superficially resembles historical periods of our own non-magical world.



> A DMG may claim mages would be rare and perhaps they would be in the typical realm. But can you image a Rome or any other conquering power not exploiting something as potent as a mage?




You see this is itself an internal contridiction.  Unless the society superficially resembles the historical periods of our own non-magical world, I cannot imagine a 'Rome' within it.  If we don't assume as a starting point 'superficial resemblence to our own history and myth', and instead choose as a starting point, 'lots of magic exists', then the whole question becomes utterly unanswerable except to say that, "A society with pervasive magic would look nothing like our own history and myth, and would likely require the lifetime of a dedicated polymath to even begin to imagine what it would be like for a given set of assumptions about magic."  And keep in mind, most of the really important questions about magic and its use aren't really answered by D&D RAW at all, and often are never even addressed by people who play D&D because questions like, "Can anyone with sufficient intelligence learn to be a wizard?", "How much experience do you get training to be a mage and simply practicing magic as opposed to overcoming lifethreatening challenges?", "What makes magic work?", and "What can't magic do?" don't really come up in most games because they are tangental to the standard goals of play.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> In *your* campaign!
> 
> Gods, how bloody hard is that to understand?
> _<snip>_
> Again, it seems to me rather odd that, with all the over-the-top-ness of your campaign, architects can't even get some magic rock. We want a rock! Yeah yeah yeah!




Dude, "over the topness?"

I'm talking about a 3.5 D&D campaign using just the standard distribution and costs from the PHB and the first 4 Completes and the first MM.

Certainly games may be more or less powerful than that, but I don't think I'm out of line here in taking the _game's default assumptions_ as a starting point.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2010)

Aeolius said:


> You don't need spells. If the antagonist has access to flying mounts, there's a good chance that the lord/lady of the castle does also. They could afford to build a castle. The cost of raising a flock of hippogriffs or giant eagles would be trivial in comparison.




Its not just flying mounts- which, btw, would require a LOT of space and land to maintain (see below)- but every other potential foe that has flying.

IOW, Wizards, Sorcerers, Psions, Wilders, Warlocks, Dragons, Undead, giant animals, griffins, wyverns, certain elementals, djinn, chimaera, sphynxes, manticores, rocs, demons, devils, beings with certain magic items...

And that's just for starters: it doesn't account for ostensibly good creatures (to attack _evil_ strongholds), templated creatures, PrCls and critters from the MMs beyond the first.

The skies are full of peril...arguably, a typical D&D game has more beings capable of flying any old time than the USA.

As for your Flock of Hippogriffs (no, not a New Wave band from the fantasy realm...), realize that it takes a LOT more space and money to keep a group of predators in captivity than herbivores...and even herbivores take a lot to keep.

And flying mounts add to the problem...as the saying goes, "How ya gonna keep 'em on the farm?"

IOW, not every castle is going to be able to afford to keep an airforce of mounted air-warriors.


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## Aeolius (Mar 18, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As for your Flock of Hippogriffs (no, not a New Wave band from the fantasy realm...)




Nah, that's in the undersea castle... a flock of sea ghouls.


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## coyote6 (Mar 18, 2010)

Aeolius said:


> Nah, that's in the undersea castle... a flock of sea ghouls.




After that line, your only defense is to run, run so far away. Run, run all night and day.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 18, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz;5123383snip

All he has to do is drop rocks from altitude- its a tactic gulls and other avians use to break open armored prey said:
			
		

> This I am going to dispute directly Beaufort Castle in the Lebanon was used prior the the 1982 invasion by the PLO as a base in Southern Lebanon and was prepeatedly subject to IDF airstrikes and artillery bombardment prior and during the '83 invasion but had to be eventually neutralised by ground assault the old fashioned way.
> 
> Monte Cassino gave the Allies a similar experience in WWII. In both cases (though there is no reference to it in the Wikipedia article, I am going off memory here) there were lower levels and the ceiling were barrel vaulted and supported by arches. Arches are very strong particularly from impact from above. Read up on any attempts to destroy bridges with free falling bombs, it takes quite a lot to distupt the arch.


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## Set (Mar 18, 2010)

coyote6 said:


> After that line, your only defense is to run, run so far away. Run, run all night and day.




So, so *bad.*  Now I have to go watch the video on YouTube...


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## S'mon (Mar 18, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> Monte Cassino gave the Allies a similar experience in WWII. In both cases (though there is no reference to it in the Wikipedia article, I am going off memory here) there were lower levels and the ceiling were barrel vaulted and supported by arches. Arches are very strong particularly from impact from above. Read up on any attempts to destroy bridges with free falling bombs, it takes quite a lot to distupt the arch.




Yeah, I think Monte Casino was subject to rather more than even a big dragon could manage!


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## Ariosto (Mar 19, 2010)

I think the abbey of Monte Cassino was pretty well _destroyed_ by the fraction of bombs that hit it (out of the kiloton-plus dropped in the general vicinity).

It was not militarized at the time of bombing. The Allies killed or drove out the monks and refugees who actually occupied it. A couple of days _after_ the heavy bombing, German troops moved in.

The rubble served well enough for cover, maybe _better_ than the abbey. The height itself retained a commanding view the valley -- which is why the Allies in the first place assumed that it either was or would be an observation post.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 19, 2010)

The diff between the allies attacking Monte Casino and a Dragon doing the same is that it is capable of not only doing the bombardment, but also the building-by-building clearing itself...probably including an assortment of spells.  If the target in question were particularly tough or housed especially alluring treasure, the dragon might even stock up on spells that would help it crack the thing...like Transmute Rock to Mud.  Goodbye arches.

I would also assert that Beaufort sustained enough damage from its aerial bombardment that it was essentially deconstructed as a castle- though by virtue of its rubble, it became a bunker of sorts.  It also ceased to be able to function as a Medieval strongpoint- only modern weaponry and communication enabled it to continue to operate as a strongpoint at all- there were no places to house mounts with which you could sally forth, no ramparts, etc.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 19, 2010)

coyote6 said:


> Aeolius said:
> 
> 
> > Nah, that's in the undersea castle... a flock of sea ghouls.
> ...




You can't run underwater, though you could have swum.  Swum all night and day.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Mar 19, 2010)

I've been playing Mass Effect 2 so the posts about Monte Cassino make me think of an orbital dreadnought firing linear accelerated slugs at 1.8% light speed, hitting at 33.8 kilotons each, one every two seconds...
no more castle, _PERIOD! _

or in D&D terms, get a Spelljammer, drag a barge loaded with metal ore, drop it from orbit and _KABOOM!! _Mushroom City


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 19, 2010)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> I've been playing Mass Effect 2 so the posts about Monte Cassino make me think of an orbital dreadnought firing linear accelerated slugs at 1.8% light speed, hitting at 33.8 kilotons each, one every two seconds...
> no more castle, _PERIOD! _
> 
> or in D&D terms, get a Spelljammer, drag a barge loaded with metal ore, drop it from orbit and _KABOOM!! _Mushroom City



Don't know much about spelljammers but my limited understanding is that nothing resembling real world orbital mechanics applies in the D&D 'verse, otherwide it would be a pretty devastating tactic.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 19, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> I think the abbey of Monte Cassino was pretty well _destroyed_ by the fraction of bombs that hit it (out of the kiloton-plus dropped in the general vicinity).
> 
> It was not militarized at the time of bombing. The Allies killed or drove out the monks and refugees who actually occupied it. A couple of days _after_ the heavy bombing, German troops moved in.
> 
> The rubble served well enough for cover, maybe _better_ than the abbey. The height itself retained a commanding view the valley -- which is why the Allies in the first place assumed that it either was or would be an observation post.



The rubble was only good for cover when the Allies were not dropping ordinance from on high. The cellers were very useful though to the defenders.

I do agree that the aboveground structures was pertty much demolished by the bombardment.


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## El Mahdi (Mar 19, 2010)

deleted


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## Haltherrion (Mar 19, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> What is the magical society like given those two facts? What's important about this approach is that almost everyone assumes #1 and #2 first because they are the standard tropes of the setting, and only afterwards starts thinking about whether #1 and #2 are incompatible. Some people here seem to want to give the answe, given #1, #2 must be false and they proceed to then invent the conditions for a magical society where this is true. But, those assumptions depend entirely purely individual and utterly pliant opinions about the setting. None of them strike me as having nearly as much reasonableness as, "It's a standard fantasy, ergo castles exist." Therefore, I'm more inclined to say, "Given #1 and #2, what must the society and the magic be like to achieve this?"




It’s a fair enough approach to start with given #1, how to allow #2 as long as it is clearly acknowledged. I would expect it to be very common; I tend to do it myself but it isn’t quite the same thing as imagining a world where there is magic, presumably in nearly all settings from the beginning and in such a place, wondering if castles would come to be.

The first is, more “I like castles, how do I make them reasonable given magic.” Fair enough and useful for most of us who find the castle one of the must-haves in a campaign. This is distinct from the mental exercise of what you really get, given magic.

Since the original post only defined the discussion so well and even “castle” itself could stand to be defined (are we talking stone fortifications, or at also wood and earthen? Military fortifications separately from a fortified lordly dwelling?), there is ample room for confused and heated discussion. Similarly, what is meant by magic and how accessible is it?

Re: my reference to a “Rome”



> You see this is itself an internal contridiction. Unless the society superficially resembles the historical periods of our own non-magical world, I cannot imagine a 'Rome' within it. If we don't assume as a starting point 'superficial resemblence to our own history and myth', and instead choose as a starting point, 'lots of magic exists', then the whole question becomes utterly unanswerable except to say that, "A society with pervasive magic would look nothing like our own history and myth, and would likely require the lifetime of a dedicated polymath to even begin to imagine what it would be like for a given set of assumptions about magic."



 
Actually I didn’t mean “Rome” in a strong sense of the particular Mediterranean Empire only in the sense of an aggressive, expansionist entity that was effective at exploiting available methods. Rome is interesting, though, in that they only originated so much technology; their innovations were more organizational.

Turning it back around, and admitting that “castle” hasn’t actually been defined, I would venture that most people are thinking stonework, fortified lordly residences in Europe of the period 1150-1350. That’s a very narrow period in time and place and one could as easily claim that they are no more likely to develop than Rome itself or any other Earth analog used on this thread.

That is, the castle itself as is commonly stereotyped, is a fairly specific evolution from a specific culture on earth, change any of those a little and you might get military forts (like the stone and wooden Roman forts) or Asian castle and forts or the old earthen and wood, massive fortifications of Iron Age Europe.

Even broadening "castle" to include realm-fortifications (like Edward I's Welsh castles) and military order fortifications doesn't really broaden the definition much in terms of time and place.




> And keep in mind, most of the really important questions about magic and its use aren't really answered by D&D RAW at all, and often are never even addressed by people who play D&D because questions like, "Can anyone with sufficient intelligence learn to be a wizard?", "How much experience do you get training to be a mage and simply practicing magic as opposed to overcoming lifethreatening challenges?", "What makes magic work?", and "What can't magic do?" don't really come up in most games because they are tangental to the standard goals of play.



 
True enough and fodder for another lengthy thread but in the end, all those parameters are very much setting specific.

All I note is that judging from the amount of magic items generally present in treasure hordes and other magic prevalence indicators typical in a game world, there must be some reasonable pool of mages, and that magic has obvious military value, therefore, just as happened with, on Earth, Rome, the Mongols and other conquerors, someone would figure out how to exploit and make effective use of it. Perhaps not everyone could have many mages but enough powers probably could manage it and that would be enough to change the face of castles.

I do agree it is hard to take this any farther without more definition of what magic is and what do we mean by castle. That in itself would be an epic argument no doubt but perhaps entertaining.

I find these mental exercises stimulating if they don’t get too heated. And to be absolutely clear, I wouldn’t run a D&D game without castles; my players are happy with my castles and any niggling doubts I have about whether the castle would really be there is irrelevant to the campaign.


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## Celebrim (Mar 19, 2010)

marcq said:


> Actually I didn’t mean “Rome” in a strong sense of the particular Mediterranean Empire only in the sense of an aggressive, expansionist entity that was effective at exploiting available methods.




And in my response I meant that, given nothing more of a starting place than 'magic exists' I'm not sure we can gaurantee the development of government, much less authoritarian conquerers, much less castles.  

To provide an example, published D&D modules are filled with examples of the sort of fairy tale magic where curses take root in responce to some evil or calamity.  Generally speaking, its the rare published module that limits its imagination to what is strictly allowed by the rules made available to PC's, and this was especially true of earlier editions before 3e generalized item construction and made it more accessible.  

So, if we take this general account, and that the magic of 'D&D' generally follows the description of mythic magic, its not clear at all if we don't also constrain the rest of the world to also resemble or own mythic history and traditions, that even government would exist.  The reason being, in a world were widows and children can smite you with their death curses and the evil that you do comes back to haunt you, its not at all clear that any king or tyrant can long survive if hundreds or thousands of individuals blame them (fairly or unfairly) for their misfortunes.  If every one you treat unjustly (or worse yet, which thinks you've treated them unjustly), can toss a curse your way, its not at all clear that government is functional or would ever develop.

Now, certainly you might argue that Kings and Emperors might have the resources to fortify themselves against the curses of widows and mothers who've lost their sons and daughters, and so become more or less proof against such events, but this argument presumes the existance of kings in the first place.  It imagines a world were kings are a given and then magic comes into existance, not a world of fairy tale magic from first principles. 

In this world, perhaps heirarchal leadership paralleling the military command chain never develops, because it has no utility.  Perhaps in this world fame is greatly to be feared, and people spend most of their time trying to hide their identity and name from everyone else.  Large associations rarely exist, except in the form of loosely governed secret societies.  The notion of leadership as we know it isn't highly prized, structures larger than tribes, clans, or villages are unknown and the deadliest part of war is its supernatural aftermath.  

If you protest and say, "Well by magic I obviously mean only the magic in the rules of D&D as written and not every fanciful idea every module writer has ever come up with.", my first complaint against that is that no published setting has ever conformed strictly to the rules as written.  For example, no edition of D&D truly explains the abundance of magic items that is observed in the game from the rules of magic item creation nor the existance of high level NPC's from the rules on character advancement.  So, it's not even clear that D&D follows from D&D, much less castles.  And my second complaint is that even then there really isn't enough information to judge what the outcome will be, even just going by the rules as written.  The open nature of D&D's magic system is such that it can never be completely described, so we don't know what can happen the way we might be able to describe completely society given a system of clearly defined enumerable powers.


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## Hereticus (Mar 20, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Castles will be useless, or use-impaired, only in a setting where both of the following are true:
> 
> 
> Powerful spellcasters are common.
> The spell list presented in the rulebooks is exhaustive (these are all the spells that exist) rather than representative (these are the spells that are generally useful for adventurers).




Castles would only be useless if the attacker has access to higher level magic than the defenders.

If the level of magic is even I give the advantage to the defenders. Unless the defending high level mages walk around in the open. If all is even the defender wins because he has the stealth advantage to strike the attacker who is out in the open.

Since the rules allows for the creation of new spells, the second point is not relevant.


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## S'mon (Mar 20, 2010)

Hereticus said:


> Castles would only be useless if the attacker has access to higher level magic than the defenders.
> .




One would normally expect that to be the case, since the attacker will normally be superior to the defender.

It does however raise the point that a fortified strongpoint is even more effective than IRL when backed by superior magic; the two act as force multipliers each increasing the effectiveness of the other.  A castle + wizards (fly, fireball etc) is immensely effective at defeating vast, low magic armies or orc/barbarian hordes.


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## Hussar (Mar 20, 2010)

Magic's not really a huge problem.  GIANTS are a huge problem.  Trebuchets are great and all, but, you still have a firing rate to worry about.  OTOH, Mr. Giant can lob boulders that are pretty close to trebuchet sized (with a big enough giant anyway  ) as fast as you could throw baseballs and probably about as accurately.  A couple of dozen giants would level a castle in a serious hurry.

Never mind what you could do with any number of other monsters.  Brown mold inside a hollow stone lobbed into the town freezes and kills lots of people, just as an example.

Never mind what you could do with giant insects.

It's not a problem when you have an army with one high level wizard attacking.  It's a problem when you have a fantasy army attacking.


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## Hereticus (Mar 20, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Magic's not really a huge problem. GIANTS are a huge problem. Trebuchets are great and all, but, you still have a firing rate to worry about.  OTOH, Mr. Giant can lob boulders that are pretty close to trebuchet sized (with a big enough giant anyway) as fast as you could throw baseballs and probably about as accurately. A couple of dozen giants would level a castle in a serious hurry.




True, the giant would do some serious damage to the walls, but it would take a while and require alot of rocks. Assuming as was stated in the above post that the defenders had the advantage in magic, the giants could be taken out or greatly reduced. Especially if the leadership is targeted.



Hussar said:


> Never mind what you could do with any number of other monsters. Brown mold inside a hollow stone lobbed into the town freezes and kills lots of people, just as an example.
> 
> Never mind what you could do with giant insects.




In any such attack it will mostly be the expendable zero levels that are killed. An acceptable loss to the royalty, as long as they aren't threatened.



Hussar said:


> It's not a problem when you have an army with one high level wizard attacking. It's a problem when you have a fantasy army attacking.




That would be a truly epic battle. Think of the LotR battles at Helm's Deep or Minas Tirith with wizards and sorcerers thrown in on both sides.


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## Celebrim (Mar 20, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Magic's not really a huge problem.  GIANTS are a huge problem.  Trebuchets are great and all, but, you still have a firing rate to worry about.  OTOH, Mr. Giant can lob boulders that are pretty close to trebuchet sized (with a big enough giant anyway  ) as fast as you could throw baseballs and probably about as accurately.  A couple of dozen giants would level a castle in a serious hurry.




In my past experience, at least using the 1e rules, nothing knocks down a castle faster than an army of treants.  (Now, I wonder why that is?)

Giants can be dealt with.  Treants just plow through buildings and curtain walls like they are made of paper.

Of course, this just means that fantasy armies need to emulate the fantasy Roman army at the beginning of Gladiator.  Time to break out the Greek Napalm.



> It's not a problem when you have an army with one high level wizard attacking.  It's a problem when you have a fantasy army attacking.




In our larger battles, we noticed that spellcasters tended to cancel each other out.  You are right though about fantasy armies.  If one side has a big advantage in units of fantastic creatures, it can really change the battle.


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## Hereticus (Mar 20, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> In our larger battles, we noticed that spellcasters tended to cancel each other out. You are right though about fantasy armies.  If one side has a big advantage in units of fantastic creatures, it can really change the battle.




It has been my experience that defending spellcasters would go after the attacking spellcasters, and attacking spellcasters would try to avoid the defending spellcasters and attack the structure of the castle.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 20, 2010)

Hereticus said:


> It has been my experience that defending spellcasters would go after the attacking spellcasters, and attacking spellcasters would try to avoid the defending spellcasters and attack the structure of the castle.




Shades of the evoluation of aerial combat in the WWI


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## Haltherrion (Mar 20, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> If you protest and say, "Well by magic I obviously mean only the magic in the rules of D&D as written and not every fanciful idea every module writer has ever come up with.", my first complaint against that is that no published setting has ever conformed strictly to the rules as written.




That's a flimsy strawman. All I acknowledged about magic is that we would need to define it better to take it the discussion further. I've come no where near defining it in anyway that may suggest your strawman. 

I make these observations:


I'll admit I have not done a scientific survey but I'm pretty confident that what people mean by castle is a structure similar to those built in Europe over a narrow range of centuries. And given that such a castle only occured in a small place for a small period of time in the only solid military fortification experiement that we have (Earth), it doesn't seem all that likely it would also occur in a world of magic with the plethora of anti-fortification methods already described on this thread. A broader definition of castle will make such a structure more likely but at what point is it no longer a castle?
Earth history has shown that those able to exploit available methods can dominate their neighbors (Rome, Mongols, Napoleon until others caught up, Europe in the age of colonialism, and so on). Assuming at least some sentient races that act something like Earth humans, one would expect such dominating realms in the fantasy settings, ones that could exploit somewhat difficult methods, such as magic.
But, so what? Most of us like our castles; use them. We're running games, not fantasy world simulations.


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## Bullgrit (Mar 21, 2010)

> We can however deduce something about the 'typical' magical world and society by noting the following: "Castles exist."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



You know, thinking about this just now, really is "castles exist" a fact in D&D? I'm specifically thinking of the latest editions -- D&D3, D&D4. Are there any rules references to castles in the core books? I know the B/X D&D set has castle rules, and the AD&D1 DMG has them. I can't remember if AD&D2 had castle rules in the core books.

I'm not even certain that the D&D3 and D&D4 core books even mention castles as fluff. Surely they do, but if I'm not remembering anything, it must not be an important mention.

Can someone with a pdf version of the core books do a word search for "castle". And compare the results with a search for "magic".

Bullgrit


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## Hereticus (Mar 21, 2010)

Bullgrit said:


> You know, thinking about this just now, really is "castles exist" a fact in D&D? I'm specifically thinking of the latest editions -- D&D3, D&D4. Are there any rules references to castles in the core books? I know the B/X D&D set has castle rules, and the AD&D1 DMG has them. I can't remember if AD&D2 had castle rules in the core books.




Castles, fortresses, citadels, palaces, walled cities, underground bunkers... they pretty much existed everywhere throughout human history.

The word "castle" may not be in a core rulebook, but most modules include one of the above.


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## Hussar (Mar 21, 2010)

Now, if we're going to include "bunker" in our definition of castle, things get a bit difficult to talk about.  After all, is a cave in the ground fortified by whatevers, really a "castle" anymore?  In my mind, when someone mentions castle, I'm thinking high walls, towers, bailleys that sort of thing.  The Citadel in Halifax, Nova Scotia is a modern adaptation of a castle (and something that IMO, would likely happen to fantasy castles) but I'm not sure I'd call it an actual castle as such.



			
				Hereticus said:
			
		

> In any such attack it will mostly be the expendable zero levels that are killed. An acceptable loss to the royalty, as long as they aren't threatened.




Well, ignoring for a second the edition specific rules, if you kill everyone in the castle, other than a few nobles, I'm thinking they'll be pretty unhappy.  Considering in 1e the vast majority of defenders of a castle would be 0 level, wiping out the zero levels is a pretty serious deal.  

And, in 3e, take a look at the damage brown mold does.  That's certainly a larger threat than to just 1st level characters.

But, I agree, it would likely be more Minas Turith and less Helm's Deep.  Helm's deep was a pretty much standard siege - not many flying/burrowing/teleporting/powered creatures.  Isengard is a good model too.  Treants would be fantastically deadly with their ability to animate forests.


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## Celebrim (Mar 21, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Now, if we're going to include "bunker" in our definition of castle, things get a bit difficult to talk about.  After all, is a cave in the ground fortified by whatevers, really a "castle" anymore?




The distinction of a 'castle' seems to be that it is a place of residence.  Beyond that, it gets harder to define.  



> In my mind, when someone mentions castle, I'm thinking high walls, towers, bailleys that sort of thing.  The Citadel in Halifax, Nova Scotia is a modern adaptation of a castle (and something that IMO, would likely happen to fantasy castles) but I'm not sure I'd call it an actual castle as such.




Other than its star shape, there is no particular feature of Fort George that is unknown in medieval architecture (extending into the high middle ages, that includes the cannon loops).  What's different is the degree to which you find these features combined and used.  And indeed since it dates to the first half of the 16th century, the star fort is at least as medieval as fully articulated platemail or three-masted ship rigged sailing vessels.   

However, the star fort is roughly irrelevant without cannon and firearms.  Everything about the star fort is designed around the cannon.  A fantasy castle would have no need to spread out to create defence in depth, because it doesn't have the kilometers long range of the cannon to allow for active defence in depth.  So a fantasy castle might well be star shaped to maximize fields of fire, but its going to be a relative small space if its going to dual with trebuchet and fireballs and defend itself with arrows because the interlocking fields of fire will be much shorter.  The walls may well get thicker just as they got thicker when the trebuchet was perfected, but without flat trajectory cannon mounted defensively, they won't have alot of reason to go lower.  And its going to retain the medieval hoardings because its going to have much greater concern with plunging fire and bursts than the people who built star shaped citadels did.  Fantasy castle designers are going to design around fireballs, walls of fire, nastiness dropped by flying attackers, dragon breath, and so forth - not around the impact of high speed flat trajectory iron shot and the ability to counter with the same.

And let's not get too dismissive of medieval fortifications.  When the 13th century constructed Harlech was besieged by cannon in 1647, it still held out for nine months.

The main overlap between the idea of the star fort and the fantasy castle is that magic is going to necessitate more of an active defence.  Fantasy architects won't build castles with the idea that defences will allow the castle to be passively defended successfully.  Just as the cannon and perfected trebuchet forced castle builders to start including the means to destroy beseiging weapons in their plans (cannons and other seige weapons on the walls of the castle), so to would aerial attackers and spellcasters force the architect to consider the means to active counter such threats.  A fantasy castle must be constructed with the idea of destroying the besiegers, not that you can resist any attack behind your impregnable walls.

For those that want an excellent work covering medieval fortifications, I highly recommend 'The Medieval Fortress' by J.E & H.W. Kaufman.



> And, in 3e, take a look at the damage brown mold does.  That's certainly a larger threat than to just 1st level characters.




As in the real world, I suspect biological agents will pose a significant hazard to those that deploy them as well as those they employ them against.  Brown mold is extremely difficult to handle, and its spores are likely to create numerous hazards when the weapon is stored in peace time.


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## Hereticus (Mar 21, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Now, if we're going to include "bunker" in our definition of castle, things get a bit difficult to talk about. After all, is a cave in the ground fortified by whatevers, really a "castle" anymore? In my mind, when someone mentions castle, I'm thinking high walls, towers, bailleys that sort of thing. The Citadel in Halifax, Nova Scotia is a modern adaptation of a castle (and something that IMO, would likely happen to fantasy castles) but I'm not sure I'd call it an actual castle as such.




Instead of "bunker", think more of s drow family compound. Having every fortified structure look like a "medieval castle" would be like having every car look like a Ford Focus.





> In any such attack it will mostly be the expendable zero levels that are killed. An acceptable loss to the royalty, as long as they aren't threatened.






Hussar said:


> Well, ignoring for a second the edition specific rules, if you kill everyone in the castle, other than a few nobles, I'm thinking they'll be pretty unhappy. Considering in 1e the vast majority of defenders of a castle would be 0 level, wiping out the zero levels is a pretty serious deal.




Good thing I wasn't talking about "killing everyone in the castle".



Hussar said:


> And, in 3e, take a look at the damage brown mold does. That's certainly a larger threat than to just 1st level characters.




The greater majority of casualties would be of lower level, which would be an acceptable loss. If I was the lord of a castle, I would value my henchcritters exponentially at higher levels. While the peasants would complain about losing 100 of their friends and family members, I'd value one seventh level cleric alot more.



Hussar said:


> But, I agree, it would likely be more Minas Turith and less Helm's Deep. Helm's Deep was a pretty much standard siege - not many flying/burrowing/teleporting/powered creatures. Isengard is a good model too. Treants would be fantastically deadly with their ability to animate forests.




Helm's Deep would have been epic, with elementals attacking the walls, and the defenders casting fireballs and hurling puddings into the mass of orcs as they advanced. In a fantasy battle Helm's Deep would have been a death trap for the defense unless they built it twice as big into the surrounding mountains.


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## Hereticus (Mar 21, 2010)

When I think of a "castle" in D&D terms, I think of a walled city with many key structures inside it. Outside the main wall would be a kill zone, lacking places for defenders to take cover. Inside the main walls would be other smaller walls in case the main walls were breached. Beneath the city would be a network of tunnels to help precipitate a counterattack. Many of the main buildings would also be fortified, such as palaces, temples, guild headquarters and militia bases.

A medieval castle on its own would be a sitting duck. It could only exist as one of many structures inside a walled city.


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## Hussar (Mar 21, 2010)

But, then again, many castles came before the city.  The city grew because the castle was there, not the other way around.   A very large number of medieval castles were very much on their own.

Now, as far as your Drow stronghold, that's a bit trickier.  I suppose you really have to differentiate here.  For one, a Drow stronghold certainly isn't concerned with flying opponents, but burrowing ones would be a right bitch.  Elementals would be absolutely devasting to castles of any kind.  

OTOH, I don't care if it's defensible or not, a FLYING castle is just cool.


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## Stoat (Mar 21, 2010)

Bullgrit said:


> You know, thinking about this just now, really is "castles exist" a fact in D&D? I'm specifically thinking of the latest editions -- D&D3, D&D4. Are there any rules references to castles in the core books? I know the B/X D&D set has castle rules, and the AD&D1 DMG has them. I can't remember if AD&D2 had castle rules in the core books.
> 
> I'm not even certain that the D&D3 and D&D4 core books even mention castles as fluff. Surely they do, but if I'm not remembering anything, it must not be an important mention.
> 
> ...




The Keep on the Shadowfell was presumably a traditional European-style castle before it fell to ruin.  Winterhaven is a walled town with a gatehouse.  I imagine castles are present in other WotC adventures as well.

I don't have my books with me, but I'm pretty sure the 3.0 and 3.5 DMG's had purchase prices for castles.  

On topic, I think the interesting question is "at what level of magic does the traditional Europeanish castle become obsolete?"  

Obviously, such a structure is useless if the defenders can reasonably expect to fight a wave of earth elementals supported by a ancient red dragon.  On the other hand, I think it would stand up pretty well to say, 500 orc warriors supported by a 6th level wizard with two 3rd level apprentices.


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## Hereticus (Mar 21, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But, then again, many castles came before the city. The city grew because the castle was there, not the other way around. A very large number of medieval castles were very much on their own.




Maybe in a D&D world they were a long time ago, like your example. But in a world with magic and mythical creatures a lone castle would likely be too vulnerable to survive long. Unless the owner could replace the personnel losses and constantly rebuild.



Hussar said:


> Now, as far as your Drow stronghold, that's a bit trickier. I suppose you really have to differentiate here. For one, a Drow stronghold certainly isn't concerned with flying opponents, but burrowing ones would be a right bitch. Elementals would be absolutely devasting to castles of any kind.




When playing a drow noble attached to a House, we has subservient earth elementals patrolling above and beneath the compound. The ground below and the ceiling above were both vulnerable.



Hussar said:


> OTOH, I don't care if it's defensible or not, a FLYING castle is just cool.




On that I concur fully!


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## Hereticus (Mar 21, 2010)

Stoat said:


> I don't have my books with me, but I'm pretty sure the 3.0 and 3.5 DMG's had purchase prices for castles.




It would probably be less expensive to hire some henchcritters and an army, then take the castle you want.



Stoat said:


> On topic, I think the interesting question is "at what level of magic does the traditional Europeanish castle become obsolete?"




When the attackers have a higher level than the defenders. 15th level attackers would blow away 11th level defenders, but would be wiped out by defenders with Shapechange and Foresight.



Stoat said:


> Obviously, such a structure is useless if the defenders can reasonably expect to fight a wave of earth elementals supported by a ancient red dragon. On the other hand, I think it would stand up pretty well to say, 500 orc warriors supported by a 6th level wizard with two 3rd level apprentices.




Not if I could summon by own Elemental Swarm, or take out the Dragon with a Weird or Implosion spell.


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## Hussar (Mar 22, 2010)

Hereticus said:


> It would probably be less expensive to hire some henchcritters and an army, then take the castle you want.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think you're proving his point.  If you are at the point where you have an 18th level cleric or wizard on call to defend every castle, then why have castles in the first place?  Why not use the immense magical power that you have at your command and create extradimentional cities with a small, easily defended gate?  

It's very, very unlikely that you will have that kind of power to defend every castle, and, if you do, then the castle pretty much becomes obsolete.  I think it's a very intersting question actually, because the attackers don't need Archmages to attack.  Many of the creatures have innate abilities - giants, treants, molds and jellies, - that sort of thing that would be fairly easy and cheap to deploy whereas the defender is pretty much required to have massive expenses keeping very high level characters on call to defend.

I really do think there is a tipping point where the level of fantasy makes the traditional castle pretty obsolete.

As far as cities go - well, how do you get the city without the castle to defend it?  The reason you got cities is because the castle pacified the area in the first place.  Without that pacification, the city would be easy pickings for pretty much anyone.  And a walled city without a castle is very, very weak.


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## Celebrim (Mar 22, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I really do think there is a tipping point where the level of fantasy makes the traditional castle pretty obsolete.




I'm not so sure that the level of magic is the issue.  I think the key questions are economic.

1) Supposing you have a fantasy army and a million gold peices to make a castle.  What peice of equipment you buy instead of the castle that would serve your army/nation better?  
2) Even if you don't build a castle, you still might need need to house and shelter your fantasy army.  Does spending some incremental additional cost of fortifying the barracks, stables, and so forth where you shelter your army justify itself?
3) Can you buy high level characters?  That is, with sufficient economic expenditure, can you create high level characters from low level characters through some sort of training program, and if so, what does it cost?  It may well be true that a castle is of less value than an 18th level wizard, but if 18th level wizards aren't on the market, you may still end up buying the castle.
4) Is the supply of fantastic creatures effectively elastic, such that it increases with demand, or is the supply of fantastic creatures basically fixed and spending more money to obtain them has a greatly diminishing return.  If that is the case, then even if you'd rather have dragons or giants in your employ, you still might buy castles instead.
5) Is the upkeep, directly and indirectly, of magic items, fantastic creatures, and high level characters less than or greater than the upkeep of castles?  Castles never create plagues, seek to overthrow you, summon up horrors from beyond, or decide to eat your subjects.  Generally speaking, do your subjects feel safer and more contented with your rule if you build castles, than if you employ dragons, giants, or vampires or whatever?


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## Haltherrion (Mar 22, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> I'm not so sure that the level of magic is the issue. I think the key questions are economic.




I think it is a combination of both magic and economics. I would phrase it instead as:

_I think there is a tipping point where the availability of powerful magic makes castles unlikely._

Availability will include a significant economic component. It also includes such setting specific stuff as just how many people in a population have the aptitude for it and how quickly can you train them.

"Powerful magic" is a "level of fantasy" element. The magic  available needs to have some military utility of course.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 22, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> And let's not get too dismissive of medieval fortifications. When the 13th century constructed Harlech was besieged by cannon in 1647, it still held out for nine months.




Interestingly, at the beginning of some of the Welsh rebellions in the period after Edward's Welsh castles were built, they were often garrisoned by small numbers of men- 18-25 men-at-arms.

They made military-economic sense (you raised the economic issue on a later post) because despite the high creation cost, once in place they projected a large amount of presence for a fairly low on-going cost due to the small garrison. And in even this small number of men could hold off much larger forces long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

But in a D&D world, set your mid-level adventuring party the task of taking such a castle and how many would really fail? You could, of course, put a high level lord in the castle but that doesn't seem to be consistent with how those castles were garrisoned. 

Of course, the defenders could put a bigger/more effective garrison in the castle but that changes the economic proposition considerably. And already some of the anti-magic defenses suggested on this thread have increased the cost and upkeep of these places. Does the castle continue to make sense or are there other alternatives? At what point is the value in the defenders and not in the stone structure? When it tips to the former, why build the latter?

We like to think of the Welsh castles in particular as romantic bastions but they were built as hard-hearted methods of projecting imperial power. They existed because the lord who built them thought that was the best way to subjugate Wales.


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## Celebrim (Mar 22, 2010)

marcq said:


> I think it is a combination of both magic and economics. I would phrase it instead as:
> 
> _I think there is a tipping point where the availability of powerful magic makes castles unlikely._




Again, I'm not sure.  We will have to define 'availability of powerful magic' more unlikely precisely because it does include a signficant economic component.  The question the availability of powerful magic raises is:

6) If powerful magic is readily available, does the decreased economic cost of razing a castle via destructive magic outweigh the decreased economic cost of building castles using fantastic means.

After all, once we start talking about readily available high magic, we aren't just talking about the ability to conjure fireballs and earthquakes, but stone giant construction teams, using earth elementals as earth movers, lyres of building, erecting structures using wall of stone and wall of iron spells, floating stone blocks into place using multiple tenser's floating disks, mattocks of the titans, evacuavations using magical burrowers, magically hardened stone and wood, and so forth.  If magic can let you build a castle in a few weeks using relatively cheap means, then the fact that someone else can knock one down in a few hours is relatively less important.  The fact that the castle can get knocked down in hours after some minor resistance might still be a better result than the garrison massacred in mere seconds or minutes without any chance of resistance.



> It also includes such setting specific stuff as just how many people in a population have the aptitude for it and how quickly can you train them.




There are two separate questions here.  How common is magic, and how common is high level magic.  As I said, in my campaign, low level magic is pervasive (anyone can be taught magic that could learn a second langauge, calculus, reading musicial notation, high school geometry), but high level magic is rare because only a few people can do it (people like the PC's) without years and years of training.   Few humans can get above 6th level before dying of old age.  Yet, at the same time, very high level and very powerful magic exists, its just not something that is governed by economics.  Spending more money won't get you more high level magic, because the supply is basically fixed.



> "Powerful magic" is a "level of fantasy" element. The magic  available needs to have some military utility of course.




Having 'powerful magic' in the setting is not the same as having 'powerful magic available as an economic commodity'.


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## Celebrim (Mar 22, 2010)

marcq said:


> Interestingly, at the beginning of some of the Welsh rebellions in the period after Edward's Welsh castles were built, they were often garrisoned by small numbers of men- 18-25 men-at-arms.
> 
> They made military-economic sense (you raised the economic issue on a later post) because despite the high creation cost, once in place they projected a large amount of presence for a fairly low on-going cost due to the small garrison. And in even this small number of men could hold off much larger forces long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
> 
> But in a D&D world, set your mid-level adventuring party the task of taking such a castle and how many would really fail?




This raises alot of points.  How common of a threat is a mid-level adventuring party?  If the threat isn't very common, then the castle might still be useful against common threats and hense justifiable.  If the threat is very common, what is the chance that the castle is defended by a mid-level adventuring party?  What disadvantage would a mid-level party be placed at, if they had to attack another mid-level party who were fortified in a castle and had at their command 18-25 men-at-arms of a level appropriate to the campaign world (both 'low level' and 'mid-level' are relative to the demographics of the population).



> You could, of course, put a high level lord in the castle but that doesn't seem to be consistent with how those castles were garrisoned.




The question of how you'd have to garrison a castle given the common threats to it hasn't been raised that much (except when several people noted that gaurd dogs and other creatures with the 'scent' ability would be good investments).  

We also haven't addressed the strategy of castle buildnig.  Garrison castles as were used to project a presence into the Welch frontier, and deter incursions by the Welsh into England, and project English culture into Wales (by encouraging town development in their vicinity) aren't the only strategic use of castles.  Even if garrison castles no longer make strategic sense (a point I'm not sure I agree with, since I think 'low to mid-level adventuring party' would be the standard garrison), that doesn't obselete the other uses of a castle like for example, defending a city or strategic point.   A castle that housed the garrison of a cities military could be much more strongly defended than a frontier outpost.



> Does the castle continue to make sense or are there other alternatives? At what point is the value in the defenders and not in the stone structure? When it tips to the former, why build the latter?




That is the key questions we are trying to answer.  What are the alternatives to castle construction?


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## S'mon (Mar 22, 2010)

The 18-25 men/mid level party thing raises what for me is a big issue - it's not castles which are ineffective, but _Gygaxian_ castles with their droves of hapless 0-level men-at-arms.  IRL a royal castle garrison would be small, but they'd be hardened veterans, superbly equipped.  Even in 1e demographics it makes no sense to rank them below 'Warrior' - 2nd level - with a good number of higher level serjeants, knights etc.

One thing I like about 4e is that it does away with this trope - which somehow survived into 3e.  Now I can garrison castles with 3rd level baseline Human Guards from the MM, and no one thinks I'm 'cheating'.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 22, 2010)

S'mon said:


> The 18-25 men/mid level party thing raises what for me is a big issue - it's not castles which are ineffective, but _Gygaxian_ castles with their droves of hapless 0-level men-at-arms.  IRL a royal castle garrison would be small, but they'd be hardened veterans, superbly equipped.  Even in 1e demographics it makes no sense to rank them below 'Warrior' - 2nd level - with a good number of higher level serjeants, knights etc.
> 
> One thing I like about 4e is that it does away with this trope - which somehow survived into 3e.  Now I can garrison castles with 3rd level baseline Human Guards from the MM, and no one thinks I'm 'cheating'.



This; the men at arms that formed the garrison of royal castles and the core elements of household troops of the richer nobility would be professionals and pretty much mid level by the standards of the time.
0-level are essentially the peasant levies. 
Now what consitutes mid level is a whole other kettle of fish.


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## Hussar (Mar 22, 2010)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This raises alot of points. How common of a threat is a mid-level adventuring party? If the threat isn't very common, then the castle might still be useful against common threats and hense justifiable.




Could I adjust that slightly?  Instead of mid-level "adventuring party" could that be changed to "mid-level threats"?  After all, it's not just classed NPC's that are the big issue here, but anything that could reasonably threaten a mid-level party could threaten a castle or stronghold as well.

In other words, just how common (to use 3e critters which I'm more familiar with) are CR 5-10 creatures?  I guess in 4e you'd have to ask how common are Paragon and high end Heroic creatures?  

But, other than that, I agree pretty much completely.  And, that's a very good point in that just defense is not the entire point of a castle.  Edo Japan had three centuries of peace, yet saw a continuous stream of new castles being built as government seats throughout the country.  These weren't being built because in response to any particular threat, but more as a symbol of government, despite the functionality of these castles.


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## Hereticus (Mar 22, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I think you're proving his point. If you are at the point where you have an 18th level cleric or wizard on call to defend every castle, then why have castles in the first place? Why not use the immense magical power that you have at your command and create extradimensional cities with a small, easily defended gate?
> 
> It's very, very unlikely that you will have that kind of power to defend every castle, and, if you do, then the castle pretty much becomes obsolete.  I think it's a very interesting question actually, because the attackers don't need Archmages to attack.  Many of the creatures have innate abilities - giants, treants, molds and jellies, - that sort of thing that would be fairly easy and cheap to deploy whereas the defender is pretty much required to have massive expenses keeping very high level characters on call to defend.




Most non-adventuring high-level characters get powerful as part of a society, having taken a position of leadership. These powerful humanoids (if not evil) will likely want to remain part of that society.

Most castles will not have these powerful beings, just the most significant ones. Most castles will be grouped together as part of a civilization, and a hierarchy will develop. It may be easy for the dragon to destroy a smaller castle, but if it continues attacks on smaller targets it will eventually run into a trap and lose.

And there will be the evil elite, who are always invisible and flying, and live in small self-imposed prisons.



Hussar said:


> As far as cities go - well, how do you get the city without the castle to defend it? The reason you got cities is because the castle pacified the area in the first place. Without that pacification, the city would be easy pickings for pretty much anyone. And a walled city without a castle is very, very weak.




Why?

Most major cities will have walls that are unbreachable without magic or a very large number of powerful creatures. In the major cities I designed for my campaigns, there are many fortified structures inside the city and the area around it.


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## Hussar (Mar 23, 2010)

But, how did those cities develop in the first place?  Sure, once you have the resources of the city, you can make unbreachable walls that suchlike.  No problem.  But, you have to start with a village first, which certainly doesn't have those kinds of resources.

So, who protected the village on its way through town and into its growth into a city.

And, note, even by 3e demographics, only the very largest cities should have high level (as in 15+) level characters and you should only have one or two of those in an entire nation state.  The vast majority of settlements would be villages.


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## Hereticus (Mar 23, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But, how did those cities develop in the first place? Sure, once you have the resources of the city, you can make unbreachable walls that suchlike. No problem. But, you have to start with a village first, which certainly doesn't have those kinds of resources.




Send me a PM, and I'll email you the into I sent out with my most recent game. It's too long to post here at once.



Hussar said:


> So, who protected the village on its way through town and into its growth into a city.




I assume that most civilizations are ancient, and they eventually grew to become powerful just as their enemies grew to become powerful.



Hussar said:


> And, note, even by 3e demographics, only the very largest cities should have high level (as in 15+) level characters and you should only have one or two of those in an entire nation state. The vast majority of settlements would be villages.




Sorry, but I don't go chapter and verse by the book. Especially for the details that don't involve role playing and core mechanics. I started with AD&D (a home rule heavy edition), and and never threw everything out when the new edition arrived.


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## Hussar (Mar 23, 2010)

Hereticus said:


> Send me a PM, and I'll email you the into I sent out with my most recent game. It's too long to post here at once.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




But, did these opponents just not exist at some point in the past, thus allowing cities to develop?  Presumably, in most fantasy worlds, the different races and whatnot develop at about the same time.  So, who protected the villages on their way to cities?  It doesn't matter if you developed last year or ten thousand years ago.  The threats are exactly the same.

Now, it's perfectly fine to handwave it and I think that's what the vast majority of setting do.  But, unless the cities popped out full formed (not an impossibility in a world with gods), they still had to progress from hamlet on up.  Which means they needed protection.


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## Celebrim (Mar 23, 2010)

S'mon said:


> The 18-25 men/mid level party thing raises what for me is a big issue - it's not castles which are ineffective, but _Gygaxian_ castles with their droves of hapless 0-level men-at-arms.




While I'm all for Gygax on most things, this ended up being one of the things we rejected most early in Gygax's demographics.  I think Gygax was thinking as a war gamer, and his interests were primarily: "I shouldn't let the PC's hire armies of high level characters, nor should I give the impression that the PC's aren't remarkable heroes."  

But in practice, we noticed Gygax rejected his own demographics.  Gaurds and bandits in modules and dungeons were quite frequently not 0 level fighters.  I also noticed as a DM that the good guys generally lacked the ability to defend themselves creditably from the bad guys in the absence of the PC's.  I didn't mind so much if the PC's could turn the tide in the good guys favor (that's the point after all), but if on one side you had forces that could challenge a 10th level party and on the other side you had mostly 0-level fighters, it raised the issue of how the good guys had survived until the PC's came around.  I wanted all the various cultures where a status quo had persisted for some time to have creditable defence against all their neighbors.  This meant more than 0-level fighters.  Also, I worried as a DM that the good guys would have no means to deter players from turning their characters against the good guys as easier targets.  This was a form of derailing I didn't really want to deal with.  Also, my sense of wargamer was to want to pit Sparta vs. Persia, or Rome vs. Gaul and there was a feeling that the elite military units of history ought to be differentiated in various strong ways from the run of the mill.  All these things led to by the end of the '80's creating the idea of elite units composed of 1st or even 2nd level fighters.

Then we encountered Forgotten Realms, and there we saw a DM with a published setting where he was not afraid to suggest elite units of up to 4th or 6th level.  Now, I didn't think much of the FR and considered that more of the typical power creep in the game, but it did get me to open up and think hard about my Gygaxian biases and I stopped fearing my biases and started considering what sort of upper limits I'd be willing to accept and what sort of demographics I really believed in.

Then I got involved in a campaign that used alot of Battlesystem and one thing I noticed is that units of high level characters were great heroic talismans just like magic swords or magic rings.  Players got really enthused by them, especially if you kept them suitably rare and special (but not obviously, unknown).  Power gamers loved to create potent maximized armies.  Roleplayers loved to create armies of less than faceless individuals.  Keeping NPC's just 0-level went contrary to what I felt were the real needs the game.  So I pretty much abandoned the idea of abundant 0 level characters by the early 90's.

A small border garrison of an average nation would IMC contain 40 or so 2nd and level fighters, a handful of experts to maintain the place and provide for the troops, some gaurd dogs, some war horses, and what would in essence be an NPC party of 5th-6th level (commander, mage, cleric, scout).  They'd differ from the PC's in various ways.  They'd not be as well equipped.  They'd have unexceptional attributes.  They'd have skill and feat selections more geared to mundane affairs and a general fear of uncanny things and crawling into dark holes, but they could handle most things up to CR 8 fairly well.



> One thing I like about 4e is that it does away with this trope - which somehow survived into 3e.  Now I can garrison castles with 3rd level baseline Human Guards from the MM, and no one thinks I'm 'cheating'.




But it restores another 1e trope that I liked no better: that NPC's and PC's are simply made of different things.  Just as I tossed away Gygaxian demographics, I also tossed away the trope that NPC's couldn't gain levels like PC's could.  4e brings it back.

And Gygaxian demographics didn't even survive into the 90's.  As I said, FR, for better or worse, killed them.


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## Ariosto (Mar 23, 2010)

S'mon said:
			
		

> _Gygaxian_ castles with their droves of hapless 0-level men-at-arms.



_The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures_, page 15 (adapted for clarity):

*Type of Guards/Retainers in Castle *​*(The number after indicating the type die to use to determine how many)

* (D6) Occupant
Then 1d4 for Retainers
(1) - Lord (Fighter 9)
1: L7 Ftrs. 8 2: Griffons* 6 3: L6 Ftrs. 10 4: Giants 4

(2) - Superhero (Fighter 8)
1: L6 Ftrs. 8 2: Rocs* 4 3: Ogres 4 4: L5 Ftrs. 10

(3) - Wizard (Magic-User 11)
1: Dragons 4 2: Chimeras 4 3: Wyverns 4 4: Basilisks 4

(4) - Necromancer (Magic-User 10)
1: Chimeras 4 2: Manticores 6 3: Lycanthropes 12 4: Gargoyles 12

(5) - Patriarch (Lawful Cleric 8)
1: L4 Ftrs. 20 2: L8 Ftrs. 6 3: Treants 10 4: Hippogriffs* 8

(6) - Evil H.P. (Chaotic Cleric 8)
1: Trolls 10 2: Vampires 6 3: White Apes 20 4: Spectres 10

*With a like number of L4 Fighters riding these creatures.

In addition ... From 30 to 180 men, half crossbow armed light foot, half be heavy foot. Everyone mounted who/that can be. Possible others in party:

Fighter: 25% Magic-User (Level 5-8), 50% Cleric (Level 3-6)
Magic-User: 25% Fighter (Level 5-8), 505 Apprentice (Level 4-7)
Cleric: 50% 1-6 Assistants (Level 4-7)


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> This; the men at arms that formed the garrison of royal castles and the core elements of household troops of the richer nobility would be professionals and pretty much mid level by the standards of the time.
> 0-level are essentially the peasant levies.
> Now what consitutes mid level is a whole other kettle of fish.




Well, if the Lord is a 9th level Fighter - the minimum you get with the 1e DMG fortress generator - it seems reasonable to stat his 18-25 core household retainers/personal guard around half that - 4th, or say 2nd-6th.  If the Castellan of the Keep on the Borderlands is 6th, then it seems reasonable to make his top dozen or so men 3rd, or ca 2nd-4th.  

BECMI D&D tended more to this approach (see eg the Jarl's Personal Guard in the Northern Reaches Gazetteer), perhaps one reason why I found Mystara a more playable setting than Greyhawk.


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> _The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures_,
> In addition ... From 30 to 180 men, half crossbow armed light foot, half be heavy foot. Everyone mounted who/that can be.




It's these guys who are implausible and ineffective - though when I aid Gygaxian I was thinking specifically about castles in the 1e AD&D DMG.  The vast horde of 0 level men-at-arms takes up a lot of space, eats a lot of food, and is almost totally ineffective against mid-level PC-class characters.   More, they're not notably better than 0 level peasant levies, they have a couple more hit points, better equipment, and the same attacks & saves - inferior to a 1hd Orc.


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> But it restores another 1e trope that I liked no better: that NPC's and PC's are simply made of different things.  Just as I tossed away Gygaxian demographics, I also tossed away the trope that NPC's couldn't gain levels like PC's could.  4e brings it back.




I'm more than fine with that - it explains why the world's not full of 30th level characters!  In fact with 4e I tend to avoid using PC-class NPCs wherever possible.

My 4e version of BD&D's Keep on the Borderlands has the Castellan as a MM2 level 7 Cavalier, while his soldiers are 1st-3rd level, with leaders 4th-6th.  If I were restatting them for a high level game I'd keep the soldiers at the same XPV but convert them to 9th-11th level minions.


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> And Gygaxian demographics didn't even survive into the 90's.  As I said, FR, for better or worse, killed them.




Per the 3e DMG 'War' section and settlement creation, the vast majority of soldiers are 1st level Warriors, or 1st level Commoners if peasant levies.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 23, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But, how did those cities develop in the first place?  Sure, once you have the resources of the city, you can make unbreachable walls that suchlike.  No problem.  But, you have to start with a village first, which certainly doesn't have those kinds of resources.
> 
> So, who protected the village on its way through town and into its growth into a city.
> 
> And, note, even by 3e demographics, only the very largest cities should have high level (as in 15+) level characters and you should only have one or two of those in an entire nation state.  The vast majority of settlements would be villages.



This is one of the places where I think D&D get it totally wrong. If you look at the real world then the hard cases are the ones that live in the toruble spots and can survive there. I doubt that many of us would last long in Darfur or places lile that. Back in the day when Scotland and England were separate kingdoms that there was more high level individuals on the border than in Edinburgh or London.


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## Hereticus (Mar 23, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But, did these opponents just not exist at some point in the past, thus allowing cities to develop? Presumably, in most fantasy worlds, the different races and whatnot develop at about the same time. So, who protected the villages on their way to cities? It doesn't matter if you developed last year or ten thousand years ago. The threats are exactly the same.




If all the races developed at the same time, that eliminates on threat. Perhaps all the dragons were smaller an posed a lesser threat. Perhaps there were none where these civilizations developed.



Hussar said:


> Now, it's perfectly fine to handwave it and I think that's what the vast majority of setting do. But, unless the cities popped out full formed (not an impossibility in a world with gods), they still had to progress from hamlet on up. Which means they needed protection.




I would imagine that first there were citadels and walled cities that got larger and larger over time. They would have had underground areas for protection from attacks. As the cities grew larger, the old walls remained while newer and larger ones were built to expand the area. And as the city grew, more palaces, temples and other fortified structures were built inside the walls.


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## Hereticus (Mar 23, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> A small border garrison of an average nation would IMC contain 40 or so 2nd and level fighters, a handful of experts to maintain the place and provide for the troops, some gaurd dogs, some war horses, and what would in essence be an NPC party of 5th-6th level (commander, mage, cleric, scout). They'd differ from the PC's in various ways. They'd not be as well equipped. They'd have unexceptional attributes. They'd have skill and feat selections more geared to mundane affairs and a general fear of uncanny things and crawling into dark holes, but they could handle most things up to CR 8 fairly well.




I start PCs out with better stats. NPCs start with all 10s, or an average of 10. Player characters start out with 18/16/14/12/10/08, which is an average of 13.

All humanoids regardless of race become first level in something once they reach the age of maturity.

Second, most NPCs are content to remain in their lower level. Very few attain higher levels.


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> This is one of the places where I think D&D get it totally wrong. If you look at the real world then the hard cases are the ones that live in the toruble spots and can survive there. I doubt that many of us would last long in Darfur or places lile that. Back in the day when Scotland and England were separate kingdoms that there was more high level individuals on the border than in Edinburgh or London.




In traditional D&D though the Bishop of Bath or Lord Chancellor would typically be statted as high level NPCs.  I agree it's not very plausible.  3e is by far the worst offender - in 1e a random fortress will have high level NPCs at least comparable to those you get in the random city encounter table.  In 3e it only makes sense for very high magic settings with routine teleportation and other transport magic.

I think though the most plausible approach generally is for frontier castles to have tough, mid-high level garrisons that can tripwire invading forces, while most of the country is low level, and the country ruler has a personal force of high level retainers who can act as a rapid-reaction, firefighter force and leaders of his army.

The enemy invades, the castle tripwires them, the castle's mid-level defenders hold out until the ruler's high level champions/army arrive to stomp the enemy.


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## billd91 (Mar 23, 2010)

S'mon said:


> In traditional D&D though the Bishop of Bath or Lord Chancellor would typically be statted as high level NPCs.  I agree it's not very plausible.  3e is by far the worst offender - in 1e a random fortress will have high level NPCs at least comparable to those you get in the random city encounter table.  In 3e it only makes sense for very high magic settings with routine teleportation and other transport magic.




I think this rests on the assumption that kills are virtually the only source of XPs. I've never really bought into that. The political intrigues of becoming the Lord Chancellor would certainly stand for something. People in these positions, while not necessarily great combatants, were usually highly competent individuals (at intrigue if nothing else). 
What I think 3e did very well was develop non-adventuring professions that couldn't really stand up to similarly leveled adventurers (though weren't push-overs) but were formidable against their peers and subordinates. I usually level my NPCs up based on how long they've been in their professions starting with 1st level as the new adult/professional and giving them a level for every 3-5 years depending on how heated the competition would be (higher on frontiers, higher in politically charged areas, slower in peaceful interior backwaters, etc).


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## Haltherrion (Mar 23, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> Having 'powerful magic' in the setting is not the same as having 'powerful magic available as an economic commodity'.




I think I made it clear that there was an availability component earlier in the post.

You are correct, though, that magic would likely reduce the cost of construction as well as attack which would affect the economics. Although the older versions of D&D allowed for a ridicuously small amount of earth or stone to be effected. It always seemed the original creators where a little weak on geometry. Dig in particular, IIRC, did not move much volume.

As a related note, while I've never actually worked it out as a game mechanic, IMCs I've always assumed that dwarves and other deep delvers had ways of creating the type of underground chambers you have in the Tolkien world ('cause I like that stuff ). And such construction methods would also be quite useful for both excavating dungeons as well as mining fortifications.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 23, 2010)

Celebrim said:


> This raises alot of points. How common of a threat is a mid-level adventuring party?




This is just meant to raise a thought exercise: test the likely garrison (as you see it; I see no reason to stick to one person's thoughts on the garrison of a castle, i.e. Gygaxian) against your own players as a raiding party and see how that castle fares.

I think picking a small size garrison is interesting because there are clear historical precedents in Wales regarding some of the very castles likely to come to mind when people think of castle but you can choose your own antecedents. And one could easily imagine a mid-level group of freedom fighting Welsh adventurers trying to take the place.

One could make a case that for hardened veterans, at least some of them are higher than level 3 but nonetheless, it seems a small garrison is probably almost entirely fighter-type, maybe a few rogue-type which leaves them vulnerable to the typical adventuring party that is an effective combined arms fighting group of range, melee, control and healing. Of course, you also get into game mechanic issues where the games are tuned so that higher level folks can smash lower level folks perhaps more readily than they can in real life. (Was the crossbowman who killed King Richard level 3 or level 9? )

My wife and I have been rewatching the Rome HBO mini-series. While the show takes many liberties it probably isn't too far off in the "feel" of things. It was a reminder that the rank and file might be fairly tough folks. One would certainly peg Vorenus and Pullo as very high level warriors. Vorenus was high rank so maybe he is uncommon but Pullo wasn't ranked. A 10-20 year Roman legionnaire in a period and place where he saw a lot of combat might be fairly high level in D&D in terms. On the otherhand, D&D would peg Vorenus as a captain since he was first centurion and in D&D terms captains span a large number of men and aren't common. But even so, perhaps the standard level distributions in a seasoned army are too low in most D&D sources. Not that I tend to use them myself.




> We also haven't addressed the strategy of castle buildnig.




There is much we haven't addressed. But in the absence of a defined baseline, it is useful to offer historical analogs to at least remind folks how castles were used in an Earth setting.




> That is the key questions we are trying to answer. What are the alternatives to castle construction?




Indeed it is . But without defining the situation better all we can do is offer examples, counter examples and some thoughts based on experience or rules we feel are relavent.

In this sort of endeavour, if folks could approach it in good spirit, it might be interesting for a few interested in this topic to state their assumptions and then describe how they see fortifications evolving given those assumptions. It's as good a method as any and at least requires someone to declare their assumptions.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 23, 2010)

S'mon said:


> In 3e it only makes sense for very high magic settings with routine teleportation and other transport magic.




Agreed on your general points in your post.

It gets me thinking, though, regarding teleportation, it is an interesting exercise to imagine how teleportation portals would affect fortifications.

If one could create a reasonable number of portals then one could move small strike forces extremely rapidly, within the time necessary to respond to a surprise invasion of a castle by an adventuring group perhaps.

Permanent teleportation magic is very expensive but it is permanent in most of the rule systems IIRC and rapid movement is so valuable one could imagine someone investing a huge amount in creating the portals and then protecting them.

Such portals would justify stone fortifications as part of a layered, multi-faceted defense. One would want a strong enough garrison to allow a relief force to arrive but with the teleportation magic, the relief force could potentially arrive in minutes rather than weeks. A militaristic society might keep a strong, central reaction force available at all times, 24 hours a day.

The castle itself would be structured around the portal defense but also have to provide some ability to move larger amounts of troops should you decide to push through an army with all its baggage, transport, siege equipment, etc.

Permanent teleport magic is usually the highest level magic out there so one could certainly say it just isn't available in what you consider a reasonable setting, of course. Just thinking, if it *was* available, I think you would find massive stone castles, and kingdoms maintaining "crack" response teams. You get your castles we all like and you get your emphasis on small, high level teams, i.e., our adventuring parties.

The fortification would probably look more like state military forts and not lordly residences we often think of when we think of castle but otherwise have a lot of the characteristics we think of in castles.


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## S'mon (Mar 23, 2010)

marcq said:


> My wife and I have been rewatching the Rome HBO mini-series. While the show takes many liberties it probably isn't too far off in the "feel" of things. It was a reminder that the rank and file might be fairly tough folks. One would certainly peg Vorenus and Pullo as very high level warriors. Vorenus was high rank so maybe he is uncommon but Pullo wasn't ranked. A 10-20 year Roman legionnaire in a period and place where he saw a lot of combat might be fairly high level in D&D in terms. On the otherhand, D&D would peg Vorenus as a captain since he was first centurion and in D&D terms captains span a large number of men and aren't common. But even so, perhaps the standard level distributions in a seasoned army are too low in most D&D sources. Not that I tend to use them myself.




I think it's not so much that levels are too low - overall levels are determined by the GM's general campaign demographics and will vary by campaign - as that the 'spread' is much too broad.  In 1e AD&D a mercenary Captain is 5th-8th level Fighter, while his men-at-arms are 0th level.  He can slaughter dozens of them!  Even the heroes of the Iliad fell back before massed spear-carriers, but in pre 4e D&D they're trivial.  And it boggles the mind that Pullo is 0th level while Vorenus is 8th.  Much better I think to allow veteran men-at-arms to be levelled.  An old White Dwarf article for 1e suggested that professional mercenary units start at 2nd level Fighter, 4th for Ultra-Elites (5+ year veterans), and that seems reasonable to me.  Of course their pay, while employed, is decent too - the article suggested several dozen gp per month.   Caesar's veteran Legions could also be 2nd-3rd level, but sadly without the high pay!


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## Haltherrion (Mar 23, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Of course their pay, while employed, is decent too - the article suggested several dozen gp per month. Caesar's veteran Legions could also be 2nd-3rd level, but sadly without the high pay!




I agree. It might be hard in D&D terms to take the average much higher than 3 even for a crack, very seasoned legion but one might expect a fairly significant number above the average, a higher variance.

This line of reasoning, though, starts running into problems when one tries to map the D&D game mechanics as manifested as levels back into "the real world". The game usually overstates how effective a trained person is. Or maybe, it expresses the seasoned person's effectiveness as more HP and better to-hit when the reality was more gear coupled with experience in the form of control of the battlefield through situational awareness and intimidation.

Regardless, it complicates comparing historical troops with game troops.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 23, 2010)

> What are the alternatives to castle construction?




Well, assuming that its top is as well made as its walls, a bunker is a good place to start, at least in low- to medium-level magic campaign world.  That way, the airborne assault will face the same kind of challenges in breaching the strong point's defenses as those launched from ground level.

If we're talking about a high-level magic campaign world, even castle walls might be superfluous, in which case you'd see the kind of construction as we see on modern military bases- standard appearing, slightly reinforced buildings, with true strong points reserved for actual field operations.

Of course, the attack from below is going to be problematic- see what happened in the first Starship Troopers' movie- but burrowing/earthgliding foes are a LOT less common than those that fly...otherwise, there would be a lot fewer dwarves in the world.


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## S'mon (Mar 24, 2010)

marcq said:


> I agree. It might be hard in D&D terms to take the average much higher than 3 even for a crack, very seasoned legion but one might expect a fairly significant number above the average, a higher variance.
> 
> This line of reasoning, though, starts running into problems when one tries to map the D&D game mechanics as manifested as levels back into "the real world". The game usually overstates how effective a trained person is. Or maybe, it expresses the seasoned person's effectiveness as more HP and better to-hit when the reality was more gear coupled with experience in the form of control of the battlefield through situational awareness and intimidation.
> 
> Regardless, it complicates comparing historical troops with game troops.




Yeah, obviously D&D is always highly imperfect at emulating real life.  But the concept of battlefield effectiveness can be reasonably translated - if eg you know that Caesar's best legions were equivalent to eg a Gaulish force four times as large, you can stat them appropriately in D&D for a similar result - in 1e making the typical Gaul level 0 Berserker and the Legionaries Fighter-2 should do it, close enough for government work.

With 1e I generally used Fighter-2 baseline for crack regular units like Caesar's veteran legions, and reserved Fighter-3 for super-elites like actual Spartan Sparteatei (not levy or allied troops); 15th century European Knights would also likely be F2-F3.

For RP purposes, variance is also useful - eg Pullo may just be a grunt, but he happens to be a 6th level Fighter, too.

Anyway, back OT - it makes both historical and game-world sense for castle garrisons to be small, but comprised of elite, loyal troops, for 1e-2e that indicates mostly F2-F3 with higher level leaders.  For 4e, depending on campaign demographics that means typically low-Heroic Standard monsters like the MM level 3 Human Guard, or equivalent low-Paragon minions.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 24, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Anyway, back OT - it makes both historical and game-world sense for castle garrisons to be small, but comprised of elite, loyal troops, for 1e-2e that indicates mostly F2-F3 with higher level leaders. For 4e, depending on campaign demographics that means typically low-Heroic Standard monsters like the MM level 3 Human Guard, or equivalent low-Paragon minions.




I think that's the likely way it would go. Fortifications would remain but less would be spent on them. More might be wooden (a legionnaire fort was usually wooden unless it stayed put for a very long time), the stone ones might be much less grand than a European castle from the high age of castles. Walls and towers still serve a purpose but they might not dominate as much as on earth given the need for troops to fight the likely threats.

One could argue that a stone fort was a capital expense with low ongoing costs and the troops are all ongoing costs and so a defender might still create a big stone structure at times to anchor his troops. Just seems there might be much less of that.


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## Hussar (Mar 24, 2010)

I agree with this.

On the flipside though,  magical construction could be cheap and widely availabe - Lyre of Building, for example, isn't a terribly expensive magic item in 3e and a single hour/week gives you 300 man hours of construction.  Never mind that you could likely, reliably play it three or possibly four hours with a skilled musician.  

You could bang out a walled fortification for practically nothing in a matter of a couple of weeks.  Four or five lyre's working in conjunction with a troop of skilled players (it's DC 18, getting a +17 skill bonus isn't that hard) could raise a fort almost overnight.

Maybe that's the way it would go.  You drop walled castles all over the place, not because they're incredibly safe or strong, but because they're the DND equivalent of digging a trench - basic protection.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 24, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, assuming that its top is as well made as its walls, a bunker is a good place to start, at least in low- to medium-level magic campaign world. That way, the airborne assault will face the same kind of challenges in breaching the strong point's defenses as those launched from ground level.




I like the bunker concept. More elaborate "bunkers" might consist of interlocking bunkers that compartmentalize the defendede space. And a bunker could be a squat tower or a low stone or earthen structure. Earth castles often compartmentalized but they didn't have to worry so much about fantasy world ways to get over or under walls and so their comparts were often interlocking courtyards.

You could imagine fortifications beginning as stoney hill tops mined to create chambers within the hill (maybe leveraging magic or fantasy creatures to excavate). In places without a convenient hill, fortifications that carried the spirit of a hilltop cavern by being a series of enclosed, connected supporting squat towers.

There are other ways to skin this but in the end, if I were personally building a stronghold with any reasonably exotic threat but it would have a cluster of stout towers instead of a keep. It might have some courtyards (they are useful after all for training grounds, out buildings, etc.) but they would be more detached like the bailey in a motte-and-bailey.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 24, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Maybe that's the way it would go. You drop walled castles all over the place, not because they're incredibly safe or strong, but because they're the DND equivalent of digging a trench - basic protection.




If I were roleplaying a lord, I would certainly make use of that. But they might be more simple walled forts. Depending on the threats, might also be interesting to make longer walls like Hadrian's Walls. Even for the Romans this was less about preventing armed folks crossing a frontier and more about controlling access across it and defining the "spine" of a frontier. Would likely be hte same in a fantasy world.

Instead of heavy castles, I'd be more inclined to invest in a good aerial scout service and mixed defensive force that included some good combined arms strike teams. Depends what you are facing though- hordes of orcs or another realm that is a peer of your own.

For fun I worked up my thoughts on how much it would take to feed a griffin for an aerial force. Lots of ways to estimate this but I came up with 15 to 30 cows per year per griffin. That could get very expensive so maybe you just keep a small scouting force if any at all. But on the other hand if circumstances demanded aerial forces for some reason, you might not have much gold left over for fortifications.

My thoughts on feeding griffins are on my blog if anyone is interested.
EN World D&D / RPG News - World Design Notes


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Apr 3, 2010)

countgray said:


> ... the less they seem like impenetrable fortresses in a world with dragons, gryphon-riders, and spells.




And therein lies the flaw in the original question.

Real-world Castles, more often than not, were not meant to be "impregnable fortresses." It would be great if things turned out that way but the use of castles was to serve as strong points from which local forces could sally forth and engage the enemy (who would not have such protection to retreat to). 

Castles were meant to secure territory but if they didn't have a capable garrison then the enemy could just plunder and raze the surrounding countryside and keep the garrison bottled up inside the castle. Still, the garrison would be a thorn in the attacker's side that could not be ignored (consider what would happen if reinforcements arrived; they'd have a secure base from which to operate... not a good thing for the attacker).

The idea that castles should be "dragon proof" is, IMO, a flawed one. Castles weren't designed for that so it's no surprise that they aren't as effective against dragons. That being said, it's better to be in a castle than in an unprotected village.

Just because there are fantastical beasts doesn't mean there won't be "normal" threats that the castle would be useful against.

In my mind a dragon is just a different form of siege gun that, if you let it, can tear a castle down piece by piece. It's all in how effective the garrison is in combating the dragon. Specifically, the garrison should be taking the battle to the dragon ASAP. And a dragon must sleep sometime...


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## Celebrim (Apr 3, 2010)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> And therein lies the flaw in the original question.




The other flaw in the original question is that the questioner has a very narrow definition of 'castle' that seems to encompass only the classic Edwardian border fort in their partially ruined state.  Thus, he thinks that all castles have a large bailey, temporary wooden hoardings or none at all, and unroofed towers.

But, that's a very specific sort of castle.

Marksburg












It's not hard to imagine anti-dragon castles with very little modification to the technology available in the high middle ages or early reinnaisance.


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## WayneLigon (Apr 3, 2010)

I usually feel the problem is so rare as to not be worth bothering with. Dragons of a size to seriously harm a castle are pretty rare, and the ones that ARE that big and powerful, I have no problem with them occasionally razing a castle to the ground. That's their job.

Similarly, wizards of a power level to do much actual structural damage are almost as rare, and they run out of spells really fast. There's all sorts of things they can do to get at the people inside a castle, but nothing that a decent 8th, 9th level rogue couldn't do almost as easily - just quicker.


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## Anton85 (Apr 6, 2010)

*A few house rules*

After reading this thread, I started thinking of some guidlines I would use in my own world. 


* Hirelings*

1. PC classes are not available for hire on the open market. If you want a 5th level wizard to protect your castle, you have to track one down, convince him to work for you and then negotiate pay. This keeps PCs special. 

2. NPC with NPC classes of all level are available for hire. Want to hire a 20th level adept to guard your castle, just pay the cost and your good to go. For the purpose of flavor, Racial Paragon classes are also available. 

3. Castle are staffed by veterans, usually 6th level NPCs.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 6, 2010)

deleted


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## Thornir Alekeg (Apr 6, 2010)

marcq said:


> For fun I worked up my thoughts on how much it would take to feed a griffin for an aerial force. Lots of ways to estimate this but I came up with 15 to 30 cows per year per griffin. That could get very expensive so maybe you just keep a small scouting force if any at all. But on the other hand if circumstances demanded aerial forces for some reason, you might not have much gold left over for fortifications.



 The economics side of things is where I think this all comes together.  If it is too expensive for a lord to maintain a force of griffins, the odds are good that an enemy force would have similar problems.  Defenses are built on a cost-benefit scheme.  The chances of being attacked by a dragon or a large force of spell-casters is low because they are not as common.  While the threat level is higher, the cost of building defenses against them is even higher.

In the end the best defense is a matched offense.  Soldiers to neturalize soldiers, mages to neutralize mages, aerial forces to neutralize aerial attacks etc.  Now, put your forces behind mundane walls, on towers with line of sight etc. and you are still one up on the enemy in the open.


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## UngainlyTitan (Apr 6, 2010)

Thornir Alekeg said:


> marcq said:
> 
> 
> > For fun I worked up my thoughts on how much it would take to feed a  griffin for an aerial force. Lots of ways to estimate this but I came up  with 15 to 30 cows per year per griffin. That could get very expensive  so maybe you just keep a small scouting force if any at all. But on the  other hand if circumstances demanded aerial forces for some reason, you  might not have much gold left over for fortifications.
> ...





The problem is that economics is based on some assumptions about magic.  If the create meat ritual is cheaper than a cow then the economics  changes.


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## Haltherrion (Apr 8, 2010)

Thornir Alekeg said:


> In the end the best defense is a matched offense. Soldiers to neturalize soldiers, mages to neutralize mages, aerial forces to neutralize aerial attacks etc. Now, put your forces behind mundane walls, on towers with line of sight etc. and you are still one up on the enemy in the open.




That's not the end of the economic discussion by any stretch though.

Fine- walls are a good barrier for many threats but what exactly do you build?

Given a set pot-o-money for military expenditures, do you build a wooden or small stone fort and spend the rest on a more mobile strike force, perhaps in a fantasy setting also paying for mages or more exotic troops? Or do you spend most of it on an elaborate concentric castle?

Degree matters. I doubt fortifications go away, they have their place. But they may not look much like castles of the high middle ages. They might look more like Roman fortifications- often low cost temporary forts, sometimes turned to stone but whose strength lay in a significant garrison.

While I like big castles and use them in my setting, if I were a real king in a fantasy setting, I would expect that my budget would be skewed away from big static defenses since I would find militarily justified ways to spend money on options a medieval ruler, for example, did not have. But without a better definition of the setting, it seems impossible to take this much further.


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## Haltherrion (Apr 8, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> The problem is that economics is based on some assumptions about magic. If the create meat ritual is cheaper than a cow then the economics changes.




Many things change if the create meat ritual is much cheaper than a cow 

As I've said, further discussion would require a better definition of the problem. But while it is hard to define the exact balance without a better definition, clearly economics would affect the choices of rulers. And given that many fantasy settings would give rulers a lot more choices than a medieval ruler had, it is not unreasonable to assume said rulers would make different choices and very well might not invest in a classic high milddle ages castle.


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## UngainlyTitan (Apr 8, 2010)

marcq said:


> That's not the end of the economic discussion by any stretch though.
> 
> 
> 
> Degree matters. I doubt fortifications go away, they have their place. But they may not look much like castles of the high middle ages. They might look more like Roman fortifications- often low cost temporary forts, sometimes turned to stone but whose strength lay in a significant garrison.



This I agree with, especially in the middle ages the orgainational abilities of the state was poor and there are accounts of the besiegers starving out before the defenders sonething that would not happen to the Romans. Magic portals and stuff like that could really change the logistics of supplying an army or a city.


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## countgray (Apr 8, 2010)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> The idea that castles should be "dragon proof" is, IMO, a flawed one. Castles weren't designed for that so it's no surprise that they aren't as effective against dragons.



We both agree that castles were never designed to defend against dragons in the real world.  That was in fact my very point. 

We disagree that the idea that castles should be "dragon proof" is flawed. Tell that to the lord who wants to protect his daughter and the local population that has retreated into his castle for protection against a raiding dragon!  I think it might be a very legitimate concern were a dragon to attack your kingdom.

One may argue that dragon raids are rare occurrences, or that should it happen nothing can be done about it.  It strikes me as somewhat cavalier to suggest that a frightened populace should just grin and bear it.  It need only take a single dragon attack to strike such fear in the heart of a lord that he becomes driven to build a fortress that would withstand such attacks in future.  Regardless of actual frequency of attacks, I can't imagine that some castle-builders would not be motivated to build dragon proof castles out of fear, pride, sense of duty or just for bragging rights.

Anyway, Dragon attacks are quite plentiful in fantasy literature and movies.  I don't think it's unreasonable to assume a typical fantasy world where dragon attacks are common, or at least frequent enough to be an abiding concern for castle builders.  What's frequent?  Once a season? Whenever the dragon wakes up from hibernation?  Once a decade?  Even if it's just once a generation, or once every century! Wouldn't that be enough to spur intensive fortification efforts?

Lets also not forget that D&D dragons are motivated to collect hoards; and castles are where the lords and heroes usually keep their treasure.  So the very act of building a castle might attract dragons like putting up a flashing neon sign that says "OPEN HERE TO REMOVE TREASURE"!

That said, your point is very well taken that the best defense may be a good offense and I agree with you that a castle may be well served by garrisoning as many dragon-fighters and weapons that it can muster to "defend" it by taking the fight out to the dragon.

As such, castle architects might focus their efforts on constructing barracks, store rooms for food and weapons, stables and aviaries to house mounts, turrets and lunettes to serve as launch and landing platforms, watch towers to spot foes and bell towers to alert troops and warn civillians to take cover, etc.  All those things sound like sensible architectural adaptations to threats unique to a fantasy world.

But I don't think that castle architects would just give up on the idea of making their fortresses impregnable to dragons (and gryphon riders and arch-mages). A castle has got to be more than just a dormitory for dragon fighters. I think they would still try very hard to craft what protections they could, and I think a little ingenuity by motivated stakeholders would produce some interesting solutions. 

While I will be the first to admit that I learned almost everything I know about castles from reading David Macaulay's "Castle", and from 30+ years of reading fantasy and gaming sourcebooks, not to mention movies like The Two Towers, Prince Caspian, Troy and Return of the King.  My template for castles may well be idealized and unrealistic, no doubt!  Although, I have visited a few real-life castles as a tourist, including the Chateau de Chillon he depicted (which, please note, does have 3 inner courtyards).  But please note that I never said that "all" castles possess crenelations and large baileys; I  merely pointed out that some castles definitely do have such features and those features might be less useful in facing off against fantastic foes.

But Celebrim is perhaps right that I have skewed notions about what castles were "really" like.  And I have very much enjoyed reading his comments; he has raised a lot of interesting points and taught me a variety of useful information.

I do want to say that my answer to the question posed as the title of this thread was never meant to imply that my answer was "no". It is not my belief at all that castles make no sense in a world of dragons and spells. I just think they would look somewhat different than those castles depicted in the romanticized cover art of fantasy novels, matte paintings in movies, and comic book illustrations.

My goal in asking the question was mainly to provoke some deep thought about whether fortifications that look more like Moorish, Slavic, or Japanese castles would be more suited to the fantastic threats such peoples would face.  Or maybe something entirely new and different. I am now particularly intrigued with the idea of star-forts that evolved in more recent times to deal with the advent of cannons, guns and explosives.  Or perhaps Celebrim is correct that medieval style castles (with minimal modifications) would be able defenses for fantastical threats.  Whatever the answers, I think the question is at least worth pondering and I think it doesn't hurt to challenge assumptions and try to think outside the box.

I will not, however, admit that my original question was "flawed" in that it has provoked 14 pages (and counting) of interesting and creative discussion, and fostered learning about castle construction techniques, military strategy, logistics, and architectural history. In that sense the question has achieved exactly what I set out to do and I would call that successful by any account.


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## Hussar (Apr 8, 2010)

I think there's a bit of a danger here of focusing too much on a single threat.  Sure, dragons are going to be devastating.  So are earthquakes and tornadoes, and there are only limited things you can reasonably do against those either.  Sure, you can build to resist, but, really, that's about the limit of what you can do.

The big threat isn't likely, IMO, to be dragons, but all the other monsters which are much more common.  Giant insects or anything with a climb score, can go over your walls without even slowing down.  Giants can fire at an alarming rate with much, much higher accuracy than any siege weapon.  Oozes, slimes, molds all make insanely effective siege weapons that really aren't that hard to transport.

And, then, of course, there's magic as well.

From my own gut feeling, I think the idea of the Roman fortification - mostly temporary (or at least, more temporary than a stone castle) with small, extremely well defended strong points, layered in depth towards the strategic center of a kingdom (or whatever state you wish to use) would probably be a reasonable solution.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I think there's a bit of a danger here of focusing too much on a single threat.




I think "dragon" is, at this point in the thread, a stand-in for_ any _flying threat.

I know _I'm _not just looking at dragons- I'm looking at any creature who can go over or attack over a parapet: IOW, anything that can fly, or, as you pointed out, crawl, climb, and of course, throw big rocks.


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## UngainlyTitan (Apr 8, 2010)

Ok, after some tootling about on google and Wikipedia I found Rothesay Castle in Scotland which had  a simple (albiet atypical) design but it gave the diameter as 43 meters any way this gives slightly over 200 meters of curtain wall.
So lets say 700 feet of curtain wall and this translates into 140 squares as a reasonable size for a small fort. 
Now Earthen Ramparts raises 2 squares of earth wall 2 squares high in 10 minutes. Lets suppose that you can do it twice on the same patch of ground to get a 20 foot high wall section. This would have been pretty typical of Roman forts. 
So 700ft = 140 sq. = 70 rituals x 2 to get a twenty foot outer wall.
at 80gp a pop that is 11,200gp for a basic curtain wall in about a day. 
Hammer in stakes and cut thorn bushes in and you have a pertty good defensive position in a very short time. It is better than what a Roman legion would knock together in a couple of hours but it does cost a bit.
Of course it offers nothing against flyers but it would be pretty good against climbers and earth will absort the impact of giant hurled stones better than stone and with less damage to the defenders. 
Quite a few of the star forts were based on earth embankments especially the Dutch ones if memory serves and the outer facing could be stone faces at very little cost or effort.

Now another interesting ritual is Mordenkainen's Joining, it joins two bits of non-living material in a seamless boundary. 50gp per casting and 10 minutes to cast.

So if I was building a fort in D&D land then I would use Earthen Rampards to create a curtain wall 10 feet thick and 20 high with a vertical slope on both sides. Then I would face both sides with large sheets of stone and fuse that together with Mordenkainen's Joining. Against that I would enclose the entire inner area with very think floors making liberal use of arches, columns and barrel vaulting. The roof would have lots of tall stone spikes to make flying difficult near the roof but more importantly to direct any flight close enough to employ the breath weapon along certain paths and then create the defensive openings so that the maximum output of fire would be into those paths. 
Also any possible landing area should be kill zones.
BTW, I estimate that you could face the curtain wall for 175,000 gp.

Disclaimer, I did not get much sleep last night and all this is pretty back of envelope stuff but a decent curtain wall for less than 400,000 in less than a month is pretty good value for money.


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