Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Castles in a D&D/Fantasy setting
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Derren" data-source="post: 7455481" data-attributes="member: 2518"><p>To be honest, while you raise several questions in your blog you don't really answer any of them.</p><p>And in your article about flying threats I disagree with your notion that creating anti-air guns would be easy. Imo it would actually be impossible without magic.</p><p>Bow and ballista designs have a very low range which gets even shorter when you fire them upwards. Every flyer out there can fly higher than how high medieval weaponry can shoot. You can of course try to build a bigger ballista which could shoot higher, but it quickly becomes gigantic and thus hard if not impossible to aim and very complicated to construct. And all fliers have to do is to just fly upward a bit and your new ballista is useless again.</p><p>This problem only goes away with gunpowder weapons as then you do not need to rely on mechanical arms to provide the force of the shot. But it still takes a lot of metallurgic skill to make a gun that is lightweight enough to shoot at air targets, accurate enough and can withstand the pressure of the charge required to shoot at flying targets. That is far above the technological level of a D&D or general fantasy RPG setting.</p><p></p><p>The only chance you get to shoot at fliers is when they come down to attack. But why should they? Sure, melee monsters like harpies do not have a choice and a knight on a pegasus might follow the European concept of seeing ranged combat as dishonorable. But others would simply shoot downwards at the defenders with no chance of retailiation. Sure, the accuracy might not be great, but you are not limited to arrows either. Even a rider on a pegasus can just drop sharpened rocks from high above and will likely injure someone eventually while a dragon or other large flyer can drop trebuchet sized rocks which would easily smash through ceilings or buckets of shrapnel down there. And if the flyer is part of a more advanced army they can drop down jugs of greek fire and similar nasty things. Or you can simply drop down torches to see if something catches fire.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Derren, post: 7455481, member: 2518"] To be honest, while you raise several questions in your blog you don't really answer any of them. And in your article about flying threats I disagree with your notion that creating anti-air guns would be easy. Imo it would actually be impossible without magic. Bow and ballista designs have a very low range which gets even shorter when you fire them upwards. Every flyer out there can fly higher than how high medieval weaponry can shoot. You can of course try to build a bigger ballista which could shoot higher, but it quickly becomes gigantic and thus hard if not impossible to aim and very complicated to construct. And all fliers have to do is to just fly upward a bit and your new ballista is useless again. This problem only goes away with gunpowder weapons as then you do not need to rely on mechanical arms to provide the force of the shot. But it still takes a lot of metallurgic skill to make a gun that is lightweight enough to shoot at air targets, accurate enough and can withstand the pressure of the charge required to shoot at flying targets. That is far above the technological level of a D&D or general fantasy RPG setting. The only chance you get to shoot at fliers is when they come down to attack. But why should they? Sure, melee monsters like harpies do not have a choice and a knight on a pegasus might follow the European concept of seeing ranged combat as dishonorable. But others would simply shoot downwards at the defenders with no chance of retailiation. Sure, the accuracy might not be great, but you are not limited to arrows either. Even a rider on a pegasus can just drop sharpened rocks from high above and will likely injure someone eventually while a dragon or other large flyer can drop trebuchet sized rocks which would easily smash through ceilings or buckets of shrapnel down there. And if the flyer is part of a more advanced army they can drop down jugs of greek fire and similar nasty things. Or you can simply drop down torches to see if something catches fire. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Castles in a D&D/Fantasy setting
Top