Should Castles Even Exist?

[LuYangShih]

Seriously, I was considering this after reading a recent post in the D&D Rules forum, as well as Buttercups post on border fortresses, and I have to wonder if castles or fortresses would be desirable or even feasible defensive structures to build. A single high level Cleric or Druid could rip down countless numbers of them just with Earthquake, and getting troops past the obstruction is not really a problem either.

Even disregarding PCs and NPCs with those capabilities, what about Dragons, Umber Hulks, Beholders, and countless other creatures who could lay waste to castles with little effort? Why expend a great deal of money, resources and time building something that can be destroyed in less than an hour by an elite few? Now, obviously, not everything in the D&D world has to make sense, and castles are fun, but does anyone see a logical reason why castles would exist, given the power and abilities of the creatures that inhabit it?

 

[JohnRTroy]

The key thing is "elite". High Level Clerics should be rare. While they might be involved in major battles, it is also likely that such major battles would have guys on the other side, and thus they would probably cancel each other out.

Cleric and Mages, along with rare creatures like beholders and dragons, are like high-powered archers--well trained, but they don't cause enough changes that would invalidate a castle. Same with the creatures. You might see more advanced construction of castles to take this into account--to protect from air raids nets and hooks are used to entangle flying creatures. (This was all touched upon briefly in Living Fantasy by Gary Gygax).


Technically a safe can be cracked with Dynamite--doesn't mean all safes are invalid. It's only when the protections don't provide enough protection anymore should something else be tried. In our world, gunpowder and canonballs pretty much removed the castle from pratical implementation--remember that guns were used by commoners with little traning.

 

[Iron Sheep]

Also keep in mind that whatever magic can tear down, magic can help protect. There's no reason that a significant fortress would fail have powerful defensive magic placed upon it, whether it be a souped up version of protection from missiles which stops catapults and rocks thrown by giants, or an anti-magic field around the walls to prevent them from being disintegrated or what have you.

A group of defenders in a strong point is still in a better position to resist attacks than an army in the field, so no matter what the magic, there would be some sort of castle in a more "realistic" fantasy world.

The only real change that I could think of is that the castles may be more bunker-like, due to the prevalence of flying attackers.

Corran

 

[Hand of Evil]

Maybe, maybe not. They still provide protection from the most common form of attact, the ground troop. While you can have special forces, ninjas/monsters/wizards, they can be countered with the same. Even air attacks are counted with underground complexes, it is security that the castle provides, a defendable point. It may not help in an all out war but for the day-to-day protection from ramdon encounters it does.

 

[Nightfall]

Another thing is if are a smart builder, you make damn sure you get archfiends to help build the structure. This way they can ensure that it will take more than a measely cleric or wizard to knock down your castle.

 

[A'koss]

This is always a hotly debated topic on rgfd. There are several questions that you need to answer at a campaign level before you can really say one way or the other.

1. How many varieties of monsters dwell in your setting? Do you just have a handful or does your world support every monster from the MM, MMII, FF and ELH, etc...

2. How many of those monsters exist?

3. Did these monsters evolve on your world, and if so, how long have they been present on it? If a wide range of intelligent, powerful species evolved along with the PC races, how did humanity ever rise to the fore? Are monsters are recent addition to an existing medieval world? Does your world have spawn-creating undead? A single wraith could start a plague to end all plagues, consuming the entire world. Start with one villiage and then spread like a nigh unstoppable disease...

4. Lifespans and reproductive rates. Which species reproduce quickly and which require centuries?

5. Magic - what sort of demographics of leveled PC-class characters are you seeing? How long have societies existed?

The possibility of a D&D-style medieval society with castles and armies developing on a world that uses D&D rules, DMG demographics, a wide assortment of intelligent monsters is, as you suspect, highly improbably short of divine intervention (read: DM). Another possible way might be if monsters & magic are only recently introduced to an existing medieval world. If the PC races had to develop alongside other powerful, reproducing intelligent species, their very existance is in question. Those who do survive will likely live underground as Corran suggests to limit the number of creatures that could get at them and to limit the damage magic can inflict.

Magic will have a huge influence on societies given enough time. Even if one church created a single item every 2 years that could CLW 3/day, in 50 years you'd have 25 such items and be capable or CLW 75 times per day. That's enough to support a major city. Now factor a wider assortment of helpful x/day items in various cities, guilds, cabals, etc. over a 100 years. Items that help food grow, items that can cure disease, and so on...

There is a lot of interesting possibilites once you consider how magic & monsters would logically impact a society.


Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[Nightfall]

Bah Logic is for Vulcans.

 

[Umbran]

... but does anyone see a logical reason why castles would exist, given the power and abilities of the creatures that inhabit it?

Yes. Very simply - the high level clerics and dragons and umber hulks are not the only threats. If you don't have a fortification, the peasant rabble will be able to do as much or more damage as any of the elite troops you mention.

If you have a castle, you may be vulnerable to highly powerful, magical foes. If you don't have a castle, you'll be vulnerable to those highly powerful, magical foes, and to the mundane armies. If you want to make it even easier for your enemy to get at your king, treasury, troops, and things, go ahead, dispense with fortifications altogether

 

[Wombat]

I personally believe that laws, civic structures, societal structures, and even castles would be vastly changed if you actually took all the effects of D&D into account.

Consider alignment -- if everyone has an alignment, you know (roughly) how they are going to act, and thus people become much less mutable, much more predictable in the long run.

Zone of Truth and similar spells are going to change the structure of trials quite a bit.

With all the various sentient races, there would be an entirely different set of prejudices than what we find in our own culture

With so many dangerous flying creatures, most cities and castles would necessarily have to prepare air defence

Plagues would be much rarer, not only due to Cure Disease but due to lowly Purify Food & Water

Broken bone? No problem! Lots of Cure Light Wounds around to aid you

Would society remain feudal or would it switch toa meritocracy, based on your level? Certainly given the bump up in power at each level, such gradations would be easy to ascertain

If you follow through the logical implications of D&D (and the illogical ones as well) you would not end up with a society that looks anything like the Vaguely Medieval Europe that we now play in

 

[A'koss]

Originally posted by Umbran:

If you have a castle, you may be vulnerable to highly powerful, magical foes. If you don't have a castle, you'll be vulnerable to those highly powerful, magical foes, and to the mundane armies. If you want to make it even easier for your enemy to get at your king, treasury, troops, and things, go ahead, dispense with fortifications altogether

I believe the point wasn't that you shouldn't find some way to protect your populace, just that medieval castles and tall walls aren't up to the task in a "typical" D&D setting. Of course, it's all in how you define typical in D&D, but it doesn't take a whole lot of magic and intelligent monster races to render the medieval castle a "why bother" proposition. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that... Populations would just find better ways to protect themselves early on and never simply never develop a medieval castle style of fortification.

A'koss.