Castles are worthless against armies with mages?

[a-d]

You have a castle with thick walls, strong gates, and many many fiendish traps.
The army approaches and uses mountains they've shrunken to fit in catapults to flatten you with a single volley.

Do the Dwarves and Drow have it right? Is it best to have your fortifications deep underground to protect from aerial assault?

And this is just one spell.
In a real world that has to really deal with the spells and abilities found in D&D what would a real fortification be like?

I've been figuring an underground fortress which uses multiple redundancies in it's roof support to make it more difficult for saboteurs to magically collapse, but right now it seems like an underground fortress with a gigantic anti-magic field might be best.

Has this already been discussed?

 

[Morrus]

Magic castles aren't worthles against armies with mages.

If you're in a world where the attackers have magic, why wouldn't the defenders?

Teleportation and scrying wards, damage reduction dweomers, arcane missile launchers which can take out aerial opponents, squadrons of griffon riders; there's a near-infinite range of options.

 

[Dandu]

Magical defense work best when there aren't people flying above you dropping huge boulders on your head at terminal velocity.

 

[Arkhandus]

Refer to my post in your other thread about magic castles. Stronghold Builder's Guidebook covers a lot.

 

[Morrus]

Magical defense work best when there aren't people flying above you dropping huge boulders on your head at terminal velocity.

Unless you have anti-air magical defenses, in which case they work brilliantly.

 

[Dandu]

Unless you have anti-air magical defenses, in which case they work brilliantly.

What are you thinking off, specifically? I'm envisioning someone conducting a bombing run at 1500 feet.

 

[Morrus]

What are you thinking off, specifically? I'm envisioning someone conducting a bombing run at 1500 feet.

Magic. Anything you can imagine.

Long range magic-missile batteries. Flights of griffon riders. Protective castle-scale domes of force. Dimensional portals which redirect the falling boulders on the enemy. Magical storms in the air which make it impossible to fly above the castle. Gravity traps. Air elementals. Hell, I could go on all day.

It's a magical world. Your options are only limited by what you can imagine.

 

[Dandu]

Magic. Anything you can imagine.

Forgive me, I have a rather limited imagination.

Long range magic-missile batteries. Flights of griffon riders. Protective castle-scale domes of force. Dimensional portals which redirect the falling boulders on the enemy. Magical storms in the air which make it impossible to fly above the castle. Gravity traps. Air elementals. Hell, I could go on all day.

It's a magical world. Your options are only limited by what you can imagine.

To quote the Joker, "Where does he get all those wonderful toys?"

If we're playing by the rules, there are issues with the above proposals. Magic Missile is a Medium range spell. Extended, and at CL 20, it has a range of 600 feet and has to be targeted, which might be a problem if the opponent is invisible. A castle size dome of force would be a 9th level spell at the very least. Griffon riders would have a hard time locating an enemy that is invisible. Air Elementals would have to either be summoned, in which case they do not last more than a few minutes, or bound using Planar Binding, which is explicitly noted to be a dangerous act.

Obviously, if you're the DM and just handwave it away somehow, none of this matters...

 

[Morrus]

Forgive me, I have a rather limited imagination.


To quote the Joker, "Where does he get all those wonderful toys?"

If we're playing by the rules, there are issues with the above proposals. Magic Missile is a Medium range spell. Extended, and at CL 20, it has a range of 600 feet and has to be targeted, which might be a problem if the opponent is invisible. A castle size dome of force would be a 9th level spell at the very least. Griffon riders would have a hard time locating an enemy that is invisible. Air Elementals would have to either be summoned, in which case they do not last more than a few minutes, or bound using Planar Binding, which is explicitly noted to be a dangerous act.

Obviously, if you're the DM and just handwave it away somehow, none of this matters...

I didn't say "magic missile", I said "a long range magic missile battery". Focus on the concept, not the name.

D&D rules aren't designed to cover this situation. You have to do a lot of the work yourself.

It's up to you what resources each army has. If you're determined that the attackers outclass the defenders, then obviously the attackers win.

We're talking new castle-specific spells and magic items which the game does not have because it's designed to handle small skirmishes, not siege warfare.

And why can't the griffon riders have a way to see invisible opponents?

 

[Dandu]

And why can't the griffon riders have a way to see invisible opponents?

1. Mages do not have Ride as a class skill. You will have to send warrior-mages up in the air who can cast invisibility and have the ability to stay in the saddle. However, this brings us to
2. See Invisibility allows you to see invisible things in your sight range... but neither fighters nor wizards have Spot as a class skill. A Ranger/Wizard would have a few ranks in spot, but the distance penalties mean that the 3 levels of Wizard it took to get See Invisibility reduce the chances of making the spot check for a very distant target.
Of course, it could be argued (and I would probably support it) that you don't need to make a spot check to see something very obviously there, like a person flying in the air*, so maybe this isn't that big of an issue.

*Which, incidentally, now raises the question of camouflage...