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

[Haltherrion]

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.

 

[Haltherrion]

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.

 

[S'mon]

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!

 

[Haltherrion]

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.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

 

[S'mon]

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.

 

[Haltherrion]

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.

 

[Hussar]

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.

 

[Haltherrion]

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.

 

[Haltherrion]

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.
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