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Message: <blockquote data-quote="phindar" data-source="post: 3352947" data-attributes="member: 37198">I remember years ago there was a long debate in Dragon magazine's Forum about fantasy fortresses and the changes that had to be made to make them viable in a heroic fantasy environment like D&D.  (I started reading Dragon in high school, so let's say this would have been late 80's when this was going around.)  The crux of the argument being that its hard to have a castle for very long with bulettes, umber hulks, dragons, Meteor Swarms, Earthquakes, and the like.  A lot of the magic and monsters of D&D function a lot like modern technology (or better), and there's probably a reason most militaries have stopped building castles and moved on to other methods of defense.My feeling is that as long as those elements are sufficiently rare (every visiting army doesn't have an 18th level Sorc, Wiz or Clr), castles in D&D are even more viable than their historic counterparts.  Because real people only had to deal with other people and the occasional bear, but in D&D you have people, orcs, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, gnolls, ogres, trolls, bears, dire bears, bugbears, owlbears and that's just from the first MM.I was discussing the idea of fantasy war machines with a friend of mine not too long ago, and I thought a psionically-controlled brontosaurus covered in yuan-ti archers and casters would make for a pretty good bit of death and destruction.  I've always liked dinosaurs though.  Might just be me.  If dragon-riders are going to be a major component of your game world, for fortresses to be viable they're going to need major air defenses, even if its just dragon-riders of their own.  (Axis and Allies players will recognize the benefit of loading your territories up with fighter planes.)  I would think the dragons would be most useful for aerial recon; if every strafing run brings you in range of 400 archers, its probably not worth it.  Perhaps in addition to harpoons, the ballistae could fire bolas or nets meant to ensnare flyers or tangle their wings.</blockquote>

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