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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4832408" data-attributes="member: 30001">You and seemingly everyone who's written for WotC in the last 10 years.  My guess is that you're probably in the majority.  I think mohawks were pretty rare in the middle ages.  Depends what you mean by "work the same".  IMO the results achieved by the historical medieval period were a combination of factors balanced on a razor's edge.  There's no reason that the disease, crops, social structures, technology etc. can't all be varied in minute ways to produce big changes.  There's no reason AFAICT that the capabilities of DnD world would have to resemble Medieval Europe more than the Roman Empire, ancient China, or the lands under medieval Islam.  I would be very skeptical of a historian-type making definite claims for what an imaginary world would be like. So I say go with what interests you, and flesh out the details only to the point that you think the results would be convincing to the players.  Heck, the helmets of WW1 were based pretty directly on medieval helmets, weren't they?  You're part way there.  Makes me think of the ruined cities, one of which was vividly illustrated in the Lord of the Rings movies.  "Constant shelling" might be hard, but a flock of dragons or carrion crow swarms might produce the same effect.  Survivors that huddle in the sewers to avoid the dragons might find that some of their numbers have turned to ghouls as the result of a curse.  With magic at your disposal I would think it would be pretty easy to create a frightening environment and siege mentality.  (There's also a movie called "Reign of Fire" that this reminds me of.)  The key idea, IMO, is to make defense more valuable than offense.  This means taking a second look at powers and abilities that comprimise fortresses - like rock to mud and such.  There are innumerable ways of making sure that the defender has the advantage in conflicts, but it might take a little work depending on the rules you're using and the capabilities/level of your PCs. And "throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little/no gain" is what the PCs will be doing?  If it's just the NPCs then just say this is how it goes.  If you want the PCs to experience the futility of attacking a castle and getting nowhere (this is something I have a lot of experience with <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />), then a healthy combination of traps, lurkers, mazes, and such might do the trick.  Don't worry about "level appropriate" challenges.</blockquote>

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