Should Castles Even Exist?

[Umbran]

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.

Only insofar as you know how they have behaved in the past. Alignment is a long-term average of behavior. At a given instant, a person may choose to do whatever they like. So, knowing the alignment is really no different than knowing the person's history.

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

Not much. Zone of Truth is nigh useless for legal purposes, as there's no reliable way to tell if the witness made or failed the save. Discern Lies gives information only to the caster. This is useful to an individual adventurer, but not to a legal system, as you then have to depend on the spellcaster to tell the truth. And this is without considerig the effects of magical defenses against such spells (like Misdirection).

 

[gfunk]

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

Logical? No.

Because they are iconic in FRP? Yes.

As many other posters have stated more eloquently than I, there are many spells/abilities/monsters that would absolutely revolutionize the medieval world and render many things useless.

Especially when people realized that they could become more powerful by killing others . . .

 

[Umbran]

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.

Well, I was thinking of the DMG demographics as a definition of "typical". And to my eye, there's no indication that castles become obsolete.

As I understand it, in the real world castles were rendered obsolete by cannon. Cheap, reliable, plentiful cannon, that a monkey could be trained to operate. The situation where every single ship could carry dozens of cannons, and armies could lug them around in similar numbers killed off castles.

The "typical" D&D world as described in the DMG doesn't have plentiful, reliable, cheap and easy to use artillery. It has expensive, rare, heavy hitters that are difficult to aquire, use and control, and can take years to replace. High-level spellcasters (or even middle level ones) don't grow on trees. You can't build umber hulks and dragons in factories, and monsters are notoriously unreliable troops.

 

[Storminator]

If you think castles are obsolete, what do you think of standing armies? Formations of pikemen are just begging to be Fireballed, and a cavalry charge is destroyed by Blade Barrier.

IRL, it took a siege to take a castle (generally speaking). In D&D, no army can afford to siege a castle, as a few high level sorties will devastate whole swaths of troops, and seriously demoralize the rest.

PS

 

[Czhorat]

Castles?

JohnR has the answer that I like best; there just aren't enough high-level wizards and clerics around with nothing better to do than knock down some minor lord's castle. A lower-level wizard might hire on to help plan an attack or defence, but would be careful enough of his own hide to stay far out of danger. Sure, there'd be the odd peasant who gets into a feud with a minor lord, escapes unscathed but humiliated, rises to 17th level, and guts said lord's fiefdom. That should be the exception rather than the rule.

If you run a campaign in which there are enough wizards floating around that everyone with more than a dozen peasants to tax can afford his own battlemage, then I agree that castles are useless as defence. THere are other roles for the castle though. Exceptionally rich nobles couldn't have Versailles-style ornate palaces complete with stained-glass windows, ornate stonecarvings, lots of gold leaf, etc. You'd have to work overtime, of course, to figure out what kind of a wizardly staff it would take to properly defend this monstrosity.

There could also be old ruined castles from a long-ago time before the rise of wizards. Maybe some have been partly ruined by magic. Maybe some are in a state of semi-repair and used as lairs for bandits, laboratories for wizards, makeshift temples, or simply looted for cut stone to build walls.

Questioning the value of castles as defence is a good starting point, but that's no reason to deprive your campaign of them!

 

[A'koss]

Originally posted by Storminator:

If you think castles are obsolete, what do you think of standing armies?

It's very much dependent on HL demographics, how long civilization has been in place and, again, the numbers of monsters (especially the intelligent ones). If we look at the DMG demographics, does that include all the high level characters in the setting, or only those that dwell within the confines of a city? Do those demographics include the large numbers of HLers who set up their own small fiefs, wandering HLers, HLers who have their own remote fortification/home of their own, and so on? You could argue that the demographics we see in the DMG are only a portion of the total number.

If there are a fair number of HLers out there, standing armies would only be used to keep the peace in the territory your HLers have already conquered. HL, well-equiped, highly coordinated, teleporting hit squads will be the ones actually be waging the wars. The have all the advantages - speed, mobility, intelligence, surveillance, swift recovery, heavy artillery, stealth, etc. The only thing they have to concern themselve with are other HLers. Therefore HL alliances will crucial in such worlds - the more you got, the... uh, more you got.

An important point to keep in mind is the ease of resurrection in D&D and what factor that will play. Death essentially holds no fear for a HL band, as there are so few ways to permanently kill someone in D&D. The only real problem is old age (which isn't so easy to circumvent) or imprisonment (but that can be circumvented).

Originally posted by Umbran:

The "typical" D&D world as described in the DMG doesn't have plentiful, reliable, cheap and easy to use artillery. It has expensive, rare, heavy hitters that are difficult to aquire, use and control, and can take years to replace. High-level spellcasters (or even middle level ones) don't grow on trees. You can't build umber hulks and dragons in factories, and monsters are notoriously unreliable troops.

See above for my thoughts on the DMG demographics. It is "expensive" (mostly in an attrition kind of way) to get PC race into the high levels, but once there, they are ridiculously cheap for what they can accomplish and entirely self-sufficient. They are far superior to conventional canon because of little things like flight, invisiblity, teleportation, incorporeality and the vast versititility a HL band has to offer. A single HL wizard flying high above a city, at night, under the cover of improved invis. and mind blank could rain unholy terror that would decimate a city with impunity. Undetectable, so long as he didn't use spells that originate from his position, he'd be out of range of see invisiblity and teleportation magic is readily available should he need it. Hit and run/replenish until the city is leveled. That's just one wizard, now imagine what a coordinated strike involving many HLers could accomplish. Replenishing lost HLers is typically not an issue, they have access to resurrection magic and therefore can essentially act without fear. Just make sure you grab your fallen comrades or have contingencies for such eventualities.

Again, this is highly dependent on HL and monster demographics but I could easily see a world in ruins after years and years of HL wars involving PC races, powerful, intelligent monsters and spawn-creating undead.

A'koss.

 

[dave_o]

Read Sep's story hours to see why a castle would still be around.

I think a setting in which castles weren't prevalent would be rad, though. Or, at least, modified castles. Things with domes created from spells, etc.

 

[Storminator]

Read Sep's story hours to see why a castle would still be around.

I think a setting in which castles weren't prevalent would be rad, though. Or, at least, modified castles. Things with domes created from spells, etc.

I run an email game with very few castles. The cities don't even have walls.

There was a huge era of peace and prosperity before the recent apocalypse, and consequently, no need for castles. All castles have been built recently, and they are pretty crude.

PS

 

[Dark Jezter]

The FRCS actually answers this question on page 94-95. I'll sum it up briefly here.

The only wizards who command enough power to raze a keep are those of 15th level or higher (and 15th level wizards aren't exactly commonplace). Castles are made up of hundreds of tons of metal and stone, and virtually indestructible to most destructive spells short of earthquake and disintegrate. Even with those spells, it could take several castings to level a stronghold, and you can bet that the defenders won't be sitting still while they're under attack.

If the castle is under attack from the air, the defenders can employ magic-capable defenders or mounted aerial troops. Crenellated walls, weighted nets, and aerial ballistae are some mundane defenses that can also work against aerial attackers.

If the attackers choose to tunnel underneath the castle, they can be thwarted by summoning Earth Elementals. Mundane methods of stopping tunnelers include preset deadfalls, poison gas traps, and other mechanical devices.

Any castle seriously intended for defense will also have it's own magical protections. Lead sheeting incorperated into the doors and walls of a castle can block certain divination magic, and a forbiddence spell can stop enemy spellcasters from teleporting into the castle or entering it in ethereal form. Doors can be toughened with Resist Elements in addition to increasing their hit points and hardness.

So it sounds like Castles can still be used a viable defensive structures, even with magic.

 

[S'mon]

If you think castles are obsolete, what do you think of standing armies? Formations of pikemen are just begging to be Fireballed, and a cavalry charge is destroyed by Blade Barrier.

IRL, it took a siege to take a castle (generally speaking). In D&D, no army can afford to siege a castle, as a few high level sorties will devastate whole swaths of troops, and seriously demoralize the rest.

PS

I think it depends on the ratio of spellcasters with 3rd level spells to mundane soldiery. A castle siege/assault without fly, fireball etc looks a lot like a regular medieval siege/assault - I ran one recently for 4th level PCs and the attempts to storm the breach, scale the walls etc were all quite lifelike. A previous castle assault with 2 9th-level Monk PCs accompanying a hobgoblin horde attacking a small castle also worked out quite similar to what I'd expect IRL, apart from the relative ease with which the monks got onto the walls.

If every force of 100 soldiers has a 5th level Wizard (with access to Fly & Fireball) or better, I agree that large stone castles may not be worth the effort. A smaller wall or wooden palisade is probably still worth it to keep the grunts out, though. A lot depends on the defenders - IRL a medium-size castle might have been defended by only 30 men-at-arms, but they can be high-quality troops - in D&D terms, say 20 low-to-mid level Fighters, 5 Clerics, 3 Wizards & 2 Bards ought to be able to hold off an attacking force of at least several hundred, assuming the attackers have no one of vastly higher level than the highest level defenders.