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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Czhorat" data-source="post: 1098688" data-attributes="member: 13826">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!</blockquote>

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