D&D 5E Why do cities in Faerun have fortified walls?

[Ixal]

That's true. But it's an issue for a castle too, since they can burrow up from below. Going under walls via sapping is one of the standard tactics in a besieger's playbook.


It's only easy if there is just one entrance or if the besieger knows the location of every secondary entrance--and the defender would make every effort to hide these. It could also be pretty difficult to surround a city with entrances on two sides of a major terrain feature, i.e. the stereotypical dwarf city under a mountain. If the defenders sallied on one side to attack the besiegers, the besiegers on the other side wouldn't be able to help (except in small numbers via teleportation).

You're right that ventilation and light are issues (though light could pretty straightforwardly be resolved via continual flame) but if the defenders were able to solve them--and they would have to to have built an underground city in the first place--then the waiting game isn't much different from a conventional siege. The besiegers can only win it if they possess better supply than the defender, and if the defender can't expect to be relieved by allies.

It's also not that easy to bury an entrance which looks like this:

View attachment 151380


Bunkers can also control territory. If Eben-Emael didn't control territory, the Nazi's wouldn't have attacked it.

The way that a castle controls territory is by being the administrative center of that territory and by being an annoying threat to anyone living or operating nearby who doesn't control it. A castle doesn't fundamentally protect territory, even a village that is right next to it, except by sheltering the inhabitants. But if there are five guys with horses chilling in a hostile castle, you can expect to be attacked by them any time you don't have enough guys with you to scare them away. And if you are leading an army, it's a logistical nightmare to have hostile soldiers sitting in your rear area interfering with your supply lines.

A bunker can do the same thing (especially with a little help from magical surveillance, an owl familiar say).

--

I guess I don't really have an answer to ventilation issues. I don't have a sense of the engineering issues involved and am basically assuming them away in the same manner that giant megadungeons like undermountain and dwarf cities like moria assume them away. The whole enterprise of underground city building is basically sunk without proper ventilation... so that's a fair criticism.

Building dungeons is very expensive, so all secondary entrances will be close by. And with the attacker having complete control of the above ground territory they have a better chance of finding them. Also, they only need to blockade the entrances instead doing a full encirclement which is easier for the attacker.
And no one need to bury this entrance because no one would be able to open it anyway.
Another danger for dungeon is drainage. Especially when there is a river nearby and the attacker can divert it into the dungeon.
Also, I mentioned it above, digging tunnels is hard and expensive, with the labour required to build the grand dungeons with miles of tunnels and gigantic doors you seem to imagine you can build several castle complexed with a lot more military value.

The reason why Eben-Emael controlled territory was because of long range artillery. Dungeons do not have that and thus you only need to block the troops inside from coming out to neutralize it.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

The citizens of a city-state in an olden era fantasy world ARE the standing army.

Every farmer, blacksmith, baker, etc. is a potential conscript for war. They are permanent recruit-ables and will typically get paid a reward or get a chance to do looting if they show up for duty as called for.

Supplement public conscription with mercenaries and merchants, and a kingdom is good to go for war.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I guess I don't really have an answer to ventilation issues. I don't have a sense of the engineering issues involved and am basically assuming them away in the same manner that giant megadungeons like undermountain and dwarf cities like moria assume them away. The whole enterprise of underground city building is basically sunk without proper ventilation... so that's a fair criticism.

Just whip up some mini-portals to the Elemental Plane of Air. Just make sure to have some wardings on it to keep elementals from getting through...

 

[Ixal]

The citizens of a city-state in an olden era fantasy world ARE the standing army.

Every farmer, blacksmith, baker, etc. is a potential conscript for war. They are permanent recruit-ables and will typically get paid a reward or get a chance to do looting if they show up for duty as called for.

Supplement public conscription with mercenaries and merchants, and a kingdom is good to go for war.

That is a very poor army.
Not only are conscripts poor soldiers, lack equipment unless they need to own it by law, they are also missing on the fields and in your workshops meaning that when you go on a longer campaign you will starve. Such militia is only usable for local defence.

 

[squibbles]

@Ixal I think I allowed my point to drift in the post you quoted above.

My claim, agreeing with the OP was:

To keep safe you should live underground in " dungeons".

Yes, that's a canny observation. A while back I tried to game out the consequences of a world that had prevalent 5e magic. What I came up with was wizard-run police states (surveillance by arcane eyes and rat familiars, everything perma arcane-locked, perma big brother-esque magic mouths everywhere) that keep all of their important personnel in secure underground facilities, with lots redundant passageways to mitigate passwall and permanent mordenkainen's private sanctums everywhere. Otherwise, it's just too easy for the leadership to get assassinated by flying or teleporting enemies.

I stick to my assertion in post #40--also made by the OP--that the most secure D&D city is one that's built entirely underground.

Principally, I think the most secure cities would be underground ones. Powerful polities would prefer to use underground cities as their centers of government (and have fair sized defensive forces for them). I didn't intend to argue that there wouldn't be above ground cities or above ground fortifications.

So, let me reply with that context in mind.

Building dungeons is very expensive, so all secondary entrances will be close by.

If it's the capital city of a large and powerful state, the expense of multiple secure and spread out entrances is justified. The advantage of having a warded underground fortress in a world where scry and fry tactics are possible is that you can attack your opponent's leadership and administrate structures while they can't retaliate. The selection pressure of aerial and teleportation attacks would gradually eliminate all polities that weren't able to afford the system, just like the expense of cannons eliminated the small states of the early modern period.

And with the attacker having complete control of the above ground territory they have a better chance of finding them.

The attacker likely would not have complete control of the above ground territory, since the defender can attack the surface via sally gates or teleporting attacks. In a D&D world, this is a problem that all besiegers have, whether they're attacking a castle, city, or underground city--they cannot keep the defenders bottled up easily. In an above ground siege that equalizes since the defender's walls can't easily keep the attackers out, but the defenders of an underground city can keep the attackers out.

Also, they only need to blockade the entrances instead doing a full encirclement which is easier for the attacker.

This doesn't differ dramatically from a castle or a walled city. The parts of a wall that don't have gates aren't a high priority to blockade. Most sieges are not undertaken in the style of Alesia.

And no one need to bury this entrance because no one would be able to open it anyway.

True enough.

Another danger for dungeon is drainage. Especially when there is a river nearby and the attacker can divert it into the dungeon.

This is something that would be anticipated in the design of an underground city. Though I can imagine it being a tactic that--occasionally in the history of realistic-D&D-land--would be decisively war winning.

But again... diverting rivers is a common siege tactic against above ground cities too.

Also, I mentioned it above, digging tunnels is hard and expensive, with the labour required to build the grand dungeons with miles of tunnels and gigantic doors you seem to imagine you can build several castle complexed with a lot more military value.

You could perhaps build castles with more tactical or operational value, but nothing beats the strategic value of protecting yourself from leadership decapitation.

The reason why Eben-Emael controlled territory was because of long range artillery. Dungeons do not have that and thus you only need to block the troops inside from coming out to neutralize it.

My comment in post #80 crept a bit here from cities to point defenses. I don't think it would be that valuable to have a bunch of bunkers in place of castles. Neither would be particularly secure. And a lot of the arguments I made about underground cities in this post wouldn't apply to smaller bunkers--the point about multiple entrances doesn't, for example.

I still feel I made a pretty good case that a bunker can do what a castle can do.

 

[Blue Orange]

I always figured the wizard has to levitate or fly over the wall to toss a fireball in...making them vulnerable to arrow fire.

Oh they've got protection from normal missiles cast? Set the arrows on fire, they now do fire damage.

 

[Oofta]

I always figured the wizard has to levitate or fly over the wall to toss a fireball in...making them vulnerable to arrow fire.

Oh they've got protection from normal missiles cast? Set the arrows on fire, they now do fire damage.

Or the archers just update to 5E and there's no protection spell to worry about.

 

[AtomicPope]

Your question answers itself. Walls keep things out, especially armies. In D&D everything has a CR, and the most common are low CR and move around on foot, that includes things like criminals and armies. Should we bother elaborating? It's best if really big stone wall is between you and other really dangerous low CR monsters like Ogres. What about raiders? Unlikely they'll be on Griffons. Even if they are the high walls and parapets allow you to meet them at their level. But Wizards cast Fly! Arrows break Concentration, so again it's better to have a big stone wall between you and a Fireball.

In a world where everyone has 9th level spells and all monsters are CR 20 flyers walls don't make much sense. There aren't many worlds like that, even in D&D.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

That is a very poor army.
Not only are conscripts poor soldiers, lack equipment unless they need to own it by law, they are also missing on the fields and in your workshops meaning that when you go on a longer campaign you will starve. Such militia is only usable for local defence.

It's practically every army by medieval standards.

The professionals are typically a small number compared to the infantry fodder that makes the bulk of armed forces, usually made up primarily of conscripts.

It costs a lot of money and resources to have people professionally trained in olden times, so most of the elites are used sparingly and strategically.

Sparta for example was the exception in ancient Greece, not the norm - their whole society was geared towards making a war machine out of the people.

Most city-state armies will be as you said "poor armies".

Also, it's worth noting that child labor laws weren't much of a thing back in olden times, and women were quite capable of running stuff while the men in their family were away.

 

[Hussar]

There are a few things to remember too about the whole static defenses thing. Those static, walled cities, such as in the Sword Coast are old. As in really old. But, even drop a zero and make them a few centuries old instead of a few thousand and it really doesn't matter. When you have that much time, and you have permanent magic, it gets layered on greater and greater.

For example, it's not unreasonable that any wealthy home would have a decanter of endless water. It's not a major expense and once you have one, it's there forever. Add to that something like a Murylynd's (sp) Spoon or similar magic item that generates food. There, poof, and your wealthier homes can now completely support themselves if it comes to a siege.

Then the walls themselves start getting more and more layered. Umber Hulks digging through your wall? They're going to have a real problem with every tenth stone under the outer layer is inscribed with a glyph of warding. Digging under the walls? Remember those Decanters of Endless Water? Yeah, good luck digging in flooded tunnels. On and on and on.

Even in a fairly low magic setting, time will handle a lot of things. Fabricate spells to add a layer of steel to your walls between layers. Stuff like that. Because many of these things last more or less forever, once you get established, time will simply add more and more.

I do agree that D&D settings really don't take magic into consideration. Even Eberron, IMO, doesn't go anywhere near far enough. But, it doesn't really matter in the end. It's entirely plausible to have walled cities and it's not that hard to justify them.