Castles, are they useful in a high magic fantasy setting like D&D 3.5?

[Scalenex]

A castle is a home for a ruler that also functions as a fortress. For all its symbolic importance, a castle allows a small force to stand against a larger force. This is good for resisting enemy armies, intimidating brigands, and it’s also a refuge from a lord’s own subjects if they are a hostile to their lord for any reasons.

Nowadays, heads of state and high level governmental officials rarely live in castles because modern weapons technology made them obsolete. I think D&D magic makes castles obsolete. A Meteor Swarm can probably reduce a castle to rubble, but I figure most settings, people capable of casting 9th level spells are rare and usually have better things to do than knocking down castles.

A spellcaster need not be 17th level to overtake a castle. Spiderclimb, Fly, Protection from Normal Arrows, Invisibility (and the higher level versions), and even Featherfall can all help a wizard or a wizard’s allies get up to and over a wall. Teleport is even better. Stone Shape can either open up a free door for invaders to knock in or be targeted on a foundation to just knock out a substantial section of castle. These are just the obvious ones. There are all sort of ways magic can be used creatively to attack a castle.

So once in wizard is in or near the castle, he can summon a bunch of troops or a cloud of poisonous gas or something. Or instead of moving the wizard, you could move in a well armored fighter or sneaking rogue. In any event, it’d be relatively easy to use magic to get a small elite part in to either hit the defenders from behind, open the gates to let an invading force through, or just head straight to the castle owner and kill or capture the ruling family within minutes.

Most monsters, I’d rather have castle walls between me and them if possible. Unless the creature was at the terasque’s size and power, most predatory animal intelligence would bypass as castle in search of easier prey, even if they were strong or mobile enough to bypass a castle. Predators are looking for the easy meal.

Castles would actually be a liability against most ethereal foes since it’s harder to flee from them. An intelligent monster that likes treasure would raid a castle if it could and they’d have all the tools human attackers would plus whatever powers and strengths they possess. The biggest threat would be dragons or other powerful flyers. A ceiling is just not as easy to reinforce as a wall. A siege attacker with catapults or trebuchets would certainly like to lob a boulder through the roof if they can angle such a difficult shot. Even if the walls are strong enough to resist a dragon’s breath weapon (debatable), the ceiling probably cannot withstand it, or the dragon could just land on the roof and hop up and down collapsing the structure. Just like I am assuming humans with the ability to cast 9th level spells have better things to do than attack castles, most elder dragons would not bother attacking castles, but it doesn’t take a very old dragon to defeat a castle.

Would anyone bother building a castle if it could be bypassed by magic so easily? What reasonable in-game explanations for magic counters should be used to make a castle more secure? Conversely, is too much magical protection unrealistic or unenjoyable? I don’t want to have every story I want to run about a siege, end up like this: “Sorry player of the party wizard, every brick is made of anti-magic, you have to sit this one out.” If you can make an affordable castle that’s magic proof, why not an affordable suit of anti-magic armor, or anti-magic the inn and everything else?

What’s the best way to have Vancian magic and castles in the same setting?

[smasher0404]

One point in favor of the castle is that the castle still is useful even if it doesn't keep wizards out. The faster still has to expend precious spell slots in order to get into the castle which is one less spell slot that goes towards killing the defenders or buffing the attackers. Meanwhile there are plenty of peasants that can be forced to build the castle during times of peace.

On the subject of resources, the castle constrains the army attacking the defenders from within by the number of wizards that can infiltrate and however many troops they can bring with them. The rest of the attacking army will have to go the traditional route or hope the interior attackers can bring down the gates.

In addition, some of the spells listed do not completely eliminate the defensive spells listed. Spider Climb requires additional move actions to actually climb the wall while taking enemy fire (in some cases even from defending wizards). Invisibility can be conquered by See Invisibility and Glitterdust.

I would assume however that a D&D castle would look rather different from historical castles due to having to face radically different potential threats and resources. The walls and roofs I assume would be magically reinforced if possible to make it harder to knock down or crumble, at the very least.

[Mutazoia]

Castles are as much a status symbol as a fortification. A castle can mean the diffrence between being seen as a "country lord, little better than a pesant" and actual "nobility".

Castles are also where you keep the bulk of your active armed forces, your weapons for said forces, your monitary wealth, etc. It's an armed and fortified position that must be dealt with by any would-be invaders of the land, lest they have an army at their backs. Even in a high magic fantasy setting, most wars are going to be settled by mundane troops hacking each other to pieces...high level mages are too valuable to risk anywhere near the front lines.

Besides, you assume that high level mages are just wandering about in packs, looking for castles to trash for lulz, and that anybody who can afford to build a castle, can't afford to have a bit of magical muscle of his own on staff. In a high magic fantasy setting, high level mages are your fantasy version of an ICBM...used more as a deterrant than anything else, because the other guy has them too. The last thing any invading force is going to want, is for a couple of high level wizards duking it out and turning the land they are trying to conquer into a lifeless wasteland.

[Florian]

It´s also important to note that using the "duel" rules for characters lead to entirely different results than using "skirmish" or "mass warfare" rules.

Edit: Keep in mind that this is one of the roots that led to D&D, playing small "commando units" and model their impact as part of the larger war-games.

[Kayblis]

I suggest the reading of Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. It's a great sourcebook about creating fortresses, castles and strongholds both for GMs and players. It delves into what kinds of protection a castle can have, from special materials and building styles to alarms, anti-teleport zones and contingent defenses. Traps, summoning statues, shifting corridors, maintaining an armed force... there's enough material to thwart most forms of invasion. Hell, there's even options of moving fortresses and castles that can plane shift as a last resort. Where there's money, there's a way.

[Anymage]

A castle doesn't necessarily have to hold strong against defenders like they do in our mundane world. While a real-world castle probably has an escape route (limited by our mundane world constraints, where the exit has to let out at a fixed point a reasonable distance from the castle, and can be found by the enemy), a fantasy castle just has to hold the attackers back until the royal family can be gathered and teleported to a more secure, undisclosed location. Move the bulk of the kingdom's treasure to a guarded location (either the royal family's bolthole, or the equivalent of fort knox), and there's less reason for passing adventurers or other monsters to try to knock it over for the gold inside.

If you were to rebuild a D&D world from the ground up with the magic rules in mind, then those in power would have no reason for ostentatious homes that show where they are to everyone around. But a logically sound world that starts from D&D magic rules will look vastly different from your typical fantasy world anyways. If you're trying to justify the trope of castles in a D&D world, it is doable. They're a symbol of the country's strength and a place to meet visiting dignitaries. If worst comes to worst, again, the castle just needs to slow down attackers until the royal family can be teleported away to safety. You will need some magical defenses, but having spellcasters on hand to build those defenses is quite reasonable for nobles in a fantasy world.

As for high level threats, there's a reason those in power like to be on the good side of other powerful people. Ideally through alliances. Sometimes through the threat of mutually assured destruction. Possibly through bribery. Worst case scenario, that's where the trope of adventurers being hired to take out the evil dragon or wizard comes from.

[logic_error]

Depends. If it's a setting like Faerun or Eberron where magic is the norm, then no. A setting where most people are muggles, then yes, castles pre-industrial era cannons are useful. Remember, wizards are on both sides of the conflict.

[Gruftzwerg]

There are 3 options for a 3.5 setting:

a) there aren't enough high lvl casters to worry about

b) there are enough high lvl casters to not worry about

c) casters are the rulers of the world (tippyverse)

Lets take a closer look at option "b". If there are many high lvl casters in the campaign setting, we are getting closer the history of a "tippyverse".
How about persisting "AMF" in the entire Castle? Maybe even with cheat combos (selective spell so that the caster of the castles lord is unaffected). I mean, you don't want anyone to use any unnoticed spells in the castle (e.g. mindcontroll spells, divination...).
Further you can assume that the castle has dozens and hundreds of ward spells.
Assume that the castle also has a lil construct army with (craft) Contingent Spells to protect it. This can include counterspells for several conditions.

I mean: if you got the money for a castle, you should have some spare money for magical defenses too.

[Pleh]

Who's to say a castle wasn't built by a wizard? I mean, the Wizard's Tower (probably the flagship wizard trope) is basically a fancy castle built on the premise that the wizard never needed mundane practicality when he could just use magic.

I like the Gargoyles television show approach: enemy casters ARE a threat, but few in number and the castle's inhabitants have a wizard on the payroll specifically hired to protect the castle's occupants from magical threats.

Most importantly: meta game. What fun is it making maps if you have to abandon ever using one of the most iconic medieval settings?

[Blackhawk748]

I would just like to point out theat Meteor Swarm is a terrible spell for taking down castles, as its a Fire spell and as such is unlikely to get past stones Hardness enough to do reasonable damage. In any event if you're making a castle in DnD, you're making it with these things in mind, where there is a Weapon there is a Defence.

[Eldariel]

Historical castles are often misunderstood. They're more of an offensive tool than a defensive one. For example, in Britain they served as a safe supply point and a location from which you can attack enemy deployments and supply lines. Bypassing them is problematic insofar that the units will be reliant on whatever supplies they can carry with them, and they'll be vulnerable to enemy attacks from all sides with no reinforcements available. Castles as defenses buy time to muster forces but the reason they were generally built, other than status, was to expand countries and to take control of territories (which is the lifeblood of countries). Defending castles without army support could and were taken but offensively they served as a tremendous strategic asset.

Now, how does magic alter the dynamic? Well, see Tippyverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy) - that's the rules as written taken to their logical conclusion. You can only hold small points but you don't need farmland since magic traps can produce all the food you desire. Teleport Circle in particular allows both, trade and warfare in vast scales at vast distances. If you remove the traps from the equation, fact still remains that a single level 5 Cleric with 16 Wis (thus Elite Array with no items) can create enough food for 15 humans with one casting of Create Food and Water (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/createFoodAndWater.htm) sans caster level boosting (some domains boost the caster level) and can cast at least two castings per day. Thus a level 5 Cleric can feed 30 troops indefinitely (one more casting with Spontaneous Domain Casting and Creation or Feast domain, of which Creation increase CL by 1 too for 54 people), which makes supply lines far less relevant, to say nothing of Heroes' Feast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heroesFeast.htm), Magnificent Mansion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesMagnificentMansion.htm) (dozen people per caster level so 156 for a level 13 Wizard) and similar things on higher levels. Same happens with communications - telepathy and spell-based communications mostly render messengers obsolete (Thoon Elder Brain at 12 HD with Polymorph/Aberration Wildshape + Assume Supernatural Ability provides 1 mile telepathy for instance). Of course, Planar Binding, Gate and such can create armies of outsiders onto themselves so the very value of mundane armies comes to question.

In such a world, holding areas is hard. But you can still use castles to menace areas and as strong points for rallying, supplies (magic items, mounts and weapons can be pretty important supplies even if food is taken care of; scrolls, wands, potions, etc. are very useful and powerful) and such. There's no real problem with using fortified castles (though they have to be fortified really hard to not be easily destroyed with magic) as long as the castle itself is warded from teleportation and perhaps even hostile magic (see e.g. FR Mythals) except for perhaps specific, defended teleport rooms or teleport circles that can be turned off should need be. Mundane castles, well, I wouldn't bother: invisibility can be countered with scent, flight can be countered to a degree with design but teleportation is a bit much so if that exists in the settings, the castles need to be adequately defended from various outsiders. Thus, magical castles are reasonable but mundane castles only in worlds without level 5+ magic. Of course, various monsters such as giants, dragons and company are also quite efficient when deployed against castles so the population, amount and organization of the monstrous is definitely an important component of the viability of castles as well.

[Darth Ultron]

What’s the best way to have Vancian magic and castles in the same setting?

Well, the best way is the basic real world way: the endless defense vs offence.

After all, our 2017 world still has ''castles'' , both places of governments, but also military bases, airports and lots of companies. They are not piles of stone with catapults, but they are heavily defended fortresses. And modern day Middle East does provide a great modern example: The US military has lot of bases in hostile areas, and they are well protected by attack. Though the average attackers don't have access to ''2017 cutting edge technology''. The same would be true in D&D. The average orc horde does not have acres to high level magic.

And much like the real world, any fantasy kingdom will restrict the use of destructive magic. The same way you can't buy a tank or rocket launcher at Wal-Mart, you would not be able to buy a Staff of Destruction at a magic shop.

D&D, in general, does a bit of a poor job on ''defense'' magic as the focus is on ''adventures!'', but it is out there scattered across lots of books.

And you need to think about history. Year one: you have a world full of mundane castles. A couple of spellcasters effortlessly take over all the castles. Year two: A bunch of spellcasters have all the castles...but they are just a vulnerable to attack as they were last year. Year three: The spellcasters defend their castles from others attacks, and so starts the cycle.

And with history, you need to think more ''common sense history'' and not ''following the poorly written rules''. So you take castle A, they have 25 spellcasters, 10 low level, 10 medium level and five high level that do nothing but protect the castle. And they can cast spells every day, so even just after a month the castle will be filled with magic. Plus making in place magic items and doing all sorts of big magic too. After say a single year, a castle would be very well defended with magic. Then say the castle has existed for 50 years, and even say it only has 25 years of magic....well, even only 25 years of magic is a TON....

[Florian]

@Eldariel:

The problem with the Tippyverse is that it extrapolates only from one source and ignoring all others, which, incidentally, are geared towards simulating a different result.
The PHB/CRB focuses on "personal level" action and simulates results based on that scale, same with the Stronghold Builders Guidebook. Cityscape and Heroes of Battle provide the next "zoom levels" (Squad rules, army rules), updated for PF with Ultimate Campaign (Team rules, army rules).

Now we get very different results when looking at the same situation on different "zoom levels", as the effects will drastically change to fit with the scaling.
Let´s say a small castle, 100 human Fighter 5, 1 Human Fighter 10 and 1 human Wizard 8.
- Personal scale, exactly that. Easy to beat and defeat. Meteor Swarm is mass murder here.
- Skirmish scale, the two commanders stay the same, either one gargantuan mob (3,5) or 5 troops (PF), highly more resilient and can deal some hurt. Will absorb multiple Meteor Swarms.
- Battle scale, 1 medium-sized army with two commanders attached and full bonus for the castle. Will take down an Adult Dragon, Beholder or a party of up to 12th level with ease. Can hold out a bit against higher-powered enemies. Meteor Swarm deals only 1d4 damage on this scale, so it´d need multiple casters emptying their 9th level slots to kill that army with it.

[Elkad]

A castle is a supply dump, resting place, and cover for your troops.

As long as it's a mix of magic and mundane, the castle is useful.

Magic is met with magic. Even if you can't Dispel the Passwall that opens a passage into your castle, the assaulting melee types have to cross open ground vs archers with cover and height advantages, and then squeeze through a chokepoint.

Mundane flyers can be slowed by reinforcing rooftops, or even by stringing big nets between a high central tower and the lower outer walls.

Burrowers are a problem as well, but a metal lining under your castle will give you a brief defense/warning against them. Probably with a network of tunnels beyond that, patrolled, for additional warning.

Being underground is a good static defense, but you can't defend the "walls", and it's hard to sally.

Making your whole castle levitate is useful. Especially if you can change the altitude. It's close to the ground in peace, but at war it ascends to keep all the non-flyers out.

Or if it can get up and walk, even at a pathetic 10'/round, it can outdistance normal troops as soon as they have to stop to rest.

[Sam K]

How useful is armour in a high magic fantasy setting?

Obviously not as useful as in a reality with no magic, but despite the many things that bypass AC, most people who frequently come in contact with pointy sticks make a point of wearing something that makes them harder to hit. Even if the enemy wizard and cleric can bypass your armour, at least the enemy fighter and rogue are hampered by it. This line of thinking probably applies to castles as well: you still see them, but they do not play the same central role in warfare as they did in our world. Castles may not be as vital to secure supply lines, and they might be smaller and less central in warfare since any sizable attacking force will have the means to bypass them. On the other hand, if the enemy 9th level wizard is using his spells to bypass your castle, he's not using those spells to kill you, and instead of having to beat the enemy army you may only have to neutralise the casters.

[Eldariel]

@Eldariel:

The problem with the Tippyverse is that it extrapolates only from one source and ignoring all others, which, incidentally, are geared towards simulating a different result.
The PHB/CRB focuses on "personal level" action and simulates results based on that scale, same with the Stronghold Builders Guidebook. Cityscape and Heroes of Battle provide the next "zoom levels" (Squad rules, army rules), updated for PF with Ultimate Campaign (Team rules, army rules).

Now we get very different results when looking at the same situation on different "zoom levels", as the effects will drastically change to fit with the scaling.
Let´s say a small castle, 100 human Fighter 5, 1 Human Fighter 10 and 1 human Wizard 8.
- Personal scale, exactly that. Easy to beat and defeat. Meteor Swarm is mass murder here.
- Skirmish scale, the two commanders stay the same, either one gargantuan mob (3,5) or 5 troops (PF), highly more resilient and can deal some hurt. Will absorb multiple Meteor Swarms.
- Battle scale, 1 medium-sized army with two commanders attached and full bonus for the castle. Will take down an Adult Dragon, Beholder or a party of up to 12th level with ease. Can hold out a bit against higher-powered enemies. Meteor Swarm deals only 1d4 damage on this scale, so it´d need multiple casters emptying their 9th level slots to kill that army with it.

Well, depends. Few demographics allow for average unit to be as high as level 5; I'd say 1-3 for the rank'n'file and perhaps level 4-6 for the commanders unless it's a really elite unit from a large dwelling that can produce high amounts of high level units (DMG has the chart) - but even then, it's much more efficient to have lots of high level casters than a lot of high level mundanes so I'd assume most dwellings would focus their training with that in mind. Of course, it becomes less efficient when the loyalty of those magical assets is called to question and we remember their alignment and individual goals. Certainly, even mastering orisons or cantrips is useful so characters with 10 in mental stat might reasonably learn magic. And, if muggles aren't needed as craftsmen, farmers or militia, that leaves a vast amount of population essentially unaccounted for, free to strive for self-fulfillment.

However, the unit rules do not at all address the fact that magic completely changes the fundamental basics of warfare such as supply lines (resetting traps producing food and tools essentially mean unlimited supplies anywhere), messaging, formations, etc. Also I think the unit rules, while fine for army, aren't that useful for simulating spells vs. army: they group a bunch of weak individual together, but for some reason don't model the devastation a single Fireball would cause if we accounted for each individual unit separately. That said, this doesn't really alter the core assumptions of Tippyverse in any meaningful way; the defensibility of large areas is still called to question by Teleport and particularly Teleport Circle and similarly, trade is just way too efficient through teleportation for physical transportation to be able to compete. Magic also produces goods at such efficiency (note, Tippyverse without resetting magic traps is a far different beast though) that there's little use for manual labour.

And the deployment of a mundane army takes way too long to deal with any fast-moving unit attacking key targets - and it's beyond trivial to throw a mundane chain of command into disarray by targeting the chain of command or messengers, and it's easy enough to break an army's morale if they have to fight enemies they cannot efficiently counterattack. I wouldn't expect magic to hit face first against a mundane army as much as undermine the mundane functions to the point that it breaks down, either due to soldiers' rebellion, lack of materiel or any such considerations.


A historical castle would enable the resident forces to launch attacks at any enemy within their range of operations with impunity, but in D&D matching magic efficiency requires highly advanced detection networks and teleport-levels of mobility on one's own (using [bound or otherwise] outsiders with teleport at will makes for very efficient shock troopers for instance). Castles with teleport circles that can target varying locations and are otherwise warded against teleportation would of course be exceedingly useful, even more so if they are underground, flying or best of all, in an adjacent plane making counterattacks nearly impossible and allowing them to target almost any area anywhere.

Of course, fortifications need not be heaps of stone and in a magical world from mundane to magical, trenches, bunkers, underground cities, flying fortresses and such are probably more than likely to both, be efficient and available for certain purposes. But the nature of nations is certain to be significantly altered if high level magic is available and mid level magic somewhat commonplace.


And of course, there's a huge difference between a functional castle intended for wall and a palace intended to inspire awe. The latter are never obsolete, just most likely even more magnificent and wondrous than anything possible in our world.

[Darrin]

Standard TippyVerse assumes that the nodes of the transportation network are fortified. Size I suppose is left up to whoever is in charge of that node. It could be a medieval-style castle or a walled city-state.

If the city-states are involved in active warfare with each other, then the transportation circle is likely in the middle of an open staging area where troops can be organized to hit the circle as efficiently as possible.

I suppose there would be teams of special forces trained to break into enemy nodes, secure a beachhead area, and deploy a new destination node so invading forces could storm in. Building castles that are resistant to such efforts would be important, and the Stronghold Builder's Guide does have some rules for creating walls that are resistant to magical effects: walls of force, prismatic walls, dimensional anchor stuff, etc.

[Fouredged Sword]

Castles are less effective in a fantasy world than they are in ours during the middle ages. There are plenty of things that can just smash a castle flat.

That said, you don't fight those things with castles, nor do those things generally bother with castles. You send out adventurers to deal with those sorts of things. Castles are there to act as a barracks and base for anti-raiding armies. It can withstand an orcish horde. They protect from smaller dragon who want to steal the kingdom's treasury. Stone walls and murder slots allow archers to have massive bonuses to reflex saves and improved evasion. Great for stopping breath weapons and large claws.

The other thing is that castles are FAR cheaper than in our world. Here you take a bunch of unskilled laborers most of their lives to cut and transport stone blocks and set them into place.

Here an 5-9th level cleric or wizard can spend a few months casting stoneshape, fabricate, and any of the many other "Get mundane thing instantly" spells. A lyre of building can be played by a unsleeping, untiring creature for days on end, just planer bind one to serve, or just hire the local bard and slap a ring of sustenance and keep casting lesser restoration to keep him from getting tired. Yeah, he get's board by the second day, but the pay is great for such a low risk job.

Basically castles should exist anywhere they would be helpful for any kingdom with organized lower mid level spellcasters. You spend the resources to get the ability to throw up ONE castle more or less for free and keep using them over and over to throw up little way stations, roads, and aqueducts as needed to basically be Rome 2.0 with magic.

[Red Fel]

I think the thing to remember is that powerful spellcasters don't only exist outside of castles. Even if the Wizard doesn't own the castle, there is advantage to him in living in one, and advantage to the castle's owner in inviting at least one Wizard to do so. It is then to both of their advantages for the Wizard to reinforce the castle against most forms of magical assault.

Fact is, if you're a Wizard, unless you have your own private demiplane - and even if you do - it pays to have a home base on the Material. If someone else is maintaining it, it frees you up to adventure or conduct spell research. So you have an interest in living in someone else's castle, and keeping it safe. Castle owners therefore have an interest in making their castles strong, impressive, and inviting to spellcasters, to better guarantee that at least one takes up residence.

If we're assuming that there are enough powerful spellcasters in a given setting to level most castles, we must assume that at least some of them live in castles. If we assume that, it is safe to assume that castle-owners are aware of this, and the wealthier or more powerful ones invite spellcasters to live in their castles. And if we assume that, it follows logically that those castles would have superior protection from powerful spellcasters who go around leveling castles.

So, yes. I'd say they're useful.

[Cosi]

There's no good reason to have a castle to defend against Wizards. Yes, there are ways to do it, but it is always worse to tell people "hey, here's my stuff, come blow it up". Hide your base somewhere, then put up all those defenses. The reason to have a castle is to defend against all those people who aren't Wizards. There are still peasants who need oppressing, and enemies (like giants or orcs or whatever) who can't teleport or fly.

[Pleh]

There's no good reason to have a castle to defend against Wizards. Yes, there are ways to do it, but it is always worse to tell people "hey, here's my stuff, come blow it up". Hide your base somewhere, then put up all those defenses. The reason to have a castle is to defend against all those people who aren't Wizards. There are still peasants who need oppressing, and enemies (like giants or orcs or whatever) who can't teleport or fly.

One exception to this: dresden style magic rules. You know, where magic users still have to respect domiciles/thresholds or face resistance to their power.

Likewise, ancient structures like castles could be built by lost, powerful civilizations, like the fey, where magic may not work as well or the same way.

[Zanos]

Nowadays, heads of state and high level governmental officials rarely live in castles because modern weapons technology made them obsolete. I think D&D magic makes castles obsolete. A Meteor Swarm can probably reduce a castle to rubble, but I figure most settings, people capable of casting 9th level spells are rare and usually have better things to do than knocking down castles.
This is only partially true. Modern weapons make old castles obsolete, but many important government buildings these days are designed to appear non-fortified but actually are extremely durable, and their architecture and layout are such that they provide chokepoints and other features for ease of defense. Bunkers exist in areas that are actually war torn.


A spellcaster need not be 17th level to overtake a castle. Spiderclimb, Fly, Protection from Normal Arrows, Invisibility (and the higher level versions), and even Featherfall can all help a wizard or a wizard’s allies get up to and over a wall. Teleport is even better. Stone Shape can either open up a free door for invaders to knock in or be targeted on a foundation to just knock out a substantial section of castle. These are just the obvious ones. There are all sort of ways magic can be used creatively to attack a castle.
17th level is pretty high. A 17th level fighter could just kill everyone. Teleport will get less than a handful of soldiers into the castle. Stoneshape is a problem, but that's a pretty small tunnel to shove your force through. You've screwed up their defense, sure, but not necessarily going to be deceive by itself.


So once in wizard is in or near the castle, he can summon a bunch of troops or a cloud of poisonous gas or something. Or instead of moving the wizard, you could move in a well armored fighter or sneaking rogue. In any event, it’d be relatively easy to use magic to get a small elite part in to either hit the defenders from behind, open the gates to let an invading force through, or just head straight to the castle owner and kill or capture the ruling family within minutes.
That's the problem here. "Can low level creatures use a castle to compete against high level creatures"? And the answer to that is no. No number of walls is going to save an army of 3rd level warriors from a 17th level wizard. Or a 17th level fighter, for that matter.

How many of those are there, though? And is one of them actually in the castle and defending it?


Castles would actually be a liability against most ethereal foes since it’s harder to flee from them. An intelligent monster that likes treasure would raid a castle if it could and they’d have all the tools human attackers would plus whatever powers and strengths they possess. The biggest threat would be dragons or other powerful flyers. A ceiling is just not as easy to reinforce as a wall. A siege attacker with catapults or trebuchets would certainly like to lob a boulder through the roof if they can angle such a difficult shot. Even if the walls are strong enough to resist a dragon’s breath weapon (debatable), the ceiling probably cannot withstand it, or the dragon could just land on the roof and hop up and down collapsing the structure. Just like I am assuming humans with the ability to cast 9th level spells have better things to do than attack castles, most elder dragons would not bother attacking castles, but it doesn’t take a very old dragon to defeat a castle.
Nothing is going to save an army of 3rd level warriors from a dragon any more than a powerful wizard.


Would anyone bother building a castle if it could be bypassed by magic so easily? What reasonable in-game explanations for magic counters should be used to make a castle more secure? Conversely, is too much magical protection unrealistic or unenjoyable? I don’t want to have every story I want to run about a siege, end up like this: “Sorry player of the party wizard, every brick is made of anti-magic, you have to sit this one out.” If you can make an affordable castle that’s magic proof, why not an affordable suit of anti-magic armor, or anti-magic the inn and everything else?
Castles do a fine job of preventing you from having to deal with day to day threats. High level wizards, or characters of any class, are not common. Most lower level solutions that allow you to "bypass" a castle are significantly more limited than you've suggested.

[Telok]

It is worth noting that (some) first level warlocks can see invisible creatures.

In a castle with an attached 'small town' the population/town generating tables in the DMG indicate that there will be from 1 to 7 each* of wizards, sorcerers, clerics, bards, druids, and adepts. In addition there will be a commoner with an average level of 10 and a maximum level of 16, and an expert of average level 7 and maximum level 12. Some of the most impressive castles exceeded 2000 people living on the castle grounds, which can put them into the 'large town' status all on their own.

There are, to my mind, three types of castles in D&D: defence in depth, choke points, and noble housing. Defence in depth is part of the concept of territorial control. These castles can be as minor as a shell keep or motte and bailey with as few as 100 troops. They are (relatively) cheap and fast to build, and being used for territorial control you build bunches of them. The main idea is that any invading force has to either stop and take all these castles, split off part of it's strength to siege the castle, or leave a hostile force to threaten it's rear and supply lines. They're also good for projecting power and keeping the locals in line. Choke point and noble housing castles are going to be bigger, more populated, and better defended.

Particular to D&D is magic and magical monsters. Nobody expects a castle manned by mostly 1st to 5th level humanoids to withstand a planetar, 13th level cleric vampire, or mature adult dragon played at full intelligence. They expect it to deal with an invading army, or a horde of orc barbarians, or the local giant tribe. And if there's a tribe of hill giants and ogre magi nearby then either the castle is adequately defended against that level of magic or it belongs to the tribe of hill giants and ogre magi.

*Those tables give you a 1d4 (wiz, sorc) or a 1d6 (all others) for the max level npc of that class in the population. A thorp of 20 - 80 people has a -3 on the roll, a small town (900 - 2000) has +0, a large town (2000 - 5000) has +3. Then there are double the number of npcs of half that level, which continues down to 1st level. So a town with a 4th level wizard will have two 2nd levels and four 1st levels. Thus a 1000 population town has a 50% chance each of seven clerics, seven bards, seven druids, and seven adepts. D&D land should not look like medieval Europe with a few magic users and monsters.

[Pugwampy]

Smaug the dragon did not knock down the dwarf fortress . He moved in ...
Saruman wanted to move on up from the upper west side right into Helms Deep .

Property has value . Something like a castle , you want to damage it just enough to kick out the tenants .

Half the fun of killing someone is taking their goodies . Buying castles is one of the reasons we all go hunting for treasure .
Players get excited when DM gives em a free house to move into . Try it you will like it

[Darth Ultron]

The thing is that if it is easy to breach or even destroy a castle with magic, then it is also easy to fix or build castles with magic.


So sure a ''siege wizard'' can blow up a castle wall.....but then a ''repair wizard'' can fix the castle wall just as fast. If the ''apocalypse wizard'' obliterates a castle, then the ''creation wizard'' just make another castle.

The limited D&D 3E rules even support this. You can seal a breach in a castle with wall of stone (or wall of force or) and wish(es) and Epic magic can both make mundane objects like castles.

And the basic bunker idea does really work great in a D&D world. The castle is a lot for show....and there is a secret bunker somewhere. And some spellcasters could stay in the bunker and just summon foes endlessly to attack any invading forces...at the very least.

The side with magic does have a huge advantage, and will likely win....but chances are in a more balanced world where everyone has magic it will be a stalemate.

[Nightcanon]

As noted above, it depends a bit on how high magic the setting is. It's worth noting that real-world 'castles' aren't a fixed thing: they have evolved through time in parallel with weapon technology, with height of wall being superceded by thickness of wall with the development of improved missile weapons. Against dragons and meteor swarms, the real-world trend for subterranean bunkers and hollowed-out mountains is probably a good idea, but those are still vulnerable to creatures that can burrow through solid rock and to earthquakes. In a relatively low-magic setting, medieval-style castles could exist (possibly with some sort of ancient, poorly understood and mythologised passive defence centred on the throne or the crown), but could be vulnerable to the kind of magicks that were winning strategies in various versions of Arthurian legend; in sufficiently high-magic settings, castles as defensive/military assets (as opposed to soft-power/ built for show status symbols) might be replaced by the fantasy equivalent of ballistic missile subs: intended to be impossible to find and capable of a deadly first-strike.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would think that "Stone and lead walled room with forbiddence preventing teleportaion" would be something that existed as a thing. A stone wall with a layer of wood, then lead, then stone again would be a pain to just bypass. That and alarms and anti-invisibility tactics means that you are likely to at least not be caught sleeping even by a skilled and prepared attacker.

Scaling that up get's you a castle with a good chance that you will be fighting someone outside of it with alert and awake people inside the defenses.

[Necroticplague]

Yes, they are. While traditional-dirt-and-stone castles are useless and pointless, thanks at a most basic level to DnD having a large overlap between 'flying things' or 'burrowing things' and 'things that can kill people' than in real life, there's also options for making stronger castles. Walls of Force are damn-near impenetrable, and can be only destroyed by some magics. Adding in sigils of antimagic renders the wall completely impenetrable. Add in a Wierdstone so that you can't teleport in, and you have something more well-secured than any place that's ever existed in real life.

[Hackulator]

Two things.

In most settings, casters are FAIRLY rare. They may not seem rare because in books they are all over the place, but that's a narrative issue. Therefore, the frequency of wizards attacking your castle should not be that high.

Secondly, even if there are a lot of wizards, that means you probably have wizards DEFENDING your castle, who can counter attacking wizards, thus making the base function of the castle against non-casters still very useful.

[Necroticplague]

Two things.

In most settings, casters are FAIRLY rare. They may not seem rare because in books they are all over the place, but that's a narrative issue. Therefore, the frequency of wizards attacking your castle should not be that high.

Secondly, even if there are a lot of wizards, that means you probably have wizards DEFENDING your castle, who can counter attacking wizards, thus making the base function of the castle against non-casters still very useful.

The problems with castles, honestly, have very little to do casters. It has more to to with the monsters. In the real life, the only things you had to worry about were other people. So, if there were things your wall didn't protect you against, but they weren't things humans could do (or at least, not do well), then they were good enough.
In real life, the process of scaling a castle's wall is a slow process requiring highly visible (and flammable) equipment, like seige towers and long ladders. Sure, some animals can climb the walls better than humans (like lizards and insects), but they weren't dangerous enough to matter. In DnD, you have strong creatures with climb speeds (which get handed out like candy at higher CRs), or simply creatures that are strong enough to make the Climb checks to scale the wall unassisted, as fast as a human can jog (or faster).
In real life, birds might come and go over your walls, but nothing you can really care about, barring the odd diseased corpse. In DnD, there are things that can fly like an eagle, and kill like a bobcat.
In real life, simply building on top of bedrock was made burrowing a non-issue, because even devoted sappers would take unfeasible amounts of time to dig a tunnel from outside archer range to the other side through solid rock. In DnD, you have creatures that could perform the whole process in less than a minute.

[Fouredged Sword]

There would be design changes, A because of new threats, but also B, because some things are now cheap enough to be feasible.

Walls likely would have iron bars or spikes sticking out at a 45 or 90 degree angle along all outer walls at least 5 ft. This would prevent most climbers from just walking up your walls, serving much the same as barbed wire on chain linked.

Every defended position would be roofed in non-flammable material, likely stone or metal roofing. This protects you from anything that may attempt to land. Most defenders would be behind a full murder hole, getting improved cover and all it's benefits.

Yes, you can climb up the wall, but that just puts you trying to clamber over a sideways wall of bars while a crossbowman grabs a glaive and attempts to trip you off the wall from the murder hole. Even if you climb the wall you just end up on the castle roof with a well barricaded door that prevents easy entry.

The whole foundation of a fortress would rest on solid conjured iron. No digging up though that.

[Hackulator]

The problems with castles, honestly, have very little to do casters. It has more to to with the monsters. In the real life, the only things you had to worry about were other people. So, if there were things your wall didn't protect you against, but they weren't things humans could do (or at least, not do well), then they were good enough.
In real life, the process of scaling a castle's wall is a slow process requiring highly visible (and flammable) equipment, like seige towers and long ladders. Sure, some animals can climb the walls better than humans (like lizards and insects), but they weren't dangerous enough to matter. In DnD, you have strong creatures with climb speeds (which get handed out like candy at higher CRs), or simply creatures that are strong enough to make the Climb checks to scale the wall unassisted, as fast as a human can jog (or faster).
In real life, birds might come and go over your walls, but nothing you can really care about, barring the odd diseased corpse. In DnD, there are things that can fly like an eagle, and kill like a bobcat.
In real life, simply building on top of bedrock was made burrowing a non-issue, because even devoted sappers would take unfeasible amounts of time to dig a tunnel from outside archer range to the other side through solid rock. In DnD, you have creatures that could perform the whole process in less than a minute.

Sure, but you likewise have people with class levels defending the castle. The Castle is just a piece of equipment, and it's effectiveness is greatly affected by who is using it. While the enemies it is trying to stop are more powerful, so are the people defending it.

I agree that it would probably be less effective than in the real world, but not so much so that it's useless.

Also remember that like wizards, monsters might not be as common as you think. It is a common trope that even in high fantasy worlds, much of the world is so mundane that the common people may not even believe in magic or monsters in many places.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I figure some of the issues with casters and monsters can actually be fixed partially by looking at the improvements made to real life fortifications after the middle ages. Some pictures to give an idea about one of the styles you could think about:

https://cdn.route.nl/pictures/large/9a3d33f2-8ac8-4f6f-b9ac-1ceda9ebb134.jpg
https://www.ridebythesea.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/n3.jpg (http://defotograaf.eu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Fort-Rammekens.jpg) (This one is clickable.)
http://www.allevestingsteden.nl/muiderslot.jpg (Yes, that's a proper castle keep and garden integrated into a later style fort.)
https://www.bunnik.nl/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_Fort_Rhijnauwen_3edd73b9e0.jpg
http://www.deleukstedeal.nl//static/images/deals/9e/e/2b97f4b8-29dd-48bd-b488-54995d03898b.jpg

One of the most vulnerable parts of a medieval castle is the roof, in later styles the roof often disappears in a dirt mount. A few meters of earth can soften most blows quite a bit. Indoors the quarters are kept small with load bearing walls or pillars at regular intervals. The outer wall often doubles as most of the indoor quarters you need, complete with gun ports both on the out- and the inside, the rest of the buildings can be build as separate earth mounts. The forts are usually only a ground floor with sometimes a basement, and sometimes some form of battlements for defenders on the roof (sometimes just a grassy hill to lie on/behind). Many of these structures were still in use by the time WW2 rolled around, not because it can handle everything a (sort of) modern army can throw at it, but because it can handle most of it. Being safe from personal firearms, mortars, light artillery and most tanks is quite nice, even if bunker buster bombs technically exist. A big trade-off is height. An archer army in particular likes having the high ground, firing out through arrow-slits on or slightly above ground level is not the same as being able to fire at enemies from above, where it's much harder for them to find cover and to return fire. But if it saves you from dragons...

A large moat and a stone portion to the outer walls dug into the ground could help against at least human tunnelers (the kind of burrowers the D&D world has may need to be countered by friendly burrowing forces), and a moat might even help a bit against fliers, as it's easier to see them coming. It also helps against non-flying invisibles, who probably look quite funny waist deep in mud and water.

A bit of a downside would be that a fort with lower buildings needs to be larger to contain the same amount of useful stuff. This means it's not as easy to cover with teleport wards, alarm spells etc. I does however afford you the luxury of secondary defenses. Invaders in the central yard are not touching anything important yet, and to really cripple your defenses they'll need to go several different ways from there. Battery A can always get more gunpowder from battery D.

It may not look like a nice castle to live in to us, it doesn't really radiate "status" or anything, but in a fantasy world where this is what works against invaders they might see that differently. Who knows, maybe D&D people (or at least the one from "my setting has no real castles"-world) think the Teletubbies are royalty of some sort...

http://wap.parrette.net/TELETUBBIES_WEB/GRAPHICS/ttlSuperdomeEntrance.jpg

[Necroticplague]

Also remember that like wizards, monsters might not be as common as you think. It is a common trope that even in high fantasy worlds, much of the world is so mundane that the common people may not even believe in magic or monsters in many places.
Under dnds system, this kind of setting raises more questions than it answers. If most people have no magic of any form, they can be trivially wiped out by a shadow ,which are multiplying and completely silent, in the course of a single night. So worlds built under that idiotic trope and dnds system are so ridiculously unstable/unfeasible as to not be worth considering as a valid setting. In addition, many monsters have entries that indicate the would definitely run into people, either due to being some form of raider, large predator in a poor-prey environment, anthropophagic, or simply violently territorial.

[Zanos]

Under dnds system, this kind of setting raises more questions than it answers. If most people have no magic of any form, they can be trivially wiped out by a shadow ,which are multiplying and completely silent, in the course of a single night. So worlds built under that idiotic trope and dnds system are so ridiculously unstable/unfeasible as to not be worth considering as a valid setting. In addition, many monsters have entries that indicate the would definitely run into people, either due to being some form of raider, large predator in a poor-prey environment, anthropophagic, or simply violently territorial.
Isn't that what adventurers are for?

[Necroticplague]

Isn't that what adventurers are for?
Yes, but, following the logic I was responding too, such people would also have to be rare, and thus likely 'too little, too late' when it comes to dealing with (locally) apocalyptic scenarios like this.

[Zanos]

Yes, but, following the logic I was responding too, such people would also have to be rare, and thus likely 'too little, too late' when it comes to dealing with (locally) apocalyptic scenarios like this.
Well, it doesn't take a very high level party to deal with shadows before the problem gets too big. I also think the ecology of most of these apocalyptic monsters is such that they aren't actually going to do that unless another force compels them. Shadows particularly roam the areas of their deaths and IIRC remember some of their lives.

I do agree though that the majority of people aren't going to be so backwater that they don't believe in magic or monsters.

[Hackulator]

Under dnds system, this kind of setting raises more questions than it answers. If most people have no magic of any form, they can be trivially wiped out by a shadow ,which are multiplying and completely silent, in the course of a single night. So worlds built under that idiotic trope and dnds system are so ridiculously unstable/unfeasible as to not be worth considering as a valid setting. In addition, many monsters have entries that indicate the would definitely run into people, either due to being some form of raider, large predator in a poor-prey environment, anthropophagic, or simply violently territorial.

All worlds built under D&Ds system are ridiculous and unfeasible for a myriad of reasons, so I just don't find this particular argument compelling. Even the worlds built under D&Ds system don't actually use D&Ds system if you read most novels set in D&D worlds.

[Necroticplague]

Well, it doesn't take a very high level party to deal with shadows before the problem gets too big.

Depends on what exactly you mean by 'too big'. Sure, you might be able to Teleport adventurers in once they hear about it (heck, they might teleport in of their own accord to loot the place if they hear what happened). But how would they know to Teleport to where the massacre's taking place? Since they're completely silent (incorporeal) and perfectly fine in pitch darkness (darkvision), it's entirely possible for an entire moderately-sized settlement to be wiped out without anyone being the wiser. Sure, a couple months might have others realize they're not sending traders or messengers, and send exterminators, but that doesn't help the villagers who didn't know they needed to enclose themselves in walls at least 15 feet thick without windows or any other hole.

[Bucky]

A castle basically needs two things to be worthwhile defensively.

It needs walls to keep the riffraff out.

And it needs to be an appropriately-challenging dungeon for whoever sneaks past the outer walls.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Two things.

In most settings, casters are FAIRLY rare. They may not seem rare because in books they are all over the place, but that's a narrative issue. Therefore, the frequency of wizards attacking your castle should not be that high.

This isn't true according to the DMG; you're all but guaranteed a level 13+ caster in a Metropolis.

Edit: In a Metropolis, on average, you are guaranteed at least 4 level 15 Wizards and Sorcerers, and 4 level 16 Clerics and Druids.


Secondly, even if there are a lot of wizards, that means you probably have wizards DEFENDING your castle, who can counter attacking wizards, thus making the base function of the castle against non-casters still very useful.

Maybe, that's only the case if the Wizards want to defend your castle.


On a more general note; flying castles were mentioned earlier, but I think they warrant a closer look. A flying castle is a lot easier to defend, especially if it's in a remote (and high) locale. Sure people can fly/teleport to it, but they have to find it first. This isn't too hard with Divination spells, but at least flying castles are cool.

[Pleh]

If most people have no magic of any form, they can be trivially wiped out by a shadow ,which are multiplying and completely silent, in the course of a single night. So worlds built under that idiotic trope and dnds system are so ridiculously unstable/unfeasible as to not be worth considering as a valid setting.

Eh, if we're in a low power world (and not an already post-apocalyptic one), likely monsters are not in tremendously ample supply. Think like Witcher games. Shadows are undead and likely don't roam far past where they haunt. Just because they could easily turn a whole village overnight doesn't explain why they are so far from their graves or why the turned villagers would bother leaving the village where they were slain.

Likewise with other kinds of monsters. They'll probably stake out a territory and stop expanding, making them only a problem to their immediate neighbors and travelers passing through.

[Necroticplague]

Shadows are undead and likely don't roam far past where they haunt. Just because they could easily turn a whole village overnight doesn't explain why they are so far from their graves or why the turned villagers would bother leaving the village where they were slain.
1. Since people tend to live together, the natural place for undead of all types to form (including shadows), would be inside communities.
2. Yes, they may not leave the village they were spawned in. That's little consolation to the people who live in that village, who are probably all gonna die.


Likewise with other kinds of monsters. They'll probably stake out a territory and stop expanding, making them only a problem to their immediate neighbors and travelers passing through.
Yes, because population growth (and thus, a need to slowly expand territory and control increasing amounts of resources) is a thing that never happens.

[137beth]

I always liked this approach:


I even take it a step further, and notice that the landscape is strewn with castles and dungeons, none of which serve any purpose whatsoever (and are in fact an impediment to your health, given the existence of the earthquake spell). Solution 1: eliminate castles and dungeons. Solution 2: give them a function (in my case, X thickness of stone blocks teleportation and scrying effects).

If you can tie in the mechanics you need with the game world you're looking for, you end up with a better-integrated setting than if you add mechanics with little attention to how they would really influence the setting.



Change the rules to given a reason for castles to exist.

[Zanos]

Depends on what exactly you mean by 'too big'. Sure, you might be able to Teleport adventurers in once they hear about it (heck, they might teleport in of their own accord to loot the place if they hear what happened). But how would they know to Teleport to where the massacre's taking place? Since they're completely silent (incorporeal) and perfectly fine in pitch darkness (darkvision), it's entirely possible for an entire moderately-sized settlement to be wiped out without anyone being the wiser. Sure, a couple months might have others realize they're not sending traders or messengers, and send exterminators, but that doesn't help the villagers who didn't know they needed to enclose themselves in walls at least 15 feet thick without windows or any other hole.
Shadows might be quiet. The screams of the dying are not. A shadow can't even reliably CDG a sleeping person because it's CDG only does 2d6 str damage. That whole village will probably still die, but villages get wiped all the time. "We don't go to Ravenholm" and all that.

Shadows really aren't all that tough either. They have incorporeal advantage, but a low level party knowing they're up against shadows will probably be just fine.

Constructing your entire setting around a very specific rules abuse, in this case spawn chaining, probably isn't a great way to build a setting in any case.

[Hackulator]

Maybe, that's only the case if the Wizards want to defend your castle.

On a more general note; flying castles were mentioned earlier, but I think they warrant a closer look. A flying castle is a lot easier to defend, especially if it's in a remote (and high) locale. Sure people can fly/teleport to it, but they have to find it first. This isn't too hard with Divination spells, but at least flying castles are cool.

I mean, that's a meaningless argument, as it can be applied to anything attacking your castle as well.

As for flying castles, those are basically high level artifacts, so not while clearly better, not really an option.




Constructing your entire setting around a very specific rules abuse, in this case spawn chaining, probably isn't a great way to build a setting in any case.

I actually have run an entire game around the spectre apocalypse idea. Zombie apocalypse but 100 time worse, it was very fun but not something that you can have in every game.

[Necroticplague]

Shadows might be quiet. The screams of the dying are not. A shadow can't even reliably CDG a sleeping person because it's CDG only does 2d6 str damage. That whole village will probably still die, but villages get wiped all the time. "We don't go to Ravenholm" and all that.
The bolded was basically my point. How can you have any kind of setting you expect us to believe lasted for any amount of time when it sets up a scenario in which much of it can be completely wiped out on a regular basis.


Shadows really aren't all that tough either. They have incorporeal advantage, but a low level party knowing they're up against shadows will probably be just fine.

Constructing your entire setting around a very specific rules abuse, in this case spawn chaining, probably isn't a great way to build a setting in any case.
I chose shadows in my example specifically because they were relatively weak creatures. They're near the bottom of the totem pole of 'things that could completely screw over an ill-informed village'. There's much nastier in the world to make 'most people are low-level smucks who have never seen a wizard' an untenable proposal.

[Hackulator]

I chose shadows in my example specifically because they were relatively weak creatures. They're near the bottom of the totem pole of 'things that could completely screw over an ill-informed village'. There's much nastier in the world to make 'most people are low-level smucks who have never seen a wizard' an untenable proposal.

Your argument doesn't stand up, because it world with very few magic users, there are also very few of those monsters.

[Necroticplague]

As for flying castles, those are basically high level artifacts, so not while clearly better, not really an option.

Actually, as per Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, making a stronghold capable of floating is a mere 15k, and making able to fly at 24 miles a day is only 11k. For reference point, replacing your blood with a wierd substance to speed up healing is 182k

[Pleh]

1. Since people tend to live together, the natural place for undead of all types to form (including shadows), would be inside communities.
2. Yes, they may not leave the village they were spawned in. That's little consolation to the people who live in that village, who are probably all gonna die.

Hence why you bury the dead, who might become restless and murder you in your sleep, outside of town in a sanctified catacomb or barrow and you make sure there is some deity worshiped in town so a local cleric is committed to standing on call for village needs. Not only can even a low level cleric stop a Total Village Kill in its tracks, but they can help the village care for their dead properly to prevent them from rising from their graves to begin with.

You basically need a necromancer at this point to desecrate the tombs and raise the bodies and spirits, at which point it's not exactly "lol, all villages are nuked in 3.5".

It's still, "all villages could very easily be nuked if the DM determines in the setting that this happens to be the case and no villages use the resources that could be at their disposal to protect themselves."



Yes, because population growth (and thus, a need to slowly expand territory and control increasing amounts of resources) is a thing that never happens.

Pfffff. Not necessarily. These are fictional societies. By RAW, there are no rules for any village or city growing or shrinking over time. You can replicate that happening by making manual changes as you see fit, but a civilization of Elves, who live so much longer, would likely have a much longer timescale on their expansion than shorter lived races like humans.

But even with humans, expansion of territory (to simulate reality) would take decades (if not even centuries given medieval population growth rates). In that amount of time, the neighboring villages would start to wonder why they haven't heard from the dead village recently. They would start warning travelers if no one ever returned from going into that area. Eventually, Heroes would gain a Quest to find out what happened and, if possible, secure the area so it is safe again.

[Necroticplague]

Your argument doesn't stand up, because it world with very few magic users, there are also very few of those monsters.

Why would that be true? If anything, it seems like there should be an inverse relationship: Without spellcasters (and thus, magic items), then there's not much to check the growth of such creatures.


Hence why you bury the dead, who might become restless and murder you in your sleep, outside of town in a sanctified catacomb or barrow and you make sure there is some deity worshiped in town so a local cleric is committed to standing on call for village needs. Not only can even a low level cleric stop a Total Village Kill in its tracks, but they can help the village care for their dead properly to prevent them from rising from their graves to begin with.

The setting assumption I was arguing against was one where most people have never even heard of such monsters and magic. If they didn't know these threats existed, how could they be taking steps (which include having available magic, I should point out) to prevent them?

[Fouredged Sword]

Self sustaining cities as a thing did not exist until modern times. Cities had negative population growth. People moved from the country to the city looking for work.

Here you have the inverse. Cities are stable (they have clerics) and the country is dangerous. People move out of the city to repopulate lost farmland and villages due the contant need for food.

[Hackulator]

Why would that be true? If anything, it seems like there should be an inverse relationship: Without spellcasters (and thus, magic items), then there's not much to check the growth of such creatures.


In a low magic world, there aren't a lot of magical creatures. It's not about there needing to be some check on their growth, it's about the fact that there were never many of them and they don't exist anywhere near large population centers.

You're also forgetting that in D&D worlds, there are gods who simply define the world to be the way they want.

[Pleh]

Why would that be true? If anything, it seems like there should be an inverse relationship: Without spellcasters (and thus, magic items), then there's not much to check the growth of such creatures.

The setting assumption I was arguing against was one where most people have never even heard of such monsters and magic. If they didn't know these threats existed, how could they be taking steps (which include having available magic, I should point out) to prevent them?

People would still worship the deities even if they didn't know about magic or monsters, and the deities would still have magic (actually, that would be kinda cool if the local priest whom everyone thought was just a kind, but kooky old man was actually a bit of a retired super hero with magic powers they would not be able to understand).

Having superstitions about proper funeral proceedings is common. Even if they've never seen a monster or believed the dead could walk, they might still culturally be protected by doing the right thing by default. They've never seen a monster because their culture has them doing all the right things without realizing its significance.

I still feel like there is no RAW for monsters experiencing Population Growth. There are rules for setting your civilized population sizes, but not monster expansion.

There is no stat block for how quickly these creatures spread if unchecked. That is something that RAW implies does not happen without interference from either the DM or some NPC with an Agenda.

Any speculation about how inevitable the monster apocalypse would be if it really existed only threatens the lives of innocent catgirls.

EDIT: The default definition of Monsters by RAW is that they have Schrodinger's existence: they do not exist in the world until the DM says that they do. Some of them hypothetically exist somewhere, but it's more of a probabilistic region of existence than actual.

[Florian]

Yes, because population growth (and thus, a need to slowly expand territory and control increasing amounts of resources) is a thing that never happens.

Actually, because the relation between resources and need is different, it might actually be that there will never be need for it.

[Zanos]

The bolded was basically my point. How can you have any kind of setting you expect us to believe lasted for any amount of time when it sets up a scenario in which much of it can be completely wiped out on a regular basis.
I imagine that backwaters out of the way of major cities without real defenses get wiped out, or at least attacked, semi-frequently. Again, saving small villages who don't have any dedicated defenses is what adventurers kind of do for a living at low levels. Larger settlements are going to be safer from anything that isn't a concerted offense.


I chose shadows in my example specifically because they were relatively weak creatures. They're near the bottom of the totem pole of 'things that could completely screw over an ill-informed village'. There's much nastier in the world to make 'most people are low-level smucks who have never seen a wizard' an untenable proposal.
Sure, but D&D kind of goes out of it's way such that higher CR creatures are rather rare. Many of the high CR monsters aren't even on the material plane naturally.

[Bucky]

Can your average black bear hunt and kill a human IRL? Yes. Does it happen often? No. Why? Because black bears are smart enough to recognize that an armed human is very dangerous but not smart enough to tell whether any given human is armed.

Same with D&D villages and monsters in the lower mid CR bracket. The monsters could probably roll into the village and eat everyone, but every time they do so they bet their lives that the village doesn't have any visiting adventurers. So most of them stick to ambushing stragglers who can't call for help.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Castles may or may not make sense depending upon the setting and in many cases depending upon the specific part of the setting.

For example, just because castles make sense in the wild coast doesn't mean they make sense in the duchy of Geoff and making sense in the Theocracy of the Pale doesn't mean they make sense in Hepmonaland.

Now once you take castles out of a generic D&Dland and ask if they make sense in a particular setting, things get a whole lot clearer.

Take the Elsir vale from Red Hand of Doom for example. It's a backwater part of thelarger setting. Pre Red Hand, the highest level characters are a 9th level retired abjurer in Prosser, Immerstal the Red 9th level wizard in Brindol, Argathod, a sor10/dragon disciple 2 in Dennovar, Rillor Paln, an 11th level rogue, and a smattering of level 7-8 fighters and clerics.

The setting has a smattering of monsters in the mid tier range. There is a black dragon who is noted as having been defeated previously by Lord jaarmath. There are a few other dragons presumably new to the area or previously willing to mind their own business (due to the red hand). Abiathrax and Utreshimon are the only ones who would have been setting altering though. Regiatrix and the green dragon are not up to destroying even the Drellin's Ferry militia by themselves. The ghostlord is another potentially setting disruptive being but appears to have been uninterested in expansion prior to the red hand's interference.

The rank and file of the red hand gives a good indication of what kind of monsters were previously in the area. A few wyverns, heiracosphynxes, manticores, hill giants. A good number of ogres and lots of goblins and hobgoblins whose abilities largely mirror the human settlements except that it seems that the sorcerers (max lvl 6 so lower than the arcane casters in human civilization) and mindbenders are new institutions set up by the Red Hand and facilitated by the new religion of Tiamat which may have done away with old hobgoblins prejudices against elf magic. There is also at least one small tribe of forest giants though it appears there was another or at least a much larger tribe 50 years ago.

So how useful would castles be in that setting? I think quite useful. The humans and hobgoblins don't have much that would change the real world utility of castles. The castle won't help if Immerstal or Argathos is coming against you but a castle probably wouldn't let a local Baron stand up against Brindol or Dennovar anyway. It's going to be quite useful if you're trying to keep "Baron" Trask of Elsircross from harassing your lands and its pretty darn important if you want your small band of men at arms and peasants to be able to stand off a raiding party of 50 goblins/hobgoblins or a half dozen ogres. Heck, it's still pretty useful against manticores etc if you have some minimal mantlets/roofs on your towers to provide protection from above.

Now, what kind of Castle is going to be around? That's another question. The dwarves traditionally live in underground fortifications. Most of the human communities in the adventure don't have castles (there is one in Brindol). There used to be one in the Witch wood and it is probably what enabled the Vraath family to survive as long as it did. That said if the non-Brindol settlements wanted to build defenses and we're not facing an army as large as the Red Hand's, they could probably get some good mileage out of an old-fashioned wooden motte and Bailey style keep which would be within their means to construct. A stone castle might still be worthwhile for a settlement near a dangerous area though it would be a big investment. (Maybe less so than in real life if they could hire magical help for construction). It wouldn't stop the Red Hand but it would make their lives a lot more secure against the lesser threats that are more typical when all of the monsters in the area aren't politically united.

Making your smaller settlement resistant to all but the biggest threats in the setting (Utreshimon, Abiathrax, the Ghostlord, Brindol, Dennovar, or the United Red Hand) is worthwhile but may or may not be cost-effective.

[Bohandas]

Depends. If it's a setting like Faerun or Eberron where magic is the norm, then no. A setting where most people are muggles, then yes, castles pre-industrial era cannons are useful. Remember, wizards are on both sides of the conflict.

Yes, spells such as Guards and Wards and Antimagic Field and the various wondrous architecture discussed in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook

[Elder_Basilisk]

I should add that even if castles sometimes make sense there would probably be some changes in security practices among competent guards/defenders. For example, most patrols would probably be accompanied by dogs or other trained animals with scent as a basic defense against invisible creatures. Not a terribly big change in pseudo-medievalism since most castles have a kennel for hunting hounds or some mastiffs fighting over bones beneath the table in the great hall, but integrating them into patrols and every frontier homestead having guard dogs like farmer maggot in Lord of the Rings is a slight change.

[Eldariel]

I should add that even if castles sometimes make sense there would probably be some changes in security practices among competent guards/defenders. For example, most patrols would probably be accompanied by dogs or other trained animals with scent as a basic defense against invisible creatures. Not a terribly big change in pseudo-medievalism since most castles have a kennel for hunting hounds or some mastiffs fighting over bones beneath the table in the great hall, but integrating them into patrols and every frontier homestead having guard dogs like farmer maggot in Lord of the Rings is a slight change.

3HD watch dogs trained to have Improved Scent and Uncanny Scent [Savage Species] are particularly efficient at this.

[Blackhawk748]

3HD watch dogs trained to have Improved Scent and Uncanny Scent [Savage Species] are particularly efficient at this.

So, blood hounds, makes sense.

[Yahzi]

Some great explanations of why castles are still useful.

But according to the DMG, 1 XP = 5 gp. Given that exchange rate, a Fortress (the best possible castle) costs as much as a 20th level character.

No fortress is worth a 20th level character.

Ergo, castles are still useful; they're just over-priced.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Some great explanations of why castles are still useful.

But according to the DMG, 1 XP = 5 gp. Given that exchange rate, a Fortress (the best possible castle) costs as much as a 20th level character.

No fortress is worth a 20th level character.

Ergo, castles are still useful; they're just over-priced.

But a thousand people can pay for a single castle, while they can't train to become one twentieth level character.

[Tvtyrant]

In D&D Glyphs, Runes, magic traps and long duration defensive spells all make entering a castle nearly impossible (even outside Mythals and Mythallars).

Duke Von Suke has a large castle surrounded by earthworks, with each door and window having glyphs of glitterdust attached that set off if someone other than the staff opens them. There is a servant-guard at every door that opens and closes it for guests/other individuals. The glyphs cost him a few hundred gold a year, but more impressively there is a Genius Loci attached by his great-grandfather to his bedroom. Assasins that enter must face an Elder Elemental of Air, nearly invisible and extraordonarily powerful.

[Hackulator]

Actually, as per Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, making a stronghold capable of floating is a mere 15k, and making able to fly at 24 miles a day is only 11k. For reference point, replacing your blood with a wierd substance to speed up healing is 182k

I finally found my stronghold guide, and as I thought, those are per space and both need to by purchased for the flying stronghold, so it's 26k per space. The absolute smallest example strongholds are over 25 spaces, so that's over 600k PURELY for the locomotion of your castle without paying for anything else.

[Necroticplague]

I finally found my stronghold guide, and as I thought, those are per space and both need to by purchased for the flying stronghold, so it's 26k per space. The absolute smallest example strongholds are over 25 spaces, so that's over 600k PURELY for the locomotion of your castle without paying for anything else.

Ah, missed that. Still, being very expensive is a far cry from being 'a...artifact'.

[Tvtyrant]

Ah, missed that. Still, being very expensive is a far cry from being 'a...artifact'.

Also Permanent Wall of Force, then just build on top of the wall and cover it so it cannot be dispelled.

[Hackulator]

Ah, missed that. Still, being very expensive is a far cry from being 'a...artifact'.

If something is more than the WBL for a level 20 character, it's narratively on par with an artifact for pre-epic characters. The small floating tower in that book is 2.8 million gp, basically all the WBL for an entire level 20 party, and therefore not attainable without DM fiat, just like an artifact.

[Tvtyrant]

If something is more than the WBL for a level 20 character, it's narratively on par with an artifact for pre-epic characters. The small floating tower in that book is 2.8 million gp, basically all the WBL for an entire level 20 party, and therefore not attainable without DM fiat, just like an artifact.

But here we can convince other people to sign up. "Put a dollar in the box to obtain true safety'"

Raffles, fundraisers, tithes, taxes, a nation can easily afford a flying castle and a party can easily get a nation.

[Necroticplague]

If something is more than the WBL for a level 20 character, it's narratively on par with an artifact for pre-epic characters. The small floating tower in that book is 2.8 million gp, basically all the WBL for an entire level 20 party, and therefore not attainable without DM fiat, just like an artifact.

There's a massive narrative difference between the two. One is a challenge of gathering the needed resources (the 1.4 million in materials the loyal wizard needs), the other is a literal impossibility. No amount of effort on your part will let you make a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms. A massive amount of effort could allow a sufficiently powerful wizard to just make this flying castle single-handedely.

[Mechalich]

I think much of this discussion is conflating two things: structures useful for strategic defense in general, and the specific type of defensive structure known as the 'castle' that was prominent for most of pre-industrial human history.

There will obviously be defensive structures of great strategic importance in a high fantasy world even if you go full Tippyverse, it's just a question of what those structures are going to actually be. What will they be made out of, how will they be constructed, and so forth. Now the precise answers are going to vary from setting to setting depending on the abundance of magic and monsters of certain types, but there are some fairly substantial considerations that occur even at low-levels that suggest defensive fortifications are likely to look very different.

1. Flying assaults are a problem from a very low level. Even without a race of sapients that flies from level 1 - of which there are a number - cavalry mounted on hippogriffs and similar animals comes online easily within the range of even an E6 setting. So any fortification of significance has to be prepared to face an airborne assault capable of using arrows, stone bombardment, and unleashing wand effects. As a result, protecting from airborne assault is just as important as attack from the horizontal plane. This is likely to result in the development of much more bunker-like structures, probably with durable earth or sand roofing to absorb blows, rather than anything like a traditional castle.

2. Attacks from beneath the earth are a problem, again from low-levels, as small earth elementals come online almost immediately, as do other burrowers. That means a fortress needs some kind of in-depth defense against those threats, such as sub-basements that are filled with water, or some other mechanism. This is a problem that has very few real-world analogues as even now in the 21st century most fortresses don't really have much to worry about in terms of someone penetrating the perimeter from below.

3. If incorporeal creatures exist, this needs to be addressed. In fact, pretty much any significant military asset - including soldiers - needs to be stored such that no one can just let a posse of wraiths (or something really nasty like a fire spectre) in and watch them destroy everything. Depending on how this is done that is also likely to influence construction priorities.

4. Monsters with absurd levels of superhuman strength, and notably, super-elephant strength, exist and can be mobilized in ways that influence stronghold construction. There's a good example in the Return of the King, where Mordor deploys an impossibly powerful battering ram to break the gates of Minas Tirith. A monster of colossal size may be able to just stomp small fortifications to bits.

[shaikujin]

There are 2 types of threats to consider in the OP's question -
1) Mundane invaders
2) Magical invaders

Defences against both are required. But if that's not possible (mages are too expensive, none available for hire etc), at the very basic, having a defence against mundanes is better than having no defences totally.



I'll consider that the castle owners is aware of magical threats and is wise enough to employ both mundane troops and also mages to defend the castle.

Even without adding static "magical" defences like anti-magic bricks mentioned in the OP, there"s still justification for the existence of mundane castles in a world where magic can be used to bypass the defences -

It's to keep the rest of the non-magical hordes of monsters/raiders out. The cheaper mundane garrison troops will be employed to deal with these invaders, using chokepoints/arrow slits/murder holes/traps as a force multiplier. Each second the mundane garrison delays the mundane hordes away from the in-house wizards, gives an extra second for the in-house wizards to do their job/help (or more time for someone to ring the alarm and help the castle owner to escape)

This saves time/effort for the more expensive (and less numerous) in-house wizards/clerics to focus on the magical threats or plug holes in the castle defences.

If the in-house wizards needs to deal with the mundane invading hordes, they risk not being able to spare effort against the invading hordes' wizards at the same time.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Since I'm jumping into the middle of a 75-post discussion, as I do, I'm replying to a lot of people, as I do. My replies are conveniently(?) divided up into some labeled spoiler-folders.

OP (and response to main question):


A spellcaster need not be 17th level to overtake a castle. Spiderclimb, Fly, Protection from Normal Arrows, Invisibility (and the higher level versions), and even Featherfall can all help a wizard or a wizard’s allies get up to and over a wall. Teleport is even better. Stone Shape can either open up a free door for invaders to knock in or be targeted on a foundation to just knock out a substantial section of castle. These are just the obvious ones. There are all sort of ways magic can be used creatively to attack a castle.
So once in wizard is in or near the castle, he can summon a bunch of troops or a cloud of poisonous gas or something. Or instead of moving the wizard, you could move in a well armored fighter or sneaking rogue. In any event, it’d be relatively easy to use magic to get a small elite part in to either hit the defenders from behind, open the gates to let an invading force through, or just head straight to the castle owner and kill or capture the ruling family within minutes.
All relevant points. However, it only matters if the enemies are likely to have mid-level spellcasters.


Castles would actually be a liability against most ethereal foes since it’s harder to flee from them.
I have to disagree. Castles have these things called "gates" which are literally made for letting people out (or in). A castle would be no more a hindrance to escape than a typical house—probably less, since it (usually) doesn't need as many internal walls.


Conversely, is too much magical protection unrealistic or unenjoyable? I don’t want to have every story I want to run about a siege, end up like this: “Sorry player of the party wizard, every brick is made of anti-magic, you have to sit this one out.” If you can make an affordable castle that’s magic proof, why not an affordable suit of anti-magic armor, or anti-magic the inn and everything else?
Not all magical defenses need to be antimagic. Maybe the castle walls give see invisibility to anyone on top of the wall, or act as a giant shocking hands trap. Maybe there are turrets which fire magical projectiles—fireballs or entangling vines or magic-dispelling bolts. Maybe the local lord built a bunch of those bat-house things, except for pseudodragons, and disturbing them results in getting stung to sleep and possibly nibbled a bit. If the sky's the limit for the attackers, the defenders should be similarly liberated.


What’s the best way to have Vancian magic and castles in the same setting?
1. Figure out the kinds of enemies that your lords and leaders expect to deal with. Hordes of orcs? Demonic invasions? Dragons? Rogue adventurers? Mundane bandits? It's going to vary from setting to setting.
2. Figure out what resources the lords and leaders have. Do they have spellcasters of their own? Divine assistance (as a reward for generations of devotion)? Retired adventurers and their stashes of magic items?
3. Figure out what the best way to use the latter to handle the former would be.
4. If the players are expected to attack the castle, design its defenses to be an interesting challenge. Instead of an antimagic field across the whole castle, maybe have some true-sighted turret operators firing dispel magic bolts. Instead of walls of force over everything, there are a few magic items held by respected officers that let them project a few individual walls of force where needed. Instead of making the walls nigh-indestructible, have magicians show up in a few rounds to cast wall of stone—but those few rounds will be enough for a well-prepared group of players.
5. If [4], make sure the players have a way to get that information ahead of time and plan around it.


Historical stuff


Castles are as much a status symbol as a fortification. A castle can mean the diffrence between being seen as a "country lord, little better than a pesant" and actual "nobility".
The same could be said of manor-houses, the sorts that were more common once castles were obsolete.


Castles are also where you keep the bulk of your active armed forces, your weapons for said forces, your monitary wealth, etc. It's an armed and fortified position that must be dealt with by any would-be invaders of the land, lest they have an army at their backs. Even in a high magic fantasy setting, most wars are going to be settled by mundane troops hacking each other to pieces...high level mages are too valuable to risk anywhere near the front lines.
...That's not how medieval wars were won. I'm pretty sure there has been no period in history where wars were primarily won by just hacking the enemy to pieces...maybe some tribal warfare, but the closest examples I can think of are mostly token displays of violence to essentially gauge how much each side wants whatever they're fighting over. In any case, sieges were critical to medieval warfare. That's part of why castles were a status symbol.



Maybe, that's only the case if the Wizards want to defend your castle.
Why wouldn't they? The people with castles are the people with noble blood and legitimate power, not to mention the fact that ideologies like "divine right" or "the mandate of heaven" might be backed by actual deities. Historically speaking, it would be an honor to get a cushy job in a lord's castle, maintaining magical defenses and occasionally chucking a fireball at siege engines.
A nobility which can't convince its citizens to work for it is not going to last long, magic or no magic.


On a more general note; flying castles were mentioned earlier, but I think they warrant a closer look. A flying castle is a lot easier to defend, especially if it's in a remote (and high) locale. Sure people can fly/teleport to it, but they have to find it first. This isn't too hard with Divination spells, but at least flying castles are cool.
Flying castles are also impractical for most peacetime castle activities, not to mention some wartime ones (attacking enemy supply lines, being supplied by your own supply lines, etc).


D&D's crappy worldbuilding


All worlds built under D&Ds system are ridiculous and unfeasible for a myriad of reasons, so I just don't find this particular argument compelling. Even the worlds built under D&Ds system don't actually use D&Ds system if you read most novels set in D&D worlds.
One Dragonlance novel had a random encounter.
But yeah, D&D doesn't really have a consistent anything.



But here we can convince other people to sign up. "Put a dollar in the box to obtain true safety'"

Raffles, fundraisers, tithes, taxes, a nation can easily afford a flying castle and a party can easily get a nation.
Which brings us to the question of how much money a typical noble of rank X has. I'd expect the liquid assets of all nobles in a region to be on the same order of magnitude as the GP limit of all the settlements in said region, since nobles control most of the wealth, but beyond that...who knows?


Silly


The bolded was basically my point. How can you have any kind of setting you expect us to believe lasted for any amount of time when it sets up a scenario in which much of it can be completely wiped out on a regular basis.
For some reason, that argument got me run out of /r/RWBY.
(Not quite that bad, but it wasn't well-received...)
http://i.imgur.com/OGpUHHM.png



You're also forgetting that in D&D worlds, there are gods who simply define the world to be the way they want.
"You know, Ehlonna, if you had given ecology five minutes' thought, you wouldn't need to constantly go in and tweak the environment to stop your creatures from destroying it."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, are you gonna help or not? These spider eaters aren't going to eat themselves."



But a thousand people can pay for a single castle, while they can't train to become one twentieth level character.
I've heard there are ways to use a thousand people to make a high-level character, but they're more of a demon thing than a gold-dragon thing.

[Hackulator]

There's a massive narrative difference between the two. One is a challenge of gathering the needed resources (the 1.4 million in materials the loyal wizard needs), the other is a literal impossibility. No amount of effort on your part will let you make a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms. A massive amount of effort could allow a sufficiently powerful wizard to just make this flying castle single-handedely.

A massive amount of effort could allow a sufficiently powerful wizard to make anything, from a narrative point of view. You said "narrative" but your argument is based purely on the mechanics of crafting.

[Necroticplague]

A massive amount of effort could allow a sufficiently powerful wizard to make anything, from a narrative point of view. You said "narrative" but your argument is based purely on the mechanics of crafting.
Because in a game, the mechanics tell at least part of the story. There is a massive leap from difficult to impossible. One is something you could aspire to do yourself, and is merely a goal to work towards. One is something pointless to even consider, because you will never, ever be able to do.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

Earth elementals can glide through stone and soil as easily as a fish can swim through water...

...but can they pass so easily through aquifers?

In fact, any burrowing creature trying to attack you from below will have to contend with flooded tunnels if it breaches the water table.

Simply building your castle over an aquifer should provide some protection against attacks from below at no cost!

[RoboEmperor]

Nope, castles are useless. So are armies.

1. Ranged combat sux
2. Low level creatures can never even hope to scratch higher level creatures even with a 100 crits in a row.
3. Spells utterly destroy castles. Disintegration is obvious. Polymorph Any Object turns the whole thing into a rabbit, or the top half into lava/acid so it melts the bottom half.

Result? All the benefits a castle provides (High ground, cover, chokepoints) are worthless.

[Jack_Simth]

Castles:
Useful vs. most (not all) lower-level threats. The same "High Magic" scenario that renders them useless can also be used to keep them somewhat relevant.

Take an arrow slit: One that is two inches wide and four feet tall will be fine for shooting out of... but it does NOT pass line of effect (that requires one square foot of penetration in a five-foot square - 2 inches by 4 feet is 96 square inches, vs. 144 square inches for a square foot). This will successfully prevent your archers from getting hit by Grease, Charm Person, Hypnotism, Sleep, Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Color Spray, Cause Fear, Ray of Enfeeblement, Reduce Person... and that's just the 1st level list of nasties in Core. To get something past that wall, you need 3rd level spells (Fireball has a clause about small openings that overrides the general rules, while Blink and Gaseous Form can get you past a wall), which means 5th level Wizards. The castle puts a complexity barrier on your opponents; the castle adds a requirement of certain keys on things that can effectively oppose the castle. Yes, there's a lot of things that can kill a castle - that's not necessarily the point. There are a lot of things a castle can help stop, and that makes it "useful" even if there are also things that can bypass a castle. "Worth the expense" is a different question, though.

[Hackulator]

Because in a game, the mechanics tell at least part of the story. There is a massive leap from difficult to impossible. One is something you could aspire to do yourself, and is merely a goal to work towards. One is something pointless to even consider, because you will never, ever be able to do.

Nothing is impossible in D&D. Absolutely nothing. Also, nothing is guaranteed that you can do it.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

Incorporeal undead could be thwarted with holy water traps into the masonry.
Simply make n% of your bricks hollow, and fill the hollow bricks with flasks of holy water.
Any incorporeal creature passing through your walls has an n% chance of passing through one of these flasks and taking 2d4 damage.

[Necroticplague]

Nothing is impossible in D&D. Absolutely nothing.
Because of the way the rules of the world work, there is actually quiet a bit that's impossible. Crafting an Artifact without the required divine ability is one such thing.

Also, nothing is guaranteed that you can do it.
Of course not. However, there is a guarantee if you meet certain prerequisites. If you're a 17th level caster with access to Reverse Gravity and 11K/Stronghold Space in proper materials and a sufficient amount of time, you can definitely do this.

[Zanos]

Because of the way the rules of the world work, there is actually quiet a bit that's impossible. Crafting an Artifact without the required divine ability is one such thing.
Actually, you can get the ability to craft artifacts from one of the chapters of the Nether Scrolls.

[Florian]

Because of the way the rules of the world work, there is actually quiet a bit that's impossible. Crafting an Artifact without the required divine ability is one such thing.

What rules of the world? We actually don´t have any in D&D. We have rules for how to play a game of a band of adventurers in a dungeon and that´s basically it. I´m always astonished about that urge to use that rules and try to extrapolate a simulation out of, that´s kind of trying to extrapolate a society out of Monopoly rules or how sea battles ought to work based out of Battleship rules.

[Pugwampy]

I always said a good DM should own a big dragon and a castle toy or at least the wooden blocks to build a castle .

Its a rather sucky fantasy game setting that has no castles in it .
Part of the dnd fun is hiding behind castle walls . siege engines , ladders , battering rams . The whole helms deep defence apocalypse fun time .

Who cares if a low level wizard owns the rock to mud spell .

[Hackulator]

Because of the way the rules of the world work, there is actually quiet a bit that's impossible. Crafting an Artifact without the required divine ability is one such thing.

Of course not. However, there is a guarantee if you meet certain prerequisites. If you're a 17th level caster with access to Reverse Gravity and 11K/Stronghold Space in proper materials and a sufficient amount of time, you can definitely do this.

I feel like you've never actually played D&D, you've just read the books and are extrapolating how games go from that.

[Jay R]

The fallacy is the absurd belief that mere stone makes a castle in a high-magic world.

In a high-level magic game like 3.5e, an average castle should have at least as much magic as the average party of murderhobos. An old castle should have much more.

It's been there for 300 years. How many abjuration spells have been cast? How much spell turning is built into the walls? How many traps are laid? How much magical detection is used inside each day for defensive purposes?

I would also expect many spells for castle defense to have been developed over the years. But since most players aren't all that interested in defending a castle, no splatbooks have developed this area (or not much).

[Necroticplague]

I feel like you've never actually played D&D, you've just read the books and are extrapolating how games go from that.

That statement is simultaneously irrelevant to the topic at hand, and factually wrong.

[Pugwampy]

Dont sweat guys . I have multiple photographic evidence of castles existing in DND land .


http://s6.postimg.org/j6wtrrvch/Pig_farm_siege_3.jpg

The fortified Pig farm


http://s6.postimg.org/aq61oyohd/image.jpg

The Fortified town of Griffinford <griffins not allowed >


http://s6.postimg.org/j1oh4cynl/Gob_fort_siege.jpg

Goblin Fort


http://s6.postimg.org/kfyhimrg1/Orky_fort_3.jpg

Das Orky Fort <German players get in for free>


http://s6.postimg.org/4i6bd429d/IMG_20160514_154837.jpg

The ****e and Bite tavern <fortified>


http://s6.postimg.org/e6q6scay9/c_castle_1.jpg

Dont be silly thats a just a toy castle in storage .

[Darth Ultron]

I would also expect many spells for castle defense to have been developed over the years. But since most players aren't all that interested in defending a castle, no splatbooks have developed this area (or not much).

I've never seen a CASTLE DEFENSE sourcebook either. It's just something that gets skipped over.

[Hackulator]

That statement is simultaneously irrelevant to the topic at hand, and factually wrong.

I mean, it's clearly NOT factually wrong, as I simply said how I feel.

It's also relevant in that you make statements like "any wizard with enough money and X spell could do this" but you are ignoring a million things that could happen in actual games that would prevent it. You claim to be making narrative arguments, but mainly back them up with mechanics, suggesting that you are mistakenly conflating the two.

[Necroticplague]

It's also relevant in that you make statements like "any wizard with enough money and X spell could do this" but you are ignoring a million things that could happen in actual games that would prevent it.
Such as?


You claim to be making narrative arguments, but mainly back them up with mechanics, suggesting that you are mistakenly conflating the two.

Because mechanics inform the narrative. DnD is not only a story, but a game. So the mechanics do say things about the world the narrative lives in. And the mechanics point towards only some gods or other artifacts allowing one to produce artifacts, while making flying castles are only very expensive and difficult. Thus, this informs of us a world with a distinction between the two.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Earth elementals can glide through stone and soil as easily as a fish can swim through water...
...but can they pass so easily through aquifers?
I'd personally rule that they pass through aquifers about as easily as a fish can swim through mud.



There are a lot of things a castle can help stop, and that makes it "useful" even if there are also things that can bypass a castle. "Worth the expense" is a different question, though.
There are ways to lower the expense. Some involve magic, but it's easily possible to build a fortress less expensively than a traditional castle. Building it out of wood, for instance, would leave it impervious to most normal attacks (potentially even fire, if you did something like soaking it regularly with a magical water source).



Because mechanics inform the narrative. DnD is not only a story, but a game. So the mechanics do say things about the world the narrative lives in.
This is true. However, it is also true that non-mechanical barriers can get in the way of perfectly rational mechanical arguments.
An analogy: An ecologist comes to the conclusion that the elephant population in a given region should be able to reach the millions (never mind how). A physicist points out that this would require more biomass than exists in that region, and would hence violate conservation of mass. This is an argument based in physics, not ecology, but it works, because the system being discussed (elephant populations) is beholden to both ecology and physics.

[Elder_Basilisk]

There are ways to lower the expense. Some involve magic, but it's easily possible to build a fortress less expensively than a traditional castle. Building it out of wood, for instance, would leave it impervious to most normal attacks (potentially even fire, if you did something like soaking it regularly with a magical water source).

This is a key item to consider. There are lots of kinds of castles in the world ranging from the "tear it down every night" fortified Roman encampment to the wooden motte and Bailey Norman castles thrown up quickly after the conquest of England, to elaborate stone fortifications like Krak Des chevaliers in Syria (if I'm translating crusader geography to modern nation borders correctly) to neoromantic things like Neuschwanstein. And that's just in Europe. Throw in Japanese Chinese and Indian fortifications or later star fort style fortifications and there is a wide range of "castles" that might make sense in any given situation.

Just because the cost might not justify a concentric crusader castle doesn't mean that more modest hill forts are not justified. And I doubt anyone is going to complain that their campaign doesn't look right because it has more modest hill forts rather than huge concentric castles in most places.

For my part, I tend to be suspicious of mechanics-heavy arguments that assume 1. Widespread distribution of the entire monster manual-just because there are hippogriffs in Geoff doesn't mean you can find one in the Tangles, 2
Widespread availability of all levels of magic (earlier in the thread, someone posted the breakdown of high level spell casters in a metropolis as though it proved that they were ubiquitous throughout an entire setting. Even assuming that all games must follow DMG demographics or they are departing from RAW -which is a pretty dubious assumption- it ignores that metropolises are often quite rare in publishes settings. Sure, Greyhawk is a metropolis in the Greyhawk setting, but there are a lot of areas without a Metropolis even within teleport distance. Just because Greyhawk has several people who can cast Wish doesn't mean you can find anyone to do it in the Theocracy of the Pale, the March of Sterich, the Grand Duchy of Geoff, the Holds of the Sea Princes, or any of a dozen other areas.) 3. That all factors hold across the entirety of a setting. In real life, castlelike fortifications continued to be used in Japan and eastern Europe long after Oliver Cromwell had systematically demolished the royalist castles in England. It turned out that they could still be useful if you were fighting the Sultan's armies or Oda Nobunga's samurai rather than Cromwell's New Model army. So it's entirely plausible that one part of a setting might have castles while another part might not.

[Scalenex]

My goal is to create a D&D or Pathfinder setting that makes sense, or at least stands up to moderate scrutiny. I am literally building it from the ground up starting with the Where the gods came from and what they did before and what they are doing now.

Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. While there are a lot of spells that can help defend a castle, I think arcane magic favors the attacker. I think the consensus, Vancian magic doesn’t make castles useless, but they do seem a bit pricey for what they do relative to the cost of buying other things in a D&D or Pathfinder world.

I think the solution is to make castles cheaper. A couple ways. I imagine a building crew with a dwarf supervisor would be more efficient at building than real world castle builders. I figure a little bit of magic could make building a castle quicker or easier. I could also have my god of stonework (who likes mortals building things) to deliberately make quarries more productive.

I'll also keep the defensive measures in mind. I especially like the idea of dogs to sniff out illusions. That's a precaution that even a lesser noble can afford to do.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

You could also consider using concrete. Concrete isn't listed as a building material in any D&D book I know, but the ancient Romans had it, and many medieval European structures used concrete (though not the special concrete Romans used that can set underwater). I see no reason why concrete couldn't exist in D&D. That should help to cut costs.

You can cut costs if you use your hardest materials only on exterior walls and fortifications, and use softer materials for interiors. It isn't necessary for your entire castle to be a labyrinthine dungeon crawl. You can build interior walls out of paper. Paper walls are even advantageous for eluding scry & fry wizards as you can slide the wall panels around easily to rearrange your castle interior.

[Pugwampy]

Originally Posted by Jay R View Post

I would also expect many spells for castle defense to have been developed over the years. But since most players aren't all that interested in defending a castle, no splatbooks have developed this area (or not much).

I have yet to run into any player who did not love this kind of scenario .
Most players are not given that opportunity because its a bit more work for DM .
This is a unique experience of mass combat and marathon time length that dungeons cannot offer . Very much worth doing at least once in a campaign.

The only con here is some classes enjoy an advantage .

[Yahzi]

My goal is to create a D&D or Pathfinder setting that makes sense, or at least stands up to moderate scrutiny.
I tried to do that in Lords of Prime (www.drivethrurpg.com/product/217953/Lords-of-Prime) (along with Generals and Merchants). You might find it interesting.

[Thunder999]

A castle would probably work to let the local lord and his loyal troops prevent a peasant revolt (one of the purposes for them IRL, peasants tend to outnumber the nobles and their men, so they needed the fortifications as a force multiplier), after all those peasants are unlikely to have much in the way of magical support, they'll mostly be commoners, likewise it would probably work against a horde of orcs as they probably don't have much in the way of magic, so might be useful to defend the edges of civilised lands.
Against an invading army from a foreign nation it's going to be a lot less effective, because they do have the resources to have trained wizards, clerics and such in their armies, likely in a similar manner to real world knights (i.e. more expensive to train troops with elevated status, do it as their actual job in society etc.), possibly supplemented with mercenary casters (either dedicated mercenaries or adventurers), this would rather nullify most of the benefits of a castle, unless you can manage permanent prismatic walls everywhere (and that's not exactly safe, plus they're too thin for battlements) then disintegrate spells will bring those walls down, if they have access to flight then that means they aren't forced to either assault the walls (climbing a wall or ladder while archers bombard you and people try to destroy or tip the ladder tends to be costly) or attack the gate (the weakest point in terms of durability for most castles, but the designers know that, so arrow slits, murder holes and usually multiple gate houses mean you'll take a lot of casualties if you try), teleportation is obviously an issue, but there's spells to stop that and it just doesn't bring enough troops without teleportation circle to really counter a castle. Teleporting or flying in invisibly to open a gate could be an issue, though alarm spells and guards with see invisibility should help.

[jayem]

A castle would probably work to let the local lord and his loyal troops prevent a peasant revolt (one of the purposes for them IRL, peasants tend to outnumber the nobles and their men, so they needed the fortifications as a force multiplier), after all those peasants are unlikely to have much in the way of magical support, they'll mostly be commoners, likewise it would probably work against a horde of orcs as they probably don't have much in the way of magic, so might be useful to defend the edges of civilised lands.
Against an invading army from a foreign nation it's going to be a lot less effective, because they do have the resources to have trained wizards, clerics and such in their armies, likely in a similar manner to real world knights (i.e. more expensive to train troops with elevated status, do it as their actual job in society etc.), possibly supplemented with mercenary casters (either dedicated mercenaries or adventurers), this would rather nullify most of the benefits of a castle, unless you can manage permanent prismatic walls everywhere (and that's not exactly safe, plus they're too thin for battlements) then disintegrate spells will bring those walls down, if they have access to flight then that means they aren't forced to either assault the walls (climbing a wall or ladder while archers bombard you and people try to destroy or tip the ladder tends to be costly) or attack the gate (the weakest point in terms of durability for most castles, but the designers know that, so arrow slits, murder holes and usually multiple gate houses mean you'll take a lot of casualties if you try), teleportation is obviously an issue, but there's spells to stop that and it just doesn't bring enough troops without teleportation circle to really counter a castle. Teleporting or flying in invisibly to open a gate could be an issue, though alarm spells and guards with see invisibility should help.

Yes, a fortification castle has to defend against everything, all the time. Whereas the attacker can match the weakness/wait.
Similarly with the villages, they not only have to have the cleric but a spare. A fighter a, ...and suddenly half the population aren't doing they're work.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Insisting that a castle has to be able to hold against everything to be useful is short-sighted. They have to be able to hold against threats they are designed to hold against. To use a real world example, the Maginot line was designed to hold off anything the Germans could throw at it. It turned out that designing fixed fortifications like that was not worthwhile. That doesn't mean that Cheyenne mountain or nuclear missile silos don't work.

Likewise, if you are a Baron and are worried about the neighboring Baron whose fief is just a little bit bigger than yours and about raiders from the sea/across the border, you will find a castle that is good enough to stand off the neighboring Baron and the raiders quite useful-even if it can't stand off your king or a serious invasion from the neighboring kingdom.

[jayem]

Insisting that a castle has to be able to hold against everything to be useful is short-sighted. They have to be able to hold against threats they are designed to hold against. To use a real world example, the Maginot line was designed to hold off anything the Germans could throw at it. It turned out that designing fixed fortifications like that was not worthwhile. That doesn't mean that Cheyenne mountain or nuclear missile silos don't work.

Likewise, if you are a Baron and are worried about the neighboring Baron whose fief is just a little bit bigger than yours and about raiders from the sea/across the border, you will find a castle that is good enough to stand off the neighboring Baron and the raiders quite useful-even if it can't stand off your king or a serious invasion from the neighboring kingdom.
Yes, but it also has to (the system as a whole at least*) hold against each of the options the Baron can use, while the Baron only has to use one.
It's a bit like rock/paper/scissors where you have to go first.

In the case of the Maginot line, forcing the germans to attack through the the North (where the Armies were) was a partial success. But the fact it had combined system had a weakness in the (not as impossible to cross) Ardennes made the whole thing not work as well as intended.

It's still probably useful at low levels (after all it uses a prepared spell to enter). So if you say hire a level 1 caster to live alone in it all year, and the baron hires a level 2 caster to attack it alone one day, it probably is close to even. One spell to enter, and then the defender has the inititive.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

In the case of the Maginot line, forcing the germans to attack through the the North (where the Armies were) was a partial success. But the fact it had combined system had a weakness in the (not as impossible to cross) Ardennes made the whole thing not work as well as intended.

And those Ardennes would on their turn have been harder to cross if the Germans would have had to go at it with their backs turned to Fort Eben-Emael (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael). This fortress was impressively well defended against aerial bombardments, but not against air units, which turned out to be a crucial distinction.

The most important lesson learned from fortifications on the western front is that they don't work in isolation. Any fortification has weaknesses, and because the fortification is an immobile thing the enemy can engage those weaknesses as they see fit, unless you address their attempts with your own units. The Dutch waterlines in WWII were not useless, not by a long shot. The German army lost easily more men attacking them than the Dutch lost in the defense. When the fighting ended (after only five days, but still), out of the three main lines one had held, one had just been retreated from but had not actually been taken yet and one was overrun early, but the backup line held for the remainder of the attack. But any line on the ground is weak to being flown across, and that was the main weakness not appropriately addressed before the shooting started. (Several orders for additional anti-air equipment had been placed before the war... at German companies.) The difference in army sizes was such that those lines were not going to hold indefinitely anyway, but if the water lines and Eben-Amael and the Maginot line and several other defenses had all functioned more optimally, who knows, maybe France could have held.

You will always need a good mobile defense force for a successful defense, but a fortress can multiply the effectiveness of those forces. An enemy forced into a choke-point can be a lot easier to take out, but having just the choke-point and a bunch of guns pointed at it is not going to get the enemy to kill themselves. A castle, even in d&d, raises the cost of an attack, even if an expensive long siege can be replaced by the services of a rare powerful wizard. It's less effective than in the real historical world, but it still adds something. Because of this a castle can still serve as a base for units like light cavalry, who are strongest when they strike on their own initiative, with carefully chosen targets. But a castle alone is not worth much. Even in the real world, a castle without a proper garrison may still not be too easy to invade, but it can be ignored quite handily, because it has no ability to strike out at the area it's supposed to be protecting. So, in d&d, have fortifications manned by anything that counters the weakness of the fortification. If you don't have those units, don't have the fortification.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Even in the real world, a castle without a proper garrison may still not be too easy to invade, but it can be ignored quite handily, because it has no ability to strike out at the area it's supposed to be protecting.
Or they could walk in and claim the castle as their own. But I get your point.


I'd said it before and I'll say it again; fortifications needed to be redesigned for gunpowder, and for aircraft, and ICBMs, and they'd need to be redesigned for magic. Maybe castles would be made cheaper, out of wood and earth. Maybe they would be made stronger, with magical enchantments and whatnot. It all depends on what magic is available and how common it is, and how the defenders can use their resources to counter their threats. (And the writer's imagination, of course.)
Though discussions of how fortifications would be different would have to be their own thread...