Why do they bother with castles in DD?

[Galdred]

I was looking for a good RPG with castle construction elements (like in NwN2, but where the castle elements have more influence on the game), but then, I have been wondering why they even bothered with castles in the first place:

If mages are pretty common and can toss fireballs and homing magic missiles, what protection does a castle provide exactly, relative to its cost?

Are there any magic rich fantasy setting (not necessarily a videogame) in which defensive architecture is very different from our medieval one? If not, what do you think would be the sensible thing to do to get a high defensive return on investment in such universe?

 

[Destroid]

Magic shields powered by scores of enslaved child mages overseen by a shadowy organisation of high ranking wizards. Life is brutal and short in the shield corps but without them we would be defenceless against the magical denizens of the wilds.

 

[Malakal]

Mages are not common. If they are, then yes, castles become what they became in our world after good cannons were developed ie obsolete (still, star forts were quite useful from time to time). But if mages are rare then castles dont care about them since 20 catapults > one mage anyway.

That or walls are enchanted with protection spells.

 

[tindrli]

 

[Azrael the cat]

Well if by 'DD' you mean 'Dungeons and Dragons', and not some fantasy about large bra sizes, then I'd assume that the system's massive array of shielding, absorption and anti-magic spells play a role. From what I recall, the player skills and spells aren't supposed to be an exhaustive listing of all physical and magical activities, but just those that are of use to small-group adventurers (hence the ones that your characters might feasibly learn, while living as adventurers).

Remember, 'adventurer' is basically a kind of job in D&D. Other NPCs might have reason to engage in sculpting, craftsmanship etc that is simply beyond the reach of someone who is living their life on the road. It's why your all-powerful high-level adventurers don't usually have more than a small-to-moderate set of personal lands and don't have armies doing their adventuring for them - a similarly powerful character who was a property developer, or a general, might have that stuff, but as an adventurer you get the skills that form the various adventuring classes.

SO, just as the setting includes stuff like warships, trebuchet and engineering (for plumbing, building, etc), even though your characters won't directly be accessing that stuff, we can assume that it also includes anti-magic building materials, castle walls that absorb destructive spells, materials with resistance, also perhaps buffed by on-site casters, depending on how wealthy the castle-owner is.

Edit:
What I fucking hate is parts in computer games where it tells your max-skilled thief 'sorry, you need a key to open this lock'. These days there often isn't even an explanation, and even in the older days they'd just put something like 'there's a special enchantment', or 'the lock can't be picked'. Surely the ability to pick difficult locks - i.e. ones with magical components and good design - is exactly what my character is learning when I max his picklock skills out! How can he be even a decent thief, let alone a top one, if he can only pick the crap locks? And surely, if this is a setting where magic locks exist, even if they aren't common, the very thing that separates my maxed out picklocker from your junior d-grade tramp is that my guy has the mastery to crack the best systems around? In a magic setting, that means familiarity with magic components in locks.

 

[Morkar Left]

There are whole castle guides from AD&D 1rst to D&D 3rd Edition which cover the whole magical protection things. It's still silly in a world like FR where every tiny lord has at least 1 mage to support him and every major facton has enough magic to destroy a whole castle in an eyeblink.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Which spells make castles obsolete in D&D? Mages can't fire magic missiles at hidden targets and firebals would just put a smudge on the stone walls - magic missiles aren't like cannons - cannon balls do kinetic damage to walls, not fire damage.

Edit:
What I fucking hate is parts in computer games where it tells your max-skilled thief 'sorry, you need a key to open this lock'. These days there often isn't even an explanation, and even in the older days they'd just put something like 'there's a special enchantment', or 'the lock can't be picked'. Surely the ability to pick difficult locks - i.e. ones with magical components and good design - is exactly what my character is learning when I max his picklock skills out! How can he be even a decent thief, let alone a top one, if he can only pick the crap locks? And surely, if this is a setting where magic locks exist, even if they aren't common, the very thing that separates my maxed out picklocker from your junior d-grade tramp is that my guy has the mastery to crack the best systems around? In a magic setting, that means familiarity with magic components in locks.

It's because of the subhuman Bioware-style design. If the player could pick the lock, they would miss a part of the game content (quest for the key) and we can't have any of it.

 

[Galdred]

Which spells make castles obsolete in D&D? Mages can't fire magic missiles at hidden targets and firebals would just put a smudge on the stone walls - magic missiles aren't like cannons - cannon balls do kinetic damage to walls, not fire damage.

You are right about the castle itself being able to sustain most mage spells, but it would fail in providing adequate protection to its defenders: they would still be visible in a castle, even behind a murderhole, so they can still be targeted by a magic missile, and although the fireball cannot damage the walls much indeed, it can be fired above the machicolation to hit the guys guarding the rampart: the wizzard would not damage the castle much (although the drawbridge and gate could be damaged).

As a siege can be quite long, and the defenders cannot easily go out, there is not much preventing the mage to rest afterwardss.

I was just trying to imagine how magicless people would defend against constant harassment for neighboring sorcerers in a generic medieval fantastic setting in which magic would be rare, but not to the point they can be ignored, with something like 1 skilled mage out of 10.000 people: that is about 1 for 100 landed knights in a country similar to medieval England.

I guess it would make sense to have castle looks like renaissance era forts as Malakal suggested, or even bunkers to provide cover against aoe spells, if the defenders don't have mages of their own to cast magic protection.

 

[Morkar Left]

Which spells make castles obsolete in D&D? Mages can't fire magic missiles at hidden targets and firebals would just put a smudge on the stone walls - magic missiles aren't like cannons - cannon balls do kinetic damage to walls, not fire damage.

Besides that there is a fuckton of magic spells that can harm walls and what was already stated; you can just teleport in the fortress, fly over it or summon monsters into it.

Traditional fortresses only make sense with few magicians if you want a realistic world with such a powerlevel like in FR.

 

[mondblut]

Transmute rock to mud, the best siege spell ever.

Clerics can go with Stone to flesh instead

 

[Galdred]

Transmute rock to mud, the best siege spell ever.

Clerics can go with Stone to flesh instead

Wouldn't that create a huge flesh golem?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Which spells make castles obsolete in D&D? Mages can't fire magic missiles at hidden targets and firebals would just put a smudge on the stone walls - magic missiles aren't like cannons - cannon balls do kinetic damage to walls, not fire damage.

Edit:
What I fucking hate is parts in computer games where it tells your max-skilled thief 'sorry, you need a key to open this lock'. These days there often isn't even an explanation, and even in the older days they'd just put something like 'there's a special enchantment', or 'the lock can't be picked'. Surely the ability to pick difficult locks - i.e. ones with magical components and good design - is exactly what my character is learning when I max his picklock skills out! How can he be even a decent thief, let alone a top one, if he can only pick the crap locks? And surely, if this is a setting where magic locks exist, even if they aren't common, the very thing that separates my maxed out picklocker from your junior d-grade tramp is that my guy has the mastery to crack the best systems around? In a magic setting, that means familiarity with magic components in locks.

It's because of the subhuman Bioware-style design. If the player could pick the lock, they would miss a part of the game content (quest for the key) and we can't have any of it.

I know, I know, but even then, they could design the content so it doesn't lead to absurdities. E.g. if the player is stealing a note from a document archive, then they could make the content-heavy part of the quest the bit where the player has to find a way of translating the document, rather than just the obtaining of it. Not my preferred quest design, as it means fake Bioware choices, but there's no need for 'fake Bioware choices PLUS cockblocking all skill paths other than combat'.

 

[mondblut]

Wouldn't that create a huge flesh golem?

Creating a golem takes a lot more than that. Ask dr. Frankenstein.

According to the inimitable IUDC, casting stone to flesh at natural rock produces a lot of venison.

 

[Phelot]

I always liked the Walls from Magic: The Gathering. Something cool about a giant wall of living spears or bones or some other weird shit.

 

[SCO]

Which spells make castles obsolete in D&D? Mages can't fire magic missiles at hidden targets and firebals would just put a smudge on the stone walls - magic missiles aren't like cannons - cannon balls do kinetic damage to walls, not fire damage.

Bigby's hands of double fisting.

Followed by Bigby's Insulting hand.

 

[Davaris]

There is a book that discusses this subject, called 'A Magical Medieval Society Western Europe'.

If you get it, look up the section 'On Siege'.

 

[Galdred]

There is a book that discusses this subject, called 'A Magical Medieval Society Western Europe'.

If you get it, look up the section 'On Siege'.

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of book I was looking for!