Re: (TFT) Castles? A good investment?

["Quite Confused" <Confused3141@hotmail.com>]

> Hi Everyone,
> I have been working on and off for many years on
> a system on the cost to build castles.   This has made me
> think that the TFT economic system is messed up (The cost of
> a rapier is only 20 times that of one day's food, etc.)

I've always used price lists as suggestions. There are always places where
stuff can cost 2, 4, 10 or whatever times more than the rulebook list, if
you can get it at all. And I believe that the cost of a brace of pistols was
pretty cheep in the western goldrush towns. Plus rapiers break.

> Let us pretend that the economic system is fixed
> so that cheap things (like peasant labor and food) become
> VERY cheap.

What about if you knew exactly how many silver coins were in the adventure
area? If there were only $100 per person in a given region if all the money
in the region were evenly distributed then this will give you a much better
idea of the relative value of treasure/equipment, labor, etc. not to mention
a gauge of relative wealth. If a party finds a large treasure near a typical
town in a typical adventure type region (borders of the empire where
monsters still exists) it ought to really affect the local economy. It might
even piss off the people who were considered rich before the party made the
strike.

> However, TFT magic makes it so easy to blow down
> walls, Universal Solvent them, fly over them, Reverse
> Missiles the arrows of the defenders, etc. that I wonder if
> castles make sense.

Well any adventurer who doesn't have a place to keep and store equipment
isn't gonna be much of a match for an adversary who has access to the
resources of some kind of stronghold, or at least a place or two to keep
some extra stuff, house some henchmen, etc.

> Basically the cost of defensive and offensive
> weaponry is what is at issue here.  The cost of buying
> magic items for one person is far less than magically
> protecting the castle itself.
>
> For example I wanted my castle to have Reverse
> Missiles.  Rather than enchanting each rock, I enchanted
> huge thin metal sheets each of which was about 3m
> square.  Then I hung these sheets over the stone walls.
> I didn't even have to make every sheet enchanted, even
> doing 10% of them made catapulters very nervous.
>
> However the cost remained astronomical.

Well yeah. I find it interesting that in some game worlds it can be assumed
that there are enough resources in an area for the characters to be able to
buy anything they want, straight off the price list, simply because they
have the money. Like how many blacksmiths would there have to be in an area
to be able to produce quite allot of 3m^2 metal sheets in a reasonable
amount of time? What do they do when they aren't making metal sheets? Is
anybody tending to things like horseshoes while all this sheet making is
going on? How about those magic items? Is this a world where magic is freely
taught? Are wizards commonplace? Can my enemies ride into an area and kill
all the blacksmiths and wizards as a tactic?

>
> Rather than enchanting the castle, we could
> buy magic items for the defenders.  If the castle defenders
> has a hero that is immune to the attackers weapons and
> who can take out the toughest hero on the attacking side
> goes a long way to intimidate the attacking peasantry.
> But then why not buy magic items rather than castles?

Where are you gonna put the magic items?

> Basically TFT's system of cheap magic items /
> expensive labor makes me think that castles don't make
> sense.   Even if we assume that castles are cheap to build
> I think magic means that it is too easy for small
> magicked strike forces to eliminate the advantages of
> castles for themselves and the normal troops following.
>
> So the questions for the list is:  Should castles
> exist?

Yes. Even if for nothing else than maintaing a location for troops (with
lots of magic items) to be stationed in the area. And just because something
is cheep in dollars, it may be expensive in time to produce. Did you ever
read the Princess Bride? The part about Indigos father making a sword for a
six fingered man was very illuminating. I'd bet that if you had to burn up
allot of Universal Solvent to get into a castle you might not have enough
left to do another. Or maybe the location is important enough for some
reason that it would make taking the castle whole preferable to destroying
it. And if you don't have much, or any, magic then they work that way too. I
think the only way they don't work is if you can buy anything you want from
the price list any time you want too as long as you have the money and there
is infinite money available in the area for the character to draw from. Even
then a character would have to put excess stuff SOMEWHERE. Probably like you
mention bellow.

> Perhaps they should be comfortable airy houses
> with little defensive value?

That's how the east did it. Castles made of paper.....

Jay
"Always store your beer in a cool, dark place"
R.A.H.
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