Re: (TFT) Wither castles?

["Brett Slocum" <slocum@skypoint.com>]

From: Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>
>  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.

One person getting into the castle may not be enough. Someone could just 
climb into a castle (lots of skill) much cheaper than the magic required to do 
the same. But that one person still needs to avoid the guards, get to the gate 
tower, and lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis without being 
stopped. And there will be magical defenses. Door locks that only open for 
sworn vassals of the lord. Fireproofing on the drawbridge or gate. Secret 
passwords that operate the portcullis winch. etc. These are cheaper than 
covering the entire castle with Reverse Missiles or whatever. How about See 
Invisible amulets? And isn't it cheaper to just bribe someone inside than to 
buy multiple magical items worth thousands each?

BTW, even $2000 is more than most minor nobility have cash on hand to buy 
such things. Their wealth is mostly in their lands and population. Historically, 
seven silver pennies bought enough food to feed the masses of folks walking 
to the Holy Land during the second crusade for a week.

>  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.

Well, for one thing, in a feudal society, labor is cheap, and the lord is entitled 
to a certain amount of free labor a year from his vassals. That may take the 
form of troops or peasant laborers. I believe the numbers are something like 
45 days of service for each adult male, either as labor or military.

To see good castle rules, find an old copy of Chivalry and Sorcery (1st or 2nd 
Ed.). Also, nation-building tables that give numbers of cities, castles, keeps, 
manor houses, etc. with numbers of knights, men-at-arms, and peasants. 
Extremely useful. These rules in general are some of the best RPG material 
on the medieval world plus magic. I've heard that Chivalry and Sorcery, The 
Rebirth (the latest from Britannia Games Design) is very much in the spirit of 
the old C&S, but I don't know if it has this same info.

But you are correct. If the cost of penetrating a castle falls below a certain 
level and is widespread (like gunpowder in our non-magical history), castles 
will change to become palaces instead of fortifications.


---
Brett Slocum  --  slocum@skypoint.com  --  ICQ #13032903
Home page: http://www.skypoint.com/~slocum/
"Ah'm yer pa, Luke." -- if James Earl Ray was the voice of Darth Vader
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