Each ballista bolt is a harpoon attached to a giant boulder. This does 1d6 of damage per 10 ft of movement speed when they hit it, followed by DC 20 Reflex save or lose the rest of their movement, and if it doesn't have hover, it falls. They're easy to see during the day, but a DC 25 Spot check to see at night. Now criss-cross the canyon with giant chains, this makes any flying creature hesitant to assault your castle, because it's going to get clotheslined. The canyon walls should be significantly higher than the castle's. Gonna take a page from Age Of Worms, here.īuild on a mesa in the middle of a giant canyon. Stone ceilings were sometimes done too though, which should probably be your goal. I should probably point out that many castles had wooden roofs, which is probably not the best defense against a dragon attack.
But I think that's only a 5-foot wide hole.
So, I guess, 8 rounds to make a hole, if the wall is 5 feet thick. that same dragon above will probably take off 7 or 8 inches-worth of wall HP per round, if I didn't mess up my figures. I'm not really clear on how hard a wall is to tip, but maybe if you build it right there will be no way to tip it without breaking it.ĭealing damage to the wall is a much easier prospect for the dragon. So, in order to make sure the dragon can't pull a Kool Aid man through your wall even on a natural 20, it needs to be 10 inches thick. A great wyrm gold dragon has Strength 47. The stone wall created by a Wall of Stone spell has a break DC of 20 + 2 per inch of thickness. What resources do you have to build this castle? Is it going to be an ordinary stone castle crafted by mundane laborers? Or are we talking exotic substances and magic, here? Yes, putting it inside a mountain is a very good step.
But where is the castle? Burrow doesn't work through solid stone (there's exceptions, but dragons with those exceptions are uncommon). You're constructing the castle, and that's a good time to be thinking about it. If you can narrow down what colors will be after you, you can narrow down what you'll need to prepare to face.Īlso consider your resources, and how much leeway you have with what and where. Some can burrow, some can swim, some can change shape, some can walk up walls, et cetera. while still not registering as magical).Īlso keep in mind that there's a very wide range of special abilities among dragons. Even the half-casters are problematic: Polymorph, Invisibility, and Misdirection is a nice little core combination that's VERY good at getting folks where you don't want them to reach (consider a mouse that doesn't register as magical for a moment, then add invisibility on top of that. "How do I use a castle to defend against an arbitrary spellcaster with 9th level spells" is a tough one, and that might be your question, depending on your opponents. Many have Cleric and domain spell access. Dragons vary from "no casting" (the youngest core dragon with any casting at all is "Young", and the White doesn't pick up casting at all until the Adult stage) to having 9th level spells available (Great Wyrm Red, Brass, Bronze, Copper, Gold, Silver, of the core set). The more information you have on what will likely be attacking, the better. Start with "Get as much information as you can".
Castle defense 2 fire dragon free#
Setting aside the inevitable argument that a castle is not the best defense against dragons, how can we do our best to dragon-proof the place? I love story time, so feel free to share any past experience you have with fortifications designed with dragons in mind (bonus points for in-character perspectives, :)).You've got your work cut out for you. We're playing 3.5, and our players have strong reason to suspect that dragons will be attempting to level the castle that we're constructing.