Given the potential vulnerability that castles have when magic is around, how does an army on Faerun assault a castle? Do they lay siege? Send in invisible assassins? air assault with flying creatures? Earth motes? Does building castles make any sense as a fortification?
Thanks.
Here is my take: Classes and the like are generally for players only, special NPC's or special organizations. They aren't for the common soldier and whatnot - PC's are meant to be elite individuals who are part of the top 1%. Think of them as Olympic Athletes, or someone who has gone "pro" and is a member of a major league sports team.
If you want to know this because you want your PC's to participate in a battle (amid common soldiers and what not), then here are my suggestions.
1. Narrate the battle for the common soldiers. Don't bother rolling dice. Describe it in a way that you think is appropriate to the situation and your take on the setting.
2. Have the PC's focus on a key objective. For example, let's say there is a dragon, a demon, a giant, a big ogre with a giant battle axe, whatever. That's who the PC's will be fighting, along with it's minions. Those types of things would be outside the capabilities of the common soldier, and thus that is why the players would be valuable to them.
3. In essence you'd run it like a standard combat, except you'd just narrate and describe what is going on around the PC's. You can use ally or enemy soldiers as tactical diversions, obstacles or props for the battle.
4. You can base the outcome of the battle on the outcome of the PC's battle, or have a number of pre-defined outcomes that seem appropriate to your narration.
I'm assuming that's why you'd want to know.
I'd like to know how much of the stuff we see in adventuring gets into the larger battles. If there was a Warhammer like battle system in D&D, what would be populating the armies?
Say Waterdeep defending itself against a horde of orcs. Or Cormyr defending itself against Thay or a more conventional adversary.
-For an example of Waterdeep doing just that, defending itself from an invasion on the large scale, see the Threat from the Sea trilogy. Given the nature of any threat, asides for the militia/standing army of any given settlement, private citizens may or may not pitch in to aid in the defense of the realm. In Waterdeep's case, it has the benefit of being inhabited by numerous magicians.
I'd like to know how much of the stuff we see in adventuring gets into the larger battles. If there was a Warhammer like battle system in D&D, what would be populating the armies?
-DRAGON magazine has NUMEROUS issues dedicated to various aspects of war, be it strategy, spells, tactics, history, monsters, examples, and so on. I'd recommend checking some of those out- they're not Forgotten Realms specific, but they demonstrate D&D rules (at the time, 3e) panning out on a large-scale battlefield. Champions of Valor/Ruin, two Forgotten Realms specific sourcebooks contain information that can be used in that vein, that are Forgotten Realms specific.
:PSay Waterdeep defending itself against a horde of orcs. Or Cormyr defending itself against Thay or a more conventional adversary.
I'd like to know how much of the stuff we see in adventuring gets into the larger battles. If there was a Warhammer like battle system in D&D, what would be populating the armies?
Well as LK pointed out Waterdeep has a large number of spell casters (some of them are rather powerful) to help defend it.
My suggestion when having an army assault a city is to do the following:
1. Look for all the named NPC's in the immediate and surrounding area. Determine where they are and if they are going to participate in the battle (directly or indirectly.)
2. Determine the powers, abilities, and the like for the NPC's involved along with what they can contribute.
3. Determine how exactly you want the battle to play out.
4. Determine what counters you need to deal with the known NPC's. For example, let's say you have a powerful Orc Wizard among the army. He opens a planar gate to the abyss and demons come pouring out. This distracts uber NPC X, Y and Z.
5. Determine what you want the players to encounter, just like you would for a normal combat.
6. Create a general narrative feel for what the combat will be like - how will the Orc's attack? How many Orc's are there? How did they get there? Are they laying siege to the city or trying to storm in and kill everyone in their path (and thus the battle is taking place in the streets)? How this plays out should be obvious once you've figured out the narrative basics and know a bit about the city itself (layout and individuals of importance).
As for what the players see, limit it to what is happening directly in their immediate area. Don't worry about narrating something outside of their sight, it's pointless. If there is something they need to know they can find out later.
Just remember that a battle is chaotic, and reflect that in your narration. Orc's laying siege to or attacking Waterdeep (and to actually be a threat) are going to come in huge numbers and waves. Getting them close enough to the city to do it should be your main concern.
Hope that helps.
As for what the players see, limit it to what is happening directly in their immediate area. Don't worry about narrating something outside of their sight, it's pointless. If there is something they need to know they can find out later.
-A DM in a D&D game I was in had the party teleported to Middle-Earth, where we defended the fortress of Helm's Deep, when it was being sieged. This is how the DM handled things, concerning the combat. Our characters were assigned a specific area to protect, and we only dealt with that specific area, with the rest of the combat going on around us being nothing more than "background noise", so to speak.
Since I play alot of Warhammer Fantasy Battle I'd imagine it'd look alot like that.
If you want to see what this would look like "live action"/CGI just go watch the LoTR movies.
It can be a troll, ogre, dragon, whatever... but it's something that requires the players specifically and is too much for a common soldier to take on toe to toe without their help.
-R.A. Salvatore's novels (especially the Hunter's Blade trilogy) often demonstrate conflict on that large-scale war level.
And The Wizardwar by E. Cunningham has a nice battle scene in it, which shows how a nation of mights wizards would deal with an invading army. Let's just say, I do not want to be a soldier at their frontlines. ;) If it becomes nasty for them, the wizardlords in the back use some really vile spells that can destroy entire armies (one of them created a huge water elemental and used for it the blood of the soldiers fighting directly at the first lines).
Also in her Evermeet novels are some scenes how elves would fight and yes they would use dragons, and other flying animals to dominate the air and wreak havoc among the enemy troops. Then I think every well organized army will use priests and healers in the back lines to strenghten and heal their comrades. Since elves are not that strong as they used to be in the "good old days" I think they will now use amries in much smaller scale, more like hit and run tactics. That's how RAS described their part in the war against Obould's horde.
Given the re-emphasis on miniatures in 4E, and at least one designer's interest in Vaasa, I wonder if they'll re-visit these rules for Bloodstone at any point?
-Highly doubtful.
I'm actually envisioning Warhammer in my mind a little but of course there are some different things -- Dwarven/Empire cannon/guns, Skaven and their warp guns, chaos creatures, and so on. So I don't want to get too deeply into the idea that the two worlds would handle warfare just the same.
Also I am of the opinion that the only reason why there are castles in D&D is that they're cool and we had castles in our own medieval period. I'm thinking they make no more sense in Faerun than they do in the world of rifled cannon -- they are just gigantic vulnerable expensive targets. I don't frankly know what WOULD be used as a fortification -- maybe star forts with anti-aircraft ballista/magic? I don't know but that's also some of my motivation -- how the heck do you defend a position in this kind of world? Castles are about layered defenses, and when you can bypass all the layers what is the point?
Even a knight in full plate can be trained faster and for a better price (about a year of training and 3000 gp for barded horse, arms and armor).
So that leads to cheap armies largely being made of infantry, cavalery and scouts that have to be kept behind borders or away from serfs. Castles will still have a strong tactical significance and would thus be as prominent as they are in the realms now.
The addition of magic to a battlefied doesn't have that profound influence on an armies composition because of the economics of magic and warfare. The difference in time and money spent to train someone in magic compared to militia training is very great. Equiping and training a foot soldier might cost around 21 gp and take 2 days of work. Doing the same for a spellcaster would require an investment of about 5000 gp and would take years of training. [I imagine that the cost of components over the years can prove a significant amount of that money, next to the cost of the tutors spellcasting, his tutoring, and any collateral damage done when trying evocations]
Even a knight in full plate can be trained faster and for a better price (about a year of training and 3000 gp for barded horse, arms and armor).
So that leads to cheap armies largely being made of infantry, cavalery and scouts that have to be kept behind borders or away from serfs. Castles will still have a strong tactical significance and would thus be as prominent as they are in the realms now.
-According to the 3e PHB (The only one I have), the cost of a spell is Caster level x (Spell level x 10). Your numbers seem a bit inflated- that is, the actual casting of spells, as opposed to "starting a character" from 1st level as a member of the armed forces.
I am envisioning what costs are made on a nationwide scale to field battallions of war mages. Sending teens to tutors on a master-apprentice based tutoring will not get you coherent military minded mages that are willing to support an army. It requires a specialistic arcane academy that delivers properly trained (level 4 or so) sorcerers and wizards.
Paying a tutor for a prospective mage isn't cheap though; and funding an arcane academy requires a subsistance level that not many regions in fearun can support. What gp value would a family in fearun have to pay to give training in the Art to intelligent commoners or nobles children?
Not sure what you're saying. Casting lowlevel spells requires at least the cost for material components. And yes, even 0-th level spells have a cost.
-Most of which are so minimal that most DM's ignore them*, chocking everything necessary within reason to the contents of the "Spell Component Pouch", which costs a whopping 5 GP.
* Which, in world, means virtually valueless things, like bits of string, wax, rocks, and so on.
I am envisioning what costs are made on a nationwide scale to field battallions of war mages. Sending teens to tutors on a master-apprentice based tutoring will not get you coherent military minded mages that are willing to support an army. It requires a specialistic arcane academy that delivers properly trained (level 4 or so) sorcerers and wizards.
Paying a tutor for a prospective mage isn't cheap though; and funding an arcane academy requires a subsistance level that not many regions in fearun can support. What gp value would a family in fearun have to pay to give training in the Art to intelligent commoners or nobles children?
-What I was saying was that a nation does not necessarily have to field it's own army of magi, like Cormyr does with the War Wizards. Take a city-state like Waterdeep, for example. The city itself suffers from no shortage of various magi living within it's walls. The PHB gives us that formula for the cost of spellcasting services (Caster level x [Spell level x 10] GP). Ten 10th Level Wizards contracted by the government of Waterdeep, casting ten Fireball spells, strategically placed to cause the most damage over the most amount of space, yada, yada, yada, will cost [10 x (3 x 10)] x 10 GP, which comes out to 3,000 GP. Add in the material component cost for a Fireball spell, of course, which, in reality, comes to very little once more.
for 3ed:
you are afraid of invisible intruders?
permanent Invisibility purge & alertnes
you are afraid of teleporting enemies?
forbidance
you are afraid of enemy spellcasters?
hire a mage your self
as a quick & simple rule
infantry fights infrantry
mages fight mages
Well Castles are not pointless CarbonDragon, you just fight magic with magic.
for 3ed:
you are afraid of invisible intruders?
permanent Invisibility purge & alertnes
you are afraid of teleporting enemies?
forbidance
you are afraid of enemy spellcasters?
hire a mage your self
as a quick & simple rule
infantry fights infrantry
mages fight mages
Well I'm really trying to think about 4ed right now, but let's assume you're right for a minute. That still bypasses the point that you could do all those things with just a house couldn't you? Being a castle doesn't really matter does it? Do the big walls and the parapets and the towers and the drawbridge and the mote and the fortified inner bailey etc. really matter in any edition if the intruders can teleport, go invisible, gate, use breech armor, fly, burrow, plane shift, etc.
Aren't you better off just building a nice house and hiring all that magic and fighting done on the house? Is the castle just an expression of status rather than a fortification? It's ok if you say yes, after all that happened a lot in our world long after castles had a real reason for being. But when castles DID start to seem not worthwhile for fortification purposes, we humans developed other types of fortifications, so is there a better one you could use in a world like Toril? Would an underground facility be better?
Here are some indications of how armies might be composed around Fearun:
Humans
Humans are a warlike people, and with the aid of vile destructive magic they can destroy themselves when making war. This must have been learned over the many ages the humans of Toril have waged war, but mostly this is not the case. Wasn't it in Chondath that a vile magic disease swept over the population and instilled a healthy amount of fear for wizards ever since?
It's interesting to see how human nations might differ in their ability to field magic battalions. The Swordcoasts nations and citystates are likely to rely on hired freelance mages. Cormyr and the Dales have some institutions they can fall back on such as the Warwizards. In Kemps novel Sembian military is shown to value wizards that can assemble in a generals tactical team for intelligence, employ of wands of darkvision during nighttime raids, and support battles with accurate arcane firepower.
Thayan armies field probably the largest battlemage units who rely mostly on cheap infantry such as slaves, goblins and orog infantry for protection. I always wondered how the Simbul would battle, stall and defeat whole Thayan armies from the borders of the Yuirwood in Aglarond.
Have Halruaans ever made war using their magical superiority? Most likely a Halruaan civil war would last a few minutes, in a game of insidious epic spells and countermeasures infantry could be considered meaningless. The landscape / cityscape of Halrua isn't filled with castles but with wizard towers that are packed with magic defenses such as Guards and Wards, Forbiddance, Alarms and other Contingencies that hinder a states enemy wizards in making use of magic.
Orcs and Goblins
Orcs and goblinoid hordes have been known to make use of powerful Shaman that empower their hordes to greater bloodlust and flatten foes with fire, ice and lightning spells. As offensive minded races they have had aeons of experience with taking fortified positions with use of vermin such as spider mounts, smashing barricades with giant scorpians, or harrying foes with tamed packs of worgs.
Cunning tactics are used only when the hordes leader finds the method honarble enough i.e. an Orcs honor on a battlefield is to fight the foe up front and personal.
Elves
Gold and Moon Elves have arguably the most magic magic based armies. They field armies devided among spellcasters and arms wielders, relying on elite units that blend the two into one. Elven armies are experienced with fighting defensive wars on favourable terrain. I still need to read the Last Mythal trilogy, but I think that book has accurate descriptions of an elven army on the offence.
Dwarves
Dwarven tactics is made of stone and steel. A field full of tincanned axe wielders is not innovative, but their knowledge of tunneling and large trapbuilding have made them the worlds best siege armies. They can emerge from the ground seemingly at will and are adept at finding structural weak spots in walls to collapse them. Their precise siege ballistae and crossbowmen can skewer many a foe.
Well I'm really trying to think about 4ed right now, but let's assume you're right for a minute. That still bypasses the point that you could do all those things with just a house couldn't you? Being a castle doesn't really matter does it? Do the big walls and the parapets and the towers and the drawbridge and the mote and the fortified inner bailey etc. really matter in any edition if the intruders can teleport, go invisible, gate, use breech armor, fly, burrow, plane shift, etc.
Aren't you better off just building a nice house and hiring all that magic and fighting done on the house? Is the castle just an expression of status rather than a fortification? It's ok if you say yes, after all that happened a lot in our world long after castles had a real reason for being. But when castles DID start to seem not worthwhile for fortification purposes, we humans developed other types of fortifications, so is there a better one you could use in a world like Toril? Would an underground facility be better?
-Couple the two together: They exist as symbols of status, and as utilitarian forms of protection against mundane things. As was mentioned, wards that prevent teleportation into or out of, or certain types of magic, or whatever else, can be added in for further protection against those certain things. If the 4e ruleset doesn't reflect the ability to do those things, we already know that such things do exist in Faerûn, so it becomes another version of stuff the setting has that whatever the rules are don't/cannot support right now.
Because the componenets are needed for battlemagic they inherently have a cost. I use the simplification of a spellcomponent pouch in game but in a magic setting components are always in demand. AD&D 2e used to have all information including price on components in lists I occasionally still use.
-Correct. I didn't say that they didn't have costs. What I said was that their costs are negligible. How much do the material components for a Disintegrate spell cost? A pinch of dust, and a naturally occurring magnetic rock. How about Fireball, with that bit of bat guano and sulfur? Additionally, a lot of very powerful "war" spells don't even have components- Delayed Blast Fireball, Incendiary Cloud, Meteor Swarm...
Same as everywhere else....
Buildings are still fortified today despite missiles, bombs, stealth jets, helicopters, nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, etc. Those aren't the only defenses but they are part of a multi-layered system of defense.
The White House or the Capital Building or the Pentagon are not built as fortifications. They do have good security (we hope) but not in the sense of having strong physical walls. They have missle batteries and soldiers and guns and so on, but not physical fortifications, or at least not much more than roadblocks.
We stopped building castles because as fortifications, castles weren't worth the cost it took to build them. We built impressive castle like manor houses to impress, but we dispensed with the actual fortifications because they were made obsolete by cannon and explosives and aircraft and missiles.
The implication is that a castle in Faerun built specifically for Faerun (and not to look like a French or English castle) might look very different. Maybe it's a manor house with a small town built behind a mythal (Myth Drannor). Maybe it's a series of layered defense towers with flying creature air cover. I don't frankly know, but I just have a suspicion that just taking an English castle and stamping Faerun on it isn't good enough.
The White House or the Capital Building or the Pentagon are not built as fortifications. They do have good security (we hope) but not in the sense of having strong physical walls. They have missle batteries and soldiers and guns and so on, but not physical fortifications, or at least not much more than roadblocks.
We stopped building castles because as fortifications, castles weren't worth the cost it took to build them. We built impressive castle like manor houses to impress, but we dispensed with the actual fortifications because they were made obsolete by cannon and explosives and aircraft and missiles.
The implication is that a castle in Faerun built specifically for Faerun (and not to look like a French or English castle) might look very different. Maybe it's a manor house with a small town built behind a mythal (Myth Drannor). Maybe it's a series of layered defense towers with flying creature air cover. I don't frankly know, but I just have a suspicion that just taking an English castle and stamping Faerun on it isn't good enough.
but why are this buildings not fortificated? because they are NOT buildings build for defense and because the possibility of enemy troops marching on the white house/ pentagon are near zero.
compare this to faerun:
does a castle protect from a dragon? yes
does a castle protect from marauding bandits , orcs , other mosters? yes
does a castle protect from troops of a enemy lord? yes
does a castle add to the prestige of his lord? yes
all this are the more or less mundane threads in the realms, and if you come with magic...well nothing stops you from hiring a wizard for your castle
Say Waterdeep defending itself against a horde of orcs. Or Cormyr defending itself against Thay or a more conventional adversary.
I'd like to know how much of the stuff we see in adventuring gets into the larger battles. If there was a Warhammer like battle system in D&D, what would be populating the armies?
D&D battles are no where near as massive as warhammer battles (atleast 40k). You might have 500,000 units in a massive D&D army(largest armies) and in the warhammer 40k universe, millions.
But when you have multimelta's, assault cannons, rocket launchers, greater daemons and grand titans all unloading on armies, you need millions of troops or the battle would be over instantly.
Theres a very big different between "Regional conflicts" and "Global conflicts".
Atleast thats the opinion I have from reading different novels. No D&D novel has ever matched the scale of the 40k novels in terms of sheer numbers or destructive scale. Hell, the starship battleflagships alone could wipe out just about anything. (captain, 100,000 elven wizards incoming! Initiate obital bombardment... No more elven wizards. :p
but why are this buildings not fortificated? because they are NOT buildings build for defense and because the possibility of enemy troops marching on the white house/ pentagon are near zero.
compare this to faerun:
does a castle protect from a dragon? yes
does a castle protect from marauding bandits , orcs , other mosters? yes
does a castle protect from troops of a enemy lord? yes
does a castle add to the prestige of his lord? yes
all this are the more or less mundane threads in the realms, and if you come with magic...well nothing stops you from hiring a wizard for your castle
A dragon could fly over the castle walls and land right on the roof of the keep. Castles are NOT built in this world with that in mind. Likewise, the troops of an enemy lord might be wizards or druids or griffonriders, etc. and they might not protect very well against those either (better in 4e than 3e with stoneshape and weather control and move earth).
Against routine, badly funded opponents a castle could protect you, but then so could a fortified house with a good set of guards. That impressive house could also give you prestige.
In 3e, one group of medium level player characters with mass invisiblity could penetrate the castle and lower the drawbridge at an opportune moment, or fly over the battlements and do the same, or potentially create a gate to the inside of the castle. My 3e group has (or had) a Mirror of Mental Prowess which can pretty much gate anywere. What does that do to your castle security -- let's go see the King. And even if you somehow protect against that in the king's room, can you do it for the whole castle?
I don't have an answer. I don't know what ELSE you'd really build as far as a fortification that would work better -- maybe there is nothing. And I like castles. I've just never been able to figure out how to adequately protect them in D&D. My players have a keep and the goblins are always attacking, but THEY have very limited magical support and no flying creatures. Maybe that's the answer. They're not for major wars, they're for goblin and orc incursions.
To give an example, there is a ward that physically prevents any undead from entering the Royal Keep, they are effectively turned as if by a cleric (I don't even think there is a save.)
That's pretty much how Ed handled it, I think. I didn't particularly like it, for many obvious reasons, but I think that's your answer there: lots of wards and other magical protections. A lot of which the DM just makes up.
"A dragon begins to fly over the castle... and then turns away fleeing suddenly into the night! A good thing those wards exist to protect everyone."
A dragon could fly over the castle walls and land right on the roof of the keep. Castles are NOT built in this world with that in mind. Likewise, the troops of an enemy lord might be wizards or druids or griffonriders, etc. and they might not protect very well against those either (better in 4e than 3e with stoneshape and weather control and move earth)..
this all depends on the power of the castles lord.
is he a puny little low class land lord? then your statement is right , but what reason should this threats have to attack the castle?
is he a medium class land lord? then he will have some mesure of protection against such threats ( archers, Ballistas , a castle wizard )
is he a high class lord? then he surely has answers to this kind of threats ( more archers & soldiers , more ballistas , more wizards ) and maybe he himself is a threat to be reckoned.
Against routine, badly funded opponents a castle could protect you, but then so could a fortified house with a good set of guards. That impressive house could also give you prestige. .
that is completely a decision of the lord and the threats he might fear and dont forget, the castle dont have to protect only the lord but also his servants ( farmers, townsfolk )
In 3e, one group of medium level player characters with mass invisiblity could penetrate the castle and lower the drawbridge at an opportune moment, or fly over the battlements and do the same, or potentially create a gate to the inside of the castle. My 3e group has (or had) a Mirror of Mental Prowess which can pretty much gate anywere. What does that do to your castle security -- let's go see the King. And even if you somehow protect against that in the king's room, can you do it for the whole castle?.
that group can just get visible thanks to a invibility purge, lose flying mid air thanks to a dispel magic and maybe cant port at all thanks to a forbidance - this all depends on the power of the lord of the castle.
the is point you dont have to protect the whole castle , you just have to protect vital areas , the drawbridge house for example - even in real world castles this was one of the best defended areas in a castle because the gate is one of the weak points of the defense and you defend against the threat that is most possible .
as to say hello to the king...
say hello to gareth dragonbane and his epic lvl friends, say hello to the king of cormyr and his myriad of war wizards and purple dragon knights , say hello piergeiron ( well not a king but sure the same power lvl ) and his friends ( hi khelben & Laeral! ) , say hello to Alustriel and her sisters, say hello to the king of citadell adbar and his legions of dwarfs - when you reach the lvl to be a threat to people like these then you dont worry about castles anymore - then you worry about contingencys and pacts - i hope you get my point
I don't have an answer. I don't know what ELSE you'd really build as far as a fortification that would work better -- maybe there is nothing. And I like castles. I've just never been able to figure out how to adequately protect them in D&D. My players have a keep and the goblins are always attacking, but THEY have very limited magical support and no flying creatures. Maybe that's the answer. They're not for major wars, they're for goblin and orc incursions.
and this are the main threats in the realms , this is for what castles are build for, even real world castles wasnt a failsafe defense against a attack - even without magic , flying creatures and so on
I know in FR, based upon Ed Greenwoods writings on Candlekeep (you really should ask him over there - he's your best bet), that Cormyr's Royal family has layers and layers of protection, mostly magical. That includes things like the castles and whatnot.
To give an example, there is a ward that physically prevents any undead from entering the Royal Keep, they are effectively turned as if by a cleric (I don't even think there is a save.)
That's pretty much how Ed handled it, I think. I didn't particularly like it, for many obvious reasons, but I think that's your answer there: lots of wards and other magical protections. A lot of which the DM just makes up.
"A dragon begins to fly over the castle... and then turns away fleeing suddenly into the night! A good thing those wards exist to protect everyone."
Like said above too, it's up to the powers and wealth of the lord or the inhabitants of the castles. If they can achieve magical protections, and if they need it, they can have almost everything they need. Like Ironfang Keep, three different wards permanently on and around it. One of them even brings flying toops or creatures down to earth, just a little ward wich turns gravity upside down. Others create dead magic zones, so you just can't use teleportation no summuning of evil monsters, no invisibillity and so on. Then the castle itself is magically enhanced, almost nothing can penetrate the walls, its slipery so that no one can climb it etc.
And then a whole nation with magic users or even a city state, has the meanings to defend itself with whatever they think that they will need against their enemies. There will be permanent wards to prevent invisibillity, teleportation, summoning, undead beings or maybe even beings with certain allignment entering the main secured areas. Silverymoon is said to have such things in its most secuered areas and I think Waterdeep and other places with real powerful magic users have this stuff too. The old elven nations had their High Mage circles and air troopers using gryffons, eagles, dragons and so on. Maybe some nation like Cormyr and the like have similiar special forces. And then if they have mighty wizards and summoners, they can summon something to fight whatever comes from above. An evil nation would maybe use some pact with a demon or devil or just summon an elemental prince and similiar things to smash their enemies. Gareth and Co. and other "godly inspired" people may even get help from their patron deities if it comes really hard.
let's go see the King. And even if you somehow protect against that in the king's room, can you do it for the whole castle?
Ask the guys in Ironfang Keep (maybe you can find out then what green means), maybe lady Alustriel too. *shruggs* It's up to the power of the lords and inhabitants and it is up to the DM (you know that he has to think about how powerful he makes the oppenents if his players got mighty powers too. It is always said in the rulesbooks that the powers mentioned there can be adjusted to whatever the DM needs to make it an good and entertaining adventure. If your players are epic level, then just give the castle lord and his magical advisors also some levels more or use as oppenents some of the epic level NSCs out there, some were mentioned above and think what they would have created to protect their homes against other epic level evildoers trying to penetrate their homes.).
..., this is for what castles are build for, even real world castles wasnt a failsafe defense against a attack - even without magic , flying creatures and so on
Wrong, castles were a fortification to keep the enemy out at all costs. Once the walls were breached, the battle was usually over. Castles were layered defenses designed to hold out as long as possible (until they could be relieved by another army or until the seigers gave up and went home).
Once it became possible to breach the walls economically (in the age of cannon and explosives) castles ceased to be a useable fortification. Go have a look at Fort Jackson in Savannah, Georgia to see why castles (and forts) became pointless expenses.
Which is why the extraordinary abilities of wizards and exotic creatures threaten not only the castle, but the IDEA of the castle. If you plug the holes in the castle exposed by magic in the Players Handbook and creatures in the Monster Manual with magic you only hope exists but is not specified to keep the attacks from working, by the time you are done, you might as well not bothered to build a castle at all because the actual Castle Walls don't really contribute that much to the defense of the place. Unless of course you can build the castle with one collossal spell (which the elves seemed to be able to do in the old days) in which case the expense of building the castle might be meaningless. But if the extraordinary effort to build a castle needs to be justified by the contribution it makes to security, THAT is where I have my doubts.
http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/castle-decline.php
It's mainly an artillery emplacement. Forts, especially using earthen embankments proved far more resilient to artillery fire and could be repaired quickly. But even then, civil war soldiers couldn't fly or teleport and like castles, forts were layered defenses.
I'm not saying that magic has the same effect. But like artillery, there are a lot of ways for PCs using magic to breach a castle wall -- so many that it's hard to enumerate and that means that the castle cannot be counted on AS a fortification to keep the enemy out. It still protects against poorly equipped creatures such as orcs with no shamans, but if castles are hard to build (magic can be used to facilitate building too) then they have to justify that expense.
If you can build magic to patch walls quickly (or instantly), if you can build ground to air defenses sufficient to take out a determined offense (magic arbalists? Your own Griffons? Flying mages?). If you can build security spells that can stop a teleport or at least detect it and you have well trained security forces that can respond. If you can neutralize invisibility, and/or guarantee that only authorized personnel can extend drawbridges and the like, you can protect any facility, INCLUDING a castle. But it's not like magic is a new thing. Presumably castles would have had to grow up in the presence of magic and there was no time when magic was weak enough for the castle to be a reasonable fortification. The King/noble still needs a palace but castles tend to make expensive palaces.
I'm not proposing anything. Castles are a part of D&D, they just don't make much sense.
Including wards, such as a lead sheathing in all walls against divinations, permanent resist element spells on gates against gatecrashing fireballs, greased outer walls and killing grounds, force-walls that ward inner courtyard and more, will help make a dungeon/castle defensible. On of the best tactics is misdirection. Illusory terrain can make a whole military outpost appear as deserted farmland, and if you don't know the location of the enemy you cant engage him even with magic.
Most nations have some high level chars, but this are the lords and the ones who hold the power. Epic level people will be all the more seldom. Yes the novels mostly use some as main chars, but even they tend to tell that they are the exceptions. Take RAS' novels about Obould's latest actions. Obould's horde was huge and had some good fighters but most of them were normal orcs and the dwarven castle served the defenders well to stand against them, because the orcs had not that many real high level magic users in their ranks. Not every nation has the resources like Halruaa to call for wizards and magicans, most just use the ordinary soldier with a normal sword and most savage people and beasts aren't able to win against a good built castle or did not care about the "civilized beings" as long as they let them be. Most dragons seemed not to care about what humans and other minor beings do, so even the attack of some of them is not really likely, unless there comes the next dracorage. If you are not living near Thay, most people will not really know much about high level magic and what it can do. The old campaigh setting said that users of magic are rare in the heartlands and most of those, who can use magic, aren't trained in it.
It's just a thing that a good RPG group needs a wizard and a priest and it's cool to have some here and there, but thinking about it, it is most unlikely that many groups even can get a real high level mage, because they should be seldom. It's the same with some of the magic usually used in a RPG session. If one of your chars dies and the priest can revive them in a way, he does it. Even the novels tell us that this is rarely done, be it that there are not so many skilled priests out there or just some moral problems with this kind of action. But how would a player cry for his char if the "priest" refuses him a resurrection? So most do it. Just like in the PC game, it would be frustrating for the players if they really die half the way through the adventure so resurrection and this kinds of spells can be found everywhere and every temple gains them that.
It has been said repeatedly that with magic, countered or not, that one might as well just build a fortified house and guard it with wards and soldiers, but what happens if you are attacked by an army five times your size that has a wizard who can defeat any magic you send against that army? I expect that you might want to have a nice castle to hide in.
Magic does signifigantly change the way war is waged, but it does not nullify, or even signifigantly decrease, the needed force of arms and forts. It is possible that a nation of wizards might be so confidant in their magical might as to not need traditional defences, but such a thing is rare, for they would have to have powers far beyond normal. Even Elminster can be brought down by enough hard men with cold steel.
Lets image the state-of-the-art castles:
They can't be just strong walls. They need defense against airborne attacks, such as dragons. So they have to be shaped like a dome, or at least, covered, with some measures to prevent a landing there. Maybe spikes. Catapults and defensive devises must be protected from airborne attacks too (see the siege of Minas Tirith for reference: Nazguls crippled those things easily)