fulk
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My inclination would be to use shields (and potentially off hand parrying daggers in the right circumstances) like the old Defense characteristic in RQ1&2. That is, it would deduct from the attackers attach %. You could make it a straight -25% (or whatever) or allow it to be skill/4, or some similar mod. NT
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You only get credit up to a certain point. Essentially, there is a value for a 'fully-towered-wall'. You can't go above that. The bonus of extra towers is that if is taken down, you have back up. I can't remember the exact rule at this point.
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No offense taken. I totally agree. Any game system at any level is a simplification. We make compromises. I think the thing to remember is that KAP is not a computer game. We don't need to codify every instance in the rules. The GM simply has to and is free to make some decisions. Greg and I went back and forth a bit at the time about this and similar topics (keeps on the castle wall) and he wanted to keep things simple and more or less similar to previous designations. I'd say, if you have a map/plan and want to assault the castle (not town) directly, do so. In some cases, you're going to have to come up with things like ships and barges to hit the riverside section... Realistically, for example, it might have been better to use the 5-11/2 style designation (instead of 5/11/2) for most motte and bailey castles, because one could assault the motte and bailey separately (5-11) versus in sequence (5/11). The reason not to assault the motte first is that it is harder (11 vs 5) and you might get the defenders to just give up if they lose the bailey (fail a morale roll).
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It isn't published but is in the Castles MS. The rules change may affect some of the DVs in Warlords. I can't remember. I "built" them over long period of time. One of the old complaints was that big fortifications with large perimeters and lots of towers could have really high DVs. The newer, currently unpublished but possibly in the Warlords DV, scale the DV of towers to the length of the fortifications. So, one tower on a huge city wall has little effect. At the same time, if only a small portion of the walls are accessible, say because most of them are on a cliff edge, you need fewer towers to achieve the 'max' DV. I think the castles in Warlords all follow the same rules, but those rules might differ a bit from the final rules. Practically speaking, it doesn't matter much. Strong castles are strong castles. I wouldn't obsess about minor differences in DV. The ones in Warlords will be appropriate if not exactly the same as the final, yet unpublished, rules. NT
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Yes. I have a file with the acres and perimeters for all the castles and builds for every period. Those data didn't make it into BoWarlord. I'm not sure what the plan is for that information. For a lot of existing castles, you can just measure the perimeters on google maps. I did that for a lot of them, including just old earthworks where you can still see the outline. For others, I just guessed or went from other sources like Wikipedia or The Gatehouse. The "standard castle" has about a 400 ft perimeter. So for most, you can just use that. There may be some inconsistencies among castles because I made them over a long period of time while the rules were changing a bit. One big difference is that some features don't add DV but instead reduce the "accessible perimeter" -- so you need fewer people AND fewer towers for the same DV.
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At this point, I don't remember...
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Includes the town walls: Town walls DR5 (DV 13): 30 acres, 4850 ft perimeter; Riverside (7); Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), 2 Gates (-0.8), 2 Gate works (0.4); Outworks DR4 (DV 13): 6 acres, 2169 ft perimeter; Riverside (7); Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), Gate (-0.9), Gate works (0.5); Outworks DR3 (DV 5): 5 acres, 1980 ft perimeter; Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), Gate (-2), Gate works (1); Bailey DR2 (DV 10): 2 acres, 1181 ft perimeter; Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), 2 Gates (-4), 2 Gate towers (8); Motte DR1 (DV 11c): 0.2 acres, 314 ft perimeter; Motte (4), Ditch (2), Palisade (3), Postern gate (-1), Gate works (1); Stronghold DR0 (DV 2): Fortified wooden hall (2)
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I don't think I can do that legally. I'm not sure what the current plans are for that information.
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Yes. I "constructed" all of the castles for BoW.
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Hi,
I've been following the new thread on castles and might be able to provide a little insight on the areas given for some castles and cities. Back in 2010 I was helping Greg on the Book of Castles and we discussed needed to making areas a bit less abstract so that we could all tell how big a particular castle should be, so that we could have some means of comparison.
Greg had the typical AREA 30 city based on Lincoln. So his idea was to compare other fortresses to the old Roman Fort of Lincoln. We were tossing around the idea of one area being about half bow shot across, based on the spacing of towers.
But giving areas actual measurement started to cause difficulties because larger castles ended up needing a lot more defenders once area got defined. Basically a fort that was twice as long and twice as wide would take four times the area (2x2) and need four times as many men to defend. For instance a city with area 30 (say 5 areas by 6 areas) would need 30 times them men to defend it, even though about 20 areas of the city would be interior sections away from the walls.
But anyway, the original AREAs were based on Lincoln.
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These are the specifics. Note these are not the same rules as in Nobles Book or Lordly Domains. The DVs are calculated differently. DV: 11/5/13/3 Outworks DR3 (DV 11): 2 acres, 1252 ft perimeter; Hill top (5); Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), Gate (-2), Wooden gate tower (2); Bailey DR2 (DV 5): 0.5 acres, 626 ft perimeter; Ditch & rampart (3), Palisade (3), Gate (-2), Gate works (1); Motte DR1 (DV 13): 0.5 acres, 626 ft perimeter; Motte, double (6), Curtain wall (7), Postern gate (-1), Gate works (1); Stronghold DR0 (DV 3): Large stone hall (3)
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Yes. I would give that one hill/rise bonuses for each ring and reduce the effective perimeter as well.
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What? I find calculating the exact number of kernels of wheat necessary to plant my fields to make an exhilarating night of gaming...😜.
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While I find all these conjectures re population distribution etc fun, KAP is not Harn. My suggestion is to not over think it. 😉
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I don't know that it was used to represent society in general. Regardless, its a game, so it doesn't necessarily match perfectly. It was a guide. However, I think that Greg did use the values from Domesday to set the values of the various holdings from individual 'manors' to the full hundreds for Estate and Warlords. If I remember correctly, there was some scalar involved. He didn't use the absolute values. He set the total value of lands to support the total number of knights he wanted. I don't remember whether the values were 'value' or 'geld' or what-have-you.
