*in a bad Russian accent* "Okay, so how you want your die? Balista to head? Catapult to head? Man-powered catapult to head? Trebuchet over wall? Or cannon to bits? My bag is very heavy. You have until I finish my cigar."
This is all just kind of ridiculous to me. You don't need to apply combat rules to things that aren't PC combat. If siege weapons are attacking a castle, there are two outcomes:
You succeed in knocking the walls down.
Something happens before you succeed.
Neither of those outcomes require calculating the HP of the walls or rolling damage, you just do what makes sense and what is good for the story.
And if Grobnar the Barbarian wants to take down the stone walls with his axe, you have three outcomes:
The wall stands firm, you just can't succeed. (what I like to call the Time Saver option)
You succeed in knocking the walls down.
Something happens before you succeed.
Again, we don't need to roll initiative for the wall or track every swing of the axe here. The DM takes in the situation and makes a decision about what happens. That is what a DM is for.
Now if you think siege weapons should do more damage to PCs while in combat, that's your prerogative. I feel that they were designed with the intent to be somewhat useable in combat but not an auto-kill. But again, applying regular combat rules to things like a trebuchet begins to expose the limitations of simplified combat. You don't aim a trebuchet in the same way you'd aim a sword, and dodging a boulder should probably be different than dodging an arrow. But if you want to include these things for the cool factor, you probably need to compromise a bit on the realism of it.
The fact that people would minimize siege weapons and make PC's seem like gods, should tell you the state of affairs between when TSR had this game vs WoTC's take over.
I'm not really familiar with 5e, so I will just point out that 1e and Basic D&D was clear how magic and physical attacks work against non-living objects, like wood, stone, iron etc. They were not 1:1 in damage economy, but rather depending on the source of the attack the damage would be minimal. And against structures like castle walls or entry gates, hit points would also increase per inches or feet.
Breaking a fortress wall is a process - it's not really an attack at all. You use your trebuchet to launch some large, heavy object like a nice big rock at a wall, and it bounces right off - but maybe it causes some microscopic cracks. Then you launch another, and if you're lucky, you hit the same spot, and deepen those cracks to maybe be visible by the naughty eye (cause it's naked).
Eventually, you may cause enough damage for the wall to crumble. Or it never succeeds. That's also possible. Or the enemy sallies and sets your trebuchet on fire.
At any rate, you do not use ballistas for this.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
By my understanding, the whole "breach the wall" thing is a very hollywood thing for sieges.
The weak point of a wall is the gate. If you want to get through the wall, you go through the gate. That is the bit which needs to worry about damage.
Catapults are designed to throw things over walls. Things including barrels of pitch, dead animals or people, hot gravel, and so forth. The goal is to damage what is behind the walls, not to damage the walls.
It is significantly easier to build siege towers to get over walls than to build catapults to break the walls. Causing a significant breach, one which will not impede an attacking force by being narrow, will require Sappers - digging a tunnel underneath the wall, herding live pigs into it, and then setting them on fire (oh, they were lovely people back then).
I've never heard of a method of sapping a castle wall using live pigs. Most attempts before gunpowder reached Europe involved digging a tunnel and setting support timbers up, then setting those timbers on fire to cause the tunnel to collapse. After Europe got gunpowder, the favored method switched to carrying a crude bomb called a petard (which is French for "to fart". Seriously.) into the tunnel and igniting it, but this was very dangerous and could easily result in the sapper being killed by their own bomb. Leading to the phrase "hoisted by their own petard."
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To the very best of my knowledge, Henry V famously breached the walls of Harfleur. But could I tell you precisely how he did that? I'm assuming not his fists, swords or ballistae - but I cannot say with any certainty that it was trebuchets that did it. Someone with more precise insight might be able to clear that up.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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*in a bad Russian accent* "Okay, so how you want your die? Balista to head? Catapult to head? Man-powered catapult to head? Trebuchet over wall? Or cannon to bits? My bag is very heavy. You have until I finish my cigar."
This is all just kind of ridiculous to me. You don't need to apply combat rules to things that aren't PC combat. If siege weapons are attacking a castle, there are two outcomes:
Neither of those outcomes require calculating the HP of the walls or rolling damage, you just do what makes sense and what is good for the story.
And if Grobnar the Barbarian wants to take down the stone walls with his axe, you have three outcomes:
Again, we don't need to roll initiative for the wall or track every swing of the axe here. The DM takes in the situation and makes a decision about what happens. That is what a DM is for.
Now if you think siege weapons should do more damage to PCs while in combat, that's your prerogative. I feel that they were designed with the intent to be somewhat useable in combat but not an auto-kill. But again, applying regular combat rules to things like a trebuchet begins to expose the limitations of simplified combat. You don't aim a trebuchet in the same way you'd aim a sword, and dodging a boulder should probably be different than dodging an arrow. But if you want to include these things for the cool factor, you probably need to compromise a bit on the realism of it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The fact that people would minimize siege weapons and make PC's seem like gods, should tell you the state of affairs between when TSR had this game vs WoTC's take over.
I'm not really familiar with 5e, so I will just point out that 1e and Basic D&D was clear how magic and physical attacks work against non-living objects, like wood, stone, iron etc. They were not 1:1 in damage economy, but rather depending on the source of the attack the damage would be minimal. And against structures like castle walls or entry gates, hit points would also increase per inches or feet.
Breaking a fortress wall is a process - it's not really an attack at all. You use your trebuchet to launch some large, heavy object like a nice big rock at a wall, and it bounces right off - but maybe it causes some microscopic cracks. Then you launch another, and if you're lucky, you hit the same spot, and deepen those cracks to maybe be visible by the naughty eye (cause it's naked).
Eventually, you may cause enough damage for the wall to crumble. Or it never succeeds. That's also possible. Or the enemy sallies and sets your trebuchet on fire.
At any rate, you do not use ballistas for this.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
By my understanding, the whole "breach the wall" thing is a very hollywood thing for sieges.
The weak point of a wall is the gate. If you want to get through the wall, you go through the gate. That is the bit which needs to worry about damage.
Catapults are designed to throw things over walls. Things including barrels of pitch, dead animals or people, hot gravel, and so forth. The goal is to damage what is behind the walls, not to damage the walls.
It is significantly easier to build siege towers to get over walls than to build catapults to break the walls. Causing a significant breach, one which will not impede an attacking force by being narrow, will require Sappers - digging a tunnel underneath the wall, herding live pigs into it, and then setting them on fire (oh, they were lovely people back then).
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I've never heard of a method of sapping a castle wall using live pigs. Most attempts before gunpowder reached Europe involved digging a tunnel and setting support timbers up, then setting those timbers on fire to cause the tunnel to collapse. After Europe got gunpowder, the favored method switched to carrying a crude bomb called a petard (which is French for "to fart". Seriously.) into the tunnel and igniting it, but this was very dangerous and could easily result in the sapper being killed by their own bomb. Leading to the phrase "hoisted by their own petard."
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I mean ... history is tricky, no?
To the very best of my knowledge, Henry V famously breached the walls of Harfleur. But could I tell you precisely how he did that? I'm assuming not his fists, swords or ballistae - but I cannot say with any certainty that it was trebuchets that did it. Someone with more precise insight might be able to clear that up.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.