Anachronistic Inventions in a Medieval Fantasy Setting

[Garimeth]

Just want to say, I get where Jay R is coming from.

In my current campaign setting there are two moons, each with dierent cycles, and one of them is only visible 66% of the time. A week is 8 days long, and there are 4 weeks in a month, and 11 months in the year. There is a spirit realm, and the "Abyss" is subterranean. Additionally there is an Overworld high above the surface in the clouds, that functions very similar to the percieved ideas of several ancient myths, and Jack and the beanstalk. The "gods" live here, as well as any number of sufficently powerful beings capable of surviving here. There is no outer space, stars are not stars, lightning is the discharge of excess ambient MAGIC, and the setting is bordered by an uncrossable sea whose storms and monsters are so violent that nobody can cross. Half elves can be born to two humans or two elves, and in the northern portions sometimes half orcs as well. Why? Because I said so.

All this is explained to the players when they make their characters, its not brought up mid game. If they want to do something their character would know better then I tell them. This serves the purpose as making my setting different. You are NOT playing in a Earth of a past time period. You should not even come in expecting it to be similar to Earth, but that's ok because I gave you a well developed setting document that explains all this. Not to mention, in general, none of this stuff is going to come up in any meaningful fashion. The players tend to be far more busy adventuring, politicking, or rebelling.

[LibraryOgre]

What does "anachronism" mean in the context of a fantasy setting? Is this true??

An anachronism is a technology without antecedents and (to expand on my own definition), frequently one without realistic impact on the world.

In many ways, a lot of D&D is built around anarchronisms, especially in 3.x and later. Why have a conventional castle when you've got some of the combat magics available? Fireballs, flying cavalry, earth elementals which appear from the ground to **** your **** up... all of these are things that are unconsidered in the design of traditional castles, because they're things that the technology they faced didn't require them to.

[Durkoala]

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[Storm_Of_Snow]

An anachronism is a technology without antecedents and (to expand on my own definition), frequently one without realistic impact on the world.

In many ways, a lot of D&D is built around anarchronisms, especially in 3.x and later. Why have a conventional castle when you've got some of the combat magics available? Fireballs, flying cavalry, earth elementals which appear from the ground to **** your **** up... all of these are things that are unconsidered in the design of traditional castles, because they're things that the technology they faced didn't require them to.

It's not just 3.x on - I remember a White Dwarf article of at least 25 years ago talking about the exact same things, and why that made dungeons a good bet as defensive structures.

However, anything an attacking force has access to, chances are the defenders will have access to it as well - and there may be other things that are sitting behind the scenes, such as large scale defensive magics that a PC caster either won't have access to learn (maybe something which originated centuries ago and has handed down from court mage to court mage ever since, or is still in the memory of the court mage who originally cast it, if they're either of a long-lived enough species, have played around with some body hopping, hopefully via cloning themselves, but possibly through evil methods, or have otherwise been preserved), or wouldn't bother with in the first place.

[LibraryOgre]

It's not just 3.x on - I remember a White Dwarf article of at least 25 years ago talking about the exact same things, and why that made dungeons a good bet as defensive structures.

Oh, I know, and didn't mean to imply it was just a 3.x issue; rather, just that it got more pronounced with 3.x and the greater availability of magic.

[nedz]

It's not just 3.x on - I remember a White Dwarf article of at least 25 years ago talking about the exact same things, and why that made dungeons a good bet as defensive structures.

IIRC that article was trying to rationalise the existence of Dungeons, because I believe that they feature in some game or other.

Medieval Castles are much more anachronistic in many fantasy settings because RL Castles were designed to counter RL anti-castle weapons and so had to evolve to meet the arrival of new weapons — most famously Cannons. Medieval Castles, in most fantasy settings, haven't evolved to meet the 'new' threats present in those settings.

[Ettina]

For me, it really depends on the feel for the setting.

I'm not a big fan of games where swords and guns are of equal power. I'm more okay with it when there's some kind of technomancy being designed which repels smaller objects, or faster objects better than slower. It would need to be the norm though for me to expect to see swords and bows around.

In real life, a guy wielding an early gun could be beaten by a guy with a sword. The reason was that guns had very few bullets and were really slow to reload. So you'd shoot a bullet or maybe a few bullets, then spend 5-10 minutes trying to reload. If you missed your shot, the swordsman could easily run up and kill you.

How you'd do that mechanically is to have a low-accuracy instakill that requires a couple rounds' worth of recharging before it can be used again. (Recharging would be using up your standard action to reload.)

Ways around it would be to use both a sword and a gun, or (as many pirates did) to carry a whole bunch of guns and switch between them. Or else have a buddy who keeps them off of you so you can reload - for example armies had three rows of guys who took turns shooting, then kneeling and reloading while another row shot.

[Ettina]

As for mage-artificers, I'm not so sure. I can easily see apprentices learning how to make various items as a part of their training, an adventuring mage breaking out the alchemical supplies to brew various potions for his teammates between one mission and the next, or the leader asking them to make a certain magical item so they can defeat their latest big bad, the mage going off and doing research, then telling the rest of the party what components are needed and where they need to go to find them, but I can't see production lines of mages churning out healing potions, rings of protection, +1 swords and so on just for profit.

Why not? Something has to pay for all of those books. And those things are so plentiful, there has to be a ready supply of them coming from somewhere.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

IIRC that article was trying to rationalise the existence of Dungeons, because I believe that they feature in some game or other.

Really, do you happen to know which game? It sounds fun.

Medieval Castles are much more anachronistic in many fantasy settings because RL Castles were designed to counter RL anti-castle weapons and so had to evolve to meet the arrival of new weapons — most famously Cannons. Medieval Castles, in most fantasy settings, haven't evolved to meet the 'new' threats present in those settings.

Not completely - castles were designed for three purposes, firstly, to be the local lords home and impress his allies, secondly, to act as a visible sign of authority to the local populace and the lord's enemies, and thirdly, to hold off an attacking army long enough for them to either run out of troops from failed storm attempts, or their own food (especially if it's late in the campaigning season and you grabbed what food you could and destroyed the rest before retreating into your castle), or for relieving allied forces to drive them off.

A lot of the possible fantasy threats are limited - there's not many high level mages around (you need to be at least 9th level for medium elementals via Summoning V), you're not that likely to get a dragon on your side, it'll take years and a lot of money to build up squadrons of pegasus riders etc, and most of them are not something you'll be able to do without other people knowing about it.

Plus, as I said before, if you have access to something, it's likely that your enemies have access to the same thing, or at least something similar, and you should plan accordingly - some things may only be beatable by throwing your version of it at them and hoping, while others may be able to be dealt with easily with normal forces or even through non-military means.

We could probably spin off a thread - someone suggests something to either attack or defend a castle, other people suggest ways to counter it within certain ground rules, then we have countermeasures for those, and so on.

Why not? Something has to pay for all of those books. And those things are so plentiful, there has to be a ready supply of them coming from somewhere.

Guess it depends on the levels of magical treasure in your campaign world.

But even a cure serious wounds at 750gp for one days work will probably buy a lot of books, components and day to day supplies. And if the mage is making magic items day in, day out, they've probably not got a lot of use for such materials, because they'll never have the time to use them.

And how many of the potions out there were brewed years, maybe even centuries ago, and discovered on the corpse of their original purchaser, sold, then bought by the PCs? It's not like they've got a best before date, after all.

[Jay R]

And how many of the potions out there were brewed years, maybe even centuries ago, and discovered on the corpse of their original purchaser, sold, then bought by the PCs? It's not like they've got a best before date, after all.

You've just opened up a whole new vista of partially active or corrupted magic items. What does a spoiled Potion of Heroism do?

Hmmmm...

[Brother Oni]

In real life, a guy wielding an early gun could be beaten by a guy with a sword. The reason was that guns had very few bullets and were really slow to reload. So you'd shoot a bullet or maybe a few bullets, then spend 5-10 minutes trying to reload. If you missed your shot, the swordsman could easily run up and kill you.

Depends on what you mean by 'early gun'. As you've mentioned, many such early firearm users still carried sidearms, but I'm not sure whether you get this value of 5-10 minutes to reload from.

Fire lances were one shot weapons and hand cannons/culverins took a while to load (and were typically used as one shot weapons) but such early weapons weren't used until very close (a few feet in the case of a fire lance), so chance of dodging was slim.

I've seen a video of a Japanese re-enactor with a tanegashima (16th Century matchlock arquebus) managing one round in 46 seconds, although he skipped some steps (use of the ramrod and actually putting a ball in), which probably puts them at about one round a minute.

A 17th Century musketman was considered competent at two rounds a minute with the use of wooden pots containing pre-measured amounts of powder, but they still had sidearms or bayonets and in a pinch, could turn the musket around and use the stock like a club.

It's not until the Napoleonic era that sidearms for the common soldier were eliminated (they still had their bayonets), but the use of paper cartridges had made three rounds a minute the minimum standard rate of fire (four was more typical in good weather).

Ways around it would be to use both a sword and a gun, or (as many pirates did) to carry a whole bunch of guns and switch between them. Or else have a buddy who keeps them off of you so you can reload - for example armies had three rows of guys who took turns shooting, then kneeling and reloading while another row shot.

Reloading a muzzle-loader while kneeling is very difficult. From what I've read of volley fire drills, each rank fired in turn then the whole unit reloaded in one go.
A separate drill had the front rank retire to the back after firing, then they reloaded while stepping forward as each new front rank fired then retired, in a continuous cycle.

[Garimeth]

I don't even think you have to specify " early guns". Look up the the 21 Foot Rule, which even though doubt has been cast on it recently, nobody doubts it within 10 feet. "Melee" range in a game is 5 feet. Context is key and different situations call for different tools. This is why I've always liked the idea of the fighter as a weaponS specialist (plural), not a weapon specialist (singular).

Combat begins, ranged combat as the attacker closes (or use cover or w/e depening on the situation) Draw main melee weapon and begin fighting. During the fighting one of the combatants is disarmed, and charges the other - resulting in them both being on the ground, the disarmed combatant draws his dagger.

[Narren]

IIRC that article was trying to rationalise the existence of Dungeons, because I believe that they feature in some game or other.

Medieval Castles are much more anachronistic in many fantasy settings because RL Castles were designed to counter RL anti-castle weapons and so had to evolve to meet the arrival of new weapons — most famously Cannons. Medieval Castles, in most fantasy settings, haven't evolved to meet the 'new' threats present in those settings.

It depends on how common or easily obtained those threats are. The medieval castle design will keep out most mundane threats, and those may well be only threats that a ruler needs to worry about. Even settings that are saturated in high-level mages don't often have them risking their lives to blow apart castles. And if that is an active threat, you can have a mundane castle (to stop regualr armies) along with magical defenses (to stop magical threats).

I guess a good analogy would be a prison. They have thick walls and fences with razor wire. This won't stop a group with a helicopter and C-4, but that's normally not a realistic threat. These things exist exist, but they're rare for the average person.

[Brother Oni]

I don't even think you have to specify " early guns". Look up the the 21 Foot Rule, which even though doubt has been cast on it recently, nobody doubts it within 10 feet.

21 feet is the distance the average melee attacker can cover in the time it takes an average pistol user to assess a threat, draw a holstered pistol, aim and fire twice CoM (~1.5 seconds according to the Tueller Drill and additional testing disputes that value as you've said: link).

Neither distance really applies when the gun is already out and either aimed or ready, or if the shooter knows close quarter/defensive shooting techniques (eg the Mozambique Drill).

[Garimeth]

21 feet is the distance the average melee attacker can cover in the time it takes an average pistol user to assess a threat, draw a holstered pistol, aim and fire twice CoM (~1.5 seconds according to the Tueller Drill and additional testing disputes that value as you've said: link).

Neither distance really applies when the gun is already out and either aimed or ready, or if the shooter knows close quarter/defensive shooting techniques (eg the Mozambique Drill).

Feah for sure. I was just pointing out for the other poster that whether its a sword or knife, or a musket or an M9 - it essentially comes down to the training level of the operator and wether the situation play to thier advantage or not. An earlier poster had mentioned:

"In real life, a guy wielding an early gun could be beaten by a guy with a sword. The reason was that guns had very few bullets and were really slow to reload. So you'd shoot a bullet or maybe a few bullets, then spend 5-10 minutes trying to reload. If you missed your shot, the swordsman could easily run up and kill you"

I was more pointing out that a modern combatant with poor fire discipline could be incapacitated by a knife just as easily as a musket using rifleman by a swordsman.

EDIT: I was unaware of that last one you linked though, I'll have to check it out!

[Incanur]

I've seen a video of a Japanese re-enactor with a tanegashima (16th Century matchlock arquebus) managing one round in 46 seconds, although he skipped some steps (use of the ramrod and actually putting a ball in), which probably puts them at about one round a minute.

In this video, the gunner reloads twice in about 32 seconds. That'd be almost 4 shot per minute, though it's only for show and thus takes shortcuts. Based on the 16th-century European military manuals I've read, I suspect historical matchlock arquebusiers shot 2-3 rounds per minute when pressed, for the first minute or two. For example, Humphrey Barwick claimed you could shoot an arquebus 40 times in a hour. Because of how heat and barrel fouling slow down the process, the rate of fire for the first few minutes must have been significantly higher. Barwick also provides numbers for using the heavy musket against advancing infantry at various distances that suggest it took no more than a minute to reload and fire even such a large piece.

[nedz]

It depends on how common or easily obtained those threats are. The medieval castle design will keep out most mundane threats, and those may well be only threats that a ruler needs to worry about. Even settings that are saturated in high-level mages don't often have them risking their lives to blow apart castles. And if that is an active threat, you can have a mundane castle (to stop regualr armies) along with magical defenses (to stop magical threats).

Medieval Castles were designed to force a siege, and then to resist that siege. They became obsolete with the invention of Cannon and so Bastion walls were developed leading to Star forts etc. Regular armies in fantasy settings will have casters for siege raising and so different defences are required — hence the anachronism.

[Daishain]

I don't mind minor anachronisms at all. We're talking about a world which has a radically different mode of existence and history by comparison to ours. Frankly, it being exactly like medieval age Europe would be unrealistic in and of itself.

Those poor bloody peasants have been locked in a pseudo medieval era for millenia. This, presumably, is due to the presence of magic, which would stifle innovation beyond a certain point.

What you are likely to end up with as time marches on is an odd mixture of inventions that would be ahead of their time in our own past, but are actually FAR behind schedule for theirs. Many of said inventions would have to compete with the magic users, and may end up being abandoned and/or forgotten if it doesn't prove viable.

Take a steam locomotive for instance. Early attempts would be slow, unreliable, and stupidly expensive, with magical equivalents being quite cheap and easy by comparison. The idea fails to live long enough for its later upgrades to make their advantages known.

Something similar would be true of firearms. The first crude matchlocks wouldn't be remotely impressive to any inventor's patron, who could probably get a half dozen magical crossbows made that were more accurate and caused more damage for the same price (and they wouldn't be likely to blow up in the user's face).

An upgrade to armor design on the other hand, like the full plate that was mentioned before, is likely to survive, since its benefit is obvious, and much cheaper to equip soldiers with than the magical alternative

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Medieval Castles were designed to force a siege, and then to resist that siege. They became obsolete with the invention of Cannon and so Bastion walls were developed leading to Star forts etc. Regular armies in fantasy settings will have casters for siege raising and so different defences are required — hence the anachronism.

If the guy attacking the castle's got a mage on his side, the guy in the castle's almost certainly got one on his side too.

And, for D&D at least, unless the mage has a level somewhere up in the teens, regular siege engines are doing a lot more damage than he ever could with his daily allowance of spells.

[LibraryOgre]

If the guy attacking the castle's got a mage on his side, the guy in the castle's almost certainly got one on his side too.

And, for D&D at least, unless the mage has a level somewhere up in the teens, regular siege engines are doing a lot more damage than he ever could with his daily allowance of spells.

Unless his daily allowance of spells is Invisibility and Spider Climb. A 3/4 Mage/thief (a mere 10,000 total XP) can turn invisible for 24 hours, spider-climb over the wall, walk wherever he needs, and extensively poison supplies or simply kill important individuals. Make him an illusionist and he can walk out invisibly after killing someone; make him a 4/5 and he can also do that, AND gets the advantage of a triple-strength backstab.

It's not just the siege weapons you have to resist; it's all the ways your opponent can mess with you. When you're limited to land-based, visible people, then a big curtain wall and a couple doors is what you need.

[Spiryt]

Unless his daily allowance of spells is Invisibility and Spider Climb. A 3/4 Mage/thief (a mere 10,000 total XP) can turn invisible for 24 hours, spider-climb over the wall, walk wherever he needs, and extensively poison supplies or simply kill important individuals. Make him an illusionist and he can walk out invisibly after killing someone; make him a 4/5 and he can also do that, AND gets the advantage of a triple-strength backstab.

It's not just the siege weapons you have to resist; it's all the ways your opponent can mess with you. When you're limited to land-based, visible people, then a big curtain wall and a couple doors is what you need.

Well, on the other hand, one needs just bunch of Alarm spells in critical places to render that impossible 'just like that' - without solid espionage job all around.

Sand all over the walls and watching guards would help too.

[Daishain]

Unless his daily allowance of spells is Invisibility and Spider Climb. A 3/4 Mage/thief (a mere 10,000 total XP) can turn invisible for 24 hours, spider-climb over the wall, walk wherever he needs, and extensively poison supplies or simply kill important individuals. Make him an illusionist and he can walk out invisibly after killing someone; make him a 4/5 and he can also do that, AND gets the advantage of a triple-strength backstab.

It's not just the siege weapons you have to resist; it's all the ways your opponent can mess with you. When you're limited to land-based, visible people, then a big curtain wall and a couple doors is what you need.

There are plenty of means for the commander of a fortress to defend against magical shenanigans, even if they don't have access to their own spellcaster (although such access certainly helps a great deal). Try leafing through the stronghold builder's guide for 3.5e D&D for a small selection of ideas, much of which fail to touch on the really creative defenses.

Regardless, you still need the big curtain wall and the doors. Just because 0.1% of the enemies you face have a means to bypass the walls doesn't mean the other 99.9% aren't worth trying to keep out. What the hell are you going to tell people if you set up the perfect defense against arcane users, only for your keep to be overrun by a small pack of goblins?

[nedz]

Field armies intent on conquest will always have more resources available than are sensible to allocate to any fixed position. IRL Castles were often held with remarkably small permanent garrisons, the defences were a major force multiplier. In a fantasy setting you need magical defences which will keep out both your mundane opponents and the less mundane ones — curtain walls are an anachronism.

[Daishain]

curtain walls are an anachronism.

No, they still represent a force multiplier, and a damn good one.

Yes, magical defenses are needed to shore things up, yes some enemies can just waltz straight past a standard wall. But the simple fact of the matter is that a simple, straight up physical barrier is the easiest and likely the most effective single defensive measure you can set up, and will be effective against nearly any foes you are likely to face.

The only possible exception to this is if you can replace the physical barrier with magical ones that aren't easily neutralized by the first random Adept with a scroll of dispel magic. But even then, the physical barrier still represents an extra layer that can support the rest of it.

[nedz]

Dispel Magic is a third level spell, Spider Climb and Invisibility are level 2 spells.

The best magical defences are those you don't even know are there, Illusions are good for this.

[Daishain]

Dispel Magic is a third level spell, Spider Climb and Invisibility are level 2 spells.

The best magical defences are those you don't even know are there, Illusions are good for this.

Alarm, see invisibility, and Glitterdust are also level two spells. A canny defender using any two of those will leave the poor bastard trying to sneak in exposed behind the walls, cut off from the rest. Items that will let sentries see invisibility, among other things, are also cheap enough that a stronghold owner should be able to spring for several.

If they've got a bit more resources than that, just slap down a few chambers of seeing in strategic locations. Invisibility is automatically purged upon entering the area.

Sigils of suppression are more expensive, but prevent 4th level and lower spells from functioning. Set it so that our invisible spider almost gets to the top of the wall before his ability to climb is compromised for extra hilarity.

If that still won't cut it, a bloody rich owner could spring for sigils of antimagic, which do exactly as suggested.

And then there are walls that autograpple things that come near, are covered in webs, have magical blade traps, nooks from which constructs like the Iron Cobra can lie in wait, can emit energy much like a wall of fire/lightning/whatever does, the list goes on.

And this doesn't even cover summoning/creating/hiring creatures with unusual senses to augment your standard.

Regardless, even if the walls can be bypassed, their presence means that they must. The enemy must spend additional time and resources doing so, which gives the defenders more options. Which alone is worth the time and money to slap down a little mundane stone. And again, the vast majority of enemies you will be concerned with will not have the ability to simply bypass a simple stone wall.

Now, what I would consider an anachronism would be strongholds designed just like the ones we have/had on earth. These would have some similar features, but other unusual threats exist, and the design must be adjusted to accomodate them.

[Killer Angel]

With magic, the advantage given by mundane defences is minor, but it's still there. Plus, in a D&D fantasy world, you can have curtain walls and moats for free, so, why not have them?

[Narren]

Medieval Castles were designed to force a siege, and then to resist that siege. They became obsolete with the invention of Cannon and so Bastion walls were developed leading to Star forts etc. Regular armies in fantasy settings will have casters for siege raising and so different defences are required — hence the anachronism.

My point was that regular armies in fantasy settings may or may not have casters for siege raising. Spellcasters are rare, and spellcasters that are interesting in risking their life on a battlefield probably more so. Or not....it just depends on the setting. Castles don't HAVE to be anachronistic. It depends on what the realistic or common threat is.

I keep my front door locked so intruders don't come in. If I lived in a bad neighborhood, I may have a security door that can't be kicked in. That won't stop a rocket, but that's not really something I worry about.