Fantasy fortresses in a magic-heavy world?

[mbartelsm]

As far as siege weapons goes, the most powerful ones are pseudo cannons powered by fire, wind and metal casters, they are comparable to a late renaissance cannon. Ranged personal weaponry consists mostly of bows and crossbows as they outrange most magical attacks, for mid range it mostly depends on each person's element of choice, ranging from throwing rocks to pushing people with wind, and short range is mostly swords and the like, with little magic use unless it's for besieging.

 

[Lucas]

As far as siege weapons goes, the most powerful ones are pseudo cannons powered by fire, wind and metal casters, they are comparable to a late renaissance cannon. Ranged personal weaponry consists mostly of bows and crossbows as they outrange most magical attacks, for mid range it mostly depends on each person's element of choice, ranging from throwing rocks to pushing people with wind, and short range is mostly swords and the like, with little magic use unless it's for besieging.

Okay. With such weapons, fortifications will probably have lost most of their meaning, but would still play an important tactial role, but then only in terms of how many soldiers they can support.

 

[SeverinR]

"Earth" is the problem element. A lot of castle walls are built with stone on the outside, and a large earthen mound in the middle. There's not really a good substitute, so you would need some way to "corrupt" the earthen mound so that it wouldn't be subject to an earth bender's magic. Similarly, you could corrupt the water in a moat.

The basic answer, however, is that the castle has defenders who are countering many of the offensive abilities with their own. And if your magic system has any weaknesses - like only a few people have magic, or that using it too much tires them out, or so on - then you'd build the fortification to take advantage of that weakness, like having lots of layers that force them to wear out their strength through attrition.

You'd also want to make sure that there are traps and tricks laying around that the defenders can use which the attackers might not be prepared for - the equivalent of dumping boiling water on their heads. For instance, maybe one "random mound of earth to move" is really holding down a pressure system trap.

Hope that helps!

Anti-magic trap-it follows the path back to the caster for a counter magic, be it energy to fry the wizard, or mind destroying to attack the magic or the destroy the mind of the person.
Magic nullifying would have to be built in. Something that absorbs magic rather then weakening the defenses. As magic/science finds an attack, people find a defense for it. (Similiar to today, every e-comfort is exploited for e-gain.)

Figure out how the person attacks the structure, then figure out a way to hurt them or many people around them.