How do you stat the town guard?

[Turtlejay]

There are various possibilities but I don't see the run of the mill of what you find in a town to be especially challenging in a fight. For the main town in the area I'm running now basically there are a couple of types:

Town Watch: These are just basically ordinary citizens deputized to keep an eye on things, enforce basic regulations, watch for fires, and keep order. They don't really have much combat ability and they'll just raise an alarm if anything serious comes up. Their stats are basically human rabble with a badge and armed with a truncheon (club). They aren't any kind of threat in and of themselves but if PCs mess with them then there will be serious trouble with the authorities.

Town Guards: These are basic trained soldiers who garrison the town gates, watch towers, etc. They are level 5 soldier minions equipped with a halberd. They will fight if attacked, are usually found in a group of 3-5 and often backed up by a Human Guard who acts as a sergeant. They still aren't a really serious threat on their own but the garrison can always call on a few higher level figures or larger numbers if necessary. If the town watch needs reinforcement to handle a problem then some of these guys will show up.

Unique Figures: The above are just the standard figures that provide background. Specific named individual guards etc are custom stat blocks as appropriate. So if a particular guard figures in an adventure where he needs to be fleshed out then he would be whatever level and type is appropriate. If there are specific problems then the authorities bring in knights, wizards, clerics, whatever they need to make the problem go away. The inhabitants of the town aren't generally going to be able to deal with higher level monsters, rampaging high level PCs, etc. by main force. If they have a problem like that then they'll need heroes to help them out or else things will go bad for them.

Nice! The visual I just had was Stormtroopers vs Bounty Hunters. At some point, the Empire had enough of Han Solo's . . .antics, and they had to hire out for some specialized muscle. And it worked.

The run of the mill town guard can be mowed down like stormtroopers, but once someone with some authority learns of the PC's actions, then they will start to see some real resistance, and possibly named adversaries tailored to the PC's and with good intel about their abilities.

So for some rules-side advice, normal guards should be minions of the party's level or even lower, with maybe one 'captain' or 'sargeant' that is a soldier of the party's level. A non-fight, basically, to show just how much juice the party has. After that, SWAT teams and hit squads of the medival variety can show up as encounters befitting the party, L+1 or so. If they are still slaughtering the defenders of the crown, they might run into a mercenary group or an elite trained crew, in an ambush or assassination attempt that is truly tough at L+4 or 5.

As for roles, I'd follow good encounter building design and avoid making a troop of guards all soldiers. Just like an entire party of martial characters can have a varied playstyle and combat technique, the guards likely have different specialties. You might have a burly guy that swings his axe in big arcs, or a noble that trained with a rapier to deflect most hits. All in the same uniform, but different underneath.

Jay

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Why, we stab him with our steely knives, of course.

Oh, did you say stat? Never mind...

 

[The Human Target]

Put me down for the "it really depends on party level and what you're going to use them for."

In my campaign I have 1st level characters in a wild frontier mining town. The local Sheriff and his mean are designed to be relatively few in number, but pretty tough and somewhat antagonistic towards the PCs depending on what the PCs do. And I opted to use the Emerald Claw character stats from the Eberron Campaign Guide just for fun.

I'm using....
Emerald Claw Troopers- lvl 2 minions- The newest trainees, brought into service specifically to pad the ranks because of the PCs presence in town.

Emerald Claw Sergeants- lvl 2 skirkishers- The generic deputies.

Emerald Claw Knight- lvl 3 soldiers- the sheriffs two main men.

Emerald Claw Marshal- lvl 5 soldier (leader)- the Sheriff himself.

So basically, do what ya want.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Unnamed town guards start out as level 1-3 soldiers and artillery and become character level minions when they cease to be dangerous (ie - they can barely hit the PCs). Their tactics are to do their best to stall until they think they have enough reinforcements to take the PCs on (at least 5 to 1). How quickly that happens depends on how big the city is and how magical the setting is. Reinforcements will include at least one leader-type elite and a few higher level guards with varying specialities. If the PCs still don't get the hint, more reinforcements (and tougher reinforcements) will continue to arrive until they flee, surrender or die. Or until the PCs realistically slaughter the entire guard of whatever settlement they're in, but that's usually going to take a while.

A small village doesn't really have guards: the villagers will all be armed and their level depends on the dangers of the environs. The villagers will be tough enough that whatever threat the PCs are supposed to be handling would suffer heavy losses if they attacked the village directly, because otherwise the village simply would not be there. If the PCs wipe out the village, chances are that eventually someone notices, but it may never be connected to them.

If it's just some random village far away from the dangers of the wild, the villagers are level 1 minions who flee or surrender at the first sign of serious trouble. They may get word out that they're under attack, in which case an overwhelming encounter for the PCs is liable to show up in a couple of weeks (or less, depending on magic level and proximity to major military bases). Otherwise the PCs can feel free to act as lords until someone notices them usurping the real nobility, at which point, again, an overwhelming encounter will pay a visit.

The goal is for the PCs to be free to operate in unlawful ways while in cities, but for them to have to dodge the law if they do so. The scenarios of "the law can't touch us" and "we can't do anything just in case there's guardsman about" are, to me, counterproductive to having fun while adventuring in a city.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nice! The visual I just had was Stormtroopers vs Bounty Hunters. At some point, the Empire had enough of Han Solo's . . .antics, and they had to hire out for some specialized muscle. And it worked.

The run of the mill town guard can be mowed down like stormtroopers, but once someone with some authority learns of the PC's actions, then they will start to see some real resistance, and possibly named adversaries tailored to the PC's and with good intel about their abilities.

So for some rules-side advice, normal guards should be minions of the party's level or even lower, with maybe one 'captain' or 'sargeant' that is a soldier of the party's level. A non-fight, basically, to show just how much juice the party has. After that, SWAT teams and hit squads of the medival variety can show up as encounters befitting the party, L+1 or so. If they are still slaughtering the defenders of the crown, they might run into a mercenary group or an elite trained crew, in an ambush or assassination attempt that is truly tough at L+4 or 5.

As for roles, I'd follow good encounter building design and avoid making a troop of guards all soldiers. Just like an entire party of martial characters can have a varied playstyle and combat technique, the guards likely have different specialties. You might have a burly guy that swings his axe in big arcs, or a noble that trained with a rapier to deflect most hits. All in the same uniform, but different underneath.

Jay

Right. The town watch is going to be pretty trivial. You could definitely have a mix of types and roles, but for simplicity's sake I don't normally do that. If a particular group of guards is a setup to fight with the party and you want to make it a bit more interesting, then definitely you could flesh them out a bit more, though if they're pushovers then it probably doesn't matter much if one is a brute instead of a soldier.

On the other hand, you never know. Any given town guard could be an ex-gladiator level 8 Elite Skirmisher who just happens to carry a whip and knows how to use it too!

Unnamed town guards start out as level 1-3 soldiers and artillery and become character level minions when they cease to be dangerous (ie - they can barely hit the PCs). Their tactics are to do their best to stall until they think they have enough reinforcements to take the PCs on (at least 5 to 1). How quickly that happens depends on how big the city is and how magical the setting is. Reinforcements will include at least one leader-type elite and a few higher level guards with varying specialities. If the PCs still don't get the hint, more reinforcements (and tougher reinforcements) will continue to arrive until they flee, surrender or die. Or until the PCs realistically slaughter the entire guard of whatever settlement they're in, but that's usually going to take a while.

Yeah, I just don't think for the most part its worth making the guys on the street anything beyond minions as a general rule. There may be some tougher guys walking the beat, but for a quick ad-hoc "ran into them in the street making trouble" thing, probably minions.

A small village doesn't really have guards: the villagers will all be armed and their level depends on the dangers of the environs. The villagers will be tough enough that whatever threat the PCs are supposed to be handling would suffer heavy losses if they attacked the village directly, because otherwise the village simply would not be there. If the PCs wipe out the village, chances are that eventually someone notices, but it may never be connected to them.

Yeah, there's something to be said for that, though in a dangerous area I'd expect there to be someone around that's tough enough to stand up to the local bad guys and probably most villagers are still pretty much rabble. Again there are likely a few tougher people mixed in, the guy that was a sergeant in the army before he retired, maybe even a low level caster or something. Of course its doubtful very many high level parties are going to bother slaughtering villages.

The goal is for the PCs to be free to operate in unlawful ways while in cities, but for them to have to dodge the law if they do so. The scenarios of "the law can't touch us" and "we can't do anything just in case there's guardsman about" are, to me, counterproductive to having fun while adventuring in a city.

Right. I look at it as not TOO different from what you would find today. The local police may be lightly armed and can deal with ordinary trouble. If you make serious trouble, then a whole bunch of much better armed and trained guys show up pretty soon. If you drive down Main Street in a tank then they call in and get the National Guard to show up and even if you can deal with a few of them they have infinite numbers and bigger and bigger weapons.

So the local town watch guy really probably can't touch you as an adventurer, but if you mess with him, then 10 of his buddies show up with better weapons and some decent training. If its still a problem, then the local guy in charge wanders over with his retinue of knights. The party can thus get away with stuff to a certain extent if they're circumspect about it, but if they start whacking large numbers of locals then it will turn into a full out military response pretty soon.

Of course in a fairly mundane area epic level PCs probably CAN get away with almost anything. However characters like that are going to attract a whole other kind of attention. Pretty soon there are going to be angles or something dropping in to set things right or some local Ancient Silver Dragon will start wondering what the ruckus is about.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Yeah, I just don't think for the most part its worth making the guys on the street anything beyond minions as a general rule. There may be some tougher guys walking the beat, but for a quick ad-hoc "ran into them in the street making trouble" thing, probably minions.

Well, my point was that at first level, I'd expect the guards to be threats even in small numbers. I was kind of sticking to the "they become minions to avoid the bag-of-hitpoints that's no threat" paradigm.

Yeah, there's something to be said for that, though in a dangerous area I'd expect there to be someone around that's tough enough to stand up to the local bad guys and probably most villagers are still pretty much rabble. Again there are likely a few tougher people mixed in, the guy that was a sergeant in the army before he retired, maybe even a low level caster or something.

Well, yeah. Just as long as the village as a whole isn't a pushover for one of the local groups baddies, it all makes sense.

Of course its doubtful very many high level parties are going to bother slaughtering villages.

Well, yeah, I was working with the idea that, for whatever reason, the PCs DO start something. I wouldn't bother speccing things up ahead of time, just flick through the book to an appropriate humanoid entry for the encounter level and pick roles on what you think makes sense.

 

[The Human Target]

I'll add in another 2 cents.

I've switched over in my campaigns so that any bar fight type scenario is going to end up a skill challenge. They're trivial generally, and this tends to work out a lot faster without burning party resources or being unrealistic.

You could always do the same for a fight with the town guard.

I might give it a whirl soon actually.

 

[Mirtek]

Personally I detest run-off-the-mill NPC/Monsters leveling to keep pace with the party.

Once the party has become a bunch of demigods it just sucks any enjoyment out of the game if they see that every run-off-the-mill human backwater townguard is suddenly on demigodlevel too.

So I think the best soluations are to stop their advancement at mid-paragon (elites of major cities and personal kings guard) and henceforth starting to treat them as swarms or skill challenges.

 

[lukelightning]

I've switched over in my campaigns so that any bar fight type scenario is going to end up a skill challenge.

Good idea! These things are more fun in the abstract, anyways. I could see a bunch of skills being useful, particularly athletics and acrobatics, and you're free from hard-and fast combat rules so you're free to make up more impressive stunts to describe what you are doing.

 

[Turtlejay]

Personally I detest run-off-the-mill NPC/Monsters leveling to keep pace with the party.

Once the party has become a bunch of demigods it just sucks any enjoyment out of the game if they see that every run-off-the-mill human backwater townguard is suddenly on demigodlevel too.

So I think the best soluations are to stop their advancement at mid-paragon (elites of major cities and personal kings guard) and henceforth starting to treat them as swarms or skill challenges.

That makes sense if the party is still tooling around in the back of nowhere at Epic, but hopefully they are flying around Sigil and the City of Brass or other huge, *epic* cities at that level. If so, then keeping the challenge at a level appropriate, uh, level. . .seems to fit.

This argument was made regarding a certain chandelierere recently. People had a problem with it scaling to do level appropriate damage. I totally get that, and if you are in the same tavern that you met at when you were 25 levels lower, then the furnishings should be the same, and do the same damage.

In all likelyhood though, you are meeting with the majordomo of a Planes spanning criminal empire, or waiting to see the Celestial to whom you owe your year and a days service, or at the Planar Pocket, an Inn with an Astral Diamond head charge, or any number of fantastical locations where a plain old wood and chain chadelelier (yes, I can't spell it, happy?) won't cut it.

It doesn't have to break versimilitude, as the PC's should be progressing out of areas that are no longer a threat to them anyways.

Jay