A Dozen Crossbows Aimed at You ..

[Gentlegamer]

Actually, on further thought, The Princess Bride might be modelled pretty well using the D&D rules. First, Wesley's DM had him climb the Cliffs of Insanity. Then he had to face a challenging sworsman. Then a giant. Then he took poison, and while he may have spent several years developing an immunity, he might have still taken incidental Con damage. Then he rolled down a hill. Then he went through the Fire Swamp.

Then, and only then the DM used the "mooks with crossbows" bit. The Dread Pirate Roberts was down on hit points, and had perhaps taken some ability damage. Softened up that much, it is quite possible that the mooks offered a serious threat.


RC

Inconceivable!

 

[Delta]

One point of order: the poll question and the first option don't really say the same thing. (More-than-a-dozen is not the same thing as infinity.) If you do a computer simulation of fights with the by-the-book-DMG-NPCs of appropriate level, you get this:

- 280 War1's vs. Ftr15 is about a 50/50 toss-up.
- 120 Ftr2's vs. Ftr15 is about a 50/50 toss-up.

This was just for melee, but the Ftr15 can make the fight melee about as soon as they want, so in broad numbers this is how many standard soldiers a Ftr15 is worth under the core rules. It takes a few hundred.

And interestingly, these numbers also happen to be very close to what you get if you compare EL's under the standard "+2 EL every doubling" rule.
- War1, CR 1/2: 2 at EL 1, 7 doublings (EL 1+14 = 15) is 256 guys (2x2^7 = 256).
- Ftr2, CR2: 1 at EL 2, about 7 doublings (EL 2+14 = 16) is 128 guys (1x2^7 = 128).

 

[Slife]

15th level wizard:

Step 1a: Contingency dimension door (200 feet, straight up)
Step 1b: Quickened Fly + Cloudkill.
There is no Step 2.

 

[Umbran]

I voted for PCs prevailing. The knife to the throat or the gun ot the heat is a situation for the coup de gras. The dozen crossbows are not. Big difference, in my mind, especially when talking about epic fantasy, where derring do above that available to normal real-world humans happens regularly.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's an unrealistic problem:

Only a fool of a guard captain would send the rank and file after a 15th level hero who's killed dragons, bested demons and outwitted liches.

Now, would a level 15 character stand against a dozen crossbows (all at least masterwork) held by the king's elite guard, all of whom are level 5 or better? Maybe, but he'd fare a lot worse, and depending on how elite the local elite are, he could be dead meat. (And before anyone says "realism," remember that we're talking about, as was said, Gilgamesh-level heroes here, so the realism train has long ago left the station.)

In Ptolus, they have several tiers of authorities who can respond to problems and low-level guards are mostly going to just be witnesses to crimes by high-level adventurers and not throw their lives away trying to stop them. To me, that makes a lot more sense.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Ultimately guards just don't matter. A L15 is so far above any guards that they are just there to give the player an opp to show off his badassness.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ultimately guards just don't matter. A L15 is so far above any guards that they are just there to give the player an opp to show off his badassness.

Depends on the size of the city. In the RAW, a large metropolis can have quite impressive guards, and they'll certainly be the ones sent out to apprehend Thrud the Barbarian, not some level 1 warrior mooks.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Depends on the size of the city. In the RAW, a large metropolis can have quite impressive guards, and they'll certainly be the ones sent out to apprehend Thrud the Barbarian, not some level 1 warrior mooks.

I pretty much ignore the RAW in regards to class compositions of cities and stuff like that. I tend to view the PC's and pretty rare and special in their profession and power.

 

[Brimshack]

My preference would be for a game in which even a low level enemy poses some risk to high level characters. One way to do that is with called shots and a vicious crit system (Torn Asunder comes to mind). So, the possibility that someone could get maimed a bit more than usual might help. Even then, the fact is with the current system not too many players are going to be concerned about your average grunt gaurd.

I try to counter this in 3 ways:

Unpredictability. You never know when a grunt soldier is going to turn out to be powerful after all. And the Captain of the gaurd may not be the one you need to worry about. It could be the 3rd guy on the left. I do this just often enough t keep the players from taking the odds completely for granted.

Terrain: If the gaurds (or any low-level enemy) are smart enough, they might be able to use the terraun to their advantage. Perhaps they line up in a spot that the PC can't get to readily. He will have to take a couple volleyes before he can get to them. Perhaps they get him when he is standing in an awkward place or otherwise suffering a penalty. This can help, it doesn't entirely solve the problem.

Politics: This is the main thing. The problem isn't the gaurds; it's the police captain who knows the local noble who has allies in the temple as well as the arcane school, and so on... and if that isn't enough, this noble has an ally in the net major city, and that guy has access to the assassin guild, an archmage... Unless the PCs are prepared to make an enemy out of the entire township, they will have to think twice about killing its gaurds. It's important for the players to understand, if they roll play their characters badly they will lose needed support and face enemies that are progressively more powerful than they are. Wrecklessly killing a bunch of NPCs well below their own level is a good way to end up facing a bunch well above their own level a game or 2 down the road. I'm not necessarily talking TPK, but capture and imprisonment is a real possibility. Loss of 1 or 2 characters before the others end up fleeing is also possible. Either way the point is the PCs could get quite a setback if they throw their weight around too much.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Another thing to ask, is what else is CR 15 and would those guards have the same sort of chances with that then they would with a player. For instance, a CR 15 dragon, demon, golem, etc.... Some of those things that require magic to effect or silver, or adamant. Is the arguement still that the players are too powerful when a substitute is used?