A Dozen Crossbows Aimed at You ..

[Victim]

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.

By the same token though, the rulers of the city ought to think twice about messing with the 15th level PCs.

I picked option 3 in the poll, since high level characters will still have trouble with any number of mook guards. Enough rapid shooting warrior archers can even mow down high level characters without special defenses or mobility fairly easily.

However, I don't really think that 15th level characters would or should be troubled much by a dozen low level guards. Heck, even mid level characters can handle them, although the lower HP and AC makes it far more risky for them. The guards are just insufficiently badass.

As far as why low level guards are sent to bring the legendary PC in, it's to avoid provoking the adventurers unnecessarily, and to guilt them into not massacring the low level guards.

 

[PallidPatience]

The danger of the situation isn't from the guards, anymore.

It's from the fact that fighting their way out of a bunch of guards who are there to arrest them rightfully and justly is going to alienate them from everyone who wants to help them. They are no longer the heroes in that situation (if they ever were). Even if they were already the Bad Guys, they now have to worry about the fact that they're well-known. Even their Bad Guy contacts might feel they're too hamhanded and arrogant to trust, unless they were sent to attack the city from elsewhere. In that case, they SHOULD be eliminating the guards, but they're still not subtle enough, probably, in their actions to be truly effective.

 

[Brimshack]

That is a good point, especially if the character is legendary. I'm not a huge fan of suicide enemies. If he is clearly better than they are and they know it, then frankly they should be looking for a big gun to help them rather than making a token effort with their own lives.

 

[kigmatzomat]

12 L1 town guards vs. one naked L15 barbarian. Let's see, the barbarian has ~AC10 for arguement's sake and the town guards have Point Blank as their feat. Of the guards, only 8 are likely to hit. Of the 8 crossbows that hit, assuming a perfect die that rolls 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 on the die for damage (+1 for point blank), the barbarian's Dr ignores the bolts that did 1+1 and 2+1 points of damage. The remaining bolts do a whopping 21 points of damage, less than half the barbarian's 45 bonus hit points from Rage.

Even if you house rule that each bolt that hits is a crit, the barbarian still only takes 48 hp after DR, which is barely more than his bonus Rage hp. If you rule that all the bolts flat out hit and do crit damage he's still only taking 96 hp after DR, half of which would be recovered by Rage.

Once he begins punching people with power attack he'll probably be knocking them unconscious with a single blow. Grappling him is actually a bad thing since it means he can attack them unarmed without earning an AoO. Pinning is likely to happen since he's got that lovely +6 strength adjustment for a Grapple:+21; the guards are basically praying he rolls a 1. They might manage to overwhelm him before he takes them all out. Maybe. While he's buck naked. May a diety take mercy on them if he gets a weapon.

Soooooo.....if you want a dozen guardsmen to be a threat, go play Runequest (the Chaosium version). Or MERPS. Something based on the Cyberpunk Interlok system. But not D&D. A dozen 1st level guardsmen have never been a threat to a 15th level anything else in any version of D&D I've ever seen.

 

[Delta]

Consider also this: any 17th-level cleric (not 15th, but close enough) can cast storm of vengeance. That alone probably reduces your whole medieval town to rubble (about 1/8-mile across). Does it really make sense to send a dozen guys with crossbows against a threat like that?

The proper fix in D&D if you don't like PC's that powerful is to cap levels somewhere before 8th.

 

[Gundark]

Spycraft 2.0 has a rule to reflect something like this. The PC wakes up with a gun to his head it doesn't matter what level they are, this is a deadly situation. I think the same thing should be so in D&D.

 

[Gold Roger]

Consider also this: any 17th-level cleric (not 15th, but close enough) can cast storm of vengeance. That alone probably reduces your whole medieval town to rubble (about 1/8-mile across). Does it really make sense to send a dozen guys with crossbows against a threat like that?

Yes, but they are elite assassin guys with enchanted crossbows.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If those crossbows become Composite Longbows, Mighty to +2, and the guards all have Point Blank Shot (both possible for very elite guardsmen), simply switching over to d20 Modern's rules for massive damage would make the scenario warrant a bit more PC thought. (On a crit, the bows would do 3d8+9, and the PC would likely have to make a Fort save or drop to -1 hit points from massive damage.)

Personally, any game I run from now on will likely use d20 Modern's massive damage rules, just to handle scenarios like this. But D&D is designed to be more heroic than that.

The d20 Modern MDT was on my mind too. I don't know how well it would work in D&D with fireballs and big monster damage flying around though (compared to d20 Modern with not much that gets above 2-4d8).

True20 is another example where the threat works, because higher level characters become harder to hit, but maintain their pretty standard toughness (unless the PC has specialised in being tough).

Personally I prefer this model (call it the 'Conan' model) to the standard D&D ('Superman' model).

Cheers

 

[takyris]

The d20 Modern MDT was on my mind too. I don't know how well it would work in D&D with fireballs and big monster damage flying around though (compared to d20 Modern with not much that gets above 2-4d8).

I'd like to see at some point. My gut feeling is that it would make players more cautious against mooks, but it wouldn't be as big a change to normal gameplay as one might fear, mainly since characters in D&D tend to get better saves than characters in d20 Modern. Yeah, 30 points of damage from a fireball might take down that fighter with 76 hit points, but he's probably got a Fort Save of +12 or so (10th level fighter: Base Fort save +7 +3 Con +2 from either Great Fortitude or save-boosting items). Combine that with easier access to magical healing, and it's definitely a change, but not a huge one. (I think. I could be so, so, so very wrong.)

If I did implement this change in D&D, I'd do it in a campaign that also had action points, so that PCs of mid-to-high level could still take on big bad 10d6-damage-dropping clerics without feeling like every round was a killer.

Personally I prefer this model (call it the 'Conan' model) to the standard D&D ('Superman' model).

Yep. Heck, the Conan game drops the threshold to 20 and, if I'm remembering right, gives every attacker beyond the first a cumulative +1 to hit you. I don't remember if it's melee-only, or if archers would get those bonuses as well, but it does make PCs more cautious about getting swarmed. (And it makes them feel better when they take down three mooks in one round, too.)

 

[Endur]

12 watchmen with xbows .. and you're a high level character

One of the twelve watchmen is a level 5 Rogue\level 1 Assassin in disguise. He looks just like the other watchmen. But his crossbow bolt comes with +4d6 of sneak attack damage, a DC 13 Death attack, and at least a +4 to hit above the usual guardsman.