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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 3175048" data-attributes="member: 3146">IIRC, in the bible, when King Ahab decided to do something about Elijah IIRC, he sent a group of fifty or so soldiers to capture him and Elijah called down fire from heaven and it consumed them all. So, King Ahab did it again. (Maybe he figured Elijah would run out of spell slots sooner or later). And Elijah called down the fire again. So, King Ahab sent a third group of soldiers and that time, the captain showed up in front of Elijah and, having heard what happened to the last two groups of soldiers, fell on his knees and begged Elijah not to call down fire from heaven on him. Elijah didn't and instead went with him willingly.Now, it's been a while since I read that story so I could have Elijah and Elisha mixed up and it might have been captains of 100 instead of captains of 50, but that general outline is how I see 15th level PCs (high enough level to cast firestorm or sunburst) interacting with groups of guards with crossbows (or regular bows, etc). The low level guards cannot compel the high level PCs to go with them. They can only ask the PCs to do so and hope that the PCs comply out of a respect for law, pity for the guards (who will try to enforce the law if the PCs disregard them), or fear of the authority that the guards represent (hey, he's only a second level guard, but he's a servant of the Lords of Waterdeep, they know who I am, and if I kill him out of hand, they may well sic Khelben, Piergon, and Elminster on me).But, in the story Elijah isn't Chaotic Stupid. What about guys who are just causing trouble? Well, what about them? Some of them get dealt with by the high level guys that are out there. That fighter 11 and the fighter 10? Odds are good that at least one of them is either the local Lord, his son, his cousin, his ward, his champion, or his master at arms. The 11th and 10th level warriors? And the 5th level fighters and the two 8th level paladins? In a world where the local Lord is expected to go out and fight off the orcs and giants, he's either going to be skilled himself, have skilled men, or be dead and with someone else in charge. So, some measure of resources are available to the town--maybe even enough to deal with a single 15th level PC type causing trouble in the streets. (Let's make this doubly so because the kinds of 15th level PCs who simply cause trouble in the streets are likely to have vices and lack of discipline that make them vulnerable--if they were paragons of virtue, they probably wouldn't be causing trouble in the streets and if they were disciplined villains, they would be the BBEGs of a campaign and well, you expect them to take over several cities through their machinations and personal power--catch the PC drunk (especially if he's passed out in a gutter<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />), in flagrante delictio, etc and it evens the odds up quite a bit).But what if the local law isn't capable of dealing with the troublemaking PC? Well, then you have a situation, but it's hardly one that is without parallel in storytelling. Hannibal ravaged the countryside around Rome for years and the Romans were unable to stop him. Achilles slaughtered Trojans by the score and nobody could withstand him. When Achilles sulked in his tent, Hector drove the greeks back to their ships. In the Bible, Samson slaughtered Philistines by the score, burned their fields, and tore the gates off of their cities. They sent 10,000 soldiers after them and he killed them with the jawbone of an ass. That's the kind of stuff that 15th level characters do when they are out to destroy things and there's nothing worldbreaking about it. When the NPCs finally bribe the 15th level character's favorite whore to cut his hair (or steal his spell component pouch) while he sleeps and then drop in the remaining 10th level warrior and 10th level fighter on him, fully armed and inside an anti-magic shell, they're going to get him, and when they do, maybe they'll cut off his hands and feet and put out his eyes and chain him in the temple of their god while they celebrate that they have finally done away with the villain who plagued them for so long.But I don't want to play all that out, you say. I don't want to DM a player's personal power trip killing guards and doing whatever he wants until I finally outsmart him. There are other players and even if there were only the one player, it's hardly my idea of fun. Well, then, handle it out of game. That's what I do. I let my players know that I'm interested in DMing for heroes who fall within a certain moral framework and that if their characters depart from that, they will become NPCs and the players will be invited to create a different character or leave. If you don't want to game with out of control PCs, don't do it. If you don't want PCs to have the ability to get out of control, then don't run high level PCs.</blockquote>

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