EN World City Project: Protecting the City (Guard Submissions)

[Conaill]

I was using the Elite guard to guard the whole castle. 10 to guard a whole castle for a 8 hr shift, and the 10 Cavalry were for bodyguards if she decided to leave the city.

That's not a personal guard though. She does need one of those, probably 10 men or less (7 would do).

The Citadel is fairly large and could easily house the rest of goverment as well. Which is why I thought it would be more appropriate to set the City Guard on watch. If Lady Kelvin needs an escort, she can always call on the city guard for that as well. After all, she does rule the city!

I was running two 12 hour shifts for the wall and the city watch, with a day off about every 4 days (one day off a week) that would be a 72 hour work week.

12 hour shift is fine for stationary guards like the Guard, where one man can always take a nap, polish weapons or eat while still being available to respond when needed. Men on patrol - like the Watch (and those City Guards patroling the wall) should only have a 8-hour watch.

you actually added 10 to the city watch (I'm stunned )

Because of the 3 shifts. Fine, fine... 50 for the Watch it is. Happy now?

I was thinking more along the lines of 10 to 12 for the rangers, they would be actual leveled NPC's and would cost much more to maintain than regular soldiers.

Ah! I thought you had a larger force in mind, which is why I was worried about their allegiance to the city. With only 10-12 rangers that wouldn't be a problem, but they might have trouble covering the surrounding countryside. Could work if we send them out on individual replies (more apropriate for Rangers anyway...), but they'll need some way to report back or ask for backup.

100 goblins on wargs using even a little bit of stealth or strategy could burn this city down faster than you could get 10 soldiers together to stop them, it would be real inconvienient to have to keep all city gates closed all the time in a city on a trade route.

With at least one man on lookout from the gate towers at each gate, they shouldn't get into the city in the first place. And if they did... I don't think the city would burn! With the large dwarven population, Mor's End is going to have a significantly higher proportion of stone buildings (hmm... less brick buildings? clay too precious to be used on bricks?) Besides, with some magic support, fire danger should be much lower.

Hmm... That gives me an idea for a fire brigade with a Decanter of Endless Water...

 

[Ruavel]

Originally posted by jdavis
That is exactly the type of assistance I am after.

consider it done... this will probably be one of my last posts before going away (5:30am flight tomorrow morning and I still need to test my equipment & pack ), but I'll try to have something about the Outland Rangers up as soon as I get back...

 

[Krug]

A smaller Dwarf force could help on the wall and reduce the standing army closer to your numbers, no way they would guard the castle though, and they would have to be smaller in number than the city guard.

Valid points. so about 50? Perhaps the siege engineers should be there on a 'consultant' basis.

 

[Ruavel]

Originally posted by jdavis
I was thinking more along the lines of 10 to 12 for the rangers, they would be actual leveled NPC's and would cost much more to maintain than regular soldiers.

I have an idea for a 5 level PrC for the rangers that would be available at quite a low level (maybe 3rd level) which can help with the whole loyalty thing as well as offers ways for communicating issues effectively,etc...

two PrC's actually... one of the land-bound rangers and one for a a small very specialised group that patrol the lake, protecting it from beneath the surface...

should these be posted here or elsewhere...?

 

[Conaill]

The Order of the Winter Storm

The Order of the Winter Storm are a company of forty barbarian knights from the northlands.

You're insisting on sending foreign armies our way, aren't you? Pretty soon we won't have any room for local boys in Mor's End's fighting forces...

I would suggest lowering the number somewhat (hey, you're the one who picked a Small City! ), and add in a line that says they've "fled beyond the reach of the King of the Northlands". I think Lady Kelvin would be too pragmatic to give these guys shelter if there were a chance that the Northlands might act against Mor's End!

Composition: Primarily Barbarians or Fighters, with a few Rangers. There are a number of druids amongst them who take care of the wolves that roam with them

So where do you expect these Barbarians, Druids and Wolves (!) to live inside the city? Or is this yet another band roaming the countryside?

 

[jdavis]

Tell you what, I'll drop the Elite down to 17 (4 groups of 4 and one captain, they would work three 8 hour shifts and rotate one day off three days on) and make sure all of them can fight mounted.

Drop City Guard to 60 and use offered Dwarf help but limit the allowed Dwarf garrison to 40 (thus maintaining 100 men or two shifts of 50)

Keep the City Watch at 60 (I'll keep the extra 10 got take what I can get) and change them to 3 shifts of 8 hours.

Total force would be 137 (add in a captain for the guard, a captain for the watch, and count Sebastiano Palmora as the general in charge) 140 total men in Mor's Legion.

The gates will close from Sundown to Sunrise and funds will be set aside to hire mercenaries for specific jobs.

 

[Conaill]

I have an idea for a 5 level PrC[...]

should these be posted here or elsewhere...?

IMPORTANT POLICY ISSUE!

If we're tryingto make this a generic resource, should we even have stuff like new prestige classes, new spells, etc? What's next... new races, new feats?

I don't mind the occasional novel magic item or monster. But this sort of stuff seems rather superfluous for a generic city supplement.

Krug, do you wantto make some sort of ruling on this one way or another? (I'll crosspost this to the Admin thread as well).

 

[jdavis]

I have an idea for a 5 level PrC for the rangers that would be available at quite a low level (maybe 3rd level) which can help with the whole loyalty thing as well as offers ways for communicating issues effectively,etc...

two PrC's actually... one of the land-bound rangers and one for a a small very specialised group that patrol the lake, protecting it from beneath the surface...

should these be posted here or elsewhere...?

Looks like that's covered in the previous post, will wait for official ruling

 

[Krug]

You're insisting on sending foreign armies our way, aren't you? Pretty soon we won't have any room for local boys in Mor's End's fighting forces...

I would suggest lowering the number somewhat (hey, you're the one who picked a Small City! ), and add in a line that says they've "fled beyond the reach of the King of the Northlands". I think Lady Kelvin would be too pragmatic to give these guys shelter if there were a chance that the Northlands might act against Mor's End!

So where do you expect these Barbarians, Druids and Wolves (!) to live inside the city? Or is this yet another band roaming the countryside?

The Barbarians and Druids can enter the city, but not the wolves.

Yes, a small city, but I envision its protectors and guardians to be diverse. For Lady Kelvin it's a political move. Even an independent city-state must have allies, and the Northmen are a long, long way from home. It might have taken a while to trust them, but they have aided the City-State against common foes, and Lady Kelvin now trusts them.

The Order is very loosely based on the Templars, who were offered protection by Robert the Bruce, who certainly did not fear the Pope and his troops knocking on his door.

And when you have about 40-50 elite warriors offering their aid, you don't turn them away, Barbarians though they might be.

More on the r'ship between Robert the Bruce and the Templars:
http://outer-rim.lweb.net/mythos/25celt.html


Walking in the footsteps of William Wallace into the legendary Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert the Bruce was aided by a group of sixty-three members of the Knights Templar. The Templars had been suppressed in France and dispersed throughout all of Europe. Surrounded by strange mysteries and legends, and even more outlandish accusations made by the Catholic Church, the Knights Templar had gone from chivalric heroes to a sect of occult warriors in the eyes of many.

However, at the Battle of Bannockburn they were among the ranks of heroes and freedom fighters as they loosed Scotland from the brutal reign of Edward I.

 

[Krug]

IMPORTANT POLICY ISSUE!

If we're tryingto make this a generic resource, should we even have stuff like new prestige classes, new spells, etc? What's next... new races, new feats?

I don't mind the occasional novel magic item or monster. But this sort of stuff seems rather superfluous for a generic city supplement.

Krug, do you wantto make some sort of ruling on this one way or another? (I'll crosspost this to the Admin thread as well).

I think it can be justified BUT you should provide an alternative so that DMs who don't want a certain 'feature' can replace it with something from the SRD.