Forked Thread: How common are high-level monsters in your setting?

[Shades of Green]

Forked from: Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.

I didn't want to hijack that thread, so I forked from it. An interesting point that seems to rise from that discussion is how common are high-level monsters (say level 5 or more or in 3E CR 5 or more) in your setting? How powerful are the typical threats the city watch, the king's knights or the village militia have to tackle on a day-to-day (or year-to-year) basis?

 

[Fenes]

In my campaign (centered on a modified Mulhorand), most of the threats are other people, not monsters. And most of the monster threats are humanoids. Non-humanoid monsters are generally rare, and confined to the wilderness, or intelligent and able to hide among the population.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I've not considered the day-to-day basis of threats at all. As far as I'm concerned, I'll stick with the written adventures.

However, if I was going to be running a homebrew, again I wouldn't be likely to consider it outside of where the PC's are in their careers. If that then means that I decide a dragon-led army of giants is going to come sweeping down through the Nentir Vale, then I'd probably reckon on mass slaughter unless the PC's stop it. I'd prefer to stick to the idea that PC's eventually surpass the surrounding area and it's guards and law-makers, but only if they aren't abusing the situation.

If my players started behaving as though the law doesn't matter to them, it's time to break out a society of murderers, cut-throats and other nasty types to have a 'quiet chat' about consequences.

 

[Dausuul]

Forked from: Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.

I didn't want to hijack that thread, so I forked from it. An interesting point that seems to rise from that discussion is how common are high-level monsters (say level 5 or more or in 3E CR 5 or more) in your setting? How powerful are the typical threats the city watch, the king's knights or the village militia have to tackle on a day-to-day (or year-to-year) basis?

Typical threats are orcs, goblins, dire wolves, maybe the occasional ogre. But that's stuff that comes to attack the town. The PCs' home town exists in an area relatively free of powerful threats, more or less by default; the towns that found themselves sharing their territory with big hungry monsters got wiped out, so all that's left are the towns that were lucky enough to be in a "quiet zone." You go out into the deep wilderness, you find nastier things... often lurking in the ruins of the aforementioned unlucky towns.

I'm currently running a Heroic-tier campaign (the PCs are 7th level right now), but I make a point of tossing in the occasional Paragon-level threat, just to establish that yes, these beasties do exist in the world; they aren't hiding under a rock waiting for the PCs to hit 11th level.

The party doesn't have to fight these things; depending on the situation, they can deal with them diplomatically, or just sneak on by. I think it adds a sense of scale to the world, and makes the PCs feel that much cooler when they realize they're tough enough to actually challenge the aboleth lurking in the depths of Lake Winternight, whose servitors nearly killed them when they were 2nd level.

 

[Verdande]

Personally? Very low indeed. I just don't like the idea that every town guardsman is bristling with enough power and magic to slay a regiment of trolls.

I'm not against in a "players MUST be the most powerful things around," sort of way, I'm just all for a low-magic, sword and sorcery world where monsters and magic are rare and special, and people are the most common threats.

 

[Starfox]

Exactly as common as the plot requires them to be. I see DnD as a laboratory exercise, not a simulation (and this applies across all editions). I am here to tell a story, not to make things make sense. of course, I do work on making the world believable, or it will be very hard to get engaged in the story, but not realistic.

 

[Irda Ranger]

how common are high-level monsters (say level 5 or more or in 3E CR 5 or more) in your setting? How powerful are the typical threats the city watch, the king's knights or the village militia have to tackle on a day-to-day (or year-to-year) basis?

Close in to the borders of a PoL monsters and bad guys have about the same level distribution as "good guy" NPC population tables in the DMG. Orcs, kobolds and goblins are as common as human city guards, Bugbears are elite but not unheard of, etc. Paragon Tier threats are rare. Epic Tier threats are globally unique.

Deeper in the darkness though, further from the PoL's, threats can get bigger more often. A kingdom of Giants would obviously have many high-level threats, but it's a good distance from any settled PoL. And of course once you've gone trans-planar all bets are off.

 

[S'mon]

CR 5 creatures are rare, and more likely to be encountered as roaming individuals than in groups. In my last 3e campaign 'city guard' were typically 3rd level warriors or 2nd level Fighters. They might occasionally face CR 3 Ogres, but most threats CR 1 or less.

My current 3e campaign is based on Red Box Basic D&D, 'city guard' or 'dwarf clansmen' are typically 1st level warriors, knights are 2nd level warriors. Threats are mostly human 1st level Warriors (barbarians) or Experts (acolytes/cultists), or 1d8 hit dice orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins, with rare bands of bugbears and ogres. Far off up in the high mountains are 8d8 hit dice hill giants, 10d8 hit dice frost giants, and such.