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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7876257" data-attributes="member: 4937">The venerable 1e AD&D DMG had detailed rules for peasant revolts, based on the assumption that PC's would likely be tyrannical lieges.I've never had a peasant revolt occur in one of my games, but if it happened I do believe that I could support it, and in my typical demographics it would be pretty terrifying for an assumed scale of territory that a PC of a given level would likely control. In 5e, they'd likely be even more terrifying, given the bounded accuracy rules would make the low level peasants relatively more effective.The typical peasant farmer in my (3e) game is 2nd to 4th level commoner. That functionally is equivalent to a 1st or 2nd level warrior. In rural or wilderness areas though, some or all of those levels would be replaced with levels of warrior or hunter, because the nature of the wild requires the peasants to occasionally defend themselves from bandits (human and non-human), lycanthropes, undead, fairy creatures, wild beasts, and the occasional wandering giant. Hard lives generate a hard people. Being lower class themselves, almost certainly, the teamsters, stevedores, lumberjacks, undertakers, rat killers, and sailors would side with any peasant revolt. Those groups are pretty freaking terrifying in my games. Most have levels in Explorer, which gives them full BAB, and those that don't tend to have levels in Brute which makes them reasonably scary folks you don't want to get in a barroom brawl with. The lumberjacks in particular aside from being hard hard people tend to have tamed mammoths and mastadons, so a clan of lumberjacks can actually field things on a battlefield relevant to moderately high level PCs. And all of those groups are all generally skilled with and own weapons. You maybe thinking, "Rat killers aren't much of a threat.", but remember that in setting the rat killers are expected to deal with wererats. Undertakers put down ghouls. These aren't soft people. They are the sort of people that get the job done when PC types aren't around or have bigger problems to deal with.For leaders, the peasants will have decently high level Hunters - up to 4th level with occasionally has high as 6th level. They are also likely to have support from Shamans - again up to 4th level with occasionally as high as 6th level - which means they'll have decent spellcaster support. And of course, at any sign of anarchy, the underclass of rogues, bandits, pirates, and the like are likely to side against authority in hopes of turning a profit. Plus, depending on the causes of the revolt, the peasants will likely garner at least some sympathy from the middle and upper class. If the middle class is pulled in, you'll pull in the yeomanry, chaotic clergy, and the hedge wizards. The yeomanry often have military experience, and at the least are part of the militia and the hedge wizards are despite their generally low level nothing to be trifled with. If one or more cults side against you, things could go bad in a hurry, because that pulls in potentially high level clerics, templars and champions (think Paladins). If the upper class is pulled in, then you'll have at least some of the barons or landed knights siding with the peasants, Robin of Locksley style.In short, when you are talking about a 'peasant revolt', you are basically talking about a situation where the humans engage in total warfare, and in any human centric setting (which is most D&D settings) the humans are terrifying, and there is a reason they dominate most of the land area.</blockquote>

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