[Urbis] Stopping Adventurers and other Public Menaces

[haakon1]

I really like the idea. I wrote up a "Greyhawk Fire Department" years ago, using 1st level or so characters, but thinking through ideas on what magic items the city could provide and how low level mages could be useful, that sort of thing. 4th level is pretty buff compared to what I think should be normal, but for a SWAT team, it makes sense.

I advise you to think SWAT -- special weapons and tactics. A ranseur or guisarme fits in the SWAT category, but some of the equipment in the PHB is directly lifted from a modern SWAT arsenal -- Thunderstones, Smokesticks, and Tanglefoot Bags. And SWAT units are famous for snipers -- think poison arrows, Sleep Arrows, Bane heavy crossbow bolts with poison on them, all fired from a Holy bow.

Other reasonable equipment to have available (perhaps in a locker back in HQ until needed, rather than counting it against each NPC's equipment list) are various Protection and Resist Energy potions, plus potions like Invisibility and Cat's Grace.

Yup, I like the idea of an Invisible min-maxed sniper with 19 Dex using a Holy heavy crossbow to fire a Human Bane bolt with Wyvern Poison, Drow Poison, or Black Lotus Extract on it. Excellent, Smithers.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'd give them some sort of feat that lets them use tower shields in conjunction with pole-arms. Something that lets them set down the tower shield and then fight around it without moving much themselves and only in some sort of formation.

If they're there to pin people down and control movement then the cover rules provided by tower shields is a huge advantage. At the same time it's such a specialized use of the equipment in question that I really can't see adventurers or any other tactical formation getting much use out of it.

Aside from shield walls, and that's more or less historically accurate.

I could also see a lot of specialty equipment designed to create hinderances: Crossbows designed to bite into stone while dragging lines to set up triplines and anti-flyer obstacles, caltrops, the alchemical weapons mentioned above, and loads of specialized lanterns to put them in shadow and to shine light into their enemies positions and eyes.

Then again, maybe I'm seeing this wrong, but I'm seeing these guys as a sort of riot squad where some other group is going to function as the actual SWAT team.

 

[Ace]

If a player goes up against one of these and complains about his weapon being sundered, I think the campaign can stand to lose them.

I disagree with this bit -- many D&D players in my area (yours may very) consider certain pieces of kit part of the charcter concept -- One thing I learned is Don't Mess With the Concept --

Also if you go about sundering PC weapons and reducing wealth amounts without compensation you risk damaging the game balance --

An occasional sunder is fine but a troup of sundermonkees is not a fun encounter --

And as for campaign standing to lose them well no -- I have seen many many games fail because a single player left -- If a regular goes often other will decide the game is a problem and go to -- Players aren't abundant in many areas

 

[Corinth]

Verisimlitude is more important than any player's ego. A player that whines because the NPC acts reasonably and destroys his weapon is a player that needs to get a clue, suck it up and either get on with the game or get out of the hobby.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Take a leaf from Simon R Green - call them the 'Special Wizardry And Tactics' team.

-Hyp.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

[But this leads to another interesting question: I wasn't aware of any german publishers save for maybe Feder & Schwert - what are your plans concerning the publishing process?]

E-publshing on RPGNow, and possibly some other places (such as e23). This should help me avoid German publishers entirely - and since I am writing it all in English, Germany isn't my main target market anyway...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Take a leaf from Simon R Green - call them the 'Special Wizardry And Tactics' team.

Sorry, but no bad puns on modern organizations...

While the general idea is similar, the whole setting is more inspired by the 19th century than the 20th or 21st.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Sorry, but no bad puns on modern organizations...

While the general idea is similar, the whole setting is more inspired by the 19th century than the 20th or 21st.

Even in the nineteenth though they'd understand the idea of special teams. Particularly if they're their to fight adventurers in the first place. Noone isn't going to adopt that particular tactic.

 

[kolvar]

I think, you should go for groups of specialists. A group build entirely out of persons trained in one thing begs for villains to avoid the strengths. Maybe some multi-classed (that you keep the weaponry and basic training but get some spell-power). The seargent/ leader ist another good idea, first for the power of the group and second for the flair, because the group is easier to recognize by their leader (for the second and third time the characters behave badly (and if they kill the leader, there will be a grudge that can lead to interessting adventures the next time the characters visit this area)).
Some archer-types or thrown weapon capability would be nice (and if it is just some knives or a handXbow to annoy a spell-caster).
The idea with the tower-shield is a good one, two, because it will give a decent protection against archers (maybe dividing the group into sub-groups, one with pole-arms, the other with ranged weapons and tower shields, that are put up at the start of the encounter to give cover and reduce the area of conflict.
Maybe add some gadgets, that are hold back at HQ and are used when several groups are send to a bigger baddy, like some magic items, that reduce magic capability etc (if you publish your own setting, you can create some items and feats to include in the setting).

 

[VirgilCaine]

I disagree with this bit -- many D&D players in my area (yours may very) consider certain pieces of kit part of the charcter concept -- One thing I learned is Don't Mess With the Concept --

Also if you go about sundering PC weapons and reducing wealth amounts without compensation you risk damaging the game balance --

An occasional sunder is fine but a troup of sundermonkees is not a fun encounter --

And as for campaign standing to lose them well no -- I have seen many many games fail because a single player left -- If a regular goes often other will decide the game is a problem and go to -- Players aren't abundant in many areas

We're not talking about a group of sunder-happy Orcs or Bebiliths or whatever, these are guards.

If the players "concept" includes going on public rampages, they will either be mature enough to expect such tactics from a reasonably prepared city guard or they are, as I said, immature enough to be lost from the game.