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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6364162" data-attributes="member: 177">There isn't going to be one generic answer - it depends upon realities of the world, and the cultures involved.  How large the village/town/city is matters - a smaller place is unlikely to have a workable defense, for example.My original response in the other thread was concerning guards for merchants.  In the real world, where there were bandits and thieves between towns, but no monsters, caravan guards and bodygaurds for merchants were pretty regular things around the world.  If that same merchant has to deal with orcs and such, I don't see how you you can expect them to travel without protection.  And asking them to walk around any sizable town (with its expected burden of thieves and muggers) without a bodyguard is going to make them think twice about doing business within your town - and can the elders really afford to have that happen? Rich and important people in our world have armed bodyguards.  Why not in the fantasy world?Moreover, do remember that a large chunk of the PC classes can be very dangerous people without wearing overt arms and armor.  The party monk is just going to look like this guy.  The bard can look just like any other musician.  Going after the guys who are visibly in armor and weapons means leaving the people with fireball wandering around!  In 5e, at least, where magic items are apparently not supposed to be central to a character's power, using detect magic as a way to ferret out dangerous people is failure prone.  So, these ways of trying to keep the town safe would be "security theater" - for show, because when it matters, it isn't going to work against an intelligent foe.</blockquote>

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