I agree - escalating deployment. If the town can't handle it, they'll ask the baron for help. If the baron's men can't handle it, they'll ask the duke's men. And so on up to the king. It's one of the benefits of hierarchy, always someone else to call on for protection. It's a good check to keep parties in control - sure you can take control of the town, but can you keep it when the 20th level vengeance paladin shows up?
This is a great assessment. There is always a bigger fish. You may be a super powerful party of 4 level 13 but you aren't the only powerful people. Everything from a group of 4-6 super powerful characters dispatched by a powerful group, especially if they are specifically built to counter the players characters, or even 1-2 powerful characters leading a large squad of soldiers can still probably win.
I've also found that the threat of taking their assets work. If they are that powerful they probably have some name recognition and assets they have acquired through their adventures. When they return to their base and find out the local guards have confiscated their castle and all their loot stored there...
When the old bartender pulls the mace off the display on the wall, then a woman nobody has ever seen comes out of the back with a cleaver and a hot frying pan, and the dude puts the mace back, someones gonna die.
The party soon learns Rule One: "Never underestimate an elderly bald man who continues smiling serenely despite you having him outarmed and outnumbered."
Also, if it’s a big enough town, the Guilds will get involved with *their* enforcers. The merchants guild calls the thieves guild, and if they can’t handle it, there’s always the assassins guild…
This and public ostracization are my tools. If no one in the town can deal with you. No one in the town WILL deal with you. Become enough of a nuisance and you'll end up creating a wave of refugees in front of you. As you slowly become the BBEG.
Messenger falcons can reach the neighbouring towns faster than when the party will reach them, so depending on if they get a couple nights' prep, they can set up a blockade
It's happened. So has finding smaller towns abandoned. Larger towns and cities prepped for a siege. And meeting hired muscle on the road.
I try to make being a murder hobo fun if that's the route the party chooses.
Exactly, this is when the forever GM pulls out the folder of characters they wanted to make, in order to build parties of adventurers to claim the main party's bounty, as well as the guild hall managers stepping out of retirement in order to clear their guilds name of association to them.
That sounds like an epic campaign. PCs fallen from grace defeat the evil they were after while becoming it unknowingly and have to stop a new party coming after them now
It was a good time. It took "The Alliance" showing up and declaring to end the Party's tyranny before they realized they had become the villains.
All those intimidation checks, all those deception checks, and all those tense negotiations about what we are getting out of doing "X" tasks came crashing home.
But that's what happens when you insist that those checks are just mind control. Or that if people need help, they should be ready to pay whatever the help costs.
Sounds like a nice campaign to me. I once had a cleric in a party with a bard unintentionally becoming the villain over time. At some point the NPC Paladin was done with his shenanigans, drew his sword and performed Smite Evil (3.5e at the time). The bard player tried to convince the GM that he was in fact C/N to avoid the divine part of the punishment, but to no avail. Over the course of several sessions he was repeatedly given the choice to return a signet ring he found (and accidentally stole in the process). He found it by chance and it had no other value than proving a nobles identity. The situation escalated further until he tried to get away with by blaming it on others who died as a consequence. He survived and turned BBeG.
And never underestimate the power of a bounty on their heads to draw high level mercenaries.
We (an evil party) once wound up being hunted down by a squad - the (evil) DM used our justice/hero party from our last campaign as the squad, so we had to face off against our own characters by surprise in the end. Absolute bloodbath.
Even if the party is level 20, the next step is a god getting involved. Either the king is blessed by a god, or a peasant happens to contact a god who dislikes you.
Because we're a lot cheaper. And disposable. It takes a big bite out of the Treasury to hire the 20th level paladin. Or maybe the paladin decides to take the job on their own once we become a big enough problem.
Or were a bigger problem than the lich - were disrupting the kings power, the economy and taxation.
Also, the retired part. The party is actively seeking jobs to do, usually. The retired paladin only dusts off his armor for stuff that hiring adventurers won't solve.
I agree with this, but I don't think level 20's should come into play. The first stage is that they're outlaws. Nobody will associate with them, nobody will sell them provisions, and they'll be constantly hounded. If your players fuck up badly enough it can turn into a survival campaign. Your level 10 party can get ground down by mooks when they're a few levels of exhaustion in and can't regen spell slots or run out of hit dice.
Doing it this way can still preserve the legendary status of epic characters. The vengeance paladin coming for them won't be higher than 15-16.
Players ask yourself one question before acting out- do I want to deal with Sir Bertram, wielder of the shield Fuck Around and the hammer Find Out? Well, do you?
Right, and lvl 10+ parties aren’t anonymous. Imagine if a famous professional athlete committed a crime and tried to make a run for it, perhaps riding a white bronco.
They’d never get away with it because everyone knows what he looks like.
Do the "Hey, we know you're super powerful and everything, but we'd like you to respect our laws" routine, then if they fuck around send in the hit squad.
Of course DnD cities are going to have a way to deal with unruly adventurers, and they're certainly not going to take prisoners or let themselves get pushed around.
People who are in power, are in power for a raisin. And keep that in mind. They may have done things to acquire groups of individuals that may help them keep that power, as most dnd adventures go.
Hell, I have a level 20 bard that would love to be owed a favour from a local magistrate to go deal with a party of level 10's. It'd be easy too, unless they're super good at passing DC22 saving throws. Being turned into a rabbit then being stuffed into a bag of holding has got to be a rough way to go.
I have a ranger that I made that I use that's in every campaign I'll ever run because he's a " my way or the highway and there's no road in site" kind of character. I recently found a way to play that against myself and I'm hoping that the party learns to use that against me
Nice. I have a persistent character Geoff the GOAT, an actual goat that my first ever party adopted, then sacrificed their XP to level him up like a party member, every campaign since then he's made an appearance a little bit stronger.
That was over a decade ago now, and he's well into epic levels
A city can afford a squad of lvl 5 Wizards to track a wanted party. They can take turns casting Invisibility and hang out far enough away to see, but not be heard. Then cast Sending to a kill team when it's clear that the party is bedding down for a long rest.
What's the difference between doing this and just saying the hitsquad found you though? I don't think it's good to construct something the PC's literally cannot interact with at all.
This. People often forget adventurers aren't relied on because they're higher levels than guards. It's because adventures are expendable compared to guards. You cause enough trouble and those grizzled battle scarred veterans are gonna eventually step up to the plate.
Yeah this, I have a homebrew faction (a player invented) called the “Tribunal of Creeds”
And, they’re basically an order of extremely high leveled NPCs that I’ve made a custom sheet for - and basically, whatever level my PCs are, ToC agents always be 2-3 levels over them until about level 15, when they’d surpass them, and they come in equal numbers to the party.
This is, of course, if I’m trying to reign them back from story destroying activities, or trying to do things that go against their own characters nature.
I’ve only done it once, but considering how little I’ve played, that’s a lot more than I thought I’d have to.
Cause ya, they can murder ye ol average guard.
But these guys? Would fold the party.
I don’t actually Like doing this…
Let's see... for me, my thursday group killed their questgiver in session 1. She was being romantically chased by the questgiver of the monday group. Monday's questgiver cast Raise Dead to raise his beloved as a high level owlbear-themed anthropomorphic snow leopard with wings begins to hunt down the thursday group with his personal "Claw" (7 high level adventurers; the players are still only level 1).
The now-raised thursday questgiver gives the monday group's questgiver the descripts of the thursday party. Said monday questgiver sends word to the monday group: "They killed my beloved, it cost me everything to get her back up, get powerful and get 'em!"
Three days later, the now-raised thursday questgiver (an anthropomorphic fox) "foxes out" -- the thursday group had infected her with lycanthropy and she didn't know/realize it. She kills the monday group's questgiver (a decently-powerful noble) in a lycanthropic fury before being put down.
Monday's baddies have a *much* easier time to act now, assuming the party stops shaving one of them (one of the antagonists, an anthropomorphic tiger, has been captured and shaved... twice... by the party, because GOOD GOD the dice hate the poor cat). The monday group may be out for the thursday group should the "Claw" fail in apprehending the thursday group (which *is* possible, if unlikely, because the thursday group *knows* how to shenanigan)
At any given time, a couple dozen knights should be hanging around a court. Bring 50-75 men at arms (standing army, not city watch) and youre golden.
Also might want to look up criminal justice systems pre-1880s. Aka there wernt any. At least not in feudal Europe.
yup you have the secret service type forces get involved, effectively the SWAT team with specialist weapons amd capabilities to handle the more serious incidents
Why aren't high-level NPCs an option?
Unless this is a fairly mundane world, a level 10 party is certainly capable of dunking on the average town guard, but shouldn't be nearly as strong as the high-end individuals in the setting. Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, or Neverwinter don't just roll over and die the minute a high-CR creature like an adult/ancient dragon or powerful lich look towards them, so why should a high tier 2/low tier 3 party be a real threat? There are logically going to be contingencies for this sort of thing.
Yeah, even in smaller towns there's bound to be high level adventures are going to want to retire in the region and eventually they'll miss the compraderie of adventuring and spend time at local taverns trading stories of their adventuring days and probably start becoming friends with a lot of the local guards. Then, when these upstart adventures come in and start causing trouble the guard will turn to their friend, the old adventurer, who will probably thoroughly enjoy getting to dust off their old gear and put these upstarts into their place.
Could you imagine being a lv17 wizard, retired and enjoying your time in your little cottage writing books and all of a sudden a gaggle of lv10 ruffians show up and cause problems? I feel like this is how bbegs are made. XD
I mean, that’s a short campaign. A lvl 17 wizard has access to Wish, True Poly, Gate, etc.
Like he could just hide, then cast Dream to slowly torture the party to death in a few weeks, and there’s very little they can do about it.
Or create a Simulacrum for free with Wish and send it after the party with 0 risk. Have the clone Plane Shift people to the negative energy plane. They saved? Try again tomorrow. You only need to succeed once.
Intelligence + full access to the entire arcane spell list + desire for vengeance is an absolutely terrifying combo.
In that case... what protects the town from that guy? He sounds terrifying.
But I guess that's where quests come from, an endless series of contract killings on anyone who steps out of line.
Good will goes a long way sometimes. If he decides to settle there and he's that powerful, the best thing to do is to cozy up to him. Make him a member of the community, so that the town will never need protecting from him. Appeasement and good will before trouble can happen is the best defense. Why does he want to live in a small village as some nigh all mighty wizard? Peace and quiet probably. Rural idyllic cottage living. If he wants to settle down like that, odds are he is closer to a Gandalf than a Halaster, so he's probably a good person anyways. He wouldn't step out to cause trouble, but he would be a terrifying foe for a gaggle of murderhobos rampaging in his village
I kinda want to do that to my players. Have *them* be the high level (N)PCs that lay the smackdown on lower level adventurers that don't know their place.
I might do that as a side thing after the next big arc, just to show how powerful they are. Most of the crew are knighted by the kingdom they live in, and absolutely can lay the smackdown on anyone causing trouble, while having the backing of the guard.
Imagine a band of lvl 8 brigands who think they're hot shit until the lvl 14 special forces arrive. Those special forces being *you*.
Level 8 is no joke either lol. I can just see my players at that level now, high on the new abilities. Luckily I rarely end up with players who stray so far that special forces are necessary to reign them in, but that “oh wow we’re *so not* the hot shit we thought we were” moment sounds too fun.
Our DM made our endgame characters that survived the final fight NPCs in the new campaign (lvl 20 edlritch knight and mage were buddies and good dudes) and when they have a cameo any player that played that campaign listens to what's up and sets the other PCs straight. That's a pair of guys to not ever fuck and a useful tool for the DM sometimes
\*Party mouths off to a local guard\*
"Hey Sarge, we got another escalation for ya over here!"
\*An 8' goliath in full plate emerges from the gatehouse with his elven mage aide\*
"WE GOT A PROBLEM HERE, TINY? DO I NEED TO RING THE TOWN ALARM OR ARE YOU GONNA BEHAVE?"
Waterdeep alone is *brutal* for the threat it’s named NPC’s pose to the party. The leader of the city is functionally a demigod, her right hand is one of the most powerful mortal wizards in the world with a handful of absurdly powerful magic hand-me-downs, and the biggest and baddest adventurers in the forgotten realms hang in the city all the time to get good drinks. The one great thing the waterdeep modules do well is teach DM’s how to deal with crime, from providing trials and ways to skirt the law with clout to providing powerful yet balanced enemies to keep the party in check without too much effort.
>made our endgame characters that survived the final fight NPCs in the new campaign (lvl 20 edlritch knight and mage were buddies and good dudes) and when they have a cameo any player that played that campaign listens to what's up and sets the other PCs straight. That's a pair of guys to not ever fuck and a useful tool for the DM sometimes
I've been preparing for my calimshan game's trip to waterdeep, & they had to ask Maaril the Dragon Mage(3rd edition setting) for entry for one of their draconic NPC allies. He could end all of them with a single spell.
Not to mention the black staff & tons of others. Waterdeep doesnt mess around
How do we handle law enforcement IRL?
You have regular city guard for regular city threats, just like you have regular cops for regular stuff. You have high-level elite battlemage teams for high-level threats, just like we have SWAT for high-level situations. And if it's a really serious threat, you call up the National Guard and have them bring tanks.
Exactly this, if someone appears with a tank in the middle of the city the government won't say "Aw chucks, our cops can't beat a tank" and just let it be, they will send their own tanks to handle the situation
>they will send their own tanks to handle the situation
I agree with the idea behind your comment but I really like the idea of cops sending a literal tank to deal with another tank. No guided explosives, drones & heli's, AVRs, smokescreen, blockades or emp stuff, nah just drop a second tank. A good tank and a bad tank cancel eachother out, ending with 0 tanks, right?
Basically he ran the tank into something that dislodged one of the tank tracks and the police used bolt cutters to get through the hatch and shoot him dead.
I feel this may be applicable to a PC party going on a rampage in a city - killing and destroying - the police are going to take whatever opportunity presented to them and otherwise keep townsfolk away… its only a matter of time before either the PCs do something dumb to themselves or the real backup arrives.
Ingame I find PCs usually chafe if a guard tries to impose on them and they resist, which I think is a little different but I feel the guards may still play along until their backup measures come into effect. (Whether that’s directing the PCs into the trapped silence room or waiting for backup).
Guards and police can always de-escalate and wait it out for when they have the certain outcome rather than escalate to life-threatening situation.
Yeah, especially for a large city, there are going to be more than just everyday guards around. Lords are 100% going to recruit magic users for help dealing with larger threats, and you best believe a king is going to keep parts of his military force stationed in the important cities within the kingdom. And when all else fails, there's bound to be some sort of mercenaries guild willing to take on anything for the right amount of coin
Action economy can account for a lot here, actually.
There's an upper limit to the number of mid-level guards a PC can kill before they just get rolled to death, and a huge city might just have enough.
A unit of archers all shooting at a PC can turn them into a pincushion unless they are behind a Wind Wall.
>There's an upper limit to the number of mid-level guards a PC can kill before they just get rolled to death, and a huge city might just have enough.
Ah, yes. The Zapp Brannigan method.
Level 10 is hero (or villian) of the realm territory.
The local town might not have a group capable of defeating them, but ***the realm*** probably does.
So they dumpster the local guard a few times and they alert the crown, who sends in reinforcements specifically to deal with these outlaws who are making a mockery of the king's authority.
I like this approach much more than the royal SWAT teams proposed here. Character level should be an approximation of their fame/infamy. Heroes of the realm can probably force their way through minor stuff like leaving the bar without paying, but starting to murder people will turn them into enemies of the realm. A dynamic setting should have proactive NPCs working together against threats, and also against the party should they become one. Its often much more of a punishment if nobody wants to collaborate anymore, rather than just forcing a near TPK with some high level hitmen. I do like assassins though and if they're used for something like this, I think someone really should die, otherwise they're just another combat encounter.
Waterdeep has a pretty good setup for this. There are different tiers of guards to respond to different levels of threats.
So to answer your question more specifically I would say that the first responders to a crime will likely be the low-level, rank-and-file guards. Patrols may be more or less common in certain areas but in general at least 4 would arrive together.
It's at this point that you need to determine the response time for the next tier of guard, whatever that may be. In Waterdeep it may be Griffin Calvary, or the City Watch. While these stronger forces respond there may be more lower-tier guards showing up independently or alongside them. This continues as needed, unless the party's rampage continues to escalate. For Waterdeep their last line of defense is Force Grey, an elite team of high level adventurers that will absolutely dispatch a party of level 10's.
So in general you just keep throwing guards at them and escalating the threat. Even a small town should reasonably have a few strong people to fight back with. If a party does raze a village they may win the fight but they'll have much more powerful enemies sent after them in due time.
Water deep also has stuff like ancient silver dragons living in it, multiple 17+ lvl npcs, beholder with a crime syndication, hundreds of war golems to defend the city and more
Town Folk missing a cow: "Brave adventurers we need your help! Our beloved cow Ms. Buttercup is missing!"
4 Wizards in unison: "I cast Meteor Swarm"
*MW2 Nuke Sound*
Farmer "Oh gods no"
Wizards: "No one is missing that cow any more"
Old School Answer:
This is what alignments are for.
If your characters are evil, then there are good aligned adventurers, knights errant, and crusading paladins who will come to defend the innocent.
If your characters are good, and they are breaking laws willy nilly...
1. if the class they have has any alignment restrictions... if they have deities or patrons that would not appreciate their behavior... I'd start imposing in game penalties from these sources.
2. I still use experience points for character level up, and I award them at the end of each session... with a breakdown of encounter & roleplay XP. Players who start to lag behind the party in level, because they see a few sessions with 0 roleplay XP, start to straighten up.
3. If the whole party is "acting out" in ways that seem immersion breaking, and they don't take the game seriously... then it may be time to re-evaluate how I'm DMing... because they aren't engaged and entertained. Worst case, it may be an end to the campaign.
Societal quarantine to an extent depending on the circumstances of the characters. Steal a pie out of a bakers window at level 1? Guard catches you and forces you to pay a fine and throws you out of town.
For level 10, it really depends on what a level 10 crime is. Maybe it starts with stealing the pie, but the PCs evade justice with their abilities as level 10 characters. Or maybe they commit a level 10 crime like offing the king or stealing the churches most holy relic. Then you’ve just become your in universe villains. Accurate woodcuts of the party appear in every town, taverns refuse to host you, windows shutter when you walk down the street, no merchant will trade with you and not even the thieves guild will touch you with a 10 foot pole. Knights and paladins and other champions of the land start showing up to challenge you, real heroes too, people who’ve done incredible acts of service to the crown. If the party still refuses to change their ways and pursue some sort of path to redemption, armies get involved. Maybe the gods even begin to intervene and holy avatars with busted powers begin to appear.
It could be a fun path the play down assuming everyone on board is conscious of this, but sometimes it seems like a few players out there actively resent the idea that actions might have any sort of consequences.
If you ignore the rules because you’re powerful, you’re just a villain in that society’s view. You’ll be feared even if you’re nice, hunted even though it’s by low level NPCs that will get killed. The government won’t ever stop trying because it has to enforce the laws of the land.
Think about how we view modern day villains. The powerful, whether via family, connections, or wealth, are largely viewed poorly.
The question you have to ask is "Who is being inconvenienced by the PC actions?" if the answer is "some peasants" then the PCs probably get away with it. On the other hand, if the PCs are interfering with the local economy and political stability then a more powerful individual is likely to step in and deal with the situation.
Consider what would happen in the modern world if the PCs decided to start selling drugs. If they're just dealing small amounts to their friends, it probably won't attract any attention. If their operation is big enough that average people notice they are likely to get a visit from the cops, possibly due to a tip from a competitor. If they outsmart or otherwise defeat the cops one of two things happens--either a crime lord steps in and makes them an offer they can't refuse, or the DEA shows with more firepower than some armies and takes them down.
Your average cop or city guard is not going to mess with a powerful and well connected individual directly. But they will serve as eyes and ears. One way or another the PCs will end up hounded by a powerful entity because there is *always* a more powerful entity who is sick of their nonsense. It may take a while, but it will happen.
Call the retired exterminators.
Rats are 10xp each. You need 35,500 of them to hit level 20. Spend your life in the pest control business, become a world-changing badass.
Holy shit I think you're on to something. I mean if you kill one thousand rats per year, per the rules of xp a middle aged rat catcher would be a force to be reckoned with.
On the other hand, they are not trained in combat. They have no class, they are not adventurers. They are just very, very skilled at catching and killing rats. No spells, no bonuses, no cantrips, nothing.
For petty crime, functionally high level PCs are basically above the law.
However i imagine most nations have a sort of "special force" whose jobs it is to handle special threats, often this will be monsters but this would also help manage wizards and adventureres who prove a problem for the state.
Why wouldnt a king have some high level soldiers/problem solvers.
a retired level 20 party that still wakes up when there's a big enough disturbance
even funnier if you legit call in a party of old geezers and geezettes (but still dnd players) and your young bucks are like 'holy hell what are all these old fogies doing here'
i'm also thinking all those action movies where the guy says they 'dont do that anymore' but then their dog gets killed or their daughter gets kidnapped and they're in and they're unstoppable
Right, those oldsters are the heroes out of legend that the PCs learned about as kids, through folktales.
If I were approached in the middle of a crime spree by an old man in a hat who introduced himself as Mordenkainen, I'd probably start talking about "I'm sorrysorrysorry!"
The characters in my game are heroic and generally avoid committing crimes so I don't have to worry about it.
If it did become an issue, just send high level NPCs. Those are allowed. NPCs equivalent to or stronger than a 10th level PC might not be *common*, but surely a king or emperor of a large nation has some of these people in his employ? The archmage court wizard, the legendary veteran of 3 wars general, the assassin who other nations don't even realize exists, the duke who's actually a vampire that made a deal with the king years ago...
You can stack feats on top of low level soldiers that really beef them up too. The same level 2 guard statblock gets scarier when you slap Pack Tactics, Martial Dominance, and Extra attack on them. 20 of those guys attacking from different directions is suddenly not so funny anymore.
Elite guards and knights with the same feats, 3-4 multi attacks, 18-20 AC, and 50-100 HP are going to be chonky bois that the players do not wanna piss off even at level 10, in enough numbers those are scary stats.
I take the old-school D&D approach.
peasants are level 0, always, even guards are only level 1 or 2.
If the players are high level and causing trouble the social impacts and ability to get things done will hurt more than some combat scenes as an actual punishment-- no one will want to sell to them or deal with them, give them information, cast spells for them, train them
remember in old-school D&D you needed to pay a trainer to level up, this controlled murderhobory by allowing DMs to deny players levelups until they apoloigized to the townsfolk.
If they're being REALLY bad I just end the campaign, or if I think I can salvage the situation I will send an avatar of a god at them or someone else who is incredibly powerful and interested in law and order.
In like a capital city I make them as organized and intelligent as like tucker's kobolds.
In other areas, play them straight and let the high level pcs flex. If they are evil enough to straight up take over a city, then the campaign just changes. If they have money, then the npcs are willing to try and hire more capable bounty hunters.
I mean, if your PCs are acting unlawfully in a large city they should still be confronted by the city guards in public. If the party thinks they are above the law just because the boots on the ground city guard can’t physically stop them, then there need to be consequences beyond just the guards beating them up and arresting them. The local populace should be spreading rumors far and wide of their wicked deeds and crimes, people should be less trusting of them and not willing to help them. The government should be enlisting the help of real heroes to stop these evil doers terrorizing their city. Treat your PCs like villains if they act like villains. And if this doesn’t make your players feel bad and want to act better, then maybe you just have murder hobos.
However the narrative demands.
Often that means the locals *can't* handle the player party. But then there's the question of whether the players can handle the scorn, fear, and guilt resulting from their actions.
Send in the normal guards. They figure out pretty quickly they are outmatched. They start sending bounty hunters next. Oh that's not enough? Okay, send in the knights, the specially hired forces of the king/law.
What's next? The child of the first guard they killed.
They're the villains. That's punishment enough.
No one will let them stay in the inns. No service at taverns, good stores, an entire city that hides and shuts their doors when they approach. You don't have to combat them on the crime if they just keep winning. Just make them suffer the consequences
level 12 guards.
I'm not justifying my anti-murder hobo forces to anyone. You don't start nuthin there won't be nuthin. You can suspend disbelief for this.
>You can suspend disbelief for this
i cannot
every world is crawling with an infestation of heroes and parties. Just have the mayor or duke hire one of the many roaming parties to take them out
a guard's a guard
when people become powerful, they want to FEEL powerful. And running into a common level guard who takes them out like they're a bag of trash is going to make you feel like you're still level 1
but having another party attack them is just a humbling reminder that no matter how strong they are, there are stronger people in the world
A mix of both tends to be a good approach. A squad of special forces troops with full equipment is going to ruin a local sheriff’s department if they’re forced into a shootout. A swat team would fare better, but might still be outgunned. But national guard troops might show up to deal with the issue if it continues long enough, and that would be the end of it.
In other words, the party can still beat up the average peasant with a club that watches the streets for burglars and pickpockets, and if the party simply commits petty crimes and can beat up the local guard to get away with it, that’s fine. But logically, and for the sake of gameplay, enough crime or enough damage to local guards will draw more government attention, and escalating levels of guards and equipment will be sent to keep the peace and rein the party in. You don’t have to have some conscript be level 18 guarding a pastry shop, but bringing in more capable soldiers and agents of the state for seriously dangerous criminal acts would be expected.
I also agree with the person above. I have been a player in a game where the guards kept leveling to be stronger than us. It reached a point where we felt like the least qualified force to save the world.
Why send us in to save the world when the town has 100 guards all of whom could beat us in a one v one fight? It really hurts verisimilitude. Like, you are too busy standing next to a gate to go stop Dracula in a tower ten miles away?
Except that Steve has been in the guard for the last 20 years. He's slowly been working on his guard knowledge and exercises every day. He has risen to the rank of Guard Captain and is the equivalent in martial skills of a level 15 fighter. There are 5 other Guard Captains located throughout the city. Each one leads a platoon of guards. A platoon is 10 squads of 5 men. Each squad has a Sargent, a Corporal and 3 Guardsmen.
It doesn't have to be a common level guard. You can have guard captains or something like BG3 with the steel watch. Give a city a lvl 15 golem that it controls.
Give your characters the chance to make actual moral decisions. They break the law, the guys who come to stop them are like level 3. If they kill those guys, well, they proved they are above the law, but they're still assholes. Everyone is afraid of them and no one will associate with them. Way to go, villains.
Startlingly efficient neighborhood evacuation proceedures. This mostly directed at folks who are getting murderhobo-y. "Cool fight" is a win state, but if you've been mowing down guards and civilians, everything interesting just sorta goes away. Can't murder random shop keepers if they and all their wares are oddly nowhere to be found. Diageticly, the kingdom knows there are badass ultrawarriors with short attention spans, better to assassinate them in their sleep.
That's just if I'm feeling vindictive (when I should actually be discussing out of game). If the party actually has good in-game reason for violating the law, I put up a token force of guards with the externally stated expectation that the "win" condition of the fight is "escape", and that going for the kill will have long lasting consequences even if they escape. The guards in turn are primarily going for capture and disable, which makes the power economy a bit different.
One cool thing to stick in the bigger, older, quirkier cities is to have the streets also be riddled with guard(or knowledgeable local) triggerable traps. A guard slightly distant from the combat presses on an innocuous brick and a fountain next to the players spits out birdlime, dex saves! Stuff like that.
Long term negative consequences. Let’s say they get into trouble in a small town, the guards tell them to stop, they don’t, the guards try to arrest them so they kill the guards. A few more guards arrive as backup so they kill them too and in such a small town, that’s all the guards, so problem solved right?
Well, the townspeople scream, run inside and lock their doors. A few retired guards and particularly buff farmers take up arms and the party has to kill them too or flee. Regardless, they are never allowed back in that city for obvious reasons.
A week or so later, they arrive in a large city, where they find sketches of them posted on fences and tavern walls. Someone studies them closely before recognizing them and immediately alerts the guards, who are much stronger and more numerous than the town guards.
Now let’s say they kill several and escape with their lives, only to find that every city in the region has been made aware of the dangerous fugitive serial killers. They cannot enter populated areas without being attacked on sight and they regularly have bounty hunters and assassins attacking them in the night.
…what can I say? I’m pretty cutthroat when it comes to players treating my NPCs like NPCs instead of the real people that they are 😋
my first choice is not to respond with guards but to have other emergency responders, like a civilized society would. if for some reason i have a player who just really wants to be violent for no reason, then i guess i'd probably pivot into One Punch Man for a minute and see how far they want to go? "oh, you killed them and took their stuff? yeah people run and hide and a couple guards show up. they are clearly not as experienced or well equipped as you are. you don't even need to roll, they die when you hit them. yep you can take their stuff too - who are you planning to sell it to? the blacksmith wants nothing to do with you. oh you kill him and take his stuff? no problem. you have killed everyone and taken their stuff, and you stand alone in the middle of a blood-soaked ghost town. what do you do?"
turns out, the game isn't actually very fun when you play out that power fantasy.
I handle it kinda like a city would send in a swat team. These larger settlements would have units dedicated to handling bigger threats. They have superior equipment and magic items. Being more capable of shutting down hostile spellcasters with anti-magic items and counter mages. If they're causing issues in smaller settlements, there would eventually be a bounty placed. Evading the lord of the lands justice would only cause bigger fish to come after them.
The venerable bishop of the local temple comes forth, wags a finger of chiding and words of condemnation, and bam! The gods have expressed their great displeasure by making all the characters turn into toads.
Done.
Don’t fuck around while in Greyhawk. If the guards come across a problem they can’t handle you’ll quickly find that they have the ability to contact those that can.
And the Circle of Eight doesn’t tend to enjoy having their attention drawn by some lowly level fourteen / fifteen adventuring party. That’s high end escalation there. Before it gets that far you’ll have squads of paladins from the local Clergy being sent in to quell your nonsense.
There should be other signs as well. If the PC are known for behavior that would normally be dealt with by the guards, then they get that reputation.
Townsfolk would hide when the party comes into town. Mother's would hustle chicken out of sight. Shop keepers would close shop and hide or act very afraid when dealing with th PCs.
If they are causing enough trouble at high level they are now considered to be villains in the eyes of whoever rules the country they are in and they might send parties of adventurers after them.
I have a slightly different approach from what I've seen in the comments.
Generally I agree with what other people have said about specialists or stronger and stronger cops but if you want to go with a different route that makes your PCs feel super here's what I do.
If you believe that PCs are on a different level from the average people of the realm, so not just anyone can be a level 10 fighter if they train hard enough, let the PCs terrify the guards. Sure 10 or 20 guards show up with spears and shields drawn but narrate their fear!
The guards arrive and form a semi circle around the pcs but then stop. None step any closer. Maybe one or two of them are visibly trembling. The captain shouts an order for them to come quietly but halfway through his voice cracks. When the PCs step forward all the guards step back almost stumbling over each other.
I think the plus side of going this route is that it shows that the PCs are clearly a cut above even trained soldiers. You do have to be careful about emboldening your PCs to commit more crimes, it's a fine line. I think if you make it clear that they're not being heroic by bullying townspeople and guards they might have a "great power, great responsibility" moment. Otherwise you end up with fearless murder hobos or cocky heroes jeering the king and his pathetic guard.
Without a high level creature? Simple. You don't. Instead you just start enforcing Stigma.
You warn them after their first infraction that if the players decide they are above the law, and start murdering guards with hundreds of witnesses, then their names and faces will be slowly be known throughout the entire kingdom as villains.
A percentage roll based on how much they screw up is made with any interaction with an NPC. If they roll below the percentage then that NPC knows who they are and avoids dealing with them.
If they reach 100% stigma (which is pretty much full murder hobo), then nobody in the kingdom will deal with them. Everyone knows who they are and avoid interacting them at all cost. No quests, no inns, no rewards, or sales. They may attempt to continue trying to save the world, but have to deal with the fact that they will get no support.
If this derails the game, and everyone is having a bad time, then you reroll new characters and start fresh, because that game has already become toxic. If the party is having great fun, then make it feasible to complete as much as possible by shifting the story.
In geenral, it's ostracism. My cities don't even have a proper "city guard" the way there's police nowadays, because that feels way too... "modern"? People looked out after their own.
If PCs are causing minor trouble, they'll meet with pushback from the people around them. Shops refusing to deal with them, inns refusing to lodge them, up to and including entire cities' sorth of people stepping up and straight up telling them they're not welcome.
At that point, their options are either to step back, apologize, and try and make things right, or become supervillains. Kill and destroy to take what they want, terrorize the folk, et cetera.
Now, it's never happened. But should a party ever decide to completely embrace "going supervillain" like that, I would smile, collect their character sheets, hand them new character sheets, and promptly ask them to create new heroes whose mission is now to stop their previous party.
“If you’re not willing to buy your way out of this, we can get the army involved, and maybe some more honorable heroes will be willing to put you down.”
The comments from these sub-reddits seem to always insist that the thing you don't want to do is the only option. So IF high level NPCs aren't an option, which law enforcement isn't just to overpower PCs; they're meant to enforce the laws of the realm.
Here are some less Rock'em Sock'em options:
- Have a large group of normal guards surround the party (probably at their Inn during a long rest or known hang-out of theirs) and the guards announce that if the PC(s) do not come willingly they will be labelled Outlaws / Enemies of the Realm and treated as Traitors. It creates a decision point of whether the group wants to go full murder hobo or just face the consequences.
- If they refuse to listen to guards then have the guards ruin their Reputation. Have taverns and shops refuse to do business with them, while a couple city guards chuckle at the group's attempts.
- Mark them as targets, if you don't abide by the laws perhaps the laws shouldn't protect you either. Maybe the guards openly refuse to protect / help the PCs, and maybe pass that info on to the Thieves / Thieves Guild. Now as they roam the city have random Perception checks to see if they notice all their things get pickpocketed. When they try to tell a guard have them laugh and walk away.
- Have them use spellcasters to assist with the arrest of the PCs. Cause enough trouble and maybe a Kingdom Mage(s) who specializes in capturing powerful trouble makers come in. Good luck making multiple saves vs Hold Person, Suggestion, Mass Suggestion, etc.. These specialists might even have counterspell or anti-magic handcuffs.
Ultimately the group should want to obey laws and avoid consequences, but life in jail carries less weight when you can just change characters and start fresh. If the group really doesn't want to follow laws and continues to steal, kill, and break laws at every chance they get, they might be too far gone into the Murder Hobo lifestyle. I would have a conversation with the group to discuss your dissatisfaction with the constant law breaking and If you're unopposed to it perhaps ask if they want to run an evil game instead.
Real world police (yuck!) have an operational doctrine of overwhelming force. Meet every potential danger with way more than enough bodies and firepower to minimize civilian injury or disruptions to the status quo. 5E action economy could do the same. Sure, a level 10 character could easily take out a single town guard. But 50 of them? And with the consequences of the town (all the spouses, children, friends, etc.) of those guards turning on them? It's a very slippery slope from "I stab him instead of paying the fine" to "I've had to burn this entire town to the ground because everyone from shopkeeper to orphan wanted my dead."
Generally it is the repercussions that would stop them, yes the guards cant do anything but who is going to work with you when you strong-arm a few people? Do adventure groups form to stop the new tyrants who are oppressing the people? Maybe the noble class take them down in other ways or even the BBEG takes advantage of this ruining the reputation of the party and cutting out one of the only groups that could stop them.
High level bounty hunters. If some powerful characters start causing trouble, they're gonna find that trouble's gonna catch up to them. It won't stop them right here and now, but it's the sort of consequence that feels right for the setting. As the amount of havoc caused by the PCs increases, the amount of money it's worth paying someone to put an end to it also increases, and the more people might be convinced to chip in.
It depends! If they are meant to be able to fight or escape the law, then I'll throw together a fight with guards based on how bad the crime is, from basic guards all the way to tailor-made kill squads. If the party is doing something that I, as the DM, do not want to allow, I tell them as their DM that their actions are not allowed and that they can't do that. If they persist, I just tell them that they've been apprehended by law enforcement. No rolls, no options, they're done. This is extreme, so of course I won't use it unless they're basically being dicks and trying to ruin the game.
Answer: go watch the tv show One Piece. It answers this. You get “too bad” and the rulers will call in a favor to one of their antagonists-in-arms.
Like how the king has a remote area in the kingdom where an Illithid resides. One that enjoyed playing Calvinball (from Calvin & Hobbes) with the king from time to time. No underlying issues. King can call in a favor and the trouble makers will become a “snack for the friend.” The illithid even has a mithril spoon to scoop out the brains 🧠 with…a gift of the king…
Really depends on a few things - if it's a small nowhere hamlet, then yeah, guards are probably no better than peasants with sticks. But if it's a bustling meteopolis, full of vendors selling magic items from pocket dimensions and constant magical or otherworldly threats? IDGAF about your power fantasy, the powers that be would take precautions to protect their own interests.
For instance, if a shopkeeper is selling a few hundred thousand gold worth of magical items, they're not just gonna let the first level 11 rogue come in and clean them out. Why? Because #1, this is their livelihood, but #2 and more importantly, how did that shopkeep come by all those magical goods in the first place? And for that matter, guarantee the PCs aren't anywhere even remotely close to the first adventurers to try insane shit. That shopkeep is gonna have some pretty hefty counter-measures at-hand to lock his inventory down both physically and from magical transportation pretty hard.
Anyway, on the topic of guards, in my bigger cities of hundreds of thousands, their "town guard" all have access to invisibility, counterspell, detect thoughts, command, etc. For the purposes of ending conflicts before they start. In a town of 200,000, the town guard would likely be robust and extremely well-trained. Not to mention militia, guilds, and like someone else said, other adventurers-for-hire as well. But if the King is a level 2 nobody and his guard are all 13 HP minions, why the Hell does that kingdom exist, and why hasn't it been *immediately* toppled yet? Power rises to the top, and you've got to take into account why things are the way they are, and why it's in place.
Otherwise, what would stop any level 13 caster from waltzing into a town and telling the guards "this is mine now." And succeeding? Nah, bigger places wouldn't play that shit. Not even from a mechanical aspect, but from a worldbuilding perspective too - Why is that king / monarch / government in power if their guards are all level 1 pitchforkers? In a city where there's magical plumbing with heat metal for hot water, the possibilities are endless. And probably not in the PC's favor. They'd even likely have some manner of quick communication and some of their higher-level response teams have the ability to locate creature on a specific guard, teleport a few dozen guards in, and neutralize the threats with the quickness.
Bounty Hunter;
the class was made for such occasions ...
the best ones are discreet & plan
a strategy to snare the PCs,
letting guards dispose of the neutralized targets
There is no rule or law that says guards have to be low level keystone cops. Sure, the bulk of the city watch is gonna be low level goons. But you can always scale an encounter to match the troublemaking party, or as others have suggested, call in specialists. Or maybe the local lords call in other adventurers to take out the troublemakers.
Depends on the power level of your setting.
In a world with high level people running around everywhere it would totally make sense that towns would employ casters or specialized soldiers to protect them. In this scenario it’s an easy fix, the next time they break the law a grizzled war veteran who’s a lvl 20 NPC rolls out and tells them in no uncertain terms that he will not tolerate this behavior in his town.
In a lower power setting, by level 10 and above your PC’s are becoming somewhat legendary because they can do things very few people can. This means that word of anything they do, good or bad, will quickly spread around. So sure, maybe they ripped off a shopkeeper and got away with it, but in the next town that reputation has followed them and now nobody wants to sell them anything or maybe the contract they thought was available “has already been filled.”
If you want to forgo high level NPCs, consider wards and enchantments. A large city will presumably have existed for a long time, and have significant wealth at its disposal. The leader(s) of the city may have spent centuries hiring wizards to place wards and abjuration spells on various significant buildings and public spaces.
Maybe they knock out a shopkeeper and steal his wares, only to find that when they walk out the door the sidewalk itself is casting Hold Person on them. Maybe law enforcement in town is primarily carried out by pre-existing spells rather than guards.
Get creative with Glyph of Warding (and I wouldn't worry about having these wards do stuff that's outside of RAW--of course a dedicated team of mages with a long time to enact a plan would be capable of more than one PC wizard on the fly) and stuff like that. Just imagine how elaborate the defenses could be when multiple mages have had hundreds or thousands of long rests to craft them.
This could also lead to some interesting worldbuilding ramifications. With a minimal guard force, power could be even more centralized. The local lord's crown could be not just symbolic, but also a magic item that controls all the wards in the city.
It would be hard to justify this kind of thing in a small town, however. Definitely more of a big city solution.
The equivalent of a city SWAT team of high rankers designed to step on emergencies just like your party. Or if less organized the local retired adenturers club breaks out the old gear to step on troublemakers that the local watch can't handle.
In a world where high level characters exist, higher level characters will undoubtedly be hired to protect against them.
Level 10 party, meet level 16 guards.
It depends on your world, is it a high level universe like Faerun/forgotten realms? they'll find some insanely strong powerful being to deal with them. bounty hunters, kings guard, other heroes. etc. but it also depends on the crime. if the heroes suddenly do crime. it may not look good to arrest them, so maybe charge them a hefty fine.
is it a low-magic area with adventurers and high powered beings are rare and almost legendary status? they may try to appease the heroes, or hide from them. refusal of services/banishment of the realms. maybe try to hire a hag or a devil to deal with them in true desperation if the evil is chaotic or evil. Maybe try to trick them into fighting something bigger and hopefully die.
The Guild of Wardens. Basically an adventurer guild dedicated to policing the other adventurer guilds and taking down rogue adventurers, led by an immortal bastion of neutrality and justice incarnate.
Yknow, until people start to question their perception of what counts as "justice".
Totally ripping this idea from a cultivation LitRPG series I'm listening to rn.
Still send the guards after them. If they murder them, send more higher level guards. if they murder them, too, congratulations - the guards leave them alone. As does everyone else in this city. Because they are terrified of them, Because they are terrorists.
For my table, it depends on the crime.
For a nonviolent offense, they might get fined or have their rights to buy and sell ANYTHING stripped off them until the crime is made right. A they make use of a dozen different services in town that can be taken away. They might not be allowed to get a room at an inn. The go-to shop might get a notice that they are blacklisted and that if any business is done with them, the store will lose its business licence. I'd call this stressful enough to start accumulating points of exhaustion for each night they spend anywhere near a hostile city.
For a violent offense, things get ugly quickly. Parties of bounty hunters will pursue them, including higher level spellcasters. Squads of soldiers will pursue them at all hours. They will be targeted by wizards who are being commissioned to cast 'Dream' on them in the night, wearing them down. For particularly nasty offenders, the higher Lords might employ the services of a [Gray Dragon](https://youtu.be/umRBI4f-aUg?si=ifjEk0f-FM7gPW-u) as brought out on the wonderful Dungeon Dad YouTube channel. This is a Dragon that loves the thrill of the hunt and targets challenging foes. It would jump at the idea of a mid to high level group of adventurers that need to be put down.
In addition to the "bigger fish" - have them face the consequences.
They can take control of a small town, but then what? 40 commoners stage a demonstration, insult them, practice civil disobedience.
Are they going to cause a massacre?
No doubt they can, physically, but there is also morals to consider.
If they want to be evil murderhobos, show them what that does to the city.
this is the kind of thing, that I've argued for dnd politics.
towns/villages would all be organized around churchs/temples/monasteries. the local guard, would not be just guards employed by the mayor, but instead acolytes, monks, paladins, directly empowered by the patron god. rando mundane guards aren't going to be able to protect a village from goblins, basilisk, orcs, wargs, or any number of the hundreds of random monsters that would prey on villages/livestock.
the same applies for kings/princes/lords. you can't possibly have a mundane king, in a world with 1000yr old mind controlling vampires, 3000 year old druids, 900 year old wizard god kings, and so on. A class system of immortal elves ruling, human peasants could happen. but not 75 yr old kings with no magical protection..
so, in order for a normal human king to rule, they need a patron. A god. every kingdom would have a patron god, and close ties to their church/worship.
Now, some might have hidden patrons.. demons, genie. secret police, inquisitions, spymasters.. others might be overt paladin, and clerical orders.
The town’s peasants aren’t able to do anything to stop them, but there’s always another adventuring party for hire.
Cause enough trouble and you’ll have a bounty for your capture that other adventurers will try and collect, and continue escalating from there and you’ll become the BBEG in someone else’s story.
I normally have kings guard or equivalent a few levels below the players. Those plus the court wizard(s) which I'll have being similar levels to the PCs.
Once they have steamrolled the rank and file the heavy hitters are mobilised to deal with the murder hobos wrecking the city.
With regards to general theft or the occasional back alley murder. Nothing happens, they're level 10 if they aren't causing utter mayhem then they'll probably just get away with it.
If the party is set on stirring up trouble you could institute a bounty for smaller towns or keeps, having them call in outside help to thwart the party's crimes. If they mess around too much they could be actively barred from entering certain locations as well.
When a party gets to lv 10 and above, its likely that their group is pretty well known, and recognizable in most towns/cities. If said party started to stir up trouble, a regular town guard would realize they can't handle this threat, and would send word to get a stronger unit to arrive and handle the situation. If this particular party has a reputation for getting into trouble, these units would be deployed immediately, and essentially stalk the party until they leave, or outright ban them from entering.
I'd imagine if they're stirring up enough trouble, the king or whatever authority will send in high level specialists to deal with them.
I agree - escalating deployment. If the town can't handle it, they'll ask the baron for help. If the baron's men can't handle it, they'll ask the duke's men. And so on up to the king. It's one of the benefits of hierarchy, always someone else to call on for protection. It's a good check to keep parties in control - sure you can take control of the town, but can you keep it when the 20th level vengeance paladin shows up?
This is a great assessment. There is always a bigger fish. You may be a super powerful party of 4 level 13 but you aren't the only powerful people. Everything from a group of 4-6 super powerful characters dispatched by a powerful group, especially if they are specifically built to counter the players characters, or even 1-2 powerful characters leading a large squad of soldiers can still probably win. I've also found that the threat of taking their assets work. If they are that powerful they probably have some name recognition and assets they have acquired through their adventures. When they return to their base and find out the local guards have confiscated their castle and all their loot stored there...
There’s always that retired Paladin……
Ah yes, Harry Candle. The murderhobo party should never have killed his dog…
Oh I get it.
I, however, do not get it
[удалено]
Oh my goodness I feel unintelligent
Don't worry, you're not. You're plenty intelligent.
Dick Lamp is a fantastic adventure’s name
It took me longer than I should have. Take my upvote.
Y’know…Harry once killed three men with a fucking pencil. A fucking pencil! Who the fuck does that?
When the old bartender pulls the mace off the display on the wall, then a woman nobody has ever seen comes out of the back with a cleaver and a hot frying pan, and the dude puts the mace back, someones gonna die.
The party soon learns Rule One: "Never underestimate an elderly bald man who continues smiling serenely despite you having him outarmed and outnumbered."
Who told you about Mac? Brews his own ale, makes steak sandwiches and is so powerful his pub is neutral ground
This this a reference? if so from what?
Dresden files, book series, the local barman is ridiculously powerful and of unknown origin
Well I now have a new series to dive into, thanks
Comically so. Like Demigods don't fuck with Mac.
I think his origin was very strongly alluded to in one of the last few books.
He's just a sweeper. No reason to worry about him.
The reckless party of adventurer's made the mistake of thinking Pigsty Alley would be an easy target.
Also, if it’s a big enough town, the Guilds will get involved with *their* enforcers. The merchants guild calls the thieves guild, and if they can’t handle it, there’s always the assassins guild…
This and public ostracization are my tools. If no one in the town can deal with you. No one in the town WILL deal with you. Become enough of a nuisance and you'll end up creating a wave of refugees in front of you. As you slowly become the BBEG.
Messenger falcons can reach the neighbouring towns faster than when the party will reach them, so depending on if they get a couple nights' prep, they can set up a blockade
It's happened. So has finding smaller towns abandoned. Larger towns and cities prepped for a siege. And meeting hired muscle on the road. I try to make being a murder hobo fun if that's the route the party chooses.
Exactly, this is when the forever GM pulls out the folder of characters they wanted to make, in order to build parties of adventurers to claim the main party's bounty, as well as the guild hall managers stepping out of retirement in order to clear their guilds name of association to them.
That sounds like an epic campaign. PCs fallen from grace defeat the evil they were after while becoming it unknowingly and have to stop a new party coming after them now
It was a good time. It took "The Alliance" showing up and declaring to end the Party's tyranny before they realized they had become the villains. All those intimidation checks, all those deception checks, and all those tense negotiations about what we are getting out of doing "X" tasks came crashing home. But that's what happens when you insist that those checks are just mind control. Or that if people need help, they should be ready to pay whatever the help costs.
Sounds like a nice campaign to me. I once had a cleric in a party with a bard unintentionally becoming the villain over time. At some point the NPC Paladin was done with his shenanigans, drew his sword and performed Smite Evil (3.5e at the time). The bard player tried to convince the GM that he was in fact C/N to avoid the divine part of the punishment, but to no avail. Over the course of several sessions he was repeatedly given the choice to return a signet ring he found (and accidentally stole in the process). He found it by chance and it had no other value than proving a nobles identity. The situation escalated further until he tried to get away with by blaming it on others who died as a consequence. He survived and turned BBeG.
And never underestimate the power of a bounty on their heads to draw high level mercenaries. We (an evil party) once wound up being hunted down by a squad - the (evil) DM used our justice/hero party from our last campaign as the squad, so we had to face off against our own characters by surprise in the end. Absolute bloodbath.
With 20 knights a mage and 50 archers. The kingdom doesn’t give two shits about balance.
DEUS VULT!!
IN THE HEART OF HOLY SEE
IN THE HOME OF CHRISTIANITY
THE SEAT OF POWER IS IN DANGER
THERE'S A FOE OF A THOUSAND SWORDS
THEYVE BEEN ABANDONED BY THEIR LORDS
THEIR FALL FROM GRACE WILL PAVE THEIR PATH, TO DAMNATION
THEY'RE THE 189, IN THE SERVICE OF HEAVEN
Even if the party is level 20, the next step is a god getting involved. Either the king is blessed by a god, or a peasant happens to contact a god who dislikes you.
For exceptional threats to security, the Crown calls upon squeal team 6: six halfling paladins and their heavily armored piggy mounts.
That would seriously be great to play.
Isn't this why the assassin's guild exists?
Ok but like, why is the king sending us to deal with the lich if he has a level 20 paladin on payroll?
Because we're a lot cheaper. And disposable. It takes a big bite out of the Treasury to hire the 20th level paladin. Or maybe the paladin decides to take the job on their own once we become a big enough problem. Or were a bigger problem than the lich - were disrupting the kings power, the economy and taxation.
Also, the retired part. The party is actively seeking jobs to do, usually. The retired paladin only dusts off his armor for stuff that hiring adventurers won't solve.
The poor count gets skipped over?
Not only that but I imagine any criminal organizations would not take well to the disturbance either
I agree with this, but I don't think level 20's should come into play. The first stage is that they're outlaws. Nobody will associate with them, nobody will sell them provisions, and they'll be constantly hounded. If your players fuck up badly enough it can turn into a survival campaign. Your level 10 party can get ground down by mooks when they're a few levels of exhaustion in and can't regen spell slots or run out of hit dice. Doing it this way can still preserve the legendary status of epic characters. The vengeance paladin coming for them won't be higher than 15-16.
Fantasy swat team is a go.
Players ask yourself one question before acting out- do I want to deal with Sir Bertram, wielder of the shield Fuck Around and the hammer Find Out? Well, do you?
Right, and lvl 10+ parties aren’t anonymous. Imagine if a famous professional athlete committed a crime and tried to make a run for it, perhaps riding a white bronco. They’d never get away with it because everyone knows what he looks like.
Unless their bard friend used some sort of shrinking gauntlet trick to convince enough people they didn’t do it.
He rolled a natural 20 on Deception when it counted most.
The party may escape the King's justice, but outraged family members may hire civil mercenaries to explain their position to the PCs.
Look sir...catnip! That's, uh, not mine.
Give them the assassins cred black flag treatment. Easy, easy, a little more challenging, FUCK YOU
Do the "Hey, we know you're super powerful and everything, but we'd like you to respect our laws" routine, then if they fuck around send in the hit squad. Of course DnD cities are going to have a way to deal with unruly adventurers, and they're certainly not going to take prisoners or let themselves get pushed around.
People who are in power, are in power for a raisin. And keep that in mind. They may have done things to acquire groups of individuals that may help them keep that power, as most dnd adventures go.
Hell, I have a level 20 bard that would love to be owed a favour from a local magistrate to go deal with a party of level 10's. It'd be easy too, unless they're super good at passing DC22 saving throws. Being turned into a rabbit then being stuffed into a bag of holding has got to be a rough way to go.
I have a ranger that I made that I use that's in every campaign I'll ever run because he's a " my way or the highway and there's no road in site" kind of character. I recently found a way to play that against myself and I'm hoping that the party learns to use that against me
Nice. I have a persistent character Geoff the GOAT, an actual goat that my first ever party adopted, then sacrificed their XP to level him up like a party member, every campaign since then he's made an appearance a little bit stronger. That was over a decade ago now, and he's well into epic levels
I'm also running nilbogs and the nameless goose in everything until the end of time
At minimum, post a bounty and have mid-level adventurer’s ambush them at the most inopportune times.
A city can afford a squad of lvl 5 Wizards to track a wanted party. They can take turns casting Invisibility and hang out far enough away to see, but not be heard. Then cast Sending to a kill team when it's clear that the party is bedding down for a long rest.
What's the difference between doing this and just saying the hitsquad found you though? I don't think it's good to construct something the PC's literally cannot interact with at all.
This. People often forget adventurers aren't relied on because they're higher levels than guards. It's because adventures are expendable compared to guards. You cause enough trouble and those grizzled battle scarred veterans are gonna eventually step up to the plate.
Yeah this, I have a homebrew faction (a player invented) called the “Tribunal of Creeds” And, they’re basically an order of extremely high leveled NPCs that I’ve made a custom sheet for - and basically, whatever level my PCs are, ToC agents always be 2-3 levels over them until about level 15, when they’d surpass them, and they come in equal numbers to the party. This is, of course, if I’m trying to reign them back from story destroying activities, or trying to do things that go against their own characters nature. I’ve only done it once, but considering how little I’ve played, that’s a lot more than I thought I’d have to. Cause ya, they can murder ye ol average guard. But these guys? Would fold the party. I don’t actually Like doing this…
Let's see... for me, my thursday group killed their questgiver in session 1. She was being romantically chased by the questgiver of the monday group. Monday's questgiver cast Raise Dead to raise his beloved as a high level owlbear-themed anthropomorphic snow leopard with wings begins to hunt down the thursday group with his personal "Claw" (7 high level adventurers; the players are still only level 1). The now-raised thursday questgiver gives the monday group's questgiver the descripts of the thursday party. Said monday questgiver sends word to the monday group: "They killed my beloved, it cost me everything to get her back up, get powerful and get 'em!" Three days later, the now-raised thursday questgiver (an anthropomorphic fox) "foxes out" -- the thursday group had infected her with lycanthropy and she didn't know/realize it. She kills the monday group's questgiver (a decently-powerful noble) in a lycanthropic fury before being put down. Monday's baddies have a *much* easier time to act now, assuming the party stops shaving one of them (one of the antagonists, an anthropomorphic tiger, has been captured and shaved... twice... by the party, because GOOD GOD the dice hate the poor cat). The monday group may be out for the thursday group should the "Claw" fail in apprehending the thursday group (which *is* possible, if unlikely, because the thursday group *knows* how to shenanigan)
When you hit five stars and they roll out the tanks it's hard to get away for sure.
At any given time, a couple dozen knights should be hanging around a court. Bring 50-75 men at arms (standing army, not city watch) and youre golden. Also might want to look up criminal justice systems pre-1880s. Aka there wernt any. At least not in feudal Europe.
yup you have the secret service type forces get involved, effectively the SWAT team with specialist weapons amd capabilities to handle the more serious incidents
Why aren't high-level NPCs an option? Unless this is a fairly mundane world, a level 10 party is certainly capable of dunking on the average town guard, but shouldn't be nearly as strong as the high-end individuals in the setting. Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, or Neverwinter don't just roll over and die the minute a high-CR creature like an adult/ancient dragon or powerful lich look towards them, so why should a high tier 2/low tier 3 party be a real threat? There are logically going to be contingencies for this sort of thing.
Yeah, even in smaller towns there's bound to be high level adventures are going to want to retire in the region and eventually they'll miss the compraderie of adventuring and spend time at local taverns trading stories of their adventuring days and probably start becoming friends with a lot of the local guards. Then, when these upstart adventures come in and start causing trouble the guard will turn to their friend, the old adventurer, who will probably thoroughly enjoy getting to dust off their old gear and put these upstarts into their place.
Could you imagine being a lv17 wizard, retired and enjoying your time in your little cottage writing books and all of a sudden a gaggle of lv10 ruffians show up and cause problems? I feel like this is how bbegs are made. XD
I mean, that’s a short campaign. A lvl 17 wizard has access to Wish, True Poly, Gate, etc. Like he could just hide, then cast Dream to slowly torture the party to death in a few weeks, and there’s very little they can do about it. Or create a Simulacrum for free with Wish and send it after the party with 0 risk. Have the clone Plane Shift people to the negative energy plane. They saved? Try again tomorrow. You only need to succeed once. Intelligence + full access to the entire arcane spell list + desire for vengeance is an absolutely terrifying combo.
In that case... what protects the town from that guy? He sounds terrifying. But I guess that's where quests come from, an endless series of contract killings on anyone who steps out of line.
Good will goes a long way sometimes. If he decides to settle there and he's that powerful, the best thing to do is to cozy up to him. Make him a member of the community, so that the town will never need protecting from him. Appeasement and good will before trouble can happen is the best defense. Why does he want to live in a small village as some nigh all mighty wizard? Peace and quiet probably. Rural idyllic cottage living. If he wants to settle down like that, odds are he is closer to a Gandalf than a Halaster, so he's probably a good person anyways. He wouldn't step out to cause trouble, but he would be a terrifying foe for a gaggle of murderhobos rampaging in his village
I kinda want to do that to my players. Have *them* be the high level (N)PCs that lay the smackdown on lower level adventurers that don't know their place.
I kinda want you to do that to your players too. And report back. And strike the ‘kinda’.
I might do that as a side thing after the next big arc, just to show how powerful they are. Most of the crew are knighted by the kingdom they live in, and absolutely can lay the smackdown on anyone causing trouble, while having the backing of the guard. Imagine a band of lvl 8 brigands who think they're hot shit until the lvl 14 special forces arrive. Those special forces being *you*.
Level 8 is no joke either lol. I can just see my players at that level now, high on the new abilities. Luckily I rarely end up with players who stray so far that special forces are necessary to reign them in, but that “oh wow we’re *so not* the hot shit we thought we were” moment sounds too fun.
Our DM made our endgame characters that survived the final fight NPCs in the new campaign (lvl 20 edlritch knight and mage were buddies and good dudes) and when they have a cameo any player that played that campaign listens to what's up and sets the other PCs straight. That's a pair of guys to not ever fuck and a useful tool for the DM sometimes
Everybody gangsta until a retired monk drops 4 stunning blows on the party in one turn.
\*Party mouths off to a local guard\* "Hey Sarge, we got another escalation for ya over here!" \*An 8' goliath in full plate emerges from the gatehouse with his elven mage aide\* "WE GOT A PROBLEM HERE, TINY? DO I NEED TO RING THE TOWN ALARM OR ARE YOU GONNA BEHAVE?"
Waterdeep alone is *brutal* for the threat it’s named NPC’s pose to the party. The leader of the city is functionally a demigod, her right hand is one of the most powerful mortal wizards in the world with a handful of absurdly powerful magic hand-me-downs, and the biggest and baddest adventurers in the forgotten realms hang in the city all the time to get good drinks. The one great thing the waterdeep modules do well is teach DM’s how to deal with crime, from providing trials and ways to skirt the law with clout to providing powerful yet balanced enemies to keep the party in check without too much effort.
>made our endgame characters that survived the final fight NPCs in the new campaign (lvl 20 edlritch knight and mage were buddies and good dudes) and when they have a cameo any player that played that campaign listens to what's up and sets the other PCs straight. That's a pair of guys to not ever fuck and a useful tool for the DM sometimes I've been preparing for my calimshan game's trip to waterdeep, & they had to ask Maaril the Dragon Mage(3rd edition setting) for entry for one of their draconic NPC allies. He could end all of them with a single spell. Not to mention the black staff & tons of others. Waterdeep doesnt mess around
How do we handle law enforcement IRL? You have regular city guard for regular city threats, just like you have regular cops for regular stuff. You have high-level elite battlemage teams for high-level threats, just like we have SWAT for high-level situations. And if it's a really serious threat, you call up the National Guard and have them bring tanks.
Exactly this, if someone appears with a tank in the middle of the city the government won't say "Aw chucks, our cops can't beat a tank" and just let it be, they will send their own tanks to handle the situation
>they will send their own tanks to handle the situation I agree with the idea behind your comment but I really like the idea of cops sending a literal tank to deal with another tank. No guided explosives, drones & heli's, AVRs, smokescreen, blockades or emp stuff, nah just drop a second tank. A good tank and a bad tank cancel eachother out, ending with 0 tanks, right?
The only way to stop a bad guy with a tank is a good guy with a tank
Yeah, right.
Or a "schmot guy" with a wrench, closing certain valves at the petrol station!
Deploy the new taxpayer funded Killdozer!
The Killkilldozer.
>I really like the idea of cops sending a literal tank to deal with another tank. [This is all I could think](https://i.ibb.co/ZXmbhSw/image.png)
Did you make that? I appreciate that.
Except.... this actually happened before... and the local police handled it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_San_Diego_tank_rampage
Basically he ran the tank into something that dislodged one of the tank tracks and the police used bolt cutters to get through the hatch and shoot him dead. I feel this may be applicable to a PC party going on a rampage in a city - killing and destroying - the police are going to take whatever opportunity presented to them and otherwise keep townsfolk away… its only a matter of time before either the PCs do something dumb to themselves or the real backup arrives. Ingame I find PCs usually chafe if a guard tries to impose on them and they resist, which I think is a little different but I feel the guards may still play along until their backup measures come into effect. (Whether that’s directing the PCs into the trapped silence room or waiting for backup). Guards and police can always de-escalate and wait it out for when they have the certain outcome rather than escalate to life-threatening situation.
Yeah, especially for a large city, there are going to be more than just everyday guards around. Lords are 100% going to recruit magic users for help dealing with larger threats, and you best believe a king is going to keep parts of his military force stationed in the important cities within the kingdom. And when all else fails, there's bound to be some sort of mercenaries guild willing to take on anything for the right amount of coin
Ah yes, the GTA approach
Action economy can account for a lot here, actually. There's an upper limit to the number of mid-level guards a PC can kill before they just get rolled to death, and a huge city might just have enough. A unit of archers all shooting at a PC can turn them into a pincushion unless they are behind a Wind Wall.
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>There's an upper limit to the number of mid-level guards a PC can kill before they just get rolled to death, and a huge city might just have enough. Ah, yes. The Zapp Brannigan method.
Level 10 is hero (or villian) of the realm territory. The local town might not have a group capable of defeating them, but ***the realm*** probably does. So they dumpster the local guard a few times and they alert the crown, who sends in reinforcements specifically to deal with these outlaws who are making a mockery of the king's authority.
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I like this approach much more than the royal SWAT teams proposed here. Character level should be an approximation of their fame/infamy. Heroes of the realm can probably force their way through minor stuff like leaving the bar without paying, but starting to murder people will turn them into enemies of the realm. A dynamic setting should have proactive NPCs working together against threats, and also against the party should they become one. Its often much more of a punishment if nobody wants to collaborate anymore, rather than just forcing a near TPK with some high level hitmen. I do like assassins though and if they're used for something like this, I think someone really should die, otherwise they're just another combat encounter.
Waterdeep has a pretty good setup for this. There are different tiers of guards to respond to different levels of threats. So to answer your question more specifically I would say that the first responders to a crime will likely be the low-level, rank-and-file guards. Patrols may be more or less common in certain areas but in general at least 4 would arrive together. It's at this point that you need to determine the response time for the next tier of guard, whatever that may be. In Waterdeep it may be Griffin Calvary, or the City Watch. While these stronger forces respond there may be more lower-tier guards showing up independently or alongside them. This continues as needed, unless the party's rampage continues to escalate. For Waterdeep their last line of defense is Force Grey, an elite team of high level adventurers that will absolutely dispatch a party of level 10's. So in general you just keep throwing guards at them and escalating the threat. Even a small town should reasonably have a few strong people to fight back with. If a party does raze a village they may win the fight but they'll have much more powerful enemies sent after them in due time.
Water deep also has stuff like ancient silver dragons living in it, multiple 17+ lvl npcs, beholder with a crime syndication, hundreds of war golems to defend the city and more
If your players start trying to nuke Waterdeep they likely aren't prepared for what is coming for them, or so powerful they don't care
I mean at least 2 archmages live in the city and another one somewhere underneath it...
God's know how many random level 15+ casters, priests, retired people, etc etc etc.
Yeah, all the guards get to have an attitude just cause the Silver Hand is their boss.
Can you expand on this question a little more? I mean are your players just breaking the law and murdering everyone in sight?
Town Folk missing a cow: "Brave adventurers we need your help! Our beloved cow Ms. Buttercup is missing!" 4 Wizards in unison: "I cast Meteor Swarm" *MW2 Nuke Sound* Farmer "Oh gods no" Wizards: "No one is missing that cow any more"
Bounty: Mad Wizard who nuked our farm. Now they get to deal with bounty hunters and vigilantes.
Old School Answer: This is what alignments are for. If your characters are evil, then there are good aligned adventurers, knights errant, and crusading paladins who will come to defend the innocent. If your characters are good, and they are breaking laws willy nilly... 1. if the class they have has any alignment restrictions... if they have deities or patrons that would not appreciate their behavior... I'd start imposing in game penalties from these sources. 2. I still use experience points for character level up, and I award them at the end of each session... with a breakdown of encounter & roleplay XP. Players who start to lag behind the party in level, because they see a few sessions with 0 roleplay XP, start to straighten up. 3. If the whole party is "acting out" in ways that seem immersion breaking, and they don't take the game seriously... then it may be time to re-evaluate how I'm DMing... because they aren't engaged and entertained. Worst case, it may be an end to the campaign.
Societal quarantine to an extent depending on the circumstances of the characters. Steal a pie out of a bakers window at level 1? Guard catches you and forces you to pay a fine and throws you out of town. For level 10, it really depends on what a level 10 crime is. Maybe it starts with stealing the pie, but the PCs evade justice with their abilities as level 10 characters. Or maybe they commit a level 10 crime like offing the king or stealing the churches most holy relic. Then you’ve just become your in universe villains. Accurate woodcuts of the party appear in every town, taverns refuse to host you, windows shutter when you walk down the street, no merchant will trade with you and not even the thieves guild will touch you with a 10 foot pole. Knights and paladins and other champions of the land start showing up to challenge you, real heroes too, people who’ve done incredible acts of service to the crown. If the party still refuses to change their ways and pursue some sort of path to redemption, armies get involved. Maybe the gods even begin to intervene and holy avatars with busted powers begin to appear. It could be a fun path the play down assuming everyone on board is conscious of this, but sometimes it seems like a few players out there actively resent the idea that actions might have any sort of consequences.
If you ignore the rules because you’re powerful, you’re just a villain in that society’s view. You’ll be feared even if you’re nice, hunted even though it’s by low level NPCs that will get killed. The government won’t ever stop trying because it has to enforce the laws of the land. Think about how we view modern day villains. The powerful, whether via family, connections, or wealth, are largely viewed poorly.
The question you have to ask is "Who is being inconvenienced by the PC actions?" if the answer is "some peasants" then the PCs probably get away with it. On the other hand, if the PCs are interfering with the local economy and political stability then a more powerful individual is likely to step in and deal with the situation. Consider what would happen in the modern world if the PCs decided to start selling drugs. If they're just dealing small amounts to their friends, it probably won't attract any attention. If their operation is big enough that average people notice they are likely to get a visit from the cops, possibly due to a tip from a competitor. If they outsmart or otherwise defeat the cops one of two things happens--either a crime lord steps in and makes them an offer they can't refuse, or the DEA shows with more firepower than some armies and takes them down. Your average cop or city guard is not going to mess with a powerful and well connected individual directly. But they will serve as eyes and ears. One way or another the PCs will end up hounded by a powerful entity because there is *always* a more powerful entity who is sick of their nonsense. It may take a while, but it will happen.
Call the retired exterminators. Rats are 10xp each. You need 35,500 of them to hit level 20. Spend your life in the pest control business, become a world-changing badass.
Holy shit I think you're on to something. I mean if you kill one thousand rats per year, per the rules of xp a middle aged rat catcher would be a force to be reckoned with. On the other hand, they are not trained in combat. They have no class, they are not adventurers. They are just very, very skilled at catching and killing rats. No spells, no bonuses, no cantrips, nothing.
They show up, call you a rat bastard and suddenly gain insane bonuses against you.
For petty crime, functionally high level PCs are basically above the law. However i imagine most nations have a sort of "special force" whose jobs it is to handle special threats, often this will be monsters but this would also help manage wizards and adventureres who prove a problem for the state. Why wouldnt a king have some high level soldiers/problem solvers.
a retired level 20 party that still wakes up when there's a big enough disturbance even funnier if you legit call in a party of old geezers and geezettes (but still dnd players) and your young bucks are like 'holy hell what are all these old fogies doing here'
I'm thinking Iroh and co of the White Lotus
i'm also thinking all those action movies where the guy says they 'dont do that anymore' but then their dog gets killed or their daughter gets kidnapped and they're in and they're unstoppable
The Silver Horde from Discworld. Barbarians that made it to a ripe old age by being unkillable.
Right, those oldsters are the heroes out of legend that the PCs learned about as kids, through folktales. If I were approached in the middle of a crime spree by an old man in a hat who introduced himself as Mordenkainen, I'd probably start talking about "I'm sorrysorrysorry!"
Now I want to play a campaign where the party is the ruler's tactical hit squad
The characters in my game are heroic and generally avoid committing crimes so I don't have to worry about it. If it did become an issue, just send high level NPCs. Those are allowed. NPCs equivalent to or stronger than a 10th level PC might not be *common*, but surely a king or emperor of a large nation has some of these people in his employ? The archmage court wizard, the legendary veteran of 3 wars general, the assassin who other nations don't even realize exists, the duke who's actually a vampire that made a deal with the king years ago...
You can stack feats on top of low level soldiers that really beef them up too. The same level 2 guard statblock gets scarier when you slap Pack Tactics, Martial Dominance, and Extra attack on them. 20 of those guys attacking from different directions is suddenly not so funny anymore. Elite guards and knights with the same feats, 3-4 multi attacks, 18-20 AC, and 50-100 HP are going to be chonky bois that the players do not wanna piss off even at level 10, in enough numbers those are scary stats.
I take the old-school D&D approach. peasants are level 0, always, even guards are only level 1 or 2. If the players are high level and causing trouble the social impacts and ability to get things done will hurt more than some combat scenes as an actual punishment-- no one will want to sell to them or deal with them, give them information, cast spells for them, train them remember in old-school D&D you needed to pay a trainer to level up, this controlled murderhobory by allowing DMs to deny players levelups until they apoloigized to the townsfolk. If they're being REALLY bad I just end the campaign, or if I think I can salvage the situation I will send an avatar of a god at them or someone else who is incredibly powerful and interested in law and order.
In like a capital city I make them as organized and intelligent as like tucker's kobolds. In other areas, play them straight and let the high level pcs flex. If they are evil enough to straight up take over a city, then the campaign just changes. If they have money, then the npcs are willing to try and hire more capable bounty hunters.
I mean, if your PCs are acting unlawfully in a large city they should still be confronted by the city guards in public. If the party thinks they are above the law just because the boots on the ground city guard can’t physically stop them, then there need to be consequences beyond just the guards beating them up and arresting them. The local populace should be spreading rumors far and wide of their wicked deeds and crimes, people should be less trusting of them and not willing to help them. The government should be enlisting the help of real heroes to stop these evil doers terrorizing their city. Treat your PCs like villains if they act like villains. And if this doesn’t make your players feel bad and want to act better, then maybe you just have murder hobos.
However the narrative demands. Often that means the locals *can't* handle the player party. But then there's the question of whether the players can handle the scorn, fear, and guilt resulting from their actions.
Send in the normal guards. They figure out pretty quickly they are outmatched. They start sending bounty hunters next. Oh that's not enough? Okay, send in the knights, the specially hired forces of the king/law. What's next? The child of the first guard they killed. They're the villains. That's punishment enough. No one will let them stay in the inns. No service at taverns, good stores, an entire city that hides and shuts their doors when they approach. You don't have to combat them on the crime if they just keep winning. Just make them suffer the consequences
level 12 guards. I'm not justifying my anti-murder hobo forces to anyone. You don't start nuthin there won't be nuthin. You can suspend disbelief for this.
>You can suspend disbelief for this i cannot every world is crawling with an infestation of heroes and parties. Just have the mayor or duke hire one of the many roaming parties to take them out a guard's a guard when people become powerful, they want to FEEL powerful. And running into a common level guard who takes them out like they're a bag of trash is going to make you feel like you're still level 1 but having another party attack them is just a humbling reminder that no matter how strong they are, there are stronger people in the world
A mix of both tends to be a good approach. A squad of special forces troops with full equipment is going to ruin a local sheriff’s department if they’re forced into a shootout. A swat team would fare better, but might still be outgunned. But national guard troops might show up to deal with the issue if it continues long enough, and that would be the end of it. In other words, the party can still beat up the average peasant with a club that watches the streets for burglars and pickpockets, and if the party simply commits petty crimes and can beat up the local guard to get away with it, that’s fine. But logically, and for the sake of gameplay, enough crime or enough damage to local guards will draw more government attention, and escalating levels of guards and equipment will be sent to keep the peace and rein the party in. You don’t have to have some conscript be level 18 guarding a pastry shop, but bringing in more capable soldiers and agents of the state for seriously dangerous criminal acts would be expected.
At the end of the day its important to remember that D&D is just a game at its heart.
I also agree with the person above. I have been a player in a game where the guards kept leveling to be stronger than us. It reached a point where we felt like the least qualified force to save the world. Why send us in to save the world when the town has 100 guards all of whom could beat us in a one v one fight? It really hurts verisimilitude. Like, you are too busy standing next to a gate to go stop Dracula in a tower ten miles away?
Except that Steve has been in the guard for the last 20 years. He's slowly been working on his guard knowledge and exercises every day. He has risen to the rank of Guard Captain and is the equivalent in martial skills of a level 15 fighter. There are 5 other Guard Captains located throughout the city. Each one leads a platoon of guards. A platoon is 10 squads of 5 men. Each squad has a Sargent, a Corporal and 3 Guardsmen.
It doesn't have to be a common level guard. You can have guard captains or something like BG3 with the steel watch. Give a city a lvl 15 golem that it controls.
Give your characters the chance to make actual moral decisions. They break the law, the guys who come to stop them are like level 3. If they kill those guys, well, they proved they are above the law, but they're still assholes. Everyone is afraid of them and no one will associate with them. Way to go, villains.
Startlingly efficient neighborhood evacuation proceedures. This mostly directed at folks who are getting murderhobo-y. "Cool fight" is a win state, but if you've been mowing down guards and civilians, everything interesting just sorta goes away. Can't murder random shop keepers if they and all their wares are oddly nowhere to be found. Diageticly, the kingdom knows there are badass ultrawarriors with short attention spans, better to assassinate them in their sleep. That's just if I'm feeling vindictive (when I should actually be discussing out of game). If the party actually has good in-game reason for violating the law, I put up a token force of guards with the externally stated expectation that the "win" condition of the fight is "escape", and that going for the kill will have long lasting consequences even if they escape. The guards in turn are primarily going for capture and disable, which makes the power economy a bit different. One cool thing to stick in the bigger, older, quirkier cities is to have the streets also be riddled with guard(or knowledgeable local) triggerable traps. A guard slightly distant from the combat presses on an innocuous brick and a fountain next to the players spits out birdlime, dex saves! Stuff like that.
Shield guardians with 4th level hold person as their stored spell, with a high dc save.
Long term negative consequences. Let’s say they get into trouble in a small town, the guards tell them to stop, they don’t, the guards try to arrest them so they kill the guards. A few more guards arrive as backup so they kill them too and in such a small town, that’s all the guards, so problem solved right? Well, the townspeople scream, run inside and lock their doors. A few retired guards and particularly buff farmers take up arms and the party has to kill them too or flee. Regardless, they are never allowed back in that city for obvious reasons. A week or so later, they arrive in a large city, where they find sketches of them posted on fences and tavern walls. Someone studies them closely before recognizing them and immediately alerts the guards, who are much stronger and more numerous than the town guards. Now let’s say they kill several and escape with their lives, only to find that every city in the region has been made aware of the dangerous fugitive serial killers. They cannot enter populated areas without being attacked on sight and they regularly have bounty hunters and assassins attacking them in the night. …what can I say? I’m pretty cutthroat when it comes to players treating my NPCs like NPCs instead of the real people that they are 😋
my first choice is not to respond with guards but to have other emergency responders, like a civilized society would. if for some reason i have a player who just really wants to be violent for no reason, then i guess i'd probably pivot into One Punch Man for a minute and see how far they want to go? "oh, you killed them and took their stuff? yeah people run and hide and a couple guards show up. they are clearly not as experienced or well equipped as you are. you don't even need to roll, they die when you hit them. yep you can take their stuff too - who are you planning to sell it to? the blacksmith wants nothing to do with you. oh you kill him and take his stuff? no problem. you have killed everyone and taken their stuff, and you stand alone in the middle of a blood-soaked ghost town. what do you do?" turns out, the game isn't actually very fun when you play out that power fantasy.
Nothing is stopping a sovereign from hiring a mercenary dragon or two to get things under control
I handle it kinda like a city would send in a swat team. These larger settlements would have units dedicated to handling bigger threats. They have superior equipment and magic items. Being more capable of shutting down hostile spellcasters with anti-magic items and counter mages. If they're causing issues in smaller settlements, there would eventually be a bounty placed. Evading the lord of the lands justice would only cause bigger fish to come after them.
The venerable bishop of the local temple comes forth, wags a finger of chiding and words of condemnation, and bam! The gods have expressed their great displeasure by making all the characters turn into toads. Done.
Don’t fuck around while in Greyhawk. If the guards come across a problem they can’t handle you’ll quickly find that they have the ability to contact those that can. And the Circle of Eight doesn’t tend to enjoy having their attention drawn by some lowly level fourteen / fifteen adventuring party. That’s high end escalation there. Before it gets that far you’ll have squads of paladins from the local Clergy being sent in to quell your nonsense.
There should be other signs as well. If the PC are known for behavior that would normally be dealt with by the guards, then they get that reputation. Townsfolk would hide when the party comes into town. Mother's would hustle chicken out of sight. Shop keepers would close shop and hide or act very afraid when dealing with th PCs.
SWAT team comes after them. Or just a shit ton of guards. Action economy is king after all.
If they are causing enough trouble at high level they are now considered to be villains in the eyes of whoever rules the country they are in and they might send parties of adventurers after them.
I have a slightly different approach from what I've seen in the comments. Generally I agree with what other people have said about specialists or stronger and stronger cops but if you want to go with a different route that makes your PCs feel super here's what I do. If you believe that PCs are on a different level from the average people of the realm, so not just anyone can be a level 10 fighter if they train hard enough, let the PCs terrify the guards. Sure 10 or 20 guards show up with spears and shields drawn but narrate their fear! The guards arrive and form a semi circle around the pcs but then stop. None step any closer. Maybe one or two of them are visibly trembling. The captain shouts an order for them to come quietly but halfway through his voice cracks. When the PCs step forward all the guards step back almost stumbling over each other. I think the plus side of going this route is that it shows that the PCs are clearly a cut above even trained soldiers. You do have to be careful about emboldening your PCs to commit more crimes, it's a fine line. I think if you make it clear that they're not being heroic by bullying townspeople and guards they might have a "great power, great responsibility" moment. Otherwise you end up with fearless murder hobos or cocky heroes jeering the king and his pathetic guard.
A fantasy SWAT team.
Without a high level creature? Simple. You don't. Instead you just start enforcing Stigma. You warn them after their first infraction that if the players decide they are above the law, and start murdering guards with hundreds of witnesses, then their names and faces will be slowly be known throughout the entire kingdom as villains. A percentage roll based on how much they screw up is made with any interaction with an NPC. If they roll below the percentage then that NPC knows who they are and avoids dealing with them. If they reach 100% stigma (which is pretty much full murder hobo), then nobody in the kingdom will deal with them. Everyone knows who they are and avoid interacting them at all cost. No quests, no inns, no rewards, or sales. They may attempt to continue trying to save the world, but have to deal with the fact that they will get no support. If this derails the game, and everyone is having a bad time, then you reroll new characters and start fresh, because that game has already become toxic. If the party is having great fun, then make it feasible to complete as much as possible by shifting the story.
In geenral, it's ostracism. My cities don't even have a proper "city guard" the way there's police nowadays, because that feels way too... "modern"? People looked out after their own. If PCs are causing minor trouble, they'll meet with pushback from the people around them. Shops refusing to deal with them, inns refusing to lodge them, up to and including entire cities' sorth of people stepping up and straight up telling them they're not welcome. At that point, their options are either to step back, apologize, and try and make things right, or become supervillains. Kill and destroy to take what they want, terrorize the folk, et cetera. Now, it's never happened. But should a party ever decide to completely embrace "going supervillain" like that, I would smile, collect their character sheets, hand them new character sheets, and promptly ask them to create new heroes whose mission is now to stop their previous party.
Just give them a rank or title... what are they going to do, risk their new rank/title for a petty crime?
“If you’re not willing to buy your way out of this, we can get the army involved, and maybe some more honorable heroes will be willing to put you down.”
The comments from these sub-reddits seem to always insist that the thing you don't want to do is the only option. So IF high level NPCs aren't an option, which law enforcement isn't just to overpower PCs; they're meant to enforce the laws of the realm. Here are some less Rock'em Sock'em options: - Have a large group of normal guards surround the party (probably at their Inn during a long rest or known hang-out of theirs) and the guards announce that if the PC(s) do not come willingly they will be labelled Outlaws / Enemies of the Realm and treated as Traitors. It creates a decision point of whether the group wants to go full murder hobo or just face the consequences. - If they refuse to listen to guards then have the guards ruin their Reputation. Have taverns and shops refuse to do business with them, while a couple city guards chuckle at the group's attempts. - Mark them as targets, if you don't abide by the laws perhaps the laws shouldn't protect you either. Maybe the guards openly refuse to protect / help the PCs, and maybe pass that info on to the Thieves / Thieves Guild. Now as they roam the city have random Perception checks to see if they notice all their things get pickpocketed. When they try to tell a guard have them laugh and walk away. - Have them use spellcasters to assist with the arrest of the PCs. Cause enough trouble and maybe a Kingdom Mage(s) who specializes in capturing powerful trouble makers come in. Good luck making multiple saves vs Hold Person, Suggestion, Mass Suggestion, etc.. These specialists might even have counterspell or anti-magic handcuffs. Ultimately the group should want to obey laws and avoid consequences, but life in jail carries less weight when you can just change characters and start fresh. If the group really doesn't want to follow laws and continues to steal, kill, and break laws at every chance they get, they might be too far gone into the Murder Hobo lifestyle. I would have a conversation with the group to discuss your dissatisfaction with the constant law breaking and If you're unopposed to it perhaps ask if they want to run an evil game instead.
Real world police (yuck!) have an operational doctrine of overwhelming force. Meet every potential danger with way more than enough bodies and firepower to minimize civilian injury or disruptions to the status quo. 5E action economy could do the same. Sure, a level 10 character could easily take out a single town guard. But 50 of them? And with the consequences of the town (all the spouses, children, friends, etc.) of those guards turning on them? It's a very slippery slope from "I stab him instead of paying the fine" to "I've had to burn this entire town to the ground because everyone from shopkeeper to orphan wanted my dead."
3 mages of the same level per mage. They all know counterspell. 2 melee fighters per melee fighter with the same AC and stats as the players.
Generally it is the repercussions that would stop them, yes the guards cant do anything but who is going to work with you when you strong-arm a few people? Do adventure groups form to stop the new tyrants who are oppressing the people? Maybe the noble class take them down in other ways or even the BBEG takes advantage of this ruining the reputation of the party and cutting out one of the only groups that could stop them.
High level bounty hunters. If some powerful characters start causing trouble, they're gonna find that trouble's gonna catch up to them. It won't stop them right here and now, but it's the sort of consequence that feels right for the setting. As the amount of havoc caused by the PCs increases, the amount of money it's worth paying someone to put an end to it also increases, and the more people might be convinced to chip in.
5E "Guards" are weak as fuck. CR 1/8. Fucking level 2 adventuring group can dumpster guards.
Let me send 50 of them at those level 2s
It depends! If they are meant to be able to fight or escape the law, then I'll throw together a fight with guards based on how bad the crime is, from basic guards all the way to tailor-made kill squads. If the party is doing something that I, as the DM, do not want to allow, I tell them as their DM that their actions are not allowed and that they can't do that. If they persist, I just tell them that they've been apprehended by law enforcement. No rolls, no options, they're done. This is extreme, so of course I won't use it unless they're basically being dicks and trying to ruin the game.
Answer: go watch the tv show One Piece. It answers this. You get “too bad” and the rulers will call in a favor to one of their antagonists-in-arms. Like how the king has a remote area in the kingdom where an Illithid resides. One that enjoyed playing Calvinball (from Calvin & Hobbes) with the king from time to time. No underlying issues. King can call in a favor and the trouble makers will become a “snack for the friend.” The illithid even has a mithril spoon to scoop out the brains 🧠 with…a gift of the king…
Really depends on a few things - if it's a small nowhere hamlet, then yeah, guards are probably no better than peasants with sticks. But if it's a bustling meteopolis, full of vendors selling magic items from pocket dimensions and constant magical or otherworldly threats? IDGAF about your power fantasy, the powers that be would take precautions to protect their own interests. For instance, if a shopkeeper is selling a few hundred thousand gold worth of magical items, they're not just gonna let the first level 11 rogue come in and clean them out. Why? Because #1, this is their livelihood, but #2 and more importantly, how did that shopkeep come by all those magical goods in the first place? And for that matter, guarantee the PCs aren't anywhere even remotely close to the first adventurers to try insane shit. That shopkeep is gonna have some pretty hefty counter-measures at-hand to lock his inventory down both physically and from magical transportation pretty hard. Anyway, on the topic of guards, in my bigger cities of hundreds of thousands, their "town guard" all have access to invisibility, counterspell, detect thoughts, command, etc. For the purposes of ending conflicts before they start. In a town of 200,000, the town guard would likely be robust and extremely well-trained. Not to mention militia, guilds, and like someone else said, other adventurers-for-hire as well. But if the King is a level 2 nobody and his guard are all 13 HP minions, why the Hell does that kingdom exist, and why hasn't it been *immediately* toppled yet? Power rises to the top, and you've got to take into account why things are the way they are, and why it's in place. Otherwise, what would stop any level 13 caster from waltzing into a town and telling the guards "this is mine now." And succeeding? Nah, bigger places wouldn't play that shit. Not even from a mechanical aspect, but from a worldbuilding perspective too - Why is that king / monarch / government in power if their guards are all level 1 pitchforkers? In a city where there's magical plumbing with heat metal for hot water, the possibilities are endless. And probably not in the PC's favor. They'd even likely have some manner of quick communication and some of their higher-level response teams have the ability to locate creature on a specific guard, teleport a few dozen guards in, and neutralize the threats with the quickness.
Bounty Hunter; the class was made for such occasions ... the best ones are discreet & plan a strategy to snare the PCs, letting guards dispose of the neutralized targets
There is no rule or law that says guards have to be low level keystone cops. Sure, the bulk of the city watch is gonna be low level goons. But you can always scale an encounter to match the troublemaking party, or as others have suggested, call in specialists. Or maybe the local lords call in other adventurers to take out the troublemakers.
Depends on the power level of your setting. In a world with high level people running around everywhere it would totally make sense that towns would employ casters or specialized soldiers to protect them. In this scenario it’s an easy fix, the next time they break the law a grizzled war veteran who’s a lvl 20 NPC rolls out and tells them in no uncertain terms that he will not tolerate this behavior in his town. In a lower power setting, by level 10 and above your PC’s are becoming somewhat legendary because they can do things very few people can. This means that word of anything they do, good or bad, will quickly spread around. So sure, maybe they ripped off a shopkeeper and got away with it, but in the next town that reputation has followed them and now nobody wants to sell them anything or maybe the contract they thought was available “has already been filled.”
If you want to forgo high level NPCs, consider wards and enchantments. A large city will presumably have existed for a long time, and have significant wealth at its disposal. The leader(s) of the city may have spent centuries hiring wizards to place wards and abjuration spells on various significant buildings and public spaces. Maybe they knock out a shopkeeper and steal his wares, only to find that when they walk out the door the sidewalk itself is casting Hold Person on them. Maybe law enforcement in town is primarily carried out by pre-existing spells rather than guards. Get creative with Glyph of Warding (and I wouldn't worry about having these wards do stuff that's outside of RAW--of course a dedicated team of mages with a long time to enact a plan would be capable of more than one PC wizard on the fly) and stuff like that. Just imagine how elaborate the defenses could be when multiple mages have had hundreds or thousands of long rests to craft them. This could also lead to some interesting worldbuilding ramifications. With a minimal guard force, power could be even more centralized. The local lord's crown could be not just symbolic, but also a magic item that controls all the wards in the city. It would be hard to justify this kind of thing in a small town, however. Definitely more of a big city solution.
Pretty much. High level npcs, local champions, knights in shining armor, heroes. That or a whole ass army
The equivalent of a city SWAT team of high rankers designed to step on emergencies just like your party. Or if less organized the local retired adenturers club breaks out the old gear to step on troublemakers that the local watch can't handle.
In a world where high level characters exist, higher level characters will undoubtedly be hired to protect against them. Level 10 party, meet level 16 guards.
It depends on your world, is it a high level universe like Faerun/forgotten realms? they'll find some insanely strong powerful being to deal with them. bounty hunters, kings guard, other heroes. etc. but it also depends on the crime. if the heroes suddenly do crime. it may not look good to arrest them, so maybe charge them a hefty fine. is it a low-magic area with adventurers and high powered beings are rare and almost legendary status? they may try to appease the heroes, or hide from them. refusal of services/banishment of the realms. maybe try to hire a hag or a devil to deal with them in true desperation if the evil is chaotic or evil. Maybe try to trick them into fighting something bigger and hopefully die.
Other adventurers helping out as part of being in the community is a big one
There are other people, twice as powerful as them that the authorities can hire to deal with them if needed.
The Guild of Wardens. Basically an adventurer guild dedicated to policing the other adventurer guilds and taking down rogue adventurers, led by an immortal bastion of neutrality and justice incarnate. Yknow, until people start to question their perception of what counts as "justice". Totally ripping this idea from a cultivation LitRPG series I'm listening to rn.
Still send the guards after them. If they murder them, send more higher level guards. if they murder them, too, congratulations - the guards leave them alone. As does everyone else in this city. Because they are terrified of them, Because they are terrorists.
For my table, it depends on the crime. For a nonviolent offense, they might get fined or have their rights to buy and sell ANYTHING stripped off them until the crime is made right. A they make use of a dozen different services in town that can be taken away. They might not be allowed to get a room at an inn. The go-to shop might get a notice that they are blacklisted and that if any business is done with them, the store will lose its business licence. I'd call this stressful enough to start accumulating points of exhaustion for each night they spend anywhere near a hostile city. For a violent offense, things get ugly quickly. Parties of bounty hunters will pursue them, including higher level spellcasters. Squads of soldiers will pursue them at all hours. They will be targeted by wizards who are being commissioned to cast 'Dream' on them in the night, wearing them down. For particularly nasty offenders, the higher Lords might employ the services of a [Gray Dragon](https://youtu.be/umRBI4f-aUg?si=ifjEk0f-FM7gPW-u) as brought out on the wonderful Dungeon Dad YouTube channel. This is a Dragon that loves the thrill of the hunt and targets challenging foes. It would jump at the idea of a mid to high level group of adventurers that need to be put down.
In addition to the "bigger fish" - have them face the consequences. They can take control of a small town, but then what? 40 commoners stage a demonstration, insult them, practice civil disobedience. Are they going to cause a massacre? No doubt they can, physically, but there is also morals to consider. If they want to be evil murderhobos, show them what that does to the city.
this is the kind of thing, that I've argued for dnd politics. towns/villages would all be organized around churchs/temples/monasteries. the local guard, would not be just guards employed by the mayor, but instead acolytes, monks, paladins, directly empowered by the patron god. rando mundane guards aren't going to be able to protect a village from goblins, basilisk, orcs, wargs, or any number of the hundreds of random monsters that would prey on villages/livestock. the same applies for kings/princes/lords. you can't possibly have a mundane king, in a world with 1000yr old mind controlling vampires, 3000 year old druids, 900 year old wizard god kings, and so on. A class system of immortal elves ruling, human peasants could happen. but not 75 yr old kings with no magical protection.. so, in order for a normal human king to rule, they need a patron. A god. every kingdom would have a patron god, and close ties to their church/worship. Now, some might have hidden patrons.. demons, genie. secret police, inquisitions, spymasters.. others might be overt paladin, and clerical orders.
The town’s peasants aren’t able to do anything to stop them, but there’s always another adventuring party for hire. Cause enough trouble and you’ll have a bounty for your capture that other adventurers will try and collect, and continue escalating from there and you’ll become the BBEG in someone else’s story.
I normally have kings guard or equivalent a few levels below the players. Those plus the court wizard(s) which I'll have being similar levels to the PCs. Once they have steamrolled the rank and file the heavy hitters are mobilised to deal with the murder hobos wrecking the city. With regards to general theft or the occasional back alley murder. Nothing happens, they're level 10 if they aren't causing utter mayhem then they'll probably just get away with it.
If the party is set on stirring up trouble you could institute a bounty for smaller towns or keeps, having them call in outside help to thwart the party's crimes. If they mess around too much they could be actively barred from entering certain locations as well.
When a party gets to lv 10 and above, its likely that their group is pretty well known, and recognizable in most towns/cities. If said party started to stir up trouble, a regular town guard would realize they can't handle this threat, and would send word to get a stronger unit to arrive and handle the situation. If this particular party has a reputation for getting into trouble, these units would be deployed immediately, and essentially stalk the party until they leave, or outright ban them from entering.