As I said, Biowizard, it is quite possible. The trick is, to as I wrote, avoid instant spells and worse, spells that do high damage. Instead you want long duration spells and aim for moderate damage. An army of 5,000 is going to be made up of people with less than 50 hitpoints each, you do not need nor desire a spell that does 20d6.
We all know that the "action economy" controls who wins most battles in D&D.
No we don't. It depends on the value of the actions as well as the number. D&D combat uses Lanchester's Square Law up to a moderate number in melee combat and a pretty large number in ranged combat, so yes, numbers are highly valuable, but it's a mistake to think it all boils down to actions.
In my campaign my players play as a cabal of Devils wich of course makess them run afoul of the law very often and i was wondering what i could do to make the town guard in my campaign a true organisation to be reckoned with.
so far i have given my guards more hitpoints and an alarm horn that can attract more guards and on rare occasions the Captain General of the guard who is a level 10 lizardman fighter.
the strategies they use so far are shieldwalls with archer support, flanking maneuvers, pincer attacks and closing off streets and alleyways.
Does anyone have any other ideas to make my feel more threatening?
I didn’t read any other posts so I apologize for redundancy:
town guards put out bounty/quests to adventurers/mercenaries for them
town guards have magic item access from confiscated magical items
”k-9” unit. (I forget which sorcerer it is with the magic dog thing.)
Informants and other plain clothes people that help the town guards/narc/set traps/etc.
also, the city is their home terrain, their lair, if you will. Maybe think of the town as their lair. Perhaps this approach could give you a fresh perspective.
also, the city is their home terrain, their lair, if you will. Maybe think of the town as their lair. Perhaps this approach could give you a fresh perspective.
Oh, I like that idea. A way of thinking I hadn't considered. Lair action: streetwise (home turf, maybe). That alley the characters just ran into... they made a mistake, that's a dead end. Brain chugging.
That's a great way of thinking about that! Thank you!
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
mmm well this might seem like really simple but why don't you try mixing in some tougher stat blocks in with the normal guards things like veterans, knights, or other semi high CR npcs. You could also go with the idea that there's an elite guard composed entirely of higher CR npcs. Besides that try giving the basic guards a multi attack remember in dnd a nat 20 always hits and having 2 attacks boosts that chance by 100%. I'd also recommend including a unit like a standard barer which has an aura effect that gives allies within a set range improved critical once again boosting that chance to now 400% the norm. This will also be helpful once your PCs reach a level where the basic guards really start to struggle with landing a hit.
When making a village, town, or city I try to sort out the politics of the area first then base how guards are arranged by that. From commoner volunteers in a small village to elite swordsmen in capital cities. I try to break it down also into the City Watch (which patrols the streets) and the City Guard( they watch the gates and walls).
A midsized town may hire adventurers to track down a troublesome group. If they offended a minor noble perhaps he/she uses connections to put bounty hunters on their trail, or calls in a favor and gets the royal or imperial army involved.
Perhaps the town is the home of a wizard or wizards and the normal guards could be supported by flesh, clay, or stone golems under the command of local officials or ranking guardsmen. If you want to really make it nasty, there is a large iron golem in the center of the town that can be called upon in time of need by guards/officials, (been there a 100 years and never moved, untouched by the elements, until it is called upon, or witnesses an atrocity or heinous crime, remnants of the last war or forgotten age). If that is too much perhaps there are helmed horrors or warforged that patrol the streets in Robocop fashion.
The guards could be supported by the local monastery or martial academy. When I ran 2nd edition I had an elven enclave where the guards were all students or instructors of the Academy of Art and Arms and patrolled as part of their training. My players were less likely to start a fight against a squad of Fighter/Mages or Bladesingers in elven chain and gleaming longswords that couldn't be charmed or put to sleep(90% resistance in 2e).
I know I'm late to the party, but honestly, Meteor Swarm-dimension door isn't the only strategy here. A wizard with prep is definitely a threat to a Roman legion. A wizard with appropriate prep can use True Polymorph to create a dragon (or other dangerous monster) once per day. Wizards also have various spells that let them bind planar entities or control monsters, so there's that. An effective low level skirmishing spell that frees up your action for other spellcasting is Far Step. Good luck to the Roman legion that tries to dash towards a PC who is able to teleport away as fast as they move forward and still sling spells at them. This lasts for a minute per cast too. At this point, the wizard would also have spell mastery, which means they also most likely just have infinite casts of Misty Step. So they could use the same strategy, but with concentration on another spell. Concentration spells are wizard's best friend in this situation, since spells like Cloudkill can keep killing legionaries for multiple rounds without you having to do anything. Or you could just true polymorph into a monster that is immune to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing (and maybe also fire). Or you could turn invisible. So now they have to deal with an invisible, spell-slinging enemy who is continually teleporting as soon as they get a lock on his location.This is to say nothing of the morale loss that troops would face when a thousand of their friends get vaporized by Meteor Swarm. That can be capitalized on even more by illusion magic, fear effects, dominating the enemy commander and on and on.
I would agree with your broader point that most nations have ways of dealing with level 20 players. They have magic as well and tend to have specialized troops or adventurers that are beyond "standard human." But if legionaries are town guard level, without access to magic they're getting wiped. At minimum, they're getting hit hard and the wizard is just going to use the actual teleport spell to teleport FAR FAR away (plus, a well prepared wizard will have clone prepared in case he makes a mistake and does get "killed"). The wizard doesn't have to "defeat 5,000 Roman soldiers in a battle." He just has to kill enough to cause catastrophic losses, teleport to a location where they won't find him and then teleport back and do it again the next day. The Roman legions can't handle that. Is it a cheese strategy? Yes. But it's not really so different from how insurgents today operate, and a high level D&D wizard is far better equipped to do that sort of warfare effectively.
Also, assuming the wizard doesn't care about civilian casualties, is being in a crowded city more of a problem for the wizard (who can set everything on fire while hiding out amidst the crowd, then pick off the soldiers while invisible, for example) or for those poor poor Roman soldiers? Remember, this is essentially guerilla warfare. An open field engagement is actually by far the most favorable battlefield for the legion (can't use all that artillery effectively in a city), and a high level wizard can still inflict massive casualties and escape, if not outright win in one shot.
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As I said, Biowizard, it is quite possible. The trick is, to as I wrote, avoid instant spells and worse, spells that do high damage. Instead you want long duration spells and aim for moderate damage. An army of 5,000 is going to be made up of people with less than 50 hitpoints each, you do not need nor desire a spell that does 20d6.
No we don't. It depends on the value of the actions as well as the number. D&D combat uses Lanchester's Square Law up to a moderate number in melee combat and a pretty large number in ranged combat, so yes, numbers are highly valuable, but it's a mistake to think it all boils down to actions.
I didn’t read any other posts so I apologize for redundancy:
town guards put out bounty/quests to adventurers/mercenaries for them
town guards have magic item access from confiscated magical items
”k-9” unit. (I forget which sorcerer it is with the magic dog thing.)
Informants and other plain clothes people that help the town guards/narc/set traps/etc.
traps/stings/undercover operations.
Watch me on twitch
Strength in numbers.
also, the city is their home terrain, their lair, if you will. Maybe think of the town as their lair. Perhaps this approach could give you a fresh perspective.
Oh, I like that idea. A way of thinking I hadn't considered. Lair action: streetwise (home turf, maybe). That alley the characters just ran into... they made a mistake, that's a dead end. Brain chugging.
" Maybe think of the town as their lair."
That's a great way of thinking about that! Thank you!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
mmm well this might seem like really simple but why don't you try mixing in some tougher stat blocks in with the normal guards things like veterans, knights, or other semi high CR npcs. You could also go with the idea that there's an elite guard composed entirely of higher CR npcs. Besides that try giving the basic guards a multi attack remember in dnd a nat 20 always hits and having 2 attacks boosts that chance by 100%. I'd also recommend including a unit like a standard barer which has an aura effect that gives allies within a set range improved critical once again boosting that chance to now 400% the norm. This will also be helpful once your PCs reach a level where the basic guards really start to struggle with landing a hit.
When making a village, town, or city I try to sort out the politics of the area first then base how guards are arranged by that. From commoner volunteers in a small village to elite swordsmen in capital cities. I try to break it down also into the City Watch (which patrols the streets) and the City Guard( they watch the gates and walls).
A midsized town may hire adventurers to track down a troublesome group. If they offended a minor noble perhaps he/she uses connections to put bounty hunters on their trail, or calls in a favor and gets the royal or imperial army involved.
Perhaps the town is the home of a wizard or wizards and the normal guards could be supported by flesh, clay, or stone golems under the command of local officials or ranking guardsmen. If you want to really make it nasty, there is a large iron golem in the center of the town that can be called upon in time of need by guards/officials, (been there a 100 years and never moved, untouched by the elements, until it is called upon, or witnesses an atrocity or heinous crime, remnants of the last war or forgotten age). If that is too much perhaps there are helmed horrors or warforged that patrol the streets in Robocop fashion.
The guards could be supported by the local monastery or martial academy. When I ran 2nd edition I had an elven enclave where the guards were all students or instructors of the Academy of Art and Arms and patrolled as part of their training. My players were less likely to start a fight against a squad of Fighter/Mages or Bladesingers in elven chain and gleaming longswords that couldn't be charmed or put to sleep(90% resistance in 2e).
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I know I'm late to the party, but honestly, Meteor Swarm-dimension door isn't the only strategy here. A wizard with prep is definitely a threat to a Roman legion. A wizard with appropriate prep can use True Polymorph to create a dragon (or other dangerous monster) once per day. Wizards also have various spells that let them bind planar entities or control monsters, so there's that. An effective low level skirmishing spell that frees up your action for other spellcasting is Far Step. Good luck to the Roman legion that tries to dash towards a PC who is able to teleport away as fast as they move forward and still sling spells at them. This lasts for a minute per cast too. At this point, the wizard would also have spell mastery, which means they also most likely just have infinite casts of Misty Step. So they could use the same strategy, but with concentration on another spell. Concentration spells are wizard's best friend in this situation, since spells like Cloudkill can keep killing legionaries for multiple rounds without you having to do anything. Or you could just true polymorph into a monster that is immune to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing (and maybe also fire). Or you could turn invisible. So now they have to deal with an invisible, spell-slinging enemy who is continually teleporting as soon as they get a lock on his location.This is to say nothing of the morale loss that troops would face when a thousand of their friends get vaporized by Meteor Swarm. That can be capitalized on even more by illusion magic, fear effects, dominating the enemy commander and on and on.
I would agree with your broader point that most nations have ways of dealing with level 20 players. They have magic as well and tend to have specialized troops or adventurers that are beyond "standard human." But if legionaries are town guard level, without access to magic they're getting wiped. At minimum, they're getting hit hard and the wizard is just going to use the actual teleport spell to teleport FAR FAR away (plus, a well prepared wizard will have clone prepared in case he makes a mistake and does get "killed"). The wizard doesn't have to "defeat 5,000 Roman soldiers in a battle." He just has to kill enough to cause catastrophic losses, teleport to a location where they won't find him and then teleport back and do it again the next day. The Roman legions can't handle that. Is it a cheese strategy? Yes. But it's not really so different from how insurgents today operate, and a high level D&D wizard is far better equipped to do that sort of warfare effectively.
Also, assuming the wizard doesn't care about civilian casualties, is being in a crowded city more of a problem for the wizard (who can set everything on fire while hiding out amidst the crowd, then pick off the soldiers while invisible, for example) or for those poor poor Roman soldiers? Remember, this is essentially guerilla warfare. An open field engagement is actually by far the most favorable battlefield for the legion (can't use all that artillery effectively in a city), and a high level wizard can still inflict massive casualties and escape, if not outright win in one shot.