Quote from Dr_Frederick >>

It took my far too long to realize this, but it occurred to me that random townsfolk will use this statblock, because they are off-duty militia.

 Huh. That's an interesting thought! Especially in a frontier region like Icewind Dale!! Good catch!

I'm trying to run a raid on a local guard house as a 'boss encounter' for my party. The party is Lv3. 

I love the 'Raise the alarm' addition. I've thought to add a 'Guard Pool' of 3D10 total guard. Starting with 5 guards and with the option for more to be drawn into the fight from the pool. I've also given options for the party to acomplish their goal with minimal combat (They'll never try that option).

Does that sound reasonable? 

Quote from gibsonchris036 >>

I'm trying to run a raid on a local guard house as a 'boss encounter' for my party. The party is Lv3. 

I love the 'Raise the alarm' addition. I've thought to add a 'Guard Pool' of 3D10 total guard. Starting with 5 guards and with the option for more to be drawn into the fight from the pool. I've also given options for the party to acomplish their goal with minimal combat (They'll never try that option).

Does that sound reasonable? 

 According to the encounter builder, it would be a deadly encounter if all 30 guards were drawn in at once.

As that probably won't happen, and you stage a multipart encounter, it may work. Keep each wave at no more than 5 guards, and it's almost balanced. 

Sometimes an encounter features multiple enemies that the party doesn’t face all at once. For example, monsters might come at the party in waves. For such encounters, treat each discrete part or wave as a separate encounter for the purpose of determining its difficulty.

A party can’t benefit from a short rest between parts of a multipart encounter, so they won’t be able to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points or recover any abilities that require a short rest to regain. As a rule, if the adjusted XP value for the monsters in a multipart encounter is higher than one-third of the party’s expected XP total for the adventuring day (see “The Adventuring Day,” below), the encounter is going to be tougher than the sum of its parts

In terms of lore, how does the guard differ from the veteran? The thing that most throws me off is that it says that guards are sentries in a citadel, which I would also view as shareable with a veteran. Does anyone else have the same question or am I just not reading it right?

I view it as dependent on sort of what their role is in society in the setting. For example, using Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Wildemount, I would probably use a guard statblock for the City Watch in all three settings. I might debuff them if they're local small town volunteer militia (like Hupperdook's in Wildemount) by giving them lower AC or something. Their captain would probably be a veteran (similar to how Sildar in Neverwinter is for FR), but they would be the only veteran in the entire guard of the town/city. Meanwhile, veterans would more commonly pop up in the military (Flaming Fists elite ranks for FR perhaps, officers of the Brelish Army for Eberron, and Righteous Brand marshals for Wildemount). In that way, the guard captain does overlap with the military officers, but there's more abundance of veteran statblock as military officers than as guard captains. (And then soldiers would be the regular enlisted military, of course.)

cool time to kill two of them

Oh that's really cool!

Quote from ShaydyCharacter >>

Don't forget that guards come in all flavours. Expect guards of wealthy people/areas to be better equipped than the basic guard. Farm villages might use bows to fight on the open plain, mining towns could use metal martial weapons and heavier armour like breastplates or chain mail. Palace Guards might use heavy armour and possibly halberds.
Feel free to adjust their stats based on experience, training, and role. Here's a list of suggestions with a range of health to challenge players of different levels.
For instance a royal Captain of the guard might use Elite and Leader mods, putting it at 50-225 health with high stats and 3 attacks. 

All of these stat suggestions refer to changes to the base stats given, not the modifiers.
Level:
Basic: 10-25 Health
Skilled: 15-35 health, +1 STR/DEX, +1 WIS
Expert: 20-50 health, +2 STR/DEX, +2 WIS, +1 CON, Possibly +1 Attack
Elite:  25-75 health, +3 STR/DEX, +2 WIS, +2 CON, +1 Attack 
Role:
Leader: 2-3 x Health, +3 CHA, +2 INT, +1 All Other Stats, +1 Attack
Champion: +2 STR, DEX, CON, +1 Attack 
Sentry/Scout: -1 STR, +2 DEX, +2 WIS, DEX Based Gear
Heavy: + 5-20 Health, +3 STR, -2 DEX, +2 CON, Heavy Armour and Weapon
Finishing Touches:
Add feats if you feel the need. Make elite sentries, give them crossbow expert and heavy crossbows and call them "Dragon Slayers" 
Take expert guards, give them pack tactics and call them "Shield Brothers" Just have fun with it.

Honestly, this is one of the best guides I've seen to beef up Guards

I

What I don't understand about CR here is that if you compare the guard and the bandit, the guard is just better in every way. It has the same HP, attack, and damage as the bandit but has an armor class 5 points higher than the bandit. I feel like this should be a CR 1/4 compared to the bandit.

I don't see why you would need to do all this work. The basic evolution of the common man soldier.

Commoner --> Guard --> Veteran --> Champion ---> Warlord 

Then we have nobles.

Noble --> Knights

And of course the church.  

Acolyte --> Priest --> War Priest

I love this thank you for this post ^.^ <3

Quote from masterwitchpoly >>

I don't see why you would need to do all this work. The basic evolution of the common man soldier.

Commoner --> Guard --> Veteran --> Champion ---> Warlord 

Then we have nobles.

Noble --> Knights

And of course the church.  

Acolyte --> Priest --> War Priest

 

1.) Because the vast gaps in challenge between statblocks like guards and a veterans is way to much. To put it in perspective: a party of 4 - 1st level PCs can handle a group of 4 guards at about a medium challenge; A party of 4 - 5th level PCs might actually lose a member or two against veterans with it being considered a deadly encounter (believe me, I've done this twice).

And on the flip side with hirelings: sometimes you don't want your party to have access to veterans and want a statblock somewhere between a guard and veteran (maybe like the soldier from GGTR) or healers that are more useful than acolyte, but not as combat heavy as a priest or war priest.

2.) Nobles are nothing like knights. Nobles are upper class elite, politicians, senators, etc. Their power comes from their coin and connections rather than their training, oaths, and loyalty.

I gave my guards a special doo-hickey in my campaign that wouldn't fit in others (empower- some magic BS in my high-magic world)
But what I recommend is simply giving them pack tactics and making them always appear in groups

Quote from wanderinghistorian >>

What I don't understand about CR here is that if you compare the guard and the bandit, the guard is just better in every way. It has the same HP, attack, and damage as the bandit but has an armor class 5 points higher than the bandit. I feel like this should be a CR 1/4 compared to the bandit.

 Bandits have a crossbow.

love the Raise the alarm my players attacked a king and KAPOWIE 20 guards. (They were level 3's so it was SO EASY) 

To be fair, most things would run away as the first sight of a gibbering mouther.

My campaign is sort of like all the characters are criminals. Go to enemy right here.

Seriously, how do all of you know this much about bending guards PERFECTLY to your campaign?

these r just meat shields but if you give them any cover ur toast

I was playing a homebrew game and we fought 4 of these guys (We were a group of 4 level 1) and we lost because we couldnt climb the tower and square off melee