The Town Sheriff Syndrome?

[Jon_Dahl]

This is just pure speculation and nothing new, but let's see how many agree or disagree with this:

A gang of 1st-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff is ½ to 2, maybe 3.
A gang of 5th-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff is around 4 to 7.
A gang of 12th-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff and his deputies is 8 to 14 in total, and they are well supported with magic-wielding militia.

I know that this "arms race" is common, but I have to say that I don't do this and I don't quite get it. This "You're high level and that means that NPC grannies have double-digit hit points" phenomenon just hit me (again) when I tried to read published mini-adventures. I read Cave of the Spiders, an official adventure for a group of 9th-level characters, but I let out a deep sigh when I noticed there happens to be a large gang, sixteen males in total, comprised of 3rd-level bugbear warriors... According to Monster Manual, a 3rd-level bugbear should be a leader of a bugbear tribe... So we have sixteen elite bugbears, each has accumulated thousands of XP, and they represent the lowest level of the food chain in that adventure. Is it just me or does this bother anyone else too?

If I'm running a "standard" campaign (something like the default world of 3.5), 95% of the world's population is very weak and a 1st-level fighter could kill anyone of them, easily. What do you guys think about all this?

[Keral]

I usually do this, that is, having npcs and encounters tailored to the group.

But then it depends on where they are. If it's a big city, even if they are low level the guards will be high level. On the other hand a barkeep in a tavern is probably gonna be low level whethery they are level 1 or 20. Unless he also happens to be the elader of the thieves guild and needs to be a skilled rogue or something.


In the end I think it boils down to whether the plot has brought them there or not. Unless they stumble upon the info about the dragon lair before I anticipated, in which case they'll probably get hints it might be too difficult for them, then the dragon lair is a reasonable encounter for them.

As I see it, the alternative is setting up in advance what's where and then, if they find the dragon lair before they're ready, they die. Which isn't something I, or my group like. Death happens, of course, but mostly due to luck o bad combat choices rather than because they had no way of knowing the dragon was CR 20 instead of CR 10.

[Jormengand]

While it's possible that these higher-levelled areas have always existed, and the PCs have only recently become able to interact with them meaningfully, yes, it is weird if the world scales with the PCs inexplicably.

[Inevitability]

I mostly agree.

If the PCs go to Randomthrop or Hamletburg at level 15, the NPCs there shouldn't be significantly stronger than they were at level 1.

However, on adventures I'm mostly okay with lower-level monsters being stronger than the average member of their species. Most of the iconic monsters are at relatively lower CRs, and 3.5 doesn't play nice with large numbers of weak monsters, meaning that if you want to use any of these iconic creatures you have to advance them somehow.

There should be an explanation in cases as unlikely as the bugbears', though. It doesn't need to be complicated, and the players may not even learn what it is (though they should be able to), but it should make sense.

[Naez]

The way I see it is like this. They've always been there but never bothered with the lower level characters because it's below them or not worth their time, they're busy with the higher level adventurers. It's the same reason you give for "why isn't a stronger group of adventurers, who could easily crush this campaign, stopping this potentially world ending threat?" They're busy with an even stronger world ending threat. So why are all of the enemies in this area the right level to fight this group of PCs? Because the lesser ones are off fighting adventurers they can actually threaten, and the stronger ones are out trying to stop higher level adventurers from stopping their plans. Your group isn't the only one in the world.

The reason it will scale with you is they'll realize their previous fortifications were inadequate and send more powerful enemies to deal with you, but only as strong as they think they need so they don't weaken their position against stronger adventurers.

[NerdHut]

My approach has been to have the majority of the town guard be low level (2-4) no matter the level the party is at. Higher-ranking officers will be higher level (in the campaign I'm preparing for, the captain of the guard is level 12). If the party breaks the law, the guards respond. If the guards can't apprehend them with their own members, the city will assemble a task force as best they can for the situation. If they can't get it done, then clearly the party is going to get a reputation and higher level NPC adventurers may come after them.

The town guard is just the base level for law enforcement. But if you get the attention of a king, you're going to be hurting.

[fish175]

I have actually used 2 types in a campaign. In pc gaming it's called rubber banding (I think).
I had several areas and all areas scale with the PC in some way. Some areas had 1 as the lowest lvl and 5 as the highest while other areas had lvl 15 as lowest and 21 as highest.
This meaning that the PC has to use the appraise skill before combat to determine whether or not they would be able to handle this creature.
The problem with this tactic is that it requires a lot of preparation from the DM's side.

[Florian]

I don´t play a "humanocentric world". There´re few kingdoms with a very low number of towns and cities that the "weak" races have invested in enough firepower in to make viable.
Else, a wandering giant will race a thorp or village without a second though and that´s how nature is.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jon_Dahl
If I'm running a "standard" campaign (something like the default world of 3.5)….

This, of course, is the huge assumption, and for many campaign worlds it simply won’t hold true.

Now, I personally don’t like the approach where the characters meet only level-appropriate foes, smoothly scaling up as the PCs advance; but there needs to be some degree of parity, because otherwise your second-level party wanders into a black dragon’s den and it’s roll, roll, roll those new characters.

So there’s a balance that needs to be maintained between party survival and the plausibility of the game world, which I see as an opportunity for DM creativity.


Originally Posted by Florian
…a wandering giant will race a thorp or village without a second though and that´s how nature is.

I think you mean “raze” here. Otherwise you have a giant competing in the annual potato-sack hop, which could be entertaining on its own, but probably not your intention.

:smalltongue:

[BWR]

I don't base the entire world on the PCs' power level. As a general rule the bigger the gathering of sentients, the higher the level people in charge will be. This applies to the traditional monster races as well.

A small village will probably not have much by the way of high level characters, but it isn't impossible. Adventurers do sometimes retire, and some might want to go back to their home town (or some other sleepy little place where they don't have to face death on a daily basis). Some of them get an honest job like sheriff or tavernkeeper just to keep busy.

[Naez]

I don't base the entire world on the PCs' power level. As a general rule the bigger the gathering of sentients, the higher the level people in charge will be. This applies to the traditional monster races as well.

A small village will probably not have much by the way of high level characters, but it isn't impossible. Adventurers do sometimes retire, and some might want to go back to their home town (or some other sleepy little place where they don't have to face death on a daily basis). Some of them get an honest job like sheriff or tavernkeeper just to keep busy.

I'd think people living in small hamlets in the wilderness would actually be higher leveled due to having to deal with wild animals on a regular basis. A regular old brown bear is a CR 4. And a small pack of wolves (7 according to their entry) would be a EL 6 encounter. Hell by CR standards it would take 4 level 2 warriors just to take down a rabid dog.

[Yora]

The party comes to a village, the leader of the guards is 2nd level. He's always second level, regardless of what level they have.

If the players decide to be murderhobo *****, there is nothing the guards can do to stop them. Eventually word will spread and NPC heroes take up the cause of freeing the village from the evil bandits. If the players defeat the first hero party than their infamy will grow and increasingly more powerful heroes will respond to this clearly significant threat to the realm.

[Florian]

I think you mean “raze” here. Otherwise you have a giant competing in the annual potato-sack hop

My autocorrect seems to be a bit less bloodthirsty than me or has a way more positive outlook at how things should be.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I zone my worlds off in a way similar to World of Warcraft. Civilizations build towns / cities in areas based off of the power level of the local wild life and higher level zones have less people living in them as you get higher in levels. A basic world map bought at a shop tells the players which areas are more populated and so on. That way as my players level they know they have other areas they can travel to.

[Godskook]

@OP, this is why E6 is so attractive. A CR2 creature stays relevant to PCs, and DMs still have their iconic villains for repeated use.



Hell by CR standards it would take 4 level 2 warriors just to take down a rabid dog.

Note: This is fairly accurate if the Dog wants you dead(think german shepherd when you think "dog". toy breeds are not a D&D thing)

[~Mozza]

In my group we have this unwritten rule that says that the guards (and generally NPCs) have the right level for the city or town or village they are in, with some exception of course.

So, if we are in the capital of the richest and strongest kingdom in the continent, the guard chief will be about level 11-13, and there will be lots of subordinate and lots of different rankings. If we are in the lovely village in the middle of the woods with a two hundreds citizen, the sheriff will be at max level 3.

[OldTrees1]

It is the age old question about encounter design: Tailored vs Status Quo?
Both have their merits, the chief merit being that different folks like one or the other. Use the one you like. You can even use a mixture if you like (The NPC gains 1 level every X levels the PCs gain).

[Florian]

Note: This is fairly accurate if the Dog wants you dead(think german shepherd when you think "dog". toy breeds are not a D&D thing)

Funny. My (*) cat beat a Boxer and a German Shephard to bloody pulp, mutiliated a Poodle and outright killed one of those overgrown hamsters that pose as dogs.
Tried to take me down, too, but only got me some scars on the shins and forearms.

And no, dogs are only a problem for sane people. You don´t mind getting hurt, you have no problem with dogs.

(*) I don´t own it, it came with the house. It´s some kind of feral wild cat half-breed that´s mostly independent, defends me against attackers and comes into my bed every night, purring like crazy.

[CIDE]

Weird as it sounds I've never played in a world that ever scaled to fit the party. Then again aside from Eberron I've only ever officially played in homebrew settings. Specific areas pump things up and other areas are low level or dead. Just like the penninsula in Final Fantasy I. You go to the wrong spot at the wrong time and you're in for a world of hurt. The DM's (and myself when I DM) have only made specific areas or specific characters high leveled. The exception ended up being when the party I was DMing for decided to drag along like 3 of my NPC's that all ended up leveling with them. Wasn't even me. I didn't want to bring DMPCs into the mix except for the ship captain who was only there until the next port.

[MHCD]

I'd think people living in small hamlets in the wilderness would actually be higher leveled due to having to deal with wild animals on a regular basis. A regular old brown bear is a CR 4. And a small pack of wolves (7 according to their entry) would be a EL 6 encounter. Hell by CR standards it would take 4 level 2 warriors just to take down a rabid dog.

This is a good point.

It's not the NPCs that are the problem, however - the sheriff is just a product of his environment. It's the scaling encounter difficulty that breaks verisimilitude. Video games are notorious for this, though it still kind of makes sense in context (if a magical forcefield separates the dire sheep from the megademons, the commoners in megademon forest better be epic level). Each person has their own taste, but I never liked the idea of such extremes in the same area (travel to an exotic/extreme location or to another plane to find high level NPC denizens, not the next town over).

The occasional high-level local threat (beholder cult in the city, visiting dragon laying claim to farmland, etc) still works there, but if other characters in the area ae expected to live and grow around regular high CR challenges, of course they would be high level. Which begs the question, why don't they move for safety's sake? Or use their superior skills and wealth to be extraordinary successful elsewhere? And why don't the bad guys and monsters do the same? Logico ad infinitum, the whole world becomes a melting pot or mosaic of CR and ECL.

...Which I happen to like, since that way players know they're not the most important thing in the universe, and also that other people go on having great or small challenges when the PCs are asleep.

[Darth Ultron]

If I'm running a "standard" campaign (something like the default world of 3.5), 95% of the world's population is very weak and a 1st-level fighter could kill anyone of them, easily. What do you guys think about all this?

First, note the default rules allow for ''challenging encounters all ways''. So, ''pop'' they are always there. The rules might say ''only one cleric for the small town'', but they also say ''45 cultists clerics in a secret lair''.

You can do 95% of the world is useless...but be ready. There is a good chance players will abuse this and ''slaughter whole cities''. And if the world is weak, the DM can't stop them. Now this is ''a type'' of fun for players...they can, um, kill and be crazy and not worry about anything. It's often not so fun for the DM, to just sit back and say ''sigh, you killed the npc...again." The crazy players can ruin a game in no time.

So a lot of the higher level stuff is to keep the players in check.

[Amphetryon]

I tend to think about this in a "corporate ladder" sense. Consider, for example, a grocery store chain, like the one I used to work for.

One might begin working at such a place as a grocery bagger, also responsible for collecting the carts in the parking lot. The supervisor one reports to at this point is an assistant manager; she has enough experience to teach the job, and enough power to get one in trouble, but probably isn't able to fire. That's corporate ladder 2nd level.

The bagger knows the front end manager reciprocally, and this person DOES have the power to fire, as well as set (and know) the bagger's schedule. This is corporate ladder level 3-4.

The store manager, to whom the front end manager reports, knows the bagger on sight, but may not have been involved in the hiring process. The store manager might not know, the bagger's schedule, but notices attendance personally. If one is doing a bad job as a bagger, the store manager can cause trouble for - or even fire - the assistant manager as well as the front end manager, depending on circumstance. That's corporate ladder level 5-6.

Above this are district and regional managers. They might well be in the store, but are unlikely to know the bagger's name, let alone schedule. Their responsibilities as corporate ladder level 7-8 are such that interaction with the 'level 1s' and customers is minimal at best... And we're just now at the level with responsibilities beyond this particular store.

It's possible for one to advance along this track, with the expectation that interactions would largely mirror the above.

Has this analogy made sense?

[Florian]

Has this analogy made sense?

It would make more sense when looking at a feudal society instead of wild west style frontier towns.

A powerful lord grants land and titles to his army commanders, those grant subsets of land and title to their lieutenants, those in turn do the same to knights and banner bearers.

They´re all expected to levy and train troops according to their station and size of their fiefdom. Let´s say, a knight owing a hamlet only has to train up 10 peasant archers.

Now the feudal order is based on oaths of fealty and those are a two-way affair: Should the call go out, everyone is expected to bring their troops and supplies and assemble with the army commanders. But if you were in trouble, you also had the right to request that the call goes out and the army assembles to help you.

So it´s fine that the frontier village only has a lvl 2 sheriff, when being part of the feudal network means that you could higher level/higher power backup when needed.

That´s just generally something that gets glossed over, else we´d have to ask the question what adventurers are for.

[Milo v3]

I don't have NPC's scale in level depending on the PC. If my players go to the island where I put a family of black dragons, they're not all going to suddenly become wyrmlings just because my players are low level. There is a devil worshipping cleric on the island my players are currently on, if they decide to fight him it'll probably be a decently hard battle for them since he's a few levels higher than them and has devil minions.

I also do this the other way, sometimes there are situations where my players fight creatures far weaker than them.

[Yahzi]

what adventurers are for.
There's actually a good answer to that: adventuring is dangerous. So the high-ranks send out low ranks to assess the threat. They only get involved when the low-ranks can't handle it.

In D&D, he who shoots first wins. So luring high-ranks into an ambush is a necessary tactic. That's what the low-ranks are for.

[icefractal]

Even in a world of tailored encounters, I don't think it's necessary or useful to scale the whole population this way.

If anything, a town sheriff is someone who causes the least problems by being a very different level than the PCs:

Too weak? Ok, the PCs shoot the sheriff, and the deputy, and now they're terrorizing the village. Sounds like a job for knights, bounty hunters, assassins, and/or would-be heroes. No shortage of level-appropriate opposition.

Too strong? Well, the PCs are probably in jail awaiting trial instead of flat-out dead, so there's plenty of opportunity to give them a way out.


The point about frontier villages being under more threat and thus perhaps having stronger residents than more central areas is interesting. I think it's plausible that in a world with monster threats like D&D, you wouldn't get frontier villages, you'd get frontier garrisons that eventually became fortified frontier towns with a heavy military presence. Small villages would be more a thing that sprouts up in the inner 'safe' areas of an empire, in between the existing larger settlements.

[Florian]

There's actually a good answer to that: adventuring is dangerous. So the high-ranks send out low ranks to assess the threat. They only get involved when the low-ranks can't handle it.

In D&D, he who shoots first wins. So luring high-ranks into an ambush is a necessary tactic. That's what the low-ranks are for.

There´s an oddity to the PF rules: The system has three "zoom levels" (Personal, Downtime, Kingdom) and using them will lead to different results. Let´s just say that mass becomes a stronger factor than quality and even a high level wizard or dragon will be taken down quick by a mass of angry peasants.

Edit: The level 2 sheriff and his 10 level 1 archers are nothing when using the individual level rules. Together they´re a CR 5 "Basic Militia" troop when converting them to downtime level rules.
With the rest of the villagers, they´d be actually in the "Medium Army" category. That´s ACL 1 (Army CR), but on the same level of effectiveness as a group of 4 level 10 full casters.

[Korahir]

Personally I like E6 as an answer to this problem in world building as already mentioned by others.
A similar problem: The scaling really gets annoying when NPCs suddenly offer loot or payment impossible for anyone to have and not use. Like the random wand of xy everyone seems to have forgotten or the keen +1 greatsword the local guard kept for special occasions locked away (or decorating reasons). This especially baffled me in RHoD.

After defeating the attacking horde our group was offered significant loot out of the local merchant queens wealth. I was furious when my PC discovered there were 20+ Elemental gems and other one use items anyone could have used to save the town with a little less bleeding than we had. 5 years have passed since we played through and I still feel this is the laziest dropping of loot ever.

[BWR]

I'd think people living in small hamlets in the wilderness would actually be higher leveled due to having to deal with wild animals on a regular basis. A regular old brown bear is a CR 4. And a small pack of wolves (7 according to their entry) would be a EL 6 encounter. Hell by CR standards it would take 4 level 2 warriors just to take down a rabid dog.

Except that bears and wolves don't generally attack humans. Sure you steer clear of them if possible, but they tend to be shy. All the other monsters that may well be in the D&D countryside, on the other hand...

[OldTrees1]

Personally I like E6 as an answer to this problem in world building as already mentioned by others.
A similar problem: The scaling really gets annoying when NPCs suddenly offer loot or payment impossible for anyone to have and not use. Like the random wand of xy everyone seems to have forgotten or the keen +1 greatsword the local guard kept for special occasions locked away (or decorating reasons). This especially baffled me in RHoD.

After defeating the attacking horde our group was offered significant loot out of the local merchant queens wealth. I was furious when my PC discovered there were 20+ Elemental gems and other one use items anyone could have used to save the town with a little less bleeding than we had. 5 years have passed since we played through and I still feel this is the laziest dropping of loot ever.


Easy fix: Have the encounters drop some loot too:
NPCs have some loot VS the encounters have personal strength + some loot = NPCs still needed the PCs.

Better fix: Have some of that usable loot be given as a prepayment to the PCs. The NPCs will not give all of it because they need to have a plan B incase this group of PCs dies/runs.

[Flickerdart]

A gang of 1st-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff is ½ to 2, maybe 3.
A gang of 5th-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff is around 4 to 7.
A gang of 12th-level adventures arrive in town. The CR of the town sheriff and his deputies is 8 to 14 in total, and they are well supported with magic-wielding militia.

The 1st level adventurers are chumps on foot, and camp at every podunk village they pass through. The 5th level adventurers have horses (if no better means of transport) and can go directly between large settlements that have the economy to support their services and buy their loot. The 12th level adventurers teleport directly to the global metropolises, bypassing irrelevant wilderness.

If a 12th level party comes to a village of 100 people, that village has nothing to offer them. It may have happened, but it should be omitted from the story or at best given cursory narration because it can have no possible consequence on their lives.