[4e] Village guards, an analysis

[Erom]

From my notes while building a 4e world:

I rejected initially the fact that all town guards are 1st level fighter NPC's. So I decided to do some catgirl-killing and run the numbers. Now, I'm not trying to simulate reality here, I'm just trying to see what falls out as a result of using estimates from the published 4e material. This is versimilitude, not realism.

Assumptions:
Guards start at lvl1 and advance like adventurers (Fighting in 4-5 person groups.)
Using the 1 guard to 100 civilians ratio from the DMG, a village will have about 10 guards.
Defending a village and enforcing law generates 3 1st level and 1 2nd level encounter per year.
A guard has a 10% chance of biting it in a given encounter. Dead guards are replaced by new 1st level guards.
A guard who has been in the guard for 10 years (40 encounters) and survived will retire, being replaced by a new 1st level guard.

The results:
A given guardsman has:
* a 34.9 % chance of surviving from 1 to 2
* a 28.2 % chance of surviving from 2 to 3
* a 22.9 % chance of surviving from 3 to 4
* a 1.5 % chance of surviving till retirement

A given village therefore probably has:
* 6 lvl 1 guards
* 3 lvl 2 guards
* 1 lvl 3 guard

Which is actually pretty close to the normal approximations people use.

I'd like to improve this model. Right now we're assuming a 10% chance to die in each encounter. For one, as shown above, that's kind of high lethality(who would volunteer to be a guard if only 1 or 2 in 100 live to retirement?), and for two, it needs to scale by level, both of guard and of encounter.

Does anybody have any good estimates or sources of data for death rate given party level X and encounter level Y?

[Kurald Galain]

I think that in trying to be realistic, you're taking the wrong approach here. Whenever the player characters are expected to plausibly fight the village guard, the guards are the same level as the PCs. Whenver the PCs are not expected to fight the village guards, the guards don't have a level. Simple and easy.

[Volkov]

Let's see how easily I can overrun that village. With a small band of 10 1st level gnoll warriors, I bet I could take down that village.

[pffh]

If you half the chances of dieing when a guard levels (10% at 1, 5% at 2, 2.5% at 3 etc) that should increase the chance of surviving until retirement.

Also this counts for the fact that a level 3 guard has a much easier time defeating a 1 level encounter then a rookie.

[Gamerlord]

Any village with that few troops would have been conquered or pillaged a bit after it is founded.

[Erom]

Re: just handwave it

Yeah, I know that's the standard RPG abstraction, but to me it presents the same problems as it did in Oblivion, where enemies scaled to your level:

At level 4, you go curbstomp some kobolds threatening some town. Later, at level 8, you end up running from the law and fighting lvl 8 guardsmen. First thing out of my players mouths is going to be "Wait, why couldn't these guys handle the kobolds from a month ago?"

Re: wussy village

Well, this is based on the 1000 civilians and 10 guards from the DMG - I agree that it seems weak. I can run the number for 10,000 civs and 100 guards (Town numbers from DMG) but I would think a town would face more enemies, so the number of encounters would change too...

[Gamerlord]

Oblivion had no kobolds

[icefractal]

I think that in trying to be realistic, you're taking the wrong approach here. Whenever the player characters are expected to plausibly fight the village guard, the guards are the same level as the PCs. Whenver the PCs are not expected to fight the village guards, the guards don't have a level. Simple and easy.

On the contrary, I think auto-scaling the guards would be the wrong approach. For levels to actually mean anything, there should be some consistency as to what levels people have.

Basically, a 15th level adventure that involves fighting small-town guards and having them be a serious foe is poorly constructed - it's as ridiculous as a 3rd level adventure where you crush all the kingdoms of Faerun beneath your boots and make the gods act as your servants.

Now if you are just looking for an appropriate fight, these demographics can still be useful. For with the stats above, it tells us that at 1st-3rd level, a village guard could be a good threat, at 6th level, you'd need a veteran guard from a large city, and at 15th level you should be looking for some different opponents.

[icefractal]

Re: wussy village

I think the 1:100 ratio works fine - for full time guards. If the village was under attack, a much greater chunk of the population would be conscripted as militia.

[Volkov]

In all seriousness, what is this settlement's plan in case of a level 64 giant killer Luigi piloted robot from outer space attack?

[Erom]

It's true that WOTC can't even follow their own guidlines. Fallcrest in the DMG has ~2250 residents (including the surrounding farms) but has 60 soldiers instead of 22. Winterhaven follows the pattern, though: 977 inhabitants, 10 soldiers. The number for civilian militia is interesting as well: 350 for Fallcrest but only 50 for Winterhaven.

Perhaps a 1:100 ratio for professional soldiers and a 1:10 ratio for peasant militia is a good estimate.

It's sort of tangential, though, since I haven't taken the miltia into account in my calculations anyway.

Re: volkov and the lvl64 robot

I think the plan there would be too run away and die. I mean, a tiny community would really only spend enough resources to defend against typical threats, and rely on the royal army or PCs for somewhat larger threats.

[Mike_G]

Any village with that few troops would have been conquered or pillaged a bit after it is founded.

Let's see how easily I can overrun that village. With a small band of 10 1st level gnoll warriors, I bet I could take down that village.

No, it would take much more than that.

1000 villagers could support 10 full time guards. Guys who spend their time training with weapons and tactics and doing security for the village instead of growing crops. Any more people not producing food, tools, clothing, etc would strain the economy.

But, if the local bandit king or a longboat full of Vikings or 10 Gnolls come rampaging in, the 10 professional guards form the core of a militia of 100 peasants with pitchforks and hatchets.

The average peasant farmer is strong enough to shove a plow all day or wrestle livestock. He owns a few simple weapons or tools that could easily serve as such. He might train as part of the militia a day a month or some such arrangment.

If the local lord offers an archery contest every harvest celebration, with the prize being a pedigree cow, then the average farmer spends an afternoon or two each week practicing in the hopes of winning the cow and improving his herd. So your village gets some competent defenders at need for the cost of 1 cow.

Now these militiamen won't go off to help you invade your neighbors, they can't stop working their day jobs or you all starve, but they will turn out to man the stockade when the Orc horde shows up, since the alternative is stay in their hut and hide under the bed until it gets burned down around them.

They aren't going to be as good as a full time soldier, but a village of 1000 people would surely inspire at least 100 who could show up to training during the slower seasons, like when the fields are under a foot of snow, and learn how to shoot a bow.

This was a common system for early societies, and it's certainly in the best interest of the free farmer, at least, to be able to help defend his home, even if he doesn't want to spend every day as a soldier.

[Volkov]

No, it would take much more than that.

1000 villagers could support 10 full time guards. Guys who spend their time training with weapons and tactics and doing security for the village instead of growing crops. Any more people not producing food, tools, clothing, etc would strain the economy.

But, if the local bandit king or a longboat full of Vikings or 10 Gnolls come rampaging in, the 10 professional guards form the core of a militia of 100 peasants with pitchforks and hatchets.

The average peasant farmer is strong enough to shove a plow all day or wrestle livestock. He owns a few simple weapons or tools that could easily serve as such. He might train as part of the militia a day a month or some such arrangment.

If the local lord offers an archery contest every harvest celebration, with the prize being a pedigree cow, then the average farmer spends an afternoon or two each week practicing in the hopes of winning the cow and improving his herd. So your village gets some competent defenders at need for the cost of 1 cow.

Now these militiamen won't go off to help you invade your neighbors, they can't stop working their day jobs or you all starve, but they will turn out to man the stockade when the Orc horde shows up, since the alternative is stay in their hut and hide under the bed until it gets burned down around them.

They aren't going to be as good as a full time soldier, but a village of 1000 people would surely inspire at least 100 who could show up to training during the slower seasons, like when the fields are under a foot of snow, and learn how to shoot a bow.

This was a common system for early societies, and it's certainly in the best interest of the free farmer, at least, to be able to help defend his home, even if he doesn't want to spend every day as a soldier.

Alright let's up the Ante. How about 25 level 2 Gnoll Fighters?

[Mercenary Pen]

Alright let's up the Ante. How about 25 level 2 Gnoll Fighters?

Any ranged weapon provision?

If you've got these full time guards, then they'll be providing (if they have any sense) a round the clock lookout on the logical approaches from whatever vantage point they have, allowing for more timely sounding of the alarm.

The chances of the villagers are gonna depend fairly heavily on whether the gnolls have ranged weapons or whether they have to double run in, potentially taking longbow fire all the way. It'll also depend on what other, less generic NPCs the village has to support the guards and the militia- for example the local fur trapper or huntsman (Level 3 Ranger NPC in either case).

[jmbrown]

At level 4, you go curbstomp some kobolds threatening some town. Later, at level 8, you end up running from the law and fighting lvl 8 guardsmen. First thing out of my players mouths is going to be "Wait, why couldn't these guys handle the kobolds from a month ago?"

And my answer to the players would be "They only have the resources to police the public." If the guards attacked the kobolds, who would be protecting the town? In a real world situation, two guys armed with automatics and grenades in a stand down could be handled by even a small town's police department. However, SWAT is called in, not because the police can't handle it, but because the resulting damage would be greater than if they used people trained to handle that situation.

If you're going to fight a fire, douse it with a full extinguisher instead of a half-empty one even if the latter could do the job.

Alright let's up the Ante. How about 25 level 2 Gnoll Fighters?

25 level 2 gnoll fighters attacking a prepared village of 110 humans with crossbows and polearms? Using the DMG's spot rules, the gnolls would be seen by a lookout at an average of 720' which is plenty of time to muster initial guards and set up defenses while the bells are rung to muster the militia. They would have to attack at night and gnolls aren't known for stealth. Even if they get the advantage, gnolls are cowardly and would probably retreat after losing 30% of their numbers or if their leader is slain.

Now, against 100 gnolls? Yeah, they'll have problems. But after their first village raided and with those numbers they'll instantly attract the attention of the ruling lord and the gnolls will be the target of the group's next adventure.

[Tiki Snakes]

Also, I don't know where this 'npcs starting at first level' thing comes from. The example human guard in the first monster manual is a level 3, even. Random rioting villagers (human rabble) are level 2 minions, and an example bandit is a level 2.

To expand on what Kurald said, NPC's don't 'level up'. They don't 'gain xp'. They are modeled at the level appropriate for them by the dm, or bumped up to a higher level in exchange for becoming a minion, depending on how challenging they should be to PC's of the level in question.

Also a village has as many guards per villager as the DM says, no more, no less. This is the only 'rule' on the issue. If it's mentioned in the DMG somewhere, it's just to give a suggestion for the DM to take, consider, and follow or ignore at his will, if he even feels a need to consider such a thing at all.

[Deme]

Re: just handwave it

Yeah, I know that's the standard RPG abstraction, but to me it presents the same problems as it did in Oblivion, where enemies scaled to your level:

At level 4, you go curbstomp some kobolds threatening some town. Later, at level 8, you end up running from the law and fighting lvl 8 guardsmen. First thing out of my players mouths is going to be "Wait, why couldn't these guys handle the kobolds from a month ago?"

I have two options, both of which seem reasonable to me, and are I think suggested by the question of "what would a village that was just saved from an enemy attack by, really, a bolt from the blue (the PCs) do?"

a) you say "After last time, the guards realized they were being pansies, and that a proper village defense force shouldn't have to rely on random hooligans who may or may not come to solve all their problems. So they trained as hard as could and got a lot stronger."

b) you say "After last time, the villagers realized they didn't have a sufficient defense force to protect themselves from other threats, and they realized that if those threats came back, more random adventurers may not also come back. So they pooled their money to hire mercenaries for guards/ guards from another city. These are them."

[Yahzi]

And my answer to the players would be "They only have the resources to police the public."

But that still doesn't make any sense.

I remember trying to play some Pathfinder campaign. At level 1 we're in a town and suddenly goblins attack. The first thing I did was run to get the guards.

The DM told me there weren't any guards. The town didn't have guards. The authors of the module wanted the players to do the fighting, so they just didn't put in any guards.

How the &*(& does a town in a goblin-infested forest survive without any freaking guards?

Later in the adventure, a murder is discovered. The players are supposed to solve it. First words out of my mouth, "What level is the town cleric? 'Cause if he is at least level 3 this is going to be quick..."

Apparently the book said the local cleric was level 5. At which point I had to ask - "Then why didn't he gank all the goblins?"

Don't make your world like this. Especially since you don't have to. When your players are 5th or higher, the town guards are going to be too scared of them to even pretend to threaten them. Only heroes and other adventurers are going to oppose them. And that's the way it should be - that's the way it is in all the stories and legends. The heroes don't get taken down by no-name flunkies.

Guys who spend their time training with weapons and tactics and doing security for the village instead of growing crops.

Actually, pretty much any Viking could fight. The guys who went on raids and stuff were farmers, too. I would think that a Viking town would consist of almost all 1st level warriors, with a few 2nd level tough guys sprinkled in. The leaders would be 3-5th.

[Mike_G]

Actually, pretty much any Viking could fight. The guys who went on raids and stuff were farmers, too. I would think that a Viking town would consist of almost all 1st level warriors, with a few 2nd level tough guys sprinkled in. The leaders would be 3-5th.

Vikings weren't "peasants" in the strict sense. The ones who could fight were freemen, farmers and fishermen, who might raid in the off season. They might have a helmet and an axe, and spend some time during the long winter when you can't plant practicing combat. A relative few would own mail and swords and be professional warriors.

If a community is primarily agricultural, a certain percentage of the population needs to be farming full time. You can't be a full time farmer/fisherman/smith and a full time soldier.

So, while the precentage of fighters may vary between a fuedal peasant village in 14th centur France and a Norwegian fishing village in the 10th, the number of professional warriors availible for long term military deployment is small.

[Mike_G]

Alright let's up the Ante. How about 25 level 2 Gnoll Fighters?

While this is a huge digression, I'll go along.

You have 25 2nd level Gnoll fighters. This is a warband. They need some home base, with mates, little Gnolls learning how to disembowel foes at Granddad's knee, smiths, cooks, etc. How many non-warrior Gnolls does it take to support that warband?

Now if you have a 25 member unaffiliated rogue Gnoll warband, they may not be part of a tribe. they may eat stolen food and swing stolen swords and live as bandits. So maybe they have no noncombatant dependents.

But, either way, you decide to attack the human village of 1000, of whom 10 are professional soldiers with armor, shields, martial weapons and some Fighter or Warrior levels, with appropriate BAB, feats, etc. 100 are militia with no armor, or maybe padded armor, simple weapons and few, if any combat feats and a crap BAB, but there's a lot of them. A few might be retired guards, though. The National Guard and Resrves are often made up of former full time soldiers. Maybe some guards who saved up enough of their pay to buy a farm.

Can you defeat better than 4-1 odds? When they have the benfit of defensive positions? How many of your 25 soldiers will you lose, even if you do defeat the village? How many deaths on your side before the rest of your Gnolls retreat or decide you are a crappy leader and mutiny?

And, how many dead Gnolls is the loot from one village worth to you? If you are a rogue warband, your power is all in those 25 fighters. Lose 10 and you are much weaker than before you started. Is that worth the loot of 10 sets of human armor and martial weapons, plus all the turnips you can eat? Until they're gone or spoil and you need to find another village.

A village of 1000 farmers cannot mount a defense against all threats. They can mount a defense that will stop some threats and deter others.

[Gamerlord]

Upping the ante some more:

A dragon.

[Mando Knight]

In all seriousness, what is this settlement's plan in case of a level 64 giant killer Luigi piloted robot from outer space attack?

Just do what everyone does with Luigi: ignore him.

Upping the ante some more:

A dragon.

Sacrifice a few fair maidens. That should satiate it for a few months to hire some heroes to kill it next time it wants to exact its toll.

[Mike_G]

Upping the ante some more:

A dragon.

Against a good sized Dragon, they're probably screwed. But what does a Dragon want from the village? Does he want to sleep on a bed of heaped potatoes? Not a lot of gold or virgin princesses in the average farming village.

The average farming village can't defend against an adult dragon. But neither can they stop a Mongol horde or the Ottoman Turks.

They can hold off bandits or a single boatload of opportunistic Vikings or small humanoid warbands or single big scary critters like a hill giant.

What they can do very well is convince those Gnolls/Vikings/bandits etc to do the math and go look for an easier target.

[jmbrown]

But that still doesn't make any sense.

I remember trying to play some Pathfinder campaign. At level 1 we're in a town and suddenly goblins attack. The first thing I did was run to get the guards.

The DM told me there weren't any guards. The town didn't have guards. The authors of the module wanted the players to do the fighting, so they just didn't put in any guards.

How the &*(& does a town in a goblin-infested forest survive without any freaking guards?

Later in the adventure, a murder is discovered. The players are supposed to solve it. First words out of my mouth, "What level is the town cleric? 'Cause if he is at least level 3 this is going to be quick..."

Apparently the book said the local cleric was level 5. At which point I had to ask - "Then why didn't he gank all the goblins?"

Don't make your world like this. Especially since you don't have to. When your players are 5th or higher, the town guards are going to be too scared of them to even pretend to threaten them. Only heroes and other adventurers are going to oppose them. And that's the way it should be - that's the way it is in all the stories and legends. The heroes don't get taken down by no-name flunkies.

A town with no guards is bad writing, however, guards don't arrive instantaneously. I think it was DMGII or Cityscape that gave average response times for guards but even in rich neighborhoods you're talking about minutes, not seconds.

The level 5 cleric? He's busy with his clerical duties. First he has to put on his armor, grab his weapons, then have someone point out the location of the attacking goblins. Spell casting is out of the question because he's prepared spells for his daily duties not for combat. He'd effectively be fighting as a 3rd level fighter not a 5th level cleric.

The result? At least half-an-hour response time + an extra hour if he wants to realign his spells.

Besides, while he's gone, who's guarding his church? Who's conducting mass? Who's standing by to heal the sick and injured in the event of an attack?

Now if the goblins attacked the church steps then he'd probably stick a crossbow out the window but if goblins are attacking all the way across town his answer to pleas for help would be "Let the guard handle it and bring the injured to me."

[Artanis]

*sees lots of 3e terminology and concepts*

Uh...the thread says it's 4e. Clerics don't prepare spells in 4e. NPCs don't take Fighter or Warrior levels in 4e. And nobody has "BAB" in 4e.

Just sayin'

[Gralamin]

Using the 1 guard to 100 civilians ratio from the DMG, a village will have about 10 guards.

Woah now, where is that? I can tell you that on page 154 of the 4e DMG (The only one that matters for world building in 4e), that Defense states:

If a village has full time soliders at all, they number no more then perhaps twenty-five. A town or city might have as little as one solider for every hundred residents, or as man as twice that

[Kurald Galain]

Also a village has as many guards per villager as the DM says, no more, no less. This is the only 'rule' on the issue. If it's mentioned in the DMG somewhere, it's just to give a suggestion for the DM to take, consider, and follow or ignore at his will,

This. It is surprising how often sections of the DMG are quoted as if they were hard rules, when in fact most of the book is guidelines, ideas and advice (with most of the hard rules being in the PHB).

Upping the ante some more:

A dragon.

Depends. 4E has low-level dragons that would realistically pose no threat to a small town.

(for instance, assuming average dexterity and no proficiency bonus, a mob of 100 villagers can easily do 10d6 points of damage per turn using cheap, cheap slings)

[icefractal]

And my answer to the players would be "They only have the resources to police the public."

Of course, if you pick foes that makes sense to be at a given level, you don't have the explain it at all.

I'm not saying 8th level guards are totally unreasonable - for a large city, anyway. But sometimes you see things like 15th level roadside bandits and 18th level village guards, and I have to ask - why? Why put something like that in, any more than you would put in Tiamat in as a 2nd level foe? If you're not going to pay any attention to levels, why even have them?

Maybe it's WotC's bad example - *cough* Insane Noble *cough*, or maybe it's people fixing on the adventure details before they consider the level of the characters, but I see it way too often.

[Hal]

I know this depends on what the fatality rate is in any given setting, but a job that gives you a 1.5% chance of surviving the next 10 years?

Yeah, you're not going to get volunteers for that gig. Nobody pays well enough for that.

My approach has always been to say that

1) Town/City guards don't deal with outside threats because they're too busy, and/or

2) The PCs should worry about them not because the guards are powerful but because they outnumber the PCs.

Adjust as needed.

[Mike_G]

*sees lots of 3e terminology and concepts*

Uh...the thread says it's 4e. Clerics don't prepare spells in 4e. NPCs don't take Fighter or Warrior levels in 4e. And nobody has "BAB" in 4e.

Just sayin'

For most of this discussion, edition is largely irrelevant.

The question was about how reasonable it is to have so few guards, or even none, in a town in a dangerous area.

The answer, IMO, is that full time guards are expensive. A town of subsistence farmers can't afford to have a quart of thir population not farming.

Town guards exist to do minor policing. Stopping invading hordes would require a large, but not necessarily permanent, militia.