So, it seems obvious that in a world of sprawling kingdoms and high magic, the long arm of the law would have developed some way to protect the public from misuse of magic.
So what forms of "wizard police" exist, and which are more effective than others?
Assume one "anti-wizard policeman" for every 300 people.
One pr. 300? Then a level 1 warrior or adept is my guess.
Pehaps level 2 sometimes.
I think eldritch knights specializing in abjuration magic would do the trick. Magi might also work (the dispelling strike arcana comes to mind). If they are high enough level, they can cast antimagic field and detain their foes from leaving the area (using the Stand Still feat). With their superior melee skills, they should be able to make quick work of any spellcaster(s).
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The best Anti-Wizard police are other Wizards. Indeed, Wizards make pretty solid investigators in general.
Also, one per 300 people is more than a bit high. The U.S. has slightly less than one cop per 400 people. Now, double or triple that number of police isn't uncommon, but even at the high end of that, you're saying half the police are explicitly anti-magic...and that's really high given the 5%-10% or so of the population that are magic users in Golarion and most other settings.
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One pr. 300? Then a level 1 warrior or adept is my guess.
Pehaps level 2 sometimes.
That's...not accurate to Golarion. Look at the Settlement Rules or my Population Demographics. 1 in 300 is too high a number for anrti-magic cops, but not at all for cops in general, and they could easily be 3rd-4th level or higher pretty universally if they're well trained.
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...or how about Spell Breaker Inquisitors. They are a class designed around hunting down and punishing the guilty, and this is an archetype built around resisting casters.
They get a nice set of bonuses (which all get introduced by level 3), they reroll for a better result on mind affecting effects, they have great fort and will saves, they have 6 skill points per level (giving them a lot of room to build up a set that can recognize magical criminals) and they have access to spells and spell like abilities.
Overall, a rather nice chassis for a magehunter.
So, it seems obvious that in a world of sprawling kingdoms and high magic, the long arm of the law would have developed some way to protect the public from misuse of magic.
So what forms of "wizard police" exist, and which are more effective than others?
Assume one "anti-wizard policeman" for every 300 people.
If I were to build such a thing in a setting, I'd have special 'quads' sent out, consisting of a Diviner, an Abjurer and either two Fighter-Brawlers or two Urban Barbarians with Superstition to deal with martial threats/minions and to subdue the caster in question.
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If we're doing squads, I'd suggest a Wizard (Diviner or Abjurer...dabbling in the other), a Spellkiller Inquisitor, an Investigator, and a Tetori Monk (or Superstition Barbarian...though I'd prefer the Tetori, myself). That gives a good mix of skills, spells, investigative techniques, and the stuff needed to take down a Wizard.
I'd personally go with something very counterspell and dispel magic heavy with a few spells that could detain or kill if neccesary. Arcanist seems like they could be decent at this, though Ravingdork has a wizard designed around dispelling and counterspelling and he's quite nasty I think.
If I were to build such a thing in a setting, I'd have special 'quads' sent out, consisting of a Diviner, an Abjurer and either two Fighter-Brawlers or two Urban Barbarians with Superstition to deal with martial threats/minions and to subdue the caster in question.So, it seems obvious that in a world of sprawling kingdoms and high magic, the long arm of the law would have developed some way to protect the public from misuse of magic.
So what forms of "wizard police" exist, and which are more effective than others?
Assume one "anti-wizard policeman" for every 300 people.
Eh...but for one, how do you rope in barbarians into this kind of task? They are typically against working for large authorities. And secondly, how can you be sure they are 'superstitious'? Or at least to an extent that it can actually block out magic. I mean, it is not like they are going to consent to a test to see if they are more resistant to spells than normal....
Overall, while you might occasionally find a famous barbarian mercenary famous for fighting casters, you would never get it to a large enough institutional level to get 'two per squad'
This also touches on one of the quandaries of the game: states of existence that you can't help are options that are easily interchangeable with trained techniques, and just as easy to choose and switch between for the player. Plus, it brings up the problem that the characters can't just look at the character sheets to tell who has what.
This also touches on one of the quandaries of the game: states of existence that you can't help are options that are easily interchangeable with trained techniques, and just as easy to choose and switch between for the player. Plus, it brings up the problem that the characters can't just look at the character sheets to tell who has what.
There are rules for re-training that theoretically NPCs have access to as well. Get some Barbarians (loose cannon guardsmen on the edge who play by their own rules) and send them to the anti-magic academy and you're set. You can teach anyone to be just about anything.
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This also touches on one of the quandaries of the game: states of existence that you can't help are options that are easily interchangeable with trained techniques, and just as easy to choose and switch between for the player. Plus, it brings up the problem that the characters can't just look at the character sheets to tell who has what.
You'll note that my recommended team are all of classes that can represent formal training of some sort. :)
If we're doing squads, I'd suggest a Wizard (Diviner or Abjurer...dabbling in the other), a Spellkiller Inquisitor, an Investigator, and a Tetori Monk (or Superstition Barbarian...though I'd prefer the Tetori, myself). That gives a good mix of skills, spells, investigative techniques, and the stuff needed to take down a Wizard.
We're missing an obvious option here - why not a Golem of some sort, crafted for this specific purpose?
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If we're doing squads, I'd suggest a Wizard (Diviner or Abjurer...dabbling in the other), a Spellkiller Inquisitor, an Investigator, and a Tetori Monk (or Superstition Barbarian...though I'd prefer the Tetori, myself). That gives a good mix of skills, spells, investigative techniques, and the stuff needed to take down a Wizard.We're missing an obvious option here - why not Golems, like a Flesh Golem, crafted for this specific purpose?
Golems aren't a bad idea, but they're expensive as hell, require a handler, have the potential to go wrong, and are actually easily countered by a clever spellcaster (who can just fly away, for example).
I'd use them in concert with teams of professionals, not instead of them.
If we're doing squads, I'd suggest a Wizard (Diviner or Abjurer...dabbling in the other), a Spellkiller Inquisitor, an Investigator, and a Tetori Monk (or Superstition Barbarian...though I'd prefer the Tetori, myself). That gives a good mix of skills, spells, investigative techniques, and the stuff needed to take down a Wizard.We're missing an obvious option here - why not Golems, like a Flesh Golem, crafted for this specific purpose?Golems aren't a bad idea, but they're expensive as hell, require a handler, have the potential to go wrong, and are actually easily countered by a clever spellcaster (who can just fly away, for example).
I'd use them in concert with teams of professionals, not instead of them.
They make good muscle for your teams. And heck, most of the advantages and disadvantages sound like what you would expect from a superstitious barbarians (strong, magic resistant, might go berserk, needs a handler so things don't go badly... price comes from booze, women, and damages though...heh)
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They make good muscle for your teams. And heck, most of the advantages and disadvantages sound like what you would expect from a superstitious barbarians (strong, magic resistant, might go berserk, needs a handler so things don't go badly... price comes from booze, women, and damages though...heh)
The Barbarian can use Spell Sunder and a bow. And, unlike golems, someone can cast Fly on a Barbarian and let them pursue the fleeing Wizard. Still, you have a point. I'd still advocate a Tetori instead, grapples are brutal on spellcasters.
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Would shadow dancers be useful?
Besides the obvious advantage of having someone sneaky, they get shadows under their control. How effectively could a wizard fight an ambush from a shadow coming from under the floor? How many hits can a wizard take with the 'typical' strength score before they get taken out? (I know there are exceptions... but it is like saying that you are going to fight a librarian, not a MMA star)
Of course, casters are the best ones to deal with threats like shadows. While I would downplay the threat of clerics (since only neutral and good ones get positive energy channeling, and those are usually not the ones that cause the most trouble), wizards and sorcerers can use force damage spells.
You'd really need wizards who are as high level (or higher) than the criminal wizards they are supposed to chase. Which poses a real conundrum when you stop and try to figure out just how many high-level wizards there are rolling about, and how many you can draft into selfless service to the nation, without them simply deciding that they, the wizards, should be in charge instead of the powers that be.
Indeed, it can be difficult to fathom why mageocracies aren't the rule rather than the exception in a magic-heavy world like Golarion.
I would think that there simply wouldn't be any magic police most places, and that most governments would have to resort to the equivalent of hiring adventuring parties to deal with magical criminals. Though I suppose a sufficients advanvced bureaucratic government could, over time create the infrastructure needed to make Magic Police a viable possibility.
Hmmmm...
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You'd really need wizards who are as high level (or higher) than the criminal wizards they are supposed to chase. Which poses a real conundrum when you stop and try to figure out just how many high-level wizards there are rolling about, and how many you can draft into selfless service to the nation, without them simply deciding that they, the wizards, should be in charge instead of the powers that be.
Indeed, it can be difficult to fathom why mageocracies aren't the rule rather than the exception in a magic-heavy world like Golarion.
I would think that there simply wouldn't be any magic police most places, and that most governments would have to resort to the equivalent of hiring adventuring parties to deal with magical criminals. Though I suppose a sufficients advanvced bureaucratic government could, over time create the infrastructure needed to make Magic Police a viable possibility.
Hmmmm...
Aren't BBEGs usually a higher level than parties, yet still lose despite the fact that the PC's usually only have 1-2 casters? And aren't high level BBEGs usually casters?
Action economy tends to bring an end to someone trying to take over with his own skill. You can only have so many fireballs prepared. The wily manipulators who bring the people (such as the rare talents that are PC's) to their sides are the ones that end up with the most power. And only the truly great such as Nex can overcome an army of hundreds on his own. Even the whispering tyrant saw that he needed orcs as cannon fodder soldiers if he wanted to become a conqueror.
Still a good bureaucracy and infrastructure seems like the best solution so you do not have to rely on something as unreliable as adventurers (since you never know when powerful ones are going to be available)
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They don't actually need to be as high level. Action economy is a hell of a thing. A group of four people as much as four levels lower actually have better than even odds against a single enemy. At 3 levels lower the target is likely to be screwed. Add in the very low number of high level spell casters around, and a single team of, say, 9th-10th level characters or so can do for a city of 20,000 people (plus some lower level folks of course).
EDIT: Semi-ninja'd, but it bears repeating.
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Assume one "anti-wizard policeman" for every 300 people.
You should assume about 1 law officer for every 150 citizens according to S. John Ross. So half of them would chase wizards. That's a lot.
Now as for what you should use... Superstitious barbarians? Honestly, even a first level warrior could be tweeked to be able to resist a wizard's spells. That sounds interesting at least. Are there any tactics a first level warrior could use against wizards? You know, besides running?
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People often decry Schrodinger's Wizard as unfeasible, how can you have all the perfect spells prepared for this upcoming encounter?
The answer is "by scrying on the scrub who got caught". Unless this anti-magic police force is also heavily secretive about how they fight casters, every arrest they make prepares the casters they didn't detain all the better. It may be outside the realm of possibility to make every single caster arrest completely blacked out, info-wise. As soon as word gets out that this force exists, they have to change up their strats every single time.
I'm not saying that's impossible, and if these forces are in every major city-state/country, they probably have a different set-up wherever you go. I'm juts saying they'd have to transfer and reorganize units constantly to stay a step ahead of the wizard (I almost laughed typing that) which would hurt group synergy. You could make a case for retraining agents every couple of years I guess, that'd be a cool story.
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There are spells that interfere with divination effects, so they would probably be standard and always up for any anti-mage division member, and scrying still allows a will save, one that is very easy to make unless the caster already has physical access to members.
That said, the base line tactics are general enough to apply at for any situation: Dispel the casters stuff, be ready to counter new stuff with counterspell/prepared attacks, dimensional anchor his ass, take him down. Sounds fairly routine for a squad trained to do so.
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To be fair, there probably aren't a lot of wizards.
D&D 3.5 basically states the highest level of wizard in an area is 1d4 + community modifier. A small city of 10,000 people could have 2 10th level wizards, and a further 12 of lower levels. the same is probably true for sorcerers as well
Making at best 1 in 714 people wizards, the same with sorcerers (there are more bards statistically)
Pathfinder says that the highest level of spell casting available in this city would be 6th (so 12th ish level cleric/wizard/sorcerer) obviously representing a the very upper echelons in the spellcasting group.
You wouldn't need a lot of people to police these guys. They probably police themselves.
That said: Law & Order:- A.C.D. Arcane Crimes Division
In the Golarion Justice system, the non spellcasters are represented by two equal and yet equally important groups. The men who hunt Spellcasters, and the clerics who debuff them. These are their stories.
BUM BUM!
Indeed, it can be difficult to fathom why magocracies aren't the rule rather than the exception in a magic-heavy world like Golarion.
Indeed, this is the default position for most all campaigns I run. The exceptions are theocracies, where the concept of rule by divine right is backed up by game mechanics.
And, of course, the occasional teratocracy or thanatocracy.
The best Anti-Wizard police are other Wizards. Indeed, Wizards make pretty solid investigators in general.
Also, one per 300 people is more than a bit high. The U.S. has slightly less than one cop per 400 people. Now, double or triple that number of police isn't uncommon, but even at the high end of that, you're saying half the police are explicitly anti-magic...and that's really high given the 5%-10% or so of the population that are magic users in Golarion and most other settings.
I meant one per 300 characters capable of casting spells or with ranks in Use Magic Device.
1 in 300 capable of casting spells? Anyone with 10 intelligence can learn to cast a cantrip and anyone with slightly above that could fairly easily have the capacity to cast 1 level spells. You'd think in a world of high magic a good portion of the population would have at least some minor magical ability for mundane use, i.e. mage hand to flip those burgers or prestidigitation to help clean up s%&%.
Now someone powerful enough to actually be willfully (instead of incompetently) dangerous with magic, yeah, that would probably be a much smaller percentage of the population.
1 in 300 capable of casting spells? Anyone with 10 intelligence can learn to cast a cantrip and anyone with slightly above that could fairly easily have the capacity to cast 1 level spells. You'd think in a world of high magic a good portion of the population would have at least some minor magical ability for mundane use, i.e. mage hand to flip those burgers or prestidigitation to help clean up s%#&.
Now someone powerful enough to actually be willfully (instead of incompetently) dangerous with magic, yeah, that would probably be a much smaller percentage of the population.
....and how many people do you meet everyday who would have at least 10 INT? *maximum smarm*
Ok, end of sarcasm- if about 10 is the average score (well, for commoners and the like at least), and everyone is likely either a point above or below in some areas, then I think there is a likelihood that most people don't have a 10-11 in Int, but maybe with Wis or Cha (both of which might be harder to to get access to training; wizards have school, but clerics likely have cloisters...which sounds fun, and CHA users have...random luck most of the time).
Plus, if you look at the starting ages, human wizards on average master their craft by age 22 (15+2d6~22.5). That sounds like a college education, which is either gained from an education in one of a very select number of schools, or via apprenticeship to another wizard (who might be reluctant to add more competition in the area). And remember, the number of 17 year olds with even a full highschool education in the US was roughly 7% in 1900. Could you say that the renaissance style era of the setting is much better?
And this is not even saying that these people aren't smart enough. How many prodigy farm boys could actually even afford to move to the big city and follow his dream of becoming a wizard? And what would their family do without their (cheap) labor?
Couple of Points.
In medieval Europe your Local Knight was often also your local law enforcement. A knight more often then not had the right and duty to enforce your local laws. There was very little full time law enforcement as such.
And guilds where generally required to police themselves in return for special privileges from the Crown. so if a Wizard is acting badly the Crown would go to the Wizard guild and ask them if they still wanted to keep that exemption from having to perform performing 40 days of manual labor for the Crown.
And players, Monks, Rogues and Paladins with plenty of spell resistance can be sent after the really hard cases.
As far as number of spellcasters in my game I figured its about 1 in 200 with about half that number being Adepts.
I guess I just like the sort of settings where PCs aren't gods among men until high teen levels, people with class levels are semi-common, that sort of thing.
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This isn't that different from modern-day crime. Cops get tricks, criminals compensate as best they can.
And most criminals wouldn't be big players. I mean you got your BBEG Dark Lord types, but they generally have a "cause" and they're empowered by The Narrative to be bigger and scarier than the authorities. The kind of straight-up criminal that you'd expect a cop to handle is going to be the second-best, the guy who started breaking the system because he couldn't succeed within it.
The kinda guy with less levels, weaker stats, and less foresight. Otherwise he'd be powerful enough to make sure all his crimes were legal.
Being a wizard does seem like an easy way to make a lot of money legitimately. A few crafted items, a few scrolls, etc, etc. I mean, PC wizards manage to do that stuff, and still keep up with a traveling lifestyle. I think that it would generally be easy to make money since they are usually the main source for a lot of these services. If you can cast magic, and you can't make money without dealing demon cocaine on the street... then you need to reevaluate your life.
Of course, that doesn't necessary stop the guys that want revenge because THEY LAUGHED AT ME! I'LL SHOW THEM! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!
...or you know, petty guild politics that meant he could no longer make a living in the kingdom.
Being a wizard does seem like an easy way to make a lot of money legitimately. A few crafted items, a few scrolls, etc, etc.
Hell, just go to a big city and sell your services. If you are a mid to high level wizard you can make enough to retire in a day... a day which amounts to about 10 minutes of actual work for you overall.
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Being a wizard does seem like an easy way to make a lot of money legitimately. A few crafted items, a few scrolls, etc, etc.Hell, just go to a big city and sell your services. If you are a mid to high level wizard you can make enough to retire in a day... a day which amounts to about 10 minutes of actual work for you overall.
You spend more time advertising and waiting for people to buy something than actual spell casting.
Although...I want to see a frustrated saleswizard who couldn't get people excited about his services take his demonstrations too far. Time to call Mage-Cops (tm)!
Kinda sad pathfinder doesn't have Grey Knights after reading this thread.
they're from Warhammer 40k, they wouldn't really be plausible for a PC, because it's about their mind being so still that "magic" just doesn't work around them, it would be basically an anti-magic field centered on their mind.
but yeah, I thought magic was basically ULTRA rare among a PC race anyway.
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What's wrong with the standard RPG legal system: wait for a party of adventurers to show up and kill the bad guys?
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What's wrong with the standard RPG legal system: wait for a party of adventurers to show up and kill the bad guys?
....because wizards are on my lawn NOW ruining my petunias with fireballs and I WANT HIM ARRESTED IMMEDIATELY!
I like the idea of the Guilds/Acadamies policing their own... And others who may possibly drag down the reputation and standing of wizards such as rogue summoners, sorcerers and the like.
That is certainly an idea. Maybe they have a long standing deal with the mercenary guild to provide experienced muscle in such a case.
Part of the agreement could be that young wizards go down to have mock battles every couple of weeks. I mean, being randomly attacked by casters is not common, but having the warriors have at least some idea of what they are getting into if it does happen seems like a good idea.
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The Eberron campaign setting had a solution for this: The Blackened Book.
Source: Sharn: City of Towers
Some countries and rulers might also do the Old divide and conquer routine. Have the Wizards in one guild, the Sorcerers in a different guild the Summoners in yet a third Guild Etc, . And of Course the divine casters in their Churches. And then do their best to makes sure there some jealousy and competition between the guilds. So if a Wizard is out misbehavin ,The Summoner Guild or one of the Churches can try to earn brownie points with the Crown by bringing in the Law breaker.
I'm also thinking inquisitors.
Specifically LN or NG inquisitors of Nethys, just to make sure no one is abusing magic.
The downside being that Nethys is half-crazy and sometimes doesn't mind blowing stuff up with magic.