How many guards should a rural noble have?

[Mark Hoover]

I have a Large Town, governed by a council of noble lords (warriors, rangers, low-to-mid level NPCs). How many household guards should these nobles have?

[Ciaran Barnes]

Well... That depends. Dothe PCs need to have a chance of overcoming them or not? :)

[Wandslinger]

My off the cuff rule for guards is generally that they come in batches of (# of party members)+2, and they are Warriors(the NPC class). Use as many batches as needed to achieve effect desired. Guard captains are always Fighters, generally at or 1 above party level.

[Conundrum]

Even at tenth level and up?

[Waterhammer]

Maybe some guards that don't look like guards. Perhaps, the butler is a wizard?

Some nobles would have plenty of guards, others maybe not so many. The ranger, for instance, might be personally, very tough, and have few bodyguards.

[Kimera757]

Mark Hoover wrote:

I have a Large Town, governed by a council of noble lords (warriors, rangers, low-to-mid level NPCs). How many household guards should these nobles have?

According to Dark Sun, nobles travel in groups of 1-4, and "when traveling, members of nobility are generally accompanied by 2d6 members of their slave armies that act as bodyguards."

I'm not entirely sure if that's supposed to be 2d6 guards per noble, or for the group of them.

Tack on non-combatants as well. What noble doesn't have a valet and other such servants?

[Ruanek]

Waterhammer wrote:

Maybe some guards that don't look like guards. Perhaps, the butler is a wizard?

Some nobles would have plenty of guards, others maybe not so many. The ranger, for instance, might be personally, very tough, and have few bodyguards.

In my experience (obviously this depends on the campaign) wizards would generally consider such tasks as being beneath them. They'd have to be particularly loyal to the noble for some reason.

[Conundrum]

Or extremely well paid :).

[Mark Hoover]

@ Ru: an Awakened Permanent Unseen Servant with levels in Wizard?

Anyway, I was asking b/cause of the following rules I'd already established in my town:

1. there's no standing army, just groups of paid guards or militia beholden to the nobles.

2. the town, despite it's size, is more of a large village. NPC levels are low as the vast majority of the townsfolk are farmers, woodfolk or herders.

3. there are 8 noble families in town of varying wealth and size.

So I wanted to make it somewhat realistic that one of the noble lords left town, took a small contingent (3) of his guards with him, but that still left a decent amount in the house...to be turned into Ratfolk. Would it be realistic to say that there might be 8 remaining guardsmen-turned-ratfolk in the noble's manor?

[Wandslinger]

I think that would be fine.

As for my off the cuff rule, well my group doesn't often play beyond 12th simply because we want to do new stuff by then. Also, the one time we have gone beyond that general mark, we didn't really care about what silly nobles were doing anymore. We were hunting down vampires and destroying liches.

[Rudigore]

Sounds reasonable.

From a realistic perspective, I think rural regions would have the same number of guards, they just might not be as tested or trained. I can see a rural noble taking the son of a previous guard and having to hope dad trained him 'well enough'.

In a city there'd be more competition.

Maybe make them 5 guards and 3 housekeepers or something like that.

[Chengar Qordath]

A lot's probably going to depend on the circumstances. Rural noble can cover everything from an impoverished small noble in middle of pacified territory to a huge plantation owner near a dangerous frontier.

A good general rule, I would say, that noble guards would depend on how wealthy the noble is, and what threats he foresees. Money allowing, a noble will generally buy as much security as he thinks he needs.