I'm looking for the normal stats for city guards. My PCs have stirred up the hornets nest and attacking a powerful city official as well as murdering a few townsfolk. The guards have been called and are on their way, and they know roughly what they are up against.. IE heavily armed adventurers, though probably no specifics about classes or magical abilities as the person that used the sending to inform the guards hadn't been attacked before he raised the alarm, but does know about them in general.
Would city guards have Mages with them? Or Clerics to combat magical threats?
Does anyone know where I can find stats or general guidelines for something like this?
There's some useful generic info at the bottom of this "Urban Adventures" page. Much would depend on the settlement type though.
NPC Codex, level 3 warriors iirc
There's some useful generic info at the bottom of this "Urban Adventures" page. Much would depend on the settlement type though.
Magnimar. They attacked one of the Judges.
Here's a list of NPC builds, including town guards.
Not an easy question :) How big is the town? How big of a role does magic play in your campaign? How common are adventurers and how familiar are people with the supernatural?
If it was me I'd probably introduce 'tiers' of guards.
1) Low level (level ~1-3) watchmen with NPC class levels. These police the commoners.
2) Higher level (level ~2-6) soldiers that guard the town from outside threats.
3) Highish level (level ~5-10)elite special squads with player class levels. These deal with adventurers, mages and other individuals with class levels and magical gear. Aside from melee fighters and archers, these squads would probably include a tracker, sneaker and at least one caster to deal with other casters. Probably even both a cleric of law to heal guards as well as bystanders and a arcane caster for dispelling, counterspelling, summoning etc...
There's also a 'side' tier: bounty hunters! The best way authorities in PF could deal with adventurer-type individuals would be to fight fire with fire; hire adventurers to get to adventurers. I'd probably start with a low-ish bounty that rises as the PCs continue to defy the law, attracting higher and higher level bounty hunters.
[Edit]: Aren't there Hellknights in Magnimar?
Here's a list of NPC builds, including town guards.
Not an easy question :) How big is the town?
About 16,000+ people, so not small at all.
How big of a role does magic play in your campaign?
Pretty large, it's Golarion.
How common are adventurers and how familiar are people with the supernatural?
I suspect they are quite common. Varisia is pretty much completely composed of the type of thing that attracts Adventurers. Ruins, monsters, treasure and mystery all over the place.
If it was me I'd probably introduce 'tiers' of guards.
1) Low level (level ~1-3) watchmen with NPC class levels. These police the commoners.
2) Higher level (level ~2-6) soldiers that guard the town from outside threats.
3) Highish level (level ~5-10)elite special squads with player class levels. These deal with adventurers, mages and other individuals with class levels and magical gear. Aside from melee fighters and archers, these squads would probably include a tracker, sneaker and at least one caster to deal with other casters. Probably even both a cleric of law to heal guards as well as bystanders and a arcane caster for dispelling, counterspelling, summoning etc...
Very interesting. How many do you think they would scramble on the say so of an under siege ruling judge?
There's also a 'side' tier: bounty hunters! The best way authorities in PF could deal with adventurer-type individuals would be to fight fire with fire; hire adventurers to get to adventurers. I'd probably start with a low-ish bounty that rises as the PCs continue to defy the law, attracting higher and higher level bounty hunters.
I hadn't thought about this but it's a great idea and completely fits the feel of Magnimar. Now I need to stat up Boba Fett. :D
[Edit]: Aren't there Hellknights in Magnimar?
Oh lord.
I think you're right. Order of the Nail. Who are allied with the Judges. Makes perfect sense for them to show up, but I may delay that slightly, That would be pretty brutal.
Big city, lots of magic and plenty of adventurers? I'd say Magnimar probably has plenty of experience dealing with highish level adventurers, criminals, cultists, monster etc...
All tiers would probably respond to that authority. If the city is under siege there's probably a martial law, which means that all the assets of the authorities are probably mobilized. As long as the defense of the city is not compromised, there would be a major manhunt involving everybody the judge could muster. A functioning commander and chain-of-command are vital in these conditions :)
In a siege there would probably even be another tier: citizen militia (level 1-2 NPCs with some weapon training and maybe a combat feat).
For bounty hunters: check this thread for some ideas. I also saw a post with a massive NPC compendium on these boards a day or two ago but I can't seem to find it now.
I would say level 3-4 (maybe 5) warrior with appropriate gear (maybe a tad more if you want something specific) for your run of the mill city watch/guard, now for officers you should go to 4+ level fighters, paladins and maybe cavaliers (usually the higher the rank of the officer the higher the level), now about magnimar don't forget about the hellknights and their signifiers.
IIRC Magnimar has two wizard's colleges and several temples with higher level priests and clerics. In an emergency situation such as a siege the authorities would probably call upon them as well.
Now I think about it, keep in mind that if a town has merchants that have interesting stuff for the PCs, they must also have other customers with similar budgets and needs (adventurers of similar level) to stay in business. If a town attracts those people, it would need some way to deal with them, otherwise the first power-hungry warrior or sociopathic mage would take over, pillage and/or wipe out the town within a few years. Societies that do not find ways to deal with higher level people and monsters simply won't survive. Survival of the fittest also applies to societies :)
Side note: this kind of discussion makes me realize how much of a crapsack world Golarion or any other RPG world is/would/should be. The only/major way to get stronger is to kill, steal and graverob. The amount of power you can gain in this way is quite simply monstrous; even a 10th level character is a god compared to regular people. In addition, it takes incredibly little time. In our RoTRL campaign our party went from level 1 to level 12 within an in-game season or two (funnily enough approximately 3 years of out-of-game time).
Now who would be the kind of people attracted to gaining power and wealth and would not be too bothered about swatting a few flies to do so? Sociopaths, narcissists and maniacs.
Scary, scary place. And this is not even taking into account all the monsters, societal inequality and the surplus of world-destroying plots that seem to be in progress at any given point.
IIRC Magnimar has two wizard's colleges and several temples with higher level priests and clerics. In an emergency situation such as a siege the authorities would probably call upon them as well.
In this case siege is probably overstating it.
The team then decided to attack from above by scaling the building and using an entrance I added IMC to make things more interesting and there was a fight which they eventually lost (due to the workers all banding together to fight. They managed to kill a few of the workers and almost killed the Judge. Ironbriar called for help just before the main fight started, he knew who it was as he spotted them staking out the place and already knew about them from their involvement in destroying the Foxglove Manor. His "spies" had also seen them looting Aldern's townhouse.
The team managed to escape, not wanting to kill *all* the workers who for all they knew were just defending themselves. They knew this guy was a big-shot Judge as well and had no idea why he would be there.
That's where it ended. They are considering running away completely to avoid arrest as what they've done is *highly* illegal. Ironbriar obviously wants to use this to get rid of them, after all they attacked a Sawmill, murdered four "innocent civilians", and even very nearly assassinated a Judge... all completely without evidence (beyond some meaningless deed to Foxglove Manor).
The city guard is already massing on the bridge to the north and very soon they will block off the bridge to the south as well. I'm now thinking of having a Paralictor and two Hellknight squires attend as well.
All the City Watch really knows is that a Judge's life is endangered and that his attackers are pretty tough adventurer types. They were notified by a Sending scroll that was added to Ironbriar before the adventure started (originally was going to be a clue as to the nature of Xanesha), he pretty much told them to send in the Cavalry not wanting to take any risks with his own life.