I think it'd be far more straightforward for a police force to mass produce some weak magic items which can imitate these spells. Probably cheaper in the long term as well.
That has a lot of advantages, but some disadvantages too. The items can be looted off the bodies of dead lawmages, stolen from them, or embezzled and sold by corrupt officials. They also paint a target on the lawmage - murderhobos will kill even the nicest lawmage if they can get some sweet magical items out of it. Also of importance is that if magical items are cheap and plentiful enough for the police force to have many of them, the criminals likely will too. Whereas who has magic initiate can be somewhat more controlled by only teaching it at police academies and heavily surveilling anyone else with magical training.
@@benwalters9712Just make it locked in such a way that it’s generally more effort than it’s worth to try stealing. You have a lot of leeway in how to approach stuff when creating a world. Whole thing largely depends on setting too. Sometimes the downsides you mentioned are exactly what the campaign needs. Might also want more or less training for the police force to emphasize different aspects of it.
Run a blended system. Keep your martial guards for mundain problems and gate monitors. Incorporate spellcasters and half casters throughout the ranks. Ideally the guard patrols should resemble an adventuring party in coverage.
@@primordialsun nah, he's using a lot of gadgets, have deep proficiency in a variety if skills and prone to stealth and sneak attacks. When it is time for open hand to hand combat, he is brutal and fast, shrug off a lot of direct damage via armor, and gives himself advantages in the free flow mode to critically sneak attack in the face. He is totally a Totem Barbarian, and bat is his animal (with benefits of an Eagle Totem) The only specificly monk thing Batman has is his insanely high Will savethrow, but it can be achieved with a good base Wisdom stat and a couple feats. As a rogue/barbarian he easily can deal tons of nonlethal damage with his Enraged Sneaky Fists, while shrugging it off in his magical medium armor with rage resistances and Uncanny Dodges, move insanely fast, fly and ignore falling damage (totem bonuses), hide or disengage as a bonus action being batshit scary, and use a lot of tools and skills in his detective work (rogue proficiencies). You know, everything Batman do. If I ever want to play or implement Batman NPC in D&D, that would definetely be Roguebarian. Leaving Monk maybe for Robin, haha 😂
In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the City Watch who investigate crimes and the Lords Mayor who prosecute the offenders. These are their sagas.
I have something similar in my campaign setting, the Hearthguard (self explanatory) and the Arbiters (an interesting combo between lawyers and religious figures) they normally work together to prosecute and handle disputes, crimes, and respond to disasters.
For the most part, I give my guards some simple equipment that ends up being more useful than people might assume. Caltrops, signal whistles, bolos, nets, manacles, gags, maybe some common magic items if they're a very well-funded guard force in some big city, and small bags of flour. Signal whistles to alert other guards that there's trouble. If a spellcaster casts invisibility, the guards throw their "flour bombs" to coat them in dust and make them visible again. They'll seed escape routes with caltrops to slow most perps down. Use bolos to trip an escaping perp and make them fall prone. Nets also serve a similar purpose to restrain perps. If they can get manacles on a restrained perp they will do so. A gag is placed on the perp if possible to prevent them from using the verbal components of spells. Standard guards can have this stuff and use it well enough. But if the standard guards are suddenly getting killed, they'll withdraw and go to get backup. Backup may just be more standard guards, or more likely the guard captain and a cadre of veteran guards with triple the standard guard's HP, slightly better weapons, slightly better saving throws, and the "Brave" ability that makes them harder to frighten. If you do morale checks, then I translate the Brave ability as an extra +5 to morale checks. Make the Guard Captain about twice as challenging as a Guard Veteran, and you have some cost-effective NPC guards. And this is before you give them any magic powers or class features to customize them.
If you are okay with homebrew items, I would recommend looking up "Man Catchers" (Shadiversity has a good video, IIRC). Basically, it's a polearm with a mechanism on the end of it to grab a limb/neck.
The rule of thumb in old FR was that most people including troops are level 0. Lieutenants you meet are levelled, a level 4-6 dude kicking around in an FR town was not weird.
@@SusCalvin Flour expands when thrown as it is a "flour bomb", so that'd be more AoE rules than anything which triggers a Dex saving throw, akin to spells like fireball which trigger a Dex saving throw.
@@solarissv777 That works too. Maybe something like that Netflix movie, Bright, where it was like a fantasy world with elves and orcs and such, but in the modern world. Maybe the PCs could bust a pixie dust drug ring, or a Drow cartel trafficking humanoids for their vampire clients.
I was in Security Forces (specialty in Emergency Services/SWAT) and then went to Light Infantry where I picked up another specialty as a Medic. On the civilian side, I was the Security Director for multi-day festivals operating around the clock. I have also played D&D since the 1st edition. I love where you are going with this concept. In my mind I think there is a lot of benefit to creating a diversified force that can be determined in part by the resource base, threat profile, and general disposition of the locals. Consider equipping the general watch with high impact and low cost mundane items as base kit and expand from there with things like feats, class levels, etc. as you move up the ranks. Maybe they always work in at least pairs and have mutually reinforcing responsibilities. Perhaps the junior member is tasked with something like readying a net in case the team leader’s sleep spell leaves a perpetrator standing. Maybe they throw caltrops past the perp to prevent escape while the team lead signals for backup, etc. Each district could have multiple pairs or quads with a range of skills: different feats, spells, specialized kit, etc. Perhaps each two person patrol has another that they automatically attach to once patrolling uncovers an incident. These quads should include a corporal/sergeant with enhanced capacity (more hit dice, higher proficiency, perhaps an additional feat), a medic/healer (mundane or magical), a more heavily armored brute/grappler for things like breaching and restraints, and someone with either a ranged capability, or perhaps a feat like mobility to address more distant threats. I like the idea of integrating magic initiate into the mix. Some utility cantrips along with a specialized leveled spell really opens things up. Consider a guard captain with command among other options. What about investigators with friends, or zone of truth? I really love guards with goodberry feeding the indigent, what a great way to develop a network of informants. This is a great starting point, much appreciated
I was thinking a similar thing. Making a singular set leaves gaps in coverage, gaps that are filled by a variety of specialist. I am more surprised he did not mention paladins as an option as well.
@@seanrea550 Every team I have been on had a range of specialties and capabilities. Versatility cannot be overvalued if you have a diverse and unpredictable mission set.
Vampire's latest Hunter book posted what the second Inquisition would be. All the tools of the War on Terror, amped up in the Dark gothic world of WoD, used against vampires and other spooks.
I had posited that half-orcs would be a nearly ideal race for a militia or constabulary member. They have dark-vision, are big and strong, and are presumably somewhat common anywhere that orcs and humans overlap. Highly durable they can take the risk of physically restraining many of the most common disturbances in a city.
Depending on setting (including forgotten realms) half orcs very existence implies pillage has happened from orcs at some point, so having them as guards may create social problems.
@@fuzzborne perhaps, but i don't like the narrative that an entire ethnic group exist only because of war rape. I would prefer to portray orcs as a nomadic warrior culture, who can assimilate by filling certain niches in settled societies they encounter, like militia, constables, even medicine workers because as a sapient they aren't mindless monsters and would be experienced at treating injuries
I think the best Races for a Police/Guard Force is Wild Elves or Half-Elves(if they too get Fey Ancestry benefits). Because Fey Ancestry would help prevent them being Charmed/Magically put to Sleep which many criminal sl!meb@lls might try to do. They would have Dark Vision which is always useful. The Wild Elves "Mask of the Wild" could help them hide better when tracking a criminal/threat. Their long lifespan potential would allow them to become more "expert" in skills pertinent to fighting crime. Finally, the Trance Trait of Elves would allow them to work longer hours.
@@RovingTroll to be fair though, i'm not sure it's accurate to call them an ethnic group, the difference is more than cultural it's like saying foxes and coyotes are only seperated by social differences
I the basic lesson I’ve been learning over and over again is that real life is more fantastical than you can imagine, and taking lessons from history makes everything feel more grounded
How to get an efficient police force in D&D? 1. become a Patron 2. turn your guardsmen into Warlocks 3. overload them with eldritch invocations (all the vision buffs, maybe Aspect of the Moon and there's also the great upgrades for Eldritch Blast)
The bastion system of OneDnD "sugests" (implicitly), that a 5th spellcaster level Wizard [with an apropiate "tower" building] has by default a free "assistant " NPC lvl 0 spellcaster with something similar to Magic Initiate. | -> Furthermore, once the wizard PC is a 9th level spellcaster; some of the "features" they could do themselves at 5th level in their bastion now can be performed by their "assistant" offscreen [implying they have a 4th level Feat of some kind, since they are still "classless" (technically speaking)].
I imagine in worlds with so many magical creatures the idea of a canine unit would be greatly extended and common. If giant centipedes are trainable they'd be good at non-lethally subduing for instance.
Oh, nice observation! They're kinda way too dangerous for a CR 1/4 out in the wild with the prospect that they'll be eating the party within that 1 hour if everyone gets dropped, but in the context of being used to subdue people for arrest it's far more fair of an encounter inclusion. I think I have a specific culture in my setting that would fit using these critters in this way perfectly (jungle elves). This will be just as fun as my griffon rider stout halflings in the swamplands.
In the case of law enforcement using sleep then maybe thieves of fey ancestry may be worth more than human counterparts by any people hiring professional lawbreakers
Warlocks with aspect of the moon would probably also be worth more money than most humanoids as well because warlocks. with that evocation are immune to sleep spells and they don't need to sleep Or go into any similar state. They're just awake. 24/7. So they might even be worth more than humanoids with Fay ancestry. but there would probably be significantly rarer
EXCELLENT POINT!!!!! That is sort of what I thought, specifically that Fey Ancestry would be the best counter against guards with Sleep and/or Charm. I was thinking more if it's a group of "Murderhoboes" who are all Elves(most likely Drow) causing trouble the guards would be less effective.
@@fuzzborneIn one of campaigns I Dmed, I had an Elite Task Force, for the larger cities city guard, comprised of reformed thieves. Furthermore, each Guard Squad had either a battle mage, or spell sword amongst their ranks. Ensuring that the squads or the city guard as a whole, could adequately deal with any criminal activity. Furthermore I had it as law, that the city guard routinely trained with the locally stationed imperial legion.
I definitely agree an official police force would need to develop much earlier in dnd with monsters that are good at sneaking into cities like vampires, lycanthropes, and doppelgangers. A city with good walls and defenses can keep out the orc hordes but without a good police force they're going to fall pretty quickly as soon as a cult or shape changing monster gets inside
Hence why there are adventurers. DnD provides an extreme variety of threats. Which would make creating a police force meant to handle them very difficult. A wide variety of specialized knowledge would be needed at any given moment. Special knowledge which the average recruit might not have or might not have the ability to wield such knowledge. The job of the police force would be to regulate the adventurers who are hired on retainer and the local militia. I don't think a centralized force would work. Every villager would have to be part of the team. The motto and method of operation for this force would be "inform, train, and counter". Meaning informing the locals of threats, train them how to deal with the threats, and via this method will counter any nasties.
@zacharyweaver276 what would most likely form in the dnd universe is a church of witchers, Warhammer 40k inquisitors, or something of the like. They would be politically neutral, organized religious, but can be called on to advise and organize local forces against local threats.
Quick sidebar about Command: Has anyone ever considered that with so many languages in the D&D world, a single-word command could be more than one English word? For instance, maybe there's a Dwarvish word for "get on the ground" or "drop your weapons"?
Druidcraft can be combined with a flower language to communicate effectively. Also, they can create the sounds of various animals and you can have both effects up simultaneously. While both are not as visible as dancing lights; that just lends their skills to more covert stalking/tracking type of enforcement.
Lets look at what kinds of threats they will be facing, and the kinds of situations they`ll be in. Criminals with magic, Vampires, Doppelgangers and other assorted monsters, plus all the normal stuff like drunks, thieves, domestic violence, medical emergencies, starving beggars, etc... So they will absolutely have to be able to fight very tough enemies, and be able to restrain a drunk and provide medical assistance as a first responder. Feeding the hungry wouldn't hurt either. You need Rangers. Think about it, a half caster with Druidic spells, and decent martial abilities? It fits the bill ALMOST perfectly. The class features like Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer would need an urban option, but other than that they fit the job. They can even get proficiency in both Perception and Investigation. Plus with medium armor and a shield they could have 19 AC on a d10 hit die, so not squishy. Heck, if you went Drakewarden then they even have their own police K9 units. "Drop the weapons and come out with your hands on your head or we`ll send in the Drakes!" Plus you get the Thaumaturgy cantrip for free which would be useful for tripling the volume of your voice. "Everybody remain calm and exit the building!" Their spell list is pretty good for the Lawmage role with things like Cure Wounds, Entangle, Goodberry, Ensnaring Strike, Locate Object(contraband), Silence(Shuts down casters), Conjure Animals(extra personnel) , Locate Creature, and Conjure Woodland Beings. Sick a pack of Fairies on them! "This is who we`re looking for! Search everywhere! Find them!" So for your police academy I would suggest creating the Urban option for Ranger class features, train them to use Prestidigitation, and giving them the Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter feats. They should also take the Archery Fighting Style. Next you would have to look at standard issue equipment. I would suggest a Hand Crossbow with the Artificer Repeating Shot Infusion because it does away with both the loading and ammunition properties, and also gives a +1 to both attack and damage rolls. Two attacks, and a bonus action attack, and allows your Lawmage to also use a shield at the same time without affecting their damage! Not quite at Gunk levels, but still really good! And they still have spells! I would also suggest issuing a Ruby of the War Mage(common) so they can use their weapon as a focus if needed.
I'm surprised Message was not discussed. Though not as versatile as dancing light for the sake of being both light and a form of communication, Message has the benefit of being able to shape your structures to accommodate it for an easy *two way* communication method A guard can easily alert an officer or captain or someone designated for communication with a quick message to alert decisions like "Something suspicious is prowling, approaching target" or similar
And sending would actually be better than that. because there isn't a distance limitation, like with the message spell. Though it is higher level, so it would probably be For some higher ranked member force. likely a designated communications officer or something roughly equivalent
@@sharksam8583 The Sending spell is kind of in a weird place. 3rd level spells are at a high enough power level that it'd basically always be more practical for anyone high rank enough to have access to it while belonging to an urban organization to just have Sending Stones instead. Or just a chain of guard stations positioned around the idea of relaying Message cantrips to each other until it reaches the main office, kinda like the role of telephone switch operators back in the day.
I think a major failing of 5th edition is that anyone succeeding on the save or ending the duration of the enchantment 'knows they were affected by magic'. I have no problem with them potentially knowing, but the spell ends and you just know it was a spell- on what basis? Especially if the character in question has zero knowledge or experience of magic outside of seeing the bard play pretty songs? While magic is generally very obvious enchantments are supposed to be subtle forms of magic, generally.
Well if they are an inherently magical Race like Elves or Deep Gnomes or Fairies or Duergar(specifically they have to deal with inherent magic from Drow often) then it makes logical sense they recognize magic.
I can see a city government making a large scale pact with some lawful celestial or fiend creature for large scale, small warlock pacts, but that has to be extremely wealthy cities that can afford whatever price in gold or blood that entails.
I think there's a very interesting dynamic with this, there almost surely needs to be a distinction between the police force, the city watch (wich in my opinion are different enough to warrant the existence of both in a fantasy city) and the detectives and investigators. The city watch is (i believe) directly under the countries military, so it's more of a "mass production" situation less suited to specialized members. The police force is smaller in scale, being specific to each city and under the local government's rule, that can allow for deeper specialization of it's members. Lastly, the investigators or detectives should be also a part of the police force, but above them in rank, they should also be kind of exceptional in their abilities and those are the people for who I think being game classes works perfectly.
I’ve always seen command as an intimidation spell like people are intimidated magically into follow orders . Like imagine a younger individual who has a higher than average pitch yells at you in a deep and gruff voice to do something I see that as similar to the command spell.
The reason for Booming Blade / Green Flame Blade having a required value for the weapon is a game balance one, so that it doesn't stack with Shadow Blade (for example)
No. It was specifically to fix Component pouches magically creating an unlimited number of swords(the component) because a cantrip was used. Breaking the interaction with Shadow Blade was an unintended side effect. When asked about it, Crawford said something like he still allows them to work together in his games, and some stupid comment about summoned blades being the equivalent of a real one, and if you had a real one it would have value... I don`t remember his exact words, but yes the argument was that stupid. Basically, they didn't notice that they were breaking the combo before they did it, and couldn't be bothered to reprint books to fix their mistake.
Prestidigitation can also create an image in the palm of the caster's hand, which is really good for "Have you seen this person?" or quickly getting an accurate description of a suspect. Druids should also use animal friendship and/or ritual cast Beast Speech to make much more use of animals for sending messages or hounds to examine a scene, track, and give more details to the investigator. An area policed by druids would probably have a lot more trees and other vegetation in the city that could be used for entangle. There are lots of different roles in the police department. And undercover investigator with Disguise self and the message cantrip can observe and report without giving away that they are reporting, that they have a "wire". There is also likely to be a difference between the equipment that is standard for routine patrols, and the riot gear for responding to an alert. The armory could easily have scrolls, potions and even heavier stuff like wands or magical arrows. A minor issue of incorporating magic into your economy is there is less incentive to go adventuring. Spend ten years at magic school to gallivant in swamp covered ruins or get a lucrative job that keeps you well-fed and in demand in local society? Tough choice ;) You also have much stronger institutions if they have reliable command of magic. If magic is widespread enough and reliable enough to be used as technology, you no longer have a classic medieval fantasy world, you have a more Renaissance or even early industrial feel, with potentially much larger nations and much less monster infested wilderness.
Since this is a "classless" LVL 0 NPC with "Magic Initiate"; they would not have access to aditional uses of their first level spell (even if they are a Variant Human, or any race "Custom Lineage"), since they would had to select another "one free use" spell for their Second Feat. | . One important defect of the Disguise Self + Message "combo" is the need of components on the spellcasting [it is likely that such a commonly used spell to be recognizable]. | . The solution is rather "expensive": Single use of a "Metamagic:Subtle Gemstone" [that the item itself costs 50 Gold Pieces BEFORE including the "recharge fee" from a 2nd_lvl Sorcerer after its use].
The way I try explain the ubiquous "dangerouss-ness" of simple villages is that anyone who has the "Magic Initiate" feat & is NOT working exclussively for The Lord (who must designate the specific job, always giving maximum priority to the safety of nobles, local merchants & church), are considered alien outlaws... UNLESS they belong a recognized "Guild" [that can be taxed/restricted apropiately]. -> Travellers or those expelled by a Guild (without a valid cause) have some ample time to join one (or try to create a new), before getting "banished" from that territory. | -> This way, unless a town regulary "convinces" The Lord to keep this "special forces" to remain attached to some local important figure [that may need their own "stimuli" to remain there]; there simply will NOT be any magically trained police. -> Illegally paying non-registered "freelancers" to reinforce the mundane local enforcers explains 80% of all "murderhobbos" (NPCs).
I've met people who dislike magic because not enough creators step back to the big picture of how the existence of magic and supernatural forces would shape and alter society by their mere existence. It's all too easy to just go "it's medieval, but with magic" and call it a day, and then work out magical threats as the seeds for adventures without really thinking about how the presence of such magic as a "normal" part of the world would shape society and its functions.
If magic is reliable and widespread, the economy and social structure of the world will rapidly depart from "medieval". One option is to have the campaign world simply be a time of turmoil, of rapidly changing technology (ie, prevalence and use of common magic) and society. More Discworld than standard fantasy with buried menaces that are just as much a menace a thousand years later, regardless of how much the population has grown since. I haven't seen any stories about elves discounting some human village and then checking up on it a couple centuries later and, hey, they have a thousand times as many people now!
Interestingly, most of those who do consider the presence of magic, overestimate how common it is. Granted that’s in discussion of particular settings or most often a ruleset like dnd, which present magic as rare yet discussions treat magic like it’s everywhere.
Love the different type of flavor each class could give to the police force. Like Monk class could be interesting flavor, as then it presents the police as a group of martial artist with a philosophy to follow the law and to defend the citizens, officers who don't much armour which allows them to be quick to respond and to quickly defuse a violent situation with quick punches and kicks. Or barbarian officers would be most probably enforcing authoritarian law like an iron fist or, barbarians could enforce just several village/settlement, where everyone is like family and killing family is something that the officers take very personal as the protectors of the family.
Enforcing the law with an iron fist must remember to have a small enough group at the top, preferably one man, just like Alexander Hamilton said that having a unitary executive is critical to having a stable government, because multiple people with separate mandates of executive power (at least in Alexander Hamilton’s mind) results in chaos. Thus, as suggested earlier, it is better to just become a patron (and note the quickest way to do that in D&D is to become a Lich) and then grant levels of warlock to your police officers, and strip away those levels from disobedient police officers. Alternatively, you are a king who rose to prominence as a cleric, and then, at the request of your people who are only faithful to your deity because of your personal existence, those people convince that deity to make you into a Mummy Lord, or just give you access to the Clone spell, and then you reign forever, where people are just desperate to be a part of your police force because you reward your best officers with healing their illnesses and resurrecting their friends. Sure, you could let your police officers share in some clerical power, but that requires knowledge of that person’s firm loyalty to you personally, and that they acknowledge their king when they perform healings, so that way no one tries to betray you (which would happen if someone created a government built on loyalty to some other powerful magician).
I'd think in a place with a high number of adventurers would probably use them for some policing duty. This way they can save money, resources, and/or people for other more important jobs or ones that can't be trusted to outsiders. But would be easy for a trade city to offer bounties to adventurers for small things like hunting enemies on the city borders, providing security in the slums, or having bounties on wanted fugitives
Not likely for regular patrol. Adventurers would demand higher pay, and likely skip town if a better opportunity presented itself. Hired Adventurers would be used as needed. Probably for things the guards can't handle.
@@erockandroll39 that’s kind of what I meant. Like adventure guilds in fantasy. Local guards can place requests for different jobs they feel can be trusted to them. Not patrolling the streets but like bounties on known criminals or providing intelligence on cases that if verified would be rewarded
Tieflings all get Thaumaturgy automatically, which would be very useful for alerting people to danger or calling for backup. Maybe in areas where they're a sizable fraction of the population it could lead to a "police" caste, or a neighbourhood watch, if they're socially excluded, maybe? Cool video as always!
i have only played in 1 campaign, but i have been watching Critrole and other shows for years, and i am a bit surprised still that i have not seen Guardsmen use the Sleep spell to attempt to stop the average criminal, not even once...i would love a more focused single target version of the sleep spell. a knockout stick. i dont know about the average police officer having magic initiate. but having 1/6 guards with minor spellcasting who can be called apon as a first response team by Whistle or bell to show up with Command, or sleep or even Silence for anti-spellcaster response does sound completely reasonable. i would love to see more people think of using Infirmaries too, paramedics and even firefighter type emergency workers on hand is something we so rarely think about in a Fantasy city. It would even make sense to have watchtower guards have the message cantrip to organise the guard not unlike emergency service radio chatter the weirdest part of this hypothetical is that there is such a focus on combat in D&D, that i think we kinda forget that ini real life a police officer will likely do no more than tackle and restrain, whereas in the game because the rules are aimed at fighting monsters, almost every idea boils down to "do damage" until you kill them.
@@morrigankasa570 What if the Elves are the law, while the common population mostly wasn't? Employing the Sleep spell in that case would kinda be like how there's the Drow and other fae that use sleep poison on their arrows because they mostly intend to wield their bows against their non-fey enemies.
One thing working against the idea of elves being on both sides of the law is the extremely long lives of the elves. 400 year lifespans means that it’s easy to imagine 8 generations of the same elven family in adjacent houses, all of whom can know immediately the advice of their great great… grandfather who is still with them and is still very much able to tell them what to do, where with a large family underneath him, he could have the benefit of a very centralized “outcast” system to ensure compliance or else make an elf be cut off from the people he/she has known all their lives for not following his rules. Yes, this creates a social outcast who will likely become a criminal, but importantly that elf knows that that family is large enough and centralized enough to form a government in and of itself, and incorporate itself into the government of the local area, where it is just too convenient for the mayor to rely on them for support, naturally resulting in that great grandfather stepping into place as mayor when the shorter-lived mayor dies or is incapacitated due to age-related illnesses. Of course, two different elven families (or their respective patriarchs) could disagree on how the law should work, but should know well enough that it is better to play down their differences in public to avoid other races getting the idea of exploiting the power vacuum of their division of the government.
The really interesting part of this is that it would be an easy branching point to train a Ranger. Especially one with the druidic warrior fighting style. These rangers could fill the roll of detectives in larger cities.
I'm imagining a squad of Medieval Fantasy Police Helicopter-esque familiars following law breakers through city streets from above! I like the idea of using the magic initiate feat - the beauty of worldbuilding in this way is you don't even *need* the feat per se. I alert players that the guard training popular in 'civilized' regions includes having Charm Person cast on them such that they can regognize the effects and possibly the casting of such a spell. Adding education of only Prestidigitation and/or Dancing Lights for utility makes a lot of sense as well. From there, maybe not every lawmage has access to Sleep but it might be a good next step along their training.
Awesome video Tom! Very thought-provoking! Back in the early days of Toril we pondered what the police would be like in a med to LG Halruaan city. Each "patrol" would consist of: A fledgling man-at-arms, an acolyte & strangely enuff, a diviner to make them even more "vigilant". 😊
The fantasy novel Skammersens Datter (in English: The Shamer's Daugther) by Danish Author Lene Kaaberbøl includes people with the power to see everything a person feels shame about, including any crimes or other actions. For police activities they are quite scary.
Not really, most criminals who aren’t criminals out of necessity, are criminals because they don’t feel shame about their crimes. Most of those who feel shame about their crimes would be people who either accidentally did it (such as speeding or not noticing the “no parking” sign) or were forced into it by desperation and are decent people in a bad situation. The criminals you actually want to be terrified of the police won’t feel shame about it and therefore are basically invisible to a police force that relies on seeing shame.
@@Jo-Heike I know people and I what was said. It was stated that they could see people's shame. No, I do not know enough of the stories to know if the comment I responded to was an accurate statement, so my comment is naturally contingent on the statement I responded to being accurate.
@@Jo-Heike Specifically, you said "everything they feel shame about" as though that is the key requirement to make something detectable. The idea of someone's shame making something detectable means that rhe person in question must feel shame about something in order for it to be detectable. The criminals of the sort that need to be terrified of police do not feel shame about their criminal activities, which means they would not have their crimes be detectable. Thus, if you think terrible criminals would be found out by such magic, then either your statement about the dependance on shame is inaccurate, or you are one of those naive people that thinks criminals feel bad about the same things that make you feel bad (and if you believe that, then just stop right now, because I have no polite way of describing how stupid that idea is, and just how much danger you are in from anyone that figures that out about you).
Tom, all of these points of developing and deploying historically infused elements of bodyguarding, policing and watchmanship seem wonderful to craft into a guide or further video research. Just letting you know that this was a wonderfully juicy installment, and not only will I end up using it in my upcoming games, I’d also love to hear more on the topic(s). Thanks, and WELL DONE!
Consistent, high quality insights into traditionally rote fantasy and/or D&D tropes? Sir Grungeon, you spoil us. Your videos are frequent sources of conversation with my fellow enthusiasts, the 'ethics of necromancy' in particular seems to have the most widely varied opinions. Thank you for all you do, I wish only that you always enjoy your work :)
Some other fun ideas I don't think you mentioned: Message: I mean when it comes to giving signs to people and conveying information it's kinda in the name. Now to be fair I do agree that in general Dancing Lights is probably the best long-range emergency beacon. But for any lawmages that operate in a squad, I imagine that Message would be the ideal form of communication considering that it conveys information in a means that cannot be heard or intercepted by anyone else. And I mean 120 feet ain't nothing to sneeze at. If your patrols are set up and organized around it, then a given lawmage can probably ensure that they're within range of another lawmage if anything happens, and messages could be passed down the chain to someone with Dancing Lights if something needs to be conveyed to the town at large. Sure that does add a few seconds of delay but lets be honest here any kind of message that is meant to be seen from a long distance away already isn't going to be a necessarily immediate response. Minor Illusion: Again, another cantrip with a lot of potential for communication and other such things. You can cast it 30 feet straight up, so not quite as high as Dancing Lights, but still high enough to reach over most normal buildings. And of course it can be pretty much anything. You could make a giant 5 foot long arrow that points to where the crime is happening that just lingers in the air, and of course you could come up with a system of codes and signs that are used to quickly identify any number of different scenarios, but with the added flexibility of being able to display virtually anything else should a more esoteric scenario occur. For example if a magic beast shows up in the city with some unique ability, you can try to display that in your illusion. But of course Minor Illusion can be used for more than just displaying things. It can also make sounds which means you can raise an alarm basically anywhere at any time. In fact I imagine what you might do is first cast it to do a short alarm, possible with different sounds and patterns of noise indicating certain things, then you would cast it again to display an image in the air to help guild people to your location. Plus a particularly clever Lawmage might be able to use their illusions to trip up criminals on a chase, making boxes or other such obstacles seemingly appear out of nowhere, making a door appear to be barred shut to discourage them from trying to run inside. Things like that. Also since it has a duration of a Minute without requiring concentration, that means that your alarm would continue to sound off while your create your visual indicator, and you could even create multiple visuals in a row to make a sort of trail of images. I also imagine that this would heavily encourage a system of having partners that compliment each other in what spells they know. Having guards do their patrols in pairs means that only one of them needs to know Dancing Lights or whatever to perform a signal. And only one of them needs to know something like Prestidigitation for helping clean the streets and light street lamps and whatnot. Which means that we've have a lot more flexibility now with our options. Hell you could combine people who specialize in different spell lists. So maybe we have a Wizard with Prestidigitation, Dancing Lights, and Sleep. And they have a partner who is a druid with Entangle, Shillelagh, and now they probably don't need Druidcraft thanks to their wizard partner, so that could free them up for things like Guidance to help them make skill checks like investigating a case or things like that. Also I believe that Thorn whip technically is able to do Non-Lethal Damage, which would give Druids a non-lethal option with a 30 foot range that they could use in place of Shillelagh. So I think a good complimentary Druid Build in the partnership would be Thorn Whip, Guidence, and Goodberry, paired with a Wizard Initiate with Dancing Lights, Prestidigitation, and Sleep. Both of course equipped with Shields and Clubs. The Druid can subdue people at a distance without limit (and it even pulls them closer so if they aren't KO'd it helps out in a chase), help out with various skills, and provide emergency healing to anyone that is downed. While the Wizard can provide Signaling, Utility, and a non-lethal way to subdue a whole group at once, once per day.
I some times give certain guards ritual caster and give them sky write. It's not a damage spell so I feel sometimes just giving 1 out of 15 or 20 guards sky write isn't that big of a thing if in a region where magic is a little more predominant even with out ritual Caster feat
Great video as always. In high magic settings a magic guard force makes total sense, yet I haven´t seen one in any module. But I don´t know if I agree with the emphasis on spells for signaling and fire lighting when these effects can be replicated easily with whistles and torches instead of "wasting" 50% of your magic potential on them. Which brings me to the lighting the city issue. That lighting reduces crime is fact, but I think just having the police force have prestidigitation wouldn´t solve that. Torches have to be changed and lamp oil refilled and that would take some city workers with big carts which could light the torches instead of an expensive magical police force which has other things to do. In my humble opinion it would make more sense for the wizard types to have some oil flasks, firebolt and most importantly control flames.(together with the sleep spell which makes so much sense). In order to capture people they could use the combo to encircle them with flames and more importantly they would be an awesome firefighting force with the ability to extinguish 5 foot cube fires (and control their own colateral damage). We tend to forget how dangerous fires were in the preindustrial era as the great fire of London proves. But I think the coolest vibes would be religiously trained cleric types sworn to some justice god (Inquisitors?). If they combined an attack cantrip with spare the dying they could shoot offenders if they didn't submit and immediately stabilize them. Much safer for the caster than having to go hand to hand, especially since they are a valuable resource for the city/kingdom. But the most important asset would be to be able to cast command during interrogations (confess). I think the ethical dilemma is kind of anachronistic. In most preindustrial / pre enlightenment societies torture was the to go to strategy for interrogation. In think the people would be glad to have this reliable non violent alternative to being tortured just because somebody pointed at them.
Find Familliar would be a solid pick for areal servailance and remote delivery of whichever of the 2 cantrips you took could even be a specific department to coordinate from main police headquarters.
Great idea. But i don't think it could be widespread or ubiquitous. You'd need a serious level of capital production to fund this sort of thing. It's like paying for every cop to study legal theory and mathematics for a bachelors degree, on top of police academy. Who is paying for this? How do these folks get selected? What are you doing in the meantime while these guys get trained up? Very resource intensive.
for the lighting point i think it is far more realistic to just have the guardsmen carry lanterns/torches rather than having stationary lanterns across the entire city, since as you said that would be highly impractical without the use of magic. Even with the use of magic you can't light a lantern if there's no fuel. You'd need a whole other system of couriers just running oil around the city to keep lanterns fueled Personally in my worlds magic isn't widely practiced enough to have magic users be guards
The level 2 spell Continual Flame, though expensive, should allow any city that has been around for a couple centuries should have lots of lanterns permanently lit without the need for fuel (at least on the most important buildings).
Good statblocks to use as bases: Guard, veteran (for veteran guards), and knight (for guard captains). I personally change equipment around based on the funding for the police force in question. Most of the time they'll have some form of medium armor, but particularly poor militias might have to make do with gambesons and shirts of mail, but they'll always have shields. Spears (with reach instead of thrown), shortbows/slings, and a club or mace for basic weaponry. Let knights keep their two-handers, but always give humanoid monsters a ranged weapon. Veterans can upgrade their shortbows into longbows, and clubs into warhammers, but they should keep their spears for reach. Knights should also very much have silvered weapons. I personally rule that mithril counts as silvered, so they might recieve weapons made of at least a mithril alloy as a signifier of office. I personally rebalance all 5e statblocks to have health equivalent to CR. 1/8th, 1/4th, and 1/2 cr are treated as 1 for this purpose. So 1 size-appropriate hit die. Round all stats up to nearest modifier. Give the statblock the most common skills for that creature. Most classes get 2 skills, so that's what I use as a basis. For guards, perception and insight are their most valuable two skills. You can consider lowering their intelligence to up their wisdom a little bit. Signifying their lack of academic accumen leading them down this profession, but at the same time, knowledge of laws are under the history skill. So, y'know... Anyway, slight deviation from the vid, but a personal rule for the sake of making every person unique. Variant human and custom lineage are banned, but everyone gets a free feat at level one. My players often fail to understand this extends to sentient npcs as well. I also give martial characters some weaker superiorty dice that are equal in number to profficiency bonus and 2+intmod maneuvers. Again, this also extends to sentient npcs. I even give some npcs class abilities if they're particularly potent, but I leave their hit dice as size-based. Common feats among guards include: mobile, alert, skilled, and magic initiate. Some particularly slippery sorts might even have the lucky feat. Sentinel and a lot of the other combat-specific feats strike me as things that would be more likely to show up in a soldier's repetoire as opposed to a regular dude. I'll still use the same statblocks as the bases for soldiers, but the feats typically are what differentiate them in feel. Of all the feats guards have, skilled is actually the most common. Specifically for history, stealth, survival, and athletics. Mobile is for the ones confident in their speed and tendency to skirmish. Everyone knows that one friend that just really liked to run as a kid. Alert tends to be the paranoid ones. Either they started that way, or just kinda became it over the years. Either way, they're really nice to have along a patrol in case a goblin tries to shiv you from the shadows. Then magic initiates tend to be the nerds that joined the guard either for a sense of justice or because they wanted a fast track to go from commoner to knight without having to actually go to the battlefield. Druid and wizard are most common. As pointed out in the vid. Presto, ray of frost, and find familiar tend to be most common depending on the area. Signal whistles make dancing lights less neccessary, and ray of frost can at least help you kite out a gribbly while waiting for backup. I personally value the utility of find familiar over the instant win of sleep, but it's definitely one of those things where many guards would take sleep over the familiar. With the two often working in tandem. However if you live somewhere where everything's cold resistant or immune, then it's often swapped out for mending or message. Druid is just the most common magic initiate in my world *in general* specifically for druidcraft and it's impact on farming/gardening. Shileleagh is a decent cantrip for the reasons listed, but frankly magic stone is more useful considering most guards have 8 health and a family to go back to. 6 dudes pelting a werewolf with magic sling bullets from behind a line of silvered caltrops. is a lot safer then trying to run in and club it to death with magic sticks. Cure wounds is popular purely for the fact that I rule that goodberry consumes the mistletoe material component. Mostly so survival requires at least a little investment on the players' side of things. Speak with animals is also really popular if you learned your magic as a kid. There is a non-zero amount of disney princess commoners in my world. Typically I run things as human-default, but non-humans would also have their racial abilities on top of all this. In particularly large settlement, kobolds(especially since the vast majority of thieves are gnomes), surface drow, half-drow, and those of luminite faith (moon god, child of the sun goddess, killed their mom due to parental neglect and abuse.) Tend to make up the night guards. Greenskins tend to be disliked by most "civilized races" due to the whole elves doing a colonialism and turning them into a cross between mongols, vikings, and romani. However in instances where clans have integrated into cities, half orks, orks, and hobgoblins tend to be greatly preferred for day guards.
If we talk about classes instead of just the feat I don't think one class would cover all things necessary for a police force, so I would pick a few specialists: Cleric: The base force with useful spells for many aspects of the job. Paladin: SWAT and PR. Ranger: Tracking, scouting, and also potentially going undercover. Wizard: Investigation, archiving, and arcane specialist. Optionally also Artificer: They could create magical items that only work for members of the police force. I think the video as an idea is cool and interesting but for world building reasons I don't think a fantasy police force would want to handicap themselves by only hiring/training people with one kind of skillset.
I typically make guards level one, in my world the difference between a guard or common solder is desperation (making them take more dangerous jobs that then levels them up), or the call to adventure. I really like your use of the feat, and especially using dancing lights in configuration to signal different things.
@@prosamis I think the idea is that (if they do not "expend" the single "free" casting of goodberry as soon as they wake up); they can instead plan ahead to sleep 6 or 7 hours first; then purpously cast G.B. once [a first level spell, tus "delaying" the completion of Long Rest by an extra hour]; then sleeping or playing cards for two hours [completing a 9 hours total Long Rest], to cast G.B. again with their "new day" free casting. | -> This gives you a total of 20 Goodberries that will be still effective for 22 more hours (from the moment they finished their Long Rest).
| Planning ahead, 20 people can be fed at a certain time of day (a specific day, NOT "daily" & always), with 10 more coming 2 hours later & the next 10 people 24 hous later. -> This is a total of 40 people in just 50 hours. PER EACH "lvl 0" NPC with magic initiate.
I am of the idea that GoodBerry can only be consumed with 100% safety in two consecutive days. | . After that there is a 5% accumulative chance of not "feeding YOU", but instead all of the bacteria in your gut that Is "NOT YOU" (it may cause just flatulence, giving you the poisoned condition and/or appropiate sickness). . Waiting 3 sunsets & 4 sunrises (or viceversa) "resets" the counter [goodberries can be consumed safely again 2 consecutive days].
@@adolfodef I mean, even that is more effort than needed. Can just cast Goodberry once right before a long rest and once right after. The police officer isn't going to be active for more than 16 hours in a given day altogether, let alone have a standard planned work shift longer than that.
druid with control flames instead of druidcraft. assume an officer would be walking with a torch. they can still light any lamp within 5 feet. they can show faces of fugitives or missing people in the flames. they can act a fire fighters as they can extinguish any non magical flames. you can signal using the ability to increase the brightness and change color of flames. (you could even do blue flashing lights). someone with goodberry and magic stone could equip others in an emergency. (including civilians with no combat ability) and you have the ability to use range. (important if flying threats are in the area)
I’ve put some thought into this for my setting. There is a force of high level NPC’s that the party can interact with, they’re strongly neutral but based on the actions of the party they may side with or against them in the end. They also give a sense that the party isn’t the biggest fish in the pond and they should be considerate of consequences. I think paladins, druids, and rangers would make the best members due to their focus on external standards but I could theme just about any class to fit this role. These NPC function like a high scale police force whose edicts and actions go above the rules of cities. I also have a more standard police force for protecting the city in my setting.
i like druids because you could also use house rules/flavor to define what plants entangle uses, for example, if you use entangle and a crop of Sucher vines sprouts up to hold a rioting crowd, sucher vines are also great because they close and clean up open wounds but another great feature of using druids is their utility in hiding smaller towns from those that would raid them, for example, a small logging or hunting focused town could easily blend into the forest it's built in/near if it has patrolling druids though within my setting, law enforcement tends to be a responsibility of the postknights, basically a guild of retired adventurers who deliver mail, it's pretty easy to enforce the law when everyone knows your face and you know everyone's face and have access to all packages and letters they send
In my fantasy world, those blessed with magic by the gods gain a magic inventory that lets them stash items away. The thief class is able to peer inside of inventories of others and remove things; this also makes it the best class for a police force, who refer to it as the sentinel class (likewise, warriors are referred to as knights by guards who take up the position). Interesting video, I love topics like this, they're especially interesting for world building ideas!
I run a heavily modified, homebrewed A5E game where the main head city of the of the continent Dal'kathar where the campaign takes place, the head city holds what are called Crimson Antiquities which are sentient artifacts created by Drathrir (God of Time) these artifacts act as lorekeepers for drathrir with the goal if detailing the history of the main city so they offer pacts in return for lost history that the cities throughout the continent searches for, so alot of guards are warlocks of the relic (a very modified version of hexblade), due to changes the pacts are eldritch invocations instead and warlocks get an extra subclass feature at 3rd level, and there's an eldritch invocation that allow the tome to add spells of up to 5th level from other classes to their tome (just at a far more expensive gold cost then a wizard) so often you have a wide verity of different warlocks who made different pacts with the blade artifact, the tome artifact, the chalice artifact, or the key artifact, the idea being there's often a squad for most situations specialized in different field based on the Crimson Antiquity that is their patron
Stone of the guardsmen: a common stone attached to the armor when pressed anyone wearing a stone attuned to that one will immediately know the direction and distance of the one who activated it within 10 miles. (Any stone can be used including gemstones)
Honestly, I could see a system of basic magic initiation being offered to anyone serving in the military or guards if the magic society is appropriately-scaled, with your toolkit depending on how you're trained. Specialized squadrons or agents could be trained to be Rangers/Fighters with Druid initiate spells, while city guards could easily be comprised of three-man squads Fighters, each one individually taking Cleric, Bard and Wizard initiate spells to patrol the streets.
In my world the general watchmen is generally just a squad of soldiers with a sgt that has some magic items to assist them like what was effectively flair guns, some tracking stuff and the like. Then we also had the equivalent of a swat team which was generally a squad of paladins and clerics with a supporting team of normal soldiers. But this was also a world where basically every state was a big theocracy.
This suggests that you might not have a watch house but rather a wizard's tower and/or bardic college, and the watchmen are paying their way through school or earning some spending money by joining the watch. I believe that part of the purpose behind cantrips is to use them to practice casting magic, so getting paid to (ideally) get some light exercise, cast some of your cantrips in a variety of useful ways all over town, at the risk of having to subdue someone doesn't sound like too bad an idea. Well, you probably would have watch houses so you have accommodations where people can sleep off their bad ideas and where backup can be staged, but watch HQ would probably be part of the tower/college or the lord's castle.
depending on the area, the guards are equipped with either glaives, halberds, billhooks, pollaxes, and pollhammers equipped with a pepperspray compound inside the hollow head
I think that Lawmages would change from town to town. If the town has a huge church or high clergy influence : they would probably be Cleric initiates If the town has a mage academy : probably mage initiantes A highly artistic town would probably have a few bards initiate scattered through If a druidic circle is closeby , or if the city is very "nature centered" Druid initiates But my favorite one on a world building would probably be Warlock initiates . I can very well envision a city or town where the inhabitants have to pay a small part of their life force , or make food offering to the City's patron as part of this year's taxes
For druids alerting someone -- produce flame thrown into the air as a flare seems a reasonable option? Only 30ft range, but, in most medieval-style cities that's likely high enough for a signal flare anyway (just remember to dismiss it before it hits any thatch roofs) it also works as a way to attack monsters and such. Likely not worth giving up Shillelagh for, but if they patrol in pairs, having one with Shillelagh/druidcraft, and one with shillelagh/produce flame, would likely work fine for it. Though..druids as law enforcment seems like it would be a bit odd, in terms of lore/flavour of it? I could see it making sense in a more rural environment, but, in a dense city or town -- the kind of place you're likely to see a professional police force -- the general... destruction of nature that is rather inherent in cities seems like it would be a major turn-off to druids, and I'd expect them to be more likely to be on the environmental protester or even ecoterrorist side, than on the law enforcement side, outside of some very particular cultural contexts.
Something i enjoyed from Keith Baker's Eberron content for 5e is that specially trained military groups have a feat like magic initiate or sharpshooter to show their specialization. You can easily apply it on statblocks
In my setting, aside from large cities, adventurers are the “police force”. A town might have a night watch, but that’s about it. In the city, Paladins patrol and maintain order. Rangers however are employed by noble lords/ladies to track and intercept threats before they become a problem. Fighters/barbarians/monks can also be employed as personal bodyguards for people or shops/establishments. Bards act more like lawyers and wizards like judges. Clerics and Druids could be considered more like paramedics, nurses or doctors. Large cities can also rely on their local militias (imagine a party of adventurers with dozens of members) for larger threats. There are also various guilds which train professional forces which can be called upon for specific situations.
You made some good points in this video. BUT, you are disregarding Elves. The spells: Command, Charm Person, and Sleep wouldn't be that effective against them due to the "Fey Ancestry" Trait. So say there is a party of "Murderhoboes" going around causing murder & mayhem, they all happen to be Elves (most likely Drow). The Guard Force tries to stop them using those spells, but the "Fey Ancestry" grants them advantage in saving throws against "Charm Effects & Magical Sleep".
@@morrigankasa570 I just figured it would be a good point to mention and doesn't being an archway warlock basically give you the fay ancestry trait, or at least similar effects?
@@sharksam8583 The Archfey Warlock thing is actually even better then Fey Ancestry in regards to Charm. Fey Ancestry gives you advantage against Charm, while that Warlock thing grants you Immunity to Charm.
@@morrigankasa570 So if a criminal organization got their hands on an archfey warlock That had that evocation, Then cops That rely on magic to deal with criminals basically can't do anything. Unless they have some sort of Non lethal weapon. Or are willing to go straight to Deadly force.
I could see a full druid of at least third level acting as a sort of county sheriff. Responsible for a large, sparsely populated area, backup's not likely to arrive quickly and if they do from distances that Animal Messenger would be more useful.
Continual Light, 3rd level, has no material components. The city government or merchants guild could hire a caster to permanently light up key areas in the city. Lamps require fuel and would be more expensive to maintain in the long term. If the guard's action is needed to light an unlit lamp, the criminals will use their action to escape or overwhelm the guard.
Imagine police force would consist almost entirely of low-level paladins. They're sworn oaths could literally be, serve and protect. And they could be jobs that are held multi-generational a. Therefore fathers would pass this on to their sons. That way, the men themselves, could train their own sons. That way that duty itself wouldn't even call to the state. And think about in modern times, about how many people decide to become police officers, specifically because they have a family member who does so. Add hell, if you're talking about a human society, you might as well have them all take on magic initiative as well. That way, they can have some form of dancing lights or something, so that they can signal others. And, using the wizard spell list as magic initiative, they can use their other can trip as prestidigitation for the cleaning and effects it has, and then instead of needing something like goodberry, they can simply use their lay on hands. Finally you could have half take the sleep spell, for crowd control. And the other half take fine familiar. Not only with their familiar, be able to fly around messages for them, to write down on a piece of paper to have sent to a central office, or slips of colored paper for signaling the same way dancing lights good. They could also be used, as a very good tailing device, to follow subjects with. And, as long as you summon a familiar that has dark vision, could sit on the paladin shoulder, and the paladin could look through their eyes, to get over their own night blindness. So, an entire generational police force, a paladin's. All taking the magic initiative feet, using the wizard spell list, with dancing lights for signaling, press the digitization for its magical abilities and cleaning, and find familiar for many crime-fighting activities, and to get over their lack of night vision. And, even if they don't have magic weapons, to fight monsters, they would have their own cantrips, maybe a few damage and can trips from The wizard spell list, and don't forget, Divine strikes. Divine strikes being especially good, because you don't even have to use them, until you strike a hit. Which actually makes the better than no spells. Which can still miss, or the saving throw be beat.plus, in a town situation, or even city, with lots of buildings around, and working in alleyways, you're not going to have to worry about long range fighting. Almost everybody you're fighting would pee melee. Especially if you're using melee so you can use non deadly means. Which is what the paladins are good at anyways.
Wands of magic missile would be a great investment for at least for the "SWAT team". You'd avoid taking up the first level spell choice, and still have some scary damage against nearly anything as a squad.
I honestly think giving them level 1 fighter stats is good for most settings/ towns because real world cops do get combat training, i would give them a feat that let's them grapple really well (the name of it escapes me).But having every cop be magic seams like a stretch unless your in a high magic world. One thing I do as my players level up is I keep the AC and HP at level one but I give them above average damage output and hit chance just so my players COULD still beat up the cops in a town but don't let them steamroll them
I think the thing that makes wizards, bards & clerics the best options is simply because it can be learned. The druid is also a candidate in this regard it also means your guards also now have an obligation to serve nature, something that civilization often finds itself at odds with. Honestly, if they had the resources I imagine they would test what the candidates are best at & send them down different training tracks based on where their talents lay. I think druids would definitely be a bigger thing away from cities though.
Never been this early to one of your videos before. I just wanted to say thanks for inspiring me to get me writing a fantasy novel. it’s been a long time aspiration of mine, but i’m finally getting down to putting my ideas to paper
The spell/abilities could be linked to different policies forces with different responsibilities and powers. For example, a wizard local forces who are not allowed (and trained) to use lethal magic and, on the other hand, there is also the missile wielders everyone in town knows better than mess with. And who’s the big guns answers in the political ladder could lead to very interesting political conflicts.
Man, I love your content. I don't even play D&D anymore, I switched over to PF2e, but I love it. If ever it struck your fancy, I'd love to see similar videos using Pathfinder2 spells and whatnot
12:42 The wizard cop with Magic Missile is more like the Special Weapons Officer (if I'm using that term correctly, I'm a yank who has to deal with the "Violent Law Ogres in blue shirts") (Hmmm, that might be a better alignment description for American policing: Lawful Violent, like the paladin who goes full on Judge Dread), called out to teal with the particularly dangerous miscreants. Protesting crowd with torches and pitchforks? Mass Sleep will do fine, with a possible rain spell to quench accidental fires from the dropped torches. That One Guy hiding in the peacefully marching crowd who has a crossbow and looks like he just drank two coffee shops dry, drop him with Magic missile and let the rest of the crowd continue marching in protest of the new regulation about banning cattle from the arterial roads within the city. (It was either that or invent 'cow diapers,' the horses are easy to clean up after, the cows are a goey, sticky MESS.)
talking about druids signaling others.. if the city is built around them, you can say the buildings have signaling torches on them. a druid (or someone with magic initiate druid) can then light a torch with druidcraft and use the "Control Flame" cantrip to signal what info is needed.. control flame has the following effects (which would be useful in this situation): "You double or halve the area of bright light and dim light cast by the flame, change its color, or both. The change lasts for 1 hour. You cause simple shapes-such as the vague form of a creature, an inanimate object, or a location-to appear within the flames and animate as you like. The shapes last for 1 hour." between the shapes allowing basic enemy type or location info to be transmitted and the brightness and color changing to possiblly signal how dangerous (bright being really dangerous and dim being not so much) and what other side conditions (like healers needed being green or hostages being blue as examples), they can easily signal for aid. sorcerers and wizards also have control flame on their list so it'd work with Prestidigitation too. also.. if you take the "rewarded" background it gives a feat for free. theres 3 options that can be chosen. magic initiate is one of them. also: if you're putting them in a dnd setting, you can have all your lawmages be graduates from strixhaven and give them the strixhaven student background which gives the strixhaven initiate feat for free (which, while it limits your cantrip choices, it can let you take a 1st lvl spell from a class who doesnt have access to the cantrip options..). if you're using variant human or custom lineage for your lawmages, you can take either background and then take the other feat for your free feat for even more magic spells.. or use the background to get magic or strixhaven initiate and then use your racial feat for fey touched or spellsniper or even metamagic adept or eldritch adept to gain extra spells or spell-like features.. all at lvl 1
In my lore, the high sheriff is most often a retired Bard. He has dispel magic, charm, and counterspell available to deal with lots of problems. Charm is excellent for most situations.
The only class that is more about innate power would be the Sorcerer. The rest of the classes are intense training. Especially fighter, barbarian, rogue, wizard, cleric, druid, warlock, ranger, monk, etc. This is my issue with classes, Sorcerer doesn't fit at all. It's all natural abilities that means they do not need to train their abilities, they just happen.
Sorcerers who do not train to contain, safely release, or at least "dampen" their natural "outbursts" DEFAULT into Wild Magic (without the benefits of the subclass), as they simply lack control of when & how their "surges" happen. -> They either kill themselves accidentally, or are hunted IF they do not show signs of self control / discipline.
The general principle with sorcerers is that while the powers are innate, you still need to learn how to best use them, even if this learning is somewhat self-taught. It is therefore on a similar level to most martial classes, except that the innate ability is natural magical ability rather than natural strength or agility. Depending on the setting, too, things like cleric, druid, and warlock are often more "someone gave you this power" rather than training per se - sorcerers are at least still developing their OWN powers rather simply impressing their god enough for their god to give them more or something like that.
@@Draxynnic Technically, no, you don't need to master it. "Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline, some otherworldly influence, or exposure to unknown cosmic forces. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer." Warlocks' lore state they are into research and are mostly investigators. "Once a pact is made, a warlock’s thirst for knowledge and power can’t be slaked with mere study and research." Druids state they need to learn and practice to become good druids. As for Clerics. Devoting themselves and having faith does take some training. Sorcerers are the only one that don't fit the archetype of a class since it is more of an innate thing. But if we were to talk about subclasses, there are so many innate subclasses such psiwarrior and soulblade. These are terrible since you get them at 3rd level but before any of that, you get nothing. Not a glimpse of what could happen way before.
@@AnarchySystem A sorcerer is a sorcerer is a sorcerer regardless of whether they do anything to develop their skills, to be sure. But choosing to do so is what distinguishes an epic-level sorcerer from one that just has random strange occurrences around him or her. Just like choosing to develop their skills is the difference between a fighter/barbarian/monk and some random guy swinging a chair in a bar brawl. The 'spark' of sorcery might be innate, but you still need to figure out what you're doing, through self-learning or through training, if you want to actually make something of it. Also worth keeping in mind that there are some races where, according to sorcerer lore, all members of the race have that spark. Every dragonborn should theoretically be able to become a dragon bloodline sorcerer. Any race with a natural spell-like ability should, theoretically, be able to develop that into full sorcererhood. But just like not everyone with muscles becomes a fighter, monk, or barbarian, not everyone with the sorcerous spark puts in the effort to become a true sorcerer. Which is probably what's going on with those "innate" subclasses you're complaining about too. The ability might be innate, but it doesn't become actually useful until you've learned how to use it.
@@Draxynnic A sorcerer that studies magic is a sorcerer with levels in wizard. What we are discussing here is the RAW and Lore of Toril. Sure, flavoring is allowed, but remember that falls into homebrew. We are not here to talk about homebrew. Like I said, you just described a sorcerer that took levels in Wizard if they were mastering magic. No, there is no such thing about dragonborns having that spark. You have to remember that Dragonborns do not come from Toril, they are from another dimension and they aren't actually related to dragons. They are dragonborn because they were exposed to the energies of the Spellplague and made them the way they are. And no, that doesn't make them sorcerers either, that would be plaguescarred. Here is the thing about Draconic Bloodline: "Your innate magic comes from draconic magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors. Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon or who might even have claimed a dragon parent." It is an innate talent or ability.
I think bards make the best police and nobility class, especially when set to use oratory rather than a musical instrument. They have a broad education and are capable with weapons, armor, and magic. Magic Initiate then simply adds extra magical options. As a police force they can then subdue, attack, and heal. They can use magic to improve themselves or allies in many ways, and have a commanding presence. They also have a broad education and thus more likely to have knowledge relevant to any odd situations they encounter. Not sure about 5e, but bards usually also have a fair number of skills.
In 1st edition pathfinder I would go with a Dwarf or Half Orc Monk and give him a whistle or something similar for signalling. Stunning blow disarms which is great for law enforcement purposes Non-lethal damage Monks are generally highly respected Darkvision plus torch should be plenty, especially if you don't need to keep your hands free
My ideas are similar, however, I think for me, I'd also add Captain of the Guard having either Magic Initiate but more Offense Oriented. Then having Investigators, who would have Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster, primarily for the Spell zone of truth, meaning you never have to worry about a false confession unless the state forges one.
I think it'd be far more straightforward for a police force to mass produce some weak magic items which can imitate these spells. Probably cheaper in the long term as well.
the moontouched weapons counts as magical and gives out some light all for 150-200 gold
That has a lot of advantages, but some disadvantages too. The items can be looted off the bodies of dead lawmages, stolen from them, or embezzled and sold by corrupt officials. They also paint a target on the lawmage - murderhobos will kill even the nicest lawmage if they can get some sweet magical items out of it.
Also of importance is that if magical items are cheap and plentiful enough for the police force to have many of them, the criminals likely will too. Whereas who has magic initiate can be somewhat more controlled by only teaching it at police academies and heavily surveilling anyone else with magical training.
@@benwalters9712Just make it locked in such a way that it’s generally more effort than it’s worth to try stealing. You have a lot of leeway in how to approach stuff when creating a world.
Whole thing largely depends on setting too. Sometimes the downsides you mentioned are exactly what the campaign needs. Might also want more or less training for the police force to emphasize different aspects of it.
Run a blended system. Keep your martial guards for mundain problems and gate monitors. Incorporate spellcasters and half casters throughout the ranks. Ideally the guard patrols should resemble an adventuring party in coverage.
Depends how hard making magic items is in a given setting
And the druid could, for whatever reason, also be themed around a bat and wear black leather armour.
Honestly, Druids and Rangers are the Animal Control.
I am inclined to strongly believe that Batman is a Rogue/Barbarian multiclass.
Batman is absolutely a monk. Lots of hand to hand combat, and pretty sure he trained with monks, or at least martial artists.
@@primordialsun nah, he's using a lot of gadgets, have deep proficiency in a variety if skills and prone to stealth and sneak attacks. When it is time for open hand to hand combat, he is brutal and fast, shrug off a lot of direct damage via armor, and gives himself advantages in the free flow mode to critically sneak attack in the face. He is totally a Totem Barbarian, and bat is his animal (with benefits of an Eagle Totem)
The only specificly monk thing Batman has is his insanely high Will savethrow, but it can be achieved with a good base Wisdom stat and a couple feats.
As a rogue/barbarian he easily can deal tons of nonlethal damage with his Enraged Sneaky Fists, while shrugging it off in his magical medium armor with rage resistances and Uncanny Dodges, move insanely fast, fly and ignore falling damage (totem bonuses), hide or disengage as a bonus action being batshit scary, and use a lot of tools and skills in his detective work (rogue proficiencies).
You know, everything Batman do. If I ever want to play or implement Batman NPC in D&D, that would definetely be Roguebarian. Leaving Monk maybe for Robin, haha 😂
@@primordialsun it was a joke because druids are strongly linked with animals and have the ability to turn into them
In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the City Watch who investigate crimes and the Lords Mayor who prosecute the offenders. These are their sagas.
Fun fun!
I want to watch that series...
I have something similar in my campaign setting, the Hearthguard (self explanatory) and the Arbiters (an interesting combo between lawyers and religious figures) they normally work together to prosecute and handle disputes, crimes, and respond to disasters.
bad boys bad boys...
That would make a great urban campaign. You could have a party of guards and attorneys fighting against thieves guilds and hunting sewer monsters.
For the most part, I give my guards some simple equipment that ends up being more useful than people might assume. Caltrops, signal whistles, bolos, nets, manacles, gags, maybe some common magic items if they're a very well-funded guard force in some big city, and small bags of flour.
Signal whistles to alert other guards that there's trouble.
If a spellcaster casts invisibility, the guards throw their "flour bombs" to coat them in dust and make them visible again.
They'll seed escape routes with caltrops to slow most perps down.
Use bolos to trip an escaping perp and make them fall prone. Nets also serve a similar purpose to restrain perps. If they can get manacles on a restrained perp they will do so. A gag is placed on the perp if possible to prevent them from using the verbal components of spells.
Standard guards can have this stuff and use it well enough. But if the standard guards are suddenly getting killed, they'll withdraw and go to get backup. Backup may just be more standard guards, or more likely the guard captain and a cadre of veteran guards with triple the standard guard's HP, slightly better weapons, slightly better saving throws, and the "Brave" ability that makes them harder to frighten. If you do morale checks, then I translate the Brave ability as an extra +5 to morale checks. Make the Guard Captain about twice as challenging as a Guard Veteran, and you have some cost-effective NPC guards. And this is before you give them any magic powers or class features to customize them.
If you are okay with homebrew items, I would recommend looking up "Man Catchers" (Shadiversity has a good video, IIRC). Basically, it's a polearm with a mechanism on the end of it to grab a limb/neck.
The rule of thumb in old FR was that most people including troops are level 0. Lieutenants you meet are levelled, a level 4-6 dude kicking around in an FR town was not weird.
Measures that try to replicate spells do not get the full advantage of spells. This might mean a roll to hit with flour.
@@SusCalvin Flour expands when thrown as it is a "flour bomb", so that'd be more AoE rules than anything which triggers a Dex saving throw, akin to spells like fireball which trigger a Dex saving throw.
Give 'em a whistle, guvnah, and now 'e's a proper Bobby!
This makes me want to run a campaign where the PCs are all members of an elite police force and/or federal investigation agency.
NCIS: Sword Coast
How about magical agents, but in modern setting?
@@solarissv777 That works too. Maybe something like that Netflix movie, Bright, where it was like a fantasy world with elves and orcs and such, but in the modern world. Maybe the PCs could bust a pixie dust drug ring, or a Drow cartel trafficking humanoids for their vampire clients.
Find Familiar is a broken policing tool; every rat, every pigeon, every street cat, every cockroach, could see you do the crime and alert the cops.
Don't forget chickens. They're some of the worst snitches... But that might just be in Elder Scrolls.
I was in Security Forces (specialty in Emergency Services/SWAT) and then went to Light Infantry where I picked up another specialty as a Medic. On the civilian side, I was the Security Director for multi-day festivals operating around the clock. I have also played D&D since the 1st edition.
I love where you are going with this concept. In my mind I think there is a lot of benefit to creating a diversified force that can be determined in part by the resource base, threat profile, and general disposition of the locals. Consider equipping the general watch with high impact and low cost mundane items as base kit and expand from there with things like feats, class levels, etc. as you move up the ranks.
Maybe they always work in at least pairs and have mutually reinforcing responsibilities. Perhaps the junior member is tasked with something like readying a net in case the team leader’s sleep spell leaves a perpetrator standing. Maybe they throw caltrops past the perp to prevent escape while the team lead signals for backup, etc.
Each district could have multiple pairs or quads with a range of skills: different feats, spells, specialized kit, etc. Perhaps each two person patrol has another that they automatically attach to once patrolling uncovers an incident. These quads should include a corporal/sergeant with enhanced capacity (more hit dice, higher proficiency, perhaps an additional feat), a medic/healer (mundane or magical), a more heavily armored brute/grappler for things like breaching and restraints, and someone with either a ranged capability, or perhaps a feat like mobility to address more distant threats.
I like the idea of integrating magic initiate into the mix. Some utility cantrips along with a specialized leveled spell really opens things up. Consider a guard captain with command among other options. What about investigators with friends, or zone of truth? I really love guards with goodberry feeding the indigent, what a great way to develop a network of informants.
This is a great starting point, much appreciated
I was thinking a similar thing. Making a singular set leaves gaps in coverage, gaps that are filled by a variety of specialist. I am more surprised he did not mention paladins as an option as well.
@@seanrea550 Every team I have been on had a range of specialties and capabilities. Versatility cannot be overvalued if you have a diverse and unpredictable mission set.
THOUGH DON'T DISREGARD ELVES!!!!!
Vampire's latest Hunter book posted what the second Inquisition would be. All the tools of the War on Terror, amped up in the Dark gothic world of WoD, used against vampires and other spooks.
Shadowrun discussed magic security. Not every rent-a-cop on site will be magically aware. But the rapid response team from corporate will have.
I had posited that half-orcs would be a nearly ideal race for a militia or constabulary member. They have dark-vision, are big and strong, and are presumably somewhat common anywhere that orcs and humans overlap. Highly durable they can take the risk of physically restraining many of the most common disturbances in a city.
Makes sense for a race but what about class?
Depending on setting (including forgotten realms) half orcs very existence implies pillage has happened from orcs at some point, so having them as guards may create social problems.
@@fuzzborne perhaps, but i don't like the narrative that an entire ethnic group exist only because of war rape. I would prefer to portray orcs as a nomadic warrior culture, who can assimilate by filling certain niches in settled societies they encounter, like militia, constables, even medicine workers because as a sapient they aren't mindless monsters and would be experienced at treating injuries
I think the best Races for a Police/Guard Force is Wild Elves or Half-Elves(if they too get Fey Ancestry benefits).
Because Fey Ancestry would help prevent them being Charmed/Magically put to Sleep which many criminal sl!meb@lls might try to do.
They would have Dark Vision which is always useful.
The Wild Elves "Mask of the Wild" could help them hide better when tracking a criminal/threat.
Their long lifespan potential would allow them to become more "expert" in skills pertinent to fighting crime.
Finally, the Trance Trait of Elves would allow them to work longer hours.
@@RovingTroll to be fair though, i'm not sure it's accurate to call them an ethnic group, the difference is more than cultural
it's like saying foxes and coyotes are only seperated by social differences
I the basic lesson I’ve been learning over and over again is that real life is more fantastical than you can imagine, and taking lessons from history makes everything feel more grounded
Police force idea: Paladins of a god of Justice, equipped with club and shield as main weapon, and sending stones for communication.
You meet these people in Esoteric Enterprises. There they wield Interpol badges, suits, earpieces and the fanatical loyalty of all police.
How to get an efficient police force in D&D?
1. become a Patron
2. turn your guardsmen into Warlocks
3. overload them with eldritch invocations (all the vision buffs, maybe Aspect of the Moon and there's also the great upgrades for Eldritch Blast)
The bastion system of OneDnD "sugests" (implicitly), that a 5th spellcaster level Wizard [with an apropiate "tower" building] has by default a free "assistant " NPC lvl 0 spellcaster with something similar to Magic Initiate.
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-> Furthermore, once the wizard PC is a 9th level spellcaster; some of the "features" they could do themselves at 5th level in their bastion now can be performed by their "assistant" offscreen [implying they have a 4th level Feat of some kind, since they are still "classless" (technically speaking)].
Random fact, there were Police swords in the UK. There are some examples at the royal armoires in Leeds.
I imagine in worlds with so many magical creatures the idea of a canine unit would be greatly extended and common. If giant centipedes are trainable they'd be good at non-lethally subduing for instance.
Oh, nice observation!
They're kinda way too dangerous for a CR 1/4 out in the wild with the prospect that they'll be eating the party within that 1 hour if everyone gets dropped, but in the context of being used to subdue people for arrest it's far more fair of an encounter inclusion.
I think I have a specific culture in my setting that would fit using these critters in this way perfectly (jungle elves). This will be just as fun as my griffon rider stout halflings in the swamplands.
In the case of law enforcement using sleep then maybe thieves of fey ancestry may be worth more than human counterparts by any people hiring professional lawbreakers
I think I'd probably want to hire someone with the assumption they wouldn't be caught and sedated at all!
@fuzzborne maybe but having a plan b always helps
Warlocks with aspect of the moon would probably also be worth more money than most humanoids as well because warlocks. with that evocation are immune to sleep spells and they don't need to sleep Or go into any similar state. They're just awake. 24/7.
So they might even be worth more than humanoids with Fay ancestry. but there would probably be significantly rarer
EXCELLENT POINT!!!!! That is sort of what I thought, specifically that Fey Ancestry would be the best counter against guards with Sleep and/or Charm. I was thinking more if it's a group of "Murderhoboes" who are all Elves(most likely Drow) causing trouble the guards would be less effective.
@@fuzzborneIn one of campaigns I Dmed, I had an Elite Task Force, for the larger cities city guard, comprised of reformed thieves. Furthermore, each Guard Squad had either a battle mage, or spell sword amongst their ranks. Ensuring that the squads or the city guard as a whole, could adequately deal with any criminal activity. Furthermore I had it as law, that the city guard routinely trained with the locally stationed imperial legion.
"This is an unsanctioned use of magical energy..."
I definitely agree an official police force would need to develop much earlier in dnd with monsters that are good at sneaking into cities like vampires, lycanthropes, and doppelgangers. A city with good walls and defenses can keep out the orc hordes but without a good police force they're going to fall pretty quickly as soon as a cult or shape changing monster gets inside
Hence why there are adventurers. DnD provides an extreme variety of threats. Which would make creating a police force meant to handle them very difficult. A wide variety of specialized knowledge would be needed at any given moment. Special knowledge which the average recruit might not have or might not have the ability to wield such knowledge.
The job of the police force would be to regulate the adventurers who are hired on retainer and the local militia.
I don't think a centralized force would work. Every villager would have to be part of the team.
The motto and method of operation for this force would be "inform, train, and counter". Meaning informing the locals of threats, train them how to deal with the threats, and via this method will counter any nasties.
@@MissionSilo very good point I agree
@zacharyweaver276 what would most likely form in the dnd universe is a church of witchers, Warhammer 40k inquisitors, or something of the like. They would be politically neutral, organized religious, but can be called on to advise and organize local forces against local threats.
Quick sidebar about Command: Has anyone ever considered that with so many languages in the D&D world, a single-word command could be more than one English word? For instance, maybe there's a Dwarvish word for "get on the ground" or "drop your weapons"?
Unless there's a restriction about the individual being targeted by the spell has to understand the language. This would probably be totally possible.
Immediately adding the lawmage concept to my campaign world. Thanks Tom, another banger!
Druidcraft can be combined with a flower language to communicate effectively. Also, they can create the sounds of various animals and you can have both effects up simultaneously. While both are not as visible as dancing lights; that just lends their skills to more covert stalking/tracking type of enforcement.
Lets look at what kinds of threats they will be facing, and the kinds of situations they`ll be in. Criminals with magic, Vampires, Doppelgangers and other assorted monsters, plus all the normal stuff like drunks, thieves, domestic violence, medical emergencies, starving beggars, etc... So they will absolutely have to be able to fight very tough enemies, and be able to restrain a drunk and provide medical assistance as a first responder. Feeding the hungry wouldn't hurt either.
You need Rangers. Think about it, a half caster with Druidic spells, and decent martial abilities? It fits the bill ALMOST perfectly. The class features like Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer would need an urban option, but other than that they fit the job. They can even get proficiency in both Perception and Investigation. Plus with medium armor and a shield they could have 19 AC on a d10 hit die, so not squishy.
Heck, if you went Drakewarden then they even have their own police K9 units. "Drop the weapons and come out with your hands on your head or we`ll send in the Drakes!" Plus you get the Thaumaturgy cantrip for free which would be useful for tripling the volume of your voice. "Everybody remain calm and exit the building!"
Their spell list is pretty good for the Lawmage role with things like Cure Wounds, Entangle, Goodberry, Ensnaring Strike, Locate Object(contraband), Silence(Shuts down casters), Conjure Animals(extra personnel) , Locate Creature, and Conjure Woodland Beings. Sick a pack of Fairies on them! "This is who we`re looking for! Search everywhere! Find them!"
So for your police academy I would suggest creating the Urban option for Ranger class features, train them to use Prestidigitation, and giving them the Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter feats. They should also take the Archery Fighting Style.
Next you would have to look at standard issue equipment. I would suggest a Hand Crossbow with the Artificer Repeating Shot Infusion because it does away with both the loading and ammunition properties, and also gives a +1 to both attack and damage rolls. Two attacks, and a bonus action attack, and allows your Lawmage to also use a shield at the same time without affecting their damage! Not quite at Gunk levels, but still really good! And they still have spells! I would also suggest issuing a Ruby of the War Mage(common) so they can use their weapon as a focus if needed.
Like this, but probably the city would have to employ a specialist team of higher-level casters for more difficult problems.
So a SWAT team that makes perfect sense especially for bigger cities
I'm surprised Message was not discussed. Though not as versatile as dancing light for the sake of being both light and a form of communication, Message has the benefit of being able to shape your structures to accommodate it for an easy *two way* communication method
A guard can easily alert an officer or captain or someone designated for communication with a quick message to alert decisions like "Something suspicious is prowling, approaching target" or similar
And sending would actually be better than that. because there isn't a distance limitation, like with the message spell. Though it is higher level, so it would probably be For some higher ranked member force. likely a designated communications officer or something roughly equivalent
@@sharksam8583 The Sending spell is kind of in a weird place. 3rd level spells are at a high enough power level that it'd basically always be more practical for anyone high rank enough to have access to it while belonging to an urban organization to just have Sending Stones instead. Or just a chain of guard stations positioned around the idea of relaying Message cantrips to each other until it reaches the main office, kinda like the role of telephone switch operators back in the day.
@@Shalakor Though If getting access to an artificer is Reasonable sending stones would probably be the better option
I think a major failing of 5th edition is that anyone succeeding on the save or ending the duration of the enchantment 'knows they were affected by magic'. I have no problem with them potentially knowing, but the spell ends and you just know it was a spell- on what basis? Especially if the character in question has zero knowledge or experience of magic outside of seeing the bard play pretty songs? While magic is generally very obvious enchantments are supposed to be subtle forms of magic, generally.
Well if they are an inherently magical Race like Elves or Deep Gnomes or Fairies or Duergar(specifically they have to deal with inherent magic from Drow often) then it makes logical sense they recognize magic.
@@morrigankasa570 that's exactly my point. If there is a reason for them to have the knowledge or experience to know sure. Otherwise, no
warlocks. not only would they be effective but its thematic too
the trustworthy thing is very much not a requirement. cops will still occupy a region even if the people hate them.
This is true but if they aren't trusted it means it's only a matter of time before the populace turns on them@@EvelynNdenial
I can see a city government making a large scale pact with some lawful celestial or fiend creature for large scale, small warlock pacts, but that has to be extremely wealthy cities that can afford whatever price in gold or blood that entails.
@@wumbojet assuming it asks for gold or blood and not that they perform obscure rituals or hunt down its enemies
@@zacharyweaver276 they'd probably pay with the souls of any the warlock cops kill, and completely ignore the obvious consequences of that.
I think there's a very interesting dynamic with this, there almost surely needs to be a distinction between the police force, the city watch (wich in my opinion are different enough to warrant the existence of both in a fantasy city) and the detectives and investigators.
The city watch is (i believe) directly under the countries military, so it's more of a "mass production" situation less suited to specialized members.
The police force is smaller in scale, being specific to each city and under the local government's rule, that can allow for deeper specialization of it's members.
Lastly, the investigators or detectives should be also a part of the police force, but above them in rank, they should also be kind of exceptional in their abilities and those are the people for who I think being game classes works perfectly.
I’ve always seen command as an intimidation spell like people are intimidated magically into follow orders . Like imagine a younger individual who has a higher than average pitch yells at you in a deep and gruff voice to do something I see that as similar to the command spell.
The reason for Booming Blade / Green Flame Blade having a required value for the weapon is a game balance one, so that it doesn't stack with Shadow Blade (for example)
No. It was specifically to fix Component pouches magically creating an unlimited number of swords(the component) because a cantrip was used. Breaking the interaction with Shadow Blade was an unintended side effect. When asked about it, Crawford said something like he still allows them to work together in his games, and some stupid comment about summoned blades being the equivalent of a real one, and if you had a real one it would have value... I don`t remember his exact words, but yes the argument was that stupid. Basically, they didn't notice that they were breaking the combo before they did it, and couldn't be bothered to reprint books to fix their mistake.
@@anonymouse2675 that's really interesting! Thanks for the correction
have all your Lawmages patrol in duos, one with Entangle, and one with Goodberry.
Prestidigitation can also create an image in the palm of the caster's hand, which is really good for "Have you seen this person?" or quickly getting an accurate description of a suspect. Druids should also use animal friendship and/or ritual cast Beast Speech to make much more use of animals for sending messages or hounds to examine a scene, track, and give more details to the investigator. An area policed by druids would probably have a lot more trees and other vegetation in the city that could be used for entangle.
There are lots of different roles in the police department. And undercover investigator with Disguise self and the message cantrip can observe and report without giving away that they are reporting, that they have a "wire".
There is also likely to be a difference between the equipment that is standard for routine patrols, and the riot gear for responding to an alert. The armory could easily have scrolls, potions and even heavier stuff like wands or magical arrows.
A minor issue of incorporating magic into your economy is there is less incentive to go adventuring. Spend ten years at magic school to gallivant in swamp covered ruins or get a lucrative job that keeps you well-fed and in demand in local society? Tough choice ;) You also have much stronger institutions if they have reliable command of magic.
If magic is widespread enough and reliable enough to be used as technology, you no longer have a classic medieval fantasy world, you have a more Renaissance or even early industrial feel, with potentially much larger nations and much less monster infested wilderness.
Since this is a "classless" LVL 0 NPC with "Magic Initiate"; they would not have access to aditional uses of their first level spell (even if they are a Variant Human, or any race "Custom Lineage"), since they would had to select another "one free use" spell for their Second Feat.
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. One important defect of the Disguise Self + Message "combo" is the need of components on the spellcasting [it is likely that such a commonly used spell to be recognizable].
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. The solution is rather "expensive": Single use of a "Metamagic:Subtle Gemstone" [that the item itself costs 50 Gold Pieces BEFORE including the "recharge fee" from a 2nd_lvl Sorcerer after its use].
The way I try explain the ubiquous "dangerouss-ness" of simple villages is that anyone who has the "Magic Initiate" feat & is NOT working exclussively for The Lord (who must designate the specific job, always giving maximum priority to the safety of nobles, local merchants & church), are considered alien outlaws... UNLESS they belong a recognized "Guild" [that can be taxed/restricted apropiately].
-> Travellers or those expelled by a Guild (without a valid cause) have some ample time to join one (or try to create a new), before getting "banished" from that territory.
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-> This way, unless a town regulary "convinces" The Lord to keep this "special forces" to remain attached to some local important figure [that may need their own "stimuli" to remain there]; there simply will NOT be any magically trained police.
-> Illegally paying non-registered "freelancers" to reinforce the mundane local enforcers explains 80% of all "murderhobbos" (NPCs).
I've met people who dislike magic because not enough creators step back to the big picture of how the existence of magic and supernatural forces would shape and alter society by their mere existence. It's all too easy to just go "it's medieval, but with magic" and call it a day, and then work out magical threats as the seeds for adventures without really thinking about how the presence of such magic as a "normal" part of the world would shape society and its functions.
If magic is reliable and widespread, the economy and social structure of the world will rapidly depart from "medieval". One option is to have the campaign world simply be a time of turmoil, of rapidly changing technology (ie, prevalence and use of common magic) and society. More Discworld than standard fantasy with buried menaces that are just as much a menace a thousand years later, regardless of how much the population has grown since. I haven't seen any stories about elves discounting some human village and then checking up on it a couple centuries later and, hey, they have a thousand times as many people now!
Interestingly, most of those who do consider the presence of magic, overestimate how common it is. Granted that’s in discussion of particular settings or most often a ruleset like dnd, which present magic as rare yet discussions treat magic like it’s everywhere.
“CHEESE IT ITS THE FEDS!!”
*sound of a marching band approaching*
Love the different type of flavor each class could give to the police force. Like Monk class could be interesting flavor, as then it presents the police as a group of martial artist with a philosophy to follow the law and to defend the citizens, officers who don't much armour which allows them to be quick to respond and to quickly defuse a violent situation with quick punches and kicks. Or barbarian officers would be most probably enforcing authoritarian law like an iron fist or, barbarians could enforce just several village/settlement, where everyone is like family and killing family is something that the officers take very personal as the protectors of the family.
Enforcing the law with an iron fist must remember to have a small enough group at the top, preferably one man, just like Alexander Hamilton said that having a unitary executive is critical to having a stable government, because multiple people with separate mandates of executive power (at least in Alexander Hamilton’s mind) results in chaos.
Thus, as suggested earlier, it is better to just become a patron (and note the quickest way to do that in D&D is to become a Lich) and then grant levels of warlock to your police officers, and strip away those levels from disobedient police officers. Alternatively, you are a king who rose to prominence as a cleric, and then, at the request of your people who are only faithful to your deity because of your personal existence, those people convince that deity to make you into a Mummy Lord, or just give you access to the Clone spell, and then you reign forever, where people are just desperate to be a part of your police force because you reward your best officers with healing their illnesses and resurrecting their friends.
Sure, you could let your police officers share in some clerical power, but that requires knowledge of that person’s firm loyalty to you personally, and that they acknowledge their king when they perform healings, so that way no one tries to betray you (which would happen if someone created a government built on loyalty to some other powerful magician).
I'd think in a place with a high number of adventurers would probably use them for some policing duty. This way they can save money, resources, and/or people for other more important jobs or ones that can't be trusted to outsiders. But would be easy for a trade city to offer bounties to adventurers for small things like hunting enemies on the city borders, providing security in the slums, or having bounties on wanted fugitives
Not likely for regular patrol. Adventurers would demand higher pay, and likely skip town if a better opportunity presented itself.
Hired Adventurers would be used as needed. Probably for things the guards can't handle.
@@erockandroll39 that’s kind of what I meant. Like adventure guilds in fantasy. Local guards can place requests for different jobs they feel can be trusted to them.
Not patrolling the streets but like bounties on known criminals or providing intelligence on cases that if verified would be rewarded
Tieflings all get Thaumaturgy automatically, which would be very useful for alerting people to danger or calling for backup. Maybe in areas where they're a sizable fraction of the population it could lead to a "police" caste, or a neighbourhood watch, if they're socially excluded, maybe?
Cool video as always!
It's also ironic because in most dnd lore Tieflings are stereotyped as being criminals themselves.
i have only played in 1 campaign, but i have been watching Critrole and other shows for years, and i am a bit surprised still that i have not seen Guardsmen use the Sleep spell to attempt to stop the average criminal, not even once...i would love a more focused single target version of the sleep spell. a knockout stick.
i dont know about the average police officer having magic initiate. but having 1/6 guards with minor spellcasting who can be called apon as a first response team by Whistle or bell to show up with Command, or sleep or even Silence for anti-spellcaster response does sound completely reasonable. i would love to see more people think of using Infirmaries too, paramedics and even firefighter type emergency workers on hand is something we so rarely think about in a Fantasy city. It would even make sense to have watchtower guards have the message cantrip to organise the guard not unlike emergency service radio chatter
the weirdest part of this hypothetical is that there is such a focus on combat in D&D, that i think we kinda forget that ini real life a police officer will likely do no more than tackle and restrain, whereas in the game because the rules are aimed at fighting monsters, almost every idea boils down to "do damage" until you kill them.
You are ignoring Elves! Magical Sleep is far less likely to work on any Elven Race, same for Charm.
I wish the sentiment that real life police most often only focus on non-lethal force were a bit more true.
@@morrigankasa570 What if the Elves are the law, while the common population mostly wasn't? Employing the Sleep spell in that case would kinda be like how there's the Drow and other fae that use sleep poison on their arrows because they mostly intend to wield their bows against their non-fey enemies.
@@Shalakor Excellent point, but if it's Elves on both sides of the Law then Sleep still becomes less effective along with Charm.
One thing working against the idea of elves being on both sides of the law is the extremely long lives of the elves. 400 year lifespans means that it’s easy to imagine 8 generations of the same elven family in adjacent houses, all of whom can know immediately the advice of their great great… grandfather who is still with them and is still very much able to tell them what to do, where with a large family underneath him, he could have the benefit of a very centralized “outcast” system to ensure compliance or else make an elf be cut off from the people he/she has known all their lives for not following his rules. Yes, this creates a social outcast who will likely become a criminal, but importantly that elf knows that that family is large enough and centralized enough to form a government in and of itself, and incorporate itself into the government of the local area, where it is just too convenient for the mayor to rely on them for support, naturally resulting in that great grandfather stepping into place as mayor when the shorter-lived mayor dies or is incapacitated due to age-related illnesses.
Of course, two different elven families (or their respective patriarchs) could disagree on how the law should work, but should know well enough that it is better to play down their differences in public to avoid other races getting the idea of exploiting the power vacuum of their division of the government.
The really interesting part of this is that it would be an easy branching point to train a Ranger. Especially one with the druidic warrior fighting style. These rangers could fill the roll of detectives in larger cities.
I'm imagining a squad of Medieval Fantasy Police Helicopter-esque familiars following law breakers through city streets from above!
I like the idea of using the magic initiate feat - the beauty of worldbuilding in this way is you don't even *need* the feat per se. I alert players that the guard training popular in 'civilized' regions includes having Charm Person cast on them such that they can regognize the effects and possibly the casting of such a spell. Adding education of only Prestidigitation and/or Dancing Lights for utility makes a lot of sense as well. From there, maybe not every lawmage has access to Sleep but it might be a good next step along their training.
Awesome video Tom! Very thought-provoking!
Back in the early days of Toril we pondered what the police would be like in a med to LG Halruaan city. Each "patrol" would consist of: A fledgling man-at-arms, an acolyte & strangely enuff, a diviner to make them even more "vigilant". 😊
The fantasy novel Skammersens Datter (in English: The Shamer's Daugther) by Danish Author Lene Kaaberbøl includes people with the power to see everything a person feels shame about, including any crimes or other actions. For police activities they are quite scary.
Not really, most criminals who aren’t criminals out of necessity, are criminals because they don’t feel shame about their crimes. Most of those who feel shame about their crimes would be people who either accidentally did it (such as speeding or not noticing the “no parking” sign) or were forced into it by desperation and are decent people in a bad situation. The criminals you actually want to be terrified of the police won’t feel shame about it and therefore are basically invisible to a police force that relies on seeing shame.
@@hikarihitomi7706 Are you familiar with the setting, and the specific magic involved?
@@Jo-Heike I know people and I what was said. It was stated that they could see people's shame. No, I do not know enough of the stories to know if the comment I responded to was an accurate statement, so my comment is naturally contingent on the statement I responded to being accurate.
@@Jo-Heike Specifically, you said "everything they feel shame about" as though that is the key requirement to make something detectable. The idea of someone's shame making something detectable means that rhe person in question must feel shame about something in order for it to be detectable. The criminals of the sort that need to be terrified of police do not feel shame about their criminal activities, which means they would not have their crimes be detectable.
Thus, if you think terrible criminals would be found out by such magic, then either your statement about the dependance on shame is inaccurate, or you are one of those naive people that thinks criminals feel bad about the same things that make you feel bad (and if you believe that, then just stop right now, because I have no polite way of describing how stupid that idea is, and just how much danger you are in from anyone that figures that out about you).
@@Jo-Heike All that said, if you have a link to some English translations, I'm always up for a good book,
Tom, all of these points of developing and deploying historically infused elements of bodyguarding, policing and watchmanship seem wonderful to craft into a guide or further video research. Just letting you know that this was a wonderfully juicy installment, and not only will I end up using it in my upcoming games, I’d also love to hear more on the topic(s). Thanks, and WELL DONE!
We now had gnome eldritch knight sheriffs. Other city just has some paladins as captains, and rangers as free militia.
Considering the fact that as a principal NO guard should ever be paroling on their own, I think a combo of druid and bard would make the most sense.
Just from the title, my immediate answer was "Ranger." Once you said Magic Initiate, I then said, "Oh, then obviously Druid."
Consistent, high quality insights into traditionally rote fantasy and/or D&D tropes? Sir Grungeon, you spoil us. Your videos are frequent sources of conversation with my fellow enthusiasts, the 'ethics of necromancy' in particular seems to have the most widely varied opinions. Thank you for all you do, I wish only that you always enjoy your work :)
Some other fun ideas I don't think you mentioned:
Message: I mean when it comes to giving signs to people and conveying information it's kinda in the name. Now to be fair I do agree that in general Dancing Lights is probably the best long-range emergency beacon. But for any lawmages that operate in a squad, I imagine that Message would be the ideal form of communication considering that it conveys information in a means that cannot be heard or intercepted by anyone else. And I mean 120 feet ain't nothing to sneeze at. If your patrols are set up and organized around it, then a given lawmage can probably ensure that they're within range of another lawmage if anything happens, and messages could be passed down the chain to someone with Dancing Lights if something needs to be conveyed to the town at large. Sure that does add a few seconds of delay but lets be honest here any kind of message that is meant to be seen from a long distance away already isn't going to be a necessarily immediate response.
Minor Illusion: Again, another cantrip with a lot of potential for communication and other such things. You can cast it 30 feet straight up, so not quite as high as Dancing Lights, but still high enough to reach over most normal buildings. And of course it can be pretty much anything. You could make a giant 5 foot long arrow that points to where the crime is happening that just lingers in the air, and of course you could come up with a system of codes and signs that are used to quickly identify any number of different scenarios, but with the added flexibility of being able to display virtually anything else should a more esoteric scenario occur. For example if a magic beast shows up in the city with some unique ability, you can try to display that in your illusion.
But of course Minor Illusion can be used for more than just displaying things. It can also make sounds which means you can raise an alarm basically anywhere at any time. In fact I imagine what you might do is first cast it to do a short alarm, possible with different sounds and patterns of noise indicating certain things, then you would cast it again to display an image in the air to help guild people to your location. Plus a particularly clever Lawmage might be able to use their illusions to trip up criminals on a chase, making boxes or other such obstacles seemingly appear out of nowhere, making a door appear to be barred shut to discourage them from trying to run inside. Things like that.
Also since it has a duration of a Minute without requiring concentration, that means that your alarm would continue to sound off while your create your visual indicator, and you could even create multiple visuals in a row to make a sort of trail of images.
I also imagine that this would heavily encourage a system of having partners that compliment each other in what spells they know. Having guards do their patrols in pairs means that only one of them needs to know Dancing Lights or whatever to perform a signal. And only one of them needs to know something like Prestidigitation for helping clean the streets and light street lamps and whatnot. Which means that we've have a lot more flexibility now with our options. Hell you could combine people who specialize in different spell lists. So maybe we have a Wizard with Prestidigitation, Dancing Lights, and Sleep. And they have a partner who is a druid with Entangle, Shillelagh, and now they probably don't need Druidcraft thanks to their wizard partner, so that could free them up for things like Guidance to help them make skill checks like investigating a case or things like that.
Also I believe that Thorn whip technically is able to do Non-Lethal Damage, which would give Druids a non-lethal option with a 30 foot range that they could use in place of Shillelagh. So I think a good complimentary Druid Build in the partnership would be Thorn Whip, Guidence, and Goodberry, paired with a Wizard Initiate with Dancing Lights, Prestidigitation, and Sleep. Both of course equipped with Shields and Clubs. The Druid can subdue people at a distance without limit (and it even pulls them closer so if they aren't KO'd it helps out in a chase), help out with various skills, and provide emergency healing to anyone that is downed. While the Wizard can provide Signaling, Utility, and a non-lethal way to subdue a whole group at once, once per day.
Why stick with one type of lawmage,honestly it would make since if a police force had a few different type of spell casters for different roles
I some times give certain guards ritual caster and give them sky write. It's not a damage spell so I feel sometimes just giving 1 out of 15 or 20 guards sky write isn't that big of a thing if in a region where magic is a little more predominant even with out ritual Caster feat
Great video as always. In high magic settings a magic guard force makes total sense, yet I haven´t seen one in any module. But I don´t know if I agree with the emphasis on spells for signaling and fire lighting when these effects can be replicated easily with whistles and torches instead of "wasting" 50% of your magic potential on them. Which brings me to the lighting the city issue. That lighting reduces crime is fact, but I think just having the police force have prestidigitation wouldn´t solve that. Torches have to be changed and lamp oil refilled and that would take some city workers with big carts which could light the torches instead of an expensive magical police force which has other things to do.
In my humble opinion it would make more sense for the wizard types to have some oil flasks, firebolt and most importantly control flames.(together with the sleep spell which makes so much sense). In order to capture people they could use the combo to encircle them with flames and more importantly they would be an awesome firefighting force with the ability to extinguish 5 foot cube fires (and control their own colateral damage). We tend to forget how dangerous fires were in the preindustrial era as the great fire of London proves.
But I think the coolest vibes would be religiously trained cleric types sworn to some justice god (Inquisitors?). If they combined an attack cantrip with spare the dying they could shoot offenders if they didn't submit and immediately stabilize them. Much safer for the caster than having to go hand to hand, especially since they are a valuable resource for the city/kingdom. But the most important asset would be to be able to cast command during interrogations (confess). I think the ethical dilemma is kind of anachronistic. In most preindustrial / pre enlightenment societies torture was the to go to strategy for interrogation. In think the people would be glad to have this reliable non violent alternative to being tortured just because somebody pointed at them.
Find Familliar would be a solid pick for areal servailance and remote delivery of whichever of the 2 cantrips you took could even be a specific department to coordinate from main police headquarters.
Great idea. But i don't think it could be widespread or ubiquitous. You'd need a serious level of capital production to fund this sort of thing. It's like paying for every cop to study legal theory and mathematics for a bachelors degree, on top of police academy. Who is paying for this? How do these folks get selected? What are you doing in the meantime while these guys get trained up? Very resource intensive.
for the lighting point i think it is far more realistic to just have the guardsmen carry lanterns/torches rather than having stationary lanterns across the entire city, since as you said that would be highly impractical without the use of magic. Even with the use of magic you can't light a lantern if there's no fuel. You'd need a whole other system of couriers just running oil around the city to keep lanterns fueled
Personally in my worlds magic isn't widely practiced enough to have magic users be guards
The level 2 spell Continual Flame, though expensive, should allow any city that has been around for a couple centuries should have lots of lanterns permanently lit without the need for fuel (at least on the most important buildings).
Good statblocks to use as bases: Guard, veteran (for veteran guards), and knight (for guard captains). I personally change equipment around based on the funding for the police force in question. Most of the time they'll have some form of medium armor, but particularly poor militias might have to make do with gambesons and shirts of mail, but they'll always have shields. Spears (with reach instead of thrown), shortbows/slings, and a club or mace for basic weaponry. Let knights keep their two-handers, but always give humanoid monsters a ranged weapon. Veterans can upgrade their shortbows into longbows, and clubs into warhammers, but they should keep their spears for reach. Knights should also very much have silvered weapons. I personally rule that mithril counts as silvered, so they might recieve weapons made of at least a mithril alloy as a signifier of office.
I personally rebalance all 5e statblocks to have health equivalent to CR. 1/8th, 1/4th, and 1/2 cr are treated as 1 for this purpose. So 1 size-appropriate hit die. Round all stats up to nearest modifier. Give the statblock the most common skills for that creature. Most classes get 2 skills, so that's what I use as a basis. For guards, perception and insight are their most valuable two skills. You can consider lowering their intelligence to up their wisdom a little bit. Signifying their lack of academic accumen leading them down this profession, but at the same time, knowledge of laws are under the history skill. So, y'know...
Anyway, slight deviation from the vid, but a personal rule for the sake of making every person unique. Variant human and custom lineage are banned, but everyone gets a free feat at level one. My players often fail to understand this extends to sentient npcs as well. I also give martial characters some weaker superiorty dice that are equal in number to profficiency bonus and 2+intmod maneuvers. Again, this also extends to sentient npcs. I even give some npcs class abilities if they're particularly potent, but I leave their hit dice as size-based.
Common feats among guards include: mobile, alert, skilled, and magic initiate. Some particularly slippery sorts might even have the lucky feat. Sentinel and a lot of the other combat-specific feats strike me as things that would be more likely to show up in a soldier's repetoire as opposed to a regular dude. I'll still use the same statblocks as the bases for soldiers, but the feats typically are what differentiate them in feel. Of all the feats guards have, skilled is actually the most common. Specifically for history, stealth, survival, and athletics. Mobile is for the ones confident in their speed and tendency to skirmish. Everyone knows that one friend that just really liked to run as a kid. Alert tends to be the paranoid ones. Either they started that way, or just kinda became it over the years. Either way, they're really nice to have along a patrol in case a goblin tries to shiv you from the shadows. Then magic initiates tend to be the nerds that joined the guard either for a sense of justice or because they wanted a fast track to go from commoner to knight without having to actually go to the battlefield. Druid and wizard are most common. As pointed out in the vid. Presto, ray of frost, and find familiar tend to be most common depending on the area. Signal whistles make dancing lights less neccessary, and ray of frost can at least help you kite out a gribbly while waiting for backup. I personally value the utility of find familiar over the instant win of sleep, but it's definitely one of those things where many guards would take sleep over the familiar. With the two often working in tandem. However if you live somewhere where everything's cold resistant or immune, then it's often swapped out for mending or message. Druid is just the most common magic initiate in my world *in general* specifically for druidcraft and it's impact on farming/gardening. Shileleagh is a decent cantrip for the reasons listed, but frankly magic stone is more useful considering most guards have 8 health and a family to go back to. 6 dudes pelting a werewolf with magic sling bullets from behind a line of silvered caltrops. is a lot safer then trying to run in and club it to death with magic sticks. Cure wounds is popular purely for the fact that I rule that goodberry consumes the mistletoe material component. Mostly so survival requires at least a little investment on the players' side of things. Speak with animals is also really popular if you learned your magic as a kid. There is a non-zero amount of disney princess commoners in my world.
Typically I run things as human-default, but non-humans would also have their racial abilities on top of all this. In particularly large settlement, kobolds(especially since the vast majority of thieves are gnomes), surface drow, half-drow, and those of luminite faith (moon god, child of the sun goddess, killed their mom due to parental neglect and abuse.) Tend to make up the night guards. Greenskins tend to be disliked by most "civilized races" due to the whole elves doing a colonialism and turning them into a cross between mongols, vikings, and romani. However in instances where clans have integrated into cities, half orks, orks, and hobgoblins tend to be greatly preferred for day guards.
If we talk about classes instead of just the feat I don't think one class would cover all things necessary for a police force, so I would pick a few specialists:
Cleric: The base force with useful spells for many aspects of the job.
Paladin: SWAT and PR.
Ranger: Tracking, scouting, and also potentially going undercover.
Wizard: Investigation, archiving, and arcane specialist.
Optionally also Artificer: They could create magical items that only work for members of the police force.
I think the video as an idea is cool and interesting but for world building reasons I don't think a fantasy police force would want to handicap themselves by only hiring/training people with one kind of skillset.
I typically make guards level one, in my world the difference between a guard or common solder is desperation (making them take more dangerous jobs that then levels them up), or the call to adventure.
I really like your use of the feat, and especially using dancing lights in configuration to signal different things.
24:13
actually, with proper resting and timing you can make 20 good berries, since you long rest once a day and good berry last for 24 hours.
You can only benefit from a long rest once every 24 hours
@@prosamis I think the idea is that (if they do not "expend" the single "free" casting of goodberry as soon as they wake up); they can instead plan ahead to sleep 6 or 7 hours first; then purpously cast G.B. once [a first level spell, tus "delaying" the completion of Long Rest by an extra hour]; then sleeping or playing cards for two hours [completing a 9 hours total Long Rest], to cast G.B. again with their "new day" free casting.
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-> This gives you a total of 20 Goodberries that will be still effective for 22 more hours (from the moment they finished their Long Rest).
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Planning ahead, 20 people can be fed at a certain time of day (a specific day, NOT "daily" & always), with 10 more coming 2 hours later & the next 10 people 24 hous later.
-> This is a total of 40 people in just 50 hours. PER EACH "lvl 0" NPC with magic initiate.
I am of the idea that GoodBerry can only be consumed with 100% safety in two consecutive days.
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. After that there is a 5% accumulative chance of not "feeding YOU", but instead all of the bacteria in your gut that Is "NOT YOU" (it may cause just flatulence, giving you the poisoned condition and/or appropiate sickness).
. Waiting 3 sunsets & 4 sunrises (or viceversa) "resets" the counter [goodberries can be consumed safely again 2 consecutive days].
@@adolfodef I mean, even that is more effort than needed. Can just cast Goodberry once right before a long rest and once right after. The police officer isn't going to be active for more than 16 hours in a given day altogether, let alone have a standard planned work shift longer than that.
druid with control flames instead of druidcraft. assume an officer would be walking with a torch. they can still light any lamp within 5 feet. they can show faces of fugitives or missing people in the flames. they can act a fire fighters as they can extinguish any non magical flames. you can signal using the ability to increase the brightness and change color of flames. (you could even do blue flashing lights).
someone with goodberry and magic stone could equip others in an emergency. (including civilians with no combat ability) and you have the ability to use range. (important if flying threats are in the area)
Warlock Lawmage makes me think of the Templars from Dark Sun, I miss Dark Sun
I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos
Use case for Sorcerer types in your lawmage force: Community Outreach Personel xD
Cant you just do a paladin academy?
They would have to do a oath to protect the town etc
I’ve put some thought into this for my setting. There is a force of high level NPC’s that the party can interact with, they’re strongly neutral but based on the actions of the party they may side with or against them in the end. They also give a sense that the party isn’t the biggest fish in the pond and they should be considerate of consequences.
I think paladins, druids, and rangers would make the best members due to their focus on external standards but I could theme just about any class to fit this role.
These NPC function like a high scale police force whose edicts and actions go above the rules of cities. I also have a more standard police force for protecting the city in my setting.
i like druids because you could also use house rules/flavor to define what plants entangle uses, for example, if you use entangle and a crop of Sucher vines sprouts up to hold a rioting crowd, sucher vines are also great because they close and clean up open wounds
but another great feature of using druids is their utility in hiding smaller towns from those that would raid them, for example, a small logging or hunting focused town could easily blend into the forest it's built in/near if it has patrolling druids
though within my setting, law enforcement tends to be a responsibility of the postknights, basically a guild of retired adventurers who deliver mail, it's pretty easy to enforce the law when everyone knows your face and you know everyone's face and have access to all packages and letters they send
concept.
darkvision used to be ultraviolet vision. ergo you could make ultraviolet magical flashbangs
In my fantasy world, those blessed with magic by the gods gain a magic inventory that lets them stash items away. The thief class is able to peer inside of inventories of others and remove things; this also makes it the best class for a police force, who refer to it as the sentinel class (likewise, warriors are referred to as knights by guards who take up the position).
Interesting video, I love topics like this, they're especially interesting for world building ideas!
I run a heavily modified, homebrewed A5E game where the main head city of the of the continent Dal'kathar where the campaign takes place, the head city holds what are called Crimson Antiquities which are sentient artifacts created by Drathrir (God of Time) these artifacts act as lorekeepers for drathrir with the goal if detailing the history of the main city so they offer pacts in return for lost history that the cities throughout the continent searches for, so alot of guards are warlocks of the relic (a very modified version of hexblade), due to changes the pacts are eldritch invocations instead and warlocks get an extra subclass feature at 3rd level, and there's an eldritch invocation that allow the tome to add spells of up to 5th level from other classes to their tome (just at a far more expensive gold cost then a wizard) so often you have a wide verity of different warlocks who made different pacts with the blade artifact, the tome artifact, the chalice artifact, or the key artifact, the idea being there's often a squad for most situations specialized in different field based on the Crimson Antiquity that is their patron
Stone of the guardsmen: a common stone attached to the armor when pressed anyone wearing a stone attuned to that one will immediately know the direction and distance of the one who activated it within 10 miles. (Any stone can be used including gemstones)
Honestly, I could see a system of basic magic initiation being offered to anyone serving in the military or guards if the magic society is appropriately-scaled, with your toolkit depending on how you're trained.
Specialized squadrons or agents could be trained to be Rangers/Fighters with Druid initiate spells, while city guards could easily be comprised of three-man squads Fighters, each one individually taking Cleric, Bard and Wizard initiate spells to patrol the streets.
In my world the general watchmen is generally just a squad of soldiers with a sgt that has some magic items to assist them like what was effectively flair guns, some tracking stuff and the like. Then we also had the equivalent of a swat team which was generally a squad of paladins and clerics with a supporting team of normal soldiers. But this was also a world where basically every state was a big theocracy.
This suggests that you might not have a watch house but rather a wizard's tower and/or bardic college, and the watchmen are paying their way through school or earning some spending money by joining the watch.
I believe that part of the purpose behind cantrips is to use them to practice casting magic, so getting paid to (ideally) get some light exercise, cast some of your cantrips in a variety of useful ways all over town, at the risk of having to subdue someone doesn't sound like too bad an idea.
Well, you probably would have watch houses so you have accommodations where people can sleep off their bad ideas and where backup can be staged, but watch HQ would probably be part of the tower/college or the lord's castle.
depending on the area, the guards are equipped with either glaives, halberds, billhooks, pollaxes, and pollhammers equipped with a pepperspray compound inside the hollow head
I think that Lawmages would change from town to town.
If the town has a huge church or high clergy influence : they would probably be Cleric initiates
If the town has a mage academy : probably mage initiantes
A highly artistic town would probably have a few bards initiate scattered through
If a druidic circle is closeby , or if the city is very "nature centered" Druid initiates
But my favorite one on a world building would probably be Warlock initiates . I can very well envision a city or town where the inhabitants have to pay a small part of their life force , or make food offering to the City's patron as part of this year's taxes
For druids alerting someone -- produce flame thrown into the air as a flare seems a reasonable option?
Only 30ft range, but, in most medieval-style cities that's likely high enough for a signal flare anyway (just remember to dismiss it before it hits any thatch roofs) it also works as a way to attack monsters and such.
Likely not worth giving up Shillelagh for, but if they patrol in pairs, having one with Shillelagh/druidcraft, and one with shillelagh/produce flame, would likely work fine for it.
Though..druids as law enforcment seems like it would be a bit odd, in terms of lore/flavour of it?
I could see it making sense in a more rural environment, but, in a dense city or town -- the kind of place you're likely to see a professional police force -- the general... destruction of nature that is rather inherent in cities seems like it would be a major turn-off to druids, and I'd expect them to be more likely to be on the environmental protester or even ecoterrorist side, than on the law enforcement side, outside of some very particular cultural contexts.
I love the idea of a ghost being caught in a silver net and being taken to the police station for questioning.
Something i enjoyed from Keith Baker's Eberron content for 5e is that specially trained military groups have a feat like magic initiate or sharpshooter to show their specialization. You can easily apply it on statblocks
In my setting, aside from large cities, adventurers are the “police force”. A town might have a night watch, but that’s about it. In the city, Paladins patrol and maintain order. Rangers however are employed by noble lords/ladies to track and intercept threats before they become a problem. Fighters/barbarians/monks can also be employed as personal bodyguards for people or shops/establishments. Bards act more like lawyers and wizards like judges. Clerics and Druids could be considered more like paramedics, nurses or doctors. Large cities can also rely on their local militias (imagine a party of adventurers with dozens of members) for larger threats. There are also various guilds which train professional forces which can be called upon for specific situations.
Produce Flame deserves a spot here; Light, Ranged Damage, and Ranged Communication (albeit simple). It’s a druid Cantrip.
You made some good points in this video. BUT, you are disregarding Elves. The spells: Command, Charm Person, and Sleep wouldn't be that effective against them due to the "Fey Ancestry" Trait.
So say there is a party of "Murderhoboes" going around causing murder & mayhem, they all happen to be Elves (most likely Drow). The Guard Force tries to stop them using those spells, but the "Fey Ancestry" grants them advantage in saving throws against "Charm Effects & Magical Sleep".
And if you're a warlock, you can Have an evocation that makes you immune to sleep spells
@@sharksam8583 Excellent point!
@@morrigankasa570 I just figured it would be a good point to mention and doesn't being an archway warlock basically give you the fay ancestry trait, or at least similar effects?
@@sharksam8583 The Archfey Warlock thing is actually even better then Fey Ancestry in regards to Charm. Fey Ancestry gives you advantage against Charm, while that Warlock thing grants you Immunity to Charm.
@@morrigankasa570 So if a criminal organization got their hands on an archfey warlock That had that evocation, Then cops That rely on magic to deal with criminals basically can't do anything. Unless they have some sort of Non lethal weapon. Or are willing to go straight to Deadly force.
I could see a full druid of at least third level acting as a sort of county sheriff. Responsible for a large, sparsely populated area, backup's not likely to arrive quickly and if they do from distances that Animal Messenger would be more useful.
Continual Light, 3rd level, has no material components. The city government or merchants guild could hire a caster to permanently light up key areas in the city. Lamps require fuel and would be more expensive to maintain in the long term. If the guard's action is needed to light an unlit lamp, the criminals will use their action to escape or overwhelm the guard.
Imagine police force would consist almost entirely of low-level paladins. They're sworn oaths could literally be, serve and protect. And they could be jobs that are held multi-generational a. Therefore fathers would pass this on to their sons. That way, the men themselves, could train their own sons. That way that duty itself wouldn't even call to the state. And think about in modern times, about how many people decide to become police officers, specifically because they have a family member who does so. Add hell, if you're talking about a human society, you might as well have them all take on magic initiative as well. That way, they can have some form of dancing lights or something, so that they can signal others. And, using the wizard spell list as magic initiative, they can use their other can trip as prestidigitation for the cleaning and effects it has, and then instead of needing something like goodberry, they can simply use their lay on hands. Finally you could have half take the sleep spell, for crowd control. And the other half take fine familiar. Not only with their familiar, be able to fly around messages for them, to write down on a piece of paper to have sent to a central office, or slips of colored paper for signaling the same way dancing lights good. They could also be used, as a very good tailing device, to follow subjects with. And, as long as you summon a familiar that has dark vision, could sit on the paladin shoulder, and the paladin could look through their eyes, to get over their own night blindness.
So, an entire generational police force, a paladin's. All taking the magic initiative feet, using the wizard spell list, with dancing lights for signaling, press the digitization for its magical abilities and cleaning, and find familiar for many crime-fighting activities, and to get over their lack of night vision. And, even if they don't have magic weapons, to fight monsters, they would have their own cantrips, maybe a few damage and can trips from The wizard spell list, and don't forget, Divine strikes. Divine strikes being especially good, because you don't even have to use them, until you strike a hit. Which actually makes the better than no spells. Which can still miss, or the saving throw be beat.plus, in a town situation, or even city, with lots of buildings around, and working in alleyways, you're not going to have to worry about long range fighting. Almost everybody you're fighting would pee melee. Especially if you're using melee so you can use non deadly means. Which is what the paladins are good at anyways.
One tactic I used for an elite force of secret police was they had a rope of entanglement + Immovable Rod Combo.
Wands of magic missile would be a great investment for at least for the "SWAT team". You'd avoid taking up the first level spell choice, and still have some scary damage against nearly anything as a squad.
I honestly think giving them level 1 fighter stats is good for most settings/ towns because real world cops do get combat training, i would give them a feat that let's them grapple really well (the name of it escapes me).But having every cop be magic seams like a stretch unless your in a high magic world. One thing I do as my players level up is I keep the AC and HP at level one but I give them above average damage output and hit chance just so my players COULD still beat up the cops in a town but don't let them steamroll them
I think the thing that makes wizards, bards & clerics the best options is simply because it can be learned. The druid is also a candidate in this regard it also means your guards also now have an obligation to serve nature, something that civilization often finds itself at odds with. Honestly, if they had the resources I imagine they would test what the candidates are best at & send them down different training tracks based on where their talents lay. I think druids would definitely be a bigger thing away from cities though.
There is always the option to have a custom feat to do nonlethal spell damage if they choose. I think I remember some 3.5 feats allowing that.
Never been this early to one of your videos before. I just wanted to say thanks for inspiring me to get me writing a fantasy novel. it’s been a long time aspiration of mine, but i’m finally getting down to putting my ideas to paper
There could be an in-universe Monster Manual of regional and generally common creatures, detailing the best way to defend against them.
The spell/abilities could be linked to different policies forces with different responsibilities and powers.
For example, a wizard local forces who are not allowed (and trained) to use lethal magic and, on the other hand, there is also the missile wielders everyone in town knows better than mess with.
And who’s the big guns answers in the political ladder could lead to very interesting political conflicts.
In Trudi Canavan's Kyralia book series, magicians (basically the setting's wizards) are often used as law enforcement.
Brilliant bit of insight on policing in DND, specialized and mass-produceable examples I love
Man, I love your content. I don't even play D&D anymore, I switched over to PF2e, but I love it.
If ever it struck your fancy, I'd love to see similar videos using Pathfinder2 spells and whatnot
This would make for an awesome game, like you have a city to protect, and you're a first responder or something. That could be interesting as heck
12:42 The wizard cop with Magic Missile is more like the Special Weapons Officer (if I'm using that term correctly, I'm a yank who has to deal with the "Violent Law Ogres in blue shirts") (Hmmm, that might be a better alignment description for American policing: Lawful Violent, like the paladin who goes full on Judge Dread), called out to teal with the particularly dangerous miscreants. Protesting crowd with torches and pitchforks? Mass Sleep will do fine, with a possible rain spell to quench accidental fires from the dropped torches. That One Guy hiding in the peacefully marching crowd who has a crossbow and looks like he just drank two coffee shops dry, drop him with Magic missile and let the rest of the crowd continue marching in protest of the new regulation about banning cattle from the arterial roads within the city. (It was either that or invent 'cow diapers,' the horses are easy to clean up after, the cows are a goey, sticky MESS.)
talking about druids signaling others.. if the city is built around them, you can say the buildings have signaling torches on them. a druid (or someone with magic initiate druid) can then light a torch with druidcraft and use the "Control Flame" cantrip to signal what info is needed.. control flame has the following effects (which would be useful in this situation):
"You double or halve the area of bright light and dim light cast by the flame, change its color, or both. The change lasts for 1 hour.
You cause simple shapes-such as the vague form of a creature, an inanimate object, or a location-to appear within the flames and animate as you like. The shapes last for 1 hour."
between the shapes allowing basic enemy type or location info to be transmitted and the brightness and color changing to possiblly signal how dangerous (bright being really dangerous and dim being not so much) and what other side conditions (like healers needed being green or hostages being blue as examples), they can easily signal for aid.
sorcerers and wizards also have control flame on their list so it'd work with Prestidigitation too.
also.. if you take the "rewarded" background it gives a feat for free. theres 3 options that can be chosen. magic initiate is one of them.
also: if you're putting them in a dnd setting, you can have all your lawmages be graduates from strixhaven and give them the strixhaven student background which gives the strixhaven initiate feat for free (which, while it limits your cantrip choices, it can let you take a 1st lvl spell from a class who doesnt have access to the cantrip options..).
if you're using variant human or custom lineage for your lawmages, you can take either background and then take the other feat for your free feat for even more magic spells.. or use the background to get magic or strixhaven initiate and then use your racial feat for fey touched or spellsniper or even metamagic adept or eldritch adept to gain extra spells or spell-like features.. all at lvl 1
In my lore, the high sheriff is most often a retired Bard. He has dispel magic, charm, and counterspell available to deal with lots of problems. Charm is excellent for most situations.
The only class that is more about innate power would be the Sorcerer. The rest of the classes are intense training. Especially fighter, barbarian, rogue, wizard, cleric, druid, warlock, ranger, monk, etc. This is my issue with classes, Sorcerer doesn't fit at all. It's all natural abilities that means they do not need to train their abilities, they just happen.
Sorcerers who do not train to contain, safely release, or at least "dampen" their natural "outbursts" DEFAULT into Wild Magic (without the benefits of the subclass), as they simply lack control of when & how their "surges" happen.
-> They either kill themselves accidentally, or are hunted IF they do not show signs of self control / discipline.
The general principle with sorcerers is that while the powers are innate, you still need to learn how to best use them, even if this learning is somewhat self-taught. It is therefore on a similar level to most martial classes, except that the innate ability is natural magical ability rather than natural strength or agility. Depending on the setting, too, things like cleric, druid, and warlock are often more "someone gave you this power" rather than training per se - sorcerers are at least still developing their OWN powers rather simply impressing their god enough for their god to give them more or something like that.
@@Draxynnic Technically, no, you don't need to master it. "Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline, some otherworldly influence, or exposure to unknown cosmic forces. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer."
Warlocks' lore state they are into research and are mostly investigators. "Once a pact is made, a warlock’s thirst for knowledge and power can’t be slaked with mere study and research."
Druids state they need to learn and practice to become good druids.
As for Clerics. Devoting themselves and having faith does take some training.
Sorcerers are the only one that don't fit the archetype of a class since it is more of an innate thing. But if we were to talk about subclasses, there are so many innate subclasses such psiwarrior and soulblade. These are terrible since you get them at 3rd level but before any of that, you get nothing. Not a glimpse of what could happen way before.
@@AnarchySystem A sorcerer is a sorcerer is a sorcerer regardless of whether they do anything to develop their skills, to be sure. But choosing to do so is what distinguishes an epic-level sorcerer from one that just has random strange occurrences around him or her. Just like choosing to develop their skills is the difference between a fighter/barbarian/monk and some random guy swinging a chair in a bar brawl. The 'spark' of sorcery might be innate, but you still need to figure out what you're doing, through self-learning or through training, if you want to actually make something of it.
Also worth keeping in mind that there are some races where, according to sorcerer lore, all members of the race have that spark. Every dragonborn should theoretically be able to become a dragon bloodline sorcerer. Any race with a natural spell-like ability should, theoretically, be able to develop that into full sorcererhood. But just like not everyone with muscles becomes a fighter, monk, or barbarian, not everyone with the sorcerous spark puts in the effort to become a true sorcerer.
Which is probably what's going on with those "innate" subclasses you're complaining about too. The ability might be innate, but it doesn't become actually useful until you've learned how to use it.
@@Draxynnic A sorcerer that studies magic is a sorcerer with levels in wizard. What we are discussing here is the RAW and Lore of Toril. Sure, flavoring is allowed, but remember that falls into homebrew. We are not here to talk about homebrew. Like I said, you just described a sorcerer that took levels in Wizard if they were mastering magic.
No, there is no such thing about dragonborns having that spark. You have to remember that Dragonborns do not come from Toril, they are from another dimension and they aren't actually related to dragons. They are dragonborn because they were exposed to the energies of the Spellplague and made them the way they are. And no, that doesn't make them sorcerers either, that would be plaguescarred.
Here is the thing about Draconic Bloodline: "Your innate magic comes from draconic magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors. Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon or who might even have claimed a dragon parent."
It is an innate talent or ability.
who needs whistles or dancing lights when you can give them sending stones and allow them to talk through them like walkie talkies
I think bards make the best police and nobility class, especially when set to use oratory rather than a musical instrument. They have a broad education and are capable with weapons, armor, and magic. Magic Initiate then simply adds extra magical options. As a police force they can then subdue, attack, and heal. They can use magic to improve themselves or allies in many ways, and have a commanding presence. They also have a broad education and thus more likely to have knowledge relevant to any odd situations they encounter. Not sure about 5e, but bards usually also have a fair number of skills.
In 1st edition pathfinder I would go with a Dwarf or Half Orc Monk and give him a whistle or something similar for signalling.
Stunning blow disarms which is great for law enforcement purposes
Non-lethal damage
Monks are generally highly respected
Darkvision plus torch should be plenty, especially if you don't need to keep your hands free
My ideas are similar, however, I think for me, I'd also add Captain of the Guard having either Magic Initiate but more Offense Oriented. Then having Investigators, who would have Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster, primarily for the Spell zone of truth, meaning you never have to worry about a false confession unless the state forges one.