More variety for NPC guards?

Started by Egon the Monkey, June 30, 2020, 07:33:55 PM

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Egon the Monkey

After a day of back and forth ganking and sending wars between Nephezar and the one Copper Torc PC at the time, we got a lot of discussion on Discord about NPCs seeming fairly inept when people kicked off fights in town. I know some DMs are hesitant to have NPCs be too reactive in case it makes a PVP attack impossible, since the attackers are taking a risk. On the other hand, if the NPCs aren't reacting, there isn't any additional risk. And if there's only one PC in a faction, the faction's entire reputation essentially depends on  one PC's ability to take on multiple attackers.

I've noticed that all the NPC guards I've seen have been armoured melee characters. I can see how they could just swarm an attack. Rather than that, why not have some mages in there with stuff like See Invis, Blindness/Deafness, Slow and Dispel? Rather than being a direct threat of harm to attackers, they could blunt the attackers' advantage by stripping off their pre-cast buffs, applying debuffs (but not damage) and giving defending PCs more of a chance to counterattack. Combine that with the Invis Dispelling Glyphs we often used to have at entrances in previous chapters, and I can see raids being more risky, and thus more shocking when successful. As you have to expose yourself to attack quite some time before you're in range of your targeted PC. Rather than being allegedly there to defend (but being inept at it) guards could be there to raise the alarm and encourage PCs to back them up (but be good at it).

PCs would still be the important deciding factor, but NPCs could level the playing field between a heavily prepared attacker and an unsuspecting defender.