Village militia in 5e?

[PhoenixPhyre]

For a village (~500 max) without a dedicated military force (like a lord and his guards or resident adventurers), I'd say that any CR 3+ creature is an existential threat. How do you avoid such threats?

*Don't build in their territory
*Hire adventurers to go clear out the area
*Change the habitat to reduce the interactions

No amount of static defense (walls, guards, etc) will help against such things. It's like planning a "worst case" scenario for an ornamental garden bridge as "magnitude 10 earthquake centered directly below." When something like that happens, you rebuild. You don't try to harden it against it. Because it's pointless and you'll make the whole thing work more poorly.

[Tetrasodium]

For a village (~500 max) without a dedicated military force (like a lord and his guards or resident adventurers), I'd say that any CR 3+ creature is an existential threat. How do you avoid such threats?

*Don't build in their territory
*Hire adventurers to go clear out the area
*Change the habitat to reduce the interactions

No amount of static defense (walls, guards, etc) will help against such things. It's like planning a "worst case" scenario for an ornamental garden bridge as "magnitude 10 earthquake centered directly below." When something like that happens, you rebuild. You don't try to harden it against it. Because it's pointless and you'll make the whole thing work more poorly.

actively sending those guards out to look for evidence of possible threats, remove things those threats will view as honeypot-like welcome mats, returning in full force to hunt down & eradicate those threats when evidence is discovered is part of actively preventing them

It's less like earthquake mitigation where (afaik), you juat build differently to withstand & fail more safely than hurricane mitigation. A week before hurricane Irma hit florida, the state was pumping water out of lake okechobee through canals & into the ocean. These canals, pumps, etc all need to be maintained, the result was that there were a good 4-6 inches of black formerly muck between the waterline & former banks for a good week or two after the hurricane. Building codes restrict what you can do with your house, how you can build it.the roof, how things like a shed need to be anchored (ie concrete slab in most places), trees need to be trimmed to varying degrees & kept away from powerlines but you can't top your trees in some cities because of the danger it causes from broken branches. Signs can not be over a certain height because the signs or parts of them break off & fly into things which themselves become debris flying into things Redundant & underground powerlines are installed/maintained. so on & so forth. It's not a set it & forget it problem, it's a problem that needs regular & semi-constant work

[JackPhoenix]

Yeah, thing is, you can't just look at the creature's stats and abilities, but also at its ecology and behavior.

Many CR3 monsters won't bother a town, because they have no reason to, or live in enviroments you would't buy towns in, like underground, sea, or mountains

Others are humanoids or other intelligent opponents who won't show alone, but bring whole army or raiding party, and are smart enough to avoid hard targets.

Phase spiders are *nasty*. It's not just that they ignore walls, they are smart... not human smart, but ogre smart... and they can see you from Ethereal plane, but you can't see or hurt them while they are there. You need 2nd level spell to even see the spider in Ethereal, and you'll need 7th level spell to follow it. You need adventurers to deal with them, because they are smart enough to avoid traps and to scout the terrain beforehand, and won't attack if there's 100 people with crossbows waiting for them. And when they attack, you have one round... one in which you are most likely surprised... to counterattack before they disappear again. Only adventurers pack enough firepower to kill it so swiftly in group small enough to bait the spider to attack them.

Wights are limited by the distance they can travel from their lair if they want to get back before sunrise. And you can identify their hideout by its looks, and after you do, block the entrance somehow, or hire adventurers to deal with it. If the threat isn't imminent, you may even get them to do it for free, if you spread rumors about treasures hidden in the tomb, some will eventually decide to check it out. If it attacks at all, instead of picking random prey stupid enough to wander around at night, it will be at night, giving the (presumably human) guards disadvantage, and it won't attack alone: there will be travelers disappearing for a time before it gets enough zombies. If the village is small enough, it may go for all-out attack, hoping to break through the gate and kill the defenders before before their reinforcements arrive, using the dead to replace any loses to its zombie squad, for larger towns, zombies would serve better to distract the guards while it climbs over the wall and murders lone people or small groups to turn them into more zombies. Even lot of armed guards won't help you much: it can kill some people, and before the guards get there to deal with it, it's gone to strike elsewhere, leaving only zombies behind. Wight's fluff suggests it would go for the first variant, but it's smart enough to use the second plan.

Dopplegangers and hags are more likely to cause trouble indirectly, potentially destroying the militia's combat ability from within by turning them against each other. Wererats may do the same, werewolves are more direct, but you may predict when they could appear (just look at how big the shiny thing in the night sky is). Ironically, they are also a threat militia training won't really help you with, as all those weapons you've spent training with are useless against them, proper silvered weapons are expensive, and peasant children are just as good at throwing Molotov's coctails flasks of oil at them as guards. Traps, nets and fire are the way to go with them. Or adventurers, who *do* have proper equipemnt to deal with them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

actively sending those guards out to look for evidence of possible threats, remove things those threats will view as honeypot-like welcome mats, returning in full force to hunt down & eradicate those threats when evidence is discovered is part of actively preventing them

It's less like earthquake mitigation where (afaik), you juat build differently to withstand & fail more safely than hurricane mitigation. A week before hurricane Irma hit florida, the state was pumping water out of lake okechobee through canals & into the ocean. These canals, pumps, etc all need to be maintained, the result was that there were a good 4-6 inches of black formerly muck between the waterline & former banks for a good week or two after the hurricane. Building codes restrict what you can do with your house, how you can build it.the roof, how things like a shed need to be anchored (ie concrete slab in most places), trees need to be trimmed to varying degrees & kept away from powerlines but you can't top your trees in some cities because of the danger it causes from broken branches. Signs can not be over a certain height because the signs or parts of them break off & fly into things which themselves become debris flying into things Redundant & underground powerlines are installed/maintained. so on & so forth. It's not a set it & forget it problem, it's a problem that needs regular & semi-constant work

All of those are things you can do with resources. But a village of 500 people doesn't have those resources. So they do the simpler "don't build in those areas, or if you do, rebuild after a perfect storm" approach. Much like how traditional japanese houses are built very light and cheap so that after an earthquake or fire or storm you can rebuild easier and they don't cause much damage in the event.

It's like a cloud provider planning what to do to keep running in case of an all-out nuclear war. The answer? Not much. You'll be too busy picking up the pieces of civilization to worry about your stored music much.

The sad answer for most villages faced with CR 3+ threats on anything other than a "100-year flood" scale is that they can't survive. So trying to worry about that is pointless. Worry about the threats you can deal with, rebuild from the threats you can't deal with.

I agree that a small city (5k is a large town or small city depending on details) has more resources for such things. But that's way out of scope here.

[strangebloke]

I've pointed out that a town of 500 is too small for the 10 person militia & he just keeps saying "but my town is 300-500". The fact that it is such a small town in such a dangerous area makes his idea of drunken picnics every couple months as sufficient for the town militia in such a dangerous area even more ludicrous, but that's another point that he's ignoring in favor of handwaving.

Because you've failed to persuade anyone that a town of 500 couldn't have a militia of 100 or more. At least, militia in the sense of "Guys with weapons who can sorta use them." No, a simple farming village couldn't afford 10 or more full-time guards, but depending on the circumstances, that might be completely unneeded or completely affordable. Some tiny villages can afford 100 guards. Some huge cities need barely any defenses. You're casting your statements way too strongly for them to be taken seriously.

Not so likely... the difference being that my town of 5k has 10-20 guards/scoutrs/etc with full time guard duties & at least 3 on duty at any given time. Those duties are proactive prevention & mitigation of threats. Even if some of those guards occasionally get killed, they are well oaid & may or may not originate from the local town. It has those guards because running the numbers to see if 100 militia members could competently keep the town safe without excessive time investment in training/duty cycles for a militia so turned to a small tax on residents to pay for full time guards because the resulting investment suggested that the militia alone could not . His town has "well everyone is watching" plus "well they must have built a wall at some point" A wall is his only defense

1. Commoners don't need training. 100 commoners, untrained, with no proficiencies and straight 10s, can kill a lot of threats. At the most, training them in the usage of a single weapon would be worth it, probably.

2. What will a guard see while standing in the gate during the day that no one else will? What will a guard on patrol during the day see that one of the 300+ farmers in the acres surrounding wouldn't see? What would a scout see in the forest that a hunter who lives and works there wouldn't see? The most you need is a night watchman.

3. Guards don't add much fighting power. A guard is approximately as good as 1.5 commoners in a fight.

Yes walls are great against some threats... That does not mean that they should be your only means of defense in a dangerous area. A wall alone will stop most threats in our world, in just about every d&d setting that is not such a true statement. I'm not denying that it is one important part of keeping this town safe.

What threats are:
1: aggressive enough to want to run into a small town and start fighting, (which is probably suicidal for any CR 3 threat that is operating alone.)
2: mobile enough to get past a wall without being slowed down significantly (and seen as a result.)
3: Relatively common in the regions small towns are.

For monsters who just want food, a town with walls is a hard target that probably isn't worth the effort. Predators live long successful lives by attacking isolated and/or wounded targets, not by leeroying into a nest of enemies. A phase spider has no motivation to attack a human settlement. There's easier prey for such a creature everywhere. Smart monsters might attack a village, but only if they're very confident of victory, or if they have a really particular reason to want that village gone. Hence my statement that if a Wight is attacking your village, you're probably screwed, becacuse he probably came with enough backup to win.

Wolves are a type of threat that can be chased off with rocks, aggressive flailing, & loud noises.

So can lions and bears, which are CR 1. In fact, such predators can generally be chased off by a single human. Presumably, dire wolves can be chased off as well. I fail to see your point.

[strangebloke]

All of those are things you can do with resources. But a village of 500 people doesn't have those resources. So they do the simpler "don't build in those areas, or if you do, rebuild after a perfect storm" approach. Much like how traditional japanese houses are built very light and cheap so that after an earthquake or fire or storm you can rebuild easier and they don't cause much damage in the event.

It's like a cloud provider planning what to do to keep running in case of an all-out nuclear war. The answer? Not much. You'll be too busy picking up the pieces of civilization to worry about your stored music much.

The sad answer for most villages faced with CR 3+ threats on anything other than a "100-year flood" scale is that they can't survive. So trying to worry about that is pointless. Worry about the threats you can deal with, rebuild from the threats you can't deal with.

I agree that a small city (5k is a large town or small city depending on details) has more resources for such things. But that's way out of scope here.

I think you're overselling "CR 3+."

If they're stupid, and many are (owlbears, giant scorpions, etc) the commoners can trap and kill them, possibly without taking casualties.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I think you're overselling "CR 3+."

If they're stupid, and many are (owlbears, giant scorpions, etc) the commoners can trap and kill them, possibly without taking casualties.

Also: how prepared is the village? Which gets back to our discussion of militia training and defensive posture. An owlbear is going to struggle to overcome a thick stone wall with 20 people atop it throwing javelins, even if they're doing no bonus damage and attacking at +0.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think you're overselling "CR 3+."

If they're stupid, and many are (owlbears, giant scorpions, etc) the commoners can trap and kill them, possibly without taking casualties.

That's true, but those are also the types that wouldn't have a reason to attack the village (at least not alone).

Also: how prepared is the village? Which gets back to our discussion of militia training and defensive posture. An owlbear is going to struggle to overcome a thick stone wall with 20 people atop it throwing javelins, even if they're doing no bonus damage and attacking at +0.

A village with a thick stone wall is very unlikely to be attacked by an owlbear in the first place, so...

[Lord Vukodlak]

Also: how prepared is the village? Which gets back to our discussion of militia training and defensive posture. An owlbear is going to struggle to overcome a thick stone wall with 20 people atop it throwing javelins, even if they're doing no bonus damage and attacking at +0.

No village is going to have a stonewall, way to expensive to make. More likely a palisade of logs or earthen mounds.

[Tetrasodium]

Because you've failed to persuade anyone that a town of 500 couldn't have a militia of 100 or more. At least, militia in the sense of "Guys with weapons who can sorta use them." No, a simple farming village couldn't afford 10 or more full-time guards, but depending on the circumstances, that might be completely unneeded or completely affordable. Some tiny villages can afford 100 guards. Some huge cities need barely any defenses. You're casting your statements way too strongly for them to be taken seriously.

It is a simple matter of not being able to clone oneself. There are only so many hours in a day & it's going to work out to 20+ hours per member per week between trai9ning & duty on top of being farmers & such. You can reduce that number by expanding the size to include a larger chunk of the town similar to many monstrous & demihuman races, but that is a different matter entirely because you have moved from militia to cultural shift. As to the "cant afford it", you snipped oput this bit of my post when you quoted it "Paying for 3 full time guard shifts to always be staffed in a town of 500 works out to an average of about 36 copper/villager per month", provide them with a comfortable home, maybe a discount at the bar/share of crop sales/whatever & that number goes down even further. If the village of 500 is so impoverished that it can not manage to scrape together 3 silver 6 copper per villager in coin & tangible incentives, they probably don't deserve to exist on account of not having anything of value & being unable to budget pouring water out of a boot if the directions were on the bottom.

1. Commoners don't need training. 100 commoners, untrained, with no proficiencies and straight 10s, can kill a lot of threats. At the most, training them in the usage of a single weapon would be worth it, probably.

2. What will a guard see while standing in the gate during the day that no one else will? What will a guard on patrol during the day see that one of the 300+ farmers in the acres surrounding wouldn't see? What would a scout see in the forest that a hunter who lives and works there wouldn't see? The most you need is a night watchman.

3. Guards don't add much fighting power. A guard is approximately as good as 1.5 commoners in a fight.

it is not just about fighting power & standing at a gate, look at the stuff I talk about those guards & such doing

That only works if all of those villagers are standing around the target equipped & ready to attack. Yes mechanically it works, practically it does not.

What threats are:
1: aggressive enough to want to run into a small town and start fighting, (which is probably suicidal for any CR 3 threat that is operating alone.)
2: mobile enough to get past a wall without being slowed down significantly (and seen as a result.)
3: Relatively common in the regions small towns are.

For monsters who just want food, a town with walls is a hard target that probably isn't worth the effort. Predators live long successful lives by attacking isolated and/or wounded targets, not by leeroying into a nest of enemies. A phase spider has no motivation to attack a human settlement. There's easier prey for such a creature everywhere. Smart monsters might attack a village, but only if they're very confident of victory, or if they have a really particular reason to want that village gone. Hence my statement that if a Wight is attacking your village, you're probably screwed, becacuse he probably came with enough backup to win.



So can lions and bears, which are CR 1. In fact, such predators can generally be chased off by a single human. Presumably, dire wolves can be chased off as well. I fail to see your point.

1: a threat that was lured in by unmaintained surroundings /sewers/etc providing an attractive lure. I mentioned this. Yes it is debatable how much time it might take to maintain & clear up anything that would lure in threats, but that time is absolutely more than zero or a drunken picnic every couple months... It is also likely more than a few hours once a year.
2: Plenty
3: By your telling this farming village is so impoverished that they can't scrape together 180 gold in pay & incentives to pay for three 8 hour shifts of guards to be on duty every day of a 30 day month, have no mine or whathave you allowing them to produce that money, etc. It seems like this village is someplace hospitable like barovia.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

No village is going to have a stonewall, way to expensive to make. More likely a palisade of logs or earthen mounds.

I believe this has been gone over many times already. That may be true for some settlements, but not for others.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I believe this has been gone over many times already. That may be true for some settlements, but not for others.

This goes for the whole question. It's undecidable unless we give more specifics. It's also strongly setting dependent for the basic facts (ie politics, settlement patterns, monster prevalence, weapon training, culture, races, and the list goes on).

[Tanarii]

Yup.

I can tell you how I'd organize it, if I was a village busy-body who spent time trying to boss other people around (mayor, headman, etc):

Quick Response Militia - Some decent amount of strong backs that work inside or near the actual village, and have a little bit of free time to train occasionally. Maybe 5-10% of the population at best (25-50 people), since most able bodied workers will be in the fields during the day. Living and working in the village probably means they're relatively wealthy too. These guys are able to grab the best weapons and armor they can afford, assemble, and respond to a threat to the village quickly, preferably less than an hour. Also practice some basics tactics.

Posse (Militia)- All the skilled woodsmen, hunters, etc you can find. Those young men who have been learning to sneak around the woods and take down things with their slings? Yeah, them too. Takes two days on average to assemble because these cats are often out doing their thing overnight. Used to hunt down specific threats outside the village as needed. Again, maybe 5-10% of the population, 25-50 people.

Oh **** Militia - Everyone who can fight. Takes a day to pull them in from the fields, and given how bad the situation is people probably already got killed in the process of assembling anyway. Given more warning it may be better to abandon the village anyway. If not, the QRM effectively form the NCO core, and the Posse the scout detachments if needed.

In a frontier area, I'd expect to have more people trained as woodsmen, but less with money and working locally. So I'd organize a single Militia that would form as quick as it could. OTOH I doubt the entire militia could form in less than a week, because these guys are more likely to be spread out over an area.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yup.

I can tell you how I'd organize it, if I was a village busy-body who spent time trying to boss other people around (mayor, headman, etc):

Quick Response Militia - Some decent amount of strong backs that work inside or near the actual village, and have a little bit of free time to train occasionally. Maybe 5-10% of the population at best (25-50 people), since most able bodied workers will be in the fields during the day. Living and working in the village probably means they're relatively wealthy too. These guys are able to grab the best weapons and armor they can afford, assemble, and respond to a threat to the village quickly, preferably less than an hour. Also practice some basics tactics.

Posse (Militia)- All the skilled woodsmen, hunters, etc you can find. Those young men who have been learning to sneak around the woods and take down things with their slings? Yeah, them too. Takes two days on average to assemble because these cats are often out doing their thing overnight. Used to hunt down specific threats outside the village as needed. Again, maybe 5-10% of the population, 25-50 people.

Oh **** Militia - Everyone who can fight. Takes a day to pull them in from the fields, and given how bad the situation is people probably already got killed in the process of assembling anyway. Given more warning it may be better to abandon the village anyway. If not, the QRM effectively form the NCO core, and the Posse the scout detachments if needed.

In a frontier area, I'd expect to have more people trained as woodsmen, but less with money and working locally. So I'd organize a single Militia that would form as quick as it could. OTOH I doubt the entire militia could form in less than a week, because these guys are more likely to be spread out over an area.

The time thing is also a big problem. Subsistence farming means you're spending lots of time spread out over a large area, usually in small groups without weapons to hand (beyond farm tools). Unless you have hours or days of warning, you're not likely to be able to assemble a substantial fighting force. A canny predator can ambush and kill several groups before the warning even goes out, and then can retreat and hide.

[Sigreid]

Roman army construction also exhibited unusually high levels of sophistication and quality in their constructions. That doesn't mean your village should have crappy constructions, but it's worth thinking about as a differentiator of defensive philosophy. This village are fortress-builders; this village has mandatory archery training but limited walls; that one has no defenses, but there's a lone tower rising from the nearby forest...

In areas with low skill or resources digging a trench and using the earth excavated to build a wall of sorts provides at least some protection and was common from the earliest settlements. Not as good as a fortress but a lot better than nothing.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

In areas with low skill or resources digging a trench and using the earth excavated to build a wall of sorts provides at least some protection and was common from the earliest settlements. Not as good as a fortress but a lot better than nothing.

I figure there's no point in building even rudimentary defenses if ten minutes' walk down the road is a conclave of level 20 wizards who turn any hostile creature that approaches into ash.

[Tanarii]

The time thing is also a big problem. Subsistence farming means you're spending lots of time spread out over a large area, usually in small groups without weapons to hand (beyond farm tools). Unless you have hours or days of warning, you're not likely to be able to assemble a substantial fighting force. A canny predator can ambush and kill several groups before the warning even goes out, and then can retreat and hide.

Agreed, and obviously I'm making some huge assumptions about the percentage of a village that has all of: albe-bodied, money, time, and works locally in the village during the day. And of course willingness.

There may be no one who meets those criteria at all in an entire village. The only option may be Posses and Oh Crap All Hands on Deck Militias. Both of which could take significant time to assemble even in the case of a serious threat.

[Sigreid]

I figure there's no point in building even rudimentary defenses if ten minutes' walk down the road is a conclave of level 20 wizards who turn any hostile creature that approaches into ash.

Fair enough. I had assumed a village of ordinary folks who would expect to be on their own for at least a while before help came.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Fair enough. I had assumed a village of ordinary folks who would expect to be on their own for at least a while before help came.

Yeah, definitely. I'm interested in building out multiple sort of archetypes, so when you have an unusual village or township you've got a preexisting pool of parts you can draw from to make it feel unusual to the players before they even set foot in it.

[strangebloke]

The time thing is also a big problem. Subsistence farming means you're spending lots of time spread out over a large area, usually in small groups without weapons to hand (beyond farm tools). Unless you have hours or days of warning, you're not likely to be able to assemble a substantial fighting force. A canny predator can ambush and kill several groups before the warning even goes out, and then can retreat and hide.

I want to add that DND Farmers aren't typically subsistence level farmers. Varies by setting of course, but for instance Shire folk are shown to be rather wealthy.

And in DND, it's justified. Plant growth is a thing and even if only 1/100000 people can cast it... A single day's casting could hit 500 acres, which in this towns car, would be more than enough to support it's entire population.

Incidentally, this is why druids and nature clerics are beloved in my setting.

[Sigreid]

Yeah, definitely. I'm interested in building out multiple sort of archetypes, so when you have an unusual village or township you've got a preexisting pool of parts you can draw from to make it feel unusual to the players before they even set foot in it.

Oh, yeah. In real earth past attacking a Spartan village was very different than attacking an Athenian one.

Similarly, as they level up my characters are always willing to invest heavily in the defence of whatever settlement they call home. Eventually the party's self interest really changes the calculus of attacking their home. That's whether they have any interest in the politics of the area or not.

[KorvinStarmast]

Eh, environment is part of it, but for the rest I don't know what is the actual best term. Typical behaviors? Sleep patterns? Basically, where does the thing live and what are its habits?

Ecology ... OK I think you were doing a "beast centric" thing and I was look at it from the human PoV and assessing the battlefield. Ecology fits if it's about beast centric concerns.

[JoeJ]

The time thing is also a big problem. Subsistence farming means you're spending lots of time spread out over a large area, usually in small groups without weapons to hand (beyond farm tools). Unless you have hours or days of warning, you're not likely to be able to assemble a substantial fighting force. A canny predator can ambush and kill several groups before the warning even goes out, and then can retreat and hide.

The basic premise of a village is that's where all the local farmers have their houses. If somebody disappears, that's bound to be noticed by that evening. Unless the victim was universally hated, there will be a search. Villagers aren't stupid, so if they find any evidence of a dangerous predator a group of them will do their best to track it back to its lair and put an end to it.