Justice: High and Low

A Divided System
Dungeons and Dragons generally works on a fantastical model of the feudal system. There were two
forms of justice in a feudal society. The first is High Justice for the elite and the second is Low Justice
for the peasants and the reason for this is in feudal society you can only police what you have the
power to police. To be explicit, a knight and his soldiers are much harder to deal with then poorly
armed peasants.

The peasants were subject to the laws of the local lords while the lords are subject to the authority of
their sovereign and religious leaders.

When it comes to punishment in game it is important to understand that fairly early on between 3rd
and 5th levels the players will be able to handle the guards through superior force and will shift from
the Low Justice system to the High Justice system.

Low Justice
A simple magistrate system should be used for Low Justice as, in terms of narrative and pacing, it is
unnecessary to make overly complicated to avoid derailing the adventure for a trial. This system is
designed to deter PCs from committing crimes.

A plaintiff brings a case against the defendant, both bring their witnesses, and the magistrate (read:
judge) makes a legal ruling. Small villages would handle minor crimes themselves but larger crimes
would be taken to the magistrate of a large town to be handled properly. Cities would likely have a
larger number of magistrates due to a more structured and formal society.

High Justice
High Justice is basically a system that works off of incentives for those with power and enforced by
others with power. They are listed in order of escalation:
 Tradition of Honour – As the PCs enter into the High Justice system they also enter into a
more political world in which traditions of honour may exist. The social pressures from other
nobles, lords, or, if they are numerous enough, other adventuring parties would be significant
to enforce good behaviour. Breaking these traditions would likely damage important deals
between factions and/or lead to social ostracisation.
 Deposit – In the majority of cases it is easier to lock away coin rather than powerful PCs or
NPCs. To enter a city the PCs, especially when they have a reputation, must pay a large
deposit at the gate which will only be returned to them if they cause no damages. If damage
occurs the deposit is used to pay for any damages and any remaining is kept by the city and
the PCs are made to leave.
 Holding People or Property Forfeit – A legal contract is made between the offending party
and the offended party that says they offended party may hold family or property of the
offender as a guarantee of good behaviour.
 Parole – Lords and nobles who detain PCs or NPCs who have committed a violation such as
a crime or have broken a legal agreement may be asked to give parole. Parole is the promise
not to do defined actions or else they will face punishment or death.
 The Threat of Overwhelming Force – If the party causes enough trouble for a lord or a
noble and the lord or noble cares enough about the problem and has enough overwhelming
force (read: army) they may threaten to go to war with the party in order to end the troubles.
Usually the threat is enough but the threat needs to be backed up with actual muscle.
 Declared Outlawed – This places a group outside of the protection of the law, usually by a
Lord or Sovereign. It allows anyone to do anything to the outlawed with no penalty, beyond
the individual’s response.
 Running Guards
Quantity
In Dungeons and Dragons there is concept known as the action economy which is essentially the
collective amount of actions the party can take during their turns as opposed the enemies they are
facing.

The party has an advantage in action economy due to the PCs having an extra action – their bonus
action. Enemies the party face rarely have bonus actions so to balance an action economy an
effective method is to have the party face off against a group of enemies that is the party’s size + 1.

Going above this and the players begin to fight a losing battle, at least when using lower level
opponents. The guards cannot beat the party in quality so they must beat them in quantity.

All guards have a horn or whistle they can blow to call nearby guards to assist them and the number
of guards is limited only by the practical number of guards that can be called before other areas are
left unprotected or if the situation is truly dire, the number of guards in the settlement.

Unity
Guards operate under one simple rule. They work together. For this reason guards of villages, towns,
or cities always work in pairs. They patrol in pairs, detain in pairs, and enjoy pears for lunch in pairs
but unless absolutely necessary they will not split up.

Because of this training if there are two regular guards against on regular thug, the thug is always
outclassed.

Restraint
Guards of any settlement do not seek to kill the populous or the travellers passing through. They seek
to protect those people and enforce the local laws. Therefore, lethal force and tactics are only turned
to if all others have been exhausted or the threat is too dire.

The exception to this is are monsters and savage beasts of the surrounding lands that cannot be
reasoned with. These creatures will be handled with lethal force almost without exception.

Their training teaches them acting quickly and restraining someone is the quickest way to end a fight
and have been trained to use their shields, nets, and manacles to do so.

Training
All guards are also trained to watch people and work with mastiffs and thus have strong perception,
insight, and animal handling skills.

A guard’s duty consists of three main things – spotting trouble, finding trouble, and stopping trouble.
To spot trouble they have bonuses to Insight and Perception, to find trouble they have a bonus to
animal handling to work with a mastiff dog, and to stop trouble they have the abilities mentioned
above.

Pay
The common guard will do tough and dangerous work to enforce the local laws and protect and can
be paid as little as 2sp a day to do so while being armed and armoured as cheaply as possible.

A guard captain or lieutenant will have better pay, arms, and armour than a common guard. The
degree to which this is the case depends on the type of settlement they are in, what legal or illegal
connections they may have, and their time in service.

Because of the poor pay and tough job likely most guards, except those with enough incentive not to,
will at least accept bribes for minor things unlikely to get them in serious trouble.

Incentives don’t have to just be monetary however. Guards from villages or towns are more likely to
be emotionally connected to and invested in protecting their homes from threats of criminals or
monsters compared to guards in cities.
A guard will only risk his life to protect something he cares for, if the pay is worth the risk, and if he is
likely to see either of these things at the end of it all.

The Option of Magical Guards

Considering Magical Crimes
Magic in a low fantasy setting or an area with a mostly non-magical populous is a massive force
multiplier as nearly all people will have no defence against it nor even the knowledge of where they
might start.

To understand the danger of magic beyond the obvious of bodily harm or property damage read the
description of the level one spell Charm Person and consider that being used on you during a real life
police interrogation.

Regulated Magic
There are two things to keep in mind. Firstly guards are only meant be a deterrent for lower level PCs
and secondly to keep guards from sliding down a slippery slope they should be heavily constrained in
what magic they have access to.

These constraints would be set by the government of the region and by the Mage Guild, or other
group that regulates mages and the use of magic.

Magic items are the best way to do this because a magic items usually only have one magical effect
and limited charges. These magic items should contain specific spells that are sanctioned by the
Mage Guild. Most enchanted items will contain only cantrips or first level spells and only in special
cases will they contain second level spells.

Furthermore, sanctioned mages or sanctioned officials of the Mage Guild should be attached to the
guard’s barracks to ensure that magical items are used lawfully and unsanctioned magic is not used.

Crime and Punishment

Properly constrained regulated magic would improve law enforcement and improve the guards’ ability
to handle PCs but in this world it is likely the PCs will have access to fairly powerful magic items
themselves so the effect is somewhat moot.

If the guards have access to more and higher quality magic items than the populace, if the populace
has them at all, the crime in any settlement will be significantly reduced due to increased
effectiveness with some items creating effects similar to those used by real world police.
 Guard Captain Example
Stats
 Armour Class: 18 (scale mail and shield)
 Hit Points: 50
 Speed: 30ft

Attributes
 Skills: Insight +4, Intimidation +4, Investigation +4 Perception +4
 Senses: Passive perception 13, dark vision
 Languages: Common and one other

Actions
 Longsword: +5 to hit, 5ft reach, 1d8+3/1d10+5 slashing damage (versatile)
 Shortsword: +5 to hit, 5ft reach 1d6+5 slashing damage
 Light Crossbow: +4 to hit, 80/320ft distance, 1d8+3 piercing

Abilities
 Call for aid: The Guard Captain blows his horn to call for 1d6 (2, 4, 6) guards as bonus action
 Disarming Attack: The Guard Captain makes a melee attack and his opponent must succeed
a DC 14 strength saving throw or be disarmed
 Multiattack: The Guard Captain can make two attack actions on his turn
 Shield Master: The Guard can push others prone with their shield as a bonus action. A DC 14
strength save is required to stay standing
 Tactical Insight: The Guard Captain has advantage on initiative rolls

Guard Example
Stats
 Armour Class: 15 (leather armour and a shield)
 Hit points: 25
 Speed: 30ft

Attributes
 Skills: Animal Handling, Insight +2, perception +2
 Senses: Passive perception 12, dark vision
 Languages: Common and one other

Actions
 Spear: +4 to hit, 5ft reach 1d6+3 piercing damage
 Dagger: +4 to hit, 5ft reach 1d4+3 piercing damage
 Light Crossbow: +3 to hit, 80/320ft distance, 1d8+2 piercing
 Weighted Rope Net: +3 to hit, reach 5/15ft, 5HP, hit: strength check DC 10 to escape

Abilities
 Call for aid: The Guard blows his horn to call for 1d6 (2, 4, 6) guards as bonus action
 Net Master: The Guard can cast his net as a bonus action
 Pack Tactics: The Guard has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of
your allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated
 Shield Master: The Guard can push others prone with their shield as a bonus action. A DC 12
or 13 strength save is required to stay standing

Tools
 Manacles: Escape with a DC 20 strength or dexterity check or a DC 20 dexterity check using
thieves’ tools. Manacles have 15HP
 Sources
 https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5ichl8/making_guards_great_again/

 https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rptn/rpt164-9-ways-bring-town-guards-life/

 https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3a93g7/laws_within_dd/

 https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/eojqpx/advice_dont_make_your_guards_po
werful_make_them/

 http://kobolds-keep.blogspot.com/2011/05/guilds-in-rpg-settings-part-1-mage.html

 https://www.dungeonsolvers.com/2018/06/01/understanding-the-action-economy-in-dd-
5e/#:~:text=Action%20economy%20is%20a%20concept,to%20the%20nature%20of%205e.