Which D&D Class Makes the BEST Police Force? 

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.

And the druid could, for whatever reason, also be themed around a bat and wear black leather armour.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

Immediately adding the lawmage concept to my campaign world. Thanks Tom, another banger!

"This is an unsanctioned use of magical energy..."

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.

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 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

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.

“CHEESE IT ITS THE FEDS!!” *sound of a marching band approaching*

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

Like this, but probably the city would have to employ a specialist team of higher-level casters for more difficult problems.

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.

warlocks. not only would they be effective but its thematic too

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'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

Random fact, there were Police swords in the UK. There are some examples at the royal armoires in Leeds.

Police force idea: Paladins of a god of Justice, equipped with club and shield as main weapon, and sending stones for communication.

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

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.

have all your Lawmages patrol in duos, one with Entangle, and one with Goodberry.

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)

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". 😊

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.

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.

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.

The video is very specific for D&D, and it is in the name, ergo constitutes no fair ground for critic. My comment is more generic, despite of that, but I hope it remains valid for most D&D settings. I believe we seldom want a police force to be too efficient in a "Medieval" fantasy setting. Is better to have them ill equipped to deal with treats, and doing the best despite that lack of tools, than have them properly equipped. Exceptions may exist, perhaps there is that ONE human capital with a impossibly great police force, where citizens sleep in peace and tranquillity. But what makes this place special is the fact that everywhere else that is not the case. Normal people live in danger, only powerful lords are relatively safe in their castles. That one village may perhaps be a trap under control of Illithids. Even if it isn't, and the efficient police force is merely a consequence of good common sense more a little good luck, the circumstance of having this peace that no one else has in itself attracts some problems. More immigrants than what the city and region can sustain being one obvious issue this place probably has. Perhaps they would need to build a reputation of inhumane cruelty (even if not entirely true) in order to administrate the complication. In any case, in real life efficient and trustworthy police is always good to have. In fiction too much of that is usually less desirable than too little.

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.

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 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

I'd say it's unlikely that mages would work as police unless they were forced to do it as they'd think they were too good for that kind of work. Police work is mostly boring, you have to work nights and weekends and a lot of it is dealing with jerks and drunks. In our world police forces have tried to increase the number of college graduates in their ranks but they haven't been able to keep them. If they don't move up into detective or administrative positions they just quit and move on to a profession where they can get the 9-5 office job. Even just setting up as a "dry cleaner" with the cleaning feature of the the Prestidigitation cantrip would be easier work.

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

Diviner Detective will ALWAYS find you, yuan-ti purebloods get discriminated against because truth spells don't work on them, Paladins and clerics can heal victims, smite undead, make a thunder wave to alert people, and cast Light as a cantrip. Most guard captains would be a cleric or paladin; law-inclined, trusted members if the church, and have the above mentioned capabilities.

who needs whistles or dancing lights when you can give them sending stones and allow them to talk through them like walkie talkies

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.

We now had gnome eldritch knight sheriffs. Other city just has some paladins as captains, and rangers as free militia.

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)

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!

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

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.

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

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)

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.

Bards have access to the Sleep spell.

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"?

Command is a fun spell. It forced the target to take an action. It was a lot more direct control than Charm. Toss your gun, hit your friend etc.

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

another great video !

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.

Cleric, Law Domain.

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 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

Hands down Rangers. They can track criminals. Engage criminals in close and far range. Lay traps for criminals. Also they can talk to animals to help get a star witness is an animal.

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.

I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos

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

A bit unusual but I always liked the idea of Dark Sun’s Templars as basically being Warlock police.

Use case for Sorcerer types in your lawmage force: Community Outreach Personel xD

I feel like you'd benefit from having them patrol in pairs of a control wizard and bard, then having enforcer types being clerics and more forceful wizards being called in for backup

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.

Brilliant bit of insight on policing in DND, specialized and mass-produceable examples I love

There could be an in-universe Monster Manual of regional and generally common creatures, detailing the best way to defend against them.

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.

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

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.

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.

3e: Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. 5e: Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned.

You could equip every guard with a Healer's Kit to free up a cantrip slot instead of learning Spare the Dying.

My guess before watching the video is Druid. Druids have longstrider for catching up to the criminals, thorn whip and mold earth for grabbing and slowing them down. Detect magic as a needed ritual, speak with animals for investigating, spike growth for not letting them run, same with entangle. Plant growth when needed, conjure animals for an instant swat team, dispel magic, and even earthbind for catching fliers. Wildshape even is super useful, being able to run, traverse difficult areas, and even trap criminals in pursuit (I guess I’m imagining them catching a lot of street criminals) This is probably cheating but bards + Druids seem perfect. The one thing Druids don’t have are social spells and bards have those in spades. Expertise helps too. Bards + Druids seem like the perfect team EDIT: ok so after finishing the video I still basically stand by Druid, though I hadn’t fully considered the lethality of some options. Shillelagh is a good pick. The mentioning of magic missile made me think of a v scary cop: a hexblade w aberrant dragonmark. You combine hexblades curse with the one magic missile cast from aberrant dragonmark to hit a creature for 16.5 damage with no save or attack. And this recharges on a short rest! You also have martial weapons for knocking out dissenters, shield for big attacks, hex for interrogation or even tracking to give them disadvantage on stealth. And the fact that all of their features recharge on a short rest makes them super potent and deadly as a militaristic police force. Friends + prestidigitation, a whip and a crossbow are your best friends. Maybe magic stone or Eldritch blast for better ranged attacks. A whole force of these guys sounds miserable for the average citizen, as any one of them have a 50/50 of being able to kill 3 people in one shot

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.)

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.

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 Trudi Canavan's Kyralia book series, magicians (basically the setting's wizards) are often used as law enforcement.

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.

I think a bit more care should be given to distinguishing between what police *allege* their role to be versus what it actually is. Namely, the role of police has always been to do violence to protect the property rights of the powerful. There can be a fair bit of nuance regarding how that's actually implemented in society, and the degree of effort that is put towards obscuring or limiting this reality (whether with additional duties or just careful propaganda) so as to maintain the consent of the policed, but everything starts from that premise, not one of actually helping and protecting the average person. And this can exist on a pretty wide scale, ranging from trditional Lakota policing (people selected from low-status positions in society like clowns on a rotation (to prevent entrenchment of power) stictly to protect the success of the big annual bison hunt that determines the bulk of the community's food for the year) to modern American police (self-selecting bullies charged with protecting and feeding the prison-industrial slave complex by any means up to and including open theft from vulnerable people, use of chemical weapons banned by the Geneva Protocol, and bombing entire city blocks). In most D&D societies... you'd tend to see something much closer to the latter, just due to the way levels and especially higher level magic and hit dice create such entrenched power structures that are difficult to topple even with massed action from the lower classes; there's extremely minimal need to court the consent of the governed, and the police would tend to become even more brutally repressive than the worst seen here on Earth... unless Angels, Archons, Guardinals, and other such agents of Cosmic Good regularly showed up to disrupt these powers and create parallel power structures (eg Lawful Good churches, Chaotic Good cults, and wandering adventurers/Paladins lacking fealty to any mortal power) to keep the police in check. Depending on how successful the Celestials are in this task (likely not very, given how much easier the Fiends would have it because they can just interfere with Celestial plans and let power do as it naturally tends to, without having to actually work to build any new power structures) you may see anything from a minimal change from the above to police being relegated largely to a role of protecting against monster attacks. Police would tend to be Wizards, Walocks, and Sorcerers, whereas those policing the police would tend to be Clerics, Bards, Rangers, Paladins, and Druids, though it really need to be emphasized that these would be trends rather than hard rules.

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.

I loved your ideas, and I don't even use the DnD ruleset, lol. Great way to think about how to adapt magic to different practical uses despite being from different sources.

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.

I think the latter type of a Druidic guardcorp would probably incorporate their police force and socialwork together, at least a little bit. Shelters for the unfortunate being connected to the police stations so that whenever a law-mage finishes their shift with goodberries to spare then they can give out the remaining ones to those who have assembled at the station's shelter. Shelters themselves would probably receive a lot of support from retired and in-training law-mages who, while not able to take to the streets on patrol, were still capable of casting a first level spell.

In any case, that's a great video, very interesting. And my comments have no intention to disrespect the channel in any way.

Fairy Fire: lets people know who is running away from crime scene, gives advantage and deals with invisible creatures.

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.

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.

The idea of "policing" is only about two hundred years old. Maybe less. While some parts of Europe may be able to trace their police history back to civilian volunteer neighborhood watch groups, the police in America trace their origins back to bounty hunters that tracked down runaway slaves. The average D&D setting is not going to have police. At the most, the larger towns might have an organized town guard or a private military company that runs security for minor nobles, powerful guilds, or in most cases the one factory, mine, or industry that keeps the town alive. If you introduce a regular police force, you run the risk of players asking, "Why don't we just call the police." This is a problem that Call of Cthulhu modules almost always deal with by adding the contingency, "If the police are called, they show up and are either immediately killed or tricked by the cultists and leave having done nothing." The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer solved the call the police issue quite nicely. Every time anyone mentioned the police someone else said, "The police in this town are deeply stupid." Any time the police actually showed up, they either tried to shoot or arrest the hero, or they did absolutely nothing of value to anyone. The Guild Master's Guide to Ravnica has a few useful stat blocks for police since that setting is more modern fantasy set on Prague than medieval fantasy. The first MTG novel for the very first Ravnica card set is a crime noir novel about a Boros Wojek (military police detective), a Golgari Assassin, and a Selenyan bodyguard on leave teaming up to solve a series of murder investigations. The entire gimmick of the Azorius Guild of Ravnica is "fascist police state." As such, the order domain cleric and the various Azorius lawmages in the monster chapter solve most needs when it comes to policing. If you really need to homebrew a police force, just give the npcs the Azorius background and let them cast the spells on that background's spell list. They can spam cantrips and cast level 1 and 2 spells once a day. Allow some higher level spells only if the base stat block is higher CR. But all this overlooks the real problem with fantasy police. Real-world police don't serve a worthwhile purpose in society. They are the tool through which the state exercises its monopoly on violence on the people. In fantasy worlds police only serve to impede the heroes. Comic book police don't help heroes. They prevent Superman from dealing with Lex Luthor, try to force Captain America to crack down on unions and peaceful protesters, and they fire dozens of bullets into brick walls while trying to kill Spiderman. In any tabletop setting, the police are either going to be the minor antagonists the players have to evade or slaughter, or they'll be complete non entities. After all, the police are deeply stupid.

I like the idea of monk and hexblade police forces. Cities with a Monastery keeping the peace, or a lord that trains his men into making a pact without suspecting. "Just do this ritual and you gain powers" They wont even have to supply the weapons!

I'm going to make it a point to come up with some dancing light patterns like you suggested. I would love to see other people's suggestions before developing g my own. Please post'em!

If I remember correctly high level rogues and/or investigators in Pathfinder Second Edition get the ability to tell when people are lying unerringly without magic, that or might just have been the ability to lie through/deceive magical/divine abilities to tell truth.

I think sorcerers could as the chief of the guard force, they wouldn't be required to be on site for everything but for a big threat or operation they can act as powerhouses.

One flaw I could see with druids is that however well the abilities might mesh with law enforcement mechanically, they'd be a bit out of touch thematically with an urban environment. A mix of wizard and cleric versions would probably be more likely in cities, with guards paired up so that one could do whatever the other couldn't. The druid version might be more likely to be seen in rural areas that have a local culture of respect for nature - particularly since in such areas there might only be a handful around, so self-sufficiency becomes more important than being able to signal for help.

I don't see why we even need to worry about classes. Just put together a standard enemy table together with something like a spear, club, shield, and something like scale mail for equipment. Then give them proficiency in things like Insight, Perception, and Medicine and some Cantrips like Prestidigitation, Sending, and Dancing Lights. You can also give them all minor magical items like manacles that suppress any magic cast by or on the wearer or some sending stones to send messages back to a central locations. Also, they don't need to be amazing for combat. If a strong monster breaks into the town, their first priorities should be calling for backup and evacuating the area. If the monster is too strong for the regular guards, they could end up calling in the few special forces in the town that could take on that monster. Modern police aren't usually equipped with weapons that could deal with a criminal wearing body armor and using a high powered rifle. When a really serious situation like that happens, they call in the swat team.

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.

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

well considering some of the history of policing that I know of, them maybe having command sounds terrifying