Historically, one of the most common reasons for brigandry was young men recruited for war before learning a trade. Afterward they're released from service and the only skill they have is killing. These become mercenaries in war torn regions but in peacetime they find they're no longer able to sell their sword and resort to highway robbery.
I've got a bit of a running joke in my campaign setting... the bandit groups known as "The Shadow Wolves". Six (and counting) entirely unrelated bandit groups who didn't know the name was already being used by a different bandit group.
I'm prepping a bandit group for my new campaign's first quest called the Songbirds. During a stick up a few months before the campaign starts, they unknowingly held up a witch, and the core membership of the group was cursed to sing everything they say. The Songbird name isn't official, it's just the name passed along official channels, and it pisses the group off to no end. Mechanically they won't be a difficult set of fights, but I wanted a memorable and fun first journey, and most of my players are brand new to D&D.
My players were so proud of themselves for slaying the local bandits and protecting the town from these marauders. As they went through the bodies, one of them found a small locket that had a love letter inside addressed to a woman and signed with, "I hope to escape and see you soon my love." After that the players felt so guilty that they always asked around whenever they reached a new town, just to see if they could find the woman named inside the locket. Sadly, they never did, and she never found out what happened to her lover. Great video as always! ❤
@@crazyscotsman9327 Thanks! It was a great moment that happened pretty naturally. It was especially funny to see the players act so guilt stricken when their characters were all evil or neutral alignments. (Edited for typos)
Bandits can also be a useful DM tool, by taking excess cash out of the system. When the party were getting a bit too rich for the good of the local economy (and game balance at their level !), I set up a group of bandits who demanded a tithe every time the players emerged from the local mega-dungeon. The first time, the party were low level and tapped out of spells, low on HP and out of healing after a torrid time in the depths. They realised it was a fight they couldn't win, and paid up. After a few times, it became completely routine, and they got pally with the bandits, paying them a little extra to keep other adventurers away from "their turf". That was 30-odd real world years ago, and about 20 game-world years. The (once nameless) leader of the bandits is now one of the key NPC's in the world. He got involved in politics, led a province in a bloody war of independence from a tyrannical overlord (with lots of help from his friends, the PC's !), and now runs his own small country. From a DM perspective, he's gone from taking out surplus cash to employing new parties and paying them to achieve his goals.....
That's really cool actually, like a sort of Mafia that formed taking advantage of struggling adventurers, then expanding to offer... "services" to said -victims- parties.
I love this idea. It also punishes the murder hobo groups who try to fight anyway and end up dead. Though how would you handle it if the party decided to take a long rest before exiting?
@@baeneth Good question ! At it's simplest, it's just a case that as DM you can easily add critters to any encounter to make it do the job. But some players are of the type who don't recognise a fight that's designed to be unwinnable (the old "if it's got a stat bloc, we can kill it" line). In which case, I'd give the bandit a spellcaster or two, or some other way to incapacitate the party. At which point it becomes an RP exercise; with the party tied up, the bandit chief explains they need to pay the toll each time they come through after which they'll be let go. Then (as DM) always make sure the bandits level up in line with the party. Giving the bandits names and personalities helps too.... it's amazing how players will treat someone with a name as an NPC who can be interacted with, while something nameless is just a random monster to be killed.
@@seanbissett-powell5916 This is all absolute brilliance. I don't run D&D (though not for lack of interest) but this concept applies well to a number of games, and I'm already forming ideas for everything from Star Wars to Vampire: the Masquerade. Thank you for a new way to prune my players' surplus loot! :D
When peace broke out after a war, it probably would not have been uncommon for unemployed mercenaries to turn to brigandry. So, the idea of large bands of bandits with a command structure isn't all that ridiculous especially if the territory they operate in isn't all that well organized and or powerful.
Adding to what Cody had said... Amongst the bandit's belongings, you find an unfinished carving of what appears to be a woman in a ball gown. Upon inspection, you find a messaged carved into the bottom of the base which reads "To Bethany, A little princess for my little princess. Love always, Papa."
You can also combo this into the revenge story.A few adventures later your party is challenged by an young women."Hello, my name is Bethany. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
@@patafix534 My approach would be to take a page from Skyrim, but instead of a ritual, this happens. The party rests in a tavern for the night. During dinner, they are approached by a little girl holding a bag of coppers and a few silvers that she's managed to scrounge up doing all kinds of work for the past month. She asks the party to locate and assassinate a few people who were in (insert area name) that were around during (insert incident name) - though she does not know what they look like. They ask her why. She tells them that she's found out that they were responsible for daddy not being around anymore. They find out her name is Bethany.
I made an encounter that started with a lord hiring anyone available to kill a bandit group that was burning farms and salting the fields. The party isn’t the first group to go after them, and no other group has returned since taking the job. The party starts investigating the farms, and finds that at every single farm, and effigy of the local lord was built and burned. In the remains, they find parts of official letters that talk about raised taxes to pay for the expansion of the lord’s manor. As they get to the 4th farm, the bandits are in the middle of destroying the fields and making the effigy when the party shows up. The party sees that almost all of them are dressed as farmers, and there are a couple tough looking adventurers with them. A skill check confirms that one of the adventurers is a traveling hero of minor renown that they had met before. The party finds out that the local lord had been demanding more monthly taxes from the farmers than they could harvest in a year, and as “alternative reparations” he would have their children taken. Young boys were sent to the mines, young girls were sent to the lords harem. The farmers had taken to bankrupting the lord to the point that the guards quit from lack of payment, and then the farmers could overthrow the lord. The previous adventurers had joined with the farmers to speed the process. What happened next was a campaign of paying guards to relocate, a trip to the mines to convince the miners to help overthrow the lord, and a near party wipe as they fought against the lords personal guard, led by another renowned adventurer who the lord blackmailed into service. Fun times.
A lot of times, people turn to banditry out of necessity after desertion from a war. Many cultures outright execute deserters, no matter how justified the reasons for not wanting to go to war are. So for a lot of bandits, the life of an outlaw is literally the only life they have. In a lot of cases, bandits and brigands aren't necessarily 'evil' or 'wicked' people, they're just desperate and doing what they must to survive. So there's another idea. If your campaign has some kind of ongoing conflict or war going on, the outlaws you encounter could just be the unfortunate people who tried to escape and lost everything. Depending on the nature of the scenario and the factions involved in the conflict, this could actually make the bandits the more sympathetic group for the players to ally with.
You have just described a significant portion of Italian history. One noble/town would hire a gang/company (condottieri), then the gang would go see what the target would offer. Sometimes they'd turn right around to extort their employers. Or just take whatever their targets would give, then just ride away. Or take over the whole target/castle themselves.
I'm actually doing something similar to this in my own campaign. In my setting, some twenty years ago a long standing war was ended. That doesn't affect the players in a significant way for the time being, but as a reminder, I'm throwing in a large bandit gang that's completely composed of members of the losing side of the war. Just by chance the players end up fighting and killing a group of this bandit, but the idea is that the rest of them will be out for revenge, forcing the players to fight them at their base, and then discover that they were stealing just to finance their bigger operation: Smuggling goods to a refugee camp, and it's up to the players to either loot the whole camp, or to do a last favour to the remaining bandits and help them in a last delivery that would temporarily save the refugees. I came to this video looking for good ideas to spice up the encounter at the bandit base, and felt like sharing this.
The only big bandit gang that I ever employed in my games were called “the Torn Banner”. The gang was founded by a Lord who tried to start a revolution with the help of another neighboring Lord. However that neighboring Lord sold out the revolutionary Lord to the king. This lead to the revolutionary Lord being stripped of title and all of his lands being gifted to theLord who betrayed him. That lord now runs a gang of bandits that consists mostly of army deserters and soldiers loyal to the bandit Lord even after his title was stripped. The bandit lord now seeks revenge by trying to starve the city of the traitor Lord with constant attacks on farmlands and caravans. Even going so far as to infect the city with a plague made by an evil wizard whom he’d made a recent alliance with. Great video. Definitely gets the creative juices flowing
This is the best Taking20 video I've ever seen. Cody, you've come a long way man. When I saw "bandits" all I could think was "aw man, there were ~so~ many more interesting ideas you could've used." I was super wrong. Every single tip in this video is pure gold - you've got me thinking that bandits might be the ~most~ interesting low-level mooks to throw at a party. The toy? The vengeful family member? Fucking great. Awesome job, man. Absolutely loved this video.
It's 5AM a year later, and I'm taking notes on my phone with all the ideas generated, and I'm going to listen again from the top because it all flew by too fast.
I just had the great idea of having a party of bandits that all cast healing word on each other, and they are all saying things like "You're looking good today!", "We can do this, we are the best after all.", or "EDF!" I need to run this encounter now. Thanks.
I cannot take the credit for creating this, though I remember seeing or reading about this somewhere. The players come across some form of a wreckage, whether a farmstead or caravan, and find a crying child or two, related. They'll cry and beg for their help, telling them their parents were taken by scary men, happened recently. Of course the Players will want to save their poor childrens parents and will surely make haste (you'd hope) and maybe take the children along, they're big bad and scary. Well, after being ambushed multiple times, the players may be getting suspicious, specially since the children never seem to be in danger, when finally they meet face to face with the Bandit leader, and the two kids run up to the man yelling "daddy!" With cheery expressions on their face. Reason why is really up to the GM taking the idea isn't it?
The child's toy could go different ways too. The bandit with the toy could be a simpleton with the body of a giant but the mind of a 5 year old trying to please his parent(s) who is one of the bandits. Like Master and Blaster from Mad Max Beyond the Thunder Dome or Sloth from the Goonies . And just like Max in the movie the player(s) might not want to kill them and take pitty on them. The parent(s) is just trying to provide for his outcast child and the child is just trying to please the parent(s). Maybe the child was already abandoned and the bandit rescued and raised it. Maybe it was the malformed offspring of the local lord that the bandit now harass. Actually if you remove the simpleton part and leave the just the deformed part they could just be the left for dead offspring of a lord and now runs a bandit gang out to ruin his father. Which I guess could also work for a lord throwing out his 1/2 orc baby by way of orc slave. In either case, the bandits could be mostly maid up of 1/2 races that were case aside buy pure blood parents.
You've no idea how much I adore these videos, I'm a relatively new dm, and your kypw videos improved my the combat in my Homebrew campaign vastly, I had a hard time making encounters compelling up until I turned to your channel. I don't quite remember where I found them online, but I found a handful of well put together templates for custom bandit's, with unique fighting styles and abilities, they immediately improved my bandit encounters, I'll never forget the look on my paladins face when one of the highwaymen they were hired to "remove" grappled him so another could throw a flask of alchemists fire at him.
Having the Bandit stat-block available during my current Dragon-Heist campaign has been extremely helpful as of late. Basically, the entry-level Zhentarim thugs are bandits and just about any other criminal type that our adventurers may run into in the dark alleys of Waterdeep. I usually always try to give them a personality and a voice along with life-saving decisions such as to run when they realize they are outmatched or plead for their lives if they are out of options. Having names for these characters and a bit of role-playing makes it fun when they encounter them again. Great video Cody, I loved the ideas of organized gangs and the devious DM tips on applying guilt if the party decides to go full murder-hobo on the bad guys.
I think a great example of interesting bandits comes from Critical Role 2, the lovingly named "Syphilis Bandits." They were inexperienced, desperate, and the party easily intimidated them into surrender, only to let them go with a warning to get better. And then Mercer brought them back! Now the audience is eagerly anticipating the bandits to come back at some random time, and watch them grow, and continue a ridiculous but memorable group of NPCs.
This video helped me create the Hollowflags, a band of bandits who work for an evil bard, aiding him on his quest to take over a halfling village and finaly dig up the legendary "'Wraith's Curse" (a Rapier +3 that turns any humanoid creature into a Wraith if its killed by the blade). It pairs with a Ring of Domination (Undead), which the bard has (the ring automatically controlls any undead of CR 5 or lower, plus any undead of higher CR must make a Wisdom Saving Throw which DC is 15 - the creatures Wisdom modifier)
I like the concept, but what tier of play do you plan for this? The ring seems a little too overpowered, automatically controlling any undead cr5 or lower without a save indefinitely, and any undead over cr5 either makes the save, or is also indefinitely "dominated." A death knight (cr17) has a 1/4 chance of permanently being controlled by the ring wearer. You should flesh out the item a bit more, giving it more restrictions and tweaks. Find a balance of fun and fair.
I hope you are prepared for the party to wreak havok with that stuff. Even if they skip the rapier (though at +3, which is legendary level I think) because of the wraith thing that ring controlling CR 5 is pretty darned up there. (Unless your players are over 15th level). Make it 1 charge per day or be prepared to never challenge them with undead again.
@@96Logan Yeah, I underpowered it a bit so only Wraiths created by the Rapier (which i downgraded to a +2) were controled by the ring. Additionally, the rapier is just a simple +2 weapon without the ring and the ring itself is intelligent and chooses who the wearer is, seeking only evil creatures. Both of the magic items were never actually meant to be obtainable to the players, so that's why the concept was so overpowered.
@@notorious.scoundrel I see. Yeah, this is coming from a player who loves necromancy. If the guy who loves summoning hordes of undead to do his bidding tells you that your undead controlling item was a bit too strong, then you know it comes from like minded person. An undead controlling necromancer is probably my favorite archetype in d&d.
Give one of the bandits a unique trinket that, should the PCs attempt to sell it off for gold, reveals their connection to someone in town. Like, imagine if they were the wayward son of the shopkeeper they're trying to pawn it off on! You'll probably want to keep the connection part loose until the PCs decide on what to do with the trinket.
I have a story of pulling dirty tricks on a party with bandits. The party becomes ambushed by a party of short masked people who are as big as halflings/Dwarves and their leader is a tall guy with a deep voice. The leader robs them and the party killed the bandits only to find out that these bandits were really just children and their leader was a boy who was like 13-14 years old and hit puberty hard. They were all ambushing the party to get supplies to survive
That’s one way to teach your party mercy. Have them use slings, shortswords, and clubs. Maybe run them like you would do goblins where they disengage with hit and run tactics.
In one of my recent campaigns, one of the constant threats was The Red Hand. This was a bandit brotherhood that seemed to be everywhere and ranges from thugs with clubs to armored professionals. All were marked by having some sort of red affectation on their right hand. In the end these bandits ended up being more like a cult with the goal of trying to pave the way for the return of The Red King, a powerful evil ruler that had been killed in generations prior to game time.
My favorite idea for a “bandit” that I have come up with is a guy who kills criminals with a special dagger that steals their life force and hit points for later use as charges for a Lay in Hands-style ability, which he uses to cure the sick and heal the wounded.
The more I think about it, the more I think this could be low level antagonist. 1-5 or 1-10. He starts off as an altruistic Robin Hood esque character, but as he set's his sights on "correcting" greater evils, he makes greater concessions in what he's willing to sacrifice. Ultimately he becomes the evil he set out to destroy, and he himself must be put down by the heroes.
Had a group of bandits that initially were just fodder but party negotiated with the leader to siding with them after the odds were stacked against the bandits. Led into developing a backstory between the dragonborn leader and human cleric that was with them. The human cleric abandoned by their traveling group was stumbled upon by the bandits. Hungry, alone, and afraid the cleric joined up with the bandits. Shortly thereafter the leader suffered a near death wound which the cleric tended to and brought them back from the brink of death leading into a relationship of trust and reliance between the two. Both of them are fiercely defensive of each other and will protect the other at all costs.
We had a bunch of bandits early on in our newest campaign, who took refuge in an old cave nearby town, and they were stealing things for some seemingly bigger purpose, when the party needed to get medicine to help a sick person who they cared about, that just so happened to be stolen by these bandits. Nobody had been killed by them, as far as the players were concerned, so they went to track down the bandits and the medicine at which point they got attacked by said bandits, but saved by the bandit leader who told his party that they (the bandits) would not murder those who had done nothing wrong. However, for trying multiple occasions to kill the party, the leader had to remove a member from his ranks, whose body was found by the party, the medicine they needed was grasped in his hand, as basically a threat but a show of some good faith left in the leader. Basically: “Here’s what you need, but be careful that you don’t meddle any further.”
There was a bandit in the western US in the 1800's, I think he was the gentleman bandit, who only robed Wells Fargo stagecoaches. He never killed anyone and when he was eventually caught his gun wasn't even loaded. He was a gambler who when his luck was down he would rob a coach so that he could continue his lavish lifestyle without interruption.
My DM once had a duke hire our group to fight of some bandits. He felt off when we talked to him. Only addressing the human looking races in the group (think human, dwarven, half elf). but we thought nothing of it. when we walked through town we started noticing that only humans and human looking races were present and a lot of houses were empty. then fighting the bandits the were all beastkin humanoids (think races like kenku, tabaxi, leonin, etc.). turns out the "bandits" were driven from their home by a racist duke who hated beastkin humanoids or 'savages' as he called them. We ended up fighting with the bandits against the duke and his soldiers, capturing the duke and delivering him to the royal capital where his brother, the king (who had a tabaxi wife) found out what he did and later publicly executed him as an example. These sessions were so much fun. lots of RP and cool combat. and a nice change thrown in there. BANDITS CAN BE GOOD GUYS. ;p
When I run bandits I like to make sure it sinks in that they killed a person. One of my favorite things I’ve done went something along the lines of: As your sword pierced the chest of the bandit you see the life drain from his eyes and hear a sword clatter on the ground behind you. As you turn around you see another bandit who has fallen to their knees with a look of failure and defeat on their face.
I know I'm late to this party, but I think that doing a KYPW about Yuan-Ti would be amazing. Just a suggestion, but i love this series and would love to see more of it.
A gang that is in my world but has yet to be met by the players is the chromatic syndicate. The leader is called The Shadow King, he has 5 generals one to represent each of tiamats colors. The black general, the white empress, the green goddess, the red devil, and the blue lighting. Each head controls a different aspect of the syndicate and each one runs out of a different major city. The shadow king is actually based off of the first pc I made who was a half elf rouge who got the nickname the shadowed hand after becoming the main thief and Assassin for the the shadow king. But know in my world he is the shadow king.
I know I have watched this before and I just had a new idea watching this... Going through a Forest, maybe add a Single Kobold to a bandit group who has a breath weapon... a kobold might make a good decoy to gather your party around... looking injured with a turned over cart. Maybe a busted cart wheel a rock placed to seem logical to break the wheel... Your party gets close to help, then gets blasted with a poison breath, the breath cloud as a signal for the bandit party to attack. This scenario of a helpless victim to lure in the group is common, but unless you make kobold breath weapons a common encounter or kobold fights common they wont expect the breath attack. And they will be talking about the bandit group with the poison spewing kobold for a while.
Well, I was going to say this is how most adventuring parties are, but that got mentioned a lot already. One thing I'd add - bandits are not stupid, highly adaptable, and unless they're famous (or infamous), they blend into any local populace. They can use captured magic items and technology. If they operate out of a certain location, they can use their in-depth knowledge to attack/defend/escape (think the Merry Men and Sherwood Forest) better than a Ranger that isn't from the area. If they support the locals, the locals may support them. Anything the PCs can do, bandits can do as well, and sometimes better.
And also bandits often play to win. They don't find any kind of tactic deplorable. I had bandits in my game basically gang up on one person, Shove them to the ground, and proceed to pummel then to unconsciousness while they are down - not to death, because why, if the target is not a threat anymore, but clearly no "honor" in their tactics. On a similar note, had a bandit grab a fistfull of sand from the ground and throw it into player's face, and having the player be blind after failing theit save.
This gave me the motivation to finally write the "Thieves Guild" in my homebrew campaign. And for that I thank you. The Black Rose Society will be a very interesting threat.
My favorite scheme is having bandits react to each other's deaths. It can be a bit comedic, like one bandit trying to get another killed or two bandits rough-housing and "giving each-other a hard time" in the fight, or it can be a gut-wrenching moment for everyone involved- imagine your party hacking and murdering its way through a bandit gang and one member gets tossed to the ground but not killed. Another member (it's better if he/she is younger) cries out their name, but it's too late; the downed bandit is finished off in front of everyone. This 'could' be the deciding moment for the bandit group to retreat- all but one young member of the group, screaming their friend/mentor's name and trying to get to them (or the party to fight on the killed bandit's behalf), but being manhandled/carried away by another member of the group. Then your party has to make the choice: follow the bandits and try to take them all on again for the final blow, or let them slip away and grieve their losses, potentially giving up the bandit life for good. (Extra browny points for rolling to decide whether the young bandit manages to break free and run towards the party or is overpowered by their own party and dragged away from the battlefield)
Reminds me of a lone brigand my first party came across. They were wandering out from a larger city in a merchant country, when they found a carriage knocked over, its horses dead and nobody to be seen... until they were ambushed by none other than... KARLOSS, THE BRIGAND WITH BIG DREAMS. He wasn't the brightest, and definitely cocky. The encounter went like this. Karloss: Gimme me all yer gold! Mage: Why? Karloss: I'm robbin you lot! Mage: really? How are you going to do that all by yourself? Karloss: Don't you know who I am? Warrior: uh, nope. Karloss: what? You don't? I-I Mean... You will know my name and tremble, for I am KARLOSS, the brigand with big dreams, next to be king of the brigands! Mage: okay, but how do you know that you're not the one getting robbed? Karloss: wha--? No, I'm the one robbin you! Mage: No, *YOU'RE* getting robbed! Karloss: (looks around, confused) "oh shit. You're right! Take my money, just let me live! Mage: give me your pants, too. Karloss: what? Mage: you heard me. And that's how the story of Karloss, the Brigand with Big Dreams, became KARLOSS, THE BRIGAND WITH BIG DREAMS... BUT NO PANTS! now, every now and again, they hear tales from travelers of a brigand, who robs people half nude. He robs them for their coin so he can go into town and buy pants, but the guards won't let him in while indecent. Problem is: everytime he ambushes someone, they shit themselves in fear, thus preventing him from taking someone else's pants to get back into the city. He is truly a tortured soul.
I know it's a bit high horsed to believe that my comment on one of your previous videos led to this but I am immensely enthused by the revival of the KYPW series. This series helps me out so much when it comes just to getting the right view of a monster. Thank you.
Love this video. My character was a noble but joined a gang after a coup. Becoming the lowest of the low. Smart enough to make the drugs but not enough to taste. He is a seller a man of many veils. Just enough to get by. Or maybe an ally
Don't forget too, about crime syndicates and the like. My campaign currently saw my mid level players topple a gang, first being involved because of one of the PCs involvement in crime around the city they were in. There was a strange influx of new drugs and a sickness sweeping the area. Players get the quest from a lord, who turns out was funding drug sale and research through the gang. PCs eventually fight and investigate up the chain of command and kill the leader (secretly a Rakshasa) and help stabilize the region. Many things here like you said: a name, calling card, motives, organization, story hooks, etc... They all work exceptionally well. Also: players had to go incognito to a drug den to do some investigating. That was a fun non combat encounter!
A bandit group I have in a game I’m currently running I named the Brigands of Ironmaul. I plan for them to be a semi-long running group that I hope last awhile in my game.
I love including Bandits with Wolves. The Wolves can easily track the players, using their smell/hearing to sniff out the grimy rogue or to hear the paladin's chainmail. Also, In combat, sending the dogs out first with pack tactics is good to soften up the party members before the big bruiser arrives. In addition, they also bark and act as mobile alarms to call for reinforcements. In general, a couple scouts taking advantage on mans best friend can really increase the cool factor.
I'm 3 sessions into running my first campaign with some friends and took this advice to heart. Turning a roadside ambush into a plot point by making the bandits into a clan of monks dedicated to a god of thieves, it was awesome. Thank you.
The redemption of althalus has a protagonist who is a thief/brigand. At the start of the story he knocks out a drunk person and then proceeds with the "transfer of ownership". :P
One of my groups is currently fighting a group in a Kingdom's capital city called "The six strings chord". The group acts pretty much like the yakuza as they took the criminal situation of the capital, that has a lack of guards due to many of the guards being drafted for war and decided to use the little gangs in a controlled environment for the group itself. If you join, you work under the group and its six officers in one of the six main districts. If you refuse to join and still keep on your criminal activities you will simply be stabbed in a quiet corner or poisoned. The group is lead by a Changeling, assuming the mysterious character of Vyrassk, a Lizardfolk, being assumed to be a bard who was only seen covered in black rags with a porcellan mask. Much to the dismay of my party, every single competent bard with a chaotic personality was sucked into the organization, meaning many of these bards were doubles for Vyrassk, when the remainder of the city watch as well as the heroes had a few clues. Basically every person that is higher than your thug is a bard, everyone can at last throw inspiration and has another level 1 spell they can perform and the higher ranking members are all from the college of Glamour which means they can entice people by playing to them for a minute, if they fail the save, which most lowlifes simply do. The idea is, that the organization just wants to be that sort of "actor from the shadows" that keeps "order" by throwing their brand of law into the crimes going on, while taking their fair share of money in hopes the Queen of the Kingdom gives into their shady dealings, just because a bitter medicine is better than none.
A monastery. populated only by halflings, gnomes, and kobolds, suffering through a famine. The monastery lies just off a major trade route, and they have been attacking and robbing caravans of food. All monks, they are known as the Clan of the Waist-High Fist.
A great timely video! I just placed tortle bandits (veterans of the local empire who have not made the transition to civilian life well) into an alley! Depending on survival checks, they will either be mistaking the two PC's who left lunch early for a scheduled contact casing local shops (one of the PC's may be interested in crime, and was remarking that the shops had little security), or will demand a "toll" for "their kind" using the alley. They are the "Gnarly Pits Gang" (shells reminded someone of peach pits). They have enhanced AC's, and being veterans know how to take damage; will pop up to 1 hp if brought to zero, and make use of their greater healing potions (which also serve as treasure if not consumed). If the PC's get into too much trouble, the actual contact has been trailing them, thinking that the PC's were tracking him. He could help them from a roof, with his crossbow, after seeing how the Pits treat potential allies.
Update: We played today. The PC's dazzled the bandits with conversation and persuasion, rolling very well. The PC's are forming a plan to actually sign the three of them on as muscle for an upcoming mission, and perhaps long term as ship crew! It is always a delight where dice rolls and clever roleplay leads the story!
Something to keep in mind: most military forces will break and flee if 1/3 are killed/knocked out. The only exceptions are fanatics and cornered enemies. Very few forces are willing to fight to the death and gangs should probably break at a 1/4 losses or so.
I gave a few of my bandits I ran some cultist boons during a campaign with a budding cult. Needless to say the party was completely in shock when a few Orc Bandits turned invisible in the midst of combat. It was super fun and it made the party want to investigate the fact that Orcs were turning invisible.
My party recently fought off a band of HobGoblins, they had just met a PC Cave Troll, whose family had been wiped out, and they followed a wagon. After searching a broken wagon after the ambush, they found a letter from 'The Diplomat' adding in a side arc to the Tyrany of Dragons arc I am running. New information they just gathered is that 'The Diplomat' isn't actually well known and has minions/lieutenants that collect protections/offer trade options. He pays well, and has information on almost everyone he deals with.
Oooo, luck at that I'm early. Thank's for this video, I always find your KYPW vids super inspiring and helpful. As a beginning DM, these vids have allowed me to create way more complex worlds than I could of ever come up with. Many thanks.
A couple of months ago, you suggested I picked up a copy of Mines of Phandelver. I did and my groups just now getting to Phandalin. Again, this video couldn't have come at a better time. I will definitely be using some of these tips to dress up the Redbrands. Thanks again!
Bandit group background idea that I'm currently using with my players: The leader is a new person who recently took over the group with the sole purpose of a collecting funds to build a mercenary army and take over a city (He's a former soldier that's sick of common folk being used like fodder for the rich people's petty conflicts)
This episode was a huge help. I love using bandits, but i'm always scared to change stat blocks. I'm running a short western style adventure right now. The characters are fighting the Blue Buckle gang, which is rumored to be lead by a young blue dragon. The blue buckles have discovered or somehow stumbled upon a strange blue metal, that if it is electrically charged makes you really quick. (It gives you +2 dex, +2 to initiative checks, and once per day, you can use an action to activate it and for the next minute, be able to dash and disengage as a bonus action, and it doubles your movement speed.) Which is basically cunning action from the rogue. This is really fun to do, I added in some bosses being an ogre with a huge shotgun that's basically a cannon, and an intelligent rattlesnake-esque hydra named "Ten-hat jack" that has 10 attunement slots that he uses to attune to 10 magic hats, that all give him some minor ability. The bandits also work with Rattlers, which are offspring of Ten-Hat jack. They're really cool because they can poison people, and they are also really perceptive because of their keen smell and blindsense (which helps out the humans in the group) Finally, theres "blue buckle bolters"- that are 3rd level elven blue draconic sorcerers of the boss. Their darkvision and trance is handy abilities for the mostly human gang, and They have utility spells like disguise self, witch bolt, sleep, misty step, and mirror image. I'm really excited to use these guys and I think the adventure is going to be a blast to run.
Barrett's Privateers is a great bandit trope that I love using. A group of hard pressed kids are told they will just be ambushing merchants who won't fight back and will just give up their gold. Guys told they would "cruise the highways looking for merchant gold, but they'd never draw a sword, never shed blood" who end up having their first attack being against the PCs. Their equipment is garbage, they have a letter they say gives them rights to patrol the highways from someone with a title but no name, and they are all teenagers.
Some interesting ways bandits can have added complexity can be found in how they are used. For example a member of a bandit gang can offer his or her services as a local guide and take the party into an ambush. Another possibility is the bandits can lure the players into a prepared kill zone with deadly traps and well-concealed ambush positions. Bandits might also be very interested in kidnapping players who can pay ransom.
This was very good!!! I'm an old swedish gamemaster and have just started with DnD. I really like how you show how to understand the foes, make them unique and how you can both modify the "gang" and individuals and thus create a good encounter and further, a good story.
Bandits should never, ever be a straight up fight. If you're doing that, you're using them wrong. Ambushes, traps, harry the party with retreats and counter attacks, not letting them get in any rests and just wear them down. The minute a battle turns against bandits, they should run, regroup and come back later with a different plan of attack. They'd more likely attack caravans and travelling merchants as they can disable the wagons and horses, immobilising the whole train, and that lets them hit and run until the defenders are worn out. A small group of adventurers wouldn't be a target for any but the most desperate bandits as the level of profit would not be worth the grief of tangling with the pcs. Any pcs they could take easily wouldn't have anything worth taking and pcs with good loot would be able to destroy them easily. Sympathetic bandits are also a good option as they become a roleplaying challenge rather than a combat one. Sure they are robbing merchant caravans, but they are doing so to feed their families due to over-taxation by their local lord and their crops were burned by orcs, and if they don't get enough goods their whole village will not survive the winter. And, now that the fight is over, the pcs have killed most of the able bodies adults of the village. Wrestle with that moral dilemma, pcs!
I like the idea of a bandit group that's effectively a beastmaster mafia. The individual bandits aren't much of a threat, but they're a widespread, semi-organized group that specializes in training monsters to fight for them, with said monsters being a much bigger challenge.
They are always fun for me. They are a great meter for tiers of play... its really enjoyable scraping through a fight with a dozen bandits as first level heroes... then absolutely crushing bandits like ants by tenth level. They also provide some of the most difficult and engaging moral dilemmas... it tells you a LOT about a person's character just by watching how they handle bandits.
My favorite encounter I've used bandits for were some highwaymen that ambushed the party at night, our party was a pretty memorable make up like the dwarf cleric with a purple beard due to a past disagreement with a wizard. So after a round or two the bandits realized who they were fighting had an "Oh crap if we knew we wouldn't have done this please forgive us" moment and it got to be a neat experience where the party got recognition for all the shit they do and counters the trope you see in video games of "I'm a shitty bandit in chain mail, that guy is the hero of Kvatch he's in full daedric enchanted armor.... I think I can take him!"
one of the best bandit groups I've seen are the bandits who attacked the Mighty Nein in Critical Role s2. The first encounter, the leader got torched by Caleb, and then later, the party encountered them again, and the new leader freaked out at seeing Mollymauk. great bandits, really fun to watch, hope they come back again.
I'm running a campaign where a coven of hags are the villains. The first encounter for the party was a group of orc bandits. They were refugees driven out of the orc tribe by one of the hags and became allies to the party. They're not really Robin Hood types, but bad guys who got screwed over by worse bad guys and are trying to survive.
This was surprisingly helpful. I've been looking forward to a homebrew boss fight my players are about to get into, but suddenly, I'm really anxious for the chapter to follow when i was previously thinking about shorthanding the whole section.
Rewatching this after finishing Red Dead Redemption 2 sparks so many ideas. Dutch Van Der Linde's gang has so many different tensions and motivations, even one of which could be a memorable RP opportunity or story twist, or a hook for a whole new adventure
So helpful. Currently running storm kings thunder and my players are going from triboar to everlund and I’m creating a lot of encounters for them. This helps immensely!
Nearly annihilated an experienced group of PCs with a kobold bandits ambush. Okay, so check this: The initial ambush is on the road, makes total sense. It happens when the PCs get caught by a pit trap to start things off, so that immediately pulled the Ranger out of combat for awhile (plus, the spikes). Phase two is pretty straight forward, the kobolds shoot them, focusing on the weakest looking character (The wizard in this instance), then run off into the woods. Party members (Now minus the Ranger and the Wizard) give chase. The Barbarian hadn't raged yet when he got caught a swinging tree trap that went just over the kobolds heads, and that didn't end well for him. Now, here's the REAL trick: that's was just a play, the real thing is going down in Phase three, when a second group of kobolds slip out of the other side of the road's brush, and ransack the party's wagon, before running off with the ill-gotten games. Group one of the kobolds are just running for hidey holes, nothing more. The cleric managed to hang on to HP, and had to heal up everyone, as well as trying to workout how to get the Ranger's horse out of the pit.
(Minor Spoilers for Storm Kings Thunder) A good example of bandits with a cause is the group in the beginning of Storm King's Thunder. Yes yes, I remember you're ranking video where you said skip Nightstone in SKT; but my group is mostly new players, so I figured it would be a nice build up to mechanics. But back to the bandits... their whole goal is to set up Nightstone as a base of operations for the Zhentarim or Black Network (thieves guild). My players tried to leave the town before finishing the goblin threat fully, so these guys will ride in and actually aid the party when the goblins hear the noise and try to ambush them. I am then going to try and put my players in a moral dilemma. The bandits, again who just fought along side the group, are going to ask them to clear out a few 'vigilantes' who took up residence in the local keep. I have a Rogue in my party, so I am going to try and entice him by making this his 'in' with the Black Network. When they get to the keep and finally confront these so called vigilantes, they will be met with hostility; though I will make it clear to them that these people look battered and bruised already. One way or another though, they will quickly find out that these are just regular city guards who remain in the keep out of desperation; mainly because they have no guidance after their Lady was killed then Giant attack that left the town in shambles. So does the party take the time to figure out these are not bad guys? If they do, will they then help the guards instead to drive out the Zhentarim crew? Will they inadvertently do both by hastily killing the guards, only to learn what they had done after? All of these questions hang in the balance thanks to what amounts to plain, old bandits. =)
I had a group of bandits that was the bane of my players, they were extremely militant and made up of deserters so they set every kinda trap imaginable, set fire in the woods to smoke you out into the open, wreck all trade routes so you couldn't re-buy equipment very well, they were a thorn in the players side until level 15.
20:02 I modeled a small bandit group after some real world river pirates. In the United States, before the Erie Canal was finished the best way for farmers in the Mississippi basin, even as far north as Ohio and Wisconsin, was to put their harvest on a raft and sail it down river all the way to New Orleans. At different spots along the Mississippi and it’s tributaries like the Missouri there were small bands that would intercept these rafts and kill the crews. The local law enforcement was usually in on it in some form and the locals knew about this dirty little secret but kept it quiet because they usually profited from it. I placed this in my game world and added a young green dragon. The dragon helps to capture the rafts and dispose of the crews while the human bandits convert the rafts cargo; corn, wheat, barley and the like into something that the dragon would be interested in. Things like gold and emeralds. When the party kills the local boy bandits the king and the far away merchants might be happy but the locals have a totally different response.
I use the bandit stat-block for any humanoid, somewhat combat trained enemy that my low level parties fight, and usually put an extra skill or action depending on what purpose they serve in the game. For example: Corrupt Priests are bandits but have high persuasion and can usually get into whatever public location they want (more role-play than combat). Mercenary Grunts are bandits but I'll give them a toned-down class ability depending on what weapons they wield.
I have a group of brand new players that I'm running right now and had actually unknowingly done the 1/3/5 set up but had 2 of the generals away from the main camp. They killed one group and came across the other general and the leader, little do they know that the final general will return to find his boss and brothers in arms slaughtered and swear revenge on them. Also the toy! that's so good!
Recently did a bandit encounter with my current group. The old ramshackle toll booth highway robbery variety. A few human bandits at the barricade, with some elven (racially hated in this campaign) bandits hidden in the nearby woods, including a low-level caster leading the group. PC's try to avoid the encounter by going around the barricade, so the bandits pull out crossbows and shoot the group, admittedly scoring a crit, and KOing on PC. The caster also sets up a Fog Cloud on the party, and the party immediately surrenders, escaping with their lives, but losing most of their gold after a negotiation.
I once ran a group that encountered what they later found out was a slave trade but used one odd member of the bandit group as a fisher so to speak. The lone elf in the group of bandits was there to prey on and lure out other elves to be captured and sold off. The elf in question was being mind controlled which thankfully made the PC's think twice before just killing her as there was another force at work with potentially more threating goals. Giving them that out to not only turn an Villian to Ally but to take down a group of bandits engaged in slave trading worked out pretty well.
In the campaign I'm running there's a sort of secret association of hitmen known as The Hunters Guild. It's a real guild of hunters but many of the higher-ups in the guild are hitmen that use hunting as a cover for their nefarious deeds. One of my characters is a (former) criminal and he's the only one who knows that the bandits that were hired to kill them were from the hunters guild, and he's not telling the rest of the party because he's afraid he'll lose their trust once they learn even more about his dark past.
As always, great video full of great ideas, Cody!!! From reskinning a wandering gypsy band or caravan, to a mafioso organization (thieves' guild) spanning two or three kingdoms and more than a dozen cities, I've turned what could easily be just a viable excuse for a random encounter into side-quest material more times than I care to remember. Sometimes it's the shear morbid curiosity or the voracity of what promises to be a bigger plot, and others, it's clearly the Players' suddenly abandoning the ongoing quest-arc for this "trifle" because it's just too ridiculous to leave it alone. Had a whole fleet of "pirates" festooned with all the standards, every cliche in the book (and a few beyond) BUT they were traveling the DESERT on giant wheeled ships... Sure, still sails, and cannons, and all the cutlasses, belaying pin-clubs, and even a sabre or two among the "officers"... BUT they sailed the sand-ridden sea... and the Cap'n's Bird was a vulture named Brutus... probably because no self respecting parrot would be caught undead among that lot! Personally, I've found that crafting a band of loyal cut-throaty types uniquely tends to start on one of two basic points, Location and/or Goal(s)... Sure, for "just another random encounter" the goals are short-sighted and easily over-looked. BUT if you're planning on a repetitive business, say the magical wood staying a dangerous place while the PC's traverse through more than a couple times... THEN a goal oriented crew (group) is worth considering. It resolves any particular issue with "randomness" with a plausible reason for said encounter, whether or not it's violent... which can be predetermined as well. AND of course, the "overt engineering" for "dubiously more intelligent?" gangs and leaders can be a great means of "branding" the bandits... Consider all those wonderful "Roadrunner and Coyote" cartoons, where you could just as easily skin the bandits as Coyote's gang, and leave the PC's to the Roadrunner perspective... and let the antics ensue. I once created an ambush scenario where a couple young(ish) children were herding rabbits across the road to impede the Party and their cart full of gear and supplies. Then the rest of the kids (teens mostly) fell upon them in a brash little free-for-all over "treasure"... of which the Party had very little, considering the recent "between adventure" shopping and upgrading... BUT herding rabbits??? Yep, kids herding rabbits... like sheep. Now in conversation ALONE (table or otherwise) that was a memorable encounter, even if it was more ridiculous than dangerous. ;o)
My favorite way to use bandits is taken from one of my favorite games, Fable. I create a tiered level hideout for my group to run through, then they find the leader who is an incredible fighter/brute/sorcerer and once he’s felt with a relative comes and helps the party. I find it gets everyone going and involved in some way.
I’m running a Wild West 5e game and the biggest bandit gang is lead by a big rattlesnake like in Rango. Also their hideout is a pirate ship like foretress built on the back of a brontosaurus that can shoot cannonballs down at the players.
I've just been binging your KYPW series, and I think it's awesome. You offer so many ideas for how to use certain creatures in interesting ways, I'm bound to borrow a lot of them. I really would enjoy one on mind flayers, I don't think that they've been overused to the point of being typical and boring, nessecarily, but I do think that it can be a bit difficult to introduce them to a game naturally, and not feel a little shoe-horned in. Keep it up!
my favorite case of interesting bandits was a group in a game where I was a PC. the group was called the undying sun, sounds more like a cult right? that was the point. they used the guise of cult leaders to "recruit" a bunch of townspeople, only to roll them over for all their valuables. they were a mostly human group, but with a dragonborn leader who had actual character levels. the best part was, some of the members bought their own con, and would scream "by the grace of pelor, you will fall!" before using coordinated attacks using the environment. (think the battle of endor on a smaller scale. swinging logs, pit traps, things like that.)
What I've done is given my "Bandits" some extra abilities that can represent equipment. Like a Hearb they can apply to arrows that do stat damage. Or archers having a 2 use Volley Fire. A "boss" halfling of mine had a legendary action to allow sneak attack more than once a turn or to "flair up" already inflicted poison damage. Thanks for the vid!
this gave me an idea for a session im running next week. I'm gonna have the players be hanging out in an inn for the night with a band playing, and the band is secretly a group of bard bandits who play a sleeping song that puts the party and other people at the inn to sleep, at which point the bandits can steal their things and make off. If the party picks up on the trick, the bandits will have one undercover tank who will fight the party while the band of bards debuff the party and buff their tank. should be a fun and interesting surprise for the players.
This is very interesting I just used bandits against my friends there where 3 at first as there was just two of them was trying to teach them. Who were just learning my friend thought I was holding punches (I wasn't). I was like okay he wanted more reinforcements when they where winning. I bring 3 more two regular and a captain the wizard kills the two reinforcements. So I made the captain show up (he carried a lance just because I wanted him to thought interesting enough he gets 2 natural 20's. A lance is 1d12+2 damage because he got two nat 20 he got to hit them each twice the are level 1. I show them the first one he knocks the Wizard completely. Unconscious first and then the guy who was a half demon elf. Who wanted "reinforcements" misses so the second natural 20 comes up I show my friend. I explain while he is flying this bandits jumps so well into the air he slams him in the neck knocking him to the ground a curator forms. He then lands on top of him impaling his character. killing both my players playing). I made him leave them injured thinking they where dead. As a learning curve but he is now gonna be apart of my story my main Villain Zalvan is a five type elemental a chaotic evil entity he is hired to gather souls for her to bring her back to the material plains so he is gonna be heading towards some ancient ruins to speak with her. Now my players figure out they need to work together and not be so reckless the fact my friend wanted to get into bar fights and mess around is fine but there is consequences I even told him are you sure. Now they can't also go back to the beginning town. They are just learning so I am working on not being so hard on them just giving advice.
I had recently ran a AD&D 2e Dark Sun encounter with a group of players running 10-12 Level characters. I bring this up because they real out classed the bandits that where attacking them. And while they eventually won the fight they felt every bit of it. First the bandits were riding poisonous mounts that paralyze the player on a failed save. Second the Bandits use spear from the back of the mount to maintain a reach advantage. Attacking the mount gave an attack to the rider and attacking the rider gave an attack to the mount. The players were stuck using ranged weapon, but the mount allowed for hit and run tactic. Spells were the only option the player had. While the leader had psionics available to him, I completely forgot to use them, live and learn. So after the bandits died a violent death, I had them return as tormented spirits to plague the player dreams with a little soul searching. Lets just say the players aren't too keen on being murder hooboos now.
on the campaign I'm a player in, our DM made the leader of this troupe of bandits a lady protector of a child that has been kidnapped and was ordered to just kill people and get a large group of bandits. She wasn't told more than that, and it gave us a second quest to follow.
It's funny that we take some things as given that might not be true. When you said that we've probably killed countless bandits while gaming I agreed. Then I thought about it and realized that in 40 years of playing D&D the number of bandits that all my characters have fought could easily be counted on one hand. I get that as DMs probably avoid them because they're ubiquitous...thus making them the opposite of ubiquitous.
My advice. If you’re going to fight them. Don’t use the bandit stat block. Sure they aren’t trained but an experienced armed and armored human is weaker than a wolf? It will take a lot of CR 1/8th to make up an encounter after level 1. Check out the thug, the spy, the bandit captain, or the swashbuckler stat blocks to upscale the encounter if you want to have a balanced combat that doesn’t have 40 enemies come level 5. Also. Give them a battle plan. Do they come in at night? Always effective, do they have someone pose as an innocent to lead people away to an ambush spot where they are surrounded? That’s a good plan too. But they’ll probably engage the party in threats and conversation weapons drawn against a party with weapons sheathed. They don’t want to kill you they just want your stuff. But if you do defend themselves they want the first shot in with held actions. Likely coordinated at a specific person they threaten so they can hopefully start the combat by knocking out a player with heavy crossbow bolts
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Historically, one of the most common reasons for brigandry was young men recruited for war before learning a trade. Afterward they're released from service and the only skill they have is killing. These become mercenaries in war torn regions but in peacetime they find they're no longer able to sell their sword and resort to highway robbery.
I've got a bit of a running joke in my campaign setting... the bandit groups known as "The Shadow Wolves". Six (and counting) entirely unrelated bandit groups who didn't know the name was already being used by a different bandit group.
that idea is solid gold, and in the spirit of this video I'm going to steal that.
Sounds like they might be controlled by a bigger force that has a few irons in the fire.
@@WisdomThumbs there is always that option, yes... Cool idea, Kevin.
I'm stealing this for when I run my edited Princes of the apocalypse.
I'm prepping a bandit group for my new campaign's first quest called the Songbirds. During a stick up a few months before the campaign starts, they unknowingly held up a witch, and the core membership of the group was cursed to sing everything they say. The Songbird name isn't official, it's just the name passed along official channels, and it pisses the group off to no end. Mechanically they won't be a difficult set of fights, but I wanted a memorable and fun first journey, and most of my players are brand new to D&D.
My players were so proud of themselves for slaying the local bandits and protecting the town from these marauders. As they went through the bodies, one of them found a small locket that had a love letter inside addressed to a woman and signed with, "I hope to escape and see you soon my love." After that the players felt so guilty that they always asked around whenever they reached a new town, just to see if they could find the woman named inside the locket. Sadly, they never did, and she never found out what happened to her lover.
Great video as always! ❤
Oh that is fucking brilliant!
@@crazyscotsman9327 Thanks! It was a great moment that happened pretty naturally. It was especially funny to see the players act so guilt stricken when their characters were all evil or neutral alignments. (Edited for typos)
@@WilliamShakspere I think I am going to steal that idea from you and see if I can make this band of misfits I am dming for actually care.... Hmmmmm.
@@crazyscotsman9327 Break their hearts muahaha
Damn! Definitely stealing this! My player is a bit of a murder hobo at the moment. Hoping this can get him more involved.
Bandits can also be a useful DM tool, by taking excess cash out of the system.
When the party were getting a bit too rich for the good of the local economy (and game balance at their level !), I set up a group of bandits who demanded a tithe every time the players emerged from the local mega-dungeon. The first time, the party were low level and tapped out of spells, low on HP and out of healing after a torrid time in the depths. They realised it was a fight they couldn't win, and paid up. After a few times, it became completely routine, and they got pally with the bandits, paying them a little extra to keep other adventurers away from "their turf".
That was 30-odd real world years ago, and about 20 game-world years. The (once nameless) leader of the bandits is now one of the key NPC's in the world. He got involved in politics, led a province in a bloody war of independence from a tyrannical overlord (with lots of help from his friends, the PC's !), and now runs his own small country. From a DM perspective, he's gone from taking out surplus cash to employing new parties and paying them to achieve his goals.....
That's really cool actually, like a sort of Mafia that formed taking advantage of struggling adventurers, then expanding to offer... "services" to said -victims- parties.
Intresting
I love this idea. It also punishes the murder hobo groups who try to fight anyway and end up dead. Though how would you handle it if the party decided to take a long rest before exiting?
@@baeneth Good question ! At it's simplest, it's just a case that as DM you can easily add critters to any encounter to make it do the job. But some players are of the type who don't recognise a fight that's designed to be unwinnable (the old "if it's got a stat bloc, we can kill it" line). In which case, I'd give the bandit a spellcaster or two, or some other way to incapacitate the party. At which point it becomes an RP exercise; with the party tied up, the bandit chief explains they need to pay the toll each time they come through after which they'll be let go.
Then (as DM) always make sure the bandits level up in line with the party. Giving the bandits names and personalities helps too.... it's amazing how players will treat someone with a name as an NPC who can be interacted with, while something nameless is just a random monster to be killed.
@@seanbissett-powell5916 This is all absolute brilliance.
I don't run D&D (though not for lack of interest) but this concept applies well to a number of games, and I'm already forming ideas for everything from Star Wars to Vampire: the Masquerade.
Thank you for a new way to prune my players' surplus loot! :D
When peace broke out after a war, it probably would not have been uncommon for unemployed mercenaries to turn to brigandry. So, the idea of large bands of bandits with a command structure isn't all that ridiculous especially if the territory they operate in isn't all that well organized and or powerful.
Land Pirates.
Adding a child's toy into the loot. Omg. I need to do this now!
Adding to what Cody had said...
Amongst the bandit's belongings, you find an unfinished carving of what appears to be a woman in a ball gown. Upon inspection, you find a messaged carved into the bottom of the base which reads "To Bethany, A little princess for my little princess. Love always, Papa."
I agree, can't wait to break this one out. I know just who to pull it on too.
As a DM your alignment now changes to CE
You can also combo this into the revenge story.A few adventures later your party is challenged by an young women."Hello, my name is Bethany. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
@@patafix534 My approach would be to take a page from Skyrim, but instead of a ritual, this happens.
The party rests in a tavern for the night. During dinner, they are approached by a little girl holding a bag of coppers and a few silvers that she's managed to scrounge up doing all kinds of work for the past month. She asks the party to locate and assassinate a few people who were in (insert area name) that were around during (insert incident name) - though she does not know what they look like. They ask her why. She tells them that she's found out that they were responsible for daddy not being around anymore. They find out her name is Bethany.
I made an encounter that started with a lord hiring anyone available to kill a bandit group that was burning farms and salting the fields. The party isn’t the first group to go after them, and no other group has returned since taking the job.
The party starts investigating the farms, and finds that at every single farm, and effigy of the local lord was built and burned. In the remains, they find parts of official letters that talk about raised taxes to pay for the expansion of the lord’s manor.
As they get to the 4th farm, the bandits are in the middle of destroying the fields and making the effigy when the party shows up. The party sees that almost all of them are dressed as farmers, and there are a couple tough looking adventurers with them. A skill check confirms that one of the adventurers is a traveling hero of minor renown that they had met before.
The party finds out that the local lord had been demanding more monthly taxes from the farmers than they could harvest in a year, and as “alternative reparations” he would have their children taken. Young boys were sent to the mines, young girls were sent to the lords harem. The farmers had taken to bankrupting the lord to the point that the guards quit from lack of payment, and then the farmers could overthrow the lord. The previous adventurers had joined with the farmers to speed the process.
What happened next was a campaign of paying guards to relocate, a trip to the mines to convince the miners to help overthrow the lord, and a near party wipe as they fought against the lords personal guard, led by another renowned adventurer who the lord blackmailed into service.
Fun times.
Brutal, neat but what the fuck Will they *eat*
@@defensivekobra3873 They have kids right ?
A lot of times, people turn to banditry out of necessity after desertion from a war. Many cultures outright execute deserters, no matter how justified the reasons for not wanting to go to war are. So for a lot of bandits, the life of an outlaw is literally the only life they have. In a lot of cases, bandits and brigands aren't necessarily 'evil' or 'wicked' people, they're just desperate and doing what they must to survive. So there's another idea. If your campaign has some kind of ongoing conflict or war going on, the outlaws you encounter could just be the unfortunate people who tried to escape and lost everything. Depending on the nature of the scenario and the factions involved in the conflict, this could actually make the bandits the more sympathetic group for the players to ally with.
You have just described a significant portion of Italian history. One noble/town would hire a gang/company (condottieri), then the gang would go see what the target would offer. Sometimes they'd turn right around to extort their employers. Or just take whatever their targets would give, then just ride away. Or take over the whole target/castle themselves.
I'm actually doing something similar to this in my own campaign. In my setting, some twenty years ago a long standing war was ended. That doesn't affect the players in a significant way for the time being, but as a reminder, I'm throwing in a large bandit gang that's completely composed of members of the losing side of the war. Just by chance the players end up fighting and killing a group of this bandit, but the idea is that the rest of them will be out for revenge, forcing the players to fight them at their base, and then discover that they were stealing just to finance their bigger operation: Smuggling goods to a refugee camp, and it's up to the players to either loot the whole camp, or to do a last favour to the remaining bandits and help them in a last delivery that would temporarily save the refugees.
I came to this video looking for good ideas to spice up the encounter at the bandit base, and felt like sharing this.
"Who chooses to be a bloodthirsty brigand that pillaged whatever they want?"
Most of my party usually
The only big bandit gang that I ever employed in my games were called “the Torn Banner”. The gang was founded by a Lord who tried to start a revolution with the help of another neighboring Lord. However that neighboring Lord sold out the revolutionary Lord to the king. This lead to the revolutionary Lord being stripped of title and all of his lands being gifted to theLord who betrayed him. That lord now runs a gang of bandits that consists mostly of army deserters and soldiers loyal to the bandit Lord even after his title was stripped. The bandit lord now seeks revenge by trying to starve the city of the traitor Lord with constant attacks on farmlands and caravans. Even going so far as to infect the city with a plague made by an evil wizard whom he’d made a recent alliance with.
Great video. Definitely gets the creative juices flowing
This is the best Taking20 video I've ever seen. Cody, you've come a long way man.
When I saw "bandits" all I could think was "aw man, there were ~so~ many more interesting ideas you could've used."
I was super wrong. Every single tip in this video is pure gold - you've got me thinking that bandits might be the ~most~ interesting low-level mooks to throw at a party. The toy? The vengeful family member? Fucking great. Awesome job, man. Absolutely loved this video.
Right? These were all amazing ways to make the most boring enemy seem real and engaging.
It's 5AM a year later, and I'm taking notes on my phone with all the ideas generated, and I'm going to listen again from the top because it all flew by too fast.
I just had the great idea of having a party of bandits that all cast healing word on each other, and they are all saying things like "You're looking good today!", "We can do this, we are the best after all.", or "EDF!" I need to run this encounter now. Thanks.
EDF! EDF!! EDF!!!
What's an edf? Asking for my dumb friend.
that would be interesting and challenging!
I believe they are referring to Earth Defenestration Forceen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Defense_Force
@@noodledoodle9408 thank you kind stranger
I cannot take the credit for creating this, though I remember seeing or reading about this somewhere.
The players come across some form of a wreckage, whether a farmstead or caravan, and find a crying child or two, related.
They'll cry and beg for their help, telling them their parents were taken by scary men, happened recently. Of course the Players will want to save their poor childrens parents and will surely make haste (you'd hope) and maybe take the children along, they're big bad and scary. Well, after being ambushed multiple times, the players may be getting suspicious, specially since the children never seem to be in danger, when finally they meet face to face with the Bandit leader, and the two kids run up to the man yelling "daddy!" With cheery expressions on their face. Reason why is really up to the GM taking the idea isn't it?
Should've kept walking
The child's toy could go different ways too. The bandit with the toy could be a simpleton with the body of a giant but the mind of a 5 year old trying to please his parent(s) who is one of the bandits. Like Master and Blaster from Mad Max Beyond the Thunder Dome or Sloth from the Goonies . And just like Max in the movie the player(s) might not want to kill them and take pitty on them. The parent(s) is just trying to provide for his outcast child and the child is just trying to please the parent(s). Maybe the child was already abandoned and the bandit rescued and raised it. Maybe it was the malformed offspring of the local lord that the bandit now harass. Actually if you remove the simpleton part and leave the just the deformed part they could just be the left for dead offspring of a lord and now runs a bandit gang out to ruin his father. Which I guess could also work for a lord throwing out his 1/2 orc baby by way of orc slave. In either case, the bandits could be mostly maid up of 1/2 races that were case aside buy pure blood parents.
You've no idea how much I adore these videos, I'm a relatively new dm, and your kypw videos improved my the combat in my Homebrew campaign vastly, I had a hard time making encounters compelling up until I turned to your channel. I don't quite remember where I found them online, but I found a handful of well put together templates for custom bandit's, with unique fighting styles and abilities, they immediately improved my bandit encounters, I'll never forget the look on my paladins face when one of the highwaymen they were hired to "remove" grappled him so another could throw a flask of alchemists fire at him.
"Hey, you're using tricks! That's not fair!"
-"Bandit!"
Having the Bandit stat-block available during my current Dragon-Heist campaign has been extremely helpful as of late. Basically, the entry-level Zhentarim thugs are bandits and just about any other criminal type that our adventurers may run into in the dark alleys of Waterdeep. I usually always try to give them a personality and a voice along with life-saving decisions such as to run when they realize they are outmatched or plead for their lives if they are out of options. Having names for these characters and a bit of role-playing makes it fun when they encounter them again.
Great video Cody, I loved the ideas of organized gangs and the devious DM tips on applying guilt if the party decides to go full murder-hobo on the bad guys.
I think a great example of interesting bandits comes from Critical Role 2, the lovingly named "Syphilis Bandits." They were inexperienced, desperate, and the party easily intimidated them into surrender, only to let them go with a warning to get better. And then Mercer brought them back! Now the audience is eagerly anticipating the bandits to come back at some random time, and watch them grow, and continue a ridiculous but memorable group of NPCs.
They ashed Trevor!
This video helped me create the Hollowflags, a band of bandits who work for an evil bard, aiding him on his quest to take over a halfling village and finaly dig up the legendary "'Wraith's Curse" (a Rapier +3 that turns any humanoid creature into a Wraith if its killed by the blade). It pairs with a Ring of Domination (Undead), which the bard has (the ring automatically controlls any undead of CR 5 or lower, plus any undead of higher CR must make a Wisdom Saving Throw which DC is 15 - the creatures Wisdom modifier)
I like the concept, but what tier of play do you plan for this? The ring seems a little too overpowered, automatically controlling any undead cr5 or lower without a save indefinitely, and any undead over cr5 either makes the save, or is also indefinitely "dominated."
A death knight (cr17) has a 1/4 chance of permanently being controlled by the ring wearer.
You should flesh out the item a bit more, giving it more restrictions and tweaks. Find a balance of fun and fair.
Army of the dead, built one soldier at a time!
I hope you are prepared for the party to wreak havok with that stuff. Even if they skip the rapier (though at +3, which is legendary level I think) because of the wraith thing that ring controlling CR 5 is pretty darned up there. (Unless your players are over 15th level). Make it 1 charge per day or be prepared to never challenge them with undead again.
@@96Logan Yeah, I underpowered it a bit so only Wraiths created by the Rapier (which i downgraded to a +2) were controled by the ring. Additionally, the rapier is just a simple +2 weapon without the ring and the ring itself is intelligent and chooses who the wearer is, seeking only evil creatures.
Both of the magic items were never actually meant to be obtainable to the players, so that's why the concept was so overpowered.
@@notorious.scoundrel I see. Yeah, this is coming from a player who loves necromancy. If the guy who loves summoning hordes of undead to do his bidding tells you that your undead controlling item was a bit too strong, then you know it comes from like minded person. An undead controlling necromancer is probably my favorite archetype in d&d.
Give one of the bandits a unique trinket that, should the PCs attempt to sell it off for gold, reveals their connection to someone in town. Like, imagine if they were the wayward son of the shopkeeper they're trying to pawn it off on! You'll probably want to keep the connection part loose until the PCs decide on what to do with the trinket.
I have a story of pulling dirty tricks on a party with bandits. The party becomes ambushed by a party of short masked people who are as big as halflings/Dwarves and their leader is a tall guy with a deep voice. The leader robs them and the party killed the bandits only to find out that these bandits were really just children and their leader was a boy who was like 13-14 years old and hit puberty hard. They were all ambushing the party to get supplies to survive
wow, lol.
That’s one way to teach your party mercy. Have them use slings, shortswords, and clubs. Maybe run them like you would do goblins where they disengage with hit and run tactics.
Fuuuuuck. Reminds me of part of “The Heroes” by Joe Abercrombie.
Ouch.
That is evil. I don't know how to feel about that one
In one of my recent campaigns, one of the constant threats was The Red Hand. This was a bandit brotherhood that seemed to be everywhere and ranges from thugs with clubs to armored professionals. All were marked by having some sort of red affectation on their right hand. In the end these bandits ended up being more like a cult with the goal of trying to pave the way for the return of The Red King, a powerful evil ruler that had been killed in generations prior to game time.
My favorite idea for a “bandit” that I have come up with is a guy who kills criminals with a special dagger that steals their life force and hit points for later use as charges for a Lay in Hands-style ability, which he uses to cure the sick and heal the wounded.
Dang! Sounds like a moral quandry for the heroes.
This is an excellent idea
The more I think about it, the more I think this could be low level antagonist. 1-5 or 1-10. He starts off as an altruistic Robin Hood esque character, but as he set's his sights on "correcting" greater evils, he makes greater concessions in what he's willing to sacrifice. Ultimately he becomes the evil he set out to destroy, and he himself must be put down by the heroes.
@@TheDungineer I never thought about it that way. That sounds awesome.
This is brilliant. Like a peaceful priest that everyone loves but no one knows who his patron is or where he gets his Devine powers from
Had a group of bandits that initially were just fodder but party negotiated with the leader to siding with them after the odds were stacked against the bandits. Led into developing a backstory between the dragonborn leader and human cleric that was with them. The human cleric abandoned by their traveling group was stumbled upon by the bandits. Hungry, alone, and afraid the cleric joined up with the bandits. Shortly thereafter the leader suffered a near death wound which the cleric tended to and brought them back from the brink of death leading into a relationship of trust and reliance between the two. Both of them are fiercely defensive of each other and will protect the other at all costs.
His description of bandits is pretty much chaotic evil players
We had a bunch of bandits early on in our newest campaign, who took refuge in an old cave nearby town, and they were stealing things for some seemingly bigger purpose, when the party needed to get medicine to help a sick person who they cared about, that just so happened to be stolen by these bandits. Nobody had been killed by them, as far as the players were concerned, so they went to track down the bandits and the medicine at which point they got attacked by said bandits, but saved by the bandit leader who told his party that they (the bandits) would not murder those who had done nothing wrong. However, for trying multiple occasions to kill the party, the leader had to remove a member from his ranks, whose body was found by the party, the medicine they needed was grasped in his hand, as basically a threat but a show of some good faith left in the leader. Basically: “Here’s what you need, but be careful that you don’t meddle any further.”
I love this. Would love to see KYPW Goblins.
Cody! Dude, that gnome/troll wagon encounter is awesome. I'm stealing it, man. And Im going to call them they grey goats as an homage.b
I LOVE kypw. It has given me so many ideas for world building. WE NEED MORE KYPW!!!!
There was a bandit in the western US in the 1800's, I think he was the gentleman bandit, who only robed Wells Fargo stagecoaches. He never killed anyone and when he was eventually caught his gun wasn't even loaded. He was a gambler who when his luck was down he would rob a coach so that he could continue his lavish lifestyle without interruption.
My DM once had a duke hire our group to fight of some bandits. He felt off when we talked to him. Only addressing the human looking races in the group (think human, dwarven, half elf). but we thought nothing of it. when we walked through town we started noticing that only humans and human looking races were present and a lot of houses were empty. then fighting the bandits the were all beastkin humanoids (think races like kenku, tabaxi, leonin, etc.). turns out the "bandits" were driven from their home by a racist duke who hated beastkin humanoids or 'savages' as he called them. We ended up fighting with the bandits against the duke and his soldiers, capturing the duke and delivering him to the royal capital where his brother, the king (who had a tabaxi wife) found out what he did and later publicly executed him as an example.
These sessions were so much fun. lots of RP and cool combat. and a nice change thrown in there. BANDITS CAN BE GOOD GUYS. ;p
When I run bandits I like to make sure it sinks in that they killed a person. One of my favorite things I’ve done went something along the lines of:
As your sword pierced the chest of the bandit you see the life drain from his eyes and hear a sword clatter on the ground behind you. As you turn around you see another bandit who has fallen to their knees with a look of failure and defeat on their face.
I know I'm late to this party, but I think that doing a KYPW about Yuan-Ti would be amazing. Just a suggestion, but i love this series and would love to see more of it.
A gang that is in my world but has yet to be met by the players is the chromatic syndicate. The leader is called The Shadow King, he has 5 generals one to represent each of tiamats colors. The black general, the white empress, the green goddess, the red devil, and the blue lighting. Each head controls a different aspect of the syndicate and each one runs out of a different major city. The shadow king is actually based off of the first pc I made who was a half elf rouge who got the nickname the shadowed hand after becoming the main thief and Assassin for the the shadow king. But know in my world he is the shadow king.
I know I have watched this before and I just had a new idea watching this... Going through a Forest, maybe add a Single Kobold to a bandit group who has a breath weapon... a kobold might make a good decoy to gather your party around... looking injured with a turned over cart. Maybe a busted cart wheel a rock placed to seem logical to break the wheel... Your party gets close to help, then gets blasted with a poison breath, the breath cloud as a signal for the bandit party to attack.
This scenario of a helpless victim to lure in the group is common, but unless you make kobold breath weapons a common encounter or kobold fights common they wont expect the breath attack. And they will be talking about the bandit group with the poison spewing kobold for a while.
Well, I was going to say this is how most adventuring parties are, but that got mentioned a lot already. One thing I'd add - bandits are not stupid, highly adaptable, and unless they're famous (or infamous), they blend into any local populace. They can use captured magic items and technology. If they operate out of a certain location, they can use their in-depth knowledge to attack/defend/escape (think the Merry Men and Sherwood Forest) better than a Ranger that isn't from the area. If they support the locals, the locals may support them. Anything the PCs can do, bandits can do as well, and sometimes better.
And also bandits often play to win. They don't find any kind of tactic deplorable.
I had bandits in my game basically gang up on one person, Shove them to the ground, and proceed to pummel then to unconsciousness while they are down - not to death, because why, if the target is not a threat anymore, but clearly no "honor" in their tactics. On a similar note, had a bandit grab a fistfull of sand from the ground and throw it into player's face, and having the player be blind after failing theit save.
This gave me the motivation to finally write the "Thieves Guild" in my homebrew campaign. And for that I thank you.
The Black Rose Society will be a very interesting threat.
My favorite scheme is having bandits react to each other's deaths. It can be a bit comedic, like one bandit trying to get another killed or two bandits rough-housing and "giving each-other a hard time" in the fight, or it can be a gut-wrenching moment for everyone involved- imagine your party hacking and murdering its way through a bandit gang and one member gets tossed to the ground but not killed. Another member (it's better if he/she is younger) cries out their name, but it's too late; the downed bandit is finished off in front of everyone. This 'could' be the deciding moment for the bandit group to retreat- all but one young member of the group, screaming their friend/mentor's name and trying to get to them (or the party to fight on the killed bandit's behalf), but being manhandled/carried away by another member of the group.
Then your party has to make the choice: follow the bandits and try to take them all on again for the final blow, or let them slip away and grieve their losses, potentially giving up the bandit life for good.
(Extra browny points for rolling to decide whether the young bandit manages to break free and run towards the party or is overpowered by their own party and dragged away from the battlefield)
Reminds me of a lone brigand my first party came across. They were wandering out from a larger city in a merchant country, when they found a carriage knocked over, its horses dead and nobody to be seen... until they were ambushed by none other than... KARLOSS, THE BRIGAND WITH BIG DREAMS. He wasn't the brightest, and definitely cocky. The encounter went like this.
Karloss: Gimme me all yer gold!
Mage: Why?
Karloss: I'm robbin you lot!
Mage: really? How are you going to do that all by yourself?
Karloss: Don't you know who I am?
Warrior: uh, nope.
Karloss: what? You don't? I-I Mean... You will know my name and tremble, for I am KARLOSS, the brigand with big dreams, next to be king of the brigands!
Mage: okay, but how do you know that you're not the one getting robbed?
Karloss: wha--? No, I'm the one robbin you!
Mage: No, *YOU'RE* getting robbed!
Karloss: (looks around, confused) "oh shit. You're right! Take my money, just let me live!
Mage: give me your pants, too.
Karloss: what?
Mage: you heard me.
And that's how the story of Karloss, the Brigand with Big Dreams, became KARLOSS, THE BRIGAND WITH BIG DREAMS... BUT NO PANTS!
now, every now and again, they hear tales from travelers of a brigand, who robs people half nude. He robs them for their coin so he can go into town and buy pants, but the guards won't let him in while indecent. Problem is: everytime he ambushes someone, they shit themselves in fear, thus preventing him from taking someone else's pants to get back into the city.
He is truly a tortured soul.
I know it's a bit high horsed to believe that my comment on one of your previous videos led to this but I am immensely enthused by the revival of the KYPW series. This series helps me out so much when it comes just to getting the right view of a monster. Thank you.
Love this video. My character was a noble but joined a gang after a coup. Becoming the lowest of the low. Smart enough to make the drugs but not enough to taste. He is a seller a man of many veils. Just enough to get by. Or maybe an ally
Don't forget too, about crime syndicates and the like. My campaign currently saw my mid level players topple a gang, first being involved because of one of the PCs involvement in crime around the city they were in. There was a strange influx of new drugs and a sickness sweeping the area. Players get the quest from a lord, who turns out was funding drug sale and research through the gang.
PCs eventually fight and investigate up the chain of command and kill the leader (secretly a Rakshasa) and help stabilize the region.
Many things here like you said: a name, calling card, motives, organization, story hooks, etc... They all work exceptionally well.
Also: players had to go incognito to a drug den to do some investigating. That was a fun non combat encounter!
Cool to see another episode of this series you have going on. Wonder what you plan to KYPW next.
A bandit group I have in a game I’m currently running I named the Brigands of Ironmaul. I plan for them to be a semi-long running group that I hope last awhile in my game.
I love including Bandits with Wolves. The Wolves can easily track the players, using their smell/hearing to sniff out the grimy rogue or to hear the paladin's chainmail. Also, In combat, sending the dogs out first with pack tactics is good to soften up the party members before the big bruiser arrives. In addition, they also bark and act as mobile alarms to call for reinforcements. In general, a couple scouts taking advantage on mans best friend can really increase the cool factor.
I'm 3 sessions into running my first campaign with some friends and took this advice to heart. Turning a roadside ambush into a plot point by making the bandits into a clan of monks dedicated to a god of thieves, it was awesome. Thank you.
The redemption of althalus has a protagonist who is a thief/brigand. At the start of the story he knocks out a drunk person and then proceeds with the "transfer of ownership". :P
One of my groups is currently fighting a group in a Kingdom's capital city called "The six strings chord". The group acts pretty much like the yakuza as they took the criminal situation of the capital, that has a lack of guards due to many of the guards being drafted for war and decided to use the little gangs in a controlled environment for the group itself. If you join, you work under the group and its six officers in one of the six main districts. If you refuse to join and still keep on your criminal activities you will simply be stabbed in a quiet corner or poisoned.
The group is lead by a Changeling, assuming the mysterious character of Vyrassk, a Lizardfolk, being assumed to be a bard who was only seen covered in black rags with a porcellan mask.
Much to the dismay of my party, every single competent bard with a chaotic personality was sucked into the organization, meaning many of these bards were doubles for Vyrassk, when the remainder of the city watch as well as the heroes had a few clues.
Basically every person that is higher than your thug is a bard, everyone can at last throw inspiration and has another level 1 spell they can perform and the higher ranking members are all from the college of Glamour which means they can entice people by playing to them for a minute, if they fail the save, which most lowlifes simply do.
The idea is, that the organization just wants to be that sort of "actor from the shadows" that keeps "order" by throwing their brand of law into the crimes going on, while taking their fair share of money in hopes the Queen of the Kingdom gives into their shady dealings, just because a bitter medicine is better than none.
*looks at group name*.... Yoink. hahah
That’s insidious and colorful. Love it.
A monastery. populated only by halflings, gnomes, and kobolds, suffering through a famine. The monastery lies just off a major trade route, and they have been attacking and robbing caravans of food. All monks, they are known as the Clan of the Waist-High Fist.
A great timely video! I just placed tortle bandits (veterans of the local empire who have not made the transition to civilian life well) into an alley! Depending on survival checks, they will either be mistaking the two PC's who left lunch early for a scheduled contact casing local shops (one of the PC's may be interested in crime, and was remarking that the shops had little security), or will demand a "toll" for "their kind" using the alley. They are the "Gnarly Pits Gang" (shells reminded someone of peach pits). They have enhanced AC's, and being veterans know how to take damage; will pop up to 1 hp if brought to zero, and make use of their greater healing potions (which also serve as treasure if not consumed). If the PC's get into too much trouble, the actual contact has been trailing them, thinking that the PC's were tracking him. He could help them from a roof, with his crossbow, after seeing how the Pits treat potential allies.
Update: We played today. The PC's dazzled the bandits with conversation and persuasion, rolling very well. The PC's are forming a plan to actually sign the three of them on as muscle for an upcoming mission, and perhaps long term as ship crew! It is always a delight where dice rolls and clever roleplay leads the story!
Something to keep in mind: most military forces will break and flee if 1/3 are killed/knocked out. The only exceptions are fanatics and cornered enemies. Very few forces are willing to fight to the death and gangs should probably break at a 1/4 losses or so.
I gave a few of my bandits I ran some cultist boons during a campaign with a budding cult. Needless to say the party was completely in shock when a few Orc Bandits turned invisible in the midst of combat. It was super fun and it made the party want to investigate the fact that Orcs were turning invisible.
My party recently fought off a band of HobGoblins, they had just met a PC Cave Troll, whose family had been wiped out, and they followed a wagon. After searching a broken wagon after the ambush, they found a letter from 'The Diplomat' adding in a side arc to the Tyrany of Dragons arc I am running.
New information they just gathered is that 'The Diplomat' isn't actually well known and has minions/lieutenants that collect protections/offer trade options.
He pays well, and has information on almost everyone he deals with.
Oooo, luck at that I'm early. Thank's for this video, I always find your KYPW vids super inspiring and helpful. As a beginning DM, these vids have allowed me to create way more complex worlds than I could of ever come up with. Many thanks.
So glad you've enjoyed them!
A couple of months ago, you suggested I picked up a copy of Mines of Phandelver. I did and my groups just now getting to Phandalin. Again, this video couldn't have come at a better time. I will definitely be using some of these tips to dress up the Redbrands. Thanks again!
Bandit group background idea that I'm currently using with my players: The leader is a new person who recently took over the group with the sole purpose of a collecting funds to build a mercenary army and take over a city (He's a former soldier that's sick of common folk being used like fodder for the rich people's petty conflicts)
This episode was a huge help. I love using bandits, but i'm always scared to change stat blocks.
I'm running a short western style adventure right now. The characters are fighting the Blue Buckle gang, which is rumored to be lead by a young blue dragon.
The blue buckles have discovered or somehow stumbled upon a strange blue metal, that if it is electrically charged makes you really quick. (It gives you +2 dex, +2 to initiative checks, and once per day, you can use an action to activate it and for the next minute, be able to dash and disengage as a bonus action, and it doubles your movement speed.) Which is basically cunning action from the rogue.
This is really fun to do, I added in some bosses being an ogre with a huge shotgun that's basically a cannon, and an intelligent rattlesnake-esque hydra named "Ten-hat jack" that has 10 attunement slots that he uses to attune to 10 magic hats, that all give him some minor ability.
The bandits also work with Rattlers, which are offspring of Ten-Hat jack. They're really cool because they can poison people, and they are also really perceptive because of their keen smell and blindsense (which helps out the humans in the group)
Finally, theres "blue buckle bolters"- that are 3rd level elven blue draconic sorcerers of the boss. Their darkvision and trance is handy abilities for the mostly human gang, and They have utility spells like disguise self, witch bolt, sleep, misty step, and mirror image. I'm really excited to use these guys and I think the adventure is going to be a blast to run.
Rock Gnomes Highway Men, and a Pair of Trolls ... staking out a bridge along a well traveled trade route ... all wearing grey goat horn cowls.
Barrett's Privateers is a great bandit trope that I love using. A group of hard pressed kids are told they will just be ambushing merchants who won't fight back and will just give up their gold. Guys told they would "cruise the highways looking for merchant gold, but they'd never draw a sword, never shed blood" who end up having their first attack being against the PCs.
Their equipment is garbage, they have a letter they say gives them rights to patrol the highways from someone with a title but no name, and they are all teenagers.
Some interesting ways bandits can have added complexity can be found in how they are used. For example a member of a bandit gang can offer his or her services as a local guide and take the party into an ambush. Another possibility is the bandits can lure the players into a prepared kill zone with deadly traps and well-concealed ambush positions. Bandits might also be very interested in kidnapping players who can pay ransom.
the best Bandit has high charisma, killer mustache, and has the Drive skill to distract the guards in his awesome Trans-Am!
This was very good!!! I'm an old swedish gamemaster and have just started with DnD. I really like how you show how to understand the foes, make them unique and how you can both modify the "gang" and individuals and thus create a good encounter and further, a good story.
Bandits should never, ever be a straight up fight. If you're doing that, you're using them wrong. Ambushes, traps, harry the party with retreats and counter attacks, not letting them get in any rests and just wear them down. The minute a battle turns against bandits, they should run, regroup and come back later with a different plan of attack. They'd more likely attack caravans and travelling merchants as they can disable the wagons and horses, immobilising the whole train, and that lets them hit and run until the defenders are worn out. A small group of adventurers wouldn't be a target for any but the most desperate bandits as the level of profit would not be worth the grief of tangling with the pcs. Any pcs they could take easily wouldn't have anything worth taking and pcs with good loot would be able to destroy them easily.
Sympathetic bandits are also a good option as they become a roleplaying challenge rather than a combat one. Sure they are robbing merchant caravans, but they are doing so to feed their families due to over-taxation by their local lord and their crops were burned by orcs, and if they don't get enough goods their whole village will not survive the winter. And, now that the fight is over, the pcs have killed most of the able bodies adults of the village. Wrestle with that moral dilemma, pcs!
I like the idea of a bandit group that's effectively a beastmaster mafia. The individual bandits aren't much of a threat, but they're a widespread, semi-organized group that specializes in training monsters to fight for them, with said monsters being a much bigger challenge.
They are always fun for me. They are a great meter for tiers of play... its really enjoyable scraping through a fight with a dozen bandits as first level heroes... then absolutely crushing bandits like ants by tenth level.
They also provide some of the most difficult and engaging moral dilemmas... it tells you a LOT about a person's character just by watching how they handle bandits.
My favorite encounter I've used bandits for were some highwaymen that ambushed the party at night, our party was a pretty memorable make up like the dwarf cleric with a purple beard due to a past disagreement with a wizard. So after a round or two the bandits realized who they were fighting had an "Oh crap if we knew we wouldn't have done this please forgive us" moment and it got to be a neat experience where the party got recognition for all the shit they do and counters the trope you see in video games of "I'm a shitty bandit in chain mail, that guy is the hero of Kvatch he's in full daedric enchanted armor.... I think I can take him!"
one of the best bandit groups I've seen are the bandits who attacked the Mighty Nein in Critical Role s2.
The first encounter, the leader got torched by Caleb, and then later, the party encountered them again, and the new leader freaked out at seeing Mollymauk. great bandits, really fun to watch, hope they come back again.
I'm running a campaign where a coven of hags are the villains. The first encounter for the party was a group of orc bandits. They were refugees driven out of the orc tribe by one of the hags and became allies to the party. They're not really Robin Hood types, but bad guys who got screwed over by worse bad guys and are trying to survive.
This was surprisingly helpful. I've been looking forward to a homebrew boss fight my players are about to get into, but suddenly, I'm really anxious for the chapter to follow when i was previously thinking about shorthanding the whole section.
Rewatching this after finishing Red Dead Redemption 2 sparks so many ideas. Dutch Van Der Linde's gang has so many different tensions and motivations, even one of which could be a memorable RP opportunity or story twist, or a hook for a whole new adventure
These videos are phenomenal. Adding simple details vastly improves a boring enemy.
So helpful. Currently running storm kings thunder and my players are going from triboar to everlund and I’m creating a lot of encounters for them. This helps immensely!
Big thanks, I've JUST figured out the reason bandits are raiding wagons, now this'll help make it way more fun to clear them out.
Wow Cody, great episode! I crave more KYPW, my favorite dnd content on RUclips
Nearly annihilated an experienced group of PCs with a kobold bandits ambush. Okay, so check this: The initial ambush is on the road, makes total sense. It happens when the PCs get caught by a pit trap to start things off, so that immediately pulled the Ranger out of combat for awhile (plus, the spikes). Phase two is pretty straight forward, the kobolds shoot them, focusing on the weakest looking character (The wizard in this instance), then run off into the woods. Party members (Now minus the Ranger and the Wizard) give chase. The Barbarian hadn't raged yet when he got caught a swinging tree trap that went just over the kobolds heads, and that didn't end well for him. Now, here's the REAL trick: that's was just a play, the real thing is going down in Phase three, when a second group of kobolds slip out of the other side of the road's brush, and ransack the party's wagon, before running off with the ill-gotten games. Group one of the kobolds are just running for hidey holes, nothing more. The cleric managed to hang on to HP, and had to heal up everyone, as well as trying to workout how to get the Ranger's horse out of the pit.
(Minor Spoilers for Storm Kings Thunder)
A good example of bandits with a cause is the group in the beginning of Storm King's Thunder. Yes yes, I remember you're ranking video where you said skip Nightstone in SKT; but my group is mostly new players, so I figured it would be a nice build up to mechanics. But back to the bandits... their whole goal is to set up Nightstone as a base of operations for the Zhentarim or Black Network (thieves guild). My players tried to leave the town before finishing the goblin threat fully, so these guys will ride in and actually aid the party when the goblins hear the noise and try to ambush them.
I am then going to try and put my players in a moral dilemma. The bandits, again who just fought along side the group, are going to ask them to clear out a few 'vigilantes' who took up residence in the local keep. I have a Rogue in my party, so I am going to try and entice him by making this his 'in' with the Black Network. When they get to the keep and finally confront these so called vigilantes, they will be met with hostility; though I will make it clear to them that these people look battered and bruised already. One way or another though, they will quickly find out that these are just regular city guards who remain in the keep out of desperation; mainly because they have no guidance after their Lady was killed then Giant attack that left the town in shambles.
So does the party take the time to figure out these are not bad guys? If they do, will they then help the guards instead to drive out the Zhentarim crew? Will they inadvertently do both by hastily killing the guards, only to learn what they had done after?
All of these questions hang in the balance thanks to what amounts to plain, old bandits. =)
I had a group of bandits that was the bane of my players, they were extremely militant and made up of deserters so they set every kinda trap imaginable, set fire in the woods to smoke you out into the open, wreck all trade routes so you couldn't re-buy equipment very well, they were a thorn in the players side until level 15.
Giving class features here and there to spice up non-character classed NPC encounters is a really good idea that I'm sure to get much use out of!
20:02 I modeled a small bandit group after some real world river pirates. In the United States, before the Erie Canal was finished the best way for farmers in the Mississippi basin, even as far north as Ohio and Wisconsin, was to put their harvest on a raft and sail it down river all the way to New Orleans. At different spots along the Mississippi and it’s tributaries like the Missouri there were small bands that would intercept these rafts and kill the crews. The local law enforcement was usually in on it in some form and the locals knew about this dirty little secret but kept it quiet because they usually profited from it. I placed this in my game world and added a young green dragon. The dragon helps to capture the rafts and dispose of the crews while the human bandits convert the rafts cargo; corn, wheat, barley and the like into something that the dragon would be interested in. Things like gold and emeralds. When the party kills the local boy bandits the king and the far away merchants might be happy but the locals have a totally different response.
I use the bandit stat-block for any humanoid, somewhat combat trained enemy that my low level parties fight, and usually put an extra skill or action depending on what purpose they serve in the game.
For example:
Corrupt Priests are bandits but have high persuasion and can usually get into whatever public location they want (more role-play than combat).
Mercenary Grunts are bandits but I'll give them a toned-down class ability depending on what weapons they wield.
I have a group of brand new players that I'm running right now and had actually unknowingly done the 1/3/5 set up but had 2 of the generals away from the main camp. They killed one group and came across the other general and the leader, little do they know that the final general will return to find his boss and brothers in arms slaughtered and swear revenge on them. Also the toy! that's so good!
Recently did a bandit encounter with my current group. The old ramshackle toll booth highway robbery variety. A few human bandits at the barricade, with some elven (racially hated in this campaign) bandits hidden in the nearby woods, including a low-level caster leading the group. PC's try to avoid the encounter by going around the barricade, so the bandits pull out crossbows and shoot the group, admittedly scoring a crit, and KOing on PC. The caster also sets up a Fog Cloud on the party, and the party immediately surrenders, escaping with their lives, but losing most of their gold after a negotiation.
Necro:
Thanks Cody you just helped my with my next planned encounter and building it up into the main plot or at least a side arc.
Easily my favorite series that you do! Keep em coming
Thank you ! I’m worldbuilding a very low-fantasy world, it’s so hard to think about original encounters. It helped a lot !
I once ran a group that encountered what they later found out was a slave trade but used one odd member of the bandit group as a fisher so to speak. The lone elf in the group of bandits was there to prey on and lure out other elves to be captured and sold off. The elf in question was being mind controlled which thankfully made the PC's think twice before just killing her as there was another force at work with potentially more threating goals. Giving them that out to not only turn an Villian to Ally but to take down a group of bandits engaged in slave trading worked out pretty well.
In the campaign I'm running there's a sort of secret association of hitmen known as The Hunters Guild. It's a real guild of hunters but many of the higher-ups in the guild are hitmen that use hunting as a cover for their nefarious deeds. One of my characters is a (former) criminal and he's the only one who knows that the bandits that were hired to kill them were from the hunters guild, and he's not telling the rest of the party because he's afraid he'll lose their trust once they learn even more about his dark past.
As always, great video full of great ideas, Cody!!!
From reskinning a wandering gypsy band or caravan, to a mafioso organization (thieves' guild) spanning two or three kingdoms and more than a dozen cities, I've turned what could easily be just a viable excuse for a random encounter into side-quest material more times than I care to remember. Sometimes it's the shear morbid curiosity or the voracity of what promises to be a bigger plot, and others, it's clearly the Players' suddenly abandoning the ongoing quest-arc for this "trifle" because it's just too ridiculous to leave it alone.
Had a whole fleet of "pirates" festooned with all the standards, every cliche in the book (and a few beyond) BUT they were traveling the DESERT on giant wheeled ships... Sure, still sails, and cannons, and all the cutlasses, belaying pin-clubs, and even a sabre or two among the "officers"... BUT they sailed the sand-ridden sea... and the Cap'n's Bird was a vulture named Brutus... probably because no self respecting parrot would be caught undead among that lot!
Personally, I've found that crafting a band of loyal cut-throaty types uniquely tends to start on one of two basic points, Location and/or Goal(s)... Sure, for "just another random encounter" the goals are short-sighted and easily over-looked. BUT if you're planning on a repetitive business, say the magical wood staying a dangerous place while the PC's traverse through more than a couple times... THEN a goal oriented crew (group) is worth considering. It resolves any particular issue with "randomness" with a plausible reason for said encounter, whether or not it's violent... which can be predetermined as well.
AND of course, the "overt engineering" for "dubiously more intelligent?" gangs and leaders can be a great means of "branding" the bandits... Consider all those wonderful "Roadrunner and Coyote" cartoons, where you could just as easily skin the bandits as Coyote's gang, and leave the PC's to the Roadrunner perspective... and let the antics ensue.
I once created an ambush scenario where a couple young(ish) children were herding rabbits across the road to impede the Party and their cart full of gear and supplies. Then the rest of the kids (teens mostly) fell upon them in a brash little free-for-all over "treasure"... of which the Party had very little, considering the recent "between adventure" shopping and upgrading...
BUT herding rabbits??? Yep, kids herding rabbits... like sheep. Now in conversation ALONE (table or otherwise) that was a memorable encounter, even if it was more ridiculous than dangerous. ;o)
My favorite way to use bandits is taken from one of my favorite games, Fable. I create a tiered level hideout for my group to run through, then they find the leader who is an incredible fighter/brute/sorcerer and once he’s felt with a relative comes and helps the party. I find it gets everyone going and involved in some way.
I’m running a Wild West 5e game and the biggest bandit gang is lead by a big rattlesnake like in Rango. Also their hideout is a pirate ship like foretress built on the back of a brontosaurus that can shoot cannonballs down at the players.
I've just been binging your KYPW series, and I think it's awesome. You offer so many ideas for how to use certain creatures in interesting ways, I'm bound to borrow a lot of them. I really would enjoy one on mind flayers, I don't think that they've been overused to the point of being typical and boring, nessecarily, but I do think that it can be a bit difficult to introduce them to a game naturally, and not feel a little shoe-horned in. Keep it up!
my favorite case of interesting bandits was a group in a game where I was a PC. the group was called the undying sun, sounds more like a cult right? that was the point. they used the guise of cult leaders to "recruit" a bunch of townspeople, only to roll them over for all their valuables. they were a mostly human group, but with a dragonborn leader who had actual character levels. the best part was, some of the members bought their own con, and would scream "by the grace of pelor, you will fall!" before using coordinated attacks using the environment. (think the battle of endor on a smaller scale. swinging logs, pit traps, things like that.)
What I've done is given my "Bandits" some extra abilities that can represent equipment. Like a Hearb they can apply to arrows that do stat damage. Or archers having a 2 use Volley Fire. A "boss" halfling of mine had a legendary action to allow sneak attack more than once a turn or to "flair up" already inflicted poison damage.
Thanks for the vid!
this gave me an idea for a session im running next week. I'm gonna have the players be hanging out in an inn for the night with a band playing, and the band is secretly a group of bard bandits who play a sleeping song that puts the party and other people at the inn to sleep, at which point the bandits can steal their things and make off. If the party picks up on the trick, the bandits will have one undercover tank who will fight the party while the band of bards debuff the party and buff their tank. should be a fun and interesting surprise for the players.
The idea of the toy on the bodies is pure gold
This is very interesting I just used bandits against my friends there where 3 at first as there was just two of them was trying to teach them. Who were just learning my friend thought I was holding punches (I wasn't). I was like okay he wanted more reinforcements when they where winning. I bring 3 more two regular and a captain the wizard kills the two reinforcements. So I made the captain show up (he carried a lance just because I wanted him to thought interesting enough he gets 2 natural 20's. A lance is 1d12+2 damage because he got two nat 20 he got to hit them each twice the are level 1. I show them the first one he knocks the Wizard completely. Unconscious first and then the guy who was a half demon elf. Who wanted "reinforcements" misses so the second natural 20 comes up I show my friend. I explain while he is flying this bandits jumps so well into the air he slams him in the neck knocking him to the ground a curator forms. He then lands on top of him impaling his character. killing both my players playing). I made him leave them injured thinking they where dead. As a learning curve but he is now gonna be apart of my story my main Villain Zalvan is a five type elemental a chaotic evil entity he is hired to gather souls for her to bring her back to the material plains so he is gonna be heading towards some ancient ruins to speak with her. Now my players figure out they need to work together and not be so reckless the fact my friend wanted to get into bar fights and mess around is fine but there is consequences I even told him are you sure. Now they can't also go back to the beginning town. They are just learning so I am working on not being so hard on them just giving advice.
This is great stuff. I love your KYPW videos, and this is one of your better ones.
I had recently ran a AD&D 2e Dark Sun encounter with a group of players running 10-12 Level characters. I bring this up because they real out classed the bandits that where attacking them. And while they eventually won the fight they felt every bit of it. First the bandits were riding poisonous mounts that paralyze the player on a failed save. Second the Bandits use spear from the back of the mount to maintain a reach advantage. Attacking the mount gave an attack to the rider and attacking the rider gave an attack to the mount. The players were stuck using ranged weapon, but the mount allowed for hit and run tactic. Spells were the only option the player had. While the leader had psionics available to him, I completely forgot to use them, live and learn. So after the bandits died a violent death, I had them return as tormented spirits to plague the player dreams with a little soul searching. Lets just say the players aren't too keen on being murder hooboos now.
on the campaign I'm a player in, our DM made the leader of this troupe of bandits a lady protector of a child that has been kidnapped and was ordered to just kill people and get a large group of bandits. She wasn't told more than that, and it gave us a second quest to follow.
It's funny that we take some things as given that might not be true. When you said that we've probably killed countless bandits while gaming I agreed. Then I thought about it and realized that in 40 years of playing D&D the number of bandits that all my characters have fought could easily be counted on one hand. I get that as DMs probably avoid them because they're ubiquitous...thus making them the opposite of ubiquitous.
My advice. If you’re going to fight them. Don’t use the bandit stat block.
Sure they aren’t trained but an experienced armed and armored human is weaker than a wolf? It will take a lot of CR 1/8th to make up an encounter after level 1. Check out the thug, the spy, the bandit captain, or the swashbuckler stat blocks to upscale the encounter if you want to have a balanced combat that doesn’t have 40 enemies come level 5.
Also. Give them a battle plan. Do they come in at night? Always effective, do they have someone pose as an innocent to lead people away to an ambush spot where they are surrounded? That’s a good plan too. But they’ll probably engage the party in threats and conversation weapons drawn against a party with weapons sheathed. They don’t want to kill you they just want your stuff. But if you do defend themselves they want the first shot in with held actions. Likely coordinated at a specific person they threaten so they can hopefully start the combat by knocking out a player with heavy crossbow bolts