Cities and houses are safe havens

[derwoodly]

Strong gate guards are good.  Gate guards should be the elite of the cities fighting force.  Not as good master trainers, that kind of skill should be reserved for Trainers.  For the sake of arguement lets assume a level system with numbers from 1 to 100.  I would reserve level 100 NPC for Kings, Guild Masters, and other one of a kind NPC\'s.  Trainers and Captains would start at level 50 and go up to level 90 or so.  Gate guards would be in the 40 to 60 range.  Watch commanders in the 20\'s and regualar guards in the 10\'s

I realize the PS has  a skill system, the numbers I used are just for comparison purposes.  

Yes you could kill a city guard, but they would never solo, and would always send a runner to get a watch commander or Captain, who would bring an army.

Why? you ask?  To give lower level players a sense of empowerment.  One of the first thing hight level players like to do is take on those \"unkillable\" guards that lorded over them for 100 levels.  You should be able to enjoy the game at all levels.  a 10th level adventure should be able to do some imprtant tasks for the city. they should not have to wait till level 100 to feel like they are powerfull character.

Note: My idea of combat is not exactly what PS has.  A PC or NPC should be able to go into a defensive stance and hold off a substantially higher level.  The guards would not be able to inflict much damage on the higher level, but they would not get mowed over like so many games.  Of cource if you suprise them they will not be in defensive stance and will be killed quickly.

[phischphood]

I think a system similar to the one used in Neverwinter Nights would be a good idea, where you have certain areas, like wilderness which are fully pvp enabled, more where you can harm enemies and not friends, and some exclusive no pvp areas as safeholds like cities and outposts. Also that when a pickpocket wants to steal something from another player, they have to select that they want to dislike the player, which enables them to perform hostile actions, when this happens the target player can see in the player menu a dislike icon next to the pickpocket\'s name, but if the player is not wary enough to see this, they can be pped without warning.