What makes law enforcers scary ?

What makes law enforcers scary ?
How do you make it a serious threat to your players ?

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Make them spellcasters. Even in setting that inherently doesn't have magic.

Instead of putting them against beat cops put them against the gestapo.

The dudes wield the power of the state, or king, or whatever.
Just make NPCs afraid of your inspector. If you're going for a dictatorship, make it so he can decide someone dies without doing it himself, and make it an unstoppable fact. No trial, no judge, just taken and never seen again, possibly seen by other people but who couldn't do anything.
Just don't do that to a fucking player character from that idiot from "playing dirty"

Why would I want to scare my players with law enforcers? They have super villains to deal with.

Make it clear that like most real life law enforcement, they are better connected and better equipped than your players are. Impress that not only will their crimes be punished, they will be remembered. They will not be able to fully escape, and each transgression will inevitably make their lives harder, and harder, and harder, until finally their sins catch up with them. Impress upon them that the result of capture will not be a brief stint in a jail followed by a daring, heroic escape, but a long, monotonous imprisonment that will steal from them years upon years of their life with no chance of every getting that back. It is not an exciting, violent end. It will be a slow, methodical, and reasonable punishment. And it's harbingers will not forget them until the sentence is carried out.

Besides hold person and imprison, what would be typical enforcer spells ?

A villain manipulating the PCs or the town police so that they have to be clandestine for a time makes for a great arc in a campaign

This. IRL law enforcement, when applied correctly, is fucking terrifying.

Mark of Justice, causing permanent brands on criminals.
Truth Spells for investigation and interrogation.
Tracking/scrying spells of all flavors, you can't hide.
Instant death spells if you're going for the grim executioner sort of law enforcement. Jury, trial, judge, the whole works and when the final gavel comes down, the judge gives you the terminal sentence personally.
Imprisonment, obviously. Nothing says maximum security incarceration like burying someone in a magical coma miles under the earth.

This.

The best conflict I ever had in a game was the players and their "PCs where here" antics attracting enough attention for the Scotland Yard to be involved. At one point they even managed to get half of them hospitalized and arrested, pretty much needing to do a breakout for them. After that, the entire game's atmosphere had changed and they were extremely careful with who they would speak with and when would they leave their homes.

It was all down to execution. They weren't being chased after a bunch of chumps that couldn't be bothered to do their jobs, but an elite force that was determined to bring down what they perceived as dangerous terrorists that wanted to murder as many people as possible.

They should be challenging enough to make you flee, but not so much that they can't be escaped from.

>basic policeman is able to cast hadokens
>chief of police throws meteor showers at you
I'm all for it. Reminds me of Japan's take on les Miserables.
youtube.com/watch?v=19ING9kPgEU

>not making them wield the power of the LAW.
For shame.

>in b4 but we haven't done nuffin
Everyone has done something user.

>so that they have to be
#railroading

This has nothing to do with anything scary, to be honest, but it reminds me of a random NPC I made whilst the party was investigating around a city controlled by a corrupt police-state-like faction.

The technology of the setting meant people were limited to pre-WWI levels so things like hand radios and the like were totally out and I needed a way for someone to sound the alarm and draw nearby police officers to the party when they inevitably broke the laws of the police state (This was going to happen, I made it the case with the asinine laws).

Enter this dude: a short man who carried around a hand-crank siren like the kind you'd hear announcing air-raids, think a mid-pitch siren.

Upon encountering the players and realising they were criminals his only words were
>that's illegal..
At which point he just started cranking the siren and the players needed to run.

To this day it is an in-joke to quietly say something is illegal before making siren sounds.

The backbone of true power.
And face cages filled with rats.

Well, they can choose not to but it would be pretty stupid.
>Captcha is road road

I was also wondering how far a random law enforcer would have to be trained.
Maybe one in ten would be a magic user.

Depends on the setting, really. If the setting is chaotic, with weak central governments and civilization restricted to a few holdouts, then your PCs can of course get away with more shit. Not to say that they won't end up running into bounty hunters, sheriffs, or the local inquisitor, but these are things PCs are used to dealing with.

If not, however, then you can have more fun with making law enforcement really powerful.

>neutral or good regime
Base them off of the FBI or any other modern police force.

>darker or outright evil regime
Base them off of the Stasi.

In any case, they're professional and impersonal, they're efficient, and they know everything about you, especially if you're making a scene, as PCs tend to do. They know how make deals, write propaganda, and turn bystanders, other criminals, and even friendlies into their eyes and ears, and they can make even the most basic of tasks, like purchasing supplies, a huge pain in the ass. Remember, when you pick a fight with the law, you're picking a fight with the state, and in many cases, the society too.

Their legal right to lethally enforce the law, as in real life.

Have them stop one of your PCs then shoot them even if they are compliant.

Well if it's fantasy, you could have the law literally be The Law. Like, every one of them are Dredd-tier enforcers of Law, because every one of them, whether they operate in the most virtuous of kingdoms or the most tyrannical of empires, they ALL worship the same God of Law. They have a long reach and longer memories, and they'll make sure you'll pay your due.

My dad once told me about one of his academy instructors who explained to the recruits how to handle people who put hands on the officer.
>"Touch the uniform, go to jail."
>"Tear the uniform, go to the hospital and then go to jail."

I'm stealing that, thanks