WotBS WotBS - question(s)

[SunRaven01]

I have explained to my players that due to having a large party (7 players+dm) I don't want to run the NPC's in combat as well, with the additional monsters I would have to use to balance the encounters and the extra time this would take. The characters should treat the NPC's as actually helping them out even if we aren't running them.

Personally I would have preferred if there weren't a bunch of NPC's tagging along with the party, but it seems to me that there will be some weird holes in the story if they aren't there. The above solution makes it possible to have them tagging along without making combat slow.

I left Haddin behind -- only Crystin and Torrent are with the party in the fire forest, but instead gave the wizard a little "friend" with one of the early goblin shamans that the group encounters. I RP'd him as being minimally intelligent, so he can't talk, but if they ask him questions, he can usually get them pointed in the right direction. Since all his powers are fire keyword, he's of minimal help with anything indomitable, which means most of the time he's just flavor.

I'm planning on dumping Crystin and Torrent as soon as I can find a point in the story to do so, although Crystin's visions were pretty useful this past game session.

 

[RangerWickett]

The idea behind having NPC allies in each adventure was for them to be a tool for showing the world, and to give the PCs an 'in' for various groups and plot threads.

Torrent gives the PCs a connection to the Gate Pass resistance and to Seaquen. In hindsight, I suppose we could have made her a noble or something, with no real combat training.

Crystin and Haddin are supposed to be an example of how the PCs can help those who wouldn't be able to escape the Scourge on their own. They're supposed to be ineffectual. (Haddin also shows how much of a pain in the neck wrangling the refugees will be in adventure 3.)

Katrina is a spy who promotes your heroism so she can ride your wake into a position of power. Dealing with her early should make her eventual betrayal (or triple cross, if you convince her to turn on Ragesia) actually have an impact.

Balam was an excuse to a) show that the PCs aren't the only face men of the resistance, and b) have a bit of a shocker when the dude is captured, tortured, and killed.

Three Weeping Ravens sets the stage for the temple that plays a key role in adventure 7.

And so on.

If you want to keep things really simple, you could, I dunno, have Torrent just aid one PC each round.

 

[Zinovia]

NPCs in WotBS

I don't tend to like having a lot of NPCs hanging around with the group. Since I began the adventure before the official conversion to 4E, I was going to have to change a lot while I converted. It was easy enough to eliminate Torrent from the story. I gave her connection to Lee Sidoneth (adventure 3) to one of the PCs.

The resistance didn't make a great deal of sense to me in a city that had regained their independence from Ragesia years ago. I decided to model Gate Pass somewhat on Venice, and thus had a Doge, who served a 7 year term, chosen by the council and guilds. The daughter of the doge was good friends with one of the PCs, and brought the group together to pass on info about the Ragesian Inquisitors coming into the city. They delivered her back to her mother when the invasion began.

The group picked up Haddin and Crystin, but Haddin tried mind controlling a barmaid during their journey south, and wound up dead. While he was with them, I had him act too lazy to fight unless he was directly threatened.
Crystin was listed in the original adventure as being essentially useless, so she did not participate in fights. It was interesting to see that they gave her adventurer levels in the official conversion. In our game she wound up enrolled in the Lyceum as an apprentice.

I plan on getting rid of Three Weeping Ravens in the future modules, since a character who joined them is one of the Taranesti elves and will know more about that area. Most of the time I have found the tagalong NPCs to be unnecessary, and with 6 in the adventuring group, more combat support isn't needed. For a smaller group i would consider making them into companion characters, and letting the players run them in combat.

Higher level or more knowledgeable NPCs risk overshadowing the party, or diminishing their sense of accomplishment. I prefer to do without them, and give plot info without someone attaching themselves to the party. YMMV.

 

[Skyscraper]

Thanks for your insight everyone, this is helpful in refining my thoughts on how I'd like to handle the NPCs. Also, not having read further in the AP, I was not aware of other NPCs to come.

Thinking out loud: in games i've DMed, the NPCs have always participated as best they could in battles. They even occasionally offered advice, though decision making was mostly left to players of course. The point being: it's fun to have NPCs tag along and develop some depth in personality, but I could often never have achieved that if the NPCs don't help the PCs in battle, if they don't "do the chores" along with the PCs but instead hang back.

The problem is that with 4E came stuff like: 2 more NPCs that battle with the PCs means more enemies are required for a balanced outcome and each battle takes longer. Which is a bummer because 4E has long battles. (You can argue it was always like that, but 4E is more attuned to "balance" issues than other versions and is more influenced by the number of PCs and allies, according to my experience.)

So with this in mind, my idea here is to try to find the right balance between including NPCs, which I probably want to do to some degree, while keeping the battles interesting for the players and not too long.

It seems like most DMs have completely left out NPCs from the battles. I'm not too fond of this option, if others have done otherwise (or even similarly) I'd love to hear about it.

One thing I've changed after reading this thread and others on this forum, is to use the Companion rules for NPCs from the DMG2 since it nerfs the ally-NPC power a bit. This is a very practical solution that fits my approach.

Sky

 

[Zinovia]

If you include all the NPCs the group can pick up, there are three from module 1, and one each from the second and third module. By the time you roll into Seaquen in Shelter from the Storm you can have Torrent, Haddin, Crystin, Tiljan, and Katrina with you. Granted they won't all stay with the party after that, but that is a lot of people to carry around for the first 6-8 levels of the campaign.

Later there are more people that travel with the party. It seems like there is one in each adventure pretty much. If you like having a character within the party for plot exposition and steering the group in the right way when they go astray, then it cam work fine. I would rather not go that route, instead using recurring NPCs that don't travel with the group. A couple of the PCs are members of a major trading house, one is in a secret society, one is in the church, and one is a smuggler with underworld connections. They have contacts and ways of learning things.

So Tilljan stayed home to help lead her people, Torrent wasn't there at all, Haddin died en route, and they came into Seaquen with only two NPCs, neither of whom stayed with them when they left on further adventures. I haven't yet decided what to do in future modules, but i will probably avoid using NPCs that travel with the group. It is a personal preference only.

 

[Skyscraper]

Thanks for your input Zinovia, very helpful.

 

[Daern]

These community forums make running these modules SO much better! There is definitely alot to keep in your head. I've found it especially challenging to abbreviate the campaign because I had to come up with a bunch of answers alot quicker than the campaign provides them.
The NPC issue is certainly one to think about ahead of time. I think Ranger's breakdown of each NPC's purpose is very useful. One thing the modules do not lack is a variety of great NPCs (allies and enemies) to interact with!

As for the Scourge... I found that with PHBII and III not many of my characters are arcane spellcasters, so I expanded it to include Primal and Divine. (Although perhaps for political reasons Ragesia is not demanding all Clerics turn themselves in.) This came up for me also with the Inquisitors. Counterspelling isn't as effective if noone is casting arcane spells. So I would broaden that definition as well. I've felt like I've yet to play an Inquisitor encounter very effectively.

Its definitely worth reading through a couple of the mods ahead of time to see what's coming up. Quite a few things are revealed in #3 and #4 that are hinted at in #1

Have fun!

 

[Skyscraper]

Thanks! (and that goes for everyone who takes time to reply! )

 

[Neonchameleon]

I did something else with both Torrent and Haddin.

Torrent was (re)built using companion rules - and none of her non at-will powers do damage. Which means she wasn't using them in fights, thinking that damage was important. This lasted until the PCs spoke to her.

Haddin was rebuilt (succubus with wizard template). His main action in combat was to put a storm pillar between the monsters and him. (He rapidly got the nickname Chocolate Fireguard). In the meantime he Dominated Torrent and Charmed one of the PCs. One PC noticed - cue gang up and beat down. Torrent, at this point, started using her non-lethal attacks (close blast 5 friendly encounter power that dazes IIRC), so the PCs now know what she can do and I turned her character sheet over to them.

Krystin I've rebuilt as a psion (as well as a precog - blame the Trillith). As an NPC she's level 3 with no action or power points - but her dishearten is pretty useful. As a drop-in PC she's level 4 with her Int having been bumped to 18 an with the Expertise feat added.

And people really hate my Inquisitors*. I use warlord style powers to grant others attacks, suicide capsules (so they never actually get to kill the bastards) and annoying little serious-fear based powers. (One which, as an immediate reaction, could restore one dead ally to 1hp as he was more scared of the Inquisitor than of death itself).

* I took out the Boneshard encounter and threw an Inqisition indoctrination camp in behind White Wyrms in Module 1, where they were busy torturing the resistance leader NPC**.

** The adventure at that point being somewhat off course because I'd replaced Flaganus Mortus with an elite - and sent down another NPC on a Wyrmling to try to rescue him. Short version: He "accidently" killed Flaganus with a crit on an area attack (not caring if he hit him after Flaganus cut the child's throat) and the party Diplomancer then managed to turn him with an improvised skill challenge. Cue another improvised plan and skill challenge to get the dragon to a hiding place until they could contact the Resistance and ask what to do with their dragon.

And I'm surprised to hear WoBS only meant for experienced DMs. This is my first campaign as DM (and I'm not that experienced as a player) and it's running very smoothly.

 

[RangerWickett]

They are after arcane users.

Ah, you're a bot. Or you just like to quote solitary sentences from previous pages in a thread. Okay. I can live with that.