![]() Furthermore, by making him the least agreeable and most argumentative and unpleasant of the 3, we try to set up a situation where some folks might just say "Fine. That's why he does things like storm off from the party. He's got mental and emotional wounds, but is pretty hale and fit physically. MOST of those are on Horgus, because unlike the other two (who are both physically wounded), Horgus is pretty unhinged and frightened by the events. There's lots of ways we do that, and one of them is that now and then, some of them make some pretty bad and foolish and ultimately life threatening decisions. One of the INTENTIONAL challenges that we want to face the PCs with in their interactions with the 3 NPCs is keeping them alive. I believe in the past - and I could be wrong about this - that certain NPC's who were important to the story had little warnings attatched to them so that, even if they wouldn't know exactly why, GM's would be sure to know that they shouldn't be arbitrarily killed or written out of the story. I don't want to make any seemingly minor changes early only to have them come back and bite me down the road because I mistook the author's intent. When you say 'important roles', do you mean the sort of roles that they HAVE to be around for that are central to the plot, or do you simply mean that they are a potential asset that the PC's might find valuable, like a magic weapon or spellbook that could easily go overlooked. That's all well and good but it seemed to signal that they were unlikely to have important roles to play long term if they can so easily become lost so early on. During my initial read-through I noted that there seemed to be many opportunities for one of the NPC's - particularly Horgus - to wander off (or storm off) on their own and end up dead. We ended the night hitting level 2 just as we're ready to enter part 2. So with the characters +6 and the +6 from aids and the +5 bonus they moved Horgus from hostile to indifferent. The ranger didn't want to try so there were 3 successful aid another checks and a 12 rolled on the die. Instead of having several different characters tying to make a check, I had 1 try and any who wanted to help make an aid another check. Horgus actually thanked them for saving him so I gave the party a +5 bonus on the diplomacy check for him. I explained this as them being more afraid of what was behind them, the dire bat! Every single one was killed by a crit or a one shot bow hit from the wizard. The ranger couldn't hit with his bow, the elven wizard used his bow to hit the 3rd one and killed it. Next the paladin walked past her and critted the next one in line. The tiefling paladin let Horgus by but the aasimir ranger behind him just couldn't let him pass and stuck a foot out and tripped him (that player seems to have issues with any annoying NPCs as I've seen him react poorly to them in the past.) The catfolk rogue came out tops in the initiative and when she saw rats the first thing that came into her mind was "Oh something to play with", walked up 25 feet, critted on claw attack, with her sneak attack damage she did 15 points on a 5 hp creature. I had 5 dire rats running down the corridor "chasing" Horgus. Since I have 5 in the party I decided to throw in 2 "random" encounters from the list. We'll see how it goes tomorrow ( we play every other Sunday) That will give them a chance to save him to give a bonus on the Diplomacy saves as to beat the DC 24 the best diplomat has to roll 18+. I'm thinking somehow Horgus snuck by the dwarf and the "mole people" and will now be encountered stuck halfway down the crevice they have to cross. ![]() Unfortunately, Horgus' first chance to run away was when they were fighting the darkmantles and we ended for the night right after killing the mad dwarf. Thanks for the advice great idea, wish I had thought of it. ![]() I'm going to give them another chance I think. ![]() Thanks very much for your input this is what I needed to know.įrom what I've seen in reading part 1 of Sword of Valor they can live without him but it would be much easier with him. Not necessarily in combat, but to the overall story, all the NPCs have important roles to play in supporting the PCs in future adventures. James Jacobs wrote: Horgus is as important as all the NPCs, pretty much.
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