12-31-2022, 09:03 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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Knight NPCs with Sacrificial Parry or Shield Wall Training are also good sidekicks because they can protect others. Is this the kind of feedback you're looking for? Ideas on what hirelings will be low-key useful? Or are you looking more for interesting quirks and personality traits, like the mild-mannered, unarmed halfling accountant who is actually a highly trained spy and martial artist capable of throwing a quill pen into an enemy's brain via its eye socket from thirty feet away? (And has the Bloodthirsty trait combined with Bad Temper-6, but high enough Acting to make minor retaliations look accidental.) |
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12-31-2022, 09:34 AM | #12 | |||||||
Join Date: Jul 2021
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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steal the spotlight from the PCs. One thing I want for the NPCs is to highlight the PCs. What can the PCs do to influence, command, and guide the NPCs. What skills and capabilities can the PCs have to best do this and to command the spotlight and highlight the PCs capabilities. Quote:
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[quote]in this way the NPCs are great color and are there for all the narrative and roleplaying experience but are not cumbersome to play, and do add some skills and needed support.[quote] OK, sounds good. Quote:
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12-31-2022, 09:54 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
Keep the Will scores low on the NPCs and allow the PCs to liberally use their influence skills (Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Intimidation, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, or Streetwise) to affect their reactions and morale. Keep the NPCs highly focused on their niche and counterbalance their strengths with significant disadvantages. For example, a caster might have a decent IQ for the purposes of casting spells, but their Will and Per could be reduced to 10 (or lower). A sprinkling of creative Odious Personal Habits can also help explain why these characters aren't already gainfully employed.
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12-31-2022, 09:59 AM | #14 | ||||
Join Date: Jul 2021
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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Example: Ardrian Holyoak Druid (side-kick) ST 11 DX 12 IQ 12 HT 12 Per 12 Will 12 HP 11 Move (whatever basic calculation comes out) Ardian is a druid and woodsman. He is good with spear, sling, and hand axe (all at 12 or less: Spear-12, Axe/Mace-11, Sling-12). He'll have Healer-2, Outdoorsman-2, Power Investiture 1 (Druidic) Add in a few low level druidic spells (spend a point on each), maybe a druidic ability or two. Give him a colorful but fairly generic background story. Nothing to outshine the PCs. |
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12-31-2022, 11:36 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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Similarly, and half as expensive, is Might—boost ST, HP, and damage. (Interestingly, high skill reduces the cost of Grace but not Might.) Alertness, Mage-Stealth, and Invisibility are often great for the Thief or Scout. Strengthen Will can be a lifesaver when your Barbarian is up against charm magic. And Daze or Sleep can be an insurance policy if the Barbarian has Berserk. |
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12-31-2022, 03:12 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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Good spells for enhancing Barbarian, Martial Artist, Scout, Thief: Haste (better Dodge, and more movement to gain advantageous positions) Great Haste (most common usage: triple your attacks per round via All Out Attack (Double) + regular Attack; the extra movement may also let toy do a runaround attack) Walk on Air/Fly to gain higher ground (bonuses to active defenses, penalties to enemy active defense) and combo with Glue spell. Shield (stacks nicely with Haste) Stop Paralysis (avoid dying when an ice weasel or ice wyrm paralyzes you) Dark Vision + Darkness (enemies mostly can't hit you or defend well against your attacks) Invisibility (avoid ambushes, gain surprise, first attack hard to defend against) Resist Fire/Cold/etc. (avoid damage) Sharpen (more damage) Flaming Weapon (more damage) Might (more damage; not very cost-effective though) Bless (enhance accuracy/defense/damage AND soak damage) Magic Resistance (anti-evil-rune insurance) Blink Other (excellent protection spell that can save others from really nasty stuff e.g. Jellies) Armor (decent protection spell that has some synergies with Blade Turning) Blade Turning (potentially excellent defense against bladed weapons depending on how your GM interprets the spell on a miss or successful active defense; potentially cuts the incoming damage from an orc horde by a factor of 3 or more, and stacks with other defenses) Missile Shield (prevents melee warriors from getting pincushioned by horde pygmies, etc.) Swim (prevent weapon skills from degrading underwater) Keen Vision (enhance trap detection) Hide Thoughts (anti-mind-control; stacks with Magic Resistance) |
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12-31-2022, 04:29 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
[QUOTE=restlessgriffin;2464184]Cleric/Holy Warrior are probably at the top of the list unless a PC fills each of these roles. A Squire (i.e junior Knight) aslo works well as side kick to Knight, Holy Warrior, or maybe Cleric.
I really like this idea, I just want to ensure the Swashbuckler sidekick doesn't steal the spotlight from the PCs. One thing I want for the NPCs is to highlight the PCs. What can the PCs do to influence, command, and guide the NPCs. What skills and capabilities can the PCs have to best do this and to command the spotlight and highlight the PCs capabilities. I'm not sure I'd really want to go full in on this, especially if the NPC seems never to get hurt, while the PCs who have superior skills are taking a beating. I can definitely see NPCs making only occasional attacks and going full on ALL-OUT defense half the time and retreating defense at every opportunity. Maybe play it safe on attacks, like use ranged attacks when possible, especially aiming. Also maybe use polearms when available, OK, sounds good, but only where PCs don't have the skills. Maybe use hireling/side-kick as distractions when PC thief pickpockets or steals something. Provide distracton when PC thief is stealthing around to get in position for Backstab. Use ranged attack to get the enemy's attention so the Barbarian PC can charge forward and make big attack with his battleaxe. [quote]in this way the NPCs are great color and are there for all the narrative and roleplaying experience but are not cumbersome to play, and do add some skills and needed support. Quote:
Sorry for the formating, I still don't understant it well enough to make it look good. The key concept you need is that everything is kind of glossed over when it comes to the supporting NPCs, that is the way a swashbuckler don't steal a players thunder, you just describe it as much and as interesting as it helps the story and the characters. On the other hand you may use these NPCs to show the players how they may also get more risky or describe their actions in more interesting ways, but overall the NPCs are just background flavor, never in the spotlight. Now some examples of use in those particular cases: Against a group of enemies the swashbuckler stand in a table and kick some of the old rotten vases and food in the dungeon to an enemies face as a starting move, you roll and call it a taunt, taking that one insulted orc and one or two more focused on the swashbuckler (SB). Here it is assuming the players need that help, otherwise there will only be one orc in the SB at best. Against a single enemy the SB will probably distract and add some damage, you as the Gm know how much it adds damage so the battle willtake a good and interesting amount of time and effort. the good thing is that you may add othing, and just count players damage into account and whatever the NPCs do is taken by an abstract amount of hit points and no body cares, it happen beyond the scope of the game. Another key concept is that these supporting NPCs do take damage, you just don't care to roll for it nor play it straight by the rules. you may make a single roll of the NPC skill to read how well his turn went and in a missed roll it went badly and may describe the outcome accordingly, or just make that part of the combat description reasonable, so they take some damage if you feel they are too good for the story or to make an enemy or band of foes more fearsome. A description like "the minotaur swing its axe and hit squarely the shield of Baldrik (your squire) breaking his shield and arm, sending him to the ground a few paces back". So, you are in control of everything, it is a bit more work in the description department but a lot less in the game rules and accounting, and boring part of the game. The players may influence thing by the use of leadership and maybe sometimes may need to use leadership, fast talk or even intimidation (or other interpersonal skills or abilities) to reign in the impulses of the sidekicks, you may also give adds to the base skills according to morale and speeches, or uses of tactics by a PC, then this increases will alter the narrative descriptions you will bring, or if you do the single skill roll to see how the turn goes it will help or maybe not but in general the pluses will help. It is still abstract and narrative but if a player uses tactics and shout some command (and the supporting characters follows it) then your descriptions of the outcomes must account for the players actions and be more positive or avert some negative outcomes. The out of combat skills are alway support, these NPCs are just that after all, they are supporting the characters and supporting you as a GM to craft a narrative. So, if a player have streetwise then the swashbuckler will not use his streetwise, but if the player ask for help the swashbuckler will be a backup, you roll the NPC skill if the player miss or it adds a bonus to the players roll. It is better to let things go south than make these supporting characters solve a problem in spite the players actions, they are just a help and backup. As for the mage NPCs, they should be more detailed because your players should know what to expect and magic is like that in the game. But how much power these NPCs want to use is up to them. Imagine a supporting character that is kind of a sleazy city mage, maybe friend of one of the player characters or maybe just by contract, this mage will not use the entirety of his magic reserve, be it an advantage or powerstones, because this person always like to have an escape plan and saving themselves is priority number one. you rule it have X number of spells and 20 of energy reserve plus 12 Fatigue but will never use more than 15 energy in any encounter, the other 17 is for personal use only. the players may find out this character is kind of a misser when it means wasting energy and may need convincing or extra pay to make more effort or use more magic. It all builds up the NPC personality and narrative. if time passes and you think this mage really befriends one of the player character then maybe one day will use a lot more magic, even using hit points to fuel some magic to save the player character, those are the moments you are building, the players interactions with the NPCs hirelings will lead to more sacrifice or more self preservation in them, and this is not just for mages, soldiers may be reluctant to stay in front of a minotaur to protect a wizard that treats them like smelly meat shields after all. Something more, you don't have to build these NPCs as player characters not even care about the point total at all, but you do have to have their personality, general aptitudes and what is important to them, because that is what will come into play more than skills, advantages, etc. Last edited by Rolando; 12-31-2022 at 04:37 PM. |
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01-01-2023, 07:46 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Jul 2021
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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01-01-2023, 08:18 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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Hence why Hide Thoughts and Bless should be kept up on your beefiest fighter--Hide Thoughts will at least give the fighter a good chance to win the Quick Contest (no matter how low Will is), while Bless can alter the result of a failed roll from "the fighter murders the rest of the party in one turn" to "Bless ends". Another good counter is decoys: when the enemy tries to control one of the six to eight delvers, it turns out that four of the delvers are just Complex Illusions under an Initiative spell, so mind control does almost nothing. Keen Vision will boost Per 13ish to Per 18ish for tap detecting. It's a great spell, with a pretty long duration. Having a hireling cast Keen Vision, Haste, Invisibility, and Dark Vision on a Scout or Thief can greatly enhance their chances of successfully scouting out an enemy stronghold without dying. |
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01-01-2023, 05:35 PM | #20 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2021
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Re: Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks
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