Can NPCs be added?

I'm still willing to voice the character if I have a script.

-EE

 

Yes, I plan to use a goodly number of scripting tricks, if I can make them work - moving Erliter to the St. Cuthbert temple after talking to him as a beggar, "transferring" items around from and to a few NPCs, and so forth. Unfortunately, we had someone unexpectedly lose his job at work this week, and I've been called upon for some overtime. It looks like I won't have anything close to a fully tested version of this until late next week, at the earliest, and with the major American holiday next Thursday, it may take a longer than that. However, be assured that I'm working on this in my free time.

Endarire, I very much appreciate the voicing offer, and as I get some things hammered out, I'll be in touch with you. Shiningted, I may need some help with adding actual voice lines to the dialog, but perhaps once I take a look at your Pishella, I'll have a better idea of what to do there, too.

As it stands, Erliter is one of the NPCs with standard ability scores or 10 across the board. I'm loath to make him a superman, such as your originally posted stats would suggest, Endarire. The elite array for stats within the SRD is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, but the joinable NPCs in ToEE typically have better stats than that. I'm thinking of STR 14 (he works in a mill, DEX 14 (without losing his fingers), CON 13, INT 10, WIS 15 (so he's at least a tolerable cleric, but his INT and WIS can't be too high, since he asks the player for advice), and CHR 10 (he doesn't have a great deal of force of personality when it comes to his decision-making, or his dealings with the miller). His current feats are dodge and toughness, and I see no real reason to change them. I plan him as a level 1 cleric of St. Cuthbert with the Law and Strength domains. This makes him reasonably effective as either a melee or missile fighter, a tolerable spellcaster, an average turner of undead (he won't have any charisma bonus), and a potential crafter.

Since the NPCs level as PCs patch, he would be as clay in the player's hands. Want a better spellcaster? Give him combat casting and spell penetration. Want another archer? Give him point blank shot, precise shot, and rapid reload. Need a crafter? Give him brew potion and craft magic arms and armor (yes, he will be able to craft axiomatic weapons at level 7, since he will have the Law domain). Heck, he's Lawful Good. Level him as a paladin if that's your desire.

In response to Gaear and Lord Spike, I agree that a cleric should be someone who has advanced a bit in the following of a deity. But within the rules mechanism, anyone can take a level in cleric at any level-up. Since I respect good roleplay, and I'm a bit of a D&D rules lawyer, I'll do my best to point out that he is learning to be an acolyte during his quest.

By the way, would it be totally untoward to give him a +1 Axiomatic mace as part of the quest? It seems to me that there are several holy weapons in the game, and a Lawful one would be something a bit different. I believe there is precedent for this in Meleny's quest. And it would be given to Erliter himself, not the player, so unless you're playing with the humble NPCs patch, you wouldn't just be able to steal it.

Finally, I'm considering not making this quest available to Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Chaotic Neutral parties. I've also considered disallowing Lawful Evil, but St. Cuthbert is Lawful Neutral, and perhaps I'll just modify the roleplay a bit for that alignment. Is there anyone who regularly plays these alignments who would desperately want a priest of St. Cuthbert along?

I'm posting these ideas because I'm willing to listen to objections before I get too deeply involved in this. Once things have been written, they'll pretty much stay as they are, so if you don't like my ideas, or you have your own ideas to add, please say so now. Sorry about the post length, and thanks for reading.

 

Cuthbert only accepts LN and LG clerics.

-EE

 

Ah, a reminder that I was supposed to be working on this a month and a half ago. Damn. Real life intervenes again.

To update, I didn't get very far on this before I got a virus and had to reformat, so I lost what little I had. When people at work stop getting sick, and I stop having to cover their hours, I'll try to get back to it.

Sorry, guys.

 

Take a cell phone.... wrap it up in 3 inches of tin foil.... call it...

My experiments with CHEAP CRAPPY phones with bad reception showed that tinfoil doesn't actually stop radio waves.. go figure...

However, tinfoil sheets are EXCELLENT to put in your walls.. because they are the BEST insulation against water...

 

It is a known fact that foil enhances reception of radio waves. It's the government who perpetuates the myth that foil will keep them out...the better to track you with, my dear...

:roll:

 

Yeah, the aliens can track you better too!

They...are...watching...

 

2028 posts already?

 

I finished the last scheduled recordings yesterday and Ted's finishing scripting.

-EE

 

I like that you're including a new Cleric NPC, Ronald's a great idea (especially as I believe you're now using lowered stats than your initial roll).

One thing I would ask is, would it be possible to give Cavanaugh a Wisdom boost to say 14 so that after 1st level he could multiclass as a Cleric? After all the abuse to turn him into a beggar for recruiting, it would be nice if he were a tad more useful in my party. I've not seen any hard stats for his character, but they were good enough to level as a Ranger. Not sure what the new Minimum stats are in 3rd edition, but Rangers used to need a decent amount of Wisdom.

 

In 3.x, there are no ability score requirements for any class. That said, there are abilities that are pretty much required to be useful in that class. Spellcasters need an appropriate stat of level of spell+10 in order to cast spells of that level. So a cleric needs a minium of a 15 Wisdom to class 5th level spells, for example. Most Paladin abilities are Charisma-based, so it's important for them to have a good Charisma score, though there's no minimum of 17 like in previous games. A Ranger needs a Wisdom of 14 if he wants to be able to cast the highest level Ranger spells, but you could have a Ranger with a Wisdom of 3 if you really wanted to, though he'd be the world's worst tracker and probably be referred to as "The Oblivious" by other Rangers, but you could do it.