Why have NPC's?

What good is picking up NPC's during the game? They steal loot, cause problems, cant be as fully controlled, and they slow the EXP gain for your originaly created group. I just dont understand... Am I missing somthing?

 

For me it's just something different, something a little out of my control. If I was wandering around in the bush and met some cool unit that I wanted to join up with, I wouldn't expect to be able to control their every action and thought; they're their own person and can kind of do what they want. In that way, I think it's much more like real life, like having a friend along on an adventure rather than a slave or bot.

 

They also make great cannon fodder! :-D

 

I agree that having NPCs in a party is something of a nuisance. I usually take Fruella... but always seems to die a tragic death early on... it's sad, but I know that she'd want me to put her equipment to good use.

I take Bertram for long enough to get Preston's teeth fixed.

I take Prince Thrommel for long enough to make a b-line to the exit.

Otherwise it's pretty much PCs all the way (I'm currently playing with a party of 6 PCs).

 

Well, I have the official patch and the latest ones from this board (I think I have the latest...). I have read a lot and it seems to be a major complaint that the NPC's take everything; I picked up a wandering bard and he started taking gold and silver every time I looted anything, I was able to take the silver from his pack but not the gold! Nope he had a deathgrip on the gold. Do they always take gold?

What is the average level of a group of 5 at the end of the game?

 

Without hacks... the max level is 10.

There is plenty of content in the game to get a group to 10... so the average ending level is 10ish.

 

To answer the original question, mainly because playing ironman is hard enough - I'll take whatever help I can...

I also like some of the lines the NPC get as banter. My current favourite being "It's the very model of a modern polyhedron". Gilbert and Sullivan eat your heart out hehe

 

Personally, I love using NPCs. I don't think they should be under your control. They should have their own agendas, their own needs...

Just like in real life you don't get to control everyone.

In a pen and paper game you wouldn't get 100% control over your NPCs. The DM would always have final say over how they would act or react to certain events.

Troika tried something great, but just didn't get it finished. It would have been AWESOME if they had finished it. Imagine NPCs that would buy and sell equipment, betray you when you least expected it, aid you in odd ways, plot and scheme against/for you. It would have been great.

I am working on the NPCs. Trying to give them more flare and personal character. Actually many of them already had great stuff written by Troika but it simply wasn't triggering because they never finished the scripts.

Personally, I love the unexpected. And having NPCs adds to the level of unexpected.

I prefer to have 3 to 5 PCs and then use NPCs to get my party to 7 or 8.

Avoiding the NPCs is like avoiding an entire segment of the game.

I will never play without the NPCs.

- Livonya

PS: By the way NPCs aren't stealing. When is the last time you went to work for free? Let alone worked a dangerous job for free? The NPCs are way underpaid for the risk involved.

 

i always have meleny with me. the others i dont really use just cause they are for the most part warriors and thiefs and i dont need anymore of them. the rest only stay with you for a short time before taking off or turning on you and i dont need that either. now if they had a Good cleric early on to bring along id sure take him\her instead of making mine if they had the right abilities. i also try to keep my party to 7 so i have room for those people you run into from time to time especially in the temple.

 

Ok, Liv, now you're scaring me. I have pity for your boyfriend's soul...

<big wink>

:-D

I don't think it's in Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, but it should be... The only person you can truly control is yourself. (Somebody grab me a needle, I feel the need to knit that on a pillow...)



-- dulcaoin

 

Just a little while ago I got my butt chewed out by fruella for paying off the gnolls and they just killed everyone in a caravan. I guess I deserved it. I wont do it again. The guilt complex is too much to handle. I love fruella. I can't play the game without her. She has a charisma of 16 but you'd never know it to hear her talk. NPC's add to the game. They need to be there for people who want use them.

 

Figured I'd add my 2 cents...

I am a huge control freak. my characters must do WHAT i tell them, WHEN i tell them. That, and the fact that most NPC's are inferior to my characters, is why i don't use them. I have considered making an evil party that hires NPC's and kills them.... but probably won't.

However, if somehow you could negotiate things like wages, looting rights, etc. with NPC's, well, that would just rule.

 

I'd be happy to pay them what they ask if I got to choose the items they received. Fruella really doesn't need any wands or scrolls, but decent armor would certainly be hers if I had any say in things.