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Choco
2009-08-28, 01:02 PM
I was just wondering the various ways y'all dealt with NPC's that could wipe the floor with the whole party if need be, in various situations. Here are some of my ways that have worked quite well:

Escort missions:
It is generally accepted that having the players escort an NPC much more powerful than they are is a bad thing, but I was able to get this to work by having the NPC be wounded (on the verge of death) and not healable by conventional means. Another idea I had that might work is have them be unable to fight (some oath, rules, politics, etc.).

General conversation/quest giving:
If you know your PC's are about to interact with an NPC well above their CR, friend or foe, either make that NPC be extremely patient or make it very well known to the PC's that it has a short temper and/or is prone to violence. Preferably the first one because the PC's always seem to want to see how far they can push it...

Traveling companions:
I had a powerful NPC traveling with the party for a while and they didn't even know it. Just make them think this NPC is a non-combatant, and have them act accordingly. Can also serve as a Deus Ex Machina if you don't want your PC's to die from bad dice rolls in a random encounter. Also applies to escort missions.

Allies:
Just give the uber NPC's and the PC's different tasks that will place them nowhere near each other. Make sure everyone's part is vital to the success of the mission too.

Finally, Uber NPC's as DMPC's:
NEVER DO THIS! If you must have a DMPC make it the same lvl as the party, if not less.

I try not to overload my games with powerful NPC's, or at least I try not to have my players deal with them often, but it is unavoidable sometimes (the country's most powerful mage aint gonna be lvl 3 in Forgotten Realms...) and if I don't include at least some of them my players tend to get... ideas... "Hey, why not just kill <quest giver> and get the reward without having to go on the quest?"

So yeah, how do y'all deal with powerful NPC's? Cause lets face it, they are needed to keep the players from getting a big head :smallwink:

Tyndmyr
2009-08-28, 01:26 PM
Deal with them? The players get to figure that out. If said players first reaction to meeting someone with an impressive level of gear and temporal power is "kill them and steal it"...well, time for the players to learn the lost art of caution the hard way.

In general, I design roles first, and assign levels to NPCs as needed for realism or other needs, so level isn't obvious to the players directly, but they can frame a good idea of the power of them by what gear they have, what position they occupy, and other such clues. If they want/need to find out, they probably can. Pushing their luck to see exactly how far they can go is inherently a bit risky, and needs to be punished on occasion if it gets ridiculous.

Elfin
2009-08-28, 01:31 PM
Remember, nothing will spice up your campaign quicker than long descriptions of NPCs doing spectacular stuff while the players sit around and watch.

ScreamingDoom
2009-08-28, 01:43 PM
I remember seeing somewhere on this very board a suggestion that high-level NPCs were to be mentors to the PCs. As in, the mentor sits back and watch the PCs do stuff, offering comments and suggestions, but otherwise being hands-off, unless they are actually near death, in which case they come in and save their asses.

I've never tried that, but it seems an interesting way to both have a Voice of the DM in the game (as opposed to "You feel doing that would be incredibly stupid... are you SURE you want to do it?"), give hints when needed, and have a Deus Ex Machina ready if the PCs get over their heads.

Even better, sometime in the middle of the campaign, you can have the mentor die horribly in the manner appropriate to Hero Road.

Umael
2009-08-28, 02:07 PM
I was just wondering the various ways y'all dealt with NPC's that could wipe the floor with the whole party if need be, in various situations. Here are some of my ways that have worked quite well:

Allow me to offer some alternative means.



Escort missions:
It is generally accepted that having the players escort an NPC much more powerful than they are is a bad thing,

There is a story I heard once about a ballet dancer who got so tired of beating up muggers that he hired some bodyguards. The basic idea is that the (lower-level) PCs are being hired to deal with the riff-raff that the NPC doesn't want to handle.

Example: A powerful wizard has to travel by caravan, being unable or unwilling to get arrive any other way (never found the appropriate spell, forbidden school, is really a warlock and not a wizard, has a fear of flying and/or teleporting, etc.). He hires the PC to guard the caravan with the express condition that he is NOT to be disturbed. He doesn't need to come out for meals, he doesn't care if anyone is in danger, he just needs to be left alone (if you want him to interact with the PCs, he might emerge for meals or to take a break or something).

Along the way, the caravan gets attacked by an ECL-3 band of brigands. What seems like an easy fight goes horribly wrong when the PCs forget that one of their objectives is to protect the wizard's wagon and one of the brigands bursts inside the wagon, disturbing the wizard!

Instantly, the wizard emerges, utterly destroying the brigands in a dazzling and lethal display of force. Then he expresses his disapproval with the PCs "for failing to uphold their terms of agreement". Maybe he just frowns and goes back inside. Maybe he "invites" the party leader in for a "cup of tea" (and a nice long lecture about how unprofessional and incompetent he finds the group for failing to do "this one little thing he asked of them"). Maybe he screams at the PCs for five minutes and finishes by telling them that he is docking them 10% of their pay.

An alternative is that the NPC is busy caring for someone or something and cannot risk getting disturbed. Maybe a sick noble that cannot be cured with a simple cure disease, so the NPC applies what salves and medicines he can. Or a sick child - possibly even the NPC's child. Or a damaged artifact that needs to be magically repaired. Maybe the artifact's damage unravels part of reality, or maybe it just releases demons hellbent on conquest.



Traveling companions:
I had a powerful NPC traveling with the party for a while and they didn't even know it.

I would avoid this one unless it is clear that the NPC is doing it for a lark or because the PCs "interested" it somehow. For a somewhat creepy example, a polymorphed dragon as an "invisible" traveling companion sounds nice... until it is found out and it admits it was sizing up the group to find a potential breeding partner for its future half-dragon children.

Or, more maddening, the group could have gotten the attention of, say, Loki...



So yeah, how do y'all deal with powerful NPC's? Cause lets face it, they are needed to keep the players from getting a big head :smallwink:

While it is nice to remind the players that their PCs are just little fish in the big pond, or that they are big fish but there are even bigger fish out there, there comes a time when you need to be fair and let the PCs know that they ARE the big fish in the pond now. Big enough that they find themselves having to go hire fragile level one mercenaries to guard them while they complete this task of vital importance...

Dust
2009-08-28, 02:09 PM
Even better, sometime in the middle of the campaign, you can have the mentor die horribly in the manner appropriate to Hero Road.
This caught my attention, and...I have to wonder....is there a list of Hero Road events floating somewhere out there on teh proverbial intrawebs that I don't know about?

Umael
2009-08-28, 02:11 PM
This caught my attention, and...I have to wonder....is there a list of Hero Road events floating somewhere out there on teh proverbial intrawebs that I don't know about?

Look up "Hero's Journey."

Common (and successful) Western-style format. You'll find it in just about every Disney movie.

Minus the mentor dying, however.

Dust
2009-08-28, 02:13 PM
AHA. Good old TvTropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitleh1ltpj3ph282?from=Main.TheHerosJourney) had it, too.

Croverus
2009-08-28, 02:15 PM
At first I thought you meant powerful NPCs like "The lich you have to beat is about 3 CRs above what you cna handle, go get 'im."

But now I understand.

I've used powerful NPCs as allies and mentors a number of times. Often they aren't free. One was a high level elf ranger who the party often went to for assistance traveling thorugh wild terrain (the aprty lacked their own ranger and most of them had only a couple ranks in Survival). They'd often have to help the ranger raid some Orc encampment or outpost in return (his favored enemy was orcs) otherwise he could totally wipe the floor with them because he had almost EVERY two-weapon feat and a number of powerful magic items.

On other occasions I've had NPCs that were the same class as a player but a couple levels higher, worked out before the game that they were the character's mentor and were traveling witht ehm to help them become stronger, but not do the work for them. It worked rather well adn made for good plot later on when the big bad kills the mentor and the player (the actual player, not jsut him being in character) swearing to get revenge.

lsfreak
2009-08-28, 02:32 PM
General conversation/quest giving:
If you know your PC's are about to interact with an NPC well above their CR, friend or foe, either make that NPC be extremely patient or make it very well known to the PC's that it has a short temper and/or is prone to violence. Preferably the first one because the PC's always seem to want to see how far they can push it...

I play up ignorance. I'm the DM at the moment and I know the books the best, so when they came up against a Warblade in Child of Shadows Stance, a shadowcaster with a couple defensive spells active, and a Shadowalker Rogue with shadowmask on, I described their appearance in appropriate detail. They probably could have wiped these guys out fairly quickly, but the unknown element of who these guys could be, an dhow powerful they could be, unnerved them too much (which fits, since that's how these guys got power in the first place).

Lysander
2009-08-28, 02:32 PM
Generally, I think powerful NPCs should be treated the way important people are in real life. The higher your status in society the more you have to deal with, and the more assistants/apprentices/employees you need to handle everything. Those underlings are your PCs.

If an archmage or an epic level fighter is sending the PCs on a quest it's because they don't have time to deal with on their own, and they need someone reliable to do it for them.

If the PCs are bodyguards or escorts, it's to provide abilities the powerful person doesn't have on their own. Maybe they need a good tracker, or a magician, or a healer. Or perhaps they expect a number of enemies so high or so powerful that even they need some help. Maybe the PCs are their followers. "You three go handle those five bandits on the right! I'll handle the ten on the left." That's your Robin Hood effect. Robin Hood is better than most of his men but he's not so powerful that he could survive solo.

Lapak
2009-08-28, 03:16 PM
Generally, I think powerful NPCs should be treated the way important people are in real life. The higher your status in society the more you have to deal with, and the more assistants/apprentices/employees you need to handle everything. Those underlings are your PCs.Indeed.

I should first state that I try not to have too many (or any, depending on the circumstances!) powerful NPCs floating around in the general area of the PCs, but when I do have them this is why they're doing what they are doing. A wizard who has a whole city in his charge, running the top level of the government directly, doesn't have the time to go traipsing off into the forest to find thus-and-such a bandit or Amazing Item Z. He's got a city to run! So he hires people to handle that stuff for him. It wouldn't be appropriate for him to be his own envoy to negotiate with the Duke over the border; showing up at the Duke's doorstep would either be too subservient or too much of a threat. So he hires the heroes to go. And so on.

Choco
2009-08-28, 05:21 PM
Oh snap, the mentor idea is an awesome one, gonna have to remember that at the beginning of the next campaign..

But yeah, when I think about it really the only time the players are close to high level NPC's is when they are either doing their dirty work or the dirty work of some other high level NPC if there is a group of them. When the players enter the meeting room of the Uber Magic Association to get their quest, they shouldn't be surprised to discover that most of the NPC's there are quite powerful.

Also in regards to letting the players know they are the big fish, that is a big part of my campaigns. They eventually surpass those who they were running errands for before, and take great pleasure in "disposing of" those who were jerks to them :smallsmile:

SoD
2009-08-28, 06:10 PM
My current campaign has a Conjuror with the party, sort of like a DMPC, and he is a level or two higher than the party (about...5th level. The party is still level 2 or 3). However, he stays very much in the background, and basically spends combat throwing a few lesser orbs of whatever around, while the party get the spotlight. And yes, he's a plot hook.