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HMS Invincible
2009-12-10, 02:36 PM
I managed to get 10 level 4 warriors, 5 wizards of level 3 and 3 rogues of level 5. I'm a lvl 11 bloodmage with a party of roughly five lvl 10 PCs. What should I do with these loyal men? I was debating between bringing them with me, or sending them off to raid convoys and such.

Artanis
2009-12-10, 02:41 PM
I would send them to do off-screen stuff. They're so much lower level than the party that I have a hard time seeing them doing much more than getting in the way during combat or skill challenges. They wouldn't even do much good as assistants in rituals since you already have several party members to fill that role.


...and how did you wind up higher-level than the rest of your party, anyways? :smallconfused:

Duos Greanleef
2009-12-10, 03:07 PM
Send them to amusement parks to stand in long lines for you.

Start fights with town guards.

Bring them with you wherever you go and annoy the $#!% out of your DM because now he needs twice as many minis as he did before this started AND he has to manage that many more monsters and "good" guys.

Aron Times
2009-12-10, 03:19 PM
At some point in Neverwinter Nights 2, you get your own stronghold, Crossroad Keep, and the troops with which to establish your influence in the area (Greycloaks). The troops do all of their training, patrolling, recruiting, fighting, etc. off-screen, except in a few instances where you get to fight together with them.

There's even an encounter where your party runs into a party of Greycloaks fighting some trolls, and you have the option of joining the fight, ordering them to retreat so you can engage the trolls yourself, or to let them fight the trolls by themselves. Depending on how much money you spend on their equipment and how well they are trained, they can either take the trolls down by themselves or get slaughtered to the last man.

HMS Invincible
2009-12-10, 06:10 PM
Not everyone makes it to every meeting, or lives for the entire duration of the campaign. I was one of the luckier/better players and managed to keep my character alive. I'm not so much higher, as everyone else is lower than they should be.

We have the bbeg who's been conquering the countryside and I want to assemble an army to fight back. This won't happen for a while, so I wanted to set up a base of operations either by asking an ally for a favor or by taking it from a bad guy.

kieza
2009-12-10, 09:46 PM
Buy or capture a base of operation (I'm particular to small towers), tell them to move in, start outfitting it if necessary, and recruit more people to the cause. Once you've got a few more, hire them out as mercenaries, bodyguards, or armed couriers to make ends meet and pay for more improvements to the keep. Once you've got a hundred or so, you can probably start sending them out to fight the enemy.

I had a group of players using this method once, who kicked a guild of wizards out of their tower (they were kind of on the decline), offered the locals their protection, formed a militia, encouraged nearby farmers to move closer now that the wizards weren't there anymore (they had taxed heavily for their "protection," and there were occasional disappearances that people thought were linked to the wizards' experiments), trained up a small permanent guard and eventually an army, and then set about pacifying the immediate area (driving off orcs, building roads, setting up watchtowers, and generally extending the benefits of civilization).

In the end, there was a showdown between them, a couple of allied powers, and the neighboring country, which hadn't been interested in the area when it was full of orcs but wanted it now that it was moderately safe and turning a profit. They were vastly outclassed, but managed to make the invaders pay dearly enough for coming (largely by inciting the orcs to go on the warpath and staying out of the way) that they decided it wasn't worth it.

It was a very cool campaign, especially when they had the party split three ways: two running the town, two working on the roads and watchtowers, and one guy (the party face) travelling to other towns and some civilized nations to establish trade ties and diplomatic relations. I know people don't like to split the party, but if it's for roleplay purposes and the DM isn't a jerk, it works out well.

Anyways, the point is, if you're up for it, nationbuilding can be a pretty fun part of a campaign.

HMS Invincible
2009-12-12, 01:50 AM
Holy crap, I just realized something. NPCs have just enough hp to be used in a warlock railgun. All Must Sacrifice +18 warriors= death to just about anything our level.