Recruiting an NPC

[Major]

Alright, I'll give the long version and then a nice TL;DR.

During an adventure the party encountered a damsel in distress and my character really likes her. A variant of Leadership (very limited, have to recruit your people one by one, DM has heavy say, is not your character, but an NPC, etc) was allowed recently. I don't care about getting it for power, but the goal is to recruit the girl (Idee) and make her my cohort. My character wants to train her and such (bard seems to fit, a nice singing bard) and adventure with her.

Here lies the problem. How to recruit her? Just having her be helpful alone probably won't be enough to make her leave her home, learn to adventure, and travel with my guy (even with mutual feelings).

I had planned on using Silver Tongue ability (Dragon 318) and "Inspire Love and Devotion" to make her fall in love with me and "seek out the opportunity" to be near me, thus learn to adventure.

The problem is the wording has caused a debate on if it'd work. Turns out she is already helpful and the wording says when you IMPROVE an NPC's attitude towards you to helpful you may use it.

As such I want a way to make it where the DM kinda has to make it where she follows and becomes my cohort...which is pretty tricky since ya know...DM.

[ImperatorK]

A variant of Leadership (very limited, have to recruit your people one by one, DM has heavy say, is not your character, but an NPC, etc) was allowed recently.
How is this different from default Leadership? :smallconfused:

[Major]

Depends, I've known some DMs that let you full control the Cohort and basically a second player. So I wanted to clarify how this worked. Each follower and cohort recruited one by one, and while I can try and influence the level up via training and such, I don't pick all feats, etc and its basically an NPC that the DM has most the control over.

No leadership looping, etc

[LansXero]

You could try just offering her a contract: for X gold a week/month, you join us, full medical and dental care, and every month/week you can decide if this is worth your while. Said payment can come as magical useful stuff that may even pay for several terms :D

[SowZ]

Or just don't give her adventurer levels, (arcane classes typically should be trained by an arcane caster or else the person has undergone many yars of study,) and have her travel with you for roleplaying purposes with no feats required like a non-combat mount.

[SleepyShadow]

... like a non-combat mount.

Given the set-up for the relationship between PC and NPC, this just sounds dirty :smallwink:

[ImperatorK]

Depends, I've known some DMs that let you full control the Cohort and basically a second player. So I wanted to clarify how this worked. Each follower and cohort recruited one by one, and while I can try and influence the level up via training and such, I don't pick all feats, etc and its basically an NPC that the DM has most the control over.

No leadership looping, etc
Yeah, but that's just DMs being lenient.

[Major]

Given the set-up for the relationship between PC and NPC, this just sounds dirty :smallwink:

Giggity, giggity :P


You could try just offering her a contract: for X gold a week/month, you join us, full medical and dental care, and every month/week you can decide if this is worth your while. Said payment can come as magical useful stuff that may even pay for several terms :D

As a non-adventurer paying her to adventure might be a bit off. She's probably a commoner at the moment.


Or just don't give her adventurer levels, (arcane classes typically should be trained by an arcane caster or else the person has undergone many yars of study,) and have her travel with you for roleplaying purposes with no feats required like a non-combat mount.

That's what I'm going to try at the moment mainly because I just don't want to have to travel all the way to that area and wanted the NPC to travel around. I just figured that if I could use her as a cohort it gives me the cohort that I'd get, isn't too powerful, has RP purposes, and hey, even a few levels never hurt.


Yeah, but that's just DMs being lenient.

fair enough. Point is he wanted to keep Leadership as balanced as possible and use it mostly for plot purposes and such so since I'm the charismatic dashing swordsman I figured why not?

[Aquillion]

"Alright, girl, listen: I'm a protagonist. If you step back into your old life -- if you so much as step out of my view -- you will cease to exist. Not just slightly; it'll be like you never existed. I'm a real person playing a character in a fictional world; you're a p-zombie construct who exists only to the extent that I'm paying attention to you. The rules of this world are structured entirely around me, so if you travel with me you'll rapidly become incredibly powerful and inexplicably acquire enough wealth within a few short weeks to let you rule over your little fictional p-zombie world for the rest of your unlife. Well, not really, because as soon as the game is over you're gonna cease to exist anyway, but you want to put that off as long as possible, right? Stick with me. NPCs like you should be clinging to my arm terrified of the philosophical non-existence that awaits them the moment we lose interest in them, desperately trying to keep me interested in this game-world for as long as possible. So let's see you work at it."

That's how you recruit an NPC. Bonus points if you do it to the big bad and point out to him that he'll be condemning himself to non-existence if he actually manages to kill you.

[SleepyShadow]

"Alright, girl, listen: I'm a protagonist. If you step back into your old life -- if you so much as step out of my view -- you will cease to exist. Not just slightly; it'll be like you never existed. I'm a real person playing a character in a fictional world; you're a p-zombie construct who exists only to the extent that I'm paying attention to you. The rules of this world are structured entirely around me, so if you travel with me you'll rapidly become incredibly powerful and inexplicably acquire enough wealth within a few short weeks to let you rule over your little fictional p-zombie world for the rest of your unlife. Well, not really, because as soon as the game is over you're gonna cease to exist anyway, but you want to put that off as long as possible, right? Stick with me. NPCs like you should be clinging to my arm terrified of the philosophical non-existence that awaits them the moment we lose interest in them, desperately trying to keep me interested in this game-world for as long as possible. So let's see you work at it."

That's how you recruit an NPC. Bonus points if you do it to the big bad and point out to him that he'll be condemning himself to non-existence if he actually manages to kill you.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! That is epic, Aquillion!

[Drelua]

"Alright, girl, listen: I'm a protagonist. If you step back into your old life -- if you so much as step out of my view -- you will cease to exist. Not just slightly; it'll be like you never existed. I'm a real person playing a character in a fictional world; you're a p-zombie construct who exists only to the extent that I'm paying attention to you. The rules of this world are structured entirely around me, so if you travel with me you'll rapidly become incredibly powerful and inexplicably acquire enough wealth within a few short weeks to let you rule over your little fictional p-zombie world for the rest of your unlife. Well, not really, because as soon as the game is over you're gonna cease to exist anyway, but you want to put that off as long as possible, right? Stick with me. NPCs like you should be clinging to my arm terrified of the philosophical non-existence that awaits them the moment we lose interest in them, desperately trying to keep me interested in this game-world for as long as possible. So let's see you work at it."

That's how you recruit an NPC. Bonus points if you do it to the big bad and point out to him that he'll be condemning himself to non-existence if he actually manages to kill you.

The funny part is that would be a hell of a bluff DC to convince them of this. That would be interesting to have an NPC that actually believed she only existed as long as you were paying attention to it. Reminds me of Vaarsuvius' familiar. Oh, and by the way, you're my new hero.

[sreservoir]

The funny part is that would be a hell of a bluff DC to convince them of this. That would be interesting to have an NPC that actually believed she only existed as long as you were paying attention to it. Reminds me of Vaarsuvius' familiar. Oh, and by the way, you're my new hero.

it's not even a lie, though.

and even if it were, it's only, at worst, a +20, so a mere glibness would make it trivial.

[Major]

"Alright, girl, listen: I'm a protagonist. If you step back into your old life -- if you so much as step out of my view -- you will cease to exist. Not just slightly; it'll be like you never existed. I'm a real person playing a character in a fictional world; you're a p-zombie construct who exists only to the extent that I'm paying attention to you. The rules of this world are structured entirely around me, so if you travel with me you'll rapidly become incredibly powerful and inexplicably acquire enough wealth within a few short weeks to let you rule over your little fictional p-zombie world for the rest of your unlife. Well, not really, because as soon as the game is over you're gonna cease to exist anyway, but you want to put that off as long as possible, right? Stick with me. NPCs like you should be clinging to my arm terrified of the philosophical non-existence that awaits them the moment we lose interest in them, desperately trying to keep me interested in this game-world for as long as possible. So let's see you work at it."

That's how you recruit an NPC. Bonus points if you do it to the big bad and point out to him that he'll be condemning himself to non-existence if he actually manages to kill you.

I'm buying a potion of glibness and doing this. THANK YOU!

[Drelua]

it's not even a lie, though.

and even if it were, it's only, at worst, a +20, so a mere glibness would make it trivial.

That's the part I find funny. While it isn't a lie in reality, in the context of the game, it is. Convincing a fictional character that the truth of their fictional world is false, and convincing them to believe truth of the real world. Its like convincing someone in-game that there's no such thing as ogres or magic, and I just love the concept.

[Major]

NPC Reply


"Screw you, YOU should be the one begging ME to keep you around. See, I'm the crucial plot NPC. This entire story revolves around me and my cadre. If I send you off on your own, you'll be out of the limelight, you'll lose screentime. And more importantly, you'll miss out on crucial XP and GP, resulting you being extremely underleveled and poor when you finally come to your senses and return, causing you to be the bitch of even the most useless characters, because you need their protection. So go on, leave if you want, but this is MY story, and you better not forget that."

I gave a half reply about

"Psh, clearly you don't know how a sandbox works, bitch. I got an entire world to explore and worse comes to worse if there is no gold or xp I just gotta settle for burning the world and returning in a new world as a new person. However I doubt the gods who run this world can handle that."

[sreservoir]

I'm buying a potion of glibness and doing this. THANK YOU!

grab a wand instead if you can make it work; it's around a sixth/seventh of the cost per charge. better yet, grab an eternal wand to do it twice a day. it would possibly even be worth dipping bard just to use reliably.

(try to get one from a beguiler; they get it at CL 6 instead of CL 7.)

[Major]

On the upside I got the DM to finally admit that yes I could easily recruit her. Then he informed why he was trying to convince me not to. It wasn't that I couldn't, it was more of those DM warnings along the line of

"Are you sure?"

Turns out my character made a mistake. He forgot to turn his swag off.

[Coidzor]

I'm sorry, what do you mean by forgot to turn his swag off?

Or that this was a Gygaxian "Are you sure because doing this is going to get you bent over the table?" scenario from the get go for that matter?

[Major]

Depends on what you meant by bent over the table.

Alright, in conclusion, I ended up learning the girl is an obsessive crazy dependent chick. Getting traumatized by the necromancer didn't help...

So from her side of things she was going to die and get sacrificed by a necromancer the epitome of evil when a dashing high charisma sexy swordsman bust in and saved her life then carried her all the way back to town fighting to protect her and blah blah blah.

So my character kinda got the crazy obsessive chicks eye. Now, without knowing the level of her crazy I was planning on inviting her into the party...thus giving her more of an excuse to stalk me.

Mixed with the clingyness and "I'll cut your eyes out so you never look at anyone but me" crazy level (downside to her being unconscious most the prior game other than one moment of panic which I believed to just be cause of the just waking up) and her now being fanatic level towards my character inviting her along would be a bad idea.

The DM was TRYING to discourage me from inviting her along without flat out saying she was crazy and psycho and just kept saying it'd be bad. Don't do it, etc.

The whole one night stand thing probably won't help matters all things considered...

((forgot to turn my swag off was a joke of the 'I hate it when I forgot to turn off my swag at night and wake up covered in chicks' meme))

TL; DR
I was too heroic and dashing and now got a crazy chick who wants me all to herself who I assumed was a sweet innocent girl cuz knocked out she seemed fine.

[Erloas]

I think its just your DM getting back at you. She is a somewhat crazy chick who is totally obsessed with you, the question is, was that what she was like before you wanted to recruit her or after? If you hadn't even brought up bringing her along was the DM still going to have her stalk you for a while or just disappear like every other NPC that had their part of the story finish.
I think the DM just didn't want you to try and bring her along, and once you decided to do it, the DM knew there was no way to really stop it from a game standpoint so just decided to make you regret it and hopefully make her annoying enough that you get rid of her.

[Major]

It is possible and I thought that at first, but a couple clues do make it highly possible. When she first woke up she was a bit crazy and tried to stab me, but I assumed that was just "where am I? what's going on?"

After that she was very clingy and usually holding onto my character. When we arrived back at town and she heard her mother rather than run straight to her, she grabbed me and dragged me along.

A couple other ooc lines way back when it was decided that my character would be the one to carry her also made it highly likely. The other option was a female character. So, it's possible the DM is just ass pulling, but he could be honest. It also explains why he made the comment of "Silver tongue won't work because she's already above friendly." "So she's helpful?" "She's at LEAST helpful."

[SleepyShadow]

I think its just your DM getting back at you. She is a somewhat crazy chick who is totally obsessed with you, the question is, was that what she was like before you wanted to recruit her or after? If you hadn't even brought up bringing her along was the DM still going to have her stalk you for a while or just disappear like every other NPC that had their part of the story finish.
I think the DM just didn't want you to try and bring her along, and once you decided to do it, the DM knew there was no way to really stop it from a game standpoint so just decided to make you regret it and hopefully make her annoying enough that you get rid of her.

Likely this. However, I recommend keeping her around anyway. For crunch reasons, you picked up a free party member of some sort. For fluff reasons, your character likes her to some extent.

It's the latter part that you need to stress. Maybe your character likes the thought of being obsessed over. Maybe he finds it endearing. Maybe he's just as obsessed about her as she is about him.

If your DM is trying to make you regret picking up a cohort, then have her stick around, regardless of what happens. Most of all, make sure your character wants to keep her around, not just as a player to spite the DM. If your character enjoys the annoying girl more than the DM, your DM may burn out on the idea of having irritating cohorts just to spite players :smallamused:

[Major]

Well, it all depends on how the next game turns out. Apparently it is this game where the party finds out how crazy she is. At the moment I've had like three interactions with her other than the heroic damsel in distress carry her moment where she was knocked out.

1) When she first woke up and tried to stab me before I calmed her down and explained where she was.
2) Before she went to sleep shortly after the trip started due to being still tired and weak from the necromancer. It was more her falling asleep in arms then actually speaking, but it had a brief, "You can rest now. I'll watch over you"
3) Getting back to town and her dragging me around.

Believe me, I did suspect the DM was just trying to make me regret it. So I looked through logs for clues and it IS possible he had it planned. Either way, I'll just see how this game turns out. Worse case scenario she is crazy and more obsessive then wanted in which case I do the typical dashing swordsman thing, woe the damsel, have a one night stand, and run away. Hell it'd add a fun little RP element since it would probably make her more crazy and stalkerish :P

Edit: Also he has no problem with me getting a cohort. He's suggested quite a few already established NPCs as well as just finding my own. It's more her as a cohort.

[Aquillion]

This sounds like a job for Greater Restoration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/restorationGreater.htm)!

Greater restoration also dispels all magical effects penalizing the creature’s abilities, cures all temporary ability damage, and restores all points permanently drained from all ability scores. It also eliminates fatigue and exhaustion, and removes all forms of insanity, confusion, and similar mental effects. Greater restoration does not restore levels or Constitution points lost due to death.
Ah, magic, is there anything you can't solve? :smallbiggrin:

[Major]

LOL, omg I should point that out. Does obsessive crazy count?

Edit: Cheapest one use version of it?

Single charge wand? Potion?

[Aquillion]

LOL, omg I should point that out. Does obsessive crazy count?

Edit: Cheapest one use version of it?

Single charge wand? Potion?Unfortunately, as a level 7 spell with a 500 XP cost, it's not really practical -- it would cost 3410 gold just to pay someone to cast it for you, which puts it over the 3000 limit on spells you can generally do that with. (Most of this comes from the 500 XP cost, which translates to 2500 gp all by itself.)

A potion of it is not possible (potions only go up to 4th level), but even if it were it would cost a whopping 29550 gp. A wand is likewise not allowed for such a high-level spell, but again, even if it were it would cost an insane amount for even one charge.

The only really viable option is a scroll, which costs 4,775 gp. But you'll need someone who can cast it for you successfully, either via UMD or by being a caster who can succeed at the CL check.

[Doug Lampert]

I'm buying a potion of glibness and doing this. THANK YOU!

Won't work. The potion only works on things that aren't true. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0774.html)

[Doug Lampert]

Unfortunately, as a level 7 spell with a 500 XP cost, it's not really practical -- it would cost 3410 gold just to pay someone to cast it for you, which puts it over the 3000 limit on spells you can generally do that with. (Most of this comes from the 500 XP cost, which translates to 2500 gp all by itself.)

A potion of it is not possible (potions only go up to 4th level), but even if it were it would cost a whopping 29550 gp. A wand is likewise not allowed for such a high-level spell, but again, even if it were it would cost an insane amount for even one charge.

The only really viable option is a scroll, which costs 4,775 gp. But you'll need someone who can cast it for you successfully, either via UMD or by being a caster who can succeed at the CL check.

Where in the rules is there any such limit to 3000 GP? The spending limits for community sizes say anything within the limit is typically available, and there are towns with a MUCH larger than 3000 GP limit.

[Major]

Unfortunately, as a level 7 spell with a 500 XP cost, it's not really practical -- it would cost 3410 gold just to pay someone to cast it for you, which puts it over the 3000 limit on spells you can generally do that with. (Most of this comes from the 500 XP cost, which translates to 2500 gp all by itself.)

A potion of it is not possible (potions only go up to 4th level), but even if it were it would cost a whopping 29550 gp. A wand is likewise not allowed for such a high-level spell, but again, even if it were it would cost an insane amount for even one charge.

The only really viable option is a scroll, which costs 4,775 gp. But you'll need someone who can cast it for you successfully, either via UMD or by being a caster who can succeed at the CL check.

Well, I am a rogue so I got UMD. I'm away from book though, what would the DC be?

[Aquillion]

Where in the rules is there any such limit to 3000 GP? The spending limits for community sizes say anything within the limit is typically available, and there are towns with a MUCH larger than 3000 GP limit.Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm). It's not a general-purpose 3000 GP limit; it's just a limit on paying people to cast spells for you, presumably because:

1. If a spell costs more than 3000 GP, any caster capable of casting it is probably way beyond working for money,

2. A spell with that kind of cost probably has a high XP cost to drive it up so high (as in this case), and high-level casters aren't going to be willing to exchange XP for gold at any ratio, and finally,

3. To limit abuse, since many high-level spells are game-breaking.

It's a good rule. Note that it's just not "generally" available -- you can still get someone to cast Wish for you, the point is you can only do it when your DM allows it; there are no casters who will routinely cast Wish or Gate for anyone who walks in the door and tosses them a sack of gold.


Well, I am a rogue so I got UMD. I'm away from book though, what would the DC be?
Well, it's a level 7 spell, CL 13. Several steps are required, as detailed here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useMagicDevice.htm).

First, deciphering it (I'm unclear on whether you need to decipher a purchased scroll, but I assume so.) This is a 25 + 7 = 32 DC check, but you can bypass it using Read Magic (which you can get a scroll or item for cheaply, and cast much more easily.)

Second, casting the spell itself is a 20 + 13 = DC 33 check. This can't be bypassed by any means.

Using a level 7 Cleric scroll also normally requires 17 wisdom. If you can't hit that somehow (using borrowed Wisdom-boosting items or Owl's Wisdom or whatever), you'll need to emulate that, too. Since your emulated stat is 15 - your result, this effectively requires a separate 15 + 17 = DC 32 check.

The upside is that you can try as many times as you want, since this isn't time-sensitive. You'll have to wait a day to try again if you roll a 1, but if you can hit 33 on your UMD at all, you'll succeed eventually.

[Major]

On the upside Healer's get it as a level 6 spell. Thus lowering the DC a bit.

Caster level 11, Spell level 6. Thus the scroll would be
Decipher: 25+6=31
Cast: 20+11=31

And 16 wisdom so 15+16=31 DC

Not much better, but a bit.

[marcielle]

You could drag her along to an illithid, pay him to mindblast her(squidfaces are quite agreeable when you aren't trying to foil their plans/don't look like a potential slave) until she ends up with a DIFFERENT type of insanity through brain damage. That might cancel it out.

[Coidzor]

TL; DR
I was too heroic and dashing and now got a crazy chick who wants me all to herself who I assumed was a sweet innocent girl cuz knocked out she seemed fine.

Sounds more like Occam's razor should be applied and just your DM having remorse for offering any kind of leadership ability at all. :/

[Major]

The DM is a friend and I trust him from other games. Personally I find it pretty likely she had a crazy attitude and I just hadn't talked to her long enough to notice. He said it should be pretty obvious next game. I still get leadership and cohorts, so its not like its a big deal.