Apprentice Henchmen

[justicedragon]

So, upon reading some more material, I saw that it wouldn’t be uncommon for a wizard 10th level or higher, by fame alone, to attract an apprentice. That being said, what about creating a random encounter with a neutral NPC, where his/her class is chosen at random, and if it matches the same class of the player that talks to him/her along with level requirements, could become a henchy?

Obviously, the dialogue would resemble something like “Oye! I’ve heard of you! You’re that skilled Wizard/Archer/Warrior/Knight I’ve been hearing about! Say, you wouldn’t be needing a(n) Apprentice/Squire/Lackey, would ya?”

[kalbaern]

Oct 16, 2019 0:31:27 GMT -5 justicedragon said:

So, upon reading some more material, I saw that it wouldn’t be uncommon for a wizard 10th level or higher, by fame alone, to attract an apprentice. That being said, what about creating a random encounter with a neutral NPC, where his/her class is chosen at random, and if it matches the same class of the player that talks to him/her along with level requirements, could become a henchy?

Obviously, the dialogue would resemble something like “Oye! I’ve heard of you! You’re that skilled Wizard/Archer/Warrior/Knight I’ve been hearing about! Say, you wouldn’t be needing a(n) Apprentice/Squire/Lackey, would ya?”

Short Answer:

Yeah .. uhm .. no.

Long Answer:

The "at 10th level thingy" goes back to the original D&D where you maxed out levels at 10th. You could keep playing, but there was no further gains by your character. Your paladin could begin building a small keep and attract followers due to his renown. Your wizard could begin constructing a tower and lock himself away to experiment and gain apprentices. Your fighter would begin a castle and seek to take over a territory as it's lord. Your thief would start their own thieve's guild and priests began temples. Hirelings, apprentices, followers, squires were then either non adventuring NPCs you interacted with between journeys through a DM or new PCs played under the protection and influence of the semi-retired 10th level PC.



Later in AD&D the norm was to gain followers from 18th through 20th levels (20 being the new max).

In later game versions its purely up to the DM(s), but the norm was after 20th or epic levels.

Hirelings, stablemen, smiths, apprentices, squires and others are generally non-adventuring NPCs that add color to a campaign only. They don't work well within the framework of NWN for several reasons.

1) In most cases, the follower does not literally join their "Master's" side for day to day activities and even rarer ... adventuring. Instead they spend several years doing servile labor to prove their commitment before being allowed to advance and actually learn useful skills. So a paladin's squire will muck the stables and feed the horses and mend torn clothes to start. The wizard's apprentice will fetch stuff, cook, clean and feed the gargoyles for years before allowed to pick up a quill and begin penning their first cantrip.

2) Apprentices, squires, initiates and others all come from the "commoner" class to start out. That means 1d4 hit points, no armor or shield proficiencies and only simple weapons can be used. So, just how useful is that 0 Level Apprentice that will be all but impossible to keep alive just walking from Llorkh to Loudwater?

In D&D an alternative exists where a higher level PC can "mentor" a new character, but that's mainly just an RP reason for the first level character to join the party.

Keep in mind that NPCs are people too. By that I mean, they all differ and can act on their own. In PnP, they are played by the DM though. The players do not control them themselves. A player can command, ask or assign tasks of their "followers", but whether they obey, follow through or even outright defy the PC is up to the DM to determine.

Henchman a player has a little more control over, but a DM can still over rule their actions and intentions. In NWN henchman are a PITA. To be useful, they need to level up beside the PC controlling them. This means a unique set of creature blueprints for each level they can achieve. If you look in the OC (in the toolset) you'll find eleven versions of each henchman to handle their advancements from 4th through 15th level. The expansions extend them further still (don't recall what they cap out at). So, each "henchman", if it's going to be useful as you level up needs to be able to level with you even if they likely lag behind by one or two levels. This means that for each single unique henchman here, we'd need to create between 1 and 40 NPCs to cover their progression. This also means that each individual blueprint needs equipped with weapons, armor, proper spells to fit class/level/specialties/demeanor. Since the base items are often so "ugly" ... we now need to create custom versions that look better. In the end, an average of 60 resources would be expended just to add a single henchman ... then another 60 for each additional version. So just two sets of scaling henchmen uses resources I could use to add 120 more maps, merchants, creatures and other things instead that would have far more universal usage. Let's not overlook the oddity of two or more PCs both having "Bob the Barbarian" as their henchman. So suddenly, even if each version doesn't scale that much, we need lots of them.

Eventually, I'll add some non-scaling henchmen (or just limited scaling), but not soon. It's on "the list", but not a huge priority. I can fudge the scaling using one version and a special script set, but that's a fairly large time sink as well. I'd still need to basically create each level and record feats, stats, skills, etc ... (manually assigning them too) ... or make a PC in a Single Player Level Up Module and record all the information for each level. In either case, setting a few hundred variables on the NPCs blue print and creating a script set to handle leveling them is still hundreds of hours invested into something that would be nice, but we don't actually need.

Sooooo ... "on the List" ... but well below finishing the revised crafting systems, new merchants and items, loot table overhauls and adding areas to explore and new unique things to face here.

[justicedragon]

Gotcha!