Suggestions for a Randomized NPC Recruit Role (Ciccio's version)

franco

It is fascinating how many different ways players will approach the BG game. A few players from time to time would like to play with a greater degree of Randomness. They feel that this helps to recapture a little of the excitement of an adventure.

Some very excellent threads have already been introduced on this forum introducing Randomness to the game*.
In this thread I'm "Suggesting a Randomized NPC Recruit Roll (Ciccio's version)**" Here are the rules:

1. When you meet an NPC and wish to recruit him/her, you use a 1D20 die for an NPC Recruit roll.

2. Thaco for a Hit (Successful Recruit) is 11, 11 to 20 on a 1D20.

3. Modifiers to Recruit roll.
a) Charname's Charisma (14-15) +1, (16-17) +2, (18 ) +3 Charisma becomes more important.
b) Opposite Alignments -1 (Good-Evil), (Evil-Good). Neutral has no effect.
c) Same Alignment +1 (Good-Good), (Evil-Evil). Neutral has no effect.
d) Optional: Story line characters +1 Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira.

4. If the Recruit Roll fails "you may not attempt to recruit this NPC again".

5. An NPC may be Removed from the party at any time. If you wish to recruit an NPC that has been
removed from the party, a new Recruit roll is necessary. Failure means you cannot recruit the NPC again.

6. If you recruit one member of a paired set of NPC's and not the other, you may......
a) Carry both directly to the nearest location where they can be separated (building, farm, etc). While
with the party, the un recruited NPC will join in any battles along the way.
b) Evil Charnames may separate paired NPCs however they please.

Please let me know what you might think of this approach to play in an experimental game.


*@Lemernis has some very popular and successful threads on this forum concerning Randomized play.
**Ciccio is a nickname in some Italian dialects for Francesco.

franco

Some Examples of the Suggested Randomized Recruit Roll:
Your Charname is Neutral Good and has a Charisma of 16. She starts out the next morning after Gorion's death and encounters Imoen.

The Randomized Recruit Roll for Imoen
Modifiers +1 same alignment, +1 special character, +2 Charname's Charisma of 16.
Since the Basic Recruit Role to Hit is 11 or above. With the modifiers, it becomes 7 or above.
You roll a 1D20 and get 9. Imoen joins you.

The Recruit Roll for Montaron and Xzar
Modifiers -1 opposite alignment, +2 Charname's Charisma of 16.
Since the Basic Recruit Role to Hit is 11 or above. With the modifiers it becomes 10 or above .
You roll a 1D20 and get 14 for Xzar and 9 for Montaron.
Xzar joins you. Montaron must be dropped.
You proceed directly to the FAI where Monty is removed from party.

Before meeting Jaheira and Khalid, your party is Charname, Imoen and Xzar. There was a chance that you might have been only a party of 2 characters at this point or even solo. Note that there is no guarantee any longer that you'll be able to recruit a specific NPC. You will be facing the challenge of managing the best party that you are able to recruit in these uncertain times on the Sword Coast.

shawne

An interesting idea, but you'd have to restrict it to PCs - wouldn't be quite fair if you bought Neera or Dorn as DLC characters and then couldn't recruit them...

franco

@shawne. I bought the game for my PC directly from Beamdog. Neera, Dorn and Rasaad came with the game, and I didn't have to pay separately.

Thanks for the comment though. The suggestion is that you might enjoy to run the game this way from time to time for enjoyment. The new NPCs will be there for you when you play the game the normal way, or they will be there to try to recruit whenever you try the Randomized run again.

franco

Carrying the example above further: When you met Khalid and Jaheira your party consisted of ...
Charname (say Blade), Imoen, Xzar .......

The Recruit Rolls for Jaheira and Khalid
+2 Charname's Charisma of 16, +1 story line characters, Khalid +1 Same Good alignment.
Since the Basic Recruit Roll of 1D20 is 11 and up, it becomes 7 for Khalid and 8 for Jaheira.
You roll 1D20. You get 6 for Khalid and 12 for Jaheira.
Jaheira joins you, Khalid's roll fails and he is dropped and cannot be recruited again.

You leave the FAI for the first time with the 4 member party looking like:
Charname (say Blade), Jaheira, Imoen, Xzar.
So far, you're a little light on tanks (but Jaheira can fill in for now, backed up by Charname).
I'm getting to like this already.

GandalfPortraitGuy

Rather than "You may not recruit this NPC" ever again, why not just simply say "You may not recruit this NPC at this time", and say, they might reconsider within a week or so?

franco

@GandalfPortraitGuy. The Rules I have put down for the Randomized Recruit Rolls are really suggestions. You can think about it over time and apply it the way it seems more realistic to you.

But the reason I included the rule "You may not recruit this NPC ever again" was to force the player to feel a higher level of challenge. He will have to manage the party that fate and his charisma has made available to him. Whereas, if he can go back and try to recruit the same NPC in a week or so in a sense he will just be experiencing a delay in the way he might've played the game normally.

Lemernis

This looks fun! Nice twist on randomization! (No surprise that I like it, lol.)

I have a number of games going already, but I definitely look forward to giving this a try.

There's 29 NPCs. So personally I'd go with if the die roll fails on a recruit, hey, that's it--you get one opportunity. That's what adds the challenge dimension to it.

franco

Lemernis said:

This looks fun! Nice twist on randomization! (No surprise that I like it, lol.)

Thanks. Your opinion on this is important.

Flashheart

This could probably be modded into the dialog files for recruitable NPCs.

BG lacks quite a bit in 'stat' based dialog/features in general.

Flashheart

I've had a brief look at modding this into the game. I can make it so that a d20 is rolled and you must roll a 10 or above in order to recruit an NPC. I can't (without lots more effort) apply modifiers for alignment though.

For key NPC's I can make it that only a 9 or above must be rolled.

If anyone is interested or has any suggestions regarding stat/reputation based checks, let me know.

franco

@Flashheart. Thanks for your interest in this. I'm worried that what you're offering to do seems just a little too simplified. Part of the charm of the approach is to add a modifier based on the PC's Charisma. I call it the Charisma based Random Recruit Roll.

I think on that basis it would be a more attractive add on to the potential user and therefore a much more popular mod .

I have other ideas for stat checks that hopefully we could discuss sometime.

Flashheart

There is already a charisma based check each time you meet an NPC. This NPC reaction roll can also be implemented if necessary.

franco

@Flashheart. I would recommend you review the original suggestion and keep thinking about it. I've done some basic programming, but not modding. I know that after thinking about a problem awhile, solutions about how to do something seem to suggest themselves.

Flashheart

I'll just forget about it. Probably not worth my time anyway.

franco

OK. Thanks again for considering it.

lunar

shawne said:

An interesting idea, but you'd have to restrict it to PCs - wouldn't be quite fair if you bought Neera or Dorn as DLC characters and then couldn't recruit them...

+4 bonus to roll for paid, DLC characters :-)

I love the idea, will play like this from now on. ^^ That and minimal reload game with 5 reloads allowed. I already did 2 reloads, and have to be very careful. I was lucky to get most of the npcs I wanted to join, but failed at Rasaad and recruited him anyway cos I wanted to his quest area.

lunar

Started a new game. Charname: a ng human diviner will dual into cleric at lvl 5 (to try something different) Minimal reload game, max 5 reloads on char death allowed. (Have finished my previous run with 4 reloads. Wishing on improving that)

Imoen-failed to join. Bummer I need a thief
Xzar-failed, no loss
Montaron-joined, cool, I had to drag the two to FAI and leave Xzar in top lvl
Jaheira&Khalid-both joined, nice, they provide some needed muscle
Kivan-joined, excellent!!! This guy hits hard with comp. long bow
Neera-failed to join
Kagain-failed to join
Garrick-failed to join!!!No recruit from Beregost it seems
Rasaad-joined, will do his quests if he is not chunked.
Minsc-failed and even attacked the party! Slain by Kivan.
Edwin-failed, so no going into Gnoll fortress for Dyna.

Disaster struck when I forgot a mod of my own and entered a random wilderness cave and Jaheira and Montaron were perma-killed by a vampire there. Whistling sword+2 and bracers of archery went poof along with their bodies thanks to horrible vampire's dread touch. I need a thief badly, may visit Safana. If all fails Coran is very good. Hopefully I won't have to beg to lesser thieves like Tiax and Skie -.-

franco

I'm so glad @lunar that you seem to be having fun with this. That was the intention of the Randomized Recruitment Rule. I believe the game BG1 is pretty much the best RPG ever, but once you get to know where all the NPCs and items are, it loses some of the excitement of adventure that comes from not knowing how things will probably turn out. Well executed randomizing can bring some of that uncertainty back into the game while you are waiting for BG2EE or even BG3.

Coran would be my choice to try for. Good thief, great archer. Good luck with it. By the way, what are Charname's stats, especially Charisma?

FredSRichardson

Sorry to go off topic, but is there a randomized protagonist thread? There are rolls I should probably try at least once

lunar

FredSRichardson said:

Sorry to go off topic, but is there a randomized protagonist thread? There are rolls I should probably try at least once

There are excellent threads for random protagonist and parties in this forum. :-)

franco said:

I'm so glad @lunar that you seem to be having fun with this. That was the intention of the Randomized Recruitment Rule. I believe the game BG1 is pretty much the best RPG ever, but once you get to know where all the NPCs and items are, it loses some of the excitement of adventure that comes from not knowing how things will probably turn out. Well executed randomizing can bring some of that uncertainty back into the game while you are waiting for BG2EE or even BG3.

Coran would be my choice to try for. Good thief, great archer. Good luck with it. By the way, what are Charname's stats, especially Charisma?

Stats: S 10 D 6 Co 13 I 16 W 17 Ch 12, got the first roll so no power gaming, still decent enough.

Chose diviner as with high wisdom it is either diviner or necro and I didn't want to lose illusion school. Dualled into cleric at lvl 5. That way I can cast some good 1-3rd lvl mage spells. I focus on spells that do not get better with levels:blindness, horror, web, stinking cloud, slow, dire charm etc. So I can use them to good effect. I lose conjuration, mainly summon familiar but cleric levels will hopefully give good enough hp, grease-armor needless spells, glitterdust is big loss but survivable, and flame arrow/ghost armor are very redundant spells when your caster lvl is locked at lvl 5. No need to summon weak monster 1, I can spam animate dead with a top lvl cleric proficiency. :-)) And an emergency mirror image and last attempt magic missile is always good to have for a full time cleric.

Did many areas, including Basilisk map to gain some easy xp, now Diviner 5 (inactive)/Cleric 5. Just recruited Rasaad. Was planning on hunting sirines. First, I will go to Ankheg cave to get potion of magic protection and the fire wand. I have another potion of magic protection from The Surgeon already. When a character gulps two potions, he becomes %100 magic resistant, hence immune to charms of Sirines. Apply a protection from poison scroll from Thalantyr and that guy is invincible to Sirines. I plan to use them all on Kivan, so he can simpl handedly destroy all of the Sirines and give me much needed xp. :-) With magical arrows and kiting he can totally wreck Flesh Golems too, I will try to recruit Safana while on that map, I will need a thief for Nashkel mines. And I will need levels and items to survive scs Nashkel mines and spawning assasin parties after. ^^

Trexgod

I think instead of never to be recruited again, it should be the next time you try to recruit them there will be a penalty to your roll like -2 and if you fail again it'll stack and become -4. And also modifiers for when your character is a chaotic/lawful guy cause lawful guys will probably get annoyed at chaotic people and vice-versa. I also think that instead of +1 to your rolls every 2 charisma after 14, you should start counting at 12 like 10/= 12/+1 14/+2 and as well as getting -1 to your rolls every 2 charisma below 10 like 10/= 8/-1 and so forth. And lastly you should count the NPC's charisma as well with the same tables.
For example: CHARNAME is chaotic-good with 16 charisma and tried to recruit Kagain before but failed and now he's trying to recruit him again so he rolls.
+3 to the roll because of charisma, -2 because of alignment (cause Kagain is Lawful Evil), -1 due to Kagain's charisma (it's 8) and -2 because CHARNAME failed a previous roll and now CHARNAME looks bad in Kagain's eyes.
CHARNAME rolls a 6, he fails to convince Kagain to join his party and the next time CHARNAME makes a roll to make Kagain join his party, CHARNAME will get a -4 bonus to his roll instead of a -2. What do you guys think?