Should NPCs be immortal before they join you?
Mush_Mush
Member Posts: 476
So having read the thread the other day about Dorn being invincible in the encounter I remembered that Neera was very much mortal when you meet her in Beregost yet after reaching her today it seems she is now immortal. I'm really not a fan of this change, I mean what is the point of rescuing someone that doesn't need rescuing? If it was on story mode I'd get it but this is core she should be subject to death if I fail to protect her imo.
What do you guys think?
(also, my first ever poll ^^)
What do you guys think?
(also, my first ever poll ^^)
- Should NPCs be immortal before they join you?30 votes
- Yes23.33%
- No50.00%
- Some should but not all.26.67%
0
Comments
This is also what I added myself back when that report was being reviewed:
I'd like to add the following - it's actually inconsistent with other NPCs:
"During fixing #3382 4 years ago it was decided to remove the minhp1 item after the Ekandor cutscene, rather than at the end of that combat.
This behavior towards Neera is inconsistent with the initial ambush of BG1:EE with Dorn (who still has the minhp1 item) and, as it's Neera, creates problems for players:
- Neera's HP at the lvl 1 are very low (4)
- Neera's wild surge can kill herself (for example, through a Fireball surge)
- Neera is in Beregost, the town many players reach while still of the 1st level and thus not having enough firepower to kill all the enemies before they hit Neera
Another argument can be the following. Considering there's now a LoB diffuculty available, keeping Neera on LoB alive during the initial encounter is more difficult than all other tasks of the similar level of danger. Because of her AI (and not having a sling), Neera just melees enemies after casting her spells, thus becoming an aim of the red wizards."
This is what Phil added: "Giving her a sling might help with that behaviour. Ultimately I want the NPCs to be consistent, so we could also have her minHP ring match how Dorn works."
But aside from that, NPCs should be able to die, regardless if in party or not. This largery doesn't affect majority of playerbase anyways and in case of no-reloads player it can add a certain spice to the gameplay. Imagine having a wild surge next to NPC you initially planned to take along
DnD is all about risk, if you take that away it loses something.
If the encounters where you get to recruit them are such that they need to immortal to have a reasonable chance of survival then the encounters need to be fixed.
Neera is particularly annoying because if you want the gem bag, you have to recruit her. It doesn't seem like great game design that you always end up recruiting Neera and then immediately kicking her out of the group after taking her stuff. At least with Dorn you can pretend that you never noticed him sat there in the corner of the FAI right at the start.
Anyone know how to mod the game so that Dorn never appears in the FAI, Neera never appears in Beregost, and there's a gembag for sale in Feldepost's Inn?
I think there is an option in the G3 tweak anthology to erase the new Beamdog´s characters entirely.
It really should be yes for this situation unless Neera is strong enough to survive with help without it. Another fix would have been to allow Neera in the party right away when she asked for help, if the PC says no and she dies, they are out of luck.
Most other NPCs don't need it, but if they had similar situations, yes. If it wasn't as difficult to save someone then sometimes or no would have been my answer.
On topic: I'm with @Pingwin here, actually, if the NPCs are not supposed to die in the very first encounter, this very first encounter needs to be scripted differently. Only exception is Shar-Teel, which is an engine thing imho since there is no other way to really prevent the player to accidentally kill her in a real fight.
For NPCs just standing around, making them immortal before joining would lead to really weird situations in case the player decides to e.g. load them with fireballs.
That'd be a good fix tbh.
I think it would be quite awkward if the party is full. Then we would have another party member asking whether they should really leave the party in the middle of combat.
I think for Neera and Dorn the easiest fix would be to have the AI script of the enemies focus on CHARNAME & party instead of the NPC. But might be overwritten by SCS, if you use it?
For Shar-Teel: make sure she has a helm to avoid critical hits and have her surrender at a fairly high HP threshold (about 15, which works if she a minimum level of 2). If you attack her with a Two-Handed-Sword + 3 while dosed with a Potion of Cloud Giant Strength you might still get unlucky, but in that case you sort of deserve it.
Either way, I don't feel like any of the current companion's encounters were a problem. The save function exits for a reason. It's fine if occasionally you don't get it in one go.
I think Shar-Teel should just give in after one hit, why risk getting killed?
Perhaps encounters could be designed to make it more likely for the NPC to survive, but if an opponent happens to get 2 or 3 crits in a row, the fight can be over quite suddenly, and in endless thousands of rolls, a string of 20s does come up, and is very annoying at the wrong time.
That said, I can see why some people might find the "dice fudging" behind the scenes to be a turn-off if they enjoy a purist gamestyle, so perhaps this should be some sort of toggle (tied to lower difficulty settings?) that players can simply switch to if they're having trouble.