Hidden Kingdom Devblog: Companionship

Companion NPCs were an interesting new element added to the game by the DMG2. In essence, they are Diet PCs, who are built using streamlined versions of the PC building rules, using PC classes and PC powers. Unlike normal NPCs, they are designed to be equivalent traveling partners for the PCs, so that if a PC is missing, a CNPC can be fit into that role and perform decently enough that the game won’t fall out of balance. One thing I did in this module was that, by default, there’s a point in the adventure where one of two characters you could befriend will follow you to your last confrontation with enemy.

One of the reasons I decided to do this was that I wanted there to be positive NPC interactions throughout the module, but it’s outright impossible to have that with the kind of enemy that the PCs will face near the end, so I have the companion tag along so the PC’s have something friendly to interact with. It adds a bit more dynamic to the party, particularly because the two people they have the choice to bring (and they can only bring one, as these two don’t get along) are important members of the community and very distinct. The choice to bring one, the other, or none, changes some choices the PCs have.

One example that illustrates this is that one of the companions practices herbology and can concoct an herbal remedy on the fly to revive an NPC the PCs will encounter. Without the companion there, the PCs have to find some other way to get that NPC to safety – and unless one of the PCs is in the habit of always picking up herbal cures as he tramps throughout the countryside, it probably won’t be the exact same. If the PCs bring the second companion, however, there’s another obstacle that’s easier, because that NPC can give them a way to cross a certain hazard quickly and quietly. The other NPC can’t do this, and if the PCs decide not to bring any of them, then they won’t be able to count on this aid in either situation. These are relatively minor problems in a sense and the PCs can always surmount them on their own terms, but the NPCs offer expedient and flavorful solutions that make for good roleplaying scenes.

All of the encounters beyond the point where the NPCs join up account for their presence, so encounters have additional monsters in them. If the PCs want a challenge, however, they could easily tell them not to come. They’ll then be facing encounters that are harder for their level than the baseline, which might be tantalizing to certain groups. By that point, they have plenty of in-character, appropriate storyline reasons not to take either of them, but also plenty others to take them, depending on how they rationalize it. What happens at this point is very much up to the characters and how they reason things out.

These are all choices that can have repercussions in the ending of the module. If the PCs bring a companion, for example, the final battle of the module acts rather differently than if they bring none, and bringing one or the other also affects things, so in essence there’s three somewhat tactically different possible final battles. I would say one NPC is easy mode, bringing none is mid-range difficulty, and bringing the other makes it harder. However, they are each tactically interesting in their own way, and certainly interesting to the storyline. Not only that, whether these companions live or die, whether they come at all, and what they see the PCs do and why while accompanying them can all have some effect on the end.

It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. None of this is really mechanical – it’s all strictly roleplaying, and you need only use as much of it as you want. It’s there for you, but it doesn’t force itself upon you, and there’s natural outs for all of it if it doesn’t suit your tastes. But I think playing with these options “turned on” as it were is really how the module shines. Part of the challenge of writing all of this was trying to make it so it wasn’t all rules, but rather just something that happens if your PCs want to roleplay and interact with the fantasy environment and people. That way, it can be scaled up or down to taste.

As a final note, I said the release would take place in mid-May, but Jonathan Jacobs is tied up with the Open Game Table volume 2, so it’s looking like it’ll be late May to early June instead. Stay tuned to the blog and when the product drops, you’ll know and be able to purchase it. Until then, I’ll keep wetting your appetite with these little bits.