Whats NPC's does you party have and why?

[DM_Zlorf]

Hi,
I was wondering what NPC's other party's are using to help them through SCAP HC and why?

There's only 5 players in my game (3 are lvl 11 and 2 are 10, so below the recommended lvl 12 they should be). Kauro was very helpful until he turned on them. The PC's had little chance against the 3 buffed assassins, with 1 dying in the first round, the other survived death due to feat which stabilized him at -9, if he goes to -10.
The others dimensioned door out of there.

I feel they may need help, if they plan to raid the Catherdral of Wee Jas. Jenya said she can buff some up, but i dont think the party are going to plan a raid through the front doors.
They really need a cleric with big spells to help them, ie Jenya. But i dont want to make the NPC the standout.

Any suggestions?
Cheers
Zlorf

[Olodrin]

DM_Zlorf wrote:

There's only 5 players in my game (3 are lvl 11 and 2 are 10, so below the recommended lvl 12 they should be).

Well, my group is only 3 PCs, and we're just starting Flood Season, so my feedback will only be marginally helpful, if at all, but I've included two NPCs with my party. As of right now, we have Rufus Laro, though rebuilt with more CON, Toughness, Endurance and Diehard. The second NPC is a fighter/ cleric, focusing on ranged weapons. He tends to start the day with buffing spells, but does a lot of spontaneous conversion.

I offered the group a third NPC, but they said that would make things too crowded.

Olodrin

[Frank Steven Gimenez]

The city is full of potential allies if the PCs bother to check. If the Striders haven't made their presence known by now, this would be a good time for them to offer their information and assistance. Two of the three striders have minor healing but don't have the punch of a full cleric. Plus, this will create a favor for the PCs to return back to the Striders on the next adventure.

Have someone somewhere mention to the PCs that the Stormblades have also had a decimating and suspicious assassination attempt while on their last mission, which was given to them my the Cathedral of Wee Jas. Perhaps one of the players can attempt to convince Annah to have her team work with the PCs to bring some payback to Ike.

[Frank Steven Gimenez]

The PC party of the game I'm running started with four PCs: a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue. After the fourth adventure the player of the wizard moved away. Since we are running our game during the unusual timeslot of Monday midnight, I expected that we would not be able to replace the wizard. So, I encouraged one of the players to run the wizard as a second PC since having a full level arcane caster, particularly one that is a loremaster is quite crucial to the success of the PCs.

The player of the cleric has two cohorts. One who fights with the party, and the other that works through greater status to buff and heal the party remotely. I call her Garcia (from the TV show Criminal Minds). "Oracle" would also be a good nickname.

[Ogre_Bane]

My party of 6 only has Nidrama with them (which is great, with constant aid, prayer, death ward and neutralize poison at will). The archivist is a thama-something or other (focuses on summoning outsiders), so he got Nidrama as his planar ally cohort.

[Mary Yamato]

The lead PC of our party *really* acquires people. Over the course of the game the party has included (pardon my spelling, I've never seen most of these words written down): one of the Dark Creepers from Jeziderune; Lauro; Shensen; a wizard cohort from outside Cauldron; and a scout picked up on a side adventure. Of these only Shensen seems to have really stuck as a permanent party member. He;s also recruited the lead Dark Stalker, one of the bandits from the Lucky Monkey, a stray Shackleborn, and two out-of-town Wee Jas enforcers as associates but they don't adventure with the PCs.

In Occipitus, oddly enough, they now have Alec Tercival and Grehalia Cairnness. The drawbacks of this combination are becoming more and more apparent.

The party paladin has a unicorn, and Shensen has an animal companion; total party size currently 13. We find there is no such thing as a "small combat"--it's not worth taking out figures and rolling initiative unless it's going to be fairly important!

We'll need to get rid of someone once we get back; I think the wizard cohort, and Tercival.

Mary

[DMCuindless]

My party contains a bard and a paladin with a 19 and 18 charisma, respectively, so this group makes a lot of friends. That being said, they only have one permanent NPC: Krylscar Endercott. I was really lucky with his rolls in the Malachite Hold after they rescued him, so they found him extremely helpful. When they stumbled across Gryffon Malek in the kitchen, there was a tense argument between the two former friends, with Krylscar calling him a traitor, etc...

When they got back to town, the bard PC would occasionally go to the Tankard and see him there, drinking and staring at Gryffon. She put two and two together and offered him a job as her bodyguard at 3 gp a day (3 times more than average) plus free room, board and 3 drinks a day on her tab at the Drunken Morkoth. Given his reputation in town and his parent's growing distrust of him, he readily agreed. Now he's almost invaluable.

They have a lot of temporary help, though. My group consists of an Aasimar paladin, a human swashbuckler/rogue going for the dread pirate prestige class, an elven ranger/wizard going for the arcane archer prestige class, a dwarven cleric of Marthammor Duin going for the hierophant prestige class and a human bard/cleric of Sune going for the heartwarder prestige class. If they feel they need extra healing, they ask Rufus Laro to tag along. Extra muscle? They hit up the Striders of Shaundakul for a tag-along, et cetera.

They tried to get Coryston Pike to join them permanently, but I thought that she wouldn't go along with that being semi-retired and all. Still, they keep in touch with her quite a bit, and the paladin has started a semi-romantic relationship with her. All very fun!

[Shaitan]

My players had Coryston in their party for a while (I changed her backstory a little) but she was killed during Flood Season I think.

Currently they have just killed Vhalantru with the help of the Striders (Fario & Fellian). There are only 5 PC's (plus a few have died and recieved Raise Dead spells)so I was trying to get them a little help. They have been pretty close to the Striders since meeting them and the party rogue has a relastionship going with Fellian so it kinda fit.

For Foundation of Flame I'm planning on having Shensen help them along because 1) they may need a bit of help 2) they've kept in contact with her and 3) I want to see how well her character works with all that multi-classing.

Near the end of the AP, depending on how the party is handling things, I was thinking of having Jenya or Meerthan help out since by then the Cagewrights are the obvious enemy (and the one Meerthan has been after all along).