Well, you can increase your score with 1 character when you gain a level, and once per level (per character, as I understand). Then there are boosts of +2/3 per adventure.
The romance check can be crazy hard - you'd think that after spending several months in close company to someone and went out of your way to get close to them, you wouldn't need a huge DC roll to tell if they open up. I'd say either make it purely RP oriented or make it a simple roll when the character starts getting close to the right relationship score and every time they improve it aftewards.
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Lets say you have a character with no CHA who focuses on Ameiko (for the most difficult one). You start off with a +4 thanks to your trait. At levels 2-17, you can auto increase this by 1, so by level 17, barring all else, you number is 20. You also have a 1 in 4 chance of boosting this further, for a rough total of 23. If you give them every major item for boost, your final total should be (roughly) 40. Your GM should work with you if you really want to get there though.
Starting book 5. I have boon or bane with all 4 major npcs. Never in the history of rpgs has so much been given to so few
The whole subgame is pretty silly......but then most of the mini games in APs are wonky
I have not sat down and read the relationship rules yet, but from the discussions here it seems like an unplayable version of Dragon Age (the video game, I have no experience with the RPG).
I'm going to start running Jade Regent next week. I've read the relationship rules but obviously haven't tried them out yet. They seem alright to me. I imagine it'd be hard to win the heart of those four. One's pretty old. One's really busy running his own business. One's super aloof. And the other one has witnessed her entire family die, her previous adventuring party die, and just found out she's supposed to rule a country she's never seen. No wonder they're hard to romance.
Seems like pulling it off would be lots of great roleplaying and a sweet "victory."
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I'm running JR right now. Haven't leveled yet (just started), but the idea I have knocking around is that every other level, they also auto add one to their camaraderie scores with the rest. Basically yeah, you are adventuring with them, so they do warm up more and more.
Also, Duntin Ashe, srop caravan rules. They are wonked like mad.
Also, Duntin Ashe, srop caravan rules. They are wonked like mad.
Thanks for the tip, Seth. Luckily, you're not the first person I've heard say so.
I'm changing the caravan rules to better include the PCs and to do more damage per attack.
I'm running this AP and we're just about finished up Forest of Spirits. The caravan and the romance systems are both unnecessary and as written compeletly fall flat on their face anyways.
I'm pretty sure players have been protecting caravans and interacting with NPCs before these rules were created. So toss these rules and you know do some role-playing. Your players will be travelling with these people to the other side of the world so they'll have plenty of time to get to know them better.
Its been a good AP so far but I certainly have no regrets not using these and I have a hard time imagining any group actually enjoying these mechanics.
We scrapped both romance and caravan rules; no regrets. The GM tried for a level or so to have us "put points into NPCs" and the players just weren't interested at all.
The PC/NPC and PC/PC relationships ended up quite adequately complex. Koichi (priest of Tsukiyo) is in love with Ameiko but decided long ago that this was contrary to his duty, so he keeps it a secret (when Lindy asked, he told her the story of Shiziru and Tsukiyo only meeting during eclipses....). Lindy (ranger) is very slowly and shyly building a relationship with Shalelu, and is oblivious to the fact that Jinko (rogue) has had a serious crush on her all campaign long. Nith (necromancer) treats Koya as his mentor and advisor, which caused a fracas when Nith made one supernatural deal too many and started turning into an undead. And Jinko recently seduced Nith in the hopes of swaying him from his necromantic doom and is now clashing with Koya over the best way to save his life. (Does she love him? I frankly don't know. I don't think she knows.)
The only person no one clicked with was Sandru. Just couldn't make any connections there; but I doubt mechanics would have helped.
We knew the rules were there at the beginning, and promptly forgot about them.
Overall there was little roleplaying with the NPCs, but they were always on everyone's mind when their services were required.
The players weren't really interested in developing relationships and concentrated more on the main storyline. Then again, my group was so powerful that they could permit themselves to ignore them.