Spoilers: Shinzo Delivery Limitations

[Scott Golden 321]

Shinzo can make deliveries for the players, but I anticipate a request that undermines a challenge in book 2:

Spoiler:

What is preventing Shinzo from bringing additional food supplies for Willowshore? While he would decline because it probably falls under the "too much aid" condition he is following, I can't think of a good excuse he could give.

Willowshore usually gets food from nearby towns, so the food exists there in theory. Shinzo has a cart, and could be paid to get a bigger one if that's the issue.

Has anyone else's party made this request, and how did you handle it?

[James Jacobs]

My take on how to handle this request:

Spoiler:

Shinzo should tell the PCs that he's just one person, and his ability to come and go to Willowshore is limited. He can't just make dozens and dozens of trips multiple times a day. And even then, he'll explain he needs to be paid for such deliveries of food; Willowshore is a town of 225, and that's a lot of food to deliver on a daily basis. All of which, of course, falls under the "too much aid" restriction he's following, but he'll likely use those bits of logic to explain why he can't just do a "one-man replacement" for an entire town's economy and trade.

He certainly won't volunteer this on his own, so unless your players come up with the idea, I'd just let it lie.

He won't even visit the town until week 3, regardless.

You could also just have him look nervous, and then explain that "the more aid I provide that way, the less I'll be able to provide you with access to the gear you might need."

And finally... you can simply have him refuse. He's powerful, isn't good-aligned, IS lawful so he'd be wary about breaking rules, has his own agenda, and isn't doing this to be entirely philanthropic... if he were, there'd not really be an adventure for low level PCs to go on, because they'd have a level 17 NPC hero to swoop in and save them all. Not that fun!

That all said, if your players want, I'd say that they could potentially pay Shinzo to bring along a cart full of supplies each time he visits (which, again, shouldn't be more often than suggested in the adventure). Each delivery requires the PCs to foot the bill—I suggest making this a 65 gp cost so it's an amount roughly be what a Low encounter for 4th level PCs would normally grant in treasure—make the PCs, in effect, "pay" for this shortcut by an amount of treasure that they'd otherwise earn. And this shouldn't grant more Food Points than they'd earn in a week doing a downtime task. I'd suggest only 1 food point per payment, or possibly 2 food points if they increase the payment to 130 gp (equal to a severe 4 encounter).

The point would be that this should be an expensive and inefficient way for the PCs to provide food for the town, and should not be a way for them to avoid building Food Points as presented in chapter 1's downtime activities.