What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

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LurkingShadow
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What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by LurkingShadow » Mon Jul 15, 2024 5:38 pm

I have a question about NPC guards.

I been told they are not supposed to be ignored. But it often happens, and especially if someone is under the set number. They can run in and beat up people or even raid and kidnap if a DM been warned. But now with the burning of Myon, I heard several dozen of PCs and a Dracolich, obviously DM controlled, attacked. This along with a DM ship in Andunor and many other powerful ships. Where is the NPC armies of the surface? Do they exist?

What is the premise of the armed forces that does exist and are they never to be considered in any form of events and happenings? There is elite Arcane Archers around the Deep Wells and Cordor got their Elite Cordorian guard patrolling and standing by the Palace Gates. What do these do in case of attack? Andunor itself also got these guards. Are they just to be ignored in an attack?

I do imagine there is more than 12 in reality or however many NPCs can be seen in a city overall that often gets ignored by about all PvP scenarios happening on the server.

What is the view of NPCs on the server?


Blorg
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Re: What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by Blorg » Tue Jul 16, 2024 9:49 am

Usually in DM contorlled raids, one needs to fight waves and waves of NPC guards, which can be very dangerous as DM spawned NPCs are very strong more often than not.


Twohand
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Re: What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by Twohand » Tue Jul 16, 2024 1:39 pm

Like Blorg said, DMs have the means to quickly respond to attacks by spawning NPC guards. As an example, there were Myon Guard NPCs spawned to defend the tree against the raiders.

It just should be noted that presently we do not have the means to mechanically put NPCs and PCs into a Myon faction, or a Cordor faction, etc. This means that a hostile guard is not only hostile to the invaders, but hostile to everyone, so a DM needs to exercise some judgment when spawning them during a large fight to avoid the guards attacking PCs that would be considered allies. Using Myon again as an example, this is why an elven PC is unlikely to fight at the side of the NPC Myon Guard against other PCs during a raid. This is not an issue for PvE, for the record.

Of course, in certain smaller situations when a DM can micromanage and possess a NPC, this would be different, but not so much in large battles with a lot happening at the same time.


LurkingShadow
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Re: What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by LurkingShadow » Tue Jul 16, 2024 2:29 pm

Twohand wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2024 1:39 pm

Like Blorg said, DMs have the means to quickly respond to attacks by spawning NPC guards. As an example, there were Myon Guard NPCs spawned to defend the tree against the raiders.

It just should be noted that presently we do not have the means to mechanically put NPCs and PCs into a Myon faction, or a Cordor faction, etc. This means that a hostile guard is not only hostile to the invaders, but hostile to everyone, so a DM needs to exercise some judgment when spawning them during a large fight to avoid the guards attacking PCs that would be considered allies. Using Myon again as an example, this is why an elven PC is unlikely to fight at the side of the NPC Myon Guard against other PCs during a raid. This is not an issue for PvE, for the record.

Of course, in certain smaller situations when a DM can micromanage and possess a NPC, this would be different, but not so much in large battles with a lot happening at the same time.

So how does this take into account that Guldorand could send their Garrison to support their ally? Or any other settlement? 50 Underdark PCs managing to reach the heart of a settlement and burn a tree with DM NPC Dracolich? Every variable need to be accounted for. As guldorand is side by side with Myon, they literally share a wall. From my perspective, it seems as if NPCs have no value or weight. I can give a benefit of the doubt when someone gets murdered in the streets but dozens of well armed PCs goes through the Deep Wells, has a very big dracolich with them and no one noticed or seen them or reported such an attack among NPCs.

I conclude from this and the complexity of the engine that NPCs have close to 0 involvement in bigger happenings and no one can rely, lets say, on the regiment of Waterdhavian soldiers that Guldorand had in the war with Amn as a reinforcemence for example.

EDIT: I do remember scenarios on other servers, where they unleashed elite guardsmen that started to kill everyone. That was a surefire mess and I can see why its avoided. It is immersive to see the NPC guards activated, but its also immersive breaking to see them kill their own, lol. :oops:


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The GrumpyCat
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Re: What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:30 pm

There's a bit of a design philosophy thing going on there, and it's an interesting one.

As a note - when I say 'NPCs' here I mean 'none hostile ones'.

On the one hand - you have an extreme where all the npcs are far weaker, far less powerful - in every way, than pcs. The presence of npcs, in short, means nothing at all. This is good because it allows a lot of PC freedom, but bad because it tends to be harder to enforce setting standards, with anything but ooc work. It also, imo, makes it harder to run interesting events. It has the ability - sadly, of making the setting less immersive in some ways. It gives a lot more player freedom, but at the cost of immersion, and complexity of story. Your world only becomes as good as your players are all at telling a cohesive narrative. Whilst I dont' think Arelith is an extreme of this, I do think it leans more towards this angle.

On the other hand - You have the extreme where all (or most) of the NPCs are far stronger than the npcs (either in soft or hard power) This leads to a more structured and more immersive world, and an easier time in some ways making DM plot, forcing players to have to think carefully before upsetting certain npcs. On the other hand - it can also be much more restricting, much more frustrating. It also - as an aside, is a lot more DM reliant. I'd catagorise (with all love and respect, because I do think it's an awsome server) Ravenloft as a little bit more like this.

Both approaches absolutly have their benefits, but both have their drawbacks. Ultimatly, Arelith is very much meant to be more about the PCs. You guys have a lot more power than in some other servers - and honestly IMO that's a good thing? We can of course- as Twohand mentioned, bring out npcs to defend settlments - and often we will. But this too is (at least in my opinion) a double edged matter. Sure, I'm happy to bring out 100 high level npcs to help fight off the underdarkers, but some of those will be slain in battle and they may NOT return to life.

This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

LurkingShadow
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Re: What does NPC guards and armies do on Arelith?

Post by LurkingShadow » Tue Jul 16, 2024 7:25 pm

Okay, Thank you for the post Grumpycat. I might understand where things turn bit alien to me as I really like structures and controlled situations myself and I used to play on POTM for 4-5 years.


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