Why isn’t ____ personally involved?

[roguerouge]

Shell shock.

"I've got kids. Have you seen what orphanages are like? And you'd think that Fluffy IX would pull his weight as a baby sitter, but NOOO! He doesn't have thumbs so he CAN'T do it."

Magic Mouth on front door. "Thank you for contacting Otto. All consultations require a 10K gp fee up front. Those without the aforementioned fee better make their fort saves."

Party bursts into Gandalf's tower uninvited, to plead for aid. Gandalf turns to them, "You interrupted my spell! We're doomed! Fly, you fools!"

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Let’s hear your reasons!

• There is no such personage. You’re it, guys!
• He’s all tied up dealing with even bigger threats, but it’ll all be for naught unless...
• He doesn’t care anymore. After saving the world for the upteenth time and you still can’t get a free meal at the inn. Forget the lot of you. I’ve got a nice little pocket dimensions I’ll be retiring to just as soon as Cthulhu and his friends wake up, thank you very...well...not at all, really.

I'm heading for the first one in my KotS game. If any PC's start muttering about this sort of thing, I'm going to ask them for History, Religion or Nature rolls and then tell them they can't think of anyone else in the current world that could be asked to help!

Of course, I'll give them the opportunity to make friends - but as far as do-gooders who will happily quest for glory and to save the lives of others:

They're it.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

He is locked in a mystical battle to prevent the Portal of Doom from opening even further - without him, the invasion would already have overrun the world.

But this takes up his entire concentration, and he can't win. Sooner or later, his concentration is going to slip - and then we are all doomed.

So the PCs should better hurry in figuring out how to close it permanently - right?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't like the idea much of "xyz" solving another crisis. It cheapens the PCs actions in a way and strains credibility a little bit - There are actually _two_ crises going on at the same time? This world is really doomed!

Better have them work at the same problem. Elminster assembles some powerful mages to conclude a ritual or get artifact A, while the PCs get artifact B, or go off hunting down one of the BBEG responsible for the crisis. Or they really adventure together for a while.

In a way, it is the same thing as with the "game-breaker" spells (be it Teleport, Scry, Legend Lore or Find the Path) - once they are in the game, don't neuter them, make them part of the solution. Don't create a anti-teleportation field - teleport is the only way you can even get to that damn place!

For a twist - maybe the PC need Elminster. Or more precisely, they need his blood. Okay, any Chosen One might do, but well, he's kinda available right now. Very unfortunate thing, but the ritual to enter the Domain of the BBEG just is that stringent...

 

[green slime]

Forked from: Alternatives to "Save the World"



Let’s hear your reasons!

• There is no such personage. You’re it, guys!
• He’s all tied up dealing with even bigger threats, but it’ll all be for naught unless...
• He doesn’t care anymore. After saving the world for the upteenth time and you still can’t get a free meal at the inn. Forget the lot of you. I’ve got a nice little pocket dimensions I’ll be retiring to just as soon as Cthulhu and his friends wake up, thank you very...well...not at all, really.

(I don’t really disagree with anything in Irda Ranger’s post which I’m forking off of. This is just the kind of thing I like to see how we can rationalize.)

Elminister/Mordenkainen Equivalent are personally involved. They just suck at what they are doing to save the planet (PR's a b*tch when it's been too good...), or aren't attempting the same "save" the PCs are. In fact, Mordenkainen is probably the schemer behind the original plan, and Elminster his dodering geriatric tool with Alzheimer's.

The co-operation game is tricky. At high level's everyone is manipulating everyone else, jockeying for position, removing rivals, spreading misinformation, stealing credit.

Just because they are involved, doesn't mean they want the same thing the PCs do. Just because they have had good PR in the past, doesn't mean they are half as good as the books claim them to be. Just because they can doesn't mean they want to.

Epic level PCs are like Nuclear weapons: You use one first, and the other side'll put theirs into play to.

 

[S'mon]

[*]There is no such personage. You’re it, guys!

Definitely my preferred approach these days.

 

[S'mon]

That's beside the point. I was noting the lack of high-level NPCs in Eberron, especially -- given the Last War and the number of warriors and fighters who participated in it -- the weird lack of high-level fighters.

NPCs don't use the PCs' XP table. Except maybe when they're around PCs. Nothing weird about it.

 

[Fenes]

1. "Ah... you know, that orc horde I stopped ten years ago? Its size might have been a bit exagerated by a bard."

2. "It's not about saving the world. Really. Those hordes from the Abyss just want to deal with your country, for a transgression done in the past. Then they'll leave. If not, we'll act then. No, this has nothing to do with the trade dispute between our countries."

3. "Sure, Big Al would help you. But he's in the Valley of Mirth, at the Western Coast, and you're here, in central Miderna. In the time you'd need to reach him, the enemy would have already won. Teleport? If that spell was possible, don't you think you'd have encountered it so far?"

 

[Dausuul]

The BBEG has ensnared Elminster in a brilliant Xanatos Gambit, and everything Elminster does to stop the BBEG is actually playing right into his hands. The PCs discover this just after Elminster heads off to the BBEG's dungeon dimension, where he will be trapped and murdered. Now it's up to them.

Beating up other 1st level commoners and the occasional 2nd level warrior is great for getting from level 1 to maybe level 3 for NPCs. Beyond that, tough to get enough XP to keep moving forward without going after either big groups who will eventually roll enough 20s to kill them, or warforged titans, vampires, and other higher CR stuff... that will kill them.

All of them?

Oh, no. Not all of them, just the vast majority. There are a few brave, clever, and lucky souls who manage to defy the odds and make it through to the high levels. You know what we call those guys? PCs.

(Don't know why I'm posting any of this, though, since Set already won this thread.)

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Unless the world is very uneventful there would believably be other important things that high level NPCs could be doing. In our own world at any given time there are multiple tyrants, villians and whatnot that need a good whupping up on and a fantasy setting should be no different.

The PCs may be the most important heroes in a given area, in a particular story but don't need to be the only heroes in the world. IMO FR abused the idea of the high level supporting NPC and made these types of individuals nearly omniscient and omnipotent begging the question as to why indeed they weren't always saving the day.

IMC I run a homebrew where there certainly are NPCs more powerful than the PCs but the world is far lower in magic than standard D&D settings (a bit more magical than Conan's Hyboria) so there are no Elminster types running around. Even the most powerful warrior can only be in one place at a time. IMC spells that teleport are nerfed and replaced with dangerous spells that cause one to travel the spirit world shortening travel time but dramatically increasing risk. Even high level mages and priests still need to ride something.

The real problem with integrating high-level heroic NPCs or finding a plausible reason to have them sit things out is when the campaign revolves around actually saving the world. IME if something is actually threatening the whole world...(a type of campaign I ran only 2x in over two decades of DMing)...then it is great enough threat to find a way to tie up powerful NPCs.


Wyrmshadows