High-Level NPCs

[Nellisir]

Finished Glen Cook's A Path To Coldness Of Heart (Vol. III of The Last Chronicle of the Dread Empire, and while it's implied that it's the last, it ends in typical Cook fashion, without a hard resolution.) just now, and it made me think about high-level NPCs in games, given that most of the story centers around the most powerful wizards in the world. It's interesting to think about what's happening that isn't the focus of the story, however. There are whole kingdoms and personages that never come into play.

The wizards (Varthlokkur, Mist, and the Star-Rider) are not omnipotent or omniscient. They don't know everything. In fact, their knowledge is sometimes stunningly specific (and useless outside of that very specific context). They don't have time to see everything. They often let things go, assuming they can just deal with the consequences later. They are petty. They have human concerns.

There are multiple intrigues at multiple levels in multiple directions. Assuming a wizard can handle "X" number of intrigues ( for instance, equal to his INT score), he's got to allocate a goodly portion of those to minding intrigues targeting him, not just ones he's set in motion, lest he be ambushed.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The wizards (Varthlokkur, Mist, and the Star-Rider) are not omnipotent or omniscient. They don't know everything. In fact, their knowledge is sometimes stunningly specific. They don't have time to see everything. They often let things go, assuming they can just deal with the consequences later. They are petty. They have human concerns.

Reminds me of the well-written wizards in The Forgotten Realm's The War of the Spider Queen series (contrast with some Mary Sue wizards in the same setting).

There are multiple intrigues at multiple levels in multiple directions. Assuming a wizard can handle "X" number of intrigues ( for instance, equal to his INT score), he's got to allocate a goodly portion of those to minding intrigues targeting him, not just ones he's set in motion, lest he be ambushed.

I'm not too familiar with Cook's setting. Assuming you're talking about wizards in any setting, and not just Cook's, I would assume that different wizards would have different ways of dealing with these issues (and some would have none).

Adventuring wizards (and those working for the military) always have backup. Furthermore no one is likely angry at just the wizard, but at the whole party. Of course, the party can't be together all the time, and said wizard might fear being ambushed while having a bath, but their risk is only a bit worse than if a tougher PC were ambushed while having a bath.

Since in most settings wizards are rare, each military wizard of high enough level/notability would probably have a small staff, dealing with administration issues at the very least. Most likely said wizard would feel they don't have enough support though, but at least they've got someone to buy scrolls, ritual components and what not for them. They also spend time at the officer's barracks, which are well-guarded, and if the military is at all suspicious of them, some low-ranking beneath notice soldiers might follow them around and have to rescue them if someone attacks said wizard.

Mercenary wizards would probably have it worse, especially if they're essentially adventuring wizards without a permanent party, hiring themselves out for temporary jobs. No backup, no administration most of the time. The good news if anyone going after them is really angry at their paymaster instead of them, and is probably more interested in what information they hold in their heads rather than in killing them for revenge. Being a "standup mage" would enhance their reputation, but could result in torture rather than just being threatened.

Solitary wizards who aren't interested in anything beyond magic would be able to evade most threats simply by hiding in a well-trapped tower. Their greatest concerns would probably be theft ("thieves" might want to steal their items, ritual scrolls, etc) or if they had past lives as adventurers, they might have old enemies with scores to settle. Said wizards might have a mage-only staff consisting solely of apprentices, who are there to do lesser work the wizard just doesn't have time for. Said wizards would likely rely on powerful intimidating constructs for physical protection.

I think few wizards would actually be interested in intrigue. Those that are noble (or at least work for a noble house), work for the government or for criminal guilds might really be constantly deep into intrigue. They're no longer "magic first", they're "country first", "family first" or even "me first". Said wizards would have special skills in dealing with intrigues, and would constantly be on guard (even paranoid), slathering themselves with protective wards and contingencies and always having escape spells prepped.

As said wizards are becoming paranoid, they might find it hard to hire help or bodyguards. Assuming they're not worried about being stabbed in the back at any moment, they might have to hide things from these employees (and so be alone a lot) because they fear old-fashioned espionage. Really powerful wizards (eg the Minister of Magic, the Minister of Espionage) might frequently subject their staff to lie-detection or mind-reading magic, which isn't exactly a great way of maintaining trust.

Fortunately, if these wizards are powerful enough, they could create anything from golems to undead servitors to protect them. (Their own bosses, if they have any, might insist they maintain staff sent from the palace.) The more paranoid wizards might create semi-independent creatures, intelligent enough to observe things the wizard themselves might miss, but generally loyal to the wizard. (Not quite a wizard example, but it gets the point across: in War of the Spider Queen, Triel carried an intelligent snake-headed whip which made observations for her, seeming in 4e terms to give her a bonus to Insight and Perception, and crucially kept watch for her even as she slept. However, the whip couldn't cast spells or do more than warn her of things.)

The exact amount of preparation required would depend on the ruleset. Until very high levels, a Contingency/Teleport by itself would deal with most ambushes, even if the wizard is caught by surprise by an entire party. I would expect any 3.x wizard, even if not in the least bit interested in combat, to always have a few defensive spells, if only because a wizard who isn't dressed or otherwise identified as one runs the risk of being mugged. Spells that take you far from combat (eg Dimension Door) are probably better than ones that don't (eg Stoneskin) since combat defensive spells (other than perhaps Invisibility) can be surmounted by determined-enough foes.

A very high level wizard might have to go paranoid, always changing traps on the various vulnerable areas of their homes or hangouts (doors, bathroom, kitchen table), buying gorgon's blood to perform the Forbiddance ritual (that's not actually in the rules, but IIRC gorgon's blood blocked scrying in 3.x much like Forbiddance), and (if in 3.x) layering themselves with spells like Foresight to avoid ambushes or (if in 4e) preparing the Succor ritual to immediately teleport to a pre-determined location if ambushed (and conscious enough to escape).

The last example is the worst of both worlds - liches. A lich might have a huge ego, and they're not comforting to living staff. A wizard willing to do that to themselves might have been mad to begin with, and more likely afterward. Liches, being generally actively evil, probably aren't just hiding in a cave in the Underdark working on research, although they "live" so long they might outlive anyone actively seeking them out. A more "out-going" lich might use magic disguises to visit the world of the living, hire a majordomo or chief of staff and otherwise meddle, increasing both their non-magical knowledge and risk of uncovery. Said lich probably has a fairly time-specific goal.

TL;DR:

I think "intrigue" is a skill, and many wizards would not possess it. These wizards would either avoid jobs where they need this skill, or they'd fail pretty quickly at it. Especially in an RPG it's probably pretty hard to find a wizard whose Int isn't, in the long-run, just based on their level. A higher-level wizard is smarter, so naturally they can deal with more intrigues.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm not too familiar with Cook's setting. Assuming you're talking about wizards in any setting, and not just Cook's, I would assume that different wizards would have different ways of dealing with these issues (and some would have none).

Cook's wizards, in both the Bleak Empire series and the Black Company, tend to fall into one of two categories: "regular", and "world-shaking". In D&D terms, there are plenty of wizards under 10th level, and a very few, very powerful ones above 18th level, and almost none in-between. The archmages all tend to have very long lives. Some withdraw (Varthlokkur, usually), some meddle (Varthlokkur and the Star-Rider), and some Are Involved (Mist, aka the Empiress of the Bleak Empire). Inevitably schemes cross, and uninvolved characters get drawn in.


I'm making general statements rather than specific, but specifically addressing high-level NPCs that are often a point of complaint (ie, what is there for PCs to do? Why doesn't Khelben/Elminster/Mordenkainen/Rary handle it?)

Hiring staff, creating golems, and whatnot are all ways of handling an "intrigue" - it doesn't have to be "hands-on". At some point, the apprentice/spy/assassin/major domo has to report back and the wizard has to make a decision. There are only so many threads that one can pull and handle.

In Cook's most recent book, the villain has difficulties precisely because he has too many intrigues, and he's been unchallenged for too long. He finds his emergency caches destroyed. He doesn't bother to disable traps after they're done, and gets snarled (an annoyance more than a danger, and the trap has been up for decades, if not centuries.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm making general statements rather than specific, but specifically addressing high-level NPCs that are often a point of complaint (ie, what is there for PCs to do? Why doesn't Khelben/Elminster/Mordenkainen/Rary handle it?)

I've never read a Greyhawk novel (are there any?) but in FR only some wizards run into this problem. Alas, these are the most famous wizards.

Khelben has such a powerful information network (I guess it's the Moonstars) that he can tell when a single drow is visiting Waterdeep. (However, he assumes she's evil, which she wasn't, and sent some loser wizard to go kill her, and they failed.)

Elminster has Mary Sue-like levels of genius completely apart from being a wizard. He pretty much never flubs, and if he does he can rely on Elminster's Evasion, or the goddess of magic herself, who didn't sleep with him (that was the previous one) will pull him out of the fire. Or the Simbul will.

Khelben isn't quite up to that level, but while Mystra was alive he should have been infallible. When he and Elminster had an argument, and Khelben was about to do something stupid, Mystra visited him in his head and shut him down for a few seconds. (Same things happens with the Chosen of Bane, but then the Chosen of Bane is a cleric. Not that I've ever read about him in a novel)

The problems with settings with powerful good-aligned NPCs are that said NPCs would want to help, and when the PCs become fairly high-level and start dealing with things like a hole in the sky, it makes sense to call upon the most powerful learned person who can handle it. If Elminster or Khelben or whoever knew about it, they would deal with it, or at least tell the PCs "okay, go collect for me 5000 gp worth of obsidian dust, I need that to perform the ritual..." (No one expects Elminster to kill the local kobold infestation. At least I hope not!)

There doesn't seem to be space for mid-level adventurers. A lot of restrictions on these wizards (eg Queen Alustriel and Simbul run kingdoms) don't matter much when you are delegating authority anyway in order to practice your magic, and can teleport, solve a problem and come back in a few days, using Sending to communicate while you're away. If said highly-intelligent wizard hasn't set up a standard method of dealing with the occasional dimensional jaunt interfering with their work/minions/kingdoms/etc, they're doing something wrong. (Elminster supposedly visits other worlds and talks to two other wizards, and those chats don't seem like they're short. Khelben can take time to visit Elminster in a barn in the middle of nowhere.)

Not that this applies to all powerful wizards even in FR, just some. I specifically applaud Gromph in City of the Spider Queen for being plausibly intelligent yet not a Mary Sue genius. Of course omniscience never applies to villainous wizards (not that I would want it to). I think FR could have been fixed just by killing Mystra and a number of high-level good-aligned NPCs.

 

[Nellisir]

I've never read a Greyhawk novel (are there any?) but in FR only some wizards run into this problem. Alas, these are the most famous wizards.

There are GH novels, but that's not saying much.
I haven't read a D&D novel in years. Mostly I run into comments on message boards about "realism" and how high-level NPCs should overrun everything. As you point out, high level wizards have ways of keeping their fingers in a lot of pies. The point Cook makes, however, is that eventually, even high-level wizards run out of fingers. You want to make a golem? Great! There's a month that you're out of touch and unavailable. Good time for someone to move against you. Interrupt your golem-making to deal with the attack, and a) you lose the golem, and b) the tertiary attack, against an ally of yours, kicks in. You defeat the attack on you, possibly salvage the golem, but lose the ally because your phone was off the hook.

That's basic, low-level planning. Things would actually get complicated assuming another wizard, or a high-level rogue, were planning the attacks.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

There are GH novels, but that's not saying much.
I haven't read a D&D novel in years. Mostly I run into comments on message boards about "realism" and how high-level NPCs should overrun everything. As you point out, high level wizards have ways of keeping their fingers in a lot of pies. The point Cook makes, however, is that eventually, even high-level wizards run out of fingers.

I agree, but maybe Cook isn't writing about D&D. In 3.x, a wizard could make several simulacra of itself to solve those pesky administration problems, draw assassination attempts and I don't think the spell takes that long to cast, either. Works better than golems, if not as powerful.

You want to make a golem? Great! There's a month that you're out of touch and unavailable. Good time for someone to move against you. Interrupt your golem-making to deal with the attack, and a) you lose the golem, and b) the tertiary attack, against an ally of yours, kicks in. You defeat the attack on you, possibly salvage the golem, but lose the ally because your phone was off the hook.

I was under the impression that making a golem or magic item, while requiring 1 day per 1000 gp, could be interrupted. (Eg you don't have to spend nearly a month straight making a +5 sword, you could leave it alone and come back to it later. Also, there are feats to cut down on magic item creation time, although I don't think they're core.)

I would actually expect a powerful villain to do just that. It's sort of like a mob war. You don't shoot the boss first, usually, you kill his capos and underboss and then him.

However, badly-written D&D novel villains never do things like this (and the heroes have easy logistics which are not well understood - they don't seem to need allies either). A villain would hire assassins instead, who survive because the ally is either smarter than expected or is carrying an item crafted for them by their friendly mage. Or maybe they'll just hire a priest to resurrect them afterward, reducing the loss.

There was a thread on the Eberron forum at the WotC boards taking a look at this from the other side. Eberron has few "Big Goods" and they're all limited in terms of space. Doing bad stuff in Oalian's forest (Oalian is an awakened tree/druid 20) is a bad idea, but he won't follow you to another country to kick your head in. The high priestess of the Silver Flame is a 3rd-level cleric outside of her Vatican. The Undying Court doesn't leave Elf Island. Etc.

The thread OP wanted to know if a balor was unstoppable on Eberron. It can Teleport Without Error at will and can cast Dominate a lot. Over the course of an hour it could dominate numerous kings or other "allies" and the spell lasts hours if not days. Of course, it doesn't have the easy logistics (eg magical cell phones or even knowing much about the Prime Material Plane) on hand, but in the short term it's basically unstoppable. If there were no high-level adventurers... well, I suggested the DM think carefully about letting such a monster into Eberron, on the grounds that you shouldn't have any ridiculously over the top Big Bads as well as Big Goods. (While Eberron may have powerful villains, they're generally the "asleep most of the time" or "locked on another plane" variety. Naturally, the DM could unlock a Big Bad when the heroes are almost powerful enough to deal with it, and they might be trying to prevent it from powering up some magical artifact or over-the-top ritual rather than just be out to kill it.)

 

[Nellisir]

I agree, but maybe Cook isn't writing about D&D.

I think we're talking past each other a bit. It doesn't matter to me what ruleset Cook uses, if any. They actually map pretty closely, but that's incidental to the point.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what you are arguing. In D&D, wizards ought to take over and the campaign worlds are unrealistic? That's a bit of a buzzkill, honestly, and it makes for a crappy story, but it seems to be what you're driving at.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what you are arguing. In D&D, wizards ought to take over and the campaign worlds are unrealistic? That's a bit of a buzzkill, honestly, and it makes for a crappy story, but it seems to be what you're driving at.

I'm saying:

1) The way wizards are presented in some FR novels, they could take over the world, no problems. They've got Mary Sue as their Intelligence scores.

2) Wizard tools enable them to avoid many of the problems you've outlined. For instance, you can use Simulacra as completely trustworthy assistants. They're the guys operating the Sending phone banks. (Whoever they're talking to might not even know they're not talking to you.)

This is why I asked if the novel followed D&D rules: fictional wizards rarely have the kinds of "backup" that D&D wizards have.

2a) A lot of novel authors, and a lot of DMs, don't put enough thought into keeping high-level wizards (or balors, as the case may be) from completely taking over a setting. (In the novel series described, it seems the author did put this thought into it, but either he's not using D&D or he's not a powergamer.)

 

[Yora]

In the real world we have several nations with stealth bombers, spy satellites, ballistic missile submarines, laser guided anti-tank missiles, GPS and thousands of others super powerful gadgets and weapons. And they still don't own the entire world, even though they really tried a lot.

And the same reason they didn't are the same why epic wizards won't either. Yes they might be able to completely annihilate everything in the world if they would work together. But they don't and almost all of them have no interest in destroying everything.

 

[Celebrim]

In the real world we have several nations with stealth bombers, spy satellites, ballistic missile submarines, laser guided anti-tank missiles, GPS and thousands of others super powerful gadgets and weapons. And they still don't own the entire world, even though they really tried a lot.

One of the problems with making analogies with the real world is that not only will people quibble over whether the analogies are good ones, but they will quibble over even whether the description of the real world is accurate. And as soon as we start quibbling over something about the real world, it has a tendency to get political, then heated, and then derail otherwise interesting threads.

Anyway, since I'm going to ignore your 'evidence', that leaves us with the assertion:

Yes they might be able to completely annihilate everything in the world if they would work together. But they don't and almost all of them have no interest in destroying everything.

From a game perspective, it doesn't matter that much whether the high level NPC's rule the world or not. What really matters is whether they are willing to intervene in it. Even if the high level NPC's in theory rule the world, if they are distant rulers who are seen no more often than the Wizard of Oz, then its still up to the PC's to do the day to day heroics needed to keep the world running and its inhabitants safe. But if they do intervene in the world, what stops them from being a sort of Justice League that does all the worlds really important heroics? The problem with the FR setting IMO is ultimately one of the core themes of the setting is that it is the NPC's who really matter, who fight the really important fights, who do the really important things, who thwart the really important villains, and that no matter how cool your PC gets, they still don't really matter. If you look at the FR modules, this is really brought home, because even to the extent that the PC's are actors within those modules, when it comes to the story having a climax, then the role of the PC's is simply to bear witness to the actions of the NPC's.