Necessity of Torrent

[renau1g]

I'm going to be starting the campaign in three weeks and am starting my prep work now. Still determining my setting (might just be a homebrew world). One question I had is how important is Torrent to the story/campaign. I abhor the idea of a DMNPC with the party and my group sometimes struggles with their own PC's let alone a follower.

*spoiler?*

Is there any issue with her getting offed in the first encounter? Any thoughts for how much this will affect the game or suggestions how to proceed without her.

Thanks!

 

[Morrus]

No, it's fine. No plot issues. You might have to find other ways to occasionally provide your players with info, but that's all.

 

[sfedi]

I've found that Torrent is useful for driving the action in the first sessions, providing a good sense of what's going on and what's to be done.

She is also interesting because it provides a unique point of view of the different problems the party will face.

If you don't want to have her and be on the safe side, I suggest you to have her be the local resistance contact, which will assist and join the group's effort until they leave Gate Pass. After that, they're on their own.

I suggest also that she gives a letter of recomendation/presentation so the party meets Torrent's mentor in Seaquen (read adventure 3 to see what I'm talking about).

You'll also need her to clearly spell out the plan on crossing Innenotdar and how to proceed once they leave the forest.
And of course, provide the party with Cooling Draughts.

 

[merchantsteve]

Torrent is a helpful, but not essential NPC. The modules use her a lot for information, but I contrived many ways to keep her out of the picture on most encounters of consequence. If you don't want her around, go for it. It is your campaign after all.
She is prominent in adventure #1 and #2, but takes on a far lesser role in #3 and drops off the map by adventure #4 (with cameos in a few later ones).

 

[Calavingian]

I wholeheartedly agree. While Torrent is the McGuffin that brings the players together she really is not at all neccessary once the party is assembled.

I wouldn't kill her off in the first encounter - you'll need her to introduce the characters to Buron and the other leaders of the Resistence, but by the time my players went looking for the Zaman agents (the Shahalesti in the published setting) they had already found ways to ditch her. In effect, she quickly went from being a party member to being nothing more than a useful contact/information source.

If your players are quite new to gaming they might need an NPC "leader" to keep them from doing anything suicidal. But by the end of the second session, one of my players had already taken over the leadership role from Torrent. From that point on she became obsolete as a member of the party and no longer took an active role in the adventure. Even so she remained a useful tool for feeding bits and pieces of information to the players and acting as a "voice" for the DM.

That being said, if your players are short of a healer, then I would recommend keeping her around.

 

[Trellian]

With respect to the encounters where she is supposed to be a part of, should the encounters be modified if Torrent is not in them? Is the party effectively a 6-man group?

Could it also be possible to have one of the PC's play Torrent's role, I mean, give that player all of the information that Torrent possesses, and have that character be the driving force in the beginning? Now, I have only read half of part 1, so I have no idea if this would work.

 

[sfedi]

With respect to the encounters where she is supposed to be a part of, should the encounters be modified if Torrent is not in them? Is the party effectively a 6-man group?

Encounters are balanced for 5 characters.
Some DMs leave Torrent in the background, other make her jump in when things get difficult.

If you're going to make her fully active, then count it as another PC and, in the case of a 6 member party, adjust the encounters accordingly.

Could it also be possible to have one of the PC's play Torrent's role, I mean, give that player all of the information that Torrent possesses, and have that character be the driving force in the beginning? Now, I have only read half of part 1, so I have no idea if this would work.

Yes, you could do that, but you don't need to.