So far it seems, to me, like the RPC's I've picked up have all been under whelming, and that’s being kind. I had Myles VERY briefly because I thought he sucked from the start. Vi is still with me, although I'm not sure why, I guess the extended range attack comes in handy since it doesn’t expend ammo. I just got the Savant Monk but am going to dump him because in my party mix he’s just a wasted duplicate who can’t cast spells. They’ve mostly only been good for taking a couple hits, wasting healing potions and spells on, and being XP leeches in general (oh, I did kind of like how the Monk alleviated my encumbrance for a little while I suppose.)

My current party mix, not including Vi, is Samurai, Monk, Ninja (Faerie of course,) Bard, Gadgeteer and a Bishop. Six characters have felt a little heavy from the start, but when I had 8 it was way too many. Seven is wearing thin as well.

So do any of the RPC’s have cool side quests, or funny dialogue, or any other kind of intangible benefit?

They all have interesting dialogue, lots of it.

The best one is the monk, it would travel with you everywhere excepet the rapax away camp, so it would be someone likely to rise up with you the whole game. The rapax necromancer is very strong when you find him, but he barely goes anywhere with you. In fact usually just after he joins you youll end up killing him.

when your characters are way ahead of the rpcs is when you usually get rid of them.

they are always good, they soak up hits. But when they are too low relative to the monsters, and theyre just dying a lot give em the boot.

Vi has a small added part to the ending if you take her to the last battle.

RFS was the only NPC I ever really bothered with. If you take the time to train him up well, he becomes a great fighter. And yes, he will go with you to all locations except the away camp, for a plot-specific reason. Even then, you can take him back again later.

As for the others, some I had only because the quest required them (e.g. rescuing Vi, whom I later parked at Heli's), and dumped them as soon as possible. A few I tried out and found less than thrilling. The "I won't go there" routine becomes old very quickly, and all the NPC's (except RFS) have multiple areas they refuse to enter.

In the final few games I played, I did not have any "permanent" NPC's at all.

Others here will give you different opinions. So just do what seems best for your party.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

I like rpc because they can be the meat fodder for you. plus rpc in wiz8 is cool because they can talk and have their own personality. ever tried to take the mace from Vi?

also for me, the more the merrier. everybody help each other out. scarry places like the graveyard is not scarry anymore when you have lots of companion with you. plus it's harder to get game over when fighting with tough monster because monsters will have to kill 8 now instead of 6.

I always take Vi and RFS-81 as my rpc in my every wiz8 game.

i like 6 person parties and i like to try out every class i can, so, except for my first game, i've always had a 4 girl party, appended with 2 rpcs. i LOVE trying them out and seeing how they do. [img]smile.gif[/img]

in fact, from a roleplaying point of view, i always use whatever rpc shows up in a certain area. my thot has always been they were there for a for a reason. myles to help me pick locks all over arnika, break into the bank and finally meet the woman who's family got this whole dark savant guy demented enough to blow up a world or two. so i keep vi with me always.

and when i find that poor tin "mank" i like to help him out. it's funny to have one of the dark savant's soldiers on my side. when i get to trynton, i end up liking them so much that when i find that lil trynnie private in her lil uniform, i take her on too. of course, myles has left by then, after relieving me of a few items, but hey, that's life.

i go thru the game this way, picking up teammates, taking quests and enjoying the different benefits of all the other classes. most of them have quirky personalities and i find that very fun. esp when they interact with my girls. [img]smile.gif[/img]

but of course, i can see where someone who doesn't like to roleplay or explore the game would think that they are all lamers. *shrugs* i find taking a group of misfits thru the game pretty rewarding, plus i get a lotta laffs along the way. my theory is that the game designers knew what they were doing, so i take what they offer and have fun with it.

V***V

Yeah, RPCs can be fun if you don't expect too much or get attached to them. It is a genuine drag to haul an unwilling RPC through an area where they are cursed and constantly complaining.

For better or worse the designers strongly any attempt by the player to make specific RPCs part of a core party of 8. I guess I don't like not having that option but overall the design of this game is so wonderful that I won't quibble.

RFS-81, and his willingness to go almost everywhere is an exception.

Over lots of games my own view of RPCs has moved pretty close to that of Katero and vesselle. Even if you pick up an RPC later in the game, if you keep them with you for a while they will rapidly rise to within a few levels of the core party average.

Certain RPCs are particularly fun in certain areas. For example, Vi is about the least fun it can get when she is with you in the main Rapax areas (Rift, Courtyard, Castle), but Tantris (The T'Rang Samurai) has a great attitude there. In one game I was searching for another non-complaining RPC besides RFS-81 to take there. I tried (using teleportals) Saxx, Sparkle, Ulf, and several others, all of whom coplained. Then I bought Tantris and he (she?, it?) said something about welcoming the opportunity to test the sharpness of his blade. Yes!!!

I haven't figured out the best one for underwater, yet, besides RFS, if any (maybe the designers were concerned about enforcing a free slot for Glumph.

I liked the RPCs for the fun factor the first time around. I took Saxx along for the early game, until I had to start going to areas he didn't like. He was pretty funny. I ended up with Vi and the android, for reasons already stated. When I play through next (I'm doing BG2 right now), I'll use the RPCs early, but I'm going to stick with a party of six for the long haul.

Thats my thought, too. Especially since even RFS refuses to go to the camp, to enforce two free slots.

IIRC Saxx is ok in the sea caves, but won't enter the underwater areas.
(If it wasn't Saxx, it was Sparcle; had them both in that party, and forced them everywhere)

My current "no magic" party is using Saxx, and I've taken him everywhere I've been, including Bayjin, Marten's Bluff, and the Rapax castle. He can't play the three highest-level instruments in those areas, and I have him wear a second Ring of the Road to get back some STR, but he works fine in all areas. Yeah, there's the repetitive complaining about the area being "no venue for a musician, boys", but that gets tuned out pretty quickly.

I've used RPCs in about half my games, and never had a problem with them falling seriously behind in levels. It might be a little difficult for a while if you picked up Vi when the rest of your party was level 14, but most of the RPCs seem to become available when the party's level is reasonably close to that of the RPC (which is probably not a coincidence). If the RPC is a level or three behind at pick-up time, they'll catch up within a half-dozen level-ups anyway.

The other issue typically raised is that RPCs are "XP leeches", since they reduce the XP received by each character in proportion to the total number of party characters. To me, this has always been a specious argument; there are so many things to kill, and other sources of experience, that "I'm not high enough level to go there" rarely becomes an issue. When it *is* an issue, the difference is well above anything that could be "fixed" by not having an RPC along. For example, it's entirely possible to get a level 7 party to the Rapax castle. If that party didn't have RPCs, it might be level 8 instead. Would that help? Obviously not; you'd simply have a group of dead level 8 characters in place of 1 or 2 more dead level 7 characters.

There's Pucks Cap, often found at arnika road as a random drop. It increases music by 10, but reduces Piety.

Yeah, I got that in my other current game; don't remember if the "no magic" group saw it or not. The "hit" in Saxx's no-go areas is -20 Music, but it isn't really that big a deal; the other Bard can play the instruments that Saxx can't, which is really only 2 combat instruments, since the Renaissance Lute stays in the party inventory for use out of combat. In earlier games I've dragged a complaining Vi through the underwater and Rapax areas, and she also did fine.

The constant complaints was a horrible design choice, one of the worst in an overall excellent design. Where is the fun in being annoyed to death?

I thought of some ways of dealing:

1) Don't recruit any except quest related only as long as necessary. This one is a rare case where the Might and Magic games handled it much better than Wizardry 8. The quest related RPCs in those games were along, but they didn't participate in battles or do anything. These people were almost like passengers or live cargo rather than members of the party. Quest people like Glumph would be better treated as a non-participating passenger. He isn't along long enough to develop. Ideal would be so these quest people didn't take up actual party space. RPCs like Vi and Myles could be great, if you could rely on them the entire game and actually plan one's game around having them along. Or even better yet allow eight in the party, with more skills, specialists needed, tougher areas, and a much longer game. Six has been the standard that all others try to measure up to. It's a nice number, especially in Wizardry games.

2) Kill all the RPCs (just kidding... yeah, just kidding)

3) Make it so they literally can't go in areas they don't want to go. i.e. if you teleport in, they don't arrive. If you try to walk in, even if they are unconscious or dead, they are automatically revived and sent back, perhaps after a warning. There ought to be a way, in that case of asking the RPCs where they will and won't go. It would be nice in these cases if they actually do show up back where you can recruit them again.

4) Remove the restrictions. I can't think of a single player that wants them.

5) Give incentives (real, in game, incentives, not 500 experience points) for using lots of different RPCs).

6) Allow a second level of recruitment. The RPC becomes a regular member of party in all respects, no further complaints, but no releasing them and picking them up later. This one really doesn't fit the current story design.

7) Let them complain, but just once, when entering a new area!

8) Get used to suffering but try to ignore it (about half of players that use RPCs put up with this)

9) Just take them places they want to go, as one might guess the designers intended (the other half).

[ 05-26-2003, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]

The RPC I hate the most by far is Vi. "I can't believe I ever came back to this STUPID planet" and "Get me out of here - NOW!!" are still ringing in my ears, and I haven't played this game since March.