AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

The roadwardens were always interesting to me, I might have made a Roadwarden PC if the information on them was easy to find and ingame. Just uniforms in the woods without much to say, such fell flat without any charm to their design and implimentation.

I'm sure there's a lot of depth, that they are important to the island on the whole; but most if not all requires lore questions/discussion to even understand let alone attempt to join an npc faction without any clear personality.

DukeDublin wrote:

The roadwardens were always interesting to me, I might have made a Roadwarden PC if the information on them was easy to find and ingame. Just uniforms in the woods without much to say, such fell flat without any charm to their design and implimentation.

I'm sure there's a lot of depth, that they are important to the island on the whole; but most if not all requires lore questions/discussion to even understand let alone attempt to join an npc faction without any clear personality.

I agree, seem to recall someone mentioning joining them before when i started playing here and they were told it was an NPC faction so couldn't join it... or at least that's what i was told. What they 'do' certainly fits more with who Shana was at the time.

GreatPigeon had a roadwarden character.

There are PCs who joined the Roadwardens before.

walnutboy wrote:

As for the Silver Dragons... yeah that one always confused me as what are they actually keeping safe? The road, preventing the beastmen moving in? Failing somewhat there given that there is a second entrance closer to the city the beastmen can use and bypass them! Then there is the blood trail that leads to the second entrance to those caves... guess that doesn't bother them nor too the ruined cart... further evidence that they are not protecting the road i wager!!

... or have i got the feel of them wrong? :shock:

The guards are meant to represent the patrol on the road since that is the southern border of Kohl. As for the tileset itself, it is a renmant of the old pre-2009 map when the bridge was still a hunting areas before the war with the ogres and the other things in the region and the destruction of the previous bridge. Do not take everything too literally on the map

Also, mind that if you see one or more NPC guards it does not necessarily mean the exact number, it is just meant to represent the frequency of their presence. The setting won't show more for obvious limitations but that is how it is. This is a PW and the the max 65 PC is well within the minority of the thousands of NPCs that are present in the world even if we cannot represent that amount of NPCs in the module.

Tormak provided a correct assessment on the Roadwardens. They only interfere if you interfere with the trade routes, otherwise they won't care about standard PVP.

Thanks for the correction at the back when I started it had been something I was told OOCly by players after IC interest. No matter, water under the bridge and they are seemingly no longer here! After today Shanas interests are in other directions now anyway.

Lutra wrote:

There are PCs who joined the Roadwardens before.

walnutboy wrote:

As for the Silver Dragons... yeah that one always confused me as what are they actually keeping safe? The road, preventing the beastmen moving in? Failing somewhat there given that there is a second entrance closer to the city the beastmen can use and bypass them! Then there is the blood trail that leads to the second entrance to those caves... guess that doesn't bother them nor too the ruined cart... further evidence that they are not protecting the road i wager!!

... or have i got the feel of them wrong? :shock:

The guards are meant to represent the patrol on the road since that is the southern border of Kohl. As for the tileset itself, it is a renmant of the old pre-2009 map when the bridge was still a hunting areas before the war with the ogres and the other things in the region and the destruction of the previous bridge. Do not take everything too literally on the map

Also, mind that if you see one or more NPC guards it does not necessarily mean the exact number, it is just meant to represent the frequency of their presence. The setting won't show more for obvious limitations but that is how it is. This is a PW and the the max 65 PC is well within the minority of the thousands of NPCs that are present in the world even if we cannot represent that amount of NPCs in the module.

Tormak provided a correct assessment on the Roadwardens. They only interfere if you interfere with the trade routes, otherwise they won't care about standard PVP.

So make it a 50% chance per reset for them to spawn there.

That would be a nice thing to try actually.

Just because nobody answered this yet. Will the roadwardens stand by and watch a necromancer summon undead?

I think the Silver Dragons should be moved past the transition, their location is obnoxious for when people need to submit themselves to the torturous leveling process, and the only paths to the caveman beasts whoops beastmen caves are via using the Winyan-controlled Nexus to go through the swamps- despite a Kohlingen-took-over-camp being there, or going up the ramp and taking a left to the cave, the very left that is occupied by the aforementioned Silver Dragons.

Or a rope or ladder or something could be added along the cliff-base so unscrupulous individuals that need experience can bypass the Silver Dragons. Kohlingen would still be safe, as they would have to move right behind the Silver Dragons to enter the Path of Tristram.

robbi320 wrote:

Just because nobody answered this yet. Will the roadwardens stand by and watch a necromancer summon undead?

They're not going to get themselves killed trying to assault a high level mage they know they can't handle, so by and large: Yes.

I largely agree with the OP, when it comes to PvP in general. I quite like it, but I'm wary of the amount of sodium I'll have to dig my way out of, should one of my characters have the audacity to want to fight someone.

The community reeks of a gradual association with PvP to trolling by the majority, meaning that anyone who would rather resolve a confrontation using the actual game engine is by-large immediately vilified. Sad thing is, I can only see this getting worse as it's not the Dev Team which have brought about this attitude as some people have suggested, it's the players. All the staff have done is had to react to people being loud and obnoxious, usually on the forums.

More-over I believe the modern mindset that direct confrontation of any kind is considered barbaric by society, has bled into the game world. I do believe that this needs to be addressed, because it is the opposite of the case in D&D. If you have a problem with bandits you don't send a SJW, you hire adventurers. Sure, those adventurers might choose diplomacy, but they usually seal deals with threats. 'If you don't stop, we will meet you with force' being the usual route. Threats which are often carried out.

Last edited by Budly on Tue, Jan 17 2017, 15:53 PM, edited 1 time in total.

TormakSaber wrote:

robbi320 wrote:

Just because nobody answered this yet. Will the roadwardens stand by and watch a necromancer summon undead?

They're not going to get themselves killed trying to assault a high level mage they know they can't handle, so by and large: Yes.

Wouldn't that be ignoring NPC although? He witness a murder. There should be punishment for just going around and murdering things while out and about around civilized places and people.

Strom wrote:

I largely agree with the OP, when it comes to PvP in general. I quite like it, but I'm wary of the amount of sodium I'll have to dig my way out of, should one of my characters have the audacity to want to fight someone.

The community reeks of a gradual association with PvP to trolling by the majority, meaning that anyone who would rather resolve a confrontation using the actual game engine is by-large immediately vilified. Sad thing is, I can only see this getting worse as it's not the Dev Team which have brought about this attitude as some people have suggested, it's the players. All the staff have done is had to react to people being loud and obnoxious, usually on the forums.

More-over I believe the modern mindset that direct confrontation of any kind is considered barbaric by society, has bled into the game world. I do believe that this needs to be addressed, because it is the opposite of the case in D&D. If you have a problem with bandits you don't send a SJW, you hire adventurers. Sure, those adventurers might choose diplomacy, but they usually seal deals with threats. 'If you don't stop, we will meet you with force' being the usual route. Threats which are often carried out.

I say this is a natural reaction to force.

If you start to shot people, you will get beaten down by whoever sits on the most violent people. Beside that, so much is already violent in the game itself. Every NPCs often need to be beaten up and people has probably genocided a couple of tribes of greenskins and settlements of other races by now. To also fight players everytime is annoying and do not really make RP.

I do agree on the modern mindset. It should not be pestering the actuall in game essence. Like saying "do not be so racist, against the poor orcs" is pretty weird to say to a person who seen his family farm be burnt down and had his children and wife killed or worse. Who hear similar stories from others and maybe seen a orc warband lead by their crazy one eyed gods priests or shamans.

Between players, diplomacy is a stronger tool but there is eventually a limit aswell. My biggest issue is that often do powerbuilds in NWN get some kind of leeway in RP to and get high positions cause they can beat the shit out of others but might really be incompetent otherwise.

The whole, "doing absurd things/threats/being ridiculously insulting/taking hostile actions" while standing on top of NPC's when no DM's are around is really annoying.

Just putting that out there.

You don't get a free pass just because nobody is there to DM-RP guard reactions. You don't get to do whatever you want (hostile summons, traps, explicit and repeated threats to kill) just because you're standing almost inside a guard.

Commie wrote:

The whole, "doing absurd things/threats/being ridiculously insulting/taking hostile actions" while standing on top of NPC's when no DM's are around is really annoying.

Just putting that out there.

You don't get a free pass just because nobody is there to DM-RP guard reactions. You don't get to do whatever you want (hostile summons, traps, explicit and repeated threats to kill) just because you're standing almost inside a guard.

There common sense should be applied. Cordor got the "Violence monopoly" in their domain, Kohlingen in theres and so on. Keep in mind, for everyone that they are the law and they will not tolerate people breaking it. Im pretty sure that applies. Cause in real life, states started to form when the state (kingdom, theocracy) got the monopoly on violence. Aka they had the strength to back up their laws and demands. Someone trying to burn things down then would get beaten by the kings men.

Dont know if that really applies when guards often just stare into space because there's no DM available to sort the criminals.

Commie wrote:

Dont know if that really applies when guards often just stare into space because there's no DM available to sort the criminals.

Well, we should not ignore them just cause they are AI controlled and the AI just goes "Save faction as me, im fine with this to be honest".

Quote:

Wouldn't that be ignoring NPC although? He witness a murder. There should be punishment for just going around and murdering things while out and about around civilized places and people.

He can't actually do anything about it for one.

He's not near civilization typically, for two.

The Roadwardens are paid to not get involved in politics, for three. They're explicitly trade route workers.

My last post here, because I think this is getting silly. Do you guys really need NPC's to save you from your own heroic behavior? This is where we stop whining about why the DM's or NPC's should have or couldn't save us. No one just randomly walks up and starts wailing on a stranger. RP happened, dialogue happened. Insults were exchanged, threats were made. Someone or both chose not to back down and someone died. I'm at the point where if you even speak to me in an inflammatory manner and you don't have a dm holding your hand, I'm very politely, in bold purple letters, going to tell you to leave me alone. This is a game and it's getting rediculous. If you can't win a fight, then don't run your mouth like you can, especially if you mind getting your ass kicked. This goes for good guys and bad guys. Please. Grow up, have some accountability for your RP and quit relying on someone else to bail you out of your circumstances.

thunderbrush wrote:

My last post here, because I think this is getting silly. Do you guys really need NPC's to save you from your own heroic behavior? This is where we stop whining about why the DM's or NPC's should have or couldn't save us. No one just randomly walks up and starts wailing on a stranger. RP happened, dialogue happened. Insults were exchanged, threats were made. Someone or both chose not to back down and someone died. I'm at the point where if you even speak to me in an inflammatory manner and you don't have a dm holding your hand, I'm very politely, in bold purple letters, going to tell you to leave me alone. This is a game and it's getting rediculous. If you can't win a fight, then don't run your mouth like you can, especially if you mind getting your ass kicked. This goes for good guys and bad guys. Please. Grow up, have some accountability for your RP and quit relying on someone else to bail you out of your circumstances.

I absolutely hate the idea of NPCs being a safety-net (common sense ought dictate that NPCs aren't metagamed, however).
The whole point of RP is to do it between other player-characters. We must deal with the consequences of our actions; roll with the punches and see where that leads.That's character development, especially in this permadeathless setting. The DMs ought exist only to assist in moving a story along, not babysitting every little incident that arises.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

Wouldn't that be ignoring NPC although? He witness a murder. There should be punishment for just going around and murdering things while out and about around civilized places and people.

He can't actually do anything about it for one.

He's not near civilization typically, for two.

The Roadwardens are paid to not get involved in politics, for three. They're explicitly trade route workers.

He is hired as a trade route worker? Well that to me sounds like a valid reason to report crimes on the trade route. Getting involved is one thing but not reporting a crime is also a pretty bad thing not to do. Eventually your trade routes won't be used if they are under pressure from raiders. Reporting a crime to whoever hired you or the local authority is not about politics.

thunderbrush wrote:

My last post here, because I think this is getting silly. Do you guys really need NPC's to save you from your own heroic behavior? This is where we stop whining about why the DM's or NPC's should have or couldn't save us. No one just randomly walks up and starts wailing on a stranger. RP happened, dialogue happened. Insults were exchanged, threats were made. Someone or both chose not to back down and someone died. I'm at the point where if you even speak to me in an inflammatory manner and you don't have a dm holding your hand, I'm very politely, in bold purple letters, going to tell you to leave me alone. This is a game and it's getting rediculous. If you can't win a fight, then don't run your mouth like you can, especially if you mind getting your ass kicked. This goes for good guys and bad guys. Please. Grow up, have some accountability for your RP and quit relying on someone else to bail you out of your circumstances.

I sincerely aks you not to tell us to "grow up". There is people who just walk up and kill people or put traps on the bridge at Cordor gate, infront of the guardsmen. Understand that the world is living and not just a dead MMORPG world for your pleasure. Do not think that just cause me or others proclaim that NPCs should not be ignored, that we do not play with it. But to be the tough guy around Bendir Dale, mocking the hins and smashing in skulls on the low levels there, as an example, will probably net you an ballista bolt through the head. Or you expect the militia to not care that their citizens and guests under their protection are being murdered?

With your viewpoint, any high level "im le evil" mustache twirling psycho can just go mass murder spree cause NPCs are just token decorations and if you cannot handle that powerbuilt or abusive lvl 30 spellcaster, you need to "grow up". I really hope you do not think this way if you ever become a DM or Dev.

EDIT: THe Sun do not spin around you people, Amia is the world and we are the inhabitants. To say NPCs are safety nets for people who stick around cities...well isn't the other way around then? No NPCs and there is your safety net for the well built murder hobo?

There's no crime because there is no law. Maintaining the trade road is the sole jurisdiction of the merchant companies who use it (Which is what the Road Wardens are hired for). They'll hire mercenaries or to deter or kill any serious threat to their business. It's as simple as that.

Law or not, someone need to report the gods be damned murderers on people on their trade route.

People stop using trade rout because of killers
No trade income.
Wardens get kicked and the trade company loses money.

Either if it's the law of a local city state or the company doing their own justice with mercenaries, it is logical to report the crimes or care about them for the trade company and it's employed on payroll.

I'd wager that random adventurers killing each other doesn't effect trade like you think it does. Compare the random adventurer scuffle that happens every now and then (and usually is resolved on its own) to the hundreds of bandits that prey on the entire western road day in and day out. The main road through the center of Amia is the safest route.

Yeah but im thinking the civilians, the caravans and every day travellers

Not so sure it is fun to walk up and down a road with corpses and bodyparts from fireballs and things. Or being caught in the crossfire. Im just viewing this outside the adventure life aswell.

And on the other hand, someone placed traps on the Bridge to Cordor last day, inside the outskirt area. That to me, sounds like it is a law breaker.

I'm sure the world would be safer if we installed security cameras and put invincible policeman everywhere, but for some reason we haven't done that yet.. :lol:

Could it be.. because these things are hard to maintain.. Or maybe... just not realistic? :idea:

Are you saying the Wardens are cameras that cannot be maintained?

Budly wrote:

Are you saying the Wardens are cameras that cannot be maintained?

It's more like a road bouncer I think. They are happy to stop you from getting in or disrupting what they are paid to protect but if two random guys get into a knife fight in the middle of nowhere... it ain't their problem and not what they are paid for. Most settlements only punish crimes within their borders so out on the road is technically no mans land.

A knife fight? Yeah sure. But half a doazen skellies and a succubus along with a imp familiar rampaging is bit different.

Uh anyway, I think we got this covered. Wardens are douchebags and the law do not go far out of their settlements. :mrgreen:

Budly wrote:

A knife fight? Yeah sure. But half a doazen skellies and a succubus along with a imp familiar rampaging is bit different.

A fight they can't win especially if those "rampagers" aren't attacking their business.

If we're going to have arbitrary Road Paladins in places that should be neutral, just for the sake of disadvantaging a certain alignment, especially invincible NPC's, let's put some evil equivalents all over the wilderness to deter people from summoning Celestial beings. They can be the Deadguard, to criminally punish people who assault the Undead, and their Summoners.

Obviously, both are bad ideas. Unless caravans are being attacked, the Roadwardens apparently have no vested interest in morality, and if they do, they should be removed from the roads altogether.

Budly wrote:

A knife fight? Yeah sure. But half a dozen skellies and a succubus along with a imp familiar rampaging is bit different.

And what, praytell, is the Roadwarden going to do about that?

The cities can't afford to send their guards out to do this. They're too busy defending the town and doing day to day work to add "patrol the entire island" to this list. Aswell, you can basically expect any guard who leaves their town to probably end up dead by the very adventurers who know the Roadwardens don't mess with them because it's their life and livelihood at stake.

This means the Roadwardens handle the small jobs, and PCs handle the big jobs - i.e. other PCs, and that's exactlyhow it should be.

It's not that the roadwardens have no interest in morality, it's that they have a job to do, and typically, you can't do your job very well if you're fucking dead and mouthing off to Today's Rookie Necromancer will do that to you, with no guarantee of ressurection.

Tormak's got a point in the case of the Road Wardens..

They have a job to do, and in general they're going to do what they have to do to it. If it means pull back from what could otherwise be a lethal fight against an adventurer of any significance? Long as the trade route itself isn't hit, that's not a problem for them. It's also hard for them to report that attacks are hitting a Trade route, if they're dead.

I do not want to see Amia go completely to a 'Might makes right' environment, but by the same token I do see the arguement of those who want to see the Frontier be a Frontier again (And it's taken me a while to come to that point, I'll agree without arguement).

I always imagined that part of the Roadwardens Job was also one of recon and monitoring, like the guys who may see that the spiders in the Shekat valley are expanding and go to the local merchants and civilian travellers "Look, may not want to go that way until someone sorts it out." Keeping merchants appraised of the situation, be it bandit activity, Monster raids, flash floods, rockslides, and the like.

So even if we don't see it... I like to think their reaction to the whole Necromancer with his variety of skellies is to wander down the road and say to the merchants they see going past "You know, you may want to give it half an hour if I were you. Some lunatic is wandering around with some undead. Yeah.. again..."

Do you people understand my point?

Might makes right happens when there is no one to stop people from pulling around their fat might around.

Then people should get PCs to do the stopping and not rely on NPCs to deter it. Plain and simple.

Naivatkal wrote:

Then people should get PCs to do the stopping and not rely on NPCs to deter it. Plain and simple.

Yeah. NPC's on roads should be, if anything at all, alerting PC's that shit is or did go down, and that's about it.

I am suprised at your viewpoints. It sounds like you want AMIA to cater to you and not you to AMIA.

I find it more interesting to be part of the story than BE THE story. NPC ARE still living on the island, they are alive.

To look at PCs and NPCs in different ways is to me either metagaming or abuse. In character, they should be like any other person. Not all PCs are built for being murder machines either and some NPCs excel at it too.

This is my viewpoint. I think im pretty alone in this

But I try to view the whole world we are on as vibrant, active and living. Not as NPCs who have no personality and just there to be like an MMO questgiver or decoration.

Budly wrote:

I am suprised at your viewpoints. It sounds like you want AMIA to cater to you and not you to AMIA.

I find it more interesting to be part of the story than BE THE story. NPC ARE still living on the island, they are alive.

To look at PCs and NPCs in different ways is to me either metagaming or abuse. In character, they should be like any other person. Not all PCs are built for being murder machines either and some NPCs excel at it too.

This is my viewpoint. I think im pretty alone in this

But I try to view the whole world we are on as vibrant, active and living. Not as NPCs who have no personality and just there to be like an MMO questgiver or decoration.

something has to give

seriously. the "no dm's on im doing bullshit that nobody would find acceptable while standing on top of NPC's so you can't do anything hahahaha" is so stupid it has to change.

Commie wrote:

Budly wrote:

I am suprised at your viewpoints. It sounds like you want AMIA to cater to you and not you to AMIA.

I find it more interesting to be part of the story than BE THE story. NPC ARE still living on the island, they are alive.

To look at PCs and NPCs in different ways is to me either metagaming or abuse. In character, they should be like any other person. Not all PCs are built for being murder machines either and some NPCs excel at it too.

This is my viewpoint. I think im pretty alone in this

But I try to view the whole world we are on as vibrant, active and living. Not as NPCs who have no personality and just there to be like an MMO questgiver or decoration.

something has to give

seriously. the "no dm's on im doing bullshit that nobody would find acceptable while standing on top of NPC's so you can't do anything hahahaha" is so stupid it has to change.

So you seriously want to be able to beat the living soul out of people at the Cordor gate? Or infront of the Winya Ravana guards, looking at you 10 meters outside of their borders and have nothing bad for it?

And I am told I am the one who want no punishment for acting like a crazy person? As I said, doing the bullshit infront of the NPC in the first place, or ANY character who has a job to do in said area, to keep it safe or enforce the law, should be punished. Including this PC who do shit infront of it and then hides on the NPC shouting about how you cannot ignore NPC when he himself or herself just did that! Is what I mean aswell is stupid. I just take it a step further.

Quote:

So you seriously want to be able to beat the living soul out of people at the Cordor gate? Or infront of the Winya Ravana guards, looking at you 10 meters outside of their borders and have nothing bad for it?

When they are doing shit that warrants them getting their shit pushed in? Absolutely.

Ramifications? Always submit reports/logs to DM's after it goes down. No issues so far.

Commie wrote:

Quote:

So you seriously want to be able to beat the living soul out of people at the Cordor gate? Or infront of the Winya Ravana guards, looking at you 10 meters outside of their borders and have nothing bad for it?

When they are doing shit that warrants them getting their shit pushed in? Absolutely.

Ramifications? Always submit reports/logs to DM's after it goes down. No issues so far.

Well then. I think we all are about the same in mindset, it is just our starting point of our views that differ, making the conversation here bit multi-levelled but we all pretty much think the same I think.

Yeah I mean people shouldn't be doing that stuff at all in front of NPC's but telling someone they ooc have to walk away from a situation that shouldn't be happening solely because no DM's are on to respond to the guy chucking fireballs is dumb.

Commie wrote:

Yeah I mean people shouldn't be doing that stuff at all in front of NPC's but telling someone they ooc have to walk away from a situation that shouldn't be happening solely because no DM's are on to respond to the guy chucking fireballs is dumb.

I say it is OOC to IGNORE that a NPC is there when you fireball someone in the vicinity of it. Im not saying people shouldn't RP at all. But to place a trap infront of a Cordor guard, inside Cordor. ignoring the guardsman staring at you. Should not be okay in my opinion.

It be a bit extreme to say you cannot do anything infront of a guard

And for the sake of any stealth within cities and settlements, it was mentioned a long while ago that the guards (especially gate guards), IC, have enchantments that allow them to pierce invisibility or stealth of any kind. It's a bit heavy, sure. But it's how it's always been at least. So, even if you claim stealth in doing stuff like that, it's going to be seen by the guards, hands down. Unless, however, it's done somewhere completely out of the guard's sight. But doing it right next to a guard? Hell no.

source please

Terallis wrote:

And for the sake of any stealth within cities and settlements, it was mentioned a long while ago that the guards (especially gate guards), IC, have enchantments that allow them to pierce invisibility or stealth of any kind. It's a bit heavy, sure. But it's how it's always been at least. So, even if you claim stealth in doing stuff like that, it's going to be seen by the guards, hands down. Unless, however, it's done somewhere completely out of the guard's sight. But doing it right next to a guard? Hell no.

So where do I get that seeing as how I don't have to be a wage slave guard?

I believe it was more stated that 'you never know what enchantments/skills a guard has, so you are assuming that they can't see you'. Some NPCs have crazy high spot, so to assume they can't see you is metagaming the fact that they just stand there (or walk around, cause yay that patrol script rocks!).

And isn't normal stealth, not invised or shadow dancered just stealth?

I'm pretty sure due to mechanics, that "normal stealth" can be used anywhere, even "in plain sight", it only can't be reactivated. But stealth mechanics are not really that good anyway. Very few people play with the direction their character is turned (at least in my experience), so my theoretical ~130 MS no hide will still get "seen" even if their character is facing the other way. At the same time, technically invisibilty does not make you visible when standing directly next to someone, so you would not recognise them. Maybe you hear their breathing, but that's not how you recognise people.

(Unless I am missing your point, in which case, ignore me)

robbi320 wrote:

I'm pretty sure due to mechanics, that "normal stealth" can be used anywhere, even "in plain sight", it only can't be reactivated. But stealth mechanics are not really that good anyway. Very few people play with the direction their character is turned (at least in my experience), so my theoretical ~130 MS no hide will still get "seen" even if their character is facing the other way. At the same time, technically invisibilty does not make you visible when standing directly next to someone, so you would not recognise them. Maybe you hear their breathing, but that's not how you recognise people.

(Unless I am missing your point, in which case, ignore me)

No no you don't! just me and my utter hate for stealth in NWN

Grinds my gears.

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