Have you ever added party members as you go along, like Baldur's Gate?

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Hey all,

Have you ever started with a single character and added NPCs as you go along, giving them a history/personality, a bit like the NPCs in the Baldurs Gate games, but you make them up yourself? If so, tell us about your NPCs, where you found them and why they joined your party. I have done this once, here's how it turned out:

Started with a Human Ranger. His racial enemy was Orcs. He was just stopping at Easthaven briefly, he's not some foreigner from the south but has roamed Icewind Dale for many years and he just so happened to guide in the caravan referred to in the opening story. When he hears tell of Orcs in the region from the locals and the caravan that never arrives from Hrothgar he puts 2 and 2 together and goes off on an Orc hunt, his favourite passtime.

Dwarf Warrior joins after the Ranger slays the Ogre in the Orc cave. The letter you find on the Ogre is advising the ill-fated caravan merchant to hire on some extra security. He did so, and the Dwarf is the last remaining of them, being kept alive for the entertainment (and a later snack) of the Orcs. When rescued by the ranger he pledges to join him until he has repaid him in kind (i.e. saved the rangers life). The ranger reluctantly accepts, Dwarves are so stubborn and honourbound that he really had no say in the matter.

Human Druid joins upon first visit to the Archdruid. She is his apprentice, after all Arundel is getting old and he will need someone to take his place when he passes. Arundel suggests that she act as your guide as you head to the vale of shadows, she happily agrees. Of course when you later return to find Arundel dead she is devastated and a little overwhelmed that she will have to take his place before she feels truly ready.

Female Halfling Thief joins when you first visit the Gnome in the airship. She is his "assisstant". The only problem is the young halfling is cheeky, prone to stealing stuff (and even tasting some of the potions for her own amusement, once accidently incinerating a prized cow after drinking a potion of fire breath) and generally more trouble than she is worth. She is off-loaded onto you, fiddlebender thought perhaps on the road she might mature a little, what he didn't know though was exactly how much danger you would lead her into. When you later return to him after visiting the Vale he demands her back when he hears how much danger she has been in, she is like a daughter to him (and perhaps he is missing her childish antics), but she is enjoying adventuring far too much, she promises she will safely return one day.

Human Priest of Ilmater joins upon your first visit to the temple in Kuldahar. He is hoping that in your travels you might find the missing head of the temple. (of course, you actually do eventually). His pessimism tends to grate on the nerves of everyone else in the party.

Human Necromancer joins you in the first tomb in the Vale of Shadows. He is there to study, learn and practice his art, what better place for it. He's a pretty dark character and at first the rest of your party think him responsible for the goings on in kuldahar and all the walking dead in the vale, after a rather severe beating he offers to join you to prove he is not responsible. Cautiously the party accept. This doesn't stop the Dwarf persistantly poking him in the back with his axe and growling, "I got me eye on yer boy, don't be tryin anythin stupid now, ye can't raise yerself from the dead".

Well, that was my party, can't remember names it was ages ago. Anyone else made up NPCs as they go along? Tell us about them

 

what mod is this?

 

I had a Ranger that died in the orc tunnels at the beginning of the game (he got hit with multiple criticals all at the same time) and I replaced him with a Ranger/Cleric that I wanted to take anyway. The rest of the game, my brother (who was playing with me) kept saying everything was being done for the dead ranger's honor.

 

A safe guess would be, that it's self-imposed RPG-ing!

Though, such a mod that would add NPC's like that would be great!

 

Have never played in such a manner, myself, I usually play as a group that was already formed before heading to Easthaven.

... There is...

 

Correct this is just the imagination using character arbitration (sp?) screen to add new characters at certain points.

I have never seen a NPC mod for IWD, if there is one please post a linky! I have seen the IWD2 one, perhaps thats the one you meant?

 

No, there are two for IWD. One converting the BG NPCs to the game and another of five originals.

 

Yeah, I knew about the NPC mod's. I meant a mod that ads NPC's in certain locations to be picked up.

 

I have had a look into making this kind of mod Darion, but my skills lay with writing/photoshop, certainly not with scripting

I don't think its possible to have NPCs join the party in IWD or IWD2, but there is a workaround. You can add non-joinable NPCs to the gameworld which you can talk to (even I managed this) and I guess what you could do is at the end of a conversation with one of these that results in the character joining your party have a script run that removes the NPC from the gameworld and have the last message in the chat be something like (Please Import character "xxx" into your party now).