So, in my campaign, I, much to my regret, gave my party too many NPCs and they are... powerful to say the least. I don't want to just say, "They leave" and leave it at that. I need a story-connected way to get them gone or depowered. It starts with the party going on a mission. What happens is the base of the Veiled, a rebellion led by my story guiding NPC, Isa, in Baldur's Gate that fights against the tyrannical king of Faerun, is attacked by the King, Lord Ardent Blackwood, Isa's lich father, and Frulam Mondath, who was an enemy they killed that is revealed to be an Abishai who reformed after her death at the hands of the party and seeks revenge. They devastate the Veiled and kill many soldiers. They then decide to leave the elimination of this threat to someone on the inside. Someone like Thalgar. Thalgar is a werebear ascetic who allied with the party. He wields an axe secretly tied to the Far Realms, slowly driving him mad. He has his Madness Axe that has weakened his mind, and Frulam fractures his mind. The three initial attackers leave, letting Thalgar kill. Aramas, a mind flayer ally, falls to the Thalgar Who Cackles, being beheaded. Then Ese, a human wizard they rescued, is crippled, having her legs rended from her, below the knees. Alo, a werefox, is sent into a catatonic state, and Isa has his right arm and forearm cut by Thalgar's axe and his right leg beneath the upper thigh. (He is able to eventually make magic prosthetics) Then the party has to cope with these losses and they no longer have a bunch of perfectly fine overpowered NPCs, they have injured and broken allies.
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Sorry it's a bit hard to parse what your plan is, so you want to get rid of 4 NPCs: Thalgar (werebear) - driven mad by his own axe, Aramas (mindflayer) - killed by Thalgar, Ese (wizard) - crippled by Thalgar, Alo (werefox) - catatonic b/c something?.
If the party is present when Thalgar goes mad they should be allowed to intervene and stop Thalgar anything else is super railroad-y which will turn off the players. So you need a backup plan for is the PCs are able to stop Thalgar.
The plan was, since this would be an invasion of the King's forces, a sort of battle going. The party would be at a different part of the battle and would maybe get there after one or two of these events occurred, possibly being able to prevent Alo, but not Ese and Aramas. The players are supposed to be fighting Frulam and maybe Ardent, two of the main villians who are devoted to the true BBEG, while Thalgar has just gone crazy.Then the party fights him and what happens to Thalgar will be determined during the session. Pretty much the party's objective is to reach the allies while also killing as many enemies as possible. Does that make sense??
The plan was, since this would be an invasion of the King's forces, a sort of battle going. The party would be at a different part of the battle and would maybe get there after one or two of these events occurred, possibly being able to prevent Alo, but not Ese and Aramas. The players are supposed to be fighting Frulam and maybe Ardent, two of the main villians who are devoted to the true BBEG, while Thalgar has just gone crazy.Then the party fights him and what happens to Thalgar will be determined during the session. Pretty much the party's objective is to reach the allies while also killing as many enemies as possible. Does that make sense??
It seems arbitrary from the party's perspective. They're going on a mission when suddenly you tell them that by the way all of your allies are injured because one of them had a cursed ax and went insane. I would be pretty annoyed if that happened. You can try to tune down their power without the party realizing.
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my idea for this is create two emergencies, one that the party has to attend too, and one that the NPC's are charged by some official (maybe a king?) to go deal with. then they can die, go mad, de-power, or become the next big bad all at your leisure!
Have to agree with Jurmondur that it feels pretty unsatisfying if you're going to railroad them into separating from the NPCs and then cripple/kill them off with no chance for the party to do anything about it. Plus, if you just cripple them, what's to stop the party just waiting to heal them before setting off again?
There's plenty of less depressing ways to get rid of NPCs other than "they all go crazy and kill each other". You've got some were-beings in there, you could have an orphan were-child turn up at the party's door asking for help. The were-NPCs insist on keeping the orphan and taking care of them instead of continuing to adventure with the party so much, optionally you can have a side quest discovering what happened to the were-child's parents. Or you could have family members of the NPCs send letters asking for their help, the NPC insists on going and then chooses to stay and protect their family after the party deals with the current crisis. Or you could have the BBEG kill or capture one or more of the NPCs as a demonstration of their might to the players (this is what Power Word Kill and Disintegrate exist for).
I do feel like there’s a disconnect here with “The PC Party is too mechanically powerful,” and “This needs to be story-based.”
If your players’ PC’s have goals and they’re overkilling any specific task with too much manpower, it only stands to reason that the PCs will want to split up their manpower to accomplish their goals faster. Open up opportunities for them to get what they want out of their lives faster by putting their subordinates to work on various other tasks while they oversee from a base or take on the toughest tasks.
I think it would be better to concoct a reason why this second party of NPCs would need to leave the players for a bit. Perhaps they're called off on a secret mission for the rebellion and can't say when they'll return (giving you a great ace up your sleeve to play if the party gets in over their heads and you can have the npcs unexpectedly return). Maybe one of their home villages is threatened, or maybe even their family.
There's plenty of reasons for why they might part ways that don't require as convoluted an explanation.
Or in the spirit of the game - just tell the players you made an error all the NPC's are slowing down gameplay and messing up balance and either significantly depower them or have them go off on a mission of their own or mutually agree with the players that it is not a good dynamic and just cut them out.
All of us make mistakes as DM's its only the real jerk players that get pissed when we correct them.
So, in my campaign, I, much to my regret, gave my party too many NPCs and they are... powerful to say the least. I don't want to just say, "They leave" and leave it at that. I need a story-connected way to get them gone or depowered. It starts with the party going on a mission. What happens is the base of the Veiled, a rebellion led by my story guiding NPC, Isa, in Baldur's Gate that fights against the tyrannical king of Faerun, is attacked by the King, Lord Ardent Blackwood, Isa's lich father, and Frulam Mondath, who was an enemy they killed that is revealed to be an Abishai who reformed after her death at the hands of the party and seeks revenge. They devastate the Veiled and kill many soldiers. They then decide to leave the elimination of this threat to someone on the inside. Someone like Thalgar. Thalgar is a werebear ascetic who allied with the party. He wields an axe secretly tied to the Far Realms, slowly driving him mad. He has his Madness Axe that has weakened his mind, and Frulam fractures his mind. The three initial attackers leave, letting Thalgar kill. Aramas, a mind flayer ally, falls to the Thalgar Who Cackles, being beheaded. Then Ese, a human wizard they rescued, is crippled, having her legs rended from her, below the knees. Alo, a werefox, is sent into a catatonic state, and Isa has his right arm and forearm cut by Thalgar's axe and his right leg beneath the upper thigh. (He is able to eventually make magic prosthetics) Then the party has to cope with these losses and they no longer have a bunch of perfectly fine overpowered NPCs, they have injured and broken allies.
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Sorry it's a bit hard to parse what your plan is, so you want to get rid of 4 NPCs: Thalgar (werebear) - driven mad by his own axe, Aramas (mindflayer) - killed by Thalgar, Ese (wizard) - crippled by Thalgar, Alo (werefox) - catatonic b/c something?.
If the party is present when Thalgar goes mad they should be allowed to intervene and stop Thalgar anything else is super railroad-y which will turn off the players. So you need a backup plan for is the PCs are able to stop Thalgar.
The plan was, since this would be an invasion of the King's forces, a sort of battle going. The party would be at a different part of the battle and would maybe get there after one or two of these events occurred, possibly being able to prevent Alo, but not Ese and Aramas. The players are supposed to be fighting Frulam and maybe Ardent, two of the main villians who are devoted to the true BBEG, while Thalgar has just gone crazy.Then the party fights him and what happens to Thalgar will be determined during the session. Pretty much the party's objective is to reach the allies while also killing as many enemies as possible. Does that make sense??
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
It seems arbitrary from the party's perspective. They're going on a mission when suddenly you tell them that by the way all of your allies are injured because one of them had a cursed ax and went insane. I would be pretty annoyed if that happened. You can try to tune down their power without the party realizing.
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my idea for this is create two emergencies, one that the party has to attend too, and one that the NPC's are charged by some official (maybe a king?) to go deal with. then they can die, go mad, de-power, or become the next big bad all at your leisure!
Have to agree with Jurmondur that it feels pretty unsatisfying if you're going to railroad them into separating from the NPCs and then cripple/kill them off with no chance for the party to do anything about it. Plus, if you just cripple them, what's to stop the party just waiting to heal them before setting off again?
There's plenty of less depressing ways to get rid of NPCs other than "they all go crazy and kill each other". You've got some were-beings in there, you could have an orphan were-child turn up at the party's door asking for help. The were-NPCs insist on keeping the orphan and taking care of them instead of continuing to adventure with the party so much, optionally you can have a side quest discovering what happened to the were-child's parents. Or you could have family members of the NPCs send letters asking for their help, the NPC insists on going and then chooses to stay and protect their family after the party deals with the current crisis. Or you could have the BBEG kill or capture one or more of the NPCs as a demonstration of their might to the players (this is what Power Word Kill and Disintegrate exist for).
I do feel like there’s a disconnect here with “The PC Party is too mechanically powerful,” and “This needs to be story-based.”
If your players’ PC’s have goals and they’re overkilling any specific task with too much manpower, it only stands to reason that the PCs will want to split up their manpower to accomplish their goals faster. Open up opportunities for them to get what they want out of their lives faster by putting their subordinates to work on various other tasks while they oversee from a base or take on the toughest tasks.
I think it would be better to concoct a reason why this second party of NPCs would need to leave the players for a bit. Perhaps they're called off on a secret mission for the rebellion and can't say when they'll return (giving you a great ace up your sleeve to play if the party gets in over their heads and you can have the npcs unexpectedly return). Maybe one of their home villages is threatened, or maybe even their family.
There's plenty of reasons for why they might part ways that don't require as convoluted an explanation.
Or in the spirit of the game - just tell the players you made an error all the NPC's are slowing down gameplay and messing up balance and either significantly depower them or have them go off on a mission of their own or mutually agree with the players that it is not a good dynamic and just cut them out.
All of us make mistakes as DM's its only the real jerk players that get pissed when we correct them.