A player asked me the following regarding a recent post about my plans for Sanctum 3. I thought it might be of general interest, so I decided to re-post it here.
- “A question if I may, what do you mean by three companions and five henchmen?”
This is probably my own terminology more than anything else, but by “companions” I mean long-term party members who are tied to the overall plot. In Sanctum, that’s Robin, Orion, and Diana. By “henchmen” I mean party members who join or are “hired” mainly for combat support and story flavor on a specific quest or quests. Since I made you leave one of your three companions behind near the end of Chapter 2 (and don’t worry, you’ll see them again in Chapter 4), I felt that it would be a good idea to let you be able to “hire on” some temporary help in Chapter 3 if you need it. There will be five such “henchmen” available in different areas and for different quests. Although they’re intended to be more “henchmen” than full “companions,” they’ve already developed very vivid personalities in my mind that I want to try to translate into the module as well. Two of them will also be potential (though not long-term) romance options (one male, one female).
I think I read from your writing projects website that the last two modules for Sanctum will be done by using Dragon Age platform. After having just finished the game, I really look forward to it.
However, I’m a little bit curious regarding how the class of the characters will be handled, since the class of Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights are quite different, especially the distinction between cleric and mage. In the NWN platform, cleric and mage are clearly two different classes, but in Dragon Age platform, all magic users are treated as mage. So that made me wonder what will become of Orion especially. (Robin would most likely be rogue with bard specialist, I think, and Diana may also become rogue with ranger specialist. But those are just my guesses.)
Hi, Aderyn! I haven’t fully worked this out yet, but my initial thoughts were something along the lines you describe. It depends on how much flexibility the DA toolset will give me to graft elements from two different classes into an NPC when I start building, though. The DA Rogue/Bard class is a very good fit for Robin stylistically, since I had already written her as basically a Rogue Spy at heart. But also remember that I made a big deal in Sanctum 2 about Robin being the scion of two powerful magical families. There are plot reasons (yet to be fully revealed) why Robin also has to be a magic wielder, at least to some extent. If the toolset won’t let me work out some kind of compromise, then something like Arcane Warrior could also be an alternative choice. I’d like to keep Diana’s Ranger skills, so Rogue/Ranger would be a good choice for her. But that may depend on how I ultimately end up handling Robin, since having two rogues in the group might not be the best choice in terms of game balance.
Regarding Orion, though, your question is actually a plot-spoiler, and one that doesn’t depend on whether I build any of the mods in Dragon Age. I’ve given hints about this in Sanctum 2, and I can’t really say any more about it just yet. 😉