Tuesday 26 May 2009

NPC changes: Father Zastoran

None of the NPCs that are a part of the camp really requires any changes to their entries in the Howl of the Carrion King adventure beyond the slightly modified DC checks as given in the skill challenges for befriending the various members of the caravan. Father Zastoran is a bit of an exception.

For a start, the rather extensive collection of healing magics that he is presented with in the book means that healing the mercenaries really should have been a trivial matter and not required the assistance of the party at all. As healing and recovery of hit points work a little differently under the 4th Edition rules, there really shouldn't be any need for Father Zastoran to use any healing abilities other than in combat, which he avoids wherever possible. As such, make the following adjustments to the NPC: -
  • Father Zastoran is a cleric in name only, and not in game terms.
  • Father Zastoran now has no healing magics beyond those of his potions and elixirs.
  • Father Zastoran has stocks of all potions, elixirs, and alchemical items up to and including level 5 from the Player's Handbook and Adventurer's Vault and has enough on hand to fulfill the requirements of the party if you do not wish to set any hard limitations on his stock.
  • Father Zastoran has a plentiful supply of ritual and alchemical components, with the exception of residuum, which he does not have in supply. However, Zastoran does believe he has a ritual that will reduce any magic items the party may not want to residuum. Although he may be a little unsure of whether the process will work until he first attempts if, this works as the Disenchant Magic Item ritual detailed in the Player's Handbook, except Zastoran may use the ritual without paying the component costs and may disenchant up to level 8 magic items. These are boons granted him by Nethys for his worship and if the party chose to buy the ritual from Zastoran, it should work for them exactly as detailed in the PHB. Father Zastoran gladly hands over all residuum from such a procedure back to the party, or will willingly puchase the supply from them at a rate that may be influenced by the result of the Befriending Father Zastoran skill challenge.
  • While Zastoran has plentiful stock of alchemy, he only has the alchemical formula for Antivenom, Clearwater Solution, Herbal Poultice, and Alchemical Silver. He will allow the party to make copies of the formula for the listed market price in Adventurer's Vault.
  • Zastoran has the skills Heal +4, Arcana +3, Nature +7, and Religion +7, and can be treated as having the Alchemist feat. He also has the ability to effectively "take 10" under all but the most stressful of situations for a Heal roll of 14.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, I will be running this for 4e also, likely starting in July. I am sure I will be stealing quite a bit from your work as my group proceeds.

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  2. Sure thing, I hope it proves useful for you. I'd also be most interested in hearing how things turn out for your group, particularly with anything inspired from here.

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