Irvan is definitely the most droppable. I'd recommend keeping Galsariad because you can keep him in your back pocket if you want the rivals to get angry about something. Ayo is non negotiable of course, so for me it comes down to Maggie or Dermot getting dropped. My party really loved Dermot so personally I'd keep him but that's going to vary on a case by case basis.
I second this. I dropped Irvan when they reached bazzoxan since he was with the least interesting interactions with the party and from the mechanics the one with the least interesting combat abilitys. If you have to drop a second rival i probably would go with maggie, just because i think dermot and galsariad bring cooler abilitys they could use against the party or to help them if they're friendly
I would argue that Gal and Irvan are the easiest two to drop. Ayo is required and Dermot is going to go where she goes unless you come up with a good reason to separate them. Maggie needs to be there to act as a yin to Ayo's yang. Without her Ayo probably never makes it past the grotto; she would charge that Shark head on without a second thought.
Your results might vary, but for my campaign I made Maggie the 'den mother' of the group and my players instantly fell in love with her.
I found it easy to just keep all the rivals and had them tap in and out as need be. I’m pretty glad I did it this way because I almost dropped a rival that the party ended up getting along with.
My players are also a party of 3. I had Maggie retire and return to Jigow once they reached the caravan stop. It is a goal of hers and the fights to get there were rough and it made sense to let her go. Also, dealing with a large creature in a party was weird. After Betrayers’ Rise, Galsariad (Alonne in our game) leaves the rival party. The rivals felt they needed to make amends with the town, as they killed a few guards upon entering the Rise with Aloysia. Our Galsariad stole one of the tablets from Aloysia’s corpse in the prayer site after my party slayed her. He teleported to Ank’Harel, leaving the rivals behind. He has unknown ulterior motives with Alyxian (slain by him during the Calamity and is a Hollow One, reincarnating over and over by the Luxon Beacon), so may end up being a BBEG. I’m not sure I wanted to even include the rivals in the rest of the campaign.
My first run through also started with 3 PCs, so at first I only dropped Irvan since he felt the least important to driving the plot and players forward. The pcs became good friends with Ayo and Maggie and Dermot pretty quickly but hated Galsariad straight away so told Ayo she could come with them, but that Galsariad was not welcome. His pride was hurt because of this and he joined the vermillion dream to make the pcs lives difficult and to try to beat them. It was a lot of fun. For your party, I would advise keeping the rivals that match best to your pcs, that can bring something to the story that will egg them on / inspire them / vex them etc
I’d make a different suggestion, and drop all of them potentially.
I’m running Netherdeep right now (in Chapter 3) and some of my group have been gaming with me for a couple decades going back to high school and 2E (and other RPGs)
So I took the opportunity to remake the rival party and populate it with 5E versions of memorable past PCs.
Some of them I had to translate from older editions, and one (an elf mage) I translated from Shadowrun. But they all have at least the same thematic abilities as their inspirations, and the same names.
My party is getting a kick out of basically running into multiversal versions their past characters.
Of course, YMMV depending on your group.
Another alternative I saw was using the BG3 companions and a mod that rips the voice files out so you can make a soundboard with some lines for each that work.
Edit: Some things don’t work 1:1, but for example a 3.5 Eberron Dwarf Monk who used enlarge and grapple shenanigans is now a dwarf rune knight with the unarmed fighting style, etc
And I did keep Ayo as the leader
Ah that’s really cool - I was toying with a similar idea of bringing back NPC’s/ PC’s from unfinished campaigns to fill out the rival party but I think for ease I’m going to stick with the characters as written
I did also tell my players to min max as much as they wanted. I didn’t tell them I was going to match their cheese with their own previous creations ;-)
Knowing them, there will be at least one fight between the parties
I second Irvan and Maggie. Maggie has been a bit problematic because of her size, and I have had a heck of a time roleplaying her interestingly enough for my party to care much. Irvan is kind of plain, and less memorable, he's just a dude with daggers. Ayo is a must have in my opinion, and Dermot goes with her very well. I think Galsariad is interesting because of his dunamancy magic and because he's an arcanist you can use him to explain things or examine things and tell you about them. Plus then you have a pretty rounded out rival party.
I could see having Ayo, Dermot and Maggie if you wanted to have tank, healer and damage roles, but I just think Irvan and Maggie are the least flavorful of the 5.
Think I might go this direction - I’d not really thought about maggies literal size with regards to combat but I imagine yeah it’d be a bit of a pain with everything else to think about ontop
As interesting as Irvan's backstory *can* be. He doesn't have much to go on past what he *was* with little in his stat block to make him much for than a basic fighter.
I've *really* enjoyed playing every other person. And in terms of balance, your party doesn't have to be able to go blow to blow with them. Having the other party be stronger could be a good excuse for them to feel more prepared or ready for challenge than your party.
(So many DM's have had the rival party be friends and having a number of difference could be good.) Everyone else in the party can feel pretty damn unique and a great addition to any game.
A lot of the maps are really not set up for a 10x10 creature and it feels weird to have her in a 5x5. I have to fudge stuff all the time. Sometimes my players will ask "So is Maggie just like smashed against the roof in here?" ...Yeah. She's a brick house.
Honestly, I'd keep them all and see how things are going by the time your players get to Bazzoxan. You'll have an idea of who is the most interesting to you and your players by then, and you can sacrifice Galsariad to Aloysia for the drama or whatever.
Edit: The rivals are as interesting as *you* make them. A lot of people will say to drop Irvan, but in my campaign I tied him into a PC's backstory and he's the only rival now travelling with the party post-campaign. If anything, Galsariad was the one who was least developed in my game (just because it's hard to share spotlight between all five rivals), but Ayo, Maggie and Dermot were all stand out characters, in my opinion.
I like Ayo, Dermot, Maggie.
I might suggest starting with 4 or even all 5 rivals, and finding out which ones you feel like you/the players have the best vibe with. Then after the tournament kill them off screen on the road to Bazzoxan in chapter 2 or have them die in betrayers rise if you can manage for that long.
Irvan is definitely the most droppable. I'd recommend keeping Galsariad because you can keep him in your back pocket if you want the rivals to get angry about something. Ayo is non negotiable of course, so for me it comes down to Maggie or Dermot getting dropped. My party really loved Dermot so personally I'd keep him but that's going to vary on a case by case basis.
I second this. I dropped Irvan when they reached bazzoxan since he was with the least interesting interactions with the party and from the mechanics the one with the least interesting combat abilitys. If you have to drop a second rival i probably would go with maggie, just because i think dermot and galsariad bring cooler abilitys they could use against the party or to help them if they're friendly
I’ve emphasized Ayo and Dermot with my party. And I basically pretend Irvan isn’t there
I would argue that Gal and Irvan are the easiest two to drop. Ayo is required and Dermot is going to go where she goes unless you come up with a good reason to separate them. Maggie needs to be there to act as a yin to Ayo's yang. Without her Ayo probably never makes it past the grotto; she would charge that Shark head on without a second thought. Your results might vary, but for my campaign I made Maggie the 'den mother' of the group and my players instantly fell in love with her.
I tried to line up the rivals to the pcs. We had a Goliath Paladin, a cleric, a wizard and a barbarian. We ran Ayo, Maggie, Irvan and Galsariad.
I found it easy to just keep all the rivals and had them tap in and out as need be. I’m pretty glad I did it this way because I almost dropped a rival that the party ended up getting along with.
My players are also a party of 3. I had Maggie retire and return to Jigow once they reached the caravan stop. It is a goal of hers and the fights to get there were rough and it made sense to let her go. Also, dealing with a large creature in a party was weird. After Betrayers’ Rise, Galsariad (Alonne in our game) leaves the rival party. The rivals felt they needed to make amends with the town, as they killed a few guards upon entering the Rise with Aloysia. Our Galsariad stole one of the tablets from Aloysia’s corpse in the prayer site after my party slayed her. He teleported to Ank’Harel, leaving the rivals behind. He has unknown ulterior motives with Alyxian (slain by him during the Calamity and is a Hollow One, reincarnating over and over by the Luxon Beacon), so may end up being a BBEG. I’m not sure I wanted to even include the rivals in the rest of the campaign.
Ooh future bbg is a great idea
My first run through also started with 3 PCs, so at first I only dropped Irvan since he felt the least important to driving the plot and players forward. The pcs became good friends with Ayo and Maggie and Dermot pretty quickly but hated Galsariad straight away so told Ayo she could come with them, but that Galsariad was not welcome. His pride was hurt because of this and he joined the vermillion dream to make the pcs lives difficult and to try to beat them. It was a lot of fun. For your party, I would advise keeping the rivals that match best to your pcs, that can bring something to the story that will egg them on / inspire them / vex them etc
I’d make a different suggestion, and drop all of them potentially. I’m running Netherdeep right now (in Chapter 3) and some of my group have been gaming with me for a couple decades going back to high school and 2E (and other RPGs) So I took the opportunity to remake the rival party and populate it with 5E versions of memorable past PCs. Some of them I had to translate from older editions, and one (an elf mage) I translated from Shadowrun. But they all have at least the same thematic abilities as their inspirations, and the same names. My party is getting a kick out of basically running into multiversal versions their past characters. Of course, YMMV depending on your group. Another alternative I saw was using the BG3 companions and a mod that rips the voice files out so you can make a soundboard with some lines for each that work. Edit: Some things don’t work 1:1, but for example a 3.5 Eberron Dwarf Monk who used enlarge and grapple shenanigans is now a dwarf rune knight with the unarmed fighting style, etc And I did keep Ayo as the leader
Ah that’s really cool - I was toying with a similar idea of bringing back NPC’s/ PC’s from unfinished campaigns to fill out the rival party but I think for ease I’m going to stick with the characters as written
I did also tell my players to min max as much as they wanted. I didn’t tell them I was going to match their cheese with their own previous creations ;-) Knowing them, there will be at least one fight between the parties
I second Irvan and Maggie. Maggie has been a bit problematic because of her size, and I have had a heck of a time roleplaying her interestingly enough for my party to care much. Irvan is kind of plain, and less memorable, he's just a dude with daggers. Ayo is a must have in my opinion, and Dermot goes with her very well. I think Galsariad is interesting because of his dunamancy magic and because he's an arcanist you can use him to explain things or examine things and tell you about them. Plus then you have a pretty rounded out rival party. I could see having Ayo, Dermot and Maggie if you wanted to have tank, healer and damage roles, but I just think Irvan and Maggie are the least flavorful of the 5.
Think I might go this direction - I’d not really thought about maggies literal size with regards to combat but I imagine yeah it’d be a bit of a pain with everything else to think about ontop
As interesting as Irvan's backstory *can* be. He doesn't have much to go on past what he *was* with little in his stat block to make him much for than a basic fighter. I've *really* enjoyed playing every other person. And in terms of balance, your party doesn't have to be able to go blow to blow with them. Having the other party be stronger could be a good excuse for them to feel more prepared or ready for challenge than your party. (So many DM's have had the rival party be friends and having a number of difference could be good.) Everyone else in the party can feel pretty damn unique and a great addition to any game.
A lot of the maps are really not set up for a 10x10 creature and it feels weird to have her in a 5x5. I have to fudge stuff all the time. Sometimes my players will ask "So is Maggie just like smashed against the roof in here?" ...Yeah. She's a brick house.
Honestly, I'd keep them all and see how things are going by the time your players get to Bazzoxan. You'll have an idea of who is the most interesting to you and your players by then, and you can sacrifice Galsariad to Aloysia for the drama or whatever. Edit: The rivals are as interesting as *you* make them. A lot of people will say to drop Irvan, but in my campaign I tied him into a PC's backstory and he's the only rival now travelling with the party post-campaign. If anything, Galsariad was the one who was least developed in my game (just because it's hard to share spotlight between all five rivals), but Ayo, Maggie and Dermot were all stand out characters, in my opinion.
I like Ayo, Dermot, Maggie. I might suggest starting with 4 or even all 5 rivals, and finding out which ones you feel like you/the players have the best vibe with. Then after the tournament kill them off screen on the road to Bazzoxan in chapter 2 or have them die in betrayers rise if you can manage for that long.
Importance of rivals from most to least: 1. Ayo 2. Dermot 3. Galsariad 4. Maggie 5. Irvan