Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!

[curryinahurry]

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

I worked on IWD, HoW, TotL, and IWD2.  In virtually all of these games, I heard these two complaints over and over and over:

 

When unique items were in stores:

* I don't want to buy unique items in stores.

 

When unique items were in dungeons:

* I have nothing to spend my money on.

 

In all of these games, items you found on adventures were almost always one of the following: a) directly usable (i.e. gear or consumables) b) wealth items or c) quest items.  If something wasn't usable, it was usually a wealth item (gold, gem, etc.).  A wealth item only existed to give you gold, but for gold to have some sort of value, there needs to be something you want that costs x gold.  If high-value items aren't what you spend your gold on, what do you spend your gold on?  In PE, you may spend gold on your stronghold, but there's no guarantee of that.  And according to a lot of you, you don't use consumables, so if consumables aren't used, they're just wealth items -- not something you would want to spend gold on.

 

Part of the reason for having a crafting system was to make consumables less common in the world.  Only people who want to make/use them would see a relatively large quantity of them.  Since crafting ingredients are stored and sorted separately from other items, their presence subtracts nothing from the carrying capabilities of players who ignore the system entirely.

 

There are recurring trends I'm seeing:

 

* Don't like crafting.

* Don't like durability.

* Don't like consumables.

 

Combining those with with the two points at the top, it's hard for me to figure out where the gold is going to go.  There is also the possibility that players don't actually want a long-term gold economy in a SP game, that gold in the mid- and late-game is ultimately something to accumulate and that most/all forms of gear upgrading simply happens through quests and exploration.  That's not an invalid way to go, but I'd like to hear thoughts on it if you have the time.

 

I like the the crafting of consumables, but as I stated earlier, I would like something like the system in Darklands, where potions were largely hurled, used as a bonus to skill checks (climbing out of a pit), or treatments to armor or weapons (this could be a part of the crafting weapons system) that would expire after a certain amount of time.  I don't like the idea of chugging potions to make a barbarian more rogue-like or a mage more fighter-like.  I think those loopholes create the kinds of win-win situations that work against tactical / strategic gameplay.

 

My thinking on weapons, armor and enchantments, is that all enchantments should either be temporary or have their own durability meter.  I like the idea of temporary weapon buffs because it offers greater tactical flexibility, and addresses the problem of crafting weapons that are the most powerful in the game.  Durability, if its in the game could be applied to enchantments, either as a second level of buffs above temporary, or as replacement (durability of enchantments increases as crafting skills improve).  

 

It could be that, if there is a philospher's stone type re-agent a la Darklands, that the only way to make weapons and armor enchantments permanent would be to quest for a legendary stone of highest quality, thereby making it only available to the people in the game that really love crafting.

Edited July 4, 2013 by curryinahurry

[ocelotter]

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

 

 

I think the problem is that purchased items tend to be a luxury for most of the game: useful, but not necessary to progress. As a result, people tend to hoard gold to purchase luxury goods. Just like with consumables: if the game is balanced in such a way that they are not needed in critical fights (which should be roughly equally difficult throughout the game), then gold will not be strictly useful for most of the game. This leads to hoarding, which means gold loses its scarcity, which is almost by definition what makes it interesting (cf. skill points: if you had enough skill points to get everything you wanted, choice is eliminated and interest fades).

 

To ensure that gold feels scarce and important, it should be a commodity that is critical to progressing in the game. There are a variety of ways to achieve this goal: for example, exhaust the resource by other means (e.g. Dark Souls), or make purchased items an important component for winning fights. Often gold feels important early on in an RPG, but less important later; one reason for this is that early on characters are still searching for particular types of gear critical to their being useful in a fight (e.g. plate mail for a tank), and vendors typically have a variety of items that can be used to fill in such gaps. Once your whole party has a complete set of gear (due to found items or obtaining enough gold to buy them), the small vendor upgrades become less impactful, becoming a luxury instead of a necessity for progression.

 

The solution? Purchased items need to be important in progression to deplete gold. Whether it be due to gear that breaks, such that new gear needs to be bought frequently to keep characters relevant, or through the frequent necessary use of consumables in winning battles, it should actually be useful. Why don't people use consumables? They don't need to. Why don't people use gold? They don't need to. Make them need to!

 

This can easily be extended to other goods purchased with gold. Strongholds are also a luxury good; why not make them give real bonuses towards fights? Give the player an interesting choice to make: spend scarce gold on stronghold upgrades, which enables you to e.g. train skills to higher levels than previously possible due to discovering an ancient library or gymnasium, or spend the gold on consumables/food/crafting/repairs. If gold is scarce, these choices will be meaningful and interesting, because you can't have everything you want. If gold is not, they won't be.

[Sensuki]

 

I am still banned from SomethingAwful for single line posting so I can't reply to this on there, but I wanted to ask - yes technically the party benefits from all characters taking Stealth, but does the party benefit from all characters taking Lockpick (or Mechanics) - I suppose you could say that you could technically have multiple characters disable traps/open locks at once, but it's not really the same.

 

Give crafting a different bonus or make it not a skill? Crafting as it is seems to have this 'party' element to it where if another character in the party makes up for the pre-reqs of an item recipe that the crafting character does not have (such as a skill or talent), having spare points on crafting could act the same way such as making up the shortfall between the max available crafting points at that character level or applying a direct bonus on top of the character's crafting skill, or giving access to recipes a level above or something.

 

Right now Crafting seems to be [Crafting, Enchanting, Alchemy and Weapon Maintenance].

 

The other option was that Crafting was not a skill in Baldur's Gate II or Knights of the Old Republic 2 (my two favorite crafting systems), it was just there. You could make Crafting not a skill but the pre-requisites be in the recipes themselves. I suppose you could also give a recipe to a vendor and instead of paying the material cost, just pay a gold cost instead ? (probably not the best system but then again I spent 3 minutes thinking about it).

 

Artifacts of course would be different, and you'd have to find the pieces and pay a gold value.

 

Going by what you've done with Crafting it seems that Herbalism (if that is actually a skill) will probably have a benefit to the duration of consumables or something. This would also have the side effect of being an almost no-brainer pick for melee characters to take as they are going to be hitting and getting hit more often, so extra boosts / stamina regen will be most valuable to them.

 

When unique items were in stores:

 

* I don't want to buy unique items in stores.

 

When unique items were in dungeons:

 

* I have nothing to spend my money on.

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on. Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune. Then people complained that the items cost too much.

These people seem like extreme edge cases, and I know you try to please as many people as possible, but I think that ultimately striking a middle ground where the amount of these types of complaints lessen will be difficult. People that don't spend money probably also play on an easier difficulty (such as Easy or normal), just use the items they find in the world, don't use consumables and don't splurge in the optional side benefits. They probably didn't spend any money because they didn't need to. Scrooges by nature.

 

Is there anything in the lore of the game that you can think of that would aid the situation, for instance, what does a wealthy adventurer do with their money in the history of the Dyrwood ? Can Player wealth be tied into Factions somehow ?

 

Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with having a lot of money at the end of the game if you did every side-quest available, looted every container, sold every item you found and were partially conservative in your spending. That is the expected outcome right? I mean sure in games where there are less equipment types and resources are scarce that wouldn't be the case but Project Eternity has a lot of item types and multiple 'tiers' of equipment and crafting - things that are all recipes for wealth.

 

One thing that was mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign was the use of ships, if Big City #2 was going to be Ozia in the Vailian Empire (which it probably isn't, but anyway) you would most likely travel there by ship. IMO that should cost A LOT of money.

 

Ultimately perhaps there are story and lore reasons that you can find that would encourage a player to spend money, but I don't think that Item Durability is the answer as it affects everyone, not just those who don't invest in their Stronghold and the mildness of it's design adds nothing to the gameplay IMO.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

 

Are you building every skill to have a degradable benefit in combat or something?

[Cultist]

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

The thing is - prices could be fixed easily just by adjusting numbers.

Durability significantly changes gameplay. It is much easier to balance prices and income, than balance entirely new system.

Thing with durability, is that it acts like time limit's little brother.It constantly hangs upon your characters.

I, for example, never experienced money overflow in BG2 after adding new shops from mods. They allowed a lot of versalite builds for my characters and high level equipment for high price.

Not to say durability penalizes players fro long voyages and delves into dungeons. Especially filled with combat encounters.

[forgottenlor]

I like choices to spend money on. Items in stores, crafting, et. The more choices the merrier. I don't mind story money drains provided they are not required, but simply make the story easier to play. It would be great if those that want to use crafting could use theirmoney that way, but that those that don't want to also have viable alternatives.

[Tuckey]

I'd like to remind Josh about the silent majority who don't post/weren't bothered enough to complain about buying items in shops. I think players don't mind buying good items from stores as long as they are buying it from a special store like the adventurers mart or a center of trade like trademeet rather than a corner shop in the wop wops.

[Sacred_Path]

what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

I like to buy consumables, as it really gives you choices depending on your party setup and tactics (as long as you're actually forced to use them on the higher difficulties).

 

Apart from that I really like spending gold on things you can't otherwise possess (such as donating at temples).

[IndiraLightfoot]

Josh, Falcon Swiftblade summed up potential things to throw money at very well!

 

Vanity stuff and optimizing party travelling and loot hauling would be great money sink avenues. I mean, the only item durability system that made sense to me and felt a bit of fun, was in FNV, but that fits that setting like a glove. And you know what Johnnie Cochran said: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!"

 

EDIT: I'm not one of them that will spend on any stronghold, as it doesn't excite me much, unless it is done the way Monte Carlo is proposing earlier in this thread  - a quest-heavy approach - think NWN2 stronghold, but a lot more interesting quests that I can spend money on: bribing, salves and what not.

Edited July 4, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[Cultist]

Here's a notion I had for a simple repair mechanic:

 

Repair kits

The durability mechanic could be abstracted to some degree through the use of 'repair kits'. While not in combat the player can view a summary report showing the equipment damage. For example, it could read: 3 items lightly damaged (>50% dmg) and 1 item heavily damaged (>75% dmg).

We already saw it in FNV. Never helped anything. You just hoarded a lot of repair kits but mostly used them on unique weapons\armor that you could not find spare parts to repair them.

[Cultist]

By the way, can anyone tell us about example of a single-player RPG game with durability system that not annoyed people?

Edited July 4, 2013 by Cultist

[IndiraLightfoot]

FNV is the only exception that personally didn't get me annoyed.

[Sensuki]

BG1 had it for non-magic weapons, but since it didn't affect magic weapons it was fine and it fitted with the narrative, it wasn't just thrown in there for some abstract gamist reason.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Sensuki: True, I almost forgot about that. That I did like, as it may ordinary weapons ordinary, as they should be. Perhaps PE could go that route.

[Jarmo]

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

 

 

To me, the perfect thing is to be poor in early game, wealthy enough to purchase high quality stuff halfway through and to be very wealthy in late game.

This is assuming the game plays like a classic D&D adventure, if the setup is something different, the economics must also differ.

 

Bad example being Mass Effect, where economy is just stapled on because it's an RPG staple.

You're given a 100 billion dollar spaceship and then you go deliver mail to be able to afford to buy good guns from a quartermaster in your own ship. D:

I just hate seeing stuff in game that's there obviously to act as a money sink, despite making no sense in context of the story.

 

So.

 

Early game is simple and obvious. You have little in way of wealth and have to make choices.

Later you can afford the best equipment, masterwork full plate all around.

 

Also, shops could well have fancy magic items.

Just as long as the shop is not some backwater dump and the magic items worth more than the whole village.

 

Fancy shops, fancy items. But not quite to the extent of "Excalibur? Yeah, we have a pile of those over there".

The biggest and best stuff should only come from dungeons, boss enemies, through discovery. 

 

Late game money sinks.

 

Shouldn't be stuff like Mithril plate armors that are worth as much as the countrys GNP but are readily available from a local dealer.

Gilded ornamental armor could be very expensive item though, can be ordered if you have access to royal armorer.

Not better than normal steel armor, but gives prestige and charisma/persuasion/intimidation bonuses.

 

Build magnificent domes in your fortress, turn it into a palace.

Hire a mercenary company to guard it, purchase slaves to do housework.

Order fine books from all over the world (some actual skill benefits from these maybe) into your library.

 

Give money to the poor (not 1GP to the one beggar in the city, but thousands and thousands through some organization,

build orphanages, fund the building of a new cathedral. Give bribes to purchase/gain a lordly title.

 

Have statues built in your likeness. Travel in palanquin tossing money to the poor.

 

Basically all kinds of bling bling that's not strictly necessary, but through which you gain prestige,

appear nobler and more charismatic, which would have some in game benefits.

[TrashMan]

While swords can break, it doesn't happen often, since a massive amount of force, applied to a specific point is required.

 

Mythbusters did an episode on that and they only managed to break 1 sword - while using machines to swing them. Machines that can swing faster and harder than a human.

Swords BEND.

[Shadenuat]

 

I don't want to buy unique items in stores.

I want to buy them, but I don't want them to replace *the best* items in game (well actually I don't mind buying some relic ending up best thing of it's kind in the game, it just have to be quest-like, with dialogue and stuff, not a press of a button). Unique items in stores should have some trick, a crutch for specific encounters.

Bad example: Robe of Vecna, Barbarian Blade +4 ("oh we need to put it there what if player would't find other +4 swords?"), ect.

Good example: The Trollsayer. Arguably not the best sword in IWD, but I never go in HoW expansion without it. Reflection Shield. Not the best shield in BG, but I always buy it for characters like Aerie or Vi.

 

I have nothing to spend my money on.

 

There's no universal answer to that, as far as I've seen when making and playtesting fan made modules, economy is a combination of multiple factors and depends on how you play. Character maxing Diplomacy can avoid every bribe option in game, while brute will have to spend loads of money on those AND on repairing weapons. I don't see the problem with that however, I find it natural a player with high Steal/Trade/Metagame knowledge having loads of excess money, because you base economy for an "average" player party. You could probably try and calculate an average amount of money a metagaming hoarder will have at the end and add some super-expensive easter-egg like moneysink. Say, a 14/5 secret Mega-dungeon level you can only open by paying 20.000 gold; fortress upgrade; ship; personal mercenary army; whatever. Having Loads of Money is a reasonable way of playing RPG, in Fallout I liked to play Persuade/Trade/Gamble and carry 5 companions in PWA with gauss weapons.

 

* Don't like crafting.

* Don't like durability.

* Don't like consumables.

*Don't like RPG's

 

When people think about crafting and consumables they probably think a lot about WoW and all the other crappy mechanics. Crat a +11% to accuracy hell that's what I always wanted, how fun.

Consumables are only interesting when they stand out. In original Fallout, things like Jet and Psycho standed out as they allowed to survive combats where, without them, player would end up chunks of blood on the floor. By the way, same was with armor - going from leather to battle armor felt different, it changed gameplay, it changed what encounters you could fight.

In original Baldur's Gate, having a Potion of Magic Blocking on your warrior fighting sirenes or mages was a stand out moment, and you could't even survive without those, or scrolls of Magic Protection, when fighting straight with demon from Durlag's Keep. Also, Detonading Arrows.

Also your swords were breaking like hell because of the plot, so carrying crappy wooden sticks or clubs and even placing profiency points into them was a thing player might do.

Now for example let's take last Obsidian game having crafting or consumables, FNV. It's really cute, but nothing really stands out. Yeah it's in the nature of the game, it's a shooter, but what's the difference between molerat stew or radroach stew? And journals and stims, I remember using them for metagaming purposes only, never for combat. And when I was low on health, I gulped 50 different foods/vegetables/stews not even paying attention to what exactly I ate. And do we really need all this, item degradation and stuff, if every enemy running onto you carries one or two weapons with him?

Upgrades were incredibly cool in FNV, though. I'd want to see inserting some sort of quest unique gem in a sword and see it change it's color, like when you add a new barrell to your revolver in FNV.

 

Overall I want to see all, I want items in shops and crafting and durability and unleash Tim and let him roam. But consumables and crafting have to stand out, everything has to stand out if you want that to be used, and to be memorable. If you'd add a silver sword to crafting recipes and add an enemy immunte to non-silver weapons, that would stand out, but you don't have immune enemies, because people hate unkillable monsters, right? Well from what I see, if you don't add spikes of difficulty to game which can be solved by consumables or crafting, people will continue to ignore you mechanics, not paying any attention to it.

 

Sometimes I wonder that the real problem in making somethinng useful is not to make it so, but to make player comprehend it's usefulness. +50% to damage against werewolves is not as self explanatory as ability to actually hurt them with a weapon, like in BG.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Shadenuat

[Frenetic Pony]

@JE Sawyer

 

As I've pointed out earlier, the best use of gold I've ever seen in an RPG is from the first Dragon Age.

 

There are always multiple things to get, at every store, that you may be able to afford by saving up all the money you ever get until the very end of the game. This makes you want money, this gives you motivation for money, there are a million epic items and you might be able to afford a handful towards the end of the game if you complete every quest and turn over every stone.

 

Does it contradict "I don't want to buy good items at a store?" Certainly. But anything you do contradicts what someone does or does not want. At least this way, this is where the money goes. To that grand, epic, thousand gold item you are slaving away towards. Towards that Ferrari of swords or armor or whatever it is. It gives people a long term goal, and makes money always valuable for every kind of player.

 

Make the player feel like they will never, ever even come close to being what might even be termed as "rich" in the game; and they might not like you, but they'll love every scrap and penny of money they can find.

[TrashMan]

 

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

 

 

To me, the perfect thing is to be poor in early game, wealthy enough to purchase high quality stuff halfway through and to be very wealthy in late game.

 

Disagree. The player should never be super-rich.

He should NEVER have enough money to spend around frivolously.

 

 

 

Build magnificent domes in your fortress, turn it into a palace.

Hire a mercenary company to guard it, purchase slaves to do housework.

Order fine books from all over the world (some actual skill benefits from these maybe) into your library.

 

Give money to the poor (not 1GP to the one beggar in the city, but thousands and thousands through some organization,

build orphanages, fund the building of a new cathedral. Give bribes to purchase/gain a lordly title.

 

Have statues built in your likeness. Travel in palanquin tossing money to the poor.

 

Funny that you complain about money sinks not making sense, and then providing examples htat dont' make sense.

 

So the PC is so rich he erects giant golden status of his **** everywhere, has a small army and salves/servants at his beck and call..... and then he slogs into sewers and dungeons to rob bandits of a few coppers?

[Bloody Hypocrite]

In regards to crafting, I think it would be interesting if there were a bonus for creating items for a specific party member. For example, the tailor made leather armor that you crafted or comissioned specifically for your rouge "Stabby McBackstab" would have certain benefits (alternate to found/bought gear buffs) over a set of leather armor that you found or just bought at a store. I feel that it could enchance the viability of crafted gear while differentiating it from loot.

[Sensuki]

Sensuki: True, I almost forgot about that. That I did like, as it may ordinary weapons ordinary, as they should be. Perhaps PE could go that route.

P:E has tiers of steel: Oromi, Ymyran, Durgan etc, one can assume that the higher tier the steel the less likely it is to break.

 

I just think it's silly to tie the rate of degradation to crafting. As a power gamer, to avoid the nuisance of weapon breaking and to reduce the cost of repair (which seems like it will be particularly important for the higher quality items), it is an absolute no-brainer to take Craft on your primary melee characters.

 

It's kind of like Concentration for spellcasters, why would you not take it ?

 

In a system where non-combat skills are supposed to have a combat benefit to make them of equal use with Stealth (though I don't see why the benefit has to be combat-focused, they are non-combat skills after all), Crafting should probably just become an arbitrary action like BG2/KotOR2 and not a skill.

[Tuckey]

Exotic things to spend money on

========================

-Political favours ~ bribe a king or queen!

-Specialised training for your characters available from grand-masters for the right price.

-Buy a boat and launch an expedition to an unknown land

-Potions should be rare, powerful and expensive so crafting them becomes fun (ie game-changers for a battle etc)

-Exotic items to impress an npc; ie animal skins, jewelry etc

 

Common things to spend money on

===========================

-Board at an inn for the month, week, day

-Hire mercenaries

-Daily wage for your companions/share of the loot

-Entertainers that visit the inn's of the world ie musicians, theatre troups

Edited July 4, 2013 by Tuckey

[Mico Selva]

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

- buying unique gear (I almost never buy non-unique items in games)

- buying ammo (including special ammo)

- consumables (ok for me, staple of RPGs, not sure why people don't like them)

- creating otherwise unobtainable items (BG2 style crafting)

- upgrading unique items (ToB style crafting)

- improving items (KoTOR style crafting)

- improving my characters (paying trainers - not very IE style, though)

- repairing items (ok for me; although the durability mechanics presented for PE are kind of boring, I would prefer item damaging to be a rare, but important occurence instead of slow linear degradation)

 

Hope this helps.

 

EDIT: Striked out the comment about linear item degradation, because it was inaccurrate. In PE items will move to damaged state after they lose enough durability, they will not degrade linearly, meaning it is an important and game-affecting occurence. My only issue is that they will lose durability at a constant rate (1/hit), instead of context-appropriate amounts (like in Arcanum).

Edited July 4, 2013 by Mico Selva

[teknoman2]

 

 

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

I worked on IWD, HoW, TotL, and IWD2.  In virtually all of these games, I heard these two complaints over and over and over:

 

When unique items were in stores:

* I don't want to buy unique items in stores.

My thoughts in this:

First issue:

When unique items were in stores: * I don't want to buy unique items in stores

I think the main problem with this is how much unique the item is and what kind of store. People like to think that unique items are rare,special things that can't be recreated and most people in the world haven't seen. When you can buy it from a store, it looses  something af its allure. Possible solutions: Make a reason for the store to have them. Maybe a realy special store that it's difficult to gain entrance and deals only with special items? Bonus points if the seller is unique himself. (I don't think I ever heard anyone complain about the "Adventurer's Mart" or the Collector's Edition shop but I may be wrong).

 

This I agree with. An upscale store with a restricted clientele would validate the process of buying an expensive magic item. Or perhaps a high end auction house with limited and varying items for sale.

 

a problem i often found in BG2, was that certain items were available in stores, but were too expensive to buy at the time, while when you had the money to get them you already had better gear. this is something that must be adressed. if in order to get the gold for the +2 sword at the shop, i have to clear a dungeon where i get myself a +3 sword, it is pointless to have the +2 at the store. also i will not have any reason to spend the money i made in the dungeon anymore and complain that im just hoarding gold.

[Jarmo]

Funny that you complain about money sinks not making sense, and then providing examples htat dont' make sense.

 

So the PC is so rich he erects giant golden status of his **** everywhere, has a small army and salves/servants at his beck and call..... and then he slogs into sewers and dungeons to rob bandits of a few coppers?

 

 

No, see the Mass Effect point earlier.

If/when PC gains a lot of wealth, the gameplay shouldn't consist of doing inane busywork for chump change. 

 

Maybe you're invited to visit a noble and then demons attack the banquet?

Maybe a friend or a barons niece is kindnapped and the job is too delicate to give to mercenaries, or a large band is unsuitable for other reasons.