How NPCs Work, featuring Mia and Dark Lord
by Andrea Jennifer Shubert
NPCs are an important part of any MMO. Non-Player Characters give you quests, and when you complete those quests, they give you items, experience points, or both. With set four, NPCs arrive in the MapleStory iTCG.
Mia is the first preview card. I picked her to show off NPCs because she is one of the first NPCs you encounter in the MapleStory MMO. Here are the rules and reminders for NPCs…
NPCs are monster cards. NPCs are played with Spawn actions. They count as “monsters,” even though Mia wouldn’t want to be called that!
Lower-level NPCs have “NPC Quests” to complete. If you do, you get a “Reward.” NPC Quests react to other things that happen during the course of the game. When something happens that matches a quest on an NPC in play, you get the reward.
Using our preview card as an example, Mia’s NPC Quest is “Mia or another of your monsters attacks.” When you attack with Mia or another monster, you will get the reward: “You get +10 HP.” Other lower-level NPCs have quests, including “You have 4 or more monsters in your discard pile when your turn ends.” and “Play at least one item on your turn.”
Many high-level NPCs are Bosses. NPC Bosses act like other Bosses. They have Boss actions and have persistent damage, just like the Bosses from sets two and three. If you need a reminder, you can read the article explaining all of the Boss rules. While they don’t have NPC Quests, they do have nifty abilities. Look at Dark Lord as an example— Shadow Rip can deal with any card on the table!
The four NPC Bosses have “Team Up” cards to help get them into play. While this isn’t a rule, it’s something to keep in mind. There are four NPC Bosses in the set: Athena Pierce, Grendel The Really Old, Dark Lord, and Dances With Balrogs. There are also Team Up lightning-bolt abilities that help get Bosses into play fast. Look at Dark Lord’s Strike—the top half of the card can be great, but the bottom half can let you get Dark Lord into play ahead of schedule.
While NPC Heroes focuses on NPCs, there are many other reasons to pick up set four. In my next article we’ll have a look at the set’s four characters.
