ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I know that the official position on escorts is that they are meant to be a minor bonus rather than something predictable. However, some escorts reshape the game in a way that is both permanent and massively relevant to the ultimate health of the character. In a game this long, that means that you can lose a character after 40 hours due to something that happened in the first 15 minutes, meaning that startscumming for escorts becomes highly desirable.

I would like to make some possible suggestions:

1. Change escorts to the kind of reward Embers of Rage uses - fewer total rewards, but far more predictable. This need not literally change to the yeti system; rather, it could offer the ability to select escort type, make the distribution of escorts across areas more standard (eg: ensure that two escorts always spawn in the first two areas entered), and reduce the total number of escorts.
2. Make the Tinker escort reward area available to all characters who have a given unlock (since this is generally the most valuable escort for most characters).

I completely agree - would prefer less escorts, but more certainty, as in the DLC

I would much prefer that escorts be replaced with a system similar to yeti tissues in Embers of Rage. Having to contend with the bad escort AI is just infuriating, and they can get randomly killed by area damage without any fault of the player. Basically, it would be better to kill extra bosses in different areas of the game to get some kind of token to redeem categories or talents. Maybe the turn-in spot could be in Last Hope, either in the center building or a new one.

What if instead of completely random escorts, you could find escorts in town looking for safe passage through a zone for (story/ lore reasons). You would likely have 2 to 3 choice per starter town and they would each be looking for passage through the nearby starting zone. This page would also describe any rewards offered (including Zigur). If you choose not to escort for a certain amount of time or upon reaching a certain level, you will get a choice of 2-3 random escorts upon entering one of the t2 or t3 zones to prevent the player from trying to scum t1 escorts.

Likely this would come with less escorts overall since picking escort bonuses is a decent power spike.