ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Every time i get an escort quest, the person dies because they wandered off into a huge group of monsters, the NPC's should follow you like your dwarf partner in the beginning of the dwarf story, and still move away from danger like they already do.

But you don't know where the recall portal is. Having to wander around the entire level with an escort in tow would be even worse than having to follow one to their portal.

1. You can always ask him/her about general direction and distance.
2. My escort mostly die because of bad start. One time my Sun Paladin was dropped in Norgo's with merfolk boss and 20 or so mobs around. Helllooo, Lost Warrior. And good bye.

I don't know if I'm just extremely lucky or what, but I tend to save 6-8 or so escorts every game (when I make it far enough to find all 9). I think this is a pretty good haul; if you're saving significantly less then maybe we should talk about strategies instead of jumping right to the conclusion that escort ai needs revamping (again).

Are you actually following your escort? I never do. In open spaces I keep them just in site & head forward clearing out enemies. In winding corridors I'll run off a head & keep forks in the road in range of site. If you're a wyrmic or have a movement infusion you can race pretty far ahead to scout & then run back to find your escort if your careful about it. I save most of mine. You'll always lose a few to unavoidables (starting in an open space in heart of gloom for instance) but the bulk of them are actually saveable.

Saving "bulk" is indeed easy. Problem is saving all of them.

The problem is the expectation of being able to save all of them every time.