Help me make a sidekick NPC for a player

[Da3mon]

Hey everyone!

I will be DMing for a completely new player, but since every one of my players will be away it will be a solo adventure.
We talked about a the basics, and he said he wants to play a fighter with a 2 hand weapon. I bought the Red Box (free tokens/cards ), and once we finish the character creating solo adventure I want to send him on a solo whodunnit type quest. However I want to have a bit more fighting and so I decided to add a sidekick NPC to the player.
I need help creating this dude, and have a rough outline, but I have no idea how to finetune his stats. He would be a cleric, so he could heal if necessary.

How would you go about this? Creating a full character with the builder seems to be a bit overkill...

Also small unrelated question In most of the published adventures, the major quest is 625 xp. It means then 125 xp/player, am I right?

Thanks for the help!
Gwan

 

[DragoonLance]

DMG2 has rules for companion characters, kinda a halfway point between a monster/NPC and a character. Really useful for lots of things IMO. If you can't afford that at the moment just give him a monster buddy like a lower level human wizard or a pet wolf.

 

[OnlineDM]

Also small unrelated question In most of the published adventures, the major quest is 625 xp. It means then 125 xp/player, am I right?

You can assign whatever quest XP you like, of course, but when you see quest XP in a published adventure it generally assumes that XP will be split among 5 PCs. So yes, 625 XP would be 125 XP per player (the equivalent of a second-level encounter).

 

[Tharian]

I agree with DragoonLance in that a companion character sounds like what you'd be looking to use. I've seen a good template on Weem's site that I cut in half so I used only the top part to record stats and then used the blank bottom space to write in a short backstory for the character. This made it easier if I, as the DM, or the player was using the character to have all that information at hand.

Best of luck.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I third the suggestion of a companion character.

If you want to make sure that all attention is on the PC rather than the companion, you might want to make the companion an animal (dog, horse, etc) that doesn't talk. Though the idea of a small sized cat (with Eladrin Bard stats) is amusing to me for some reason (Cheshire Cat).

 

[Shin Okada]

Another vote for a companion character. And maybe some leader would be ideal as the sidekick can heal the fighter.

 

[Mengu]

Another vote for DMG2 companions.

Doesn't have to be cleric to have healing, as a matter of fact I'd try to avoid the typical leader types, especially those with charisma, because you want the PC to be the highlight of the show, not the NPC. And while the DMG2 doesn't recommend it, I find that a small race will help keep the focus on the larger PC. And you don't even have to use PC races. Monster races will work perfectly fine.

Here is a quick example I used elsewhere, for a goblin alchemist.

[sblock]Goblin Alchemist - Level 1 Leader
Small humanoid, goblin
Initiative +2; Senses Perception +1, low-light vision
HP 26; Bloodied 13; Healing surges 9
AC 16; Fortitude 12, Reflex 16, Will 14
Speed 6
Short sword (standard; at-will) * Weapon
+8 vs AC; 1d6+4 damage, and one ally gains a +2 bonus to his next attack roll against the target.
Javelin (standard; at-will) * Weapon
Ranged 10/20; +7 vs AC; 1d6+4 damage
Alchemist's Fire (standard; at-will) * Fire
Area burst 1 within 5; +5 vs Reflex; 1d6+4 damage
Rust Oil (standard; encounter)
Ranged 5; +5 vs Reflex; 1d6+4 damage, target suffers -2 penalty to AC, and vulnerable 5 weapon, until the end of the goblin alchemist's next turn.
Healing Dust (minor; twice per encounter) * Healing
One target in close burst 5 may spend a healing surge.
Flame Blade (minor; daily) * Fire
One weapon touched deals 1d6 additional fire damage until the end of the encounter.
Goblin Tactics (immediate reaction when missed by an attack; encounter)
The goblin alchemist may shift 3 squares.
Alignment Good; Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Arcana +9, Heal +6, Stealth +4, Thievery +9
Str 10 (+0); Dex 15 (+2); Wis 13 (+1)
Con 14 (+2); Int 18 (+4); Cha 12 (+1)
Equipment Leather armor, short sword, 5 javelins, thieves' tools
[/sblock]

 

[surfarcher]

Companion characters are designed to fill this niche.

I posted a thread for these at http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...characters-encyclopaedia-post-yours-here.html which might help you a bit. That thread kinda foundered due to apparent lack of interest