AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, my solution was 'Sarge' (sorry, I'm not sure what I did with the stat block or I'd post it, weird that it vanished, but...).
Sarge was a human Companion Character, basically a 'warlord'. He's got Inspiring Word, Commander's Strike, and a reaction "Shift an ally one square when he's missed by an attack" as an encounter power. Otherwise he's just a skirmisher monster stat block, with a Mace he do a MBA with, and that's about it. He was grafted onto the party at level 1 as "their old sergeant, he's going to see that you stay out of trouble." It was great because the players really weren't that tactical, so Sarge would stand back and yell out "NOW, hit him hard!" (Commander's Strike) or "Get back out of there!" (Shift the PC out of bad spot), etc. SO the PLAYERS got actual tactical advice in the form of a demonstration of things like focus fire and flanking, their healing function, and an NPC ally that could always be easily retired "I'm old and tired, you're on your own now", could be a plot hook, and basically just let them do their thing without a lot of added complexity.
I think we did this BEFORE DMG2, but it was pretty much in line with the CC rule.
Sarge was a human Companion Character, basically a 'warlord'. He's got Inspiring Word, Commander's Strike, and a reaction "Shift an ally one square when he's missed by an attack" as an encounter power. Otherwise he's just a skirmisher monster stat block, with a Mace he do a MBA with, and that's about it. He was grafted onto the party at level 1 as "their old sergeant, he's going to see that you stay out of trouble." It was great because the players really weren't that tactical, so Sarge would stand back and yell out "NOW, hit him hard!" (Commander's Strike) or "Get back out of there!" (Shift the PC out of bad spot), etc. SO the PLAYERS got actual tactical advice in the form of a demonstration of things like focus fire and flanking, their healing function, and an NPC ally that could always be easily retired "I'm old and tired, you're on your own now", could be a plot hook, and basically just let them do their thing without a lot of added complexity.
I think we did this BEFORE DMG2, but it was pretty much in line with the CC rule.
