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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3211441" data-attributes="member: 1165">We don't need your advice. We can make money and collect fame our own way. Bye.People rarely put up with bad bosses if they can find a job elsewhere, unless they're dating someone at work or something like that. That's a great way to run a terrible DMPC.Do you mean some place where the PCs aren't?That's still stealing a PC's role. And as a higher level wizard, he'll be doing a heck of a lot of damage. Even if a PC spellcaster doesn't use direct damage, the mentor NPC still steals the "magic as offense" role, takes away kills from the fighter-types, etc.He can still cast those spells better than the PC mage. I can see why he would want protection, but isn't going spelunking in the "Cave of the Horrendous Weretiger/Illithids" really going to make him safer?Good constructive advice that avoids problems. A+!I like using an Expert as well. Make them higher level, give them a great skill score in a few skills and most of their feats are Skill Focus (Knowledge [arcana]) and stuff like that. Oh and lots of languages, unless maybe they 're not an arcane scholar. Make sure they have skills PCs don't have so they're not stealing the spotlight. Give them really strict narrow skills that no adventurer would want to take but is still important to the storyline."Almost no one knows about the Old Ones but me." He has ranks in Knowledge (Cthulhu) and has somehow kept his sanity. We think. Probably.I think using an Expert isn't as good as the magical communication device, however. Isn't it odd how the NPCs (almost) never target him in combat? (And if they do, they're wasting actions they could have used to challenge the PCs instead.) And look, the guy never seems to fall into those pit traps during combat the fiendish kobolds keep setting up. Etc.**I ran into a similar problem the last time I used an NPC who was sort of like a GMPC. It was Modern, so no loot. He didn't get a share of XP. He had Treat Injury, a skill none of the PCs had (and was very important, but wasn't the incredibly narrow only-useful-for-plot skill I mentioned earlier). He was lower level and an Ordinary (basically d20 Modern's version of the Expert). And I gave the PCs control of him.In one battle, he stood in a great place to get cover. That's where the NPCs had set up the "flaming logs falling from the ceiling trap". (The NPCs were in a room. As soon as the PCs entered the room, combat broke out, so there was no time to search for traps.) He got burned. If I were controlling him, I don't know if he would have avoided the spot. Subconsciously I might have directed him to another spot that would give him cover, like the one he ran towards as soon as he put the fire out!</blockquote>

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