How does this look for a companion character for a low-damage party?

[Kannon]

My dark sun group has always been a bit low on damage, this was made a lot worse when one of the strikers had to bow out due to personal issues. In order to balance that out a bit, I figured I'd give the PCs a companion PC. (We're running the campaign over maptools, so complexity isn't too much of an issue, so it's a slimmed down full PC.), run by the players, since DM PCs are just a pain for everyone when they stick around that long.

My only real concern is if it'll overshadow the PCs. He does hit like a truck. (With a maul and inherant bonuses, that's a total of +9 to hit and 3d6+5 damage on his basic.) Being a barbarian in leather armor, he also has no defense to speak of. (And yes, I know it's a crap name. Naming is not my strength.)


Thog Mul Barbarian 2

HP 35 / 35 (Surges: 12 / 12)
Initiative +3
AC 16, Fort 17, Ref 14, Will 13
Perception +0
Speed 6
Insight +0
Equipment: Maul,Leather Armor
STR 20 (+5) DEX 10 (+0) WIS 8 (-1)
CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) CHA 11 (+0)

Standard Actions

Howling Strike ♦ At-will

Attack: Str vs. AC (melee weapon) Target: one creature Hit: 1[w]+1d6+Str untyped damage Special: This power counts as a melee basic attack.

Recuperating Strike ♦ At-will

Attack: Str vs. AC (melee weapon) Target: one creature Hit: 1[w]+Str untyped damage; and you gain temporary hit points equal to your Con modifier (+3). If you are raging, add 5 Temp HP.

Avalanche Strike ♦ Encounter

Attack: Str vs. AC (melee weapon) Target: one creature Hit: 3[w]+Str+3 untyped damage Effect: Until the start of your next turn, any attacker gains a +4 bonus to attack rolls against you.

Wasteland Fury ♦ Encounter

Attack: Str vs. AC (melee weapon) Target: one creature Hit: 1[w]+Str untyped damage; If you have combat advantage, you do 5 extra damage. Effect: If you use this power while you are not adjacent to any of your allies, you can shift 1 square before or after the attack.

Second Wind ♦ Encounter

Range: personal Target: personal Effect: Spend a healing surge and regain [SurgeValue] hit points. Gain a +2 bonus to all defenses until the beginning of your next turn.

Skull-Takers Rage ♦ Daily

Attack: Str vs. AC (melee weapon) Target: one creature Hit: 3[w]+Str untyped damage Miss: Half damage. Effect: You enter the rage of the skull-taker. Until the rage ends, you take 3 damage at the start of each of your turns. This damage cannot be resisted or negated. Until this rage ends, you also have a +1 bonus to hit and damage.


Triggered Actions

Incredible Toughness ♦ Encounter

Trigger: You start your turn. Range: Target: personal Effect: You end any ongoing damage or any dazed, slowed, stunned, or weakened condition currently affecting you.

Swift Charge ♦ Encounter

Trigger: Your attack reduces an enemy to 0 hit points. Range: melee weapon Target: one creature Effect: You charge an enemy.

Inspiring Fortitude ♦ Daily
Trigger: You use your second wind. Attack: Str vs. AC (Close burst 5) Target: allies
Effect: Each ally within 5 squares of you gains 13 temporary hit points.

 

[S'mon]

Looks nearly identical to the Barbarian PC I just made.

As you know he's more complex than the Companion NPC standard, and I suspect this makes him slightly more powerful too. I think he'll need to use Recuperating Strike a lot or he'll die very fast.

I think he's fine, but if you just wanted to increase party damage output, a ranged striker might be better - they don't die nearly as much as melee strikers, and are less likely to hog the limelight.

 

[aco175]

Most likely not what the books say, but I tend to make companion/ npc tag alongs have only one at-will attack, one encounter attack, and one recharge daily type ( this tends to be a watered down daily or a bit more powerful encounter power). Depending on the level I usually give some type of non attack utility. I find this makes them less time consuming on the player I give him to to run. He has the recharge power so the player needs not remember if the daily was used and each fight it comes into play.

I tend to make the recharge power only for level 5+, just a guideline though.

 

[Ferghis]

First, I'd like to say that it's an interesting group of players when nobody wants to play the striker. It's usually the most popular role.

Second, if there is no striker, consider simply lowering the monsters' HP. Since that role's contribution to the party dynamic is to simply inflict a lot of damage. This makes leaders mildly less effective (for example, a warlord might have fewer allies to grant a free attack to), but it will make your fights simpler, and keep the focus of the game on the players. I would suggest shaving off about a third of the enemies' HP, but you could tweak that to your tastes.

 

[keterys]

I'd actually be more tempted to give an NPC or item that increased the damage output of the group, rather than a striker that might take the spotlight.

For example, in one game they got a "Cask of Courage" from a pirate ship that gave the last five people who drank from it an item bonus to damage rolls. In another, for completing a quest they all got the Execution ability to lethally reduce an enemy to 0 hp from 20 (Paragon, so in a heroic game it'd be 10).

The latter (Whenever you hit and damage an enemy to 10 hp or below, you may choose to reduce that enemy to 0 hp' seems pretty appropriate for Dark Sun. I had the added restriction that it was lethal only, so they had to actually consider who they kept alive or not.

 

[Doombybbr]

just make inspiring fortitude autohit as the PC's would not let that miss

 

[Doombybbr]

also make the PC's fight him later (not as strong though)

 

[Kannon]

Er, yeah, that's supposed to be. It's a maptools character copy-paste, so I screwed something up there. Auto does not change the description, apparently.

Perhaps companion character is the wrong word. It's essentially a surrogate PC. We had one player have to leave the campaign semi-permanently, so it went from a brief guest character to a full on PC mid-design. (And mid-post, incidentally.)

We had two strikers, a ranger and a rogue, (Your point still stands, though, they took the strikers because we already had leaders and defenders.) the rogue had to bow out, though.

I also tried lowering the HP of monsters, but there were still knock-on effects of less friendly targets to soak up damage, only one character actually in melee, so on. End result was combat was a bit less fun overall.

Overall, it's worked pretty well so far. As the party's only melee striker, he doesn't grab the spotlight as much. Especially as he's somewhat of a glass cannon. And the player with the character that feels the least effective in combat has control of him anyway.

All that aside, he's worth it just for the hilarity that ensues. After the barbarian landed a massive, and I mean _MASSIVE_ 3w crit on the encounter power on the big baddie, and the baddie, in turn, missed 4 attacks in a row, with that -4 penalty to all defenses. (Minor attack, standard, elven accuracy, action point, all missed.). The response? "Thog get no comeuppance!"