How easy do you find it to run NPC party members?

[Talic]

I dont enjoy it at all. Its enough to keep track of the adventure and various enemies without worrying about another character to run. As was stated in another post, it often turns into a DM mouthpiece where the PCs just expect to be able to follow the NPC or it is completely forgotton.

I don't even care to let the party have hirelings or cohorts that participate in battle because then they have to multitask with book keeping and planning. Also I find the personalities of both characters just drop out of the picture.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Running lots of NPCs was good fun. Particularly interesting was the time that the PCs succeeded at the Diplomacy attempt to enlist several high-level NPCs to help in a battle they knew was going to be extremely difficult by convincing the NPCs that the danger was immediate enough that they needed to do something. The PCs had a huge number of NPCs there, and near the end, everyone died except the PC Frenzied Berserker (kept alive by Deathless Frenzy alone) and the PC Cleric (who fled). The FB defeated the final opponent, which turned out to be his daughter, then saw who it was inside the armour and died.

 

[Glyfair]

I don't mind one or two. Indeed, I prefer to have one since you have the "DM's mouthpiece" option. That might be too strong, but it's nice to be able to have someone that can give the party a nudge when they are floundering and lost (even if it's not in exactly the right direction).

However, I recently ran a Mark of Heroes adventure that required I run 5 NPCs for the party! That was a nightmare, and I won't do it again, unless they are NPCs that I've developed throughout the campaign (both stats wise, and how they interact with the party).

 

[Li Shenron]

It's not so difficult to run animal companions and familars, but it's more complicated with cohorts IMXP. Overall I think that it commonly happens to me to leave them in the background, but I haven't seen this as a real problem, definitely not a problem with an animal. Basically, the AC or familiar only comes into play when it either spots/listens something that the PC don't, joins combat with the rest of the party, or it asked by its character to perform something. With cohorts it's more complicated, because I guess that some proactive behaviour is expected from them, but I admit I haven't worried too much (I kind of see them as non-protagonists of the story).

 

[MonsterMash]

I get by, but I'm not as good as I'd like to be at it. With followers I like the idea of getting a different member of the party than the player whose character they follow to run them. I always get players to run them in combat, but will overrule suicidal and OOC actions - e.g its fine for a barbarian to rage and charge the enemy, but not a Wizard with 10HP.

 

[Zappo]

Fairly hard... they tend to fade into the background a lot, and they aren't very efficient in combat.

 

[andrew_kenrick]

I find it tricky to run party NPCs - they invariably get forgotten about until combat. It's sometimes handy to have a "DM mouthpiece" in the party, but I prefer a party just of PCs, and let them manage their own familiars, animal companions etc. We've only had one cohort so far, and I'm inclined to leave him in the hands of his master, at least statistically speaking.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Depends on the NPC.

Magic weapons and familiars generally tend to take a back seat to NPC's filling in as party muscle or utility such as a cleric or a rogue.

 

[Alenda]

When I was running my Freeport campaign a while back, I had an NPC with a very strong personality. She was the niece of Finn, head of the halfling mafia. She first became involved with the party when she had a one-night-stand with one of the PCs ( a male halfling fighter). When her uncle found out about the relationship, the PCs were forced to adopt her into the party (for her own protection) and flee for their lives.

After that, she followed the party everywhere. She was wonderfully shallow and ditzy, and (most importantly) completely useless in combat. She had a dagger which she'd throw every once in a while, but her likelihood of hitting anything was very low. She was pretty much just there for interaction and comic relief.

I never used her as the DM's mouthpiece, because she wasn't really smart enough to think of anything that the party may have overlooked.

If I ever ran an NPC, I would run one with all of her qualities: 1) Useless in combat (because the PCs shouldn't have it too easy) 2) Great personality 3) Not as smart as the rest of the party

Just my 2 cents.

 

[lukelightning]

For cohorts/familiars/animal companions/special mounts etc. the player is expected to control 'em. In the case of familiars, mounts, and animals for ease of play we assume the creature goes on the same initiative as the PC.

For "tag along" NPCs that I add to a party, they come in two categories: "story" and "ability patch". Story NPCs are there to add to the plot, so I play them.

"Ability Patch" NPCs are there to allow the party to survive if they don't have a PC with the right skills (e.g. the party has no rogue, but they need someone with trap abilities). I let the players control them, generally the player who has the "easiest to play" character (someone who doesn't already have a secondary NPC or complicated combat abilities). I'd give the NPC some default personality and prefered tactics that probably wouldn't be as optimized for combat as a PC (e.g. a trap-finding rogue would stay out of melee and just keep shooting arrow or even hiding).