Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Isida Kep'Tukari" data-source="post: 1255729" data-attributes="member: 4441">I too have the same problem.  I have five players and currently three NPCs, all of which contribute to the party.  Two of the NPCs are run by me, the third is run mechanically by another player, though I still have to role-play her.  Having the additional NPCs is tough enough normally, but add in non-party-member NPCs I have to run and I end up having conversations with myself.  Also having to keep track of the NPCs in combat can be hard, because I always disliked it when the NPCs (in games I've played in) turned virtually inert during combat, only to come "alive" again to do more plot exposition, or healing, or whatever.  So I run them as I would PCs.  But it's hard, and I'd rather concentrate on the plot of the game than more bookkeeping for myself.  One is Jenna Seben, a female half-elf ranger 1/cleric 5 of Fharlaghn who has been providing the majority of the healing in the party.  The only other healer in the party is a druid, but because she is both a steam genasi and a weretiger (long story, see my story hour The World of Low'verok - The Furious Fated for details), she's only a fourth level druid (7th level overall) with limited spells and healing capacity.  I've given the druid a magic item to help her heal, but it's not enough for the challenges they face, given their current tactics.The other problem is that Jenna has been with some of the party members since before they even formed their current adventuring group, so one of the players has good reason to be somewhat attached to both her and Gorf, the other NPC.  Jenna is the only strong healer, a halfway decent archer, and the only one with any real strong religious knowledge or connections.  Losing her would be a blow to the party.  Because she's a cleric, I could easily use her religious connections to call her away (she's needed in another part of the country for example), but because she follows a deity of travel, I can't see her superiors calling her away from a party that has traveled so widely.  It would be hard to do away with her in combat, as the party protects her pretty zealously, for she is their only strong healer and the party is painfully aware of that fact.  The other long-time NPC is Gorf, a flumph wizard 4.  Yes, you may all laugh now.  He was originally rescued by some party members after being trapped by kobolds and feels he owes them a life-debt.  As at the time the party had no flash and bang spellcasters, I had Gorf be an evoker-type (though not a specialist).  The other PC wizard we had in the party just died, and he wasn't much for combat with spells (he was a buffer type of wizard).So, if the party loses Gorf they lose their wizard and expert on magical phenomena, as well as a convenient NPC they can leave to do research while they go do other things.  He'd be somewhat tough to kill, due to a high AC, and again the party protects him.There's a third NPC, a radiance genasi bard called Brightfire that is having a fling with a PC.  However, because I've written her personality to be somewhat flighty, and the party just had a very bad encounter where things went terribly wrong, there's ample excuse for her to leave (but such plot potential with love letters!).  Unfortunately for me my "troublesome" NPCs are too valuable to the party to kill or dispatch outright.  I'm debating having another PC run them for me, but running two PCs is hard (as I have ample reason to know).  But I think I still might do it to maintain my sanity.  The other thing is to get one of the NPCs embroiled into a nasty plot... which is always fun for me.</blockquote>

Verification