NPC as a character

[aco175]

Interesting thoughts thank you for the responses.

I first started playing the character to have one of each role in the party, and thought that they would need some healing to last for more encounters per day. Another reason to wanting/needing the 4th character in the party is that I do not have a lot of time to devote to the campaign by altering encounters. Most of the stuff is piecemealed encounters from different modules played as is, granted without the 5th player already.

Another reason, is I enjoy having a minor character in the party. I do not think that my ego gets in the way and I try to steal the spotlight. I find that I can always have bad things happen to my pc, or he can have a piece of information that keeps things going without having it look that disbelievable.

I'm just finding the number of powers is getting longer and more time consuming and thought that making the choices less by limiting the powers, feats, skills, etc, would make a bit more generic figure easier to run in combats.

 

[renau1g]

I have 2 players for my home game so I either need to let them play 2 pc's each or play a DMPC, this was both of their first 4e games so we agreed it wasn't a great idea to control 2 pcs each. They are playing a warden and a rogue, so I offered to play a cleric. I remove dailies, but otherwise keep it the same. I am a goliath Str-based cleric, with a greataxe. The group is fine with it, but I jump into the RP side quite a bit so he's not a puppet or follower. I'm thinking once we get up a few levels, my PC might leave and give them followers of a level or two lower (maybe around 5th?)

 

[Shin Okada]

What are the classes of those 3 PCs?

Additional NPC party member may work. But not the most enjoyable way IMO. It will either increase the DM time per turn, or, if you handle that NPC to a player, give that player 2 turns.

It is rather easy to adjust encounters of 4e adventures. Basically, all you need to do is remove 2/5 XP worth of monsters.

Then, encourage playsers to make workable 3-men party via multiclassing or maybe new hybrid rule. Or, maybe one PC can play a defender or striker like leader, such as strength-based cleric.

In 4e, there are tons of ways for non clerics (or non leaders) to have descent healing powers.

And often, retraining may take care of such problems.