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The Non Combatant Prince(ss) or How to Abuse a Warlord
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<blockquote data-quote="Somebloke" data-source="post: 5142272" data-attributes="member: 67268"><p>May I make a suggestion? </p><p> </p><p>I have been in a very similar situation in my campaign, with the heroes escorting a princess across a continent on a pilgrimage, so I may have some insight into the matter. After six levels of effectively sitting back and doing very little (with grumbles from the party that she could be a bit more helpful) I statted up a character sheet- designing her as a 'monster' with encounter powers only and limited 'per encounter' healing surges. </p><p> </p><p>My first question is :Who will be running said princess? Either way presents problems- </p><p> </p><p>- The DM runs the princess- this of course leads to the problems associated with any DM run character. I really avoided this path, since the players were still a little touchy about a her vs. them moment (roleplaying only) earlier and I really didn't want to tempt fate (I also now tend to have her 'decide' things and 'give orders' based on a party vote made beforehand). </p><p> </p><p>- The player(s) run the character. I've tried this, deliberately slimming down the character abilities to present her as a playable 'monster'. Despite the stripped down abilities the character either presented a headache for whoever had control over her (oh great, so I have yet another set of abilities to figure out?) or used a little <em>too</em> effectively by the party synergizer/powergamer. </p><p> </p><p>I decided to take a third option. I statted out some warlord/cleric/bard powers (one 'level step' below the player's highest level encounter power) and printed them out onto cards (total of ten, for four players). I would then hand them out to the characters to use as free actions during the turn- simulating her contributions to the battle over the encounter. It freed me up, it freed the players up and it gave an impression that she was actually doing something (I treated a 'free' encounter power each as an extra player's worth of xp for the xp budget). </p><p> </p><p>Anyway- I just wanted to share, since my experiments with a non-player-character in the party led at first to tension and/or dissatisfied players. Feel free to ignore all of the above. I will repeat though- if you do want to include her, use the templates given in the DMG for monsters rather than as a fully-bulked out player. It will be so much easier.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Somebloke, post: 5142272, member: 67268"] May I make a suggestion? I have been in a very similar situation in my campaign, with the heroes escorting a princess across a continent on a pilgrimage, so I may have some insight into the matter. After six levels of effectively sitting back and doing very little (with grumbles from the party that she could be a bit more helpful) I statted up a character sheet- designing her as a 'monster' with encounter powers only and limited 'per encounter' healing surges. My first question is :Who will be running said princess? Either way presents problems- - The DM runs the princess- this of course leads to the problems associated with any DM run character. I really avoided this path, since the players were still a little touchy about a her vs. them moment (roleplaying only) earlier and I really didn't want to tempt fate (I also now tend to have her 'decide' things and 'give orders' based on a party vote made beforehand). - The player(s) run the character. I've tried this, deliberately slimming down the character abilities to present her as a playable 'monster'. Despite the stripped down abilities the character either presented a headache for whoever had control over her (oh great, so I have yet another set of abilities to figure out?) or used a little [I]too[/I] effectively by the party synergizer/powergamer. I decided to take a third option. I statted out some warlord/cleric/bard powers (one 'level step' below the player's highest level encounter power) and printed them out onto cards (total of ten, for four players). I would then hand them out to the characters to use as free actions during the turn- simulating her contributions to the battle over the encounter. It freed me up, it freed the players up and it gave an impression that she was actually doing something (I treated a 'free' encounter power each as an extra player's worth of xp for the xp budget). Anyway- I just wanted to share, since my experiments with a non-player-character in the party led at first to tension and/or dissatisfied players. Feel free to ignore all of the above. I will repeat though- if you do want to include her, use the templates given in the DMG for monsters rather than as a fully-bulked out player. It will be so much easier. [/QUOTE]
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