Were-PCs and multiple PC's

[Kasheer]

I'm starting a new campaign with a couple friends from work. The plot may or may not involve vampires/were-beasts. If one of the PCs are bitten and "turned" should I let them keep their character but roleplay as necessary or turn that character into an NPC? Also, wouldn't that make them a little too powerful (i.e. a 5th lev fighter infected as a were-tiger)???

And the story would need 4 characters to be effective. I have 2 players. They suggested that one of them RP 2 PC's and I RP an NPC. thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[Kanegrundar]

The WotC site offered up racial classes for several were-beasts. I think were-tiger was one of them, but if not it shouldn't be too difficult to modify one to your liking.

As for multiple PC's. I tend to play with smaller groups (2-3 palyers), so I allow them to each play 2 characters. Sometimes the characters are RP'ed the same, but that rarely happens. It's worked out pretty good for us.

Kane

 

[Voadam]

I hate taking away characters. I've run games where the PCs were infected with weretiger lycanthropy, turned into a wight, gain wierd chaos powers, become a divine champion/partial avatar in game and kept them with their characters. The power disparities are an issue but these things happening are part of the game and no reason to necessarily end the story.

I would suggest having PCs each run only 1 character and simply having weaker npcs join them.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

The WotC site offered up racial classes for several were-beasts. I think were-tiger was one of them, but if not it shouldn't be too difficult to modify one to your liking.

Here they are. It covers all the standard lycanthropes, plus vampires, liches, gosts, half-dragons, half-demons and fiendish creatures.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I knew there were a few, but I wasn't sure if they did all the MM Lycanthropes (although I'm sure I downloaded all of them at the time).

Kane

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I tend to dislike having multiple PCs per player, it works fine tactically, but the RP severely suffers.

The Auld Grump

 

[woodelf]

I'm starting a new campaign with a couple friends from work. The plot may or may not involve vampires/were-beasts. If one of the PCs are bitten and "turned" should I let them keep their character but roleplay as necessary or turn that character into an NPC? Also, wouldn't that make them a little too powerful (i.e. a 5th lev fighter infected as a were-tiger)???

And the story would need 4 characters to be effective. I have 2 players. They suggested that one of them RP 2 PC's and I RP an NPC. thoughts? Suggestions?

Ideally, i'd find more players rather than have the players run multiple NPCs. Second choice would be to simply retool the game to accommodate only 2 PCs--if it's simply breadth of abilities that is the issue, use something like the gestalt classes option from Unearthed Arcana. More PCs than players would be my distant 3rd choice, from experience. It just hurts the RPing part of the RPG too much, IME. I had a long-running campaign that started out with multiple characters per player, for exactly the same reason (lack of players). Once we had enough players (well, a bit afterwards, because we waited for a more-natural time in the story), all the "extra" PCs went away in one fashion or another, and it was a much better game for it. But i'd decided almost right away, when the group was still "too small", that i didn't like how the game played with multiple characters per player. I wouldn't do it again.

Also, a question: how is a character an NPC if it's played by a player? Or, rather, how is playing 2 PCs different from playing 1 PC and 1 "NPC"?