SunRaven01
First Post
I have explained to my players that due to having a large party (7 players+dm) I don't want to run the NPC's in combat as well, with the additional monsters I would have to use to balance the encounters and the extra time this would take. The characters should treat the NPC's as actually helping them out even if we aren't running them.
Personally I would have preferred if there weren't a bunch of NPC's tagging along with the party, but it seems to me that there will be some weird holes in the story if they aren't there. The above solution makes it possible to have them tagging along without making combat slow.
I left Haddin behind -- only Crystin and Torrent are with the party in the fire forest, but instead gave the wizard a little "friend" with one of the early goblin shamans that the group encounters. I RP'd him as being minimally intelligent, so he can't talk, but if they ask him questions, he can usually get them pointed in the right direction. Since all his powers are fire keyword, he's of minimal help with anything indomitable, which means most of the time he's just flavor.
I'm planning on dumping Crystin and Torrent as soon as I can find a point in the story to do so, although Crystin's visions were pretty useful this past game session.