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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Skyscraper" data-source="post: 5242755" data-attributes="member: 48518">Thanks for your insight everyone, this is helpful in refining my thoughts on how I'd like to handle the NPCs. Also, not having read further in the AP, I was not aware of other NPCs to come.Thinking out loud: in games i've DMed, the NPCs have always participated as best they could in battles. They even occasionally offered advice, though decision making was mostly left to players of course. The point being: it's fun to have NPCs tag along and develop some depth in personality, but I could often never have achieved that if the NPCs don't help the PCs in battle, if they don't "do the chores" along with the PCs but instead hang back.The problem is that with 4E came stuff like: 2 more NPCs that battle with the PCs means more enemies are required for a balanced outcome and each battle takes longer. Which is a bummer because 4E has long battles. (You can argue it was always like that, but 4E is more attuned to "balance" issues than other versions and is more influenced by the number of PCs and allies, according to my experience.)So with this in mind, my idea here is to try to find the right balance between including NPCs, which I probably want to do to some degree, while keeping the battles interesting for the players and not too long.It seems like most DMs have completely left out NPCs from the battles. I'm not too fond of this option, if others have done otherwise (or even similarly) I'd love to hear about it.One thing I've changed after reading this thread and others on this forum, is to use the Companion rules for NPCs from the DMG2 since it nerfs the ally-NPC power a bit. This is a very practical solution that fits my approach.Sky</blockquote>

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