I am currently gming a good friend of mine through a solo rogue campaign and am planning on offering him an NPC to aid him in his trials in the next session. I've done some searching and have had some ideas, but none have truly stuck with me. A reach cleric, battle oracle, and melee arcane duelist have all been considerations.
The character idea should not just work mechanically, but huge bonus points for an interesting character concept that I can really work with. We plan on taking this campaign into the higher levels.
A little information on the specifics of the game:
He is playing a human dual dagger knife master/scout. I've already run him through most of Gambler's Quest from Expeditious Retreat (which I relocated to take place in Turtleback Ferry in Varisia). Following the conclusion of that I have plans to take him through Master of the Fallen Fortress (where the staff from Gambler's Quest is located) and Murder's Mark (his character is born and raised in Ilsurian). After the conclusion of Murder's Mark I was planning on taking him through the Olindor trilogy by Expeditious Retreat, but after browsing through them, I'm not too keen on them. So I'm thinking I might run some custom urban content for him in either Kaer Maga or Korvosa (likely borrowing from Curse of the Crimson Throne).
So those are my plans for the semi-near future. As I said, I want this NPC to not only work well with the rogue in battle, but to develop an interesting bond with the character as well. I look forward to any suggestions you may provide. Thanks for taking the time to read over my plea.
SBI
Even though this post garnered no response, I figured I would post an update on what I decided to do.
I will still run him through MotFF to retrieve the staff, but after that I've decided to use the Pathfinder Society NPC rescued in the fortress as a hook to take him to Magnimar (to learn more about the staff) and morph the campaign into the Shattered Star AP.
So, since running an AP with only one PC and one NPC was madness, I decided to propose the idea of using gestalt characters. He thought it was fitting, so he morphed his rogue into a level 4 rogue/inquisitor.
I ended up making the NPC an agathion-blooded aasimar oracle of life/paladin after reading this thread. I'm very excited to see how it goes, and Kaer Maga is one of my favorite locales in Golarion so I am very much looking forward to that leg of the AP. I just hope he survives.
Thank you for the replies. I'm aware of all of your concerns and they are in the back of my mind. I think I will play the NPC more as a healbot in combat, stepping up into melee to flank or assist as needed.
The lack of arcane spellcasting will probably be an issue later on in the AP, and we will put our heads together to figure the best way to address it. I'm assuming we will need to add another player to our ranks, which around here is quite the difficult task.
Also, one thing you may consider for the future is giving him a free animal companion or magical beast as a friend, assuming he can procure one through roleplay. The animal / magical beast could level up with him like an animal companion, or it could actually be an intelligent creature and have class levels of its own. This would give him a flanking buddy that would be very loyal to the player. Just don't force this sort of character onto him.
Make an Inquisitor of rogue oriented deity. I played in FR game and had an Inquisitor of Mask with a fighter and rogue a party of 3. We were all members of the guild.
An inquisitor has the skill set that compliments the rogue. They are good in combat and like to flank targets to get the team work feats going. The divine spells will be a great help.
Since this an NPC you should use the NPC stat array and the Inquisitor won't be too powerful. Inquisitors are quite MAD and if they have high stats get really insanely powerful.
@Ranzo: Thanks for the comments. I guess you didn't read the follow-up post, hehe. I will definitely be altering encounters in the AP to better fit the party makeup.
@Inlaa: Are you speaking of the rogue/inquisitor or the paladin/oracle? I love the idea, but I would definitely have it happen naturally throughout the course of the AP. Honestly, I think the companion would better suit the NPC since he is a NG Paladin of Gozreh, which I chose to mesh well with the whole bestial aspect of the agathion-blooded aasimar. Also, he is a wolfscarred oracle of life. He is a true defender of all things natural in this world.
@Voska: He chose to be an inquisitor of Erastil due to his ties with Ilsurian and Turtleback Ferry. He also chose the Heresy inquisition because he felt it fit well with his concept.