Cren's page

In the last adventure with 4th level PCs, I had four NPC party members. One was Maphis (Commoner 2/Expert 2) that was hired as a local guide. I also had a trio of corsairs (all Rogue 3 with the swashbuckler archetype) from Andoran that the party had befriended. Maphis survived the adventure, but the three corsairs all met their ends (one to a random encounter with monitor lizards attacking in tall grass, the other two dies at the hands of a very tough advanced large mud elemental). These characters never seemed like a crutch to us.

I'm glad that things worked out for you. I don't think that npcs have to be a crutch, but I've had bad experiences with them in the past.

When if ever is it ok to have a npc party member?

Sometimes you dont have enough players, or the story would benefit from a npc party member, but in my experience there are a host of problems that go along with including one. From the players perspective it is easy to see a these npcs in several ways.
1. The party police who's job it is to control what th pcs can do.
2. The baby-sitter who's job it is to point where the party needs to go and save their bums.
3. The marysue, because the DM ( am I allowed to say that?) wants to run and play at the same time.

As for the gm it is too easy to use npcs as a goto crutch for gming. And making marysue is easy to do without noticing . I think it's never ok to make a npc that is more awesome than the pcs. An advanced and self aware gm would be able to avoid these, and there are instances where an npc party member would be apropriate.

Do you have any advice or stories about successful, or unsuccessful npc party members?

Cren wrote:

I liked the concept of words of power, but thought that it was to Restricted being based spell levels.at low levels words of power are almost worthless. I think the words of power system would work better on a point buy system like 3.5 psionics. This would allow the versatility that words of power are supposed to grant.

May I direct you to Lock Ward, A.K.A. Brew Potion without the feat or level restriction (ok, ok, it caps at Effect level 7)?

That would work as a great bridge until your high enough level to make use of words of power hmm..

Trust me your not the only one. I thought a man with no name/ Roland char would be awesome. The only problem I can see is that these characters tend to be loners, and pathfinder is a cooperative game. I kill with my heart

I liked the concept of words of power, but thought that it was to Restricted being based spell levels.at low levels words of power are almost worthless. I think the words of power system would work better on a point buy system like 3.5 psionics. This would allow the versatility that words of power are supposed to grant.

Well I was actually planing on leaving the players with their stuff for gameplay flow concerns. I kno this is going to leave disconnect between story and gameplay, but it's necessary. The best reason I can come up with is their captors have no need to disarm them because they dont fear them. Btw the starting level is 2

I just wanted some advice on starting a new story, here are my current plans:

The pcs are captured and taken to castle Thorne. They are blindfolded on the way there. Be sure to describe the hard feel of their captors. In the cell their thrown in they meet another prisoner named john who says that they have been captured by the steelflesh.  Jhon is a former guard 15 years who has resigned to his fate. The steelflesh have been capturing people of talent and bringing them to castle Thorne. They take them to a room where prisoners minds are transfused into the warforged like steelflesh. If they find the candidates mind unsatisfactory they send them to work in the steel minds below castle Thorne.  The pcs find a way to escape the cell, but are herded to the mines. There they encounter several waves of kobold slavers. Expect the mines to take the majority of the time.  Finally the pcs escape the mines into the underdark where they are greeted by myceloid ( bestiary 3) who claims to be leading them to the suface but leads them to his house and attempts to eat them. The pcs find a secret passage to the surface in the house where they are finally free.