Just curious to see how other GMs are handling the potential myriad of support cast that can accompany the PCs along on their adventure. Do you limit the number they can take? Do you have the PCs run those characters for the mechanical bits but you play the personality? Do you bear the extra load in combat?
I don't want to shun my group away from bringing along the NPCs and develop those relationships, but frankly, I don't want to run them in combat given everything else I am on the hook for, especially since this is the 1st game I am running completely via VT (D20 Pro).
Just fishing to see what others have done.
The mass of NPC's has been a weak link in my game, to be honest. At the point of Sword of Valor, you have to deal with seven concurrent NPC's at the same time and I just can't keep up with so many of them and give them individual face time. Otherwise I'd spend most of the game sessions talking to myself, instead of the players having the spotlight.
Luckily, my players already view taking NPC's with them to fights as a nuisance, so I won't have to deal with them during the exploration of Citadel Drezen. Aside from Nurah, who will insist on going, but that's okay, because she is an antagonist. Irabeth most probably will be turned aside by the players, anyway.
If your players are experienced enough (and willing to give it a go) it can be fun to have players roleplay the NPCs part (in effect running two players for roleplay purposes).
As the AP progresses you will only have to worry about them between scenes as their combat potential decreases. Book 1 was the toughest for me, in combat I had my players run some of them. But they have taken to saving and trying to redeem everyone so the list pf NPCs keeps growing.
I let them lean on them quite a bit through book 1, less so on book 2 (they took everyone but Horgus, but only had 1 to 3 npcs allies with them for encounters at a time).
Now that we're starting book 3 and it's been made clear how dangerous everything is going to be, they're only taking specific ones they've made allowances for with the leadership feat (so far only one).