Greetings,
For a campaign I'm starting up I need to create an NPC that will grow with the players and actually be a full member of the party.
The Context of this need is that the campaign will feature heavily in the party trying to recover the lost shards of this NPC's memory/soul.
To start the NPC is an Android who the Players find, along with Shard 1, on a mysterious Asteroid bound station. The NPC then get's revived by the players and initially serves to point the way to the second shard and draw the party into the grand conflict.
What I've been struggling with is what class to make them and what theme. The concept is that the NPC is the preserved soul and memories of a Paladin of Shelyn, in their past they were a Holy Gun who sought redemption through Shelyn's love but now post gap, where no one remembers much of anything, and Shelyn features only in the background I'm struggling to capture the idea of a lost soul brought back in the future for one last chance. I want to explicitly avoid Solarian because while it feels right to go full holy avenger I have a hard time trying to fit that into the mindset of the NPC.
Currently I have a Mechanic build that uses the enhanced abilities of the exocortex to rain laser fire down on the enemy, but I also have a soldier idea that revolves around being able to open up the fight from range but then closing in to bring divine justice down on the foe.
Any other ideas come to mind for this build or am I on the right track with what I've already posted?
Be careful that your NPC doesn't outshine the PCs. Having a character that can rain death and destruction from ranged or melee sounds like it could quickly become the all-star of the group, and you never want a non-player character to steal the PCs' thunder like that.
Honestly, if you must have this character stay with the group and fight alongside them, it's probably better if they are a support character, like a Healing/Empath connection Mystic or an Envoy.
Also, there are separate rules for making NPCs in the Alien Archive; I would stick to those so the character doesn't have all of the intricate details that PCs have.
I would ask yourself: do you want to play this character as an NPC alongside PCs who are supposed to be the stars of the show, or do you want to PLAY the character, yourself, and BE the star of the show? If the answer is the former, nerf the character accordingly. If the latter, save the idea until you get a chance to play for yourself.
All that said, I really like a multiclass Soldier 3 (or 5)/Exocortex Mechanic X build that uses Overcharge to buff energy ranged weapons or Powered melee weapons.
Yeah this style of combat NPC actually stems from a bit of a tradition with my gaming group. Since it's often just three players and a GM we have usually given the party a supportive NPC. I was actually thinking about how an aggressive build could still be supportive and I actually thought along the same lines, Start of as either a soldier or mechanic with just a simple longarm, but use more actions to do things like provide cover fire or create openings so that the party can take on larger threats. I really like the idea of supporting by directly boosting the power of Allied weapons through overcharge, if that's even possible. Or throwing up cover with Barricade then go in with the melee character or dash off to draw fire away from the party.
I think 5 Levels of Hit and Run Soldier with the rest into exo mechanic providing buffs might be the way to go
Edit:
My group consists of one player who is about as experienced as I am, so about four years of Pathfinder, and two newer players.
My experienced player tends towards finesse builds and actually picked operative as his class of choice. Of the other two I have one person who tends towards rather unusual builds that most of the time work out but he's more than capable of playing more down to earth characters, I think he was going to be the rain fire from a distance guy with a Combat drone Mechanic built as a turret, I also suggested he be the 'computer and tech' guy for the party. The last person is honestly my only concern because while he's also new a lot of his stuff is somewhat powergamer builds or more recently a necromancer built in an explicitly neutral to good setting with a large number of Paladins around (We were doing a holy crusade sort of game) Really I don't know what he'll do but I suspect we'll be lacking in caster support, which is fine by me I do think caster NPCs are harder to make background characters.
One system I use is what we refereed to as a "Boon" system in practice it gives player characters an added ability either of their own design approved by the DM or a cheeky bit of another rule that exists already. Usually this is enough to allow NPCs that are combatants to be less powerful than PCs by nature of not having a boon, currently we limit boons to 10th level effects knowing full well that stronger boons mean stronger enemies to match, which often leads more to flavor than to abuse. The only abuse I had was my least experienced player who built the Necromancer with the ability to cast Power Word Kill once a day, eventually we had to explain to him that while it is a powerful tool using an ability to circumvent story does cause problems. Hence the current level restriction
If you have the Pact Worlds book then you should definitely look into the Divine Champion archetype. Shelyn while having gone quiet still does provide divine power to her followers (or at the very least Zon is picking up the slack without telling anybody).
It would be very flavorful, that said, it would require you to pick a class for him and stick to it. I would suggest making him a full-class soldier since it fits best thematically and a paladin out of time would likely have a difficult time adjusting to technology enough to really fit the mechanic class, at least i think.
OH! Have you considered an Envoy? I'm pretty sure they fill the old Bard's niche of the party buffing support class. A Divine Champion Envoy would probably make a very solid support character for your party while retaining a hint of magical support.
The Divine Champion archetype does a wonderful job of adding a taste of paladin to any other class, giving access to some connection spells as well as defensive abilities and a Pseudo-Smite Evil.
Hazrond wrote: If you have the Pact Worlds book then you should definitely look into the Divine Champion archetype. Shelyn while having gone quiet still does provide divine power to her followers (or at the very least Zon is picking up the slack without telling anybody).
It would be very flavorful, that said, it would require you to pick a class for him and stick to it. I would suggest making him a full-class soldier since it fits best thematically and a paladin out of time would likely have a difficult time adjusting to technology enough to really fit the mechanic class, at least i think.
Edit: OH! Have you considered an Envoy? I'm pretty sure they fill the old Bard's niche of the party buffing support class. A Divine Champion Envoy would probably make a very solid support character for your party while retaining a hint of magical support.
Thankfully I just got the Pact Worlds book for it's flavor.
And I have to say I might go Divine Champion on that note maybe as an Envoy or sticking to their past as a soldier.
If the NPC hangs around the PCs, I'd go Expert or Spellcaster Array, Humanoid graft, Android subtype graft, Envoy or Mystic class graft (focus on healing and/or support), Phrenic or Synthetic template graft;
If he only shows up every now and them for big events, I suggest Combatant Array, Humanoid graft, Android subtype graft, Soldier class graft (focus on heavy weapons), cybernetic template graft;
These shards you mentioned they'll recover could each give him a new special ability; I'd suggest Gaze, Regeneration, Spell Resistance, Fly, Frightful Presence, and so on.
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