[PF] Building a non-combat DMPC

[Da'Shain]

So yes, I am aware that DMPCs tend to be divisive, and I expressed some doubts myself, but my players have requested that I work one in. This is mostly due to the campaign we're in taking a turn towards mystery and manipulation (which I told the players would happen before we started), and the party consisting of people who mow through equal-CR'd combats like grass while having, at most, an Int of 9 (seriously, one has a Psicrystal and it is by far the smartest thing in the party). I don't want to just say "too bad, you should have coordinated more during character creation," but I also don't want to rewrite the campaign because I dislike straight slugfest campaigns, so the players suggested a DMPC to make the more skill-based challenges easier.

Anyway, one of the themes of the campaign is unraveling patterns, and I meant it to try out Psionics with this particular group, so the obvious choice is making a Cryptic, possibly with a level or two of Elocater thrown in. However, due to the aforementioned knowledge of DMPCs often causing strife, I've never actually run one when I DM, so I'd appreciate any general advice people have for what to do and what not to do.

My specific concept is of, essentially, an old crazy hobo vandal who knows things he has no business knowing and follows the party because he senses patterns swirling in their wake. I figure I'll introduce him next session in jail and scheduled for slave labor; the party'll be passing through and he'll ramble crazily but say one or two important pieces of info, enough to pique interest. If the party decides to, they can free him, and if they don't, he's intrigued enough by them to escape and follow them. And crazy enough to sneak in and use Hidden Body on one of them while they sleep, so that he can observe them from inside for awhile and I can pop him out either when they get lucky enough on night watch or when someone gets dispelled, as a surprise.

He'll be built to be good at Bluff, Stealth, Knowledges and various trap skills, all weaknesses of this party, but he's Old and has penalties to physical stats, and his only real attack is his Disrupt Pattern, which is nice but not especially relevant at the amount of hurt this party already dishes out. And, of course, he's a crazy hobo, so he'll mostly take direction but has the opportunity for some levity thrown in, and will probably cause some distrust (he's CN). Does this guy sound like he's too likely to steal the show, or any of the myriad complaints I've heard about DMPCs?

[Red Fel]

So, let me see if I understand correctly.

1. Your party is optimized to shred and/or melt face, but they fall over their own feet when it comes to skill-based challenges.

2. You prefer a campaign that's not a constant slug-fest, so you want to throw skill-based challenges in, but your players aren't geared for it and you don't want to ruin their fun.

3. Your plan is to introduce an NPC that does the skill checks for them.

Is this correct? Because if it is, you really haven't accomplished anything. The PCs will still be geared for combat and fail at skill checks. But now you'll have somebody who can do all of those skill checks for them. Which means that you have replaced the notion of PCs engaging in skill checks with a random DM dice roll to see if things go wrong periodically.

That doesn't really help anything. Your players still won't be engaging in skill checks, you're simply creating the illusion of them. The players will still be combat-focused, because that's how their characters are built and that's what they like, and these fake skill checks run by a DMPC are simply going to fill time for them between combat encounters.

I don't see the character as stealing the show. Rather, I see him as extraneous. You are introducing a skill-based DMPC so that you can implement skill checks for the DMPC to perform. He exists solely to justify his existence. He serves no function except to function. It's just not cricket.

[JeminiZero]

It sounds to me like what your players are REALLY trying to say is that they WANT a straight slugfest campaign. What they seem to be hoping for is less a DMPC, and more a quest giving macguffin (basically a magical artifact that will tell them where to go next, and who to kill).

In my very humble (and possibly very wrong) opinion, right now, it sounds like crazy old hobo will steal the show by virtue of being the primary actor in the story. He will sniff around for clues, analyze the evidence, and interrogate suspects (basically you talking to yourself about the story), while your players distract themselves with amusing smartphone games. They will likely remain so disengaged until such time, assassins pop up to kill the hobo, for getting too close to the truth, at which time they will swing into action doing what it is they do best.

As an alternative, instead of putting a DMPC into the party, GIVE them the skills to handle the story. Maybe have a friendly higher power loan them some artifacts (to be returned at the end of the chapter) which treats them as having max ranks in skills of whatever is needed, as a rogue of their level.

[Da'Shain]

Essentially, yes. This isn't my ideal solution, but I don't want to ask the players to rebuild, and I have no interest in rewriting the entire campaign to just be combat. This way, they'll have a character that they can get attached to (or be repulsed by), someone who's competent but crazy and thus needs their direction (so they feel like they're still in control even when they're not the ones rolling) and some incentive to invest in skills with spells or +skill items so that they can help out (they have shown interest in the more skill-based side of the campaign and are quite good at finding things and healing things; it's just that they all had only 2 or 3 skill points a level and focused on mostly the same things).

Last session had only one, relatively simple combat and several hours of exploration, discovery and intrigue, yet afterwards the players all told me it was the best session yet, so it's not that they all only like combat, it's just that the party they came up with is not suited to certain types of skills, and they're already attached to their characters so I don't want them to have to rebuild. And like I said, this was their suggestion, not mine, and I'm still not going to implement it if I really think he'll be either useless or annoying. So yeah, he would exist essentially as the skillmonkey their characters are not and will mostly act as they direct, with the possibility of new plot points that can be introduced through him.

It sounds to me like what your players are REALLY trying to say is that they WANT a straight slugfest campaign. What they seem to be hoping for is less a DMPC, and more a quest giving macguffin (basically a magical artifact that will tell them where to go next, and who to kill).

In my very humble (and possibly very wrong) opinion, right now, it sounds like crazy old hobo will steal the show by virtue of being the primary actor in the story. He will sniff around for clues, analyze the evidence, and interrogate suspects (basically you talking to yourself about the story), while your players distract themselves with amusing smartphone games. They will likely remain so disengaged until such time, assassins pop up to kill the hobo, for getting too close to the truth, at which time they will swing into action doing what it is they do best.

As an alternative, instead of putting a DMPC into the party, GIVE them the skills to handle the story. Maybe have a friendly higher power loan them some artifacts (to be returned at the end of the chapter) which treats them as having max ranks in skills of whatever is needed, as a rogue of their level.

I was originally also worried that this represented a fundamental disconnect between the game I wanted and the game they wanted, but as I said, the players all told me (and my observations bear out) that they had the most fun at the session that was least about combat. And they're not absolutely incompetent; their Perception, Sense Motive, Heal and Intimidate abilities are quite good, and they all have a few social bonuses through backstory with specific factions that will crop up. Perhaps I overstated their lack of skills in the first post. But they felt frustrated that they were literally unable to lie to any convincing degree and that their only real option was tramping noisily up to enemies and attacking instead of talking them down, or walking into traps and hoping for the best instead of disarming them. Crazy hobo will not be the investigator (or not the most competent one); he'll be the sneaky knowledge guy who's actually not nearly as good at noticing things as they are.

[John Longarrow]

Oddly, I've been working on something that may work well for your group.

Intelligent Scrying Mirror.

It gets a bunch of odd knowledge and metal skills. It can show pictures, maps, and areas. It also shows what it wants to, not always what the PCs want.

Doesn't talk to anyone but the Players though, so they have to interact with NPCs.

Best of all, PCs can find the mirror in an adventure and, as the mirror has its own goals, you have a ready made reason for it to go byebye when you are done with it.