[3.5] DMPC - Am I a Terrible Person?

[Thurbane]

So...

I'm running a mini campaign for two players, as an 8 week (or so) "prequel" of sorts to my full campaign, which will start when another player returns from an overseas holiday (with the possibility of two more players depending on family commitments - they both have young children).

Current campaign takes place in the same setting (slightly homebrewed Greyhawk), but when the full game starts, the current characters will be "retired", and everyone will be starting fresh with new characters from level 1. The two existing players will have their PCs as "backups", should anything happen to their characters in the main campaign.

Current party is PC1 (Aasimar Paladin 2 - Complete Champion non-casting variant); PC2 (Human Ranger 3 - Complete Champion non-casting variant); and then there's the NPC (who's in some danger of becoming a DMPC) Human Favored Soul 3.

I threw a FS in as the party needed healing at low levels, and due to quirk in my current campaign, only spontaneous casters are allowed. I gave him the Lost Tradition 3rd party feat, which allows him to cast off Int (his god is quite scholarly, and also makes the character less MAD). Here's the character sheet: Farrengaur Rudhale

Anyhow, I'm doing my best to have him not outshine the two PCs, and pretty much let them run him in combat anyway. I don't let him use adventure meta-knowledge, leaving all major decisions up to the 2 PCs.

So...I think I'm doing the juggling act OK so far in not letting him become a DMPC and overshadow the PCs.

Any advice on how not to screw over my players? They both had the choice to chose from virtually any spontaneous casting class (Sorcerer, Beguiler, Dread Necro etc.), but both chose melee/missile weapon types.

Cheers - T

[Flickerdart]

As long as you're never fighting yourself (as in, directing the DMPC to target monsters that you as the DM control) you should be fine. Stick to heals (yes yes in-combat healing, very bad) or buffs (I cast Heroics on a young player's orc once and gave him Deflect Arrows, he was so excited, do stuff like that).

[TheIronGolem]

DMPC's aren't inherently bad, and it sounds like you're doing all right so far with it. Letting the players control them in combat definitely goes a long way towards alleviating concerns about your ability to be fair and objective with them.

I also recommend having them stay quiet in "what do we do now?" situations unless specifically asked for advice by the PC's; this can keep it from looking like you're using the NPC as a mouthpiece to tell them what to do. Additionally, I find it's a good idea to have them gain XP at a slower rate than the PC's, especially if they start at a higher level than the PC's - it lets the PC's grow beyond the DMPC's power level and get a cool watershed moment where they realize they've gone from being The Kid to The Guy.

[BWR]

Sounds like you are using DMPCs exactly as they should be used - to aid but not overshadow the PCs. To enable the PCs, not remove agency.
In a pinch they can give suggestions, hints and nudges about what to do if the players are truly stuck, but this should be kept to a minimum and generally only when asked by the PCs. They can also serve as the in-game 'are you sure you want to do that?'.

[nedz]

I would treat such an NPC as a party resource and give them half xp. In other words let the players run the character — though you have an implicit veto, which hopefully you never have to use.

[Thurbane]

In other words let the players run the character — though you have an implicit veto, which hopefully you never have to use.

I do try to do this - unless they have him do something absolutely suicidal and/or totally out of character on a PCs behalf, I'm happy to let them make his decisions. So far, the furthest this has gotten is having him arch an eyebrow in respose to steipping up to the front line of a melee while the PCs quaffed potions. He did so, but made it pretty clear to his fellow party members that he wasn't overly impressed.

[Reogan]

You know the "problem" players have with forgetting that their familiars/mounts/hirelings are around except when it's convenient? This is virtue for the DMPC. Unless it's actively doing something, leave it doing nothing. At least, don't mention what it's doing. Leave it as almost a ghost, silent and translucent. It's hard to feel overshadowed by a ghost.

[nedz]

Another thing you can do is swap them out every few levels. This keeps things a little fresher and stops people getting too attached to them.

[Reogan]

And, epecially with the tier difference, don't out-optimize the players. Or outshine. Stick to the role of healbot, or whatever. Buffer. Just don't let the DMPC be cooler. If you can help it, don't let it be cool at all.

[Sir Garanok]

Use him as a heal bot,no fancy spells.
Clerics get along with paladins so some buffs would be ok,unless they do something totally opposite to his alignment.

Try leaving him "behind" as much as possible.

[VoxRationis]

The problem people have with DMPCs is that they have a tendency to become the stars of the show when used incorrectly. I wouldn't ban the character fighting or treat him as an item belonging to the party—I'd just keep in mind that he's not your protagonist. Here are my suggestions:

1) Don't get attached to the character. If he dies, he dies, and his resurrection is the duty of the PCs, if they so choose.

2) Don't overshadow the PCs, at least not consistently. They don't want to become the cohorts of your DMPC. If the dice fall such that the DMPC is the most effective member of the party for an encounter, don't sweat it—just try not to make it a repeat occurrence and make sure it's because of how the encounter, perfectly fairly, played out.

3) Related to the above sentence, play the character fairly. Make them of a level comparable to that of the PCs he's traveling with and only let him use abilities that a PC of that class and level could use. You might even want to hold back a bit and pick more support-oriented spells.

There's nothing wrong with a DMPC becoming a part of the story or the cast. Just don't make the PCs feel second-rate.

[Starchild7309]

I have a DMPC with the campaign I am running currently. I made him a dumb fighter, let him have a decent wisdom so he sucks at giving ideas, but he can identify a seriously stupid one. Though he doesn't say anything unless asked or forced into something. In combat, I let him deal with the minions that are there for just annoyance and let my players deal with the big bad creature of the encounter. He is fairly optimized, but I never show it off. He has the dungeoncrasher variant, but have not used it in 4 sessions yet, there was no need. However, my players have notorious habit of all rolling horrible at the same time, so if things go bad because of bad luck, I can let him step in and save them with massive damage, but otherwise he just swings a hammer and keeps his mouth shut. I wouldn't lessen the exp they get...i just start them a level lower if starting at above level 1. If you continually give them less they fall farther and farther behind and eventually become useless.

I do like the idea of switching them out. I had a druid with a homebrew prc that was with them, but they got him killed. They stripped his corpse and sold all his stuff to raise him, so he left them a pauper and forced them to go find other help.

[Thurbane]

I'm trying to have him mainly take spells that are heals or buffs, or fill a gap in the party's ability to overcome obstacles. Same with his skill selection - the party's Knowledge skills and Spellcraft are quite lacking, so I plan to have him focus on these so the party doesn't miss out on important clues.

[Starchild7309]

I'm trying to have him mainly take spells that are heals or buffs, or fill a gap in the party's ability to overcome obstacles. Same with his skill selection - the party's Knowledge skills and Spellcraft are quite lacking, so I plan to have him focus on these so the party doesn't miss out on important clues.

I like the idea of him being a support character, it works well as a DMPC, though I found with my druid I was running that since he invested all his skills into knowledge for the same reason, none of the party members felt the need to and just depended on the DMPC to tell them what was going on. This is one of the reasons I went with big dumb fighter after the druid. He knows nothing, he doesn't fill them in if they are being lazy about a situation, he just smashes stuff that pops up when they screw up.

In all fairness though, I did tell my players that the way I run a campaign is very skill and r/p oriented. I have played games where the DM just hand waves the skills to a large percent and I try to make those things important. It rewards those that decided to not go with a smash or blast class. Though with your party, you may need to fill in in that role more so.

On an aside about skills...when I was doing the set up and description and character creation I told my players they would be on the water often....like 50% of the campaign and not a single one of them put a rank in swim. The first two character deaths were because of drowning. Its your campaign so you can handles skills how you like, but its just my preference to leave the party to find all the juicy special info themselves.

[Reogan]

Be careful giving all the clues and hooks through the DMPC. He may seem to be the Railroad embodied, or the Weak Exposition, at least.

[Thurbane]

Be careful giving all the clues and hooks through the DMPC. He may seem to be the Railroad embodied, or the Weak Exposition, at least.

Duly noted - I am trying to be careful about that. For one of the players, this is her first time running a character of her own (she briefly ran another character in absentia of it's player in our last campaign), so she is mainly following the lead of the other PC anyway.

[Brookshw]

Given everything this almost sounds more like a cohort (albeit with the same level) or npc really. You're in a good spot I'd say.