Players Want to Bring NPC Along - Help

[sakuuya]

Over the weekend, I DM'd a oneshot for a group consisting primarily of people who'd never played 3.5 before. Two were totally new to TTRPGs, one had played 2e a long time ago, and one was an experienced 3.5 player who was there to help character creation run smoothly. The game went well--so well, in fact, that the party asked to turn it into a semi-regular campaign.

Great! I'd anticipated that that might happen and seeded a couple possibilities of what the party might want to do next. But, y'know, best-laid plans and all that. The party's stated goal for next time is to bring a "cursed" NPC to the nearest big city and see if someone there can cure her. The problem is that the NPC isn't cursed. She's a yuki-on-na (from Frostburn, but I'm AFB and can't tell you which page), and she has a standard-action attack to Hold Monster on everybody within 30', Will DC 18. The party is 3rd-level, so that's pretty formidable.

Neither the NPC nor the party know what's wrong with her. This is partially my fault: I explained skill selection to the players but didn't monitor what they actually took beyond telling one of them not to bother taking Swimming 'cause it wouldn't be needed during the oneshot. None of them have any Knowledges. In fact, the player with 3.5 experience said that he's never played with a DM who made knowledge skills useful.

They are aware of the NPC's Hold Monster power, but I don't think they've realized how much she can trivialize encounters if she travels with them. I don't like DMPCs, but I'm worried that, since the players know what the NPC is capable of, they'll be annoyed if she doesn't participate in combat, though I could definitely swing her sitting out from an RP perspective. I also don't want to just crank monsters' Will saves up because it would be unfair to the PC Cleric, who likes using Hold Person himself.

I do plan on letting the players reorganize their skills now that they have a session under their belts and, therefore, a better idea of what to expect from D&D in general and me as a DM in particular. But I'd like advice on (a) how to have this NPC travel with the party without trivializing their encounters, and (b) what (if anything) to do about the fact that they've set themselves on kind of a pointless errand. Thanks!

[Feilith]

What if you just have her fight dumb? Instead of using Dominate have her swing a dagger, or shoot a bow or something and defends her not using her power, saying its weak,useless etc. But near the end of their time together, maybe she leaves them once they get to the city, you throw a CR 6-7 encounter composed of multiple CR4-5s at them it should be really really hard for them to win, but when things look grim she pops her Hold Monster and wrecks the fight.

The point is she doesn't fight to the full extent of her power, leaving room for the party to shine

[Fyermind]

It hits the party too right? She is scared to be alone without their support. If she uses hold monster, it freezes EVERYONE within 30' who doesn't make their saves and she can't take on those who make their saves 1 on 1. She might use it if players are dying and try to drag them to safety, but she won't rely on it and neither can the PCs.

Edit: if it doesn't hit the party change the rules. it now hits the party.

[Captnq]

Kill the NPC.

Con poison should do. Have a Bloodspike loaded into an Icechucker with a +3 EB and Assassination to up the Save DC a few. Then coat the outside of the bloodspike with contact poison and the inside with injury poison. That should kill anything.

Rule number one of being a DM: Never get attached to your plots/NPCs. The moment your NPCs start getting in the way, murder the crap out of them. A plot not going anywhere? Drop it. The players ignore a plot? Forget it.

Murder the NPCs, the NPC's pets, the NPC's Family.
Murder murder murder murder Murder Murder MURDER.

Have a kolbold jump out of the woods and start wiggling a finger while croaking out the words, "Red rum" over and over.

Why does the NPC get murdered? Smile and look like you have a convoluted plot. Wait to hear what the players speculate. Run with whatever sounds good.

Then MURDER some more.

[Alabenson]

It could be that the NPC is reluctant to use any of her special abilities due to a fear of "outing" herself as a non-human.

[Lightlawbliss]

It hits the party too right? She is scared to be alone without their support. If she uses hold monster, it freezes EVERYONE within 30' who doesn't make their saves and she can't take on those who make their saves 1 on 1. She might use it if players are dying and try to drag them to safety, but she won't rely on it and neither can the PCs.

Edit: if it doesn't hit the party change the rules. it now hits the party.

I would say this is a very good reason.

[John Longarrow]

From the NPC's perspective, why would they want to travel with the PCs? If they claim to be cursed, they may travel with the PCs for a day then depart leaving a note stating they don't want to endanger them.

Unless there is a really good reason from the NPCs perspective to do so, I'd not have them go with the players.

Evil DM side, you could also have your party meet someone who, by appearances, can help the NPC out. A wandering holy man can sometimes be very useful...

[Segev]

A combination of her not wanting to burden them (ergo the note) and her power affecting the PCs, too, is a good start. PCs can be a stubborn bunch, though, so be ready for her to be their damsel they doggedly pursue from castle to castle.

If she doesn't know about her nature, maybe it is something she can't control well, too? It won't turn on sometimes. Fake-roll to "see if she can do it," and then plot-decide whether she succeeds or not as your needs demand. Ignore the actual die result.

Let her power work to the PCs' advantage once or twice, then have a powerful hobgoblin chieftan capture her for use as a weapon. He'll keep her in a cage and drop her amidst his foes, and if she doesn't use her power, she might just get killed by said foes. And even if not, she'll be punished later.

Protecting a powerful weapon like her is its own plot line, after all.

[Maginomicon]

Step 1. Institute Real Alignments (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283341).

"Chaotic Neutral" => "Path of Autonomy"

Step 2. Play up her Real Alignment in roleplaying.

"Path of Autonomy" means she's most motivated by "Independent thought and action; choosing, creating, exploring." and "Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life."

Step 3. Choose her motivations from her Real Alignment and have her act accordingly.

If you have her most value choosing one's own goals and having an exciting and varied life, perhaps she decides that she wants to live out her life by her own terms instead of by the terms of the party. This could be inspired by a desire to protect the environment, and could manifest perhaps as her wanting to adventure on her own. This option puts her as an ECL 13 character, which means periodically she can inject herself into plot-relevant events throughout the campaign as you the GM see fit. Once the party gets to ECL 13, perhaps then she'll join the party, but until then, no.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The problem is that the NPC isn't cursed. She's a yuki-on-na (from Frostburn, but I'm AFB and can't tell you which page), and she has a standard-action attack to Hold Monster on everybody within 30', Will DC 18. The party is 3rd-level, so that's pretty formidable.

That ability only affects a single target, it specifically says those merely looking at it are not affected, only the creature targeted has to make the save vs hold monster.

It's still an extremely powerful ability at this level. You could just throw mostly undead at them for a bit, as they would be immune to the ability. Naturally blind opponents such as Grells and Grimlocks would also be immune as the ability has all the weaknesses of a gaze attack. Or just put a bunch more weak opponents in the encounters to take this ability into account, and split xp as though there's another party member. Have her only use the ability on the weaker foes that you include just to absorb it.

[sakuuya]

Thank you for all your suggestions, everybody! In particular, I'd forgotten that the party would be in the NPC's Hold Monster range*--it definitely works on them, by the way. A couple of them are the sort of players who'd want to wait in the back while she goes up and paralyzes the monsters, but a combination of RP justification and her powers conveniently fritzing out should nip that in the bud.

*Biffonaicus_Furiou: Is it supposed to be one target? "Anyone the yuki-on-na targets" is pretty ambiguous in terms of number of targeted creatures, and "similar to a gaze attack except that it takes a standard action" suggests to me that it's multi-target like a gaze attack but only functions if a yuki-on-na uses her standard action to do it, rather than automatically happening every round. Either way, though, it's been multi-target up 'til now, so I probably won't change it.

[DeltaEmil]

You could say that the snow witch/maiden is slowly losing her ability to cast hold monster (as well as any other ability you deem problematic), because she's too far away from her mountain.

Normally, mythical snow witches/maiden didn't leave their cursed mountains, for fear of dying and melting away.

You could make it more interesting by having the snow witch being one of the few good snow witches there are.

Or perhaps the snow witch is turning good because she's far away from her mountain home. But at the same time, she starts growing weak and ill, loses her unearthly fey powers, and will soon die lest kept alive by powerful and expensive necromancy. The only way to save her would be to bring her back to her mountain home, but the closer she is brought back, the more evil she becomes again, as her malicious fey powers return and take over her personality slowly day by day. The snow witch doesn't want to be evil again (snow maidens normally steal the warmth of travelers they've caused to become lost and then eat their still beating heart or drink their warm blood, something like that), but she doesn't want to die, and she implores the player characters to help her.

More complications arise when the sisters, the mother and the grandmother of the wayward snow maiden think that she's been abducted, and conduct a magic ritual to encase the land in an early terrible winter, so that they can come to save her, either personally, or by sending snow spirits and the preserved reanimated corpses of their earlier victims against the player characters.
Being the capricious spirits of snow they are, the yuki-onnas will of course not stop their blizzard once they get their family member back. It's mostly an excuse by the snow witches to bring further calamity upon the mortals.

[John Longarrow]

Special note; IF she does get out of sight of the players in a community, she can use disguise self, hide, and move silent to get out of their area very quickly. She disguises herself as someone else (+14), then sneaks out (+12 hide/move silent) hopefully before the party figures it out. at 3rd level the players should have a hard time figuring out who is slipping out, especially if she changes to look like a servant.