Who was your npc party member?

[The Shadowdove]

I'd like to hear about the npcs you've had in your parties in the past!

What was memorable about them?

Why were they in the party?

Did you like having an npc in the party?

Did it make the experience better, or worse?

Let's hear stories too!

I love threads like this. They're Very inspirational, and I love hearing of past Dungeons and dragons experiences!

-dove

[Feldarove]

Its one of two things

A cleric, because no one in your party chose to play one (or maybe a small party)
or
Someone who will eventually stab you in the back

NEVER EVER TRUST THE NPC

[thugthrasher]

Its one of two things

A cleric, because no one in your party chose to play one (or maybe a small party)
or
Someone who will eventually stab you in the back

NEVER EVER TRUST THE NPC

Hey! Don't be exclusive.
It could ALSO be the cleric who will eventually stab you in the back.

:smallcool:

[Tenmujiin]

I was DMing LMoP and my players were repeatedly asking if their goblin guide they rescued from some hobgoblins was taking a share of their exp. Eventually I just said: Yes. The goblin now has a level of warlock. He is taking your xp. Are you happy now?

The goblin went on to be one of the most loved party members and eventually died against the BBEG (all my players were sad, possibly because he was carrying all their healing potions at the time).

[Naanomi]

We rescued a goat-man in a planar prison once and hauled him around for a long time, several years real time. His race had a high run speed and extremely high carry capacity, so he carried everything and ran from danger for many adventures.

Someone got a few bags of holding, and he was getting massively out leveled by the party, so we bought him a tavern and used it as our base for a while. I think he ultimately died when our home plane was wiped off the multiverse, never did find the world he was from like we promised.

[HunterOfJello]

I DMed and put an NPC kobold bard in the party once upon a time. He was extremely cowardly and essentially buffed people and brought just enough backup magic to make the 2 PC party viable.

I think he worked very well as a party NPC because he was purely support and was very cowardly. If there was anything dangerous going on, then he was almost always attempting to hide or get out of dodge. He eventually died and it was a very hard shock to the players.

~

Oh! I forgot to mention how I introduced the NPC! I did a special halloween subquest at one point in time after our 3rd player left the group. The subquest involved the players getting interrupted by a madman in the middle of a tavern who then cast a bunch of wild magic that threw the tavern patrons across the planes. The players moved across multiple planes of existence where the madman had created portals through to run away from the group when they got upset about all his shenanigans. On each plane that the party moved in to, they met an NPC who they spoke to and assisted them in at least one battle. At the very end, they squared off against the madman and got to summon one of the NPCs that they had met across the planes. After the battle and once everyone had returned to the tavern on the material plane, they got to choose one of the several NPCs (I think there were 5) to join them on their quest. They chose the kobold bard.

[treecko]

A group I was in once was fighting some kobalds, and, after the battle, set about interrogating the one the we captured. So, we asked the kobald his name. Our DM hadn't really so thought about that, so he thought for a few seconds and replied, "Lizardbutt". We asked some questions, then our bard decided to seduce the kobald. He rolled a natural 20, and the kobald was in love. After the bard and the kobald spent a wonderful night together, the party descended into the kobald stronghold. Believing Lizardbutt knew of the traps, we let his lead, but alas! A spike trap claimed the life of poor Lizardbutt. Everyone was very sad :smallfrown:

[RedMage125]

When I ran Keep on the Shadowfell as 4e was coming out, the party rescued the goblin, Splug (whom they kept pronouncing "splooge") and made him their pack mule. Mind you, this was a goblin that the other goblins iprisoned for stealing. They wanted to keep him as a slave after the adventure, too...

Well, during that adventure, the party finds 2 kegs of hobgoblin ale. They rested in that room, and drank the better part of one of them, making Splug carry the other one around. 4 or 5 encounters later, I told them Splug was no longer carrying the keg. When asked why he dropped it, he replied "...hic...itsh wash empty...hic...". They were at first kind of outraged that I had made Splug drink all their beer. I then reminded them that they were the ones who put an admitted thief in charge of carrying their stuff.

[Starchild7309]

Back when i first started playing in 2 ed we had a dwarf fighter who started as a PC but the player left and we didn't have any other muscle so the DM kept him around. He never said anything except to complain. Good reason though, every bad thing that happened to us, he got the brunt of it by random back luck. Landslides, collapsing floors, deflected spells, all rolls in the open always seemed to hit him. (on a side note we have had multiple dwarfs join us as npcs and it never ever pays to be a dwarf near us, we get them all killed)

Another was in 3.5. We rescued a young boy, about 7-9 years old, he watched his whole family get slaughtered and was a little messed up in the head. My character, a CN tiefling rogue/barbarian/wizard/prc/prc/prc attempted to be his adopted parent while he stayed back at out base of operations. All was going well, but it was only our 2nd campaign and we didn't know what we were doing so we didn't put up any protection there and we had ticked off a lot of really bad and nasty creatures by high level and came back to find our place destroyed and every one killed. It was a sad day.

[Celcey]

A current NPC I'm running is a baby brass dragon named Ered... which means bronze. I've yet to see how it will really go, because he's only be around for one full session, but we'll see. I'm also probably going to change a couple of his dragon features, by letting him shapeshift into a human, and letting him learn common and draconic.

[MaxWilson]

I'd like to hear about the npcs you've had in your parties in the past!

What was memorable about them?

Why were they in the party?

Did you like having an npc in the party?

Did it make the experience better, or worse?

Started a new party with 8th level PCs (intentionally high-level campaign), plot hook was looking for a legendary wizard's tower. To make a long story short, we had a man-at-arms named Caster who we persuaded to accompany us on our treasure hunt, partly so he could avenge his buddy who had been killed by a malign NPC for talking to us. Two PCs and the NPC got ambushed by high-level orc archers who immediately took Caster down with an arrow through the eye socket, before getting unceremoniously ripped apart by a wolf pack conjured by the Lore Bard (me). I also managed to save Caster's life with Healing Word before he failed all his death saves, but at this point we were feeling kind of guilty about almost getting him killed along with his buddy for no gain at all (I had expected him to be okay, hanging at the back with an arrow, but it's looking like that won't be the case) and asked if he wanted to go home. He said no, he was determined to avenge his buddy.

At this point my bard was feeling sorry for him, and I said, "Well, you sure helped out in that fight at least." The DM said the last thing Caster remembered was walking along the trail and then suddenly waking up, so I was like, "What? You don't remember?" and I pointed to some of the orc chunks left behind by the wolf pack. "You did that!" I said. "Before they took you down, you slew that orc." Thanks to my +7 Deception bonus and a high roll, I beat his Insight check by over 20 points, and Caster became completely convinced that he and his bow had exploded an orc assassin. He stared at his bow in awe and started talking about how his grandfather had always said this bow would do great things. He now seems to think his bow is legendary magic.

So, lying to NPCs. "The Head of Vecna"-level comedy it isn't, but still good times, we enjoyed it. I'm sure he's going to die soon but Caster will be remembered fondly when he falls.

[Peebles]

We ended up 'adopting' a kobold that was being bullied by some lizardmen we encountered, and we grew very attached to him. That he was an excellent cook probably helped, and a name like Giblets didn't hurt either. He never thought for us, and had to deal with the party Barbarian threatening to boil him in his own cauldron every other session because poor Giblets was such a coward, but he was memorable and useful.

Better than all the random NPC's that turn up and take away player agency anyway. Can't remember the names of any of those, because I've trained myself to switch off when a DM decides they want to play with themselves.

[Maxilian]

A current NPC I'm running is a baby brass dragon named Ered... which means bronze. I've yet to see how it will really go, because he's only be around for one full session, but we'll see. I'm also probably going to change a couple of his dragon features, by letting him shapeshift into a human, and letting him learn common and draconic.

Well give it the stat of a normal commoner in his human form, i mean... is a baby, don't expect it to do much at least not for now

[unwise]

My 5e favourite is a Kobold who was an enemy, but after it was clear he was going to lose, he bowed and grovelled to the dragonborn so much that he took him on as a minion. Apart from all the expected Kobold issues, his quirks included:

- Assuming absolute domination of his master over every other party member, assuming his master will violently punish anybody that disagrees.
- Insisting to the other PCs that he was a the Head Minion, and that they were fighting it out for second place. He was very protective of his perceived spot in the pecking order, always belittling the achievements of others.
- He could not tell the value of coins or real worth of anything, the more coins the better, even if they were copper.
- He would collect his 'horde', the scrap the PCs could not bother to gather. Every night he would lay it down and roll in it in a disturbingly erotic display, then sleep on it purring like a tiny contented dragon.
- He was really good at making those kobold fire and glue pots, but would never show anybody how, he was a real McGyver, seemingly pulling them out of nowhere. PCs that annoyed him found their swords glued into their scabbards at in opportune times.

[Lonely Tylenol]

My DMPC is a bumbling halfwit of an academic (intelligent in the book sense, and basically no other senses) who crossed the continent to find a lost prophecy in a tome of lore in the grand libraries in the party's starting city, only to have basically all his stuff stolen, including the documents which let him into the library. Once the party actually made it into the library, they discovered that he did not have the means to find the book (what with its magical protections and all, and him still being level 1 and not even having the abilities necessary to find it).

In-game, he is a Human Warlock with none of the combat focus endemic to Warlocks (so no Eldritch Blast or damaging spells of any sort, bar those offered by his pact with the Great Old Ones). His role in the party is to cast Bless and Guidance attained through Magic Initiate, occasionally trigger a trap purely by accident, and be evidently cowardly and awkward elsewhere, with the hopes of making the rest of the group look more heroic by proxy. He is also their knowledge base, however, and evidently better at finding things, so some skills let him maintain some semblance of relevance.

He is also contracting the party to work for him as long as they volunteer to do so.

EDIT: The group is also being peripherally stalked by a Goblin Boss who they took alive, described the whorishness of their own mothers to in great detail (I decided that "bree yark!", which the Monster Manual describes as presumably meaning "I surrender!", actually means "your mother!"), fed, and then let escape alive. They do not know of his following yet, though, due to generally poor Perception vs. the Goblin Boss' Stealth.

[Grayson01]

This was in a 3.5 game. I was playing an Asmair Warlock Named Orton and my party had boarded a Pirate ship. The Pirates were all Kobalds. We captured two of the Pirates, who my Warlock then started "Questioning". I told them their names were Ted and Cody and Ted was quite intimidated and fell in line. Cody not so much, so I ordered Ted to throw him overboard. Ted then became our/my servant. He counted our gold (which I was nice enough to give him 1 of), "searched" for traps, and even Checked what was inside the bottomless extra deminsional pit of death. he then came back as a ghost and continuted to serve as an wonderful specter until rezed!