NPC's With a Serious Side of Cheese

[Irreverent Fool]

I fully endorse Valadil's post.

I like the gestalt guards in a non-gestalt game idea. My guards are just NPC warriors for the most part that can take out threats through numbers and organized tactics but would easily fall if the PCs got it into their heads to kill them.

In the game I'm running, the party has managed to turn a former agent of the enemy into a hireling (funny how piling PC wealth onto a mercenary will do that). They've treated him well and value his assistance. He doesn't really do anything though. He helps carry goods, provides the occasional snippit of information, picks on the halfling bard, etc.

I frequently skip over him in the initiative and he is for the most part concerned with not dying rather than fighting the enemy. He complains etc. OCCASIONALLY I'll fudge a roll for him or have him step in to defend a wounded PC, but these instances are few and far between. He's not as far in the background as say, a wizard's familiar, but he's never in the forefront.

This is just how I've been doing it, I'm not saying it has to be done this way. I do find it keeps the spotlight on the PCs. Plus, they like his so much he's an always-available plothook!: "By Cuthbert's beard! That band of goblins dragged Chuck off while we were sleeping! We have to go rescue him!"

Edit: As opposed to "Oh, the DMs character got dragged off by blue dragons... thank God he's gone."
...
"Oh, the DMs character killed all the blue dragons and came back even more powerful. Great."