Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn’t adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.
I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he’d take 1d4 damage
Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.
They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:
1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike
Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.
Thank you for your time
In short, don’t. Player classes are not designed to be NPCs or enemies.
Personally I don’t like DMPCs, ally NPCs, or whatever you call them. Let the players pump him for equipment or information, and give them an advantage from that.
If they really really want him to come along, maybe have him guide them around traps to the cave mouth (or whatever) and then say “this is as far as I go, I can’t really fight ever since I took an arrow to the knee”.
Just pick an appropriate NPC class like Veteran or something, if he does end up in combat.
Thank you, I kind of assumed this would be an issue. Just wanted to see if it was possible, I may just add him to my stack of unplayed characters. I really enjoy rolling up characters even if they dont get played.