In my current campaign, I'd like to introduce an NPC character the party has already interacted with in the middle of the final encounter with the main adversary. The NPC is a crucial component to the story and given it's alignment, it would make sense it would join them. It's sort of a Rohirrim cresting the hill at the Battle of Pelennor Fields moment.
Be careful with it. The last thing you want is for an NPC to save the day. The party are the heroes, not the NPC. And do not let the NPC land the killing blow on the boss. You can kind of get away with NPC in the background. Like, “I’ll hold off these minions as long as I can while you go fight the actual threat” can work pretty well.
I wouldn't absolutely "not" do it, but as Xalthu points out the TTRPG equivalent of deus ex machina isn't a popular device,, or at least it's often perceived as "railroading" which is a contentious way of DMing.
Some things to think about, you're running presumably a combat encounter. Combat in D&D can be swingy and unanticipated results can happen. Your NPC shows up, swoops in like superman or whatever to save the day. Is the NPC more powerful than your BBEG? What's the point of the party then? If not more powerful than the BBEG, what happens if the NPC gets killed in the combat? Are you going to fudge it so the NPC "just won't" get killed?
If the latter, you might as well, just suspend combat and narrate the NPC's dramatic entrance because that's what's going on anyway. And really if you really want to intro the NPC as an intervention into a combat encounter, switching from combat to narration is probably the best way to do it. Otherwise, you've build some super stat block or character sheet with features the PCs haven't attained, and they get to watch you roll dice against yourself.
In other words, if you want to "prove" this NPC is some sort of Gandalf or Aragorn to the party's hobbits, it's more efficient to skip the DM rolling to prove that against the BBEG (none of the players can see the stats in this fight between yourself anyway) and just tell them what a superhero the dude is.
You don't want to run combat at this point, you're telling the story, so just tell the story and save the dice for a moment where the PCs' rolls actually matter.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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In my current campaign, I'd like to introduce an NPC character the party has already interacted with in the middle of the final encounter with the main adversary. The NPC is a crucial component to the story and given it's alignment, it would make sense it would join them. It's sort of a Rohirrim cresting the hill at the Battle of Pelennor Fields moment.
Thoughts?
Be careful with it. The last thing you want is for an NPC to save the day. The party are the heroes, not the NPC. And do not let the NPC land the killing blow on the boss.
You can kind of get away with NPC in the background. Like, “I’ll hold off these minions as long as I can while you go fight the actual threat” can work pretty well.
I wouldn't absolutely "not" do it, but as Xalthu points out the TTRPG equivalent of deus ex machina isn't a popular device,, or at least it's often perceived as "railroading" which is a contentious way of DMing.
Some things to think about, you're running presumably a combat encounter. Combat in D&D can be swingy and unanticipated results can happen. Your NPC shows up, swoops in like superman or whatever to save the day. Is the NPC more powerful than your BBEG? What's the point of the party then? If not more powerful than the BBEG, what happens if the NPC gets killed in the combat? Are you going to fudge it so the NPC "just won't" get killed?
If the latter, you might as well, just suspend combat and narrate the NPC's dramatic entrance because that's what's going on anyway. And really if you really want to intro the NPC as an intervention into a combat encounter, switching from combat to narration is probably the best way to do it. Otherwise, you've build some super stat block or character sheet with features the PCs haven't attained, and they get to watch you roll dice against yourself.
In other words, if you want to "prove" this NPC is some sort of Gandalf or Aragorn to the party's hobbits, it's more efficient to skip the DM rolling to prove that against the BBEG (none of the players can see the stats in this fight between yourself anyway) and just tell them what a superhero the dude is.
You don't want to run combat at this point, you're telling the story, so just tell the story and save the dice for a moment where the PCs' rolls actually matter.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.