Yo! DMs and Players have you ever ran a campaign or played in a campaign were the players got control of two PCs or maybe played all companion subclasses? if so how well did it play or feel? how easy was it to balance as a DM? did turns feel like they took to long? how was the roleplay?
im messing with a system im cooking up for a campaign and it would work similar to this so any feedback would be loved and appreciated!
I've done this in the past when there were only a couple of players. They would each take a "main" character and then a secondary, more in-the-background character (generally a simpler martial class). They had in-character reasons for the setup between their 2 PCs - a husband/wife, brothers, a noble and its sworn protector, etc...
The "main" character for each would do most of the RP interactions, although I did have one player who liked to roleplay both of their PCs. In general I think expecting 1 player to fully separate and intensely roleplay 2 characters is going to be a bit much for most, but you know your group best.
Balance for me was super simple because the whole reason we did this was so we could run published adventures without needing to totally reconfigure the encounters. Obviously it's possible to retune adventures so they are more appropriate for just 2 or 3 PCs, but the whole reason to use published campaigns for me is because I don't have the time to do all that prep work myself.
Turns did not feel like they took long to me, but again, there were only 2 players and 4 PCs.
I'm sure people will suggest using sidekicks instead. They hadn't been published when I did this. I generally don't consider PCs to be that hard to run and don't know why someone can handle a sidekick and not one of the less complex PC classes, but I'm sure everyone's experience varies on this.
I have not done this for a full campaign, but I have had sessions where a player was controlling two characters - their current character and a prior one that retired from adventuring. While all of these moments have been important to the campaign (and I would not want to NPC-ify their prior character), I was not overly pleased with the results. Especially in social interactions, players have a hard time roleplaying the two characters simultaneously - usually they end up neglecting one character, getting confused over who is speaking, etc. And that is not just with my socially awkward players who struggle with roleplay sometimes - I have had players who are professional actors who would struggle with this kind of thing.
Looking at a congruent situation, DMs often have to play multiple characters at once. In combat, that is usually fine - each has a defined initiative order and set of actions. But I have certainly seen DMs who begin to fall apart the second they have two NPCs interacting with one another and the players - the same issues happen when players are in this situation.
And, unlike with a DM, who can engineer the situation to avoid having too many NPCs (ex. Matt Mercer is solid at playing multiple characters at once, but even he clearly tries to limit how often multiple major NPCs interact with the party simultaneously), if the players are in a party, this could become a constant source of frustration.
Ultimately, it is going to come up to your individual players. I certainly have players who I would trust with this kind of thing - but, realistically, most of them I would not. I begrudgingly do it for a brief period of time when the story demands it - but I do not think I would feel comfortable running a full campaign like this based on my past experiences.
Not in D&D but right now, but we are running a huge number of characters, dozens. Not all at the same time though. We almost always run 2 or 3 at a time. Simpler system. We have been known to actively run 6 characters/npc's at a time during combat in that system.
In D&D we regularly ran 2 or 3 characters at a time, if need be. But often it was just running secondary NPC's so the DM didn't have to or even another players character when they were not present.
We always did this in AD&D since most modules were for party sizes of like 4-6 characters. We only had three players and the DM. So we took turns controlling the one or two extra characters (NPCs). For example, one party we had a cleric and a thief NPCs that we controlled. And as long as we didn’t do stupid stuff with them it was good. Reminds me of an old dragon magazine cartoon/comic. A party is standing out a cave. One says “sounds like the growl of a hungry owlbear. Send in the NPC.” Or something along those lines it’s been 40 years or so. Lol
The trick is those two characters share a common telepatic link. Maybe one of them has got psionic powers, or they are a specie from Krynn who always are twin borns, the tayfolk.
A telepathic link might be interesting but not really necessary. Depends on what you’re going for.
To the OP, I don’t think this should be an issue, and I think sidekicks that Allurian mentioned is a good option. Using a fairly straightforward class as the second character would probably be best. So probably not a spellcaster. Unless you have some experienced players that know the spells or has a focused routine of spells they use.
Basically, the companion would be mostly used in combat. Or if they were something like a rogue, lock picking or scouting. And not so much else outside of that.
Yo! DMs and Players have you ever ran a campaign or played in a campaign were the players got control of two PCs or maybe played all companion subclasses?
if so how well did it play or feel?
how easy was it to balance as a DM?
did turns feel like they took to long?
how was the roleplay?
im messing with a system im cooking up for a campaign and it would work similar to this so any feedback would be loved and appreciated!
I've done this in the past when there were only a couple of players. They would each take a "main" character and then a secondary, more in-the-background character (generally a simpler martial class). They had in-character reasons for the setup between their 2 PCs - a husband/wife, brothers, a noble and its sworn protector, etc...
The "main" character for each would do most of the RP interactions, although I did have one player who liked to roleplay both of their PCs. In general I think expecting 1 player to fully separate and intensely roleplay 2 characters is going to be a bit much for most, but you know your group best.
Balance for me was super simple because the whole reason we did this was so we could run published adventures without needing to totally reconfigure the encounters. Obviously it's possible to retune adventures so they are more appropriate for just 2 or 3 PCs, but the whole reason to use published campaigns for me is because I don't have the time to do all that prep work myself.
Turns did not feel like they took long to me, but again, there were only 2 players and 4 PCs.
I'm sure people will suggest using sidekicks instead. They hadn't been published when I did this. I generally don't consider PCs to be that hard to run and don't know why someone can handle a sidekick and not one of the less complex PC classes, but I'm sure everyone's experience varies on this.
thats really interesting thank you for sharing that with me i appreciate it!
I have not done this for a full campaign, but I have had sessions where a player was controlling two characters - their current character and a prior one that retired from adventuring. While all of these moments have been important to the campaign (and I would not want to NPC-ify their prior character), I was not overly pleased with the results. Especially in social interactions, players have a hard time roleplaying the two characters simultaneously - usually they end up neglecting one character, getting confused over who is speaking, etc. And that is not just with my socially awkward players who struggle with roleplay sometimes - I have had players who are professional actors who would struggle with this kind of thing.
Looking at a congruent situation, DMs often have to play multiple characters at once. In combat, that is usually fine - each has a defined initiative order and set of actions. But I have certainly seen DMs who begin to fall apart the second they have two NPCs interacting with one another and the players - the same issues happen when players are in this situation.
And, unlike with a DM, who can engineer the situation to avoid having too many NPCs (ex. Matt Mercer is solid at playing multiple characters at once, but even he clearly tries to limit how often multiple major NPCs interact with the party simultaneously), if the players are in a party, this could become a constant source of frustration.
Ultimately, it is going to come up to your individual players. I certainly have players who I would trust with this kind of thing - but, realistically, most of them I would not. I begrudgingly do it for a brief period of time when the story demands it - but I do not think I would feel comfortable running a full campaign like this based on my past experiences.
Not in D&D but right now, but we are running a huge number of characters, dozens.
Not all at the same time though. We almost always run 2 or 3 at a time. Simpler system.
We have been known to actively run 6 characters/npc's at a time during combat in that system.
In D&D we regularly ran 2 or 3 characters at a time, if need be. But often it was just running secondary NPC's so the DM didn't have to or even another players character when they were not present.
We always did this in AD&D since most modules were for party sizes of like 4-6 characters. We only had three players and the DM. So we took turns controlling the one or two extra characters (NPCs). For example, one party we had a cleric and a thief NPCs that we controlled. And as long as we didn’t do stupid stuff with them it was good. Reminds me of an old dragon magazine cartoon/comic. A party is standing out a cave. One says “sounds like the growl of a hungry owlbear. Send in the NPC.” Or something along those lines it’s been 40 years or so. Lol
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
The trick is those two characters share a common telepatic link. Maybe one of them has got psionic powers, or they are a specie from Krynn who always are twin borns, the tayfolk.
A telepathic link might be interesting but not really necessary. Depends on what you’re going for.
To the OP, I don’t think this should be an issue, and I think sidekicks that Allurian mentioned is a good option. Using a fairly straightforward class as the second character would probably be best. So probably not a spellcaster. Unless you have some experienced players that know the spells or has a focused routine of spells they use.
Basically, the companion would be mostly used in combat. Or if they were something like a rogue, lock picking or scouting. And not so much else outside of that.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?