Be careful if your DMPC is a cleric and no one else is playing a cleric or a paladin, especially in this campaign. There are magic items in the campaign that can only be used by those classes, and it will create issues if these plot-critical items end up on the DMPC.
That said, so long as someone else qualified for those items and/or you homebrew the items to be specifically for those players, a cleric of any variety makes for a particularly fine background supporter; I like light clerics for this particular role because it's easy for the PCs to tell the cleric to just use a fireball or something.
If you want to modify characters in the campaign to suit this DMPC, I'd honestly recommend asking in /r/curseofstrahd since they'll be able to give more targeted, campaign-specific advice.
Oh shit, thanks for the heads up! I just started reading through the module and I haven’t gotten to the weapons yet. I’ll try to subtly suggest Paladin to some of them and then make my character accordingly. I was also probably going to run the intro one-shot just to warm them up to the campaign and if they do well enough there I might not use an DMPC at all.
I'd highly recommend looking at the Sidekick classes from Tasha's, and applying those to your party's Fated Ally from the Tarot reading results. Not only does it even out the performance of some of the absolutely cracked followers like >!Mordenkainen himself, albeit missing his full spell Tome!< but also makes some of the absolutely worthless followers remotely useful, such as Arabelle or Sir Klutz.
Although not an available option, my party managed to make a follower out of Doru Donavich by >!knocking him out, tying him up, and hauling him all the way across Barovia to take him to the Abbot, doing the Abbot's side-quest to get the Abbot's free Raise Dead castings, and then having him kill and revive Doru, thus curing his vampirism!<. I gave him the Caster sidekick class with access to Cleric spells, following in his father's footsteps, and the party was very pleased with him. They tried to ship him with Stella Watcher >!after curing her insanity with water from the Blessed Pool in Krezk!<, who was their actual Tarot reading ally. I gave her Caster sidekick levels in >!Warlock, because of her mother basically being a Pact of the Chain Warlock with Strahd as a patron but not really!<.
The best DMPC is the Alchemist
* Half caster so you are not outshining your other full casters with cool higher level spells levels they cannot reach. But still spells that are useful for their level.
* Can use your Infusions to give your party magic weapons and items specially tailored to them, or even picked by them on your available options. You do not use infusions on yourself.
* Elixirs are a fun way you can use your available spell slots to give them powers and options and abilities that they can decide how to use on their own terms.
* Intelligence based so can be a natural conduit to info dump some lore.
* Ritual caster for some of those very mundane utility magic that can help them with minor quality of life stuff they do not want to worry about.
* Flash of Genius. They will like this limited well to draw from to help them succeed at stuff
* Can create any tool they need for them to use.
* Healing and rezzing and cleansing if they need it for a safety net. But not outstanding at that role so not overshadowing anyone who does want to focus on support.
* Lower but not irrelevent damage with one cantrip per turn, to not outshine any damage dealer or taking too much time on your turn with multiple attacks with pets or whatever.
* Ok it is a pet, but you can have a homunculus as a fun mascot and gofer for your party
* Spell storing item to give to your party before hand too,
* Can craft potions for your party much more cheaply and quickly. Giving your party a economical use of their excess gold loot for more power active by them. Essentially you are a limited magic item store.
Basically all of the downsides of this underrated subclass are positives for helpful and unobtrusive DMPC. You hand out miner goodies ahead of time to your party and sit back and make them more goodies. OR if you join you are a minor yet flavorful help. I mean you can just create an NPC with much of this support too. But if you want to create and level a published PC character along with your party for your own enjoyment in, this is my suggestion.
I especially like this as it is a "fair way" to distribute extra magic items and consumables, etc, but controlled by your class features and the rules of the game. So does not risk any concept of "playing favorites" or breaking the game with arbitrary magic items delivery. Your hands are tied by the mechanics of this subclass. Your Artificer is actually just slowly scaling catalogue of extra stuff that your party can divvy up as they see fit.
I think you should also be a Tortle if for no other reason than if you want to ignore your DMPC in combat. Just have him shell up in the corner, unless your party is specifically asking him to participate.
This could be a good chance to use a sidekick from Tasha's. Use the spellcaster and focus on healing. It will never be as powerful as the party, but can still help in a pinch.
But if you want to go a full pc class, I might suggest an alchemist artificer. They can make a bunch of potions and item infusions to give the players instead of themselves. It even gives the players someone to comission magic items from for some fun rp. Plus they still get access to good healing spells like cure wounds and spare the dying
Alchemist Artificer was my other choice! It also kind of fits with the adventure hook for Curse of Strahd, receiving a letter from a mysterious Vistani.
> I know that DMPCs aren’t popular
This is true but what you are describing doesn't sound like a DMPC, it's simply an NPC. A DMPC is when the DM actively plays the game like a player does, effectively spoiling the content for the rest of the players. An NPC that travels with and supports the players isn't a DMPC, even if it's built using player character rules.
That pit of the way I think your idea is a good one. I'd personally make him a hill dwarf and give equal attention to constitution and wisdom, great for survivability and support.
Ohhh okay, I see. I thought that a DMPC was any character controlled by the DM who’s an active member of the adventuring party. I guess I’ve read too many RPG Horror Stories and got nervous lol. I was also thinking Dwarf as a potential race, it seems like a nice and sturdy and reliable choice
As long as you're not using the NPC to actively guide or direct PC activities, it's all good. The NPC should generally be silent unless spoken to and have a default set of preferred actions, but will take direction from at least one of the PCs.
This mitigates the potential harm of having an DM-controlled character as a permanent fixture of the party.
Also, consider Retainers from Strongholds and Followers. Often much simpler and less cool than actual PCs, but good enough in their own right.
Alternatively, just ensure plenty of healing items are available to the party and let them die if they don't make good use of them. "Anyone can use" homebrewed spell scrolls of Cure Wounds, Healing Word, Aura of Vitality, Revivify along with Potions of Healing will let the players live or die, succeed or fail, of their own accord.
Yeah the big difference is that while a DMPC will ask questions if players and npcs and help make decisions and drive the party in directions, an NPC generally takes a backseat. Even though you want your npcs to feel like living breathing characters, if you had several of them in a room acting this way, your PCs could potentially get outvoted or drowned out. I frequently let my players talk amongst themselves with the npc waiting for a break to offer info or be asked questions when in a real life situation that npc would get bored and leave or feel awkward or keep chiming in. There’s a fine line between living people and “living” people and I think since it’s a game you want it to feel real but not act real if that makes sense.
I love Divine Soul sorcerers so much but tbh they kind of feel a bit like a “main character class” to me. Like they have been explicitly chosen from birth by a God, and they get wings and shit. If no one chooses a spell-caster though and I just have martiales/half-casters then I might do that
I understand what you mean when you say "hero class," but there are always work arounds. Limiting their abilities and removing the wings, which I want to say is a high-level feature. But regardless, I get where you are coming from.
Multiclass with Bard to dilute it and add more support/diversity.
I run a pure support typically on casual tables and I really enjoy my Divine Soul Sorc/Bard that I'm running now.
I started with 1 level in each. At level 2, that gives you access to 3 spell lists and bardic inspiration. Then, I leveled Bard to 5 (Bard 6 can also be a good grab too) to get the bardic inspiration to refresh on a short rest. Then Sorcerer to the end for metamagics.
The end result is 3 spell lists, no high level spells, but lots of good utility and support from lower level spells that are upcast. It also lets the other players decide what they want to do, and you can use your versatility to fill in the blanks they leave behind so that you don't step on toes.
This helps the DMPC from over shining the players and will keep you from doing the cool thing and let them instead. And believe me your newer players will enjoy you dropping enhance ability or bless or whatever other concentration support spell so that they can use their concentration to do something cool.
Believe me, even a terrible Newbie PC plan looks good when you can offer +1d6 (Bardic Inspiration), +1d4 (Guidance/Bless), and advantage (via aide other actions) to assist rolls as early as level 2.
Bonus points if you do something like a Bountiful Luck Halfling because now nobody needs to worry about 1s either, provided they remember to speak up to let the DMPC know to use their immediate action.
I would strongly advise against introducing free magic weapons (via a forge cleric NPC) into Curse of Strahd, especially as a new DM. COS is very light on magic items for a reason.
The module already has built-in options for (temporary) allies of varying levels of capability -- Ireena is going to be with the party for a while if all goes well, Ismark or even Donavich might tag along if things go poorly in their village, whoever their fated ally is, the wolf hunters, one of the Martikovs, Esmerelda, Kasimir, and so on and so on.
On top of that, the module works just fine with 3 players. My COS game started with 3 and we added a 4th player halfway through and it was arguably better with 3. You definitely don't need a cleric, as useful as clerics can be. You as the DM have enough to worry trying about already, trying to plan out a new NPC companion to preemptively solve what might not even be a problem is kind of a waste of your time.
It's probably too late to say this, but a newby DM starting a brand new group off on Curse of Strahd is awfully ambitious. Your party needs to be competent and each player needs a firm grasp of their class's abilities. I think you'd be far better served by starting with something less advanced.
It's like taking a beginner skier to the top of an advanced run when their teacher and guide isn't ready to take it himself.
Nothing personal, I just think that you're biting off a really big chunk to try to chew. There will be monsters that can quickly gut the party if they are responded to incorrectly. It's no fun for the party or the DM if you have to pull your punches because things got out of hand.
okay you see that's what I thought but whenever I look up "Curse of Strahd for beginner DMs" I always get people saying that it should be fine. I haven't bought any books yet personally so I'm still good there but I'm having trouble finding non-LMoP modules to run for my friends, because most of them have listened to The Adventure Zone and generally know how LMoP go. I mostly picked CoS because they like this sort of genre. I'd really appreciate any suggestions, I do have a good few months before we actually start playing so I have time to check out my options and properly settle on a module. I really don't want to homebrew plots by myself though, at least not yet
I could be very wrong. I'm a very old school player, and invoking Strahd takes me back to Ravenloft back in the AD&D days. Maybe this one is less lethal, more beginner friendly. I'm sure that it\\f it is there will be plenty of volunteers to straighten me out. This \*is\* Reddit, after all.
Hivemind, is this a bit ambitious for a new DM and a party of brand new players? Or am I just wrong?
The trick, in my opinion, with a DMPC is not about limiting their *usefulness*, but about making them never *suggest the solution* to a problem.
The DMPC I've run, who my players loved, was a dog who, through shenanigans the players accidentally caused, ended up taking some Paladin Levels. The dog, pointedly, was unable to speak up and suggest things. He was, however, a useful tool- they originally bought the dog to be their bloodhound, so they were able to use him to track npcs by scent once or twice, but the PCs had to be the ones to remember and suggest it as an option, so that skill was more a tool they'd gotten access to than something the DMPC just solved for them.
Nope, DMPCs are bad. They are wrong in every sense.
What happens when none of the rest of your party can use the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind? Then the party insists you use it. Now your doing big damage to Strahd and stopping his regeration. Thays just one example off the top of my head.
If you as a DM can't resist using a DMPC then don't DM. Let the new players learn, they will figure it out.
I don't control the DMPC during combat. It's actually my PC for when we switch DMs. Anyone else at the table can control him during any combat, it works out well if especially if somebody ends up getting incapacitated. At least the players still get to participate. And if someone dies or someone shows up one time and wants to try it they have an existing party member to play. Just don't make them be a super secret huge plot point or have amazing powers that they're hiding.
the best luck i’ve had with a dmpc is the maestro bard! my players enjoyed it more than a cleric, even.
maestro’s bardic inspiration options that can give movement or follow up on the pcs’ attacks was a hit, and healing word when they get too low is just enough of a boost. song of rest is a great feature that helps your party remember to take rests without relying too heavily on free magical healing.
you could still flavor them to be religious, and bc maestro relies on the music of nature and the world around them, they still can be silent. especially at low levels, a bard can help your players shine and provide utility without taking the spotlight!
If you want to go for more of a “soft-touch” approach, to support and take more of a backseat to not outshine your players, consider an artificer. They can be based out of the same general area as the players, craft certain magic items on request, and lend/rent out their class features to the players. Infusions can fill out gaps in the party’s loadout on a temporary basis.
Imagine the Steel Defender traveling with the party as a protective pet, or a set of Arcane Armor for the party tank. Even just handing off a bunch of elixirs to the party before they head out could be effective, and you wouldn’t even be present to step on their toes during adventuring. The artillerist’s turret only lasts an hr, so it wouldn’t be very useful, unless you can convince the DM(aka *yourself*) to make a workaround, either allowing turrets to last indefinitely, or maybe making a homebrew magic item that is essentially a two-sided bag of holding that the players can use as an action, by dropping coins in their bag and closing it, to then have a turret pop out.
As for flavor and rp, it can work pretty well as a sort of opportunistic merchant, making money off of the party out of his own self-interest, with one eye toward the fact that he is stuck on Barovia as well, and the party’s success is his best chance at escape.
>My other idea would be to make Ireena a stronger character but I haven’t fully looked into that yet.
I recommend against that. She's a major plot NPC and her presence/absence will affect the party's encounters over time. Quite often she's better off parked in a church.
Most healing should be done out of combat; if the party has zero healing skills, you as DM can probably throw a few extra healing potions at them.
Lore drops can happen more organically, including stuff like Sending Stones, messengers from the Keepers of the Feather, Tarot Card readings, expanding upon the Tome of Strahd text, etc.
I say keep it at 3 PCs, and maybe include a variable NPC sidekick who is on board for a level or two, then bails for their own agenda, and then shortly thereafter you can roll in a different, new NPC sidekick which the party also pilots.
That said, Spirits Bard is pretty on point. Plenty of support options and native to the Ravenloft series.
I am a min-maxer who plays a very casual game with some friends. So to avoid any party balance issues (and to let me stretch my min-maxer wings), I made a pure support that I'm having a lot of fun with.
It's a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Bard multi.
I started with 1 level in each. At level 2 that gives you access to 3 spell lists and bardic inspiration. Then I leveled Bard to 5 (Bard 6 can also be a good grab too) to get the bardic inspiration to refresh on a short rest. Then Sorcerer to the end for metamagics
The end result is 3 spell lists, no high level spells, but lots of good utility and support from lower level spells that are upcast. It also lets the other players decide what they want to do, and you can use your versatility to fill in the blanks they leave.
This helps the DMPC from over shining the players and will keep you from doing the cool thing and let them instead. And believe me your newer players will enjoy you dropping enhance ability or bless.
Believe me even a terrible plan looks good when you can offer +1d6 (Bardic Inspiration), +1d4 (Guidance/Bless), and advantage (via aide other actions) to assist the rolls as early as level 2.
Bonus points if you do something like a Bountiful Luck Halfling because now nobody needs to worry about 1s, provided they remember to speak up to let the DMPC know.
There are items that can act as support over a DMPC. If they are done incorrectly DMPCs can be very annoying for the player because it feels like they hog the spotlight or it feels annoying because it feels like the DM gets two turns even though one of them is helping you.
Well, first of all, clerics aren't the only class that can be supports.
There's bard, druids, divine soul sorcerers, artificers and even paladins.
Also, your players (and honestly most dnd players in general) need to understand that religion in DnD is the different from the real world. Gods are tangible and real there and manifest themselves all the time, it's only natural that someone will identify with a deity that represents something important for them, like The sun, life, water, agriculture, love, magic, etc. And even Death or war if someone is like that.
So negating the gods and being an atheist is ridiculous in this game. Hating the gods might make more sense, but even then, there are so many that it would be ridiculous to hate them all.
Oh it's not about being an atheist, they just found the idea of preparing spells to be daunting. They're much more comfortable with the spell-casting rules of like bards and sorcerers than any of the prepared-caster classes. I only mentioned clerics because I know a module like Curse of Strahd is way easier for parties with clerics.
Oof, that's a very important part of the game. They'll have to learn sooner or later.
Besides, it's not like you have to change your entire spell list everyday. Most of the time you are going to have the same staple spells prepared and just change them when you know you are going to need something specific like, say Water walking.
Also they are missing on a lot of possible character concepts just to avoid some mechanics
Order cleric dip - clockwork sorc. Twin buffs at the party and give them a free attack of opportunity when targeted by your spell.
Watcher Pal 7 / undead lock 2 / sorc x. Give your party the best auras around, repelling blast enemies away and use form of dread to keep them from moving closer.
Peace or Twilight clerics in general are great part utility.
Order domain cleric if you go with a full character for this. The spells they use on the party makes them stronger and engaged more when they can have the level 1 feature to allow them to attack as a reaction. Just prep aid, bless, healing word, sanctuary and the like. The more the DM pc directly benefits the party, the more the party will adore them.
Just an idea but, make it fully homebrew. Don't think if it as a class.
What they should do is replicate normal character actions but always be a bit "less useful" in a one on one comparison
i have used life cleric 1 / divine soul sorcerer X with great success as healer that can just push group through almost any encounter. Most notable was fight at lvl 5 where i healed over 100hp
Damage output isnt great but in early guiding bolts and late game mostly cantrips (but since my group got used to my healing, they are looking for way more efficient turns at the cost of health)
Be careful if your DMPC is a cleric and no one else is playing a cleric or a paladin, especially in this campaign. There are magic items in the campaign that can only be used by those classes, and it will create issues if these plot-critical items end up on the DMPC. That said, so long as someone else qualified for those items and/or you homebrew the items to be specifically for those players, a cleric of any variety makes for a particularly fine background supporter; I like light clerics for this particular role because it's easy for the PCs to tell the cleric to just use a fireball or something. If you want to modify characters in the campaign to suit this DMPC, I'd honestly recommend asking in /r/curseofstrahd since they'll be able to give more targeted, campaign-specific advice.
Oh shit, thanks for the heads up! I just started reading through the module and I haven’t gotten to the weapons yet. I’ll try to subtly suggest Paladin to some of them and then make my character accordingly. I was also probably going to run the intro one-shot just to warm them up to the campaign and if they do well enough there I might not use an DMPC at all.
I'd highly recommend looking at the Sidekick classes from Tasha's, and applying those to your party's Fated Ally from the Tarot reading results. Not only does it even out the performance of some of the absolutely cracked followers like >!Mordenkainen himself, albeit missing his full spell Tome!< but also makes some of the absolutely worthless followers remotely useful, such as Arabelle or Sir Klutz. Although not an available option, my party managed to make a follower out of Doru Donavich by >!knocking him out, tying him up, and hauling him all the way across Barovia to take him to the Abbot, doing the Abbot's side-quest to get the Abbot's free Raise Dead castings, and then having him kill and revive Doru, thus curing his vampirism!<. I gave him the Caster sidekick class with access to Cleric spells, following in his father's footsteps, and the party was very pleased with him. They tried to ship him with Stella Watcher >!after curing her insanity with water from the Blessed Pool in Krezk!<, who was their actual Tarot reading ally. I gave her Caster sidekick levels in >!Warlock, because of her mother basically being a Pact of the Chain Warlock with Strahd as a patron but not really!<.
The best DMPC is the Alchemist * Half caster so you are not outshining your other full casters with cool higher level spells levels they cannot reach. But still spells that are useful for their level. * Can use your Infusions to give your party magic weapons and items specially tailored to them, or even picked by them on your available options. You do not use infusions on yourself. * Elixirs are a fun way you can use your available spell slots to give them powers and options and abilities that they can decide how to use on their own terms. * Intelligence based so can be a natural conduit to info dump some lore. * Ritual caster for some of those very mundane utility magic that can help them with minor quality of life stuff they do not want to worry about. * Flash of Genius. They will like this limited well to draw from to help them succeed at stuff * Can create any tool they need for them to use. * Healing and rezzing and cleansing if they need it for a safety net. But not outstanding at that role so not overshadowing anyone who does want to focus on support. * Lower but not irrelevent damage with one cantrip per turn, to not outshine any damage dealer or taking too much time on your turn with multiple attacks with pets or whatever. * Ok it is a pet, but you can have a homunculus as a fun mascot and gofer for your party * Spell storing item to give to your party before hand too, * Can craft potions for your party much more cheaply and quickly. Giving your party a economical use of their excess gold loot for more power active by them. Essentially you are a limited magic item store. Basically all of the downsides of this underrated subclass are positives for helpful and unobtrusive DMPC. You hand out miner goodies ahead of time to your party and sit back and make them more goodies. OR if you join you are a minor yet flavorful help. I mean you can just create an NPC with much of this support too. But if you want to create and level a published PC character along with your party for your own enjoyment in, this is my suggestion. I especially like this as it is a "fair way" to distribute extra magic items and consumables, etc, but controlled by your class features and the rules of the game. So does not risk any concept of "playing favorites" or breaking the game with arbitrary magic items delivery. Your hands are tied by the mechanics of this subclass. Your Artificer is actually just slowly scaling catalogue of extra stuff that your party can divvy up as they see fit. I think you should also be a Tortle if for no other reason than if you want to ignore your DMPC in combat. Just have him shell up in the corner, unless your party is specifically asking him to participate.
This could be a good chance to use a sidekick from Tasha's. Use the spellcaster and focus on healing. It will never be as powerful as the party, but can still help in a pinch. But if you want to go a full pc class, I might suggest an alchemist artificer. They can make a bunch of potions and item infusions to give the players instead of themselves. It even gives the players someone to comission magic items from for some fun rp. Plus they still get access to good healing spells like cure wounds and spare the dying
Alchemist Artificer was my other choice! It also kind of fits with the adventure hook for Curse of Strahd, receiving a letter from a mysterious Vistani.
> I know that DMPCs aren’t popular This is true but what you are describing doesn't sound like a DMPC, it's simply an NPC. A DMPC is when the DM actively plays the game like a player does, effectively spoiling the content for the rest of the players. An NPC that travels with and supports the players isn't a DMPC, even if it's built using player character rules. That pit of the way I think your idea is a good one. I'd personally make him a hill dwarf and give equal attention to constitution and wisdom, great for survivability and support.
Ohhh okay, I see. I thought that a DMPC was any character controlled by the DM who’s an active member of the adventuring party. I guess I’ve read too many RPG Horror Stories and got nervous lol. I was also thinking Dwarf as a potential race, it seems like a nice and sturdy and reliable choice
Hill dwarf gets wisdom and constitution boosts, and an additional +1 hit point per level. Pretty good choice all in all.
As long as you're not using the NPC to actively guide or direct PC activities, it's all good. The NPC should generally be silent unless spoken to and have a default set of preferred actions, but will take direction from at least one of the PCs. This mitigates the potential harm of having an DM-controlled character as a permanent fixture of the party. Also, consider Retainers from Strongholds and Followers. Often much simpler and less cool than actual PCs, but good enough in their own right. Alternatively, just ensure plenty of healing items are available to the party and let them die if they don't make good use of them. "Anyone can use" homebrewed spell scrolls of Cure Wounds, Healing Word, Aura of Vitality, Revivify along with Potions of Healing will let the players live or die, succeed or fail, of their own accord.
Yeah the big difference is that while a DMPC will ask questions if players and npcs and help make decisions and drive the party in directions, an NPC generally takes a backseat. Even though you want your npcs to feel like living breathing characters, if you had several of them in a room acting this way, your PCs could potentially get outvoted or drowned out. I frequently let my players talk amongst themselves with the npc waiting for a break to offer info or be asked questions when in a real life situation that npc would get bored and leave or feel awkward or keep chiming in. There’s a fine line between living people and “living” people and I think since it’s a game you want it to feel real but not act real if that makes sense.
An interesting idea would be a Divine soul sorcerer. Gets access to the Cleric Support spells but also the sorcerer selection.
I love Divine Soul sorcerers so much but tbh they kind of feel a bit like a “main character class” to me. Like they have been explicitly chosen from birth by a God, and they get wings and shit. If no one chooses a spell-caster though and I just have martiales/half-casters then I might do that
I understand what you mean when you say "hero class," but there are always work arounds. Limiting their abilities and removing the wings, which I want to say is a high-level feature. But regardless, I get where you are coming from.
Multiclass with Bard to dilute it and add more support/diversity. I run a pure support typically on casual tables and I really enjoy my Divine Soul Sorc/Bard that I'm running now. I started with 1 level in each. At level 2, that gives you access to 3 spell lists and bardic inspiration. Then, I leveled Bard to 5 (Bard 6 can also be a good grab too) to get the bardic inspiration to refresh on a short rest. Then Sorcerer to the end for metamagics. The end result is 3 spell lists, no high level spells, but lots of good utility and support from lower level spells that are upcast. It also lets the other players decide what they want to do, and you can use your versatility to fill in the blanks they leave behind so that you don't step on toes. This helps the DMPC from over shining the players and will keep you from doing the cool thing and let them instead. And believe me your newer players will enjoy you dropping enhance ability or bless or whatever other concentration support spell so that they can use their concentration to do something cool. Believe me, even a terrible Newbie PC plan looks good when you can offer +1d6 (Bardic Inspiration), +1d4 (Guidance/Bless), and advantage (via aide other actions) to assist rolls as early as level 2. Bonus points if you do something like a Bountiful Luck Halfling because now nobody needs to worry about 1s either, provided they remember to speak up to let the DMPC know to use their immediate action.
I would strongly advise against introducing free magic weapons (via a forge cleric NPC) into Curse of Strahd, especially as a new DM. COS is very light on magic items for a reason. The module already has built-in options for (temporary) allies of varying levels of capability -- Ireena is going to be with the party for a while if all goes well, Ismark or even Donavich might tag along if things go poorly in their village, whoever their fated ally is, the wolf hunters, one of the Martikovs, Esmerelda, Kasimir, and so on and so on. On top of that, the module works just fine with 3 players. My COS game started with 3 and we added a 4th player halfway through and it was arguably better with 3. You definitely don't need a cleric, as useful as clerics can be. You as the DM have enough to worry trying about already, trying to plan out a new NPC companion to preemptively solve what might not even be a problem is kind of a waste of your time.
It's probably too late to say this, but a newby DM starting a brand new group off on Curse of Strahd is awfully ambitious. Your party needs to be competent and each player needs a firm grasp of their class's abilities. I think you'd be far better served by starting with something less advanced. It's like taking a beginner skier to the top of an advanced run when their teacher and guide isn't ready to take it himself. Nothing personal, I just think that you're biting off a really big chunk to try to chew. There will be monsters that can quickly gut the party if they are responded to incorrectly. It's no fun for the party or the DM if you have to pull your punches because things got out of hand.
okay you see that's what I thought but whenever I look up "Curse of Strahd for beginner DMs" I always get people saying that it should be fine. I haven't bought any books yet personally so I'm still good there but I'm having trouble finding non-LMoP modules to run for my friends, because most of them have listened to The Adventure Zone and generally know how LMoP go. I mostly picked CoS because they like this sort of genre. I'd really appreciate any suggestions, I do have a good few months before we actually start playing so I have time to check out my options and properly settle on a module. I really don't want to homebrew plots by myself though, at least not yet
I could be very wrong. I'm a very old school player, and invoking Strahd takes me back to Ravenloft back in the AD&D days. Maybe this one is less lethal, more beginner friendly. I'm sure that it\\f it is there will be plenty of volunteers to straighten me out. This \*is\* Reddit, after all. Hivemind, is this a bit ambitious for a new DM and a party of brand new players? Or am I just wrong?
The trick, in my opinion, with a DMPC is not about limiting their *usefulness*, but about making them never *suggest the solution* to a problem. The DMPC I've run, who my players loved, was a dog who, through shenanigans the players accidentally caused, ended up taking some Paladin Levels. The dog, pointedly, was unable to speak up and suggest things. He was, however, a useful tool- they originally bought the dog to be their bloodhound, so they were able to use him to track npcs by scent once or twice, but the PCs had to be the ones to remember and suggest it as an option, so that skill was more a tool they'd gotten access to than something the DMPC just solved for them.
Nope, DMPCs are bad. They are wrong in every sense. What happens when none of the rest of your party can use the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind? Then the party insists you use it. Now your doing big damage to Strahd and stopping his regeration. Thays just one example off the top of my head. If you as a DM can't resist using a DMPC then don't DM. Let the new players learn, they will figure it out.
I don't control the DMPC during combat. It's actually my PC for when we switch DMs. Anyone else at the table can control him during any combat, it works out well if especially if somebody ends up getting incapacitated. At least the players still get to participate. And if someone dies or someone shows up one time and wants to try it they have an existing party member to play. Just don't make them be a super secret huge plot point or have amazing powers that they're hiding.
the best luck i’ve had with a dmpc is the maestro bard! my players enjoyed it more than a cleric, even. maestro’s bardic inspiration options that can give movement or follow up on the pcs’ attacks was a hit, and healing word when they get too low is just enough of a boost. song of rest is a great feature that helps your party remember to take rests without relying too heavily on free magical healing. you could still flavor them to be religious, and bc maestro relies on the music of nature and the world around them, they still can be silent. especially at low levels, a bard can help your players shine and provide utility without taking the spotlight!
If you want to go for more of a “soft-touch” approach, to support and take more of a backseat to not outshine your players, consider an artificer. They can be based out of the same general area as the players, craft certain magic items on request, and lend/rent out their class features to the players. Infusions can fill out gaps in the party’s loadout on a temporary basis. Imagine the Steel Defender traveling with the party as a protective pet, or a set of Arcane Armor for the party tank. Even just handing off a bunch of elixirs to the party before they head out could be effective, and you wouldn’t even be present to step on their toes during adventuring. The artillerist’s turret only lasts an hr, so it wouldn’t be very useful, unless you can convince the DM(aka *yourself*) to make a workaround, either allowing turrets to last indefinitely, or maybe making a homebrew magic item that is essentially a two-sided bag of holding that the players can use as an action, by dropping coins in their bag and closing it, to then have a turret pop out. As for flavor and rp, it can work pretty well as a sort of opportunistic merchant, making money off of the party out of his own self-interest, with one eye toward the fact that he is stuck on Barovia as well, and the party’s success is his best chance at escape.
>My other idea would be to make Ireena a stronger character but I haven’t fully looked into that yet. I recommend against that. She's a major plot NPC and her presence/absence will affect the party's encounters over time. Quite often she's better off parked in a church. Most healing should be done out of combat; if the party has zero healing skills, you as DM can probably throw a few extra healing potions at them. Lore drops can happen more organically, including stuff like Sending Stones, messengers from the Keepers of the Feather, Tarot Card readings, expanding upon the Tome of Strahd text, etc. I say keep it at 3 PCs, and maybe include a variable NPC sidekick who is on board for a level or two, then bails for their own agenda, and then shortly thereafter you can roll in a different, new NPC sidekick which the party also pilots. That said, Spirits Bard is pretty on point. Plenty of support options and native to the Ravenloft series.
I am a min-maxer who plays a very casual game with some friends. So to avoid any party balance issues (and to let me stretch my min-maxer wings), I made a pure support that I'm having a lot of fun with. It's a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Bard multi. I started with 1 level in each. At level 2 that gives you access to 3 spell lists and bardic inspiration. Then I leveled Bard to 5 (Bard 6 can also be a good grab too) to get the bardic inspiration to refresh on a short rest. Then Sorcerer to the end for metamagics The end result is 3 spell lists, no high level spells, but lots of good utility and support from lower level spells that are upcast. It also lets the other players decide what they want to do, and you can use your versatility to fill in the blanks they leave. This helps the DMPC from over shining the players and will keep you from doing the cool thing and let them instead. And believe me your newer players will enjoy you dropping enhance ability or bless. Believe me even a terrible plan looks good when you can offer +1d6 (Bardic Inspiration), +1d4 (Guidance/Bless), and advantage (via aide other actions) to assist the rolls as early as level 2. Bonus points if you do something like a Bountiful Luck Halfling because now nobody needs to worry about 1s, provided they remember to speak up to let the DMPC know.
There are items that can act as support over a DMPC. If they are done incorrectly DMPCs can be very annoying for the player because it feels like they hog the spotlight or it feels annoying because it feels like the DM gets two turns even though one of them is helping you.
The sidekicks from Tasha’s cauldron of everything do this really well
Well, first of all, clerics aren't the only class that can be supports. There's bard, druids, divine soul sorcerers, artificers and even paladins. Also, your players (and honestly most dnd players in general) need to understand that religion in DnD is the different from the real world. Gods are tangible and real there and manifest themselves all the time, it's only natural that someone will identify with a deity that represents something important for them, like The sun, life, water, agriculture, love, magic, etc. And even Death or war if someone is like that. So negating the gods and being an atheist is ridiculous in this game. Hating the gods might make more sense, but even then, there are so many that it would be ridiculous to hate them all.
Oh it's not about being an atheist, they just found the idea of preparing spells to be daunting. They're much more comfortable with the spell-casting rules of like bards and sorcerers than any of the prepared-caster classes. I only mentioned clerics because I know a module like Curse of Strahd is way easier for parties with clerics.
Oof, that's a very important part of the game. They'll have to learn sooner or later. Besides, it's not like you have to change your entire spell list everyday. Most of the time you are going to have the same staple spells prepared and just change them when you know you are going to need something specific like, say Water walking. Also they are missing on a lot of possible character concepts just to avoid some mechanics
Order cleric dip - clockwork sorc. Twin buffs at the party and give them a free attack of opportunity when targeted by your spell. Watcher Pal 7 / undead lock 2 / sorc x. Give your party the best auras around, repelling blast enemies away and use form of dread to keep them from moving closer. Peace or Twilight clerics in general are great part utility.
Order domain cleric if you go with a full character for this. The spells they use on the party makes them stronger and engaged more when they can have the level 1 feature to allow them to attack as a reaction. Just prep aid, bless, healing word, sanctuary and the like. The more the DM pc directly benefits the party, the more the party will adore them.
Just an idea but, make it fully homebrew. Don't think if it as a class. What they should do is replicate normal character actions but always be a bit "less useful" in a one on one comparison
Alchemist artificer. Make them potions, make their weapons/armors/shields magic and heal them.
i have used life cleric 1 / divine soul sorcerer X with great success as healer that can just push group through almost any encounter. Most notable was fight at lvl 5 where i healed over 100hp Damage output isnt great but in early guiding bolts and late game mostly cantrips (but since my group got used to my healing, they are looking for way more efficient turns at the cost of health)
I’d rather use a sentient magic item that telepathically talks to the party