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I do a little PnP (2nd Edition) now and again - used to do lots. I have a lot of NPC's hacking around my worlds - they would hang around with a party for a specific purpose then go.

For example, I have a Forest Runner dualled to a Wyrmslayer (tough stats but a limited role). Idea being guy lives in and defends forest, Green Dragon destroys the area, guy becomes Wyrmslayer. Now he's a powerful NPC (has to be to dual ranger to paladin) but has a very limited role - i.e . he's only useful in the forest or fighting Dragons (Green ones ). So PC's have a powerful ally but only for a while.

Any good NPC's/ideas out there?

I had one,
DMing a game which didn't have any mages so one was created to fill the gap, but I didn't want him to be a DM product so the players each had turns in controlling him aswell as their own characters.
The beauty was that Mage was made to be Schitsophrenic [not correct spelling] so when a player took control of him, the differing style of play was accounted by the split-personnality complex thing.
But had to make sure the mage did crazy things once in a while.

But he ended up being one of our trully unique characters.
Tried to bring him into BG but didn't like giving him the high stats etc and just never got into him on a CRPG like PnP.

Try an elven spell-singer or a circle of High Magi. I got these characters from Evermeet: Island of the elves. A good book to read.

Basically, spellsingers combine fighting prowess with an ability to cast spells even when wearing armor, though not very heavy types.

Circle Magic requires a number of mages, forming a circle (duh), with the most powerful mage acting as "centre". This mage collects all the spell power of the other mages and weaves the magic into the desired spell. More power is possible by adding more mages to the circle.

We came up with an interesting one that turned out to bea challenge to run. Everyone has heard of the movie "Rain Man." We changed it up a bit and had an NPC who was a savant in weather related magic. He even looked like Dustin Hoffman. The NPC had viciously low Int and Wis scores, but any type of spell even remotely associated with weather he could "cast" as an 18th Mage. All of the area farmers tried their best to keep him calm, for the obvious reasons. But when the party came into town, things got a bit exciting. When the party hothead tried to intimidate our "Rain Man," you can imagine the fun that was had.
R.Carter

I've used an specific enemy character to great effect. S'pose he could serve as NPC as well. My intent was to make a character that would be versatile, a challenge, yet not immediately fatal to a group of level 2 adventurers.

Make a character that's a level 4 Cleric and level 3 Illusionist. Making him simply a level 7 Illusionist would probably make him much more deadly...

His Domains are Travel and Trickery. His Feats include Improved Initiative and Brew Potion.

Since he can brew potions and scribe scrolls, and there's really no reason why he should not be well-equipped with either. I gave him Potions of Invisibility, Mirror Image and Cure Moderate Wounds, and Scrolls of Glitterdust, Web and Summon Monster II.

The way this guy fights is casting his area disabling spells (Web and Glitterdust) and kill people that are disabled. Disabled people can be killed with a single blow (Coup de Grace). With the Travel Domain power, he can walk through his Webs as if they're not there. Summon Monster provides a couple of expendable Dire Rats that can cheaply deliver a couple of death blows on disabled characters for you.

If, at any time, he gets hurt, have him drink a Potion of Invisibility, run around a bit, drink healing potions and finally a potion of Mirror Image. None of these break invisibility.

Cast Shield at the start of battle; it lasts for an insanely long time and gives a huge bonus. Have him wear a Chain Shirt to give him really good AC while suffering only minor spell failure.

This battle lasted for hours (real time, of course), during which he would repeatedly "time out" with Invisibility, heal back up and go at it again. In the end, he turned invisible and ran away.