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I play DnD 5th and I find my group often has many NPCs accompanying them, like 4 players and 4 NPCs. Most have some form of tie to the group, but few are actually as useful as the group members, as the group already has healers/damage dealers/party faces/stealthy characters. From a story perspective, they have different motivations for going the same route as the PCs.

So in combat, a couple NPCs don't do much, and the others are on par with the least useful party member. So in the end, the party dismisses the NPCs because they're "useless".

On the RP side, when the (extended) party meets another NPC, I don't want to have NPC-NPC conversations where the party is ignored, so the party NPCs end up not talking much. If the external NPC says things that the party misses, I normally don't have party NPCs pick up on those things, as it feels a bit like cheating. I have party NPCs fill in lore bits and background details, but the plot connections I leave to the PCs. So again, the NPCs are "as dumb" as the players, rarely offering an key insight or a brilliant idea.

I don't want to cut the NPCs out of the game; I think they should be used to provide a nice depth to the world. They give the PCs a chance to form bonds that help enjoy the game.

So, how can I strike a balance between:

• not shadowing PCs in combat, but still providing a useful contribution
  to combat?


• not shadowing the PCs while interacting with other NPCs, but still
  providing a useful contribution in said interactions?

Background:I'm currently running a 5e campaign with a large number of possible NPC companions and have run Out of the Abyss (which is HEAVY on NPC companions).

Combat

The conclusion I've come to for combat is: The Companion System.

Yes, it's not part of official rules, and isn't free, but it has worked excellently.

RAW Out of the Abyss has each and every NPC use the stat block of the appropriate monster. At the beginning, there are around a dozen of these NPCs. Once I whittled it down to three, it was a bit more manageable, but still meant that I was playing a disproportionate number of rounds in combat. It felt like I was, if you'll pardon me saying so, just playing with myself. The use of multiattack from two of the characters was especially unbalanced.

I have since switched to using the Companion System from the link above. I won't go into too much detail, because the person who created it deserves your money and clicks, but it gives companion NPCs small, supporting abilities to use in combat, and puts control of them into the players' hands. Any player can choose to control an NPC at any time, as long as they aren't already "claimed".

Currently, as an example, I have a drow cleric accompanying the party. The drow can do one thing: cast Spiritual weapon, and use it. This adds a bit of damage to the 3-person party without being especially interesting, and one of the players will still get "credit" for any badassery enacted during combat. It also means one less thing for me to keep track of, which is wonderful.

Talking to yourself

As far as RP goes, I try to involve my players whenever possible. Sometimes, as odd as it is it to me (and, it seems, to you too) they actually enjoy watching the DM talk to themselves. However, in these situations, I try to paraphrase information, and then either have an NPC address a player directly, or drop hints that the party should get involved.

For example:

DM: "You come across two women in the street. They are arguing.

[doing the voice of Woman 1] This other woman has stolen my wares!

[doing the voice of Woman 2] I haven't! She's a liar!

They carry on like this for a while, arguing loudly. It looks like they might come to blows if nobody stops them."

Eventually, if your players are roleplay inclined, they'll get involved in a situation.

As for interactions with NPCs that are already part of the party, I use two strategies: the first is always asking during down time if anyone wants to talk; the second is narrating what the NPCs are doing. Often times, the response to strategy one is a resounding silence. But I like to make that space so that players don't feel like they'd be interrupting anything if they wanted to talk. As for the second option, while running OotA, making camp and resting was a common thing. I would often narrate things like:

As you settle down for the night, you can see that Eldeth is leaning against a wall and studying her battleaxe with a stony frown on her face. Jimjar seems to be practicing card tricks and looking around at everyone from time to time. Sarith is curled up with his chin resting on his knees, clutching at his head.

This helps to build atmosphere, of course, but also suggests that everyone involved has something that might be a dialogue hook; the first person is unhappy about something, the second is trying to show off and get attention, and the third seems to have a nasty headache. Now, for the record, I've never had a player whose introduction to RPGs in general wasn't through Bioware, so they all understand the idea that you should be checking up on your companions pretty regularly.

What do NPCs know?

This may sound glib, but NPCs know what they should know. The aforementioned cleric is familiar with their home temple, but not so much with the surrounding city, and certainly not the rest of the continent. The well-traveled retired adventurer, however, knows a little about everything, although it may be a little out of date. Consider the NPC's backstory first, and then decide what knowledge and skills they have.

As for bailing the party out, I count NPCs as just another tool in my box for unsticking a party. If they've gotten hung up on something long enough that they're clearly bored, I give them a little nudge. I treat these along the same lines as what I would do with any non-party NPC, and again, try to keep in mind what the NPC's skills and background are. When trying to infiltrate a temple, the drow cleric may suggest going in through a secret passage nobody else knows of, whereas a druid might suggest using their spells to bust in. This is a fiddly DM call sort of situation, and requires a good read of your players to know when they're no longer having fun beating their heads against the wall.

Final Notes

Not all companions are created equal. In order to avoid overshadowing or overpowering the party, most potential companions are at the slightly-underpowered level that the Companion System offers. Some are less useful, and might need some training and protection; some are more useful, and might be able to offer training.

Overall, my advice could be boiled down to:

• Use the Companion System, because it will save your life.


• Make your NPC party members integrated parts of the world, and let that inform their dialogue.

I have two pieces of advice on this topic.

Don't Join the Party

The broadest way around this problem is to have interesting, involved NPCs that don't travel with the party. There are lots of ways to make cool NPCs that are reoccurring characters but that don't follow your players around. Some examples that come to the top of my mind are:

• A traveling merchant that has a penchant for attracting both danger and secrets. Every time he turns up, your players seem to have to save him from something, but he's happy to reward them with information he's learned since they last saw him.


• The head of the king's guard that your players work with while in the capital city. She falls in love with one of the PCs and promises to wait while they finish their adventures. She is always thrilled to see the party and periodically even joins them for battles if they are close by (she's very strong, but since her help is so rare, it doesn't unbalance things).


• The sorcerer twin siblings of one of the PCs who are studying the arcane halfway across the world. They may never even appear in person, but they send letters frequently along with strange magical artifacts that may or may not have a purpose.

In your current campaign, I would recommend trying to trim down the party. The NPCs can each find something they would rather be doing and leave the group. If they stay in one place, then your players now have a powerful ally there. If they continue traveling separately, then they can reappear at any time and become a strategic tool for you.

Make them Abnormal

If there's some deeper reason why you really want the party to have so many tag-alongs, then you should try to find things that are out of the ordinary for them to do. DnD makes this tricky by treating all powerful NPCs as the same as PCs (they have a class, level, etc.), but you can give them quirky powers outside of that if you want.

• Maybe a magic user has a tremendously powerful spell, but needs 10 turns to activate it. They have to be protected until then, since it requires all their concentration if they are going to cast it. This might change the flow of battle from your party taking the offensive to taking the defensive and just trying to wait it out. You'd have to play around with it to see if it could work for you and your group while still being interesting and fun.




• Maybe one of the NPCs has a feat that lets them be really helpful with defense, which allows your PCs to be more reckless than usual since she is fairly good at popping up at just the right time with her shield between the attacker and the PC.

Etc.

The goal here is to set the NPCs apart from the rest of the party. They should have different abilities from player characters so that they stay interesting and useful. They should serve a similar mechanical niche to powerful items while being more interesting narratively.

Good luck!

Make them all complement the PCs. Rogues and other teamwork-based or defensive classes are good at this. What this does is it makes them feel like partners, not rivals.

Examples include a rogue NPC helping a PC rogue to flank with him, an NPC cleric healing his friends, or a paladin to defend an archer. Overall, this makes the players want to work with them and helps build friendships, and if they leave/die, the players feel at a loss but not crippled.

I hope this helps, as I have had the same problem.