I balanced this encounter based on your party. If you want to bring your beloved NPCs in to make things easier, don't cry when they catch a bad case of Chain Lightning.
Me and my other players who rotate as DMs do this. It makes fights a lot more manageable for the DM, gives players more things to do, and makes players feel like the NPCs are useful.
What I’ve always done instead is let them do damage to enemies but don’t give them an official turn or a official stat block. It also helps to make them some what of a annoyance, while in combat. like sometimes they need saving or maybe they woke up the sleeping troll, but have them offer something in return outside of combat like maybe they know where the dragon keeps it’s hoard or something a long those lines. I know this sounds crazy but it’s really helped out my games.
I had an npc in my party for a bit, she was the Rogue’s mom who was separated from him for a little under two decades. In combat she had basic attacks with her longbow and a few stronger attacks that she used every once in a while. She had her own spot in the initiative order. Recently, she died in combat when the party was fighting a Lich and the party’s next goal is to find the Lich and Avenge her (R.I.P Avalon D. Zenith)
It never occurred to me that NPCs aiding you in combat would be anything but awesome. I guess I just play videogames more where an NPC helper is always fun. Still your solution is perfect. Being able to control an NPC does indeed make them a part of the party. The issue is trying to get the npc back from the players lol.
@@jmcop30 I have no idea what you could be implying 😆 No I try to limit my meta gaming, but when my DM let slip that he was trying to pull up the NPC’s stat block, I figured I could beat him to it and just take care of it for him. He didn’t complain, it made things easier for him
@@jmcop30 we try not to meta game too much, but everyone that group has a tendency to at least a little bit. He doesn’t seem to mind and has gotten pretty used to it.
I reccomend support npcs. My players went into the story hook and rolled really bad. When I say bad, I mean 4 nat ones. In a row. For one character! All of them were unconscious but one. They had all talked to a silly little cleric guy and the character probably would’ve been following them because he’s lonely and liked them a lot. I said “roll a luck check” the last one alive rolled. NAT FRICKIN 20!!!!! The npc sweeped in cast healing word on the warlock and got him up. They won the encounter after the cleric kept bringing up the party. This was one of my favorite moments ever, and it was my first session as a DM. They were very attached to this character, and they were very hooked
I like to control my NPCs personally because my players are a bunch of chaos goblins and are unpredictable lol. I just add flair and description to EVERYONE'S attacks, everyone gets a spotlight kill and the NPCs fighting with the players are about 30% of the battle because there are a few NPCs that wander with the party or are being run into enough in the world. Most of time though, battles are strictly Player battles and the NPCs are off doing another thing. Or, one of my favorites, the NPCS have different objectives to complete and need a player or 2 to come with them to finish a task so everyone splits up. More chaos to ensue when a NPC Rogue needs a Barbarian to smash some heads while they pick locks. I love DnD, it's so much fun!
Yeah, that's what I always do. As a player I once had to play in a big battle session where my turn came maybe once every 20 minites and I totally lost track of what was going on in the meantime. So yeah, my players get to control NPCs in combats where there's more than maybe one of them around.
This is exactly how i do it. Had a party of a wizard, a shepherd druid, and a ranged ranger; they needed a frontline tank, so just made them a barbarian and let whoever wanted to control him do it
I've made little queue cards for each of the npcs with a simplified stat block on them - that way when the npcs show up for combat the party controls them and i just worry about roleplay. Though if they try and order an npc to do somthing against their convictions, such as putting a civilian in damger, i will take control just for that turn.
Once my players get to know some of the npcs I might pawn off a few to run in combat if they get along super well, kinda letting them operate as a team
On very rare exception (ex: I needed to prop up a bad guy by beating the party plus 5 aditional npcs) I only ever give my players 1 aditional combat oriented npc at most, in combat, I don't like giving away npcs to players cause it removes their character in the combat scenario, I want roleplay to continue during combat so the npc will act depending on their personality, so long as it's just one and they never outrigh outshine the players (I never let the npc have the final hit unless the the story calls for it) I think having a fighting partner that's with a sense of self is best
I like the way one of my DMs does it. We control a hirling we have in combat but he will override if we try to make him do something thats obviously a bad idea.
The way I run NPC combat is that I do hidden rolls, then tell the party what happens if the attacks hit or miss. I make characters seem cool or funny depending on what happens. For example: a goblin that can't die (well, stay dead), in a magical suit of armor he uses to disguise himself, gets ambushed by a bunch of raptor-bugs. The party finds him beating one of them in the head with his armor's detached arm, its legs already torn off, as he's flailing around like Anakin on Mustafar post-high ground, yelling at them "give me back my damn feet". This same goblin having earlier *punched a brick out of a fortress wall* out of anger, crushing his gauntlet without batting an eye. 😂
I have a fight going on right now where Bel is fighting another Pit fiend. The party is fighting through the remains of Bel's forces. I have the pitfiends rolling off on each other then I mark an X on who got hurt. Each X represents 30 damage. Each time the party gets through a wave of Bel's forces they get a number of X's equal to the wave on Bel's tracker to "help" their pit fiend ally.
Since Bel has legendary actions, the pit fiend friends with the party has to roll a D6 and subtract it from his D20 roll, but on rounds where they destroy Bel's forces he gets one roll at advantage. So far it is pretty even actually, but still in Bel's favor like it should be since he is stronger.
In every adventure that I write, I ALWAYS include very interesting NPCs that the players can "pair" with their characters for combat. For example, in the current adventure that I'm running, there is an NPC automaton that's a "Nameless", which is a creation that has multiple "Presences". As long as one of the "Presences" is still operable, the Nameless, who refers to himself (he prefers to go by a male pronoun because his Presences look masculine) as "Guard", as that's his job, continues to "live". Think Ultron and his many copies in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He has 6 "Presences", all of which are identical in terms of stats and capabilities. Every member of the party has a Guard Presence that stays with them and supports and defends them in combat. The Presences don't do a lot of damage, but they have a very high AC (20) and have the Shield Fighting Style, allowing them to defend the player character. The players have become VERY attached to their Presences, and have started giving them magic items and actually taking hits for them because, as constructs, they are difficult to "repair" as they cannot be healed through normal healing magic, and "Mending" is too rudimentary of a spell to do anything other than fix cosmetic damage. So they have to spend time out of combat performing repairs to recover hit points on the Guard units. On top of that, Guard has a very altruistic personality and strives to defend his "friends" (even though he technically cannot feel emotions). He's really hooked the players into the world. Even better: it allows me to run combat encounters that seem TRULY oppressive, such as sending massive swarms of enemies at the party and forcing them to use a mix of positioning and careful application of their AoE abilities (of which Guard has a few himself) to make it through. It really allowed me to ratchet combat encounters up several difficulty levels and make fights feel truly epic.
I tend to prefer giving the friendly NPCs specific goals in combat that aren't just "kill all the bad guys". Something that supports the PCs in being badasses, allowing them to do what they do best rather than doing it for them. Whether it be getting a high status NPC to safety so that the players can go all out without compromising their escort mission, casting and concentrating on the Silence spell so that the players can go all-out without compromising their stealth mission, or keeping the ship afloat with fantasy duck tape so that the players can go all out without compromising their exploration mission.
Simple answer for Players questions things like eye patches etc Npc: "accidentally got some embers stuck in my eye while failing to make a crank" they'll stop
I've been doing inktober on a streamers discord by doing pc backstories and i might use some of them as npcs because A. Backstory done and B. Free extra encounters for my party if i need it
This does vary for me depending on how nuanced and story-involved the NPC is. I'll basically never hand over Ireena Kolyana to a player to control because she doesn't behave like a D&D player character in combat situations when I run that module. I want to accentuate the loyalty and fear she experiences borne out through how she acts under deadly stress, not just in the quiet moments. The character doesn't stop being a character when initiative order starts, which is liable to happen in the hands of a player who typically wants to use the optimal tactics to win the combat encounter. If the NPC is minor or straightforward, the encounter is particularly complex, and/or there's a player at the table who I know really understands the nuanced NPC, then yeah I like to do this.
Alternatively, on the npc's turn, the player closest to them can tell them to do something. Then that player has to make a persuasion check. This makes it feel like they're your ally rather than like you're just playing 2 characters now
I feel depending on the npc you could skip the persuasion check, if my players agree an npc should do something and the npc is generally friendly to them I just make them do it, of course if they do as for some ridiculous "trust me bro" type shit then some presuasion might be in order😅
I am running CoS but they didn’t get obsessed with Ireena. They got obsessed with Ismark. Which is so much worse. I had to give him an actual statblock and make him my DM PC bc they kept wanting him to join every side quest they did 😭
With the 2024 rules just on the horizon & me being a new player; I'm confused about whether I should buy any non-adventure / campaign setting books (DM's guide, Tashas', Xanathar's, etc). thanks in advance if you choose my question & thanks for all the content you've made so far!
i had an idea for a campaign that revolves around the party helping a young blue dragon (who also happens to be the heir to the throne of the dragon monarchy (long story, silly worldbuilding stuff)) find their way home, and i've always thought the whole concept might be ruined bc the party has a whole DRAGON on their side. i thought of fixing this by making the dragon afraid of combat, but still i'm afraid of the npc being some annoying mary sue kid. what do!?!?!?
... GOD DAMNIT, IS THIS WHY I WAS GIVEN HIS STAT BLOCK!? I have been bamboozled! ... Although, said bamboozlement did result in me obtaining a drider pet... so who am I to complain?
I’m playing a phantom rouge, and my dm infused him with arcane, which is basically pure magic. This gave me the sorcerers spell list but with the spell slots halved rounded up. How do you feel about giving players this much of a boost? This also happened at like level 4, while the other 2 players were a circle of spores druid and an oath of vengeance paladin
While I'm usually with you on most of your videos, I'm not a huge fan of this one, sorry. While I agree that having npcs in a fight can make the players feel less engaged or drag the initiative order out, I also think that so long as what the npcs do is fun, cool, interesting and/or drives the story of a fight, it can still be fun or interesting for everyone there. At that point it's the same as watching another player take their turn, you're watching on of your fellow adventures pull off some really cool stuff and hit the enemies real hard. It doesn't work if you have too many npcs in one fight or if the npc is significantly more powerful than the other party members, but if you keep the numbers right it can still be fun for everyone there. It's all about time management, player engagement and storytelling, just like the rest of D&D.
I'd never do this, it simply makes no sense to me that they get to play additional characters and makes me feel biased towards those who get to do so as they will have more impact in the combat, individually. So I rather just break groups or balance the combat around my NPCs as well, "there's two sets of enemies" if the group decides to take em all at the same time, we do that, if they decide to split up, I also split up my NPCs, if they decide to take on a group by themselves, the NPCs take on the other. That way I give my players enough leeway to choose but don't give them more power, if there's NPCs in combat, there's bound to be more enemies.
TBH I dont like this solution that much. Its better than having your thunder stolen by the NPCs, but you could also have them break away and deal with another group of baddies, and just skip the extra combat turns, or go fend off the minions while the playes take the BBEG.
I'm not sure I like the idea of giving a player control of an NPC in any situation, even combat. NPCs should be mysterious to a certain degree and should always act in character, I believe handing that over to a player will to some degree lessen the impact of that character and in some ways make them feel like a "mechanical advantage" rather than a living and breathing being with agency of their own.
I prefer the persona 3 aproach, where you say what they should do, but do not control it. Like, you can say: "focus on that guy!" Or "give us support!" So the npc focus only on doing that
I feel i need an npc called JoJo Bananapants now
Wonder what bizarre adventure they’ll have
He might be a great jester
I balanced this encounter based on your party. If you want to bring your beloved NPCs in to make things easier, don't cry when they catch a bad case of Chain Lightning.
Me and my other players who rotate as DMs do this. It makes fights a lot more manageable for the DM, gives players more things to do, and makes players feel like the NPCs are useful.
What I’ve always done instead is let them do damage to enemies but don’t give them an official turn or a official stat block. It also helps to make them some what of a annoyance, while in combat. like sometimes they need saving or maybe they woke up the sleeping troll, but have them offer something in return outside of combat like maybe they know where the dragon keeps it’s hoard or something a long those lines. I know this sounds crazy but it’s really helped out my games.
I had an npc in my party for a bit, she was the Rogue’s mom who was separated from him for a little under two decades. In combat she had basic attacks with her longbow and a few stronger attacks that she used every once in a while. She had her own spot in the initiative order. Recently, she died in combat when the party was fighting a Lich and the party’s next goal is to find the Lich and Avenge her (R.I.P Avalon D. Zenith)
It never occurred to me that NPCs aiding you in combat would be anything but awesome. I guess I just play videogames more where an NPC helper is always fun.
Still your solution is perfect. Being able to control an NPC does indeed make them a part of the party. The issue is trying to get the npc back from the players lol.
"Calm down you creeps"
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
CinderblockSally, how did you know I was changing my shirt while listening to this? I fear now...
Good bonding experience for players to discuss abilities and such with their new friend as well. Maybe spice up the NPC by them having surprise magic
It would also allow for players to “test” out other classes, a Barbadian could play with a wizard might really like the differences
I actually did this for my DM and it helped combat a lot. I found the stat block for an NPC we had with us and just took over managing him, lol
"Found" the stat block implies that you were snooping around for meta knowlege, maybe I'm just reading too much into it though.
@@jmcop30 I have no idea what you could be implying 😆
No I try to limit my meta gaming, but when my DM let slip that he was trying to pull up the NPC’s stat block, I figured I could beat him to it and just take care of it for him. He didn’t complain, it made things easier for him
@@Firyfellow So long as your DM doesn't mind
@@jmcop30 we try not to meta game too much, but everyone that group has a tendency to at least a little bit. He doesn’t seem to mind and has gotten pretty used to it.
I reccomend support npcs. My players went into the story hook and rolled really bad. When I say bad, I mean 4 nat ones. In a row. For one character! All of them were unconscious but one. They had all talked to a silly little cleric guy and the character probably would’ve been following them because he’s lonely and liked them a lot. I said “roll a luck check” the last one alive rolled. NAT FRICKIN 20!!!!! The npc sweeped in cast healing word on the warlock and got him up. They won the encounter after the cleric kept bringing up the party. This was one of my favorite moments ever, and it was my first session as a DM. They were very attached to this character, and they were very hooked
I like to control my NPCs personally because my players are a bunch of chaos goblins and are unpredictable lol. I just add flair and description to EVERYONE'S attacks, everyone gets a spotlight kill and the NPCs fighting with the players are about 30% of the battle because there are a few NPCs that wander with the party or are being run into enough in the world. Most of time though, battles are strictly Player battles and the NPCs are off doing another thing. Or, one of my favorites, the NPCS have different objectives to complete and need a player or 2 to come with them to finish a task so everyone splits up. More chaos to ensue when a NPC Rogue needs a Barbarian to smash some heads while they pick locks. I love DnD, it's so much fun!
Yeah, that's what I always do. As a player I once had to play in a big battle session where my turn came maybe once every 20 minites and I totally lost track of what was going on in the meantime. So yeah, my players get to control NPCs in combats where there's more than maybe one of them around.
Strahd will have to wait in line to ride the train. 💦
I am NOT a creep! I am immersed in the story of an NPC, thank you very much. 😅
This is exactly how i do it. Had a party of a wizard, a shepherd druid, and a ranged ranger; they needed a frontline tank, so just made them a barbarian and let whoever wanted to control him do it
I've made little queue cards for each of the npcs with a simplified stat block on them - that way when the npcs show up for combat the party controls them and i just worry about roleplay. Though if they try and order an npc to do somthing against their convictions, such as putting a civilian in damger, i will take control just for that turn.
I will NOT calm down about her, Cinder!
Yes. This 100%
I did a massive war zone 1shot and did this with one side of the army…made everything manageable for me.
Once my players get to know some of the npcs I might pawn off a few to run in combat if they get along super well, kinda letting them operate as a team
On very rare exception (ex: I needed to prop up a bad guy by beating the party plus 5 aditional npcs) I only ever give my players 1 aditional combat oriented npc at most, in combat, I don't like giving away npcs to players cause it removes their character in the combat scenario, I want roleplay to continue during combat so the npc will act depending on their personality, so long as it's just one and they never outrigh outshine the players (I never let the npc have the final hit unless the the story calls for it) I think having a fighting partner that's with a sense of self is best
Having a small party allows for more npcs
I like the way one of my DMs does it. We control a hirling we have in combat but he will override if we try to make him do something thats obviously a bad idea.
The way I run NPC combat is that I do hidden rolls, then tell the party what happens if the attacks hit or miss.
I make characters seem cool or funny depending on what happens.
For example: a goblin that can't die (well, stay dead), in a magical suit of armor he uses to disguise himself, gets ambushed by a bunch of raptor-bugs. The party finds him beating one of them in the head with his armor's detached arm, its legs already torn off, as he's flailing around like Anakin on Mustafar post-high ground, yelling at them "give me back my damn feet". This same goblin having earlier *punched a brick out of a fortress wall* out of anger, crushing his gauntlet without batting an eye. 😂
Saying "hey, put your shirt on" after I took off my shirt to put on clean shirt spooked me, get out of my room
I have a fight going on right now where Bel is fighting another Pit fiend. The party is fighting through the remains of Bel's forces. I have the pitfiends rolling off on each other then I mark an X on who got hurt. Each X represents 30 damage. Each time the party gets through a wave of Bel's forces they get a number of X's equal to the wave on Bel's tracker to "help" their pit fiend ally.
Since Bel has legendary actions, the pit fiend friends with the party has to roll a D6 and subtract it from his D20 roll, but on rounds where they destroy Bel's forces he gets one roll at advantage. So far it is pretty even actually, but still in Bel's favor like it should be since he is stronger.
In every adventure that I write, I ALWAYS include very interesting NPCs that the players can "pair" with their characters for combat.
For example, in the current adventure that I'm running, there is an NPC automaton that's a "Nameless", which is a creation that has multiple "Presences". As long as one of the "Presences" is still operable, the Nameless, who refers to himself (he prefers to go by a male pronoun because his Presences look masculine) as "Guard", as that's his job, continues to "live". Think Ultron and his many copies in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
He has 6 "Presences", all of which are identical in terms of stats and capabilities. Every member of the party has a Guard Presence that stays with them and supports and defends them in combat. The Presences don't do a lot of damage, but they have a very high AC (20) and have the Shield Fighting Style, allowing them to defend the player character.
The players have become VERY attached to their Presences, and have started giving them magic items and actually taking hits for them because, as constructs, they are difficult to "repair" as they cannot be healed through normal healing magic, and "Mending" is too rudimentary of a spell to do anything other than fix cosmetic damage. So they have to spend time out of combat performing repairs to recover hit points on the Guard units.
On top of that, Guard has a very altruistic personality and strives to defend his "friends" (even though he technically cannot feel emotions). He's really hooked the players into the world.
Even better: it allows me to run combat encounters that seem TRULY oppressive, such as sending massive swarms of enemies at the party and forcing them to use a mix of positioning and careful application of their AoE abilities (of which Guard has a few himself) to make it through. It really allowed me to ratchet combat encounters up several difficulty levels and make fights feel truly epic.
I tend to prefer giving the friendly NPCs specific goals in combat that aren't just "kill all the bad guys".
Something that supports the PCs in being badasses, allowing them to do what they do best rather than doing it for them.
Whether it be getting a high status NPC to safety so that the players can go all out without compromising their escort mission, casting and concentrating on the Silence spell so that the players can go all-out without compromising their stealth mission, or keeping the ship afloat with fantasy duck tape so that the players can go all out without compromising their exploration mission.
If that dragons name isn't Don Smouldy I'm gonna do things
I don't know who that lady is and I'm already obsessed with her. I feel extremely called out right now.
Might have to do this next time.. cuz its too much when they bring extra npcs for a mission lol
The hot daddy bear leaves the shirt off, so I decree.
I've always just made em a few levels lower thsn the party but this works really well too.
Simple answer for Players questions things like eye patches etc
Npc: "accidentally got some embers stuck in my eye while failing to make a crank" they'll stop
Cos players do be loving her
I've been doing inktober on a streamers discord by doing pc backstories and i might use some of them as npcs because A. Backstory done and B. Free extra encounters for my party if i need it
This does vary for me depending on how nuanced and story-involved the NPC is. I'll basically never hand over Ireena Kolyana to a player to control because she doesn't behave like a D&D player character in combat situations when I run that module. I want to accentuate the loyalty and fear she experiences borne out through how she acts under deadly stress, not just in the quiet moments. The character doesn't stop being a character when initiative order starts, which is liable to happen in the hands of a player who typically wants to use the optimal tactics to win the combat encounter. If the NPC is minor or straightforward, the encounter is particularly complex, and/or there's a player at the table who I know really understands the nuanced NPC, then yeah I like to do this.
I added brunor battlehammer in session 3and the party killed the yeti before he could help lol.
My players like taking their crewmates with them. So I split who gets what and remind them there's no NPC plot armor in the wild.
Love this idea!
Alternatively, on the npc's turn, the player closest to them can tell them to do something. Then that player has to make a persuasion check.
This makes it feel like they're your ally rather than like you're just playing 2 characters now
I feel depending on the npc you could skip the persuasion check, if my players agree an npc should do something and the npc is generally friendly to them I just make them do it, of course if they do as for some ridiculous "trust me bro" type shit then some presuasion might be in order😅
How could you get pokemon in a campaign
Wait we gonna skate over plate mail high heels?
I am running CoS but they didn’t get obsessed with Ireena. They got obsessed with Ismark. Which is so much worse. I had to give him an actual statblock and make him my DM PC bc they kept wanting him to join every side quest they did 😭
As a person who is running CoS, yeah *yeah*
Ooh that's so much better than my method, which is making the NPCs just awful at combat
With the 2024 rules just on the horizon & me being a new player; I'm confused about whether I should buy any non-adventure / campaign setting books (DM's guide, Tashas', Xanathar's, etc). thanks in advance if you choose my question & thanks for all the content you've made so far!
when will the next live homebrew review be
i had an idea for a campaign that revolves around the party helping a young blue dragon (who also happens to be the heir to the throne of the dragon monarchy (long story, silly worldbuilding stuff)) find their way home, and i've always thought the whole concept might be ruined bc the party has a whole DRAGON on their side. i thought of fixing this by making the dragon afraid of combat, but still i'm afraid of the npc being some annoying mary sue kid. what do!?!?!?
... GOD DAMNIT, IS THIS WHY I WAS GIVEN HIS STAT BLOCK!?
I have been bamboozled!
...
Although, said bamboozlement did result in me obtaining a drider pet... so who am I to complain?
No way, i got the wizard? Hell yea!!!
(serious note, that was jarring hearing my name lol)
Can you make a video on how to build a detective character?
Two words: Inquisitive Rogue. There you go, now you have a detective character.
Just make sure you get proficiency and expertise in investigation and perception and any race or class can work.
I’m playing a phantom rouge, and my dm infused him with arcane, which is basically pure magic. This gave me the sorcerers spell list but with the spell slots halved rounded up. How do you feel about giving players this much of a boost? This also happened at like level 4, while the other 2 players were a circle of spores druid and an oath of vengeance paladin
I will not calm down my lesbian heart has been set aflame!
While I'm usually with you on most of your videos, I'm not a huge fan of this one, sorry.
While I agree that having npcs in a fight can make the players feel less engaged or drag the initiative order out, I also think that so long as what the npcs do is fun, cool, interesting and/or drives the story of a fight, it can still be fun or interesting for everyone there. At that point it's the same as watching another player take their turn, you're watching on of your fellow adventures pull off some really cool stuff and hit the enemies real hard. It doesn't work if you have too many npcs in one fight or if the npc is significantly more powerful than the other party members, but if you keep the numbers right it can still be fun for everyone there. It's all about time management, player engagement and storytelling, just like the rest of D&D.
I'm rooting for JoJo Banana Pants 😢
I have 5 players
I have an npc that is sometimes lazy
Roll a 1d6 to see who controls it
Roll a 6
Npc decides not to fight
Jojo Bananapants
My players can bairly handle their characters they would crucify me and then themselves if i had them manage more
I'd never do this, it simply makes no sense to me that they get to play additional characters and makes me feel biased towards those who get to do so as they will have more impact in the combat, individually.
So I rather just break groups or balance the combat around my NPCs as well, "there's two sets of enemies" if the group decides to take em all at the same time, we do that, if they decide to split up, I also split up my NPCs, if they decide to take on a group by themselves, the NPCs take on the other.
That way I give my players enough leeway to choose but don't give them more power, if there's NPCs in combat, there's bound to be more enemies.
TBH I dont like this solution that much. Its better than having your thunder stolen by the NPCs, but you could also have them break away and deal with another group of baddies, and just skip the extra combat turns, or go fend off the minions while the playes take the BBEG.
that was iriana?
Tell me more about JoJo Banana Pants!
I'm not sure I like the idea of giving a player control of an NPC in any situation, even combat. NPCs should be mysterious to a certain degree and should always act in character, I believe handing that over to a player will to some degree lessen the impact of that character and in some ways make them feel like a "mechanical advantage" rather than a living and breathing being with agency of their own.
Or, just get better players.
Fourteenth
I prefer the persona 3 aproach, where you say what they should do, but do not control it. Like, you can say: "focus on that guy!" Or "give us support!" So the npc focus only on doing that