Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn’t adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he’d take 1d4 damage

Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.

They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:

1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your time

He should have an arrow in the knee.

Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn’t adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he’d take 1d4 damage

Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.

They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:

1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your time

In short, don’t. Player classes are not designed to be NPCs or enemies.

Personally I don’t like DMPCs, ally NPCs, or whatever you call them. Let the players pump him for equipment or information, and give them an advantage from that.

If they really really want him to come along, maybe have him guide them around traps to the cave mouth (or whatever) and then say “this is as far as I go, I can’t really fight ever since I took an arrow to the knee”.

Just pick an appropriate NPC class like Veteran or something, if he does end up in combat.

Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn’t adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he’d take 1d4 damage

Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.

They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:

1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your time

Im trying to create a DMPC who used to be a 10th level fighter in his youth but hasn’t adventured in decades. I want to weaken him in a semi-realistic way, while keeping his skills.

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2. On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion. Possibly increasing that dc on fails. On failed attacks or physical ability checks he’d take 1d4 damage

Obviously this is going to be weird to balance but I have a sneaking suspicion my players are going to ask this former adventurer to come on one last adventure. Relive his glory days so to speak.

They are level 5, im willing to drop his level but I want him to have been a higher level adventurer when he was in his prime. I went with the battlemaster sub class and focused all my maneuvers on assisting. Specifically:

1 Commanders strike 2 Maneuvering attack 3 rally 4 tactical assessment 5 commanding presence 6 bait and switch 7 distracting strike

Any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, or anecdotes are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your time

I was thinking of lowering his base str, dex, and con scores by 2 and increasing int, wis and, cha scores by 1 or 2.

This is pretty close to how aging used to be portrayed in D&D so should be good there.

On top of this, I thought on successful attack or physical ability checks id roll a d20 dc 10 check and on a fail he would gain a point of exhaustion

This sounds like it will be absolutely brutal. You say d20 dc10, does that mean you intend to roll unmodified? A 50% chance to give yourself disadvantage on all ability checks on the first successful attack feels like it would snowball quickly. Maybe dial it down somewhat to something that will trigger, but not as often. Also having to roll another check and d4 damage sounds like it would add a lot of time to his turns. Maybe instead you could give him disadvantage on saves against exhaustion causing effects? You could do a similar mirror to your ability score modifications and give him advantage to resist some effects thanks to his experience. Maybe charms or illusions.

I like where your head is at with the battle master. When I did a retired character back in the day the campaign side stepped the age modifiers, since they were no longer relevant, but I used the crusader class from Tome of Battle with a similar theme in powers. Went with a lockdown spear wielder for other character choices. Good luck with the campaign, sounds like it will be a fun time.

People who had skills like that retain them pretty well. Doing the shift of attributes from physical to mental makes sense and would have the kind of effect you are going for. Plus you could drop his HP to something like what he would get if he rolled a 2 every level (20+attribute+feats at level 10) so he wouldn’t be significantly more durable.

Keep in mind that physically active people tend to stay physically active so unless you give him an injury, became sedentary for some reason, or is really getting on in years he would be expected to be as capable as he was when he stopped adventuring in the DnD setting.

That said, it would probabky be better to have him the same level or lower as he ‘rediscovers’ his fighting prowess, possibly leveling up quickly compared to the players so he doesn’t overshadow them right away. Even support actions can feel like they are overshadowing character abilities.

Or you could just use the Veteran NPC statblock and give them a few of the abilities from your list instead of using character creation rules.