Non-party party members?

ok this sounds confusing, but I didn’t know how to phrase it.

I have two characters in mind that will have significant interaction with the other party members but I don’t want taking up a slot in battle because they are not supposed to be that powerful. I want them visible in the party like when crossing a map, but don’t want them taking up a slot in battle. It would also be nice to see them in the menu along with the the other characters.
Currently in my game system there are two rows. Maybe I make a 3rd row and stick them there?

The two characters I question:

A “follower” player whose role in the game is to simulate someone who carries loot. There’s an anime about a character like this, and also in some morppgs like FFXI people had “mules” to get around storage restrictions. This character will be an homage to that. I mean, how are people IRL really going to walk around carrying 5 sets of armor? Anyway all this character will do I imagine in battle will throw potshots with a crossbow. I don’t want this character to “grow” in power like the other characters like the summoner or dark knight who get more abilities and power.

The other character in mind is a succubus character for my warlock. It’s really a summon character, but i also don’t envision this character getting powerful. However, his character will have lots of interaction with the other characters.

Right now in my story, they are taking up slots in the battle. The succubus on the front line with a whip attack, and the follower in the back taking potshots. But it’s a shame because while I have developed an interesting story and dialogue with them, they are taking up a slot that should be for more powerful characters I’m making.

Anybody have ideas?

Thanks.

You'll need an script or plugin to do that. Are you using Ace or MV?

I've moved this thread to Plugin Request. Thank you.

That is based on your "Primarily Uses". If it is wrong, say so and it can be moved again.

By all means I would not be an expert on party-management scripts, but one of the important questions to ask is how many other party members would you have? Active and total?
Example
Warrior + Mage + Thief + Cleric are the active party. They will be present in the battler.
+ Henchman - this is the "invisible" character. Can shoot crossbow in battle, but by all means is not controlled.
+ Escorted Princess - Definitely not doing anything in battle. Probably hiding somewhere away from combat.
That would be total of 6 visible characters on the map.

Technically speaking, you can expand your party to hold 6 characters with existing plugins, and use a party management plugin to add Henchman and Princess in the viewer, with locked equipment so they can't be re-equipped. And, using a pre-battle trigger, you can simply remove them from the party. After the party, they will be added back.
This would, in theory, simulate the extra characters. Minus taking potshots with a crossbow.
Technically, could be achieved with existing plugins: party expand, party manager, event triggers.

There is also this thread, that might be helpful.

I think what I might think about doing is having them recruited but not in the party, and not able to be brought into the actual fight unless summoned during the fight only through summons.
I have a plugin for making a summons of a party member, but I dont know how to get the part member locked so the cant be brought into the party. I tried this mechanism and two of the same characters were fighting at the same time!

there is a plugin by hime for JUST followers on the map, but it sounds like u want them also visable in the menu. If you can live without them in the menu you might want to look into this, he has a link to the plugin in the description.



as far as bringing them into battle, I believe yanfly has a "summoning" plugin that could achieve that, although I have never used it.

OR you could forget hime's plugin and with a little bit of tricky eventing, you could in thoery remove the player before each battle processing event starts and re-add them after it ends. This would allow you still see them in the menu.