If you've been hunting for a solid roblox custom follow system script, you probably already know that the default movement tools in Studio can be a bit well, clunky. Whether you're trying to make a loyal pet that follows you around or a creepy monster that stalks the player through a dark hallway, getting the movement to feel "right" is harder than it looks. You don't want your NPC to just walk in a straight line and get stuck on every pebble; you want it to feel smart, responsive, and maybe a little bit more alive.
Why Go Custom Instead of Using Defaults?
Roblox has a built-in MoveTo function for Humanoids, and while it works for basic stuff, it's pretty bare-bones. If you just tell a rig to move to a player's position once, it'll go there and stop. If the player moves, the NPC stays behind looking confused. A custom follow system allows you to handle things like stopping distances, smooth rotations, and obstacle avoidance much more effectively.
Plus, let's be real: players can be chaotic. They jump, they spin, they use movement abilities. A basic script will break the second a player hops over a fence. By building your own roblox custom follow system script, you get to decide exactly how the NPC reacts to those situations. Do they teleport back if they get too far? Do they wait by the fence? It's all up to you.
The Core Logic Behind the Movement
At the heart of any follow script is the relationship between two points in 3D space: the NPC's position and the Player's position. We use a bit of math (don't worry, it's not too scary) to calculate the distance between them. In Luau, this is usually handled by looking at the Magnitude of the vector between the two points.
If the distance is greater than, say, 10 studs, you want the NPC to start moving. If they're closer than 5 studs, you probably want them to stop so they aren't clipping into the player's personal space. This "dead zone" is crucial for making the movement look natural. Without it, the NPC will constantly jitter back and forth trying to occupy the exact same pixel as the player.
Using PathfindingService vs. Simple Vector Tracking
You've got two main ways to handle the actual movement. The first is just moving the NPC directly toward the player's HumanoidRootPart. This is great for pets in open fields, but it's terrible in a city or a house because the NPC will just walk into a wall and keep walking until they eventually phase through or get stuck forever.
The second way—and the way I recommend for anything complex—is using PathfindingService. This service calculates a series of waypoints that lead the NPC around obstacles. It's a bit more intensive on the script, but it prevents that "walking into a wall" behavior that makes games feel unpolished.
Writing the Roblox Custom Follow System Script
Let's break down how you'd actually put this together in a Script. You'll usually place this inside the NPC model itself. You'll need to reference the NPC's Humanoid and the target player.
A common mistake I see is people running the follow logic every single frame. Please don't do that. It'll tank your game's performance if you have more than a couple of NPCs. Instead, use a loop with a small delay, like task.wait(0.1). This is fast enough that the player won't notice the delay, but slow enough that the server doesn't catch on fire.
Inside that loop, you'll find the nearest player (or a specific player, depending on your game's mechanic). Once you have a target, you calculate the path. You'll check if the path is successful, and then tell the Humanoid to move to each waypoint.
Handling the "Stuck" State
Even with pathfinding, NPCs get stuck. Maybe a physics object fell in their way, or maybe the navmesh is being weird. A good roblox custom follow system script needs a "stuck" check. If the NPC hasn't moved more than a stud in the last second but they're supposed to be moving, you might want to force a jump or even a quick teleport. It sounds like cheating, but almost every professional game does some version of this to keep the gameplay smooth.
Making the Movement Feel Natural
Once you have the basic "go to player" logic down, you need to polish it. If the NPC just slides across the floor, it looks like a glitch. You need to make sure your animations are hooked up correctly. Most Roblox rigs come with an Animate script, but you might need to tweak the walk speed to match the animation's rhythm.
Another trick is to adjust the WalkSpeed based on how far away the player is. If the player is way ahead, let the NPC sprint. If they're just a few feet away, have them slow down to a casual stroll. This makes the NPC feel less like a bot and more like a companion that's actually paying attention to you.
Adding an Offset
Nobody likes an NPC that stands directly on top of them. When you're scripting the target position, don't just use Player.Character.HumanoidRootPart.Position. Add a small offset. You can use CFrame to position the target point slightly to the left or right of the player. This is especially important for pet systems where you might have three or four things following the player at once. You don't want a literal stack of dogs following your character; you want them spread out in a nice formation.
Optimizing for Large Servers
If you're making a game where every player has a follower, you're going to run into lag issues if you aren't careful. Doing all the pathfinding on the server is the safest way to prevent cheating, but it's the heaviest on performance.
One way to optimize your roblox custom follow system script is to only update the path when the player has moved a significant distance. If I'm just spinning in circles, the NPC doesn't need to recalculate a whole new path to me. Only when I've moved, say, 5 or 10 studs away from my last "recorded" position should the script bother doing the heavy math again.
Another pro tip: use SetNetworkOwner(nil) on the NPC's parts. This ensures the server is in total control of the physics, which prevents the NPC from "stuttering" when a player gets close to it. It makes the movement much more consistent for everyone watching.
Final Touches and Testing
Once you've got the script running, you'll probably spend a good hour just tweaking numbers. You'll change the stopping distance, the turn speed, and the pathfinding re-calculation rate. Don't get discouraged if the NPC does something weird at first—like trying to jump over a mountain instead of walking around it. Roblox's pathfinding is good, but it requires a bit of "babysitting" through code to get it perfect.
Test your script in different environments. Take your NPC to a flat baseplate, then take it to a rugged terrain map, and finally a tight indoor hallway. If it can navigate all three without getting stuck or looking like it's having a mid-life crisis, you've nailed it.
Building a roblox custom follow system script is one of those foundational skills that opens up so many doors. Once you can make things follow a player, you can make guards, pets, enemies, or even interactive tour guides. It's all about that basic logic of "Where am I, where is my target, and what's the best way to get there?" Get that right, and your game will instantly feel ten times more professional.