[aphexx]

now that sounds well founded!
nevertheless the FPS is still also to be observed.
but it is mostly not the mass of vertecies that causes fps to collaps, in fact it is a very small amount of performance this needs.
it is the sum of all vertecies being rendered, all texture switches, every entity so everything that produces drawcalls. but also navigation, scripts, ai, shader instructions , animations and what not.

if you want to see, what effect your character has in your engine, you can import him into some level only as a part of a levelmesh or something and see, what you fps is doing. when you do not see any difference, clone them that often, that your FPS is collapsing some frames.
then you import him and link the properties to him, that make him a character. a full NPC with all systems running. also the same amount.
i think you'll see great difference.