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Well, my group is maybe halfway through the Assault on Farshore and one has bit the dust. He has a backup character ready but to have him spontaneously appear six seconds later (next week) seems a bit ridiculous. On the other hand, for him to have to skip two or three sessions seems a bit harsh. I mean - we're doing this for fun!
I'm thinking of alternatives and would welcome ideas.
1) (Easy option) His backup is one of the statues from Tamoachan that the party brought along. They also have Stone Salve.
2) (Dull option) His backup is a prisoner on one of the ships.
3) (Cool option) His backup is a prisoner bound to an undead monstrosity that's attacking the gate. Freeing him destroys the undead thing.
Two problems - "Where's his stuff?" and that will cost more resources that the group frankly need for the Vrocks and what comes after.
Possible solution - run a side encounter where the players play Jade Ravens and free the backup. Still need to get the guys stuff though. He could always be deep in the undead thing's ribcage, encased in (fantasy) carbonite with energy streams coming out of his chest or something. Nah - the necromancer would have nicked his stuff. Definitely.
So - what's your take on backups and have you a wicked idea? We only play for 3 hours every two weeks, so he needs something meaningful to do next week.
I believe in no down time for a player that wants to play. Farshore and the Isle of Dread are big enough to have one or two shiftless loiterers ("off duty" adventurers) lazing around waiting for something to happen.
Make him a pirate that changes sides in mid-battle (because he was shanghaid against his will in the first place). Or an Olman tribesman fresh out of the jungle coming to help out.
3) (Cool option) His backup is a prisoner bound to an undead monstrosity that's attacking the gate. Freeing him destroys the undead thing.
Two problems - "Where's his stuff?" and that will cost more resources that the group frankly need for the Vrocks and what comes after.
Possible solution - run a side encounter where the players play Jade Ravens and free the backup. Still need to get the guys stuff though. He could always be deep in the undead thing's ribcage, encased in (fantasy) carbonite with energy streams coming out of his chest or something. Nah - the necromancer would have nicked his stuff. Definitely.
I Would go with this one, personally. Think Devourer variant that maybe actually captures it's target (items and all) and is powered by them until they die, at which time it loses hit dice till it dies or gets a new power source, think human battery. The Pcs see big nasty and waste it or figure out the power source, and break him out which immidiately depowers it and poofta new ally! complete with stuff. To make it more amusing the necromancers never get to see what goodies the bodies have till they are juiced so they get all kinds of surprise,,, and you can have alot of fun explaining how a competent adventurer fell into the trap of a hulking person cage of undeadness....
You could also ask him if he wants to help run the bad guys while the battle at Farshore goes on.
One member of the party I was DMing for decided to take the Sea Wyvern and try and delay the pirate fleet.
I dropped hints as to the size of the fleet, the fact that the other players were going to be left to sit around while he had his battle and so on but he was very insistent.
So I thought I will put the other players in command of the Pirate ship that turned to meet Sea Wyvern and told them to do their best. They loved it and did there very best to sink the Sea Wyrvern. There was a Yuan-ti Ninja, a Lizardman Barbarian and Thrall of Demogorgon.
The Sea Wyvern won, just - it lost a lot of the crew though.
Perhaps the new PC could be the leader of a small Olman or phanaton :-) contingent coming to aid the PCs...
The option I use myself is more complex. When I started this campaign I saw this problem coming, so I introduced a mysterious organization that had received a vague prophecy about the coming savage tide. Because they do not want to alert Demogorgon to their plans, they are very circumspect. They teleport adventurers to Sasserine and to Farshore when it suits their purposes, and then wipe their memory of this event, again in order to not alert Demogorgon and his allies (I developed a potion for this, appropriately made from Styx water, which wipes the most recent 24 hours out of a person's memory). So these characters suddenly find themselves at an adventuring location and do not know how they got there.
I even started the campaign this way, as it was a nice way to create a group of 6 very dissimilar characters and give them a reason to be together.
I also gave these characters (including the PCs) an invisible tattoo, only recognizable by detect magic and read magic, so that organization members can recognize "their" adventurers. Moreover this organization is pretty ruthless. If someone dies, he was probably not good enough to prevent the savage tide, and they just send someone new. They do not cure, heal or raise their charges, or otherwise solve problems for them.
This organization has freaked the players out so far (they know of the existence of the invisible runes by now), and they suspect almost everyone of being a member of the organization and spying on them. Plus it gives me a nice way of dropping new characters (both PCs and NPCs) almost anywhere.
Thanks Luna - nice idea! He wants to play a Whisper Gnome Wizard 1/Rogue 8 with some poisons. Fair enough - though not many bad guys will have trouble with the poisons ;-)
Does that make a new background/ intro suddenly spring into anyone's head?
Maybe he could be related to Leemo, the gnome from the laboratory in Kraken's Cove, trying to find out why no one's heard from him these last few months? Finding out he died in service to the Crimson Fleet might create some sort of emotional response and motivation.