Hi
I’m about to start running age of worms and I am just preparing my campaign handout for the players. I was looking for some advise on problem that has dogged my group for a long time now. Character Death.
The problem arises when you are in the middle of a campaign or adventure and one or all of the party members dies What level does the player introduce his new character.? Or party.
Basically I don’t want to have to shelf the adventure due to Total Party Death or constantly scale the adventures down to give the party a reasonable chance.
My group has always start afresh with a new character at one level lower than the party average, but players still grumble at the lost levels saying that they haven’t earned those levels and feel like they are cheating.
So I was toying with this idea that the character or party roll up the same level as they were but with zero XP points, then they have to earn the required XP to reach the next level as normal. I think this would allow the character to survive along side the existing characters (or a new party to survive the level of the adventure) long enough to earn the required XP given the self correcting nature of the system. I am aware that may take some time.
What are your thoughts and best practices on this topic?
I would like to present a few tried and tested methods to my group before we decide
Phil.T
The idea of allowing a character of the same level, might not work so well, depending on the level of the party, the character may be 3 to 4 levels behind the party by the time he catches up. In the past I have allowed a person 3 choices, 2 of the choices depend on the level and resources of the group. The group can try to find a way to raise the character (same character minus one level), the party can try to find a true reserection (same character same level), third if the character is perma dead, or the party/player does not want to raise the character, I allow the new character to enter the group, minus two levels, base xp for that level. This way the player will be able to contribute to the group, and the party is less likley to run off into the hills to seek out adventure outside the module in order to gain xp/items for the new character.
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Excellent question!
I've always allowed the player to generate a PC one level lower than when they died, and no lower than one level below the lowest-level character. If the death/retirement/absence is meaningful (a paladin sacrificing himself, a character getting married and settling down) I'd let them bring in a character of the same level.
I've always wanted to run a scenario when there is a TPK, where all the PCs wake up in the afterlife together -- likely in hell/purgatory, etc. And let them battle their way back to the Material Plane.
You could always start out with a character tree. Each character starts out with two (or more) characters, and at the begining of the adventure he chooses one. Whenever there is a logical pause, he can switch out characters. The player can choose how to allocate XP between however many PCs they want to make up. That way, when a character dies, the new one is stil a member of the party, and still one that has "earned" XP.
The above idea, BTW, came from the old Dark Sun setting.
So I was toying with this idea that the character or party roll up the same level as they were but with zero XP points, then they have to earn the required XP to reach the next level as normal. I think this would allow the character to survive along side the existing characters (or a new party to survive the level of the adventure) long enough to earn the required XP given the self correcting nature of the system. I am aware that may take some time.What are your thoughts and best practices on this topic?
My group has done this since 3rd Edition came out, and it works great. I have never had any complaints, and my group feels the same about "cheating" by getting free experience. You catch up faster than you would think, especially if you bring the new character in a level lower than the rest of the party.
MI
If you (and your players) are really keen on keeping the characters, you could have them journey through the afterlife in order to earn the right to come back to life. There would be a price, of course. Said characters would pretty much have to pay back the right to be alive to said god/dess of the afterlife, by going on quests, etc.
I did something similar with one of my characters - he did an especially heroic thing and sacrificed himself to save many. The god of the afterlife granted him leniency to continue, but the character's patron god "owed" the god of the afterlife for returning one of his servants to life.
Excellent question!
I've always allowed the player to generate a PC one level lower than when they died, and no lower than one level below the lowest-level character. If the death/retirement/absence is meaningful (a paladin sacrificing himself, a character getting married and settling down) I'd let them bring in a character of the same level.
I use a similar system; bringing in a new character one level below your previous one is a good motivator that will make reckless player think more in character about self preservation instead of endangering themselves without a thought.
I've always wanted to run a scenario when there is a TPK, where all the PCs wake up in the afterlife together -- likely in hell/purgatory, etc. And let them battle their way back to the Material Plane.
That cannot happen... When killed, a character's 'soul' travels to the home plane of their alignment, permanently. Returning a 'soul' back to the Prime Material Plane would require a vehicle that would allow them to, such as their being transformed into a Celestial (or other outsider) by their Diety or their being turned into an undead (Ghost, etc.) due to the circumstances of their death, which pretty much cancels the trip to the "other side" entirely.
If souls could return to the Prime Material Plane at will, the plane would overflow with those living and dead...there would be virtual immortality - which would severely imbalance the game.
M
I've always wanted to run a scenario when there is a TPK, where all the PCs wake up in the afterlife together -- likely in hell/purgatory, etc. And let them battle their way back to the Material Plane.That cannot happen...
Nonsense.
When killed, a character's 'soul' travels to the home plane of their alignment, permanently.
...unless the GM says otherwise.
Look, even if you are using the above as your default cosmology (which is not necessarily the case), special circumstances can change the situation. Examples:
1) An Archdevil diverts the souls to Hell through diabolic magic. However, the spell does not work exactly as planned, and the PCs end up in a different area than the Archdevil planned. Now, the PCs race to escape Hell before the Archdevil can locate and capture them.
2) There is some sort of strange planar energy surge, which causes all souls currently "in transit" to become displaced. Thus, evil souls are appearing in the Heavens, lawful souls in Limbo, and everything is thrown into chaos (which was the plan, perhaps - it could be a plot by the Slaad). The PCs have to figure out where they are, and how to get back to where they should be.
3) The PCs die near some sort of soul-trapping artifact which is a sort of "Underworld in a Bottle." The PCs and other beings must find a way out. There are funky traps, weird creatures, and difficult riddles on the way. Little do they know, but the struggles of all within are actually feeding some strange being, who watches with greedy delight. Can they get out?
If souls could return to the Prime Material Plane at will, the plane would overflow with those living and dead...there would be virtual immortality - which would severely imbalance the game.
If everyone could do it, there would likely be no imbalance.
MI
If souls could return to the Prime Material Plane at will, the plane would overflow with those living and dead...there would be virtual immortality - which would severely imbalance the game.
Sure, if we were ALL playing the same game at the same time, kinda like WOW. But we're not and if the DM wants to make it work, it'll work & quite likely the players will have a blast in the process :)
CEO
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Hi
I’m about to start running age of worms and I am just preparing my campaign handout for the players. I was looking for some advise on problem that has dogged my group for a long time now. Character Death.The problem arises when you are in the middle of a campaign or adventure and one or all of the party members dies What level does the player introduce his new character.? Or party.
What are your thoughts and best practices on this topic?
Hey Phil:
You know, I just ran into this in my campaign when I killed Dungeon Editor Jeremy Walker's Bard character in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Jeremy had been having a hell of a time with his character because of poor HP rolls each level. It was just a matter of time before a serious crit took him down. He decided not to have his character raised, even though the party had the magic to do so, because he didn't want to lose the level and HPs. Since this adventure is really tough, I ended up starting him at the beginning of 7th level. Most of the characters are high seventh level, and a few even at 8th. It seems to have worked out fine and has given his new character a fighting chance.
-Lisa Stevens
The easiest solution to your question is to set the AP in Ghostwalk... Now why didn't I think of that BEFORE I started AoW? *sigh*
My philosophy (after many years of thought and pondering) is that new characters enter the game one level lower than their last character was before death. The reason is two-fold. 1) The new character could be fully optimized whereas the other PCs have had to slug it along dealing with what they've been given and building from the ground up. 2) I want there to be incentive to stick with the original character. Even if a character is raised and loses a level, you still get to keep your equipment and your XP is only halfway from the next level. However a new character starts at the bottom of the XP chart. I use this rule whether a PC dies and creates a new character, or the PC decides he is bored with his character.
In the event of a TPK, I usually allow a new party to enter the scene and pick up where the others left off at the same level. One character set back a level is manageable, but a whole party could simply find themselves TPKed again. It's not cheating. The new character has earned his experience and treasure adventuring, it has just taken place off-screen. And it's not like you get some special advantage by being a level lower.
Honestly, if you are worried about this issue, do Ghostwalk. It's loads of fun and takes all the mixed emotions out of character death.
You could always start out with a character tree. Each character starts out with two (or more) characters, and at the begining of the adventure he chooses one. Whenever there is a logical pause, he can switch out characters. The player can choose how to allocate XP between however many PCs they want to make up. That way, when a character dies, the new one is stil a member of the party, and still one that has "earned" XP.
The above idea, BTW, came from the old Dark Sun setting.
I use a very similar system. Except that the off screen characters get 1/2 the experience of the active character and if a character dies then a new one is added to the tree at 1st level.
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I handle death and retirement a few different ways depending on the situation.
1) If the character dies during the adventure and gets a raise dead or whatever, that character loses 500xp per level, but never more than what would take it to the bottom of the level. No level lose for death, just experience.
2) If the character dies and there is zero chance of a raise dead or whatever, I let them start a new character at one level lower than the lowest level party member, but halfway in experience points to the next level.
3) If the character dies and the player decides not to raise it, instead makes a new one, then the new one comes in at two levels lower than the lowest party member. The starting experience would be at the minimum for that level.
4) If the player wants to retire a character, then the next one would be brought in at one level lower than the lowest party member. Experience would be what is needed to make that level. I also put a couple restriction on retirement. You can not retire a character unless it is in a safe place like a town or city. You can not retire a character that is in the middle of a major plot, especially if that character is important to the plot. You can not retire before 7th level.
The reasons behind number 3 and 4 are that too many players were retiring characters because they are tired of them or they did not want to take the level lose. This became annoying as suddenly a character that held a special item for the present adventure was gone, and so was the item. Things like that.
The group I play with has two main DMs, we take turns DMing. We both have decided on this rule as we both were running into the same problem with the players. When 3.0 came out there was a definate learning curve and a lot of characters were created that as they got higher in levels began to not work as the player invisioned and they would just start a new one. Now the rule is, you have been playing 3.X long enough now that you know what works, make a character you want to stick with long term.
That is my two cents on this topic.
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I'm quite fond of using JD Wiker's variant (from the Game Mechanics) rules which have raised characters brought back with a negative level instead of actually losing a level. The negative level can be dispelled with a Restoration spell. This encourages PC's to come back with their old characters.
If the player prefers to make a new character, he starts with one less level than his old character had, as long as this doesn't bring him more than one level below the party average.
When I was in the planning stages it looked like I was going to have 9 players, and none of them were going to make it to every game so I knew between death and character absence I was going to have some level disparity, so before starting I sent out a house rules sheet.
Missing Games / Joining Late / Death
It's bound to happen that either someone has plans and can't play when everyone else does, someone dies, or someone wants to join in late (or maybe just for one or two mods). If you miss enough games to fall significantly behind (at least 1 level lower than the lowest regular player), you die, change characters or join late I will bump your XP to a point where you are at the minimum XP needed to be the same level as the lowest level PC in the party.So if we have a 3rd who is almost 4th, and 3 4th lvl pcs, you come back as just having hit 3rd. Money will probably be half the recommend GP for the level, but I may fudge that based on what everyone else has.
Of course I'd love for everyone to make every game, but I'm not going to count on that.
Jeremy had been having a hell of a time with his character because of poor HP rolls each level. It was just a matter of time before a serious crit took him down.
Kind of off topic, but this problem is why I ALWAYS give PCs maximum hit points at every level (not just 1st). If damage is random, I don't see any reason to make the amount of damage someone can take random, as well. I figure different hit point dice and Con bonuses provide a nice range between characters' hit points, for variety, and anything that helps the characters survive a bit more often will help prevent the very situation that this thread is about.
o
Kind of off topic, but this problem is why I ALWAYS give PCs maximum hit points at every level (not just 1st).
I play a lot of RPGA games so I'm just used to assigning half+1. I don't like the idea that a barbarian gets less hp than a wizard (rarely). This time I actually had them roll hp (except at 1st level) but if they rolled less than half, they got half. (So a warrior that rolls a 4 for hp gets 5)
As far as HP and death are concerned, our house rule is max XP at first level and each level you gain an attribute point (4, 8, etc).
My last party bought it big time in the Age of Worms; three dead, two in the same combat, and the one who lived was a warlock (least HP) with a 4 STR.
Low-level death is probably the easiest to mess with, since you've been introducing characters left and right. Especially in the AoW, it's nothing for a new face to suddenly appear in town and start asking around for a party member. Plus XP comes pretty quickly; we always start a new character a level lower and halfway through XP to the next level.
Mid-level things are a little trickier; again, basing off the AOW Overload, parties are still in an urban enough area that they could pick up someone rather quickly, or run into a halfway decent deus ex. Treasure's good enough that a few have likely made plans for death; if not, encourage them to do so. The Dusters in Sigil were always good for a quick rethink of strategy...
"Hi! Next time you hit a dungeon, you're low on health, seeing the bright light...why don't you consider...DEATH! The other life! Really, healing just makes it worse, you'll get stabbed again! Try death!"
High levels usually have ways of rezing, but then again...who really minds getting to remake a 15th-level character from scratch? It's like having a mid-character crisis...one minute you're a barbarian, then suddenly you're taking psion levels.
<sigh...>
But anyway. Death is something players may just have to deal with, and should be seen as a chance to get your party to re-think the way they've been adventuring. I mean, if two of your four go down, you may want to re-evaluate the overall strategy of the group.
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Pretty much, I used to add characters in at one level lower and what not in an old game I ran. While the game did not go badly, I found that characters at lower levels died, who were usually the more brash classes (fighter types) either to begin with. For the AoW, I've taken a stance of just bringing the characters back with the same XP minus RP XP.
While this is basically giving them XP just for my own sake (thus I can keep the party level the same), I've found specifically that my players have grown to like their characters.
I've also thrown in a variant rule that states that a reincarnation doesn't lose the character a level, rather they lose 2 Con instead. I'm still awaiting to see if this will make smarter characters who'll die less or brash, invincible feeling characters. Either way, it'll be fun.
We use action points. It costs an action point to stabilize and another to prevent death. There's usually at least two or three encounters more than a character's number of action points per level.
I run between very difficult and overpowering encounters, scaling the adventures to the max suggested and then tossing in my own tricks for good measure. I drop someone in every encounter, but no TPKs (yet). If a TPK happens everyone must use alternate characters I've asked them to create and maintain during the campaign. If you run out of action points you also need to use your alt. Alts are always one level behind.
I've found this method allows players to be a little more aggressive, which helps when you're running a campaign mapped out from level 1 to level 20. It avoids a lot of calls for running away and resting. We only get through 2-4 good skirmishes a game and I want to make sure there's a fine line between survival and TPK in every one.
I also never fudge die rolls. At least never to save the party...