Up the creek without a paddle in Parrot Island...

[ericthecleric]

My group started There Is No Honor two weeks ago. About half way through today's session, the PCs entered Parrot Island. The problem? The player of the cleric wan't present- and as he kept the character sheet- no cleric for someone else to run, either. Due to extreme "luck" on the DM's part, after the first encounter one PC was reduced to -4 hp (bled down to -5), which the paladin used his lay on hands to bring him up to 1 hp, and a couple of PCs were reduced to single hp. Thankfully, the dragon shaman's Vigor aura helped a little.
If the cleric player doesn't turn up next week though, everyone could be in trouble...

[Phil. L]

Contact this player and tell him that if he isn't going to turn up then he should drop off the character sheet so you can run it. If this is not an option let him read the cleric's vitals to you over the phone or get him to e-mail you the info. If he is not willing to do any of these things and he doesn't turn up to the game then he's obviously not worthy of being a part of your group.

If for some reason you are forced into this situation again, make up his stats on the spot. You can't have a character being present without being present - it makes no sense. What is the cleric doing while everyone is beaten up by zombies? Going to the toilet? His character needs to be there (even if you have to make stuff up) for the game to be logical.

[scorpionkiss]

Phil. L wrote:

Contact this player and tell him that if he isn't going to turn up then he should drop off the character sheet so you can run it. If this is not an option let him read the cleric's vitals to you over the phone or get him to e-mail you the info. If he is not willing to do any of these things and he doesn't turn up to the game then he's obviously not worthy of being a part of your group.

If for some reason you are forced into this situation again, make up his stats on the spot. You can't have a character being present without being present - it makes no sense. What is the cleric doing while everyone is beaten up by zombies? Going to the toilet? His character needs to be there (even if you have to make stuff up) for the game to be logical.

No its just like in The Gamers movie, the missing players character stands there motionless looking blank and when they turn up they go ,"I enter barbarian rage!!!"

[Curaigh]

We had a similar problem when our cleric rolled his car. Player has not been in in a while and apparently the sheet was in the car at the time so he can not send it to us. We know how many spells he has so we basically had him only cast spontaneous healing and not actually enter combat. For other rolls we guessed based on Wisdom being a high stat, and charisma being low. It mostly worked, but a non-combat cleric was probably as easy as it gets. Even a fighter has so many feats that 'I swing my sword' gets complicated.

[ericthecleric]

Thanks for the replies, all! I managed to get in touch with the missing player last week, and he turned up today; without his presence things would indeed have been bad!