OK the party I run for currently consists of:
Dwarf fighter 7
human paladin 7
half elf ranger 6
human cleric 6
A standard party setup, without a magic user.
So far they have been moping the floor with anything that looks the wrong way at them. At the start of Zenith Trajectory the paladin charged the fiendish umber hulk on his warhorse, in just a pair of trousers! (he had been working in the blacksmiths that morning.)
The combat lasted 4 rounds and resulted in one dead umber hulk.
I thought they were going to walk through the whole adventure once again until they met gottrod. (Hookfaces son, I think thats his name.)
The dwarf and the ranger legged it leaving the paladin to square up to the dragon. It wasn't long before he was very poorly and needing rapid clerical assistance. The combat drew on eventually ending in the dragon being killed.
They then went to face the hydra, who i thought would be more challenging then the dragon. it was dead inside 3 rounds. (frustrating really after all the prep I had done on him.)
They are currently running away from bhal hamatung after the outsider took the cleric down to minus 35 HP.
Now, the cleric player cant decided if he wants to be resurrected. the paladin and the ranger players have said that if they cant resurect the cleric then there characters will retire and the paladin player will come back as a mage and the ranger as a cleric and the cleric player as a rouge no doubt (cos thats what he always plays.)
It would be nice to have a balanced party but how the hell am i supposed to keep continuity up if every time one of them dies they all decide to retire and come back as different characters.
I want the players to enjoy the game, and to do what ever they want but i think there running the risk of spoiling the campaign here. Ive put a lot of effort and money into this AP and to see it kind of derailed like this is irritating.
Any one experience anything similar or got any advice?
If the cleric is still deciding to get resurrected or not, you can have him being visited by his god while he's still dead. ( Hopefully the god will urge him onwards )
If the party decides to quit and start again anyways. You can have them hired by Celeste, or Vhlantru as a new party to search for Zenith. ( since the old party hasn't returned and obviously failed)
Having an unbalanced party is always a concern. My own group has gone from having too much healing to having only a dragon shamans healing aura. You can give them a cohort or a npc to help with whatever they are lacking with. Just make sure he's lower level then the rest of the party so he doesn't hog the spotlight.
Could they be sub-contracted some how with the old party lone enough for the old party to become cohorts?
Or possibly the old PCs could come along say singly on various adventures.
Essentially my solution might well be to have the old characters become particularly active NPCs at least until such time as the new party is solidly in the story line.
Thanks guys, some great ideas there. I shall try the god visiting thing. A nice bit of gentle persuasion there :P
The continuity of party death is always a problem. especially in SCAP.
To insure continuity (assuming a reroll) you could have your old PCs hire the new PCs to help them clear the Temple. The Old PCs could the relate all that they know about the events leading up to this point. One down side is that the new PCs don’t have the clout with the town or nobles or even the Angels of the area.
If they are in Bhal Hanatung assuming no reroll, there is an NPC sorcerer imprisoned there that would make a great addition to the party. I found it silly that his only motivation was to harm the party, so I changed him to be more thankful.
Awful, sounds like the group is mewling at the death of one character after handing so many bad guys thier lunches with a bonus body bag surprise.
Let us hope they are able to be persuaded to continue without necessitating a 'reroll' batch of characters.
In my SCAP, the party population (and characters) have rotated a lot... I've kept any PC character polymorphed to NPC if they didn't die, and as players dropped or joined, I've used those NPCs as an "in" story.
If your whole group is going, that's rough - if you can even convince one of them to stay with the same character, though, you're okay. That fellow just has the burden of holding a lot of story.
Thinking back... I began the game with a Human Fighter, a Human Druid, a Human Rogue, a Human Wizard, an Elf Ranger, a Halfing Rogue, and a Half-Elf Bard.
At this point, the Human Fighter is now a Fighter/Cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor, the Druid is still present, the Human Rogue is now a Rogue/Wizard/Arcane Trickster, the Human Wizard and the Elf Ranger left the party when their players moved, then came back months later (after being the NPCs in a sub-plot where they were murdered, and the druid reincarnated them, so they're now a Dwarf Wizard/Incantatar, and a Half-Elf Ranger/Stalker of Khuresh), the Halfling Rogue dropped out of the game, and is missing, as did the Half-Elf Bard (both of which are statues in Vhalantru's manor, and about to be discovered). Since then, a Human Fighter/Occult Slayer signed on, as well as a Rogue/Thief-Acrobat, and a Cleric of Kord. As the story has progressed, some are present for some chapters, and some aren't. As a whole, they're "The Liberators," but if any five can make it, we play without the others. It leads to some fun catch-up moments, and has made me add in a lot of extra side-treks to even out the XP.
So basically, I'd say "go for it" with whatever they come up with. Heck, keep their previous PC sheets and use them in the same way you end up using the Stormblades - as not necessarily villains, but as rivals.
Might look at the "retrain" option in... is it PH2? Lets you keep the same person but with new abilities and class. P. 191 of PH2, Chapter 8, rebuilding your character. There's a lot there. Might want to check it out for continuity's sake. There are some long downtimes in SCAP that you could use for this purpose.