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OK, i'm coming into this problem and been working my own angles for this type of situation. I'm curious what everyone else has done. I'm sure some have had to do it after looking at and posting on the obitiuaries thread.
What do you do when all of the original Heroes of Sandpoint have died in the adventure and you have to introduce new PC's? How do you keep them tied into the "Heroes of Sandpoint" venue that sticks so much throughout the AP?
I've only recently had to do this...my closest character left in the party is "2" generations away from being an Original Hero of Sandpoint!
OK, i'm coming into this problem and been working my own angles for this type of situation. I'm curious what everyone else has done. I'm sure some have had to do it after looking at and posting on the obitiuaries thread.
What do you do when all of the original Heroes of Sandpoint have died in the adventure and you have to introduce new PC's? How do you keep them tied into the "Heroes of Sandpoint" venue that sticks so much throughout the AP?
I've only recently had to do this...my closest character left in the party is "2" generations away from being an Original Hero of Sandpoint!
I think you should look into some house rules for death and dying. The -10 and you are dead thing only works well at very low levels.
Well, depending on the level, you could use Shalelu, if they haven't met her yet. There's no reason not to have that PC with that background information and character history (lost father).
I would introduce them as younger siblings, cousins from Magnimar or good friends who only just returned to Sandpoint after having adventures of their own elsewhere. This strains credibility if used too often or at higher levels, but at higher levels you have access to resurrection, so this should be no big problem anymore.
And perhaps adjusting the death and dying rules is a good idea too...
Stefan
You could try the principle of eternal return approach. The heroes and villains remain the same, so when one batch of heroes fail, you FF to the next return spot. Kind of drains the hope and heroism out of it, but it's one solution.
The other is the comic booky "alternate dimension" approach. The heroes died? Well, in this dimension the BBEG succeeds and that narrative continues without the PCs. The DM and the players then move on to the next dimension, where the figures are the same, but their placement in the narrative may not be, and, as a result, the context and story may... shift... as well.
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I think the key is that when a charcter is introduced you help them become established as a new "Hero of Sandpoint" with the rest of the heroes. In a group with a high death count this gets a bit tougher and you have to be diligent to loop every new one into that role before you kill off the next one.
I would also look at the lethality of your game. My group is at Chapter 5 and has had some deaths but they will have some original characters left and that is the connection.
When Chapter 4 started we had a couple of new players (lost a couple of other characters) and a couple of deaths - we had three original PCs and the group went to Sandpoint after returning to Magnimar after Hook Mountain. Saving the town from attack helped cement the group as the recent heroes of Sandpoint and having a couple of originals helped.
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To be honest lethality is nothing on my end. It's been dice rolls! Seriously...my group rolls all their dice in front of one another including myself as the DM so no one can be accused of cheating.
It's just been dice rolls really...and PC's have been taken to -10, heck I had one fumble so bad he almost killed himself! I've had one fumble so bad he messed up a party member that let a simple hit from another creature kill the member. Then there are the crits i've gotten. Killed one PC out right with a decapitation.
Guess it's just my group by the posts here...feeling like I should be offering up some dice for sale. :)
To be honest lethality is nothing on my end. It's been dice rolls! Seriously...my group rolls all their dice in front of one another including myself as the DM so no one can be accused of cheating.
It's just been dice rolls really...and PC's have been taken to -10, heck I had one fumble so bad he almost killed himself! I've had one fumble so bad he messed up a party member that let a simple hit from another creature kill the member. Then there are the crits i've gotten. Killed one PC out right with a decapitation.
Have you considered reducing the impact of fumbles? Does your group not raise dead characters?
Also, you've just reminded me of the first and best reason for using a DM screen. If you roll too many crits, feel free to ignore some! Bad luck is one thing, incredibly bad luck that goes on and on isn't very interesting. It should be the DM's perogative to pull punches when necessary, and that's not cheating.
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I am a little curious on how a critical ended with a decapitation.
I use the critical hit deck and it is possible with that but I only use it for the BBEGs not everyone they fight. It is just too lethal that way.
I also grabbed a little bit from 4e on death and dying and I let them go to -1/4 of their hit points or -10 which ever is more. That has cut down a bit on taking people out - they still die but a bit less often.
I agree with using a DM screen. When they are just wading through the bad guys I make a bit more challenging and when they just do not stand a chance I can ease up a bit if I want to. That makes it more up to me rather than random dice rolls.
To be honest lethality is nothing on my end. It's been dice rolls! Seriously...my group rolls all their dice in front of one another including myself as the DM so no one can be accused of cheating.
It's just been dice rolls really...and PC's have been taken to -10, heck I had one fumble so bad he almost killed himself! I've had one fumble so bad he messed up a party member that let a simple hit from another creature kill the member. Then there are the crits i've gotten. Killed one PC out right with a decapitation.
Guess it's just my group by the posts here...feeling like I should be offering up some dice for sale. :)
You need to significantly reduce the impact of crits/fumbles. Encounters in D&D are designed to favor the PCs. Any random element introduced thus favors the monsters and hurts the PCs' chances. I would suggest sticking to the base rules on critical hits and throwing out your fumble rules, because clearly lethality is an issue and, in this case, it does indeed appear to be a problem on your end of the table.
As another poster noted, taking a page or two from 4th Edition might also be a good idea.
Nah. You just need to remember that Paizo tends to scale its adventures about a level too high for what it claims. If you're looking to avoid character death entirely... well, running their modules with characters two levels above might help. Seriously, with Crown of the Kobold King, I took a look at the encounters, took a look at the "ticking clock" character hook, and took another look at the encounters and said, "There's no way that the characters are going to rest. This needs to be run with higher level characters who can finish the crawl in one day."
.. Then there are the crits i've gotten. Killed one PC out right with a decapitation.
Guess it's just my group by the posts here...feeling like I should be offering up some dice for sale. :)
I'll buy yours !!!!
lollollol
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Nah. You just need to remember that Paizo tends to scale its adventures about a level too high for what it claims. If you're looking to avoid character death entirely... well, running their modules with characters two levels above might help. Seriously, with Crown of the Kobold King, I took a look at the encounters, took a look at the "ticking clock" character hook, and took another look at the encounters and said, "There's no way that the characters are going to rest. This needs to be run with higher level characters who can finish the crawl in one day."
It is interesting to go through a Paizo adventure and look at the CRs knocking about - it seems like 70% are party+1, 0% are party -1, 10% are party level and 20% are party +2 or higher.
My inexperienced players have a hard time, or they would do if i didn't give them uber-stats and tweak the adventures to make them survivable.
Xanesha is, of course the classic example.
1. On her own she's too tough for a party of the reccomended level, and her CR rating is a joke.
2. She's in an environment which totally favours her and nixes the party.
3. The party has some really tough, damaging traps and fights before getting near a monster that could kill them when fully fresh.
I think the pros at Paizo probably only play with aces and pros anymore, and have forgotten what it feels like for the rest of us.
I'm still a fan, but the whole point of buying adventures is to reduce my workload...
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My group likes the crit and fumble chart, and they don't seem to be too bothered with the "Lethality Rate". However I as DM, just now have my group at the end of Skinsaw Murders and no longer have any PC's from the beginning of Burnt Offerings.
I read ahead into the next AP, just incase they surprise me and actually move forward and also to be prepared to loop things in. But as the DM I almost feel frustrated with so many references to the Heroes of Sandpoint.
Sure I could do the family thing of someone in town...but if I do that with the rate they are going i'll have a family member for everyone in the town!
So what i'm seeing here is definitely i'm the only one with this issue.
Thanks for the suggestions and thoughts...but I think i'm gonna just try to jump up some of the XP, to get them to a level where they can handle things.
O and the decapitation was in Burnt Offerings against the Goblin King. On his ride by in his little room against the Elven Archer. It's in the Obituaries thread.
I'm still a fan, but the whole point of buying adventures is to reduce my workload...
Just remember: there are vastly more low and mid level adventures out there. Running adventures below their level means that the PCs will get somewhat less XP, slowing their development. That means that you get to use a few more modules. Not changing things but delaying their use also keeps your labor down.
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O and the decapitation was in Burnt Offerings against the Goblin King. On his ride by in his little room against the Elven Archer. It's in the Obituaries thread.
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I just would not do that. I have killed characters but usually through their stupdity or someone else's stupidity. I would never kill a character on a lucky die roll from a bad guy. Now, I may beat the crap out of them over time - where they have the opportunity to run for the hilss (usually) but not a crit your dead kind of thing. Now in the situation you are talking about I might smack the character into the middle of next week but he would survive that attack (probably unconscious) until someone can get to him. Now then if no one can get to him that is different and he may likely die...Example - group finds a skrag and is taking some damage but beating him up pretty bad. He jumps in a pool and swims out of sight. A character jumps into the pool and chases the skrag - the next thing those standing next to the pool see is the blood in the water and chunks of the PC floating up. This I call dying from your own stupidity.