Rebooting RotRL

[Lord Fyre]

Because of some GMing mistakes on my part, my RotRL campaign has kind of gone on a "Permanent" Hiatus right at the ending of the Skinsaw Murders.

But, there appears to be some interest in finishing the story. The question is "How?"

Which would be better:

Having the players start over with new characters (these would be the same players).

Having the players rebuild their characters to a lower point total (i.e., down to Epic Build).

So the question then is, should I have them start at 7th or start at 1st?

In either case, if I do have them start with new heroes, do I just ignore the previous history?

And, if I do have them restart, any thoughts on adventures to get them back to 7th level (that will lead back to the Hook Mountain Massacre)?

[Fing Mandragoran]

Would need more info really to offer good suggestions. I would not want to start back at 1st and redo books 1 and 2 if I were a player though.

[Twigs]

Fing Mandragoran wrote:

Would need more info really to offer good suggestions. I would not want to start back at 1st and redo books 1 and 2 if I were a player though.

Agreed. Start at level 7, have your players hear word of giants mobilising in the east, or alternatively, have them be arrested for suspected involvement in the Skinsaw Murders six months earlier (or otherwise be a bunch of dirty crooks) and forcefully conscripted onto the walls to fort rannick.

Your only problem from here is motivation to return to Sandpoint, but planting a macguffin under the town and hints that the giant army has broken through should be reason enough.

[Lord Fyre]

Well, my errors are/were

I allowed the players to have "15s" in all six stats and then shift points around for stats up to 18 and down to 8 or so (without any kind of pro-rating for very high stats).

And, I added some treasure items, based on their wish-lists/character backgrounds, and now they seem to have picked up a bit too much treasures.
With the upshot that I now do not have enough Real Life time to re-write every single monster /NPC that they will be encountering.

[mearrin69]

I had a similar issue simply because the folks that started the AP began with the original iconics (lowish point buy) and new people/characters came in and rolled with the 'heroic option' and got pretty incredible rolls. I ended up first adjusting the iconics up a bit...then realizing that everybody had to be adjusted downward.

My solution was to offer them all a 20-point buy rebuild in exchange for bringing their characters up to the correct level with WBL; we were running with six characters for most of the AP and they had skipped a few things so had fallen behind some on both XP and treasure.

May or may not work for your situation. It was causing me nightmares, however, so it had to be done.
M

[Lord Fyre]

mearrin69 wrote:

I had a similar issue simply because the folks that started the AP began with the original iconics (lowish point buy) and new people/characters came in and rolled with the 'heroic option' and got pretty incredible rolls. I ended up first adjusting the iconics up a bit...then realizing that everybody had to be adjusted downward.

My solution was to offer them all a 20-point buy rebuild in exchange for bringing their characters up to the correct level with WBL; we were running with six characters for most of the AP and they had skipped a few things so had fallen behind some on both XP and treasure.

May or may not work for your situation. It was causing me nightmares, however, so it had to be done.

This is close to where I am.

Pretty Much, if we can't come to terms where I don't have to rebuild every encounter because of the character's awesome power, the campaign goes on a perminent hiatus.

[Fing Mandragoran]

Since that is the reasoning I would suggest what Mearrin said. With a few more options.

1st you need to get their stats back in order. So come to an agreement with the players of a point buy to reset their stats to. A 20 point buy is standard but if you want them to still feel heroic allow a 25 point(you can balance this).

2nd relies on what items you gave them already. Did you give them +5 holy avengers? Then you need to take them away. Give them appropriate level enhancement items that operate similar to what they already have but at a lesser level of enhancement.

3rd relies on the number in your party. RotRL is written for a 4 man party. So the encounter lvls are designed for 4 people. If you have more than 4 people you need to adjust the encounters so that xp stays in line. Several ways to do this. A little story to illustrate it.

I am running RotRL right now and my party has gotten to book 6. We should be complete with the book in a few weeks. The party started as a party of 6 with fairly heroic stats. To compensate for that I did a few things.

In the beginning, I added half again to all encounters (in most cases). If the encounter called for 4 goblins I put in 6. For special fights such as the goblin druid and his pet, I didnt add any other creatures but I added the advance template to both druid and pet.

Later on when they were facing giants in the fortress I found adding half again to the number of giants was particularly deadly. So mostly in the upper levels I give everything the advance template, play the monsters to their best ability and add in encounters and small side quests to keep their xp in line with what they should have.

Throughout my campaign there has been many downed players with 3 resulting in player deaths.

It is definitely a fine line to have to walk when you have a powerful party, atleast more so than an average party. What is a challenge to a powerful party at higher levels can most likely kill a player in 1 to 2 rounds if the party isnt careful and uses tactics.

Hope that helps.