When we started the campain I started playing a character playing as both a DM and player. A 5th player joined the group and I felt that I could no longer play so I decided to kill off my character. In order to kill him off, as he was a favored character not really just a random guy, I decided to make him a god/demigod. This way I could use him to push the group in different directions.
When the fight came that was to take away my character (gods basicly calling him home to help with an ongoing war between gods) the other players went above and beyond to "save" my character. I had to completely redesign an encounter where they couldn't against the guy, because the guys I sent before with a high challange rating they killed before they could kill just the character I was trying to kill.
In return the new god, my former character, wanted to grant them a boon/blessing. I decided to go with an old idea based off an old idea I had and give them all Eidolons, basicly making them summoners in adition to their origional class. It went over pretty well, most of the players got really creative with what their Eidolon was and what it was capible of. For example the barbarian's Eidolon is a gremlin with an axe, when not enraged it is all gismo like and enraging turns it into the evil gremlins.
The problem that this has created is that now each player has 2 characters to play each round really clogging up combat. I don't want to punish them and take away something they are enjoying, but at the same time I feel that I need to step in and put the breaks on somehow.
Any ideas?
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Yea. Do it out of character.
Say "Hey guys, as I'm sure you can see, combat is taking a lot longer now. It's being bogged down by the eidolons I granted. While it seemed a good idea at the time, it was a mistake I made as the DM. I'm going to look at granting an alternate boon instead, so we can have more fun and enjoy the game."
Done.
An in-game rationale could be that the eidolons were limited time benefits. Perhaps role play their time is rapidly approaching where they will leave the players. - Gauss
The easiest thing to do is just say that the character left for whatever reason. A deus ex machina can get pretty boring after a while.
Do your players feel the extra units are really bogging down combat? Or is it just you? If everyone feels roughly the same way and agrees with you, then talk with them out of character and suggest that you get back to a somewhat faster paced game.
But it also sounds to me like your players are enjoying having these extra units. If they continue to do so, I wouldn't get rid of them. I would suggest finding some other way of speeding things up like suggesting that eidolons that take more time than others get redesigned and streamlined a little to have fewer or simpler attacks.
Well, you have two options. As stated above, you could discuss it with your players and handle it out of game, or you can solve it in game.
You could always design a mission around them once again: have your former PC require their help yet again, and their Eidolons be specifically required. In the end, you could have the Eidolons ascend to a higher plane and be permanently gone, but in return they grant some new boon. Maybe some new combat ability, or an RP bonus that doesn't actually effect the characters abilities (like a kingdom, or an airship? Or some new plot hook for future adventures...)
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You could have the eidolons become a sort of "Legacy Weapon". In that at the end of a short period of time their power fades and they turn into a weapon that could level with the character. Then attach an ability so that once a day/week/month/year (what have you) they can call upon their weapon to shift into the eidolon for 1 minute/level. It would still retain the bookkeeping of the creature, but it should help out with all of the characters having the creature out at all times.
As for explaining it to your characters Weables had the best suggestion. You should let your players know that you feel like you made a mistake and you'd like to fix it without taking away too much of their power.
Kill the demigod. The bonuses disappear when he dies. And it doesn't have to happen on camera; it can just be a mystery.
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How about making them all synthesist summoners, where they wear the eidolons as armor/living weapons? And they can only do it 1x per day, or 3x/day, or somesuch.
The way I'd correct it is letting them keep the boon you've given them with the eiodolons, but limit them to 1 round per combat up to 3 rounds per day. They need 8 hours of rest between summonings. Say that after the initial summonings their powers were greatly diminished and they are creatures of another plane. This gives it flavor, allows them a powerful weapon/ally in combat, but also speeds back up your pacing in your combats. The other thing that happens here is that it could actually speed up combat significantly if they have that "win" button on normal encounters or an "oh sh!t" button if they are getting beat down in a harder combat.
The divine "powers that be" that summoned your DMPC to the great beyond as demigod have alterior motives. The power they granted was get something in return. Once they got what the wanted from this beloved DMPC they turned on him ripping from him much of the power they granted him the eidolons that he granted like the powers that summoned him are little traitors as well while at first were faithful and beneficial turn on their masters. Epic battle agaist their beloved pets, future plotline to rescue former friend from the "powers that be."
The easiest thing to do is just say that the character left for whatever reason. A deus ex machina can get pretty boring after a while.
Sorry, really not sure what this means...
I like many of the suggestions you guys have given, esp the legacy weapon one and the synthesist summoner one.
Turning them against the players seems like a great idea too, I may do that as a plot twist.
To answer Bill Dunn: Some players are enjoying them much more than other players. Also some players have much stronger eidolons than others. So, there are some mixed feeling on what to do between the players.
I think I've come up with a plan. Thank you all for your help.
I would still love to hear more ideas of how to twist this situation in game. Im looking at major plot twists, not anything behind the scenes and unexplained.
Kill the demigod. The bonuses disappear when he dies. And it doesn't have to happen on camera; it can just be a mystery.
That's exactly what I was going to say. Or at least, have the demigod just disappear, stop calling, and without leaving a forwarding address. It might spur the adventure in a new direction, but it should make your players feel involved and interested in what's going on. Nobody likes losing cool stuff unless it leads to more cool adventures.
Sorry, really not sure what this means...The easiest thing to do is just say that the character left for whatever reason. A deus ex machina can get pretty boring after a while.
He's referring to how you wrote-out the DMPC from the story. Deus ex machina refers to "the god of the machine," basically. In Greek plays stories were often resolved by having the god or goddess sweep in (the actor potentially on some stage apparatus, the "machine") and set everything right, rather than having the characters resolve the issues themselves. So deus ex machina is a story element that the characters of the story have little to no control over, a plot device that the writer incorporates to resolve the story. It can be gods literally showing up to save the heroes or offer godhood, such as in your story, or it can be something like an "act of god," like an avalanche, volcano, or even a street fight that takes out the badguys, as long as it's outside of the characters' control. A common form of deus ex machina in RPGs is when a really powerful NPC shows up on his own and puts things right.
Nothing wrong with a little deus ex machina, but do it too much and the players will think what they do with their characters doesn't really matter to the story. So the poster was saying he thought you should have just had the character leave rather than using deus ex machina to remove him.
As for the party of eidolons, I like the idea of changing them into legacy-style weapons (the kind that grow with a character) that can change into the eidolons for 1 minute per day.
Don't let the eidolons level up, soon they will just be friendly type npc's that will live in the npc treehouse and your players will visit them with snacks and lemonade
If the issue really is just how long combat takes:
Time them. Say they have X time for their combat round so they dang well better be prepared for it.
Help them out with it too: rolling different colored die for different attacks and damages can help alot. Rolling attack and damage at once- then just disregard the damage part if the attacks miss.
Keep them moving with the timer too. (just make sure the timer increases a lil as they go up in level, since the number of options in combat increases too).
-S
You could say that the new god comes to the party and tells them that the planar war is going badly, and he needs all his soldiers. The eidolons return to whichever plane he has his domain on, and you create some side adventures for the players to play their eidolons in the war between gods. At later levels, you can choose to have the players join the battle, and get their eidolons back for those adventures if you wish. You could combine this with the legacy weapon idea, and thus give your players the ability to gain their eidolons once per day (or once per week). This way you can control exactly how often you want to have them available, and sprinkle in some interesting low-level inter-planar adventures.
Two ideas
1. Have the Eidolons turn into sentient weapons, give those weapons bonuses, maybe even including the abiblty to turn back into their "living" forms on short amounts of time.
2. I like this one more, but it would take alot more work. Make the Eidolons their own side campaign, where they are helping the characters from some other angle, taking out some outposts, or helping the demi god with his mission with the big gods.
If you went the second route, go with every other game, or have small objectives for the players to meet, and then swap over to the Eidolons. Also I would suggest putting the characters on either the fast track XP track, or using the XP gained from both he characters and the Eidolons, otherwise it would take forever to level up.
dang, ninja'd by Mabven
Thanks for the explination wolf. I'm not using him as a savior to swoop in during battle. He is more being used as a flavor / questgiver type character at this point. I also used him as a way to get some magic items into the players' hands as they have spent little time in cities and I've been slow with the loot. He has told the party that he can not become directly involved in their quests/battles as that would just cause other demi-gods to join in opposing them.
He is not going to just disappear. This would upset my players alot. He is likely going to get captured and need a rescue at which point the eidolons stop coming around until he is free. Then when he is saved he will turn them into legacy weapons so as to disconnect them from him.