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Sorry if it's been covered as it's hard to filter "death" in the search, lol. I'm still pretty new and planning on running this AP so I figured I would ask here.
I see a lot of threads mentioning the amount of character deaths and such and it makes me a little worried for my newbie group. How does most everyone handle PC death as far as re-rolling? Is it a brand new lvl 1 character, or the same level as the dead PC? If it's lvl 1 how is that handled? Does the fresh new PC find goblin camps to grind XP or just keep going as is. That sounds pretty difficult if that's the case.
Well I rambled enough. In short, what exactly do you do when a PC dies in the AP?
Thanks!
I've seen either the same level or one level below.
If a PC dies in anything I run I come up with a reason for them to try to join the party. sometimes I have to talk to the player..
I bring new characters in with the same XP as the party so everyone is leveling at the same time.
How difficult the AP is also depends on the GM. If you are a new GM your players might not die as much as someone that knows the system well.
PS:If you think your players wont want to play if they keep dying, dont be afraid to "help them".
Thanks for the replies, very helpful. When I ran a few homebrews after the BB i was fudging like crazy cause I was scarred to kill my players. 1 I didn't know how they would take dying, and 2 I didn't really know how to handle it myself, haha.
I used to be the same way. It was actually a bit more significant for me because I wouldn't allow characters to be brought back via Raise Dead (thematic issues with the world I was running). Eventually I did have a PC die (failed save vs. Death Magic) and the party had to go on a quest to find a scroll that would allow the character to be brought back.
That said, the group appreciated that I seldom killed characters and thought it a superb story-point.
Later when I was burning out I took off the kid gloves. And I noticed my long-time players were outraged when I ruled against letting a halfling paladin do a double-move and then lay-on-hands to save his companion who was at -9 hit points. The character died the next round prior to the paladin's turn... and then the game broke down into a huge yelling match as the players contested my decision.
In short: it depends on the situation. Players can in one situation accept and praise a death... and in another claim it's arbitrary and utter b#!+%%~!. What tends to work better is keeping close track of players hit points and fudging rolls. If they think their character is going to die but manage to squeak out surviving? Then they'll enjoy themselves far more.
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Read through the Rise of the Runelord obituary on this message board. You can start by focusing on the deaths in Burnt Offerings. This will give you an idea of where the party may struggle the most. Now every party is different and every DM is different. I go after the party with everything to start with, then when I see a party member get low on HPs or go unconscious, I sometimes play the monster as being over confident. In other words I make mistakes to allow survival.
Characters do die from time-to-time. It can enhance the story. But I also make "Raise Dead" obtainable.
Here's a suggestion. Double your players' starting hit points and start them at max hit points. They'll be less likely to die from a lucky hit but still somewhat vulnerable. Over the long run an extra 4-17 hit points (depending on the class and constitution bonus/penalty) isn't going to make a huge deal. But if you had, say, a sickly wizard (Constitution of 6), then 8 hit points for 1st level means he might survive being shanked by a goblin, while 4 hit points would have him bleeding out.
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Without changing the rules, here is few suggestions for your party:
a) Recommend them a bigger Constitution pool. Constitution of 12 might be enough for spellcasters or characters that don't run into melee. Constitution of 14 is enough for melee brutes and bruisers. This advice isn't necessary but it helps them survive sudden damage and critical strikes.
b) Fudge if you must occasionally. I do it rarely because I believe it can get out of hand. I did it around 4-5 times only until Book 3. Only once did I fudge in benefit of a NPC to present bigger challenge slightly, but threat was small for PCs. They finished the BBEG without anyone dropping to negatives.
c) Check the Hero Point system. It's excellent for helping the players to survive and on other hand it grants you the chance to avoid fudging and softballing much. You might want to change the Hero Point gain if you wish.
d) Use the opportunity of Book 1 to help and advice your players in small fights. Goblins are ideal for it as they don't present much of a threat and you can easily change their jumpy behavior as you wish. If you help your players they will have less reason to speak against you. Earn their trust, tell them if it's good or bad choice. Don't tell them numbers or DCs, just say "it could be done easily", "it might prove difficult", "very hard to pull of", etc.
e) Let them roleplay if they wish. If you know as much as rules as me, you might eventually grant them a chance to do something awesome but at lower risk. Don't make a great habit of it, but reward them if you can. I tend to grant my players a temporary Hero Point which they can use in the next 1 hour of game, this is however temporary solution for me.
I'm going to be starting a campaign this friday, and I have two new players out of the four. Fudging isn't really an option, since it's VTT. Hero Points might be an option, but I'm not sure; I don't think it adds much complexity, but I don't want to layer on another level of complexity with two new players.
I'm thinking of granting them the Toughness feat free (maybe at second level), but what else might be a good way to make this less of a meat-grinder? I'm already capping the minimum HP per level at PFS-level (HD max divided by 2, plus 1), but I'm not sure how else to decrease some of the brutality.
(Also, they, as of now, lack a dedicated healer. I'm still waiting on the sheet of the fourth person, but the closest they have is a Bard with Cure Light Wounds)
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@Tholomyes
If you plan to grant them free Toughness, it works best on level 1. Hero Points are pretty simple really and don't add any complexity to the system.
Dedicated healer? Hm. Now, my players never had dedicated healer, but they had an oracle and inquisitor which were able to cast Cure Spells if necessary. Most of time, it wasn't. Pathfinder doesn't really need dedicated healer and you might apply pressure on your players to play something which they don't wish to.
Easiest way of decreasing "brutality" without even touching numbers is to play enemies realistically. Use a CMB here and there, don't full attack always if creature has multiple natural attacks. There is plenty of room to grant PCs more actions and leeway.
Mostly I'm concerned about healing because a couple of my players are new, RotRL is already a bit of a meat-grinder, even with more experienced players. A thought (though I'm not 100% on it) is have a tagalong npc who mostly functions as a healer/support as needed, but I'm not quite comfortable on it, since even though I think it'll be easy enough to have him fade into the background, it's getting a bit close to a DMPC for my comfort.
As I suggested above, double their beginning hit points, including Constitution bonuses. They still start at 1st level. But the extra hit points will be quite handy in surviving critical hits and the like. +3 hit points from Toughness (which is static through level 3) isn't going to help all that much, all things considered.
The problem that I have with doubling their beginning hit points is that the party is actually pretty decent on HP; One Paladin (Empyreal Knight, so no healing from her), One dwarven Ranger and one dwarven bard (the fourth I still haven't heard back on); they're pretty durable against critical hits. It's not like they've got a Wizard with 10 CON and 6 HP; the main thing I'm concerned with is just their inability to deal with the big threats of the AP without a decent healing option
The dwarven bard will have the capability of learning cure spells. And the thing about doubling the hit points is it reduces the amount of healing magic them need initially - at least, until one of them starts making potions or the like.
You could always create an encounter where the party saves an alchemist or priest with craft potion who then sells them cure potions for near-cost. That way they can have a decent number of potions on hand, and there's an IC reason for them to have this discount.