Death rules - help understanding, ideas(possibly I need to be directed to a "sticky")?

[Marnok]

I am not sure if this is something I need "house rules" on or something I've just missed from reading of rules.

It seems to me that on death, a player has to start a new character, without the level ups gained from previous adventures.

(If I am wrong, stop me here....)

It also seems the only way to gain those abilities is to actually play through adventures, which my players won't be doing.

My idea was to make a deck of "Catch-up cards" which have extra personal missions/activities to carry out in future scenarios, to allow a player to catch up with the gains they have missed.

So there will be a deck of cards with missions like "Defeat 4 monsters", "Visit each location in this scenario", "Explore 4 times in one turn", and so on; if you are behind on the level-ups, you would draw a card from this deck and try and complete the extra action to allow you to gain the first feat etc. you missed out on.

It may be possible to complete more than one per scenario, perhaps, and there may be some harder ones which allow you more than one catchup feat.

I think this would be a fun way to allow a character to get up to speed; is there are funner way I should consider?

[Hawkmoon269]

You've got the rules right. There isn't a sticky thread about it, but there was a fair amount of discussion in various threads about what people would do if a character died.

On my groups, we tend to just call it a failed scenario. Given how slow we can progress through an adventure path, that is penalty enough. Others have also thought of catch up mechanisms.

Organized play actually has a way to pay to bring a character back to life.

[Marnok]

Thanks,

I'll see if I can find other player's catchup mechanisms. Some of my players like the idea of the catchup mini-mission cards so I might make some anyway, see how it goes, unless I can find a neater way someone else has come up with. I don't think we would go with just making it a failed mission though, we like the idea of having to plan to avoid horrid permadeath but would still like a way to catch up afterwards!

[Marnok]

I've jotted down quickly a few ideas for "catchup mini-mission cards". The idea is a player will draw the card and hold it until they have completed the requirements, at the end of the scenarion they will catch up the number of cards they succeeded in. (so they might actually catch up multiple times in one scenario.)

Undecided : whether he scenario has to succeed for them to get these.

I need to think about and balance these, but this is the general idea. They have to be things you might not just automatically do, or do easily. Involve some effort or sacrifice.

PROVE THY METTLE
Kill 4 monsters.

LAY TO REST
Kill a monster with the Undead trait.

OLD ENEMY
Kill a monster with the Human, Elf, or Dwarf trait.

DEADLY FOE
Kill a monster with the Elite or Veteran trait.

DESTROY THE RAIDERS
Kill a monster with the Goblin trait.

SURVIVE THE WILDS
Kill a monster with the Animal trait.

FACE YOUR NEMESIS
Each Monster you face adds d6 to its check to defeat, until you Defeat one to complete this card.

HEROIC DEEDS
Defeat a Villain or Henchman.

YOU MUST GATHER YOUR PARTY
Acquire 2 Allies.

LONE WANDERER
Visit each location in this scenario.

DISCRETION IS THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR
Evade an encounter.

NOTHING MUST STAND IN MY WAY
Succeed in a check to defeat a Barrier.

THE NEEDS OF THE MANY
Use Blessings on other characters a total of once for each character in the game.

SACRIFICE TO THE GODS
Use this card to Banish a Blessing from your hand which matches the top card of the Blessings deck.

SEND AN AGENT INTO THE WORLD
Use this card to Banish an Ally from your hand.

PAY AN OLD DEBT
Use this card to Banish a Weapon, Item, or Armour from your hand.

UNLEARN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Use this card to Banish a spell from your hand.

PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE
Bury 3 total Item, Weapon, or Armour from your hand under this card. Once complete, Bury the items normally.

TREASURE HUNTER
Acquire 3 total Item, Weapon, or Armour.

HENCHMAN
Explore 5 times, at locations where another character is present.

BOOK LEARNING
Acquire 2 Spells.

PRAY TO THE GODS
Acquire 2 Blessings.

QUARTERMASTER
Give a card to each other player without any giving a card to you.

PERSONAL QUEST
Be the player to Close a location (permanently)

TOUGHEN UP
Take damage without preventing any of the damage taken

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Visit a random open location, and succeed at the "close" condition (this does not actually close the location)

TRIAL OF STRENGTH
Succeed at a check which uses your Strength die.

TEST OF REFLEXES
Succeed at a check which uses your Dexterity die.

TRIAL OF ENDURANCE
Succeed at a check which uses your Constitution die.

TEST OF INTELLECT
Succeed at a check which uses your Intelligence die.

TEST OF WISDOM
Succeed at a check which uses your Wisdom die.

TEST OF PERSONALITY
Succeed at a check which uses your Charisma die.

ACCEPTANCE
Receive a blessing on your checks from each other player character at least once.

POWER ON THROUGH
Explore a location 4 times in one turn.

[zeroth_hour2]

You may want to have a temporary penalty associated with the card, that might be "sacrifice" enough.

Sacrifice to the Gods may actually be a benefit, if the blessing is low level and you're in a high level scenario. It may also be thematically inappropriate if these cards are drawn randomly and you're asked to grab some treasures while you're Seelah (who isn't really a treasure hunter)

That being said, how many times is the player in question dying? There may not be enough healing support or the player might be too aggressive if they're dying too much.

[Hannibal_pjv]

The easiest way is to take die bump reward from the organized play and use the same rule in home play.
Just add that extra reward to the last scenario for each adventure path. And use normal organized play rules for the die bumps.

[Hannibal_pjv]

Die Bumps

Gain a die bump for each adventure you have completed.

A die bump is a single-use reward usually given to characters that complete an adventure (See Earning Scenario Rewards below).
Your character can use a die bump to add 1 to or subtract 1 from the result of a check. Multiple die bumps can be used on a check, and multiple characters can use die bumps on a check.

If a character dies, at the end of that scenario, the party may collectively use 3 die bumps to resurrect that character back from the dead. Players may not be coerced into using die bumps for this purpose. The resurrected character is no longer dead and gains rewards as if he had not died.
When you use a die bump, mark it off on your character’s Chronicle sheet.

[Marnok]

Hannibal_pjv wrote:

Die Bumps

Thanks, I'll mention this to the group, we could use poker chips to keep track.

[Marnok]

zeroth_hour2 wrote:

That being said, how many times is the player in question dying? There may not be enough healing support or the player might be too aggressive if they're dying too much.

It's not so much how many times they die, but how late on and therefore how many rewards they have to catch up on.

[Frencois]

After many discussions we decided to make it very simple and consistent with how to manage when one player/character misses a game session.

1) When you die you restart from scratch (no feats, random basic cards).

2) Anytime you end a successful scenario and after getting the rewards you still have less feats than you "should" after that scenario (= sum of all adventures/scenarios rewards up to that point if you didn't die), you win one (in AD0-2)/two (AD 3-4)/three (AD 5+) more feat(s) of your chosing providing a) you didn't win the same type of feat during step 1) and b) you are limited to the number of feats of that type (skill, power, card) that you "should" have after that scenario (= sum of all adventures/scenarios rewards up to that point if you didn't die)

Easy and fun catching-up

[Doppelschwert]

Given that you already had a role card when you died, when do you get your role card with the new character, frencois?

[Frencois]

Oooops forgot that.
You get your role card back as soon as you win a power feat that "should" be on that card.

I mean say the AP is designed so that you win the role card at the end of AD 3 and that at a point you have won N power feats through adventures/scenarios rewards. When you have died you restart with 0 power feats, but after pretty much(*) each successful scenario you will win 1 power feat. The first N power feats will go (as usual) to your character card since you don't have your role card yet. When you win your (N+1)th power feat, you get the role card with it and you can select one of your new available power feat for your (N+1)th.

(*) The only case were it could not happen is if you were at AD4 (so you win pnly 2 catch-up feats), the reward of the scenario doesn't include a third feat, and for your 2 total feats you select skill+card. In my experience it never happens since players prefer to regain powers first.

So let's take RoR, at the time (end of AD3) when you select your role card, you are supposed to have 3 power feats (and a 4th one that you can put on your role card). You will then after dying usually get it back after 4 successful after-death scenarios (i. e., from a role card point of view, you catch-up what you first did in 15 scenarios and lost because of death in 4 new ones). We have done that for years and feel it's a good "fun roleplay oriented" balance between "get power back fast" vs "death should be painful so you play wise".