So, I have a player in a long running game (now running for 5+ years!) who started the game deeply invested and always coming up with new and interesting ways to resolve various conflicts (IC and OoC). However, over the past six months he's been becoming more and more blase to everything going on in the game. In addition, his character seems to be pulling away from the party more and more, becoming distant and even causing some interparty conflict in quest choice and decisions.
I've talked to the player in private, and he seems to have hit a point with the character where he just isn't sure what to do. He built a more jack-of-all-trades to help support and cover holes in the party builds, but now his other party members are reaching the point where they are good enough that he feels like more a 'lead weight' than offering a serious contribution to the group as a whole. Mechanically, he understands he is doing fine. However, emotionally he believes the group would be better off with him leaving and simply recruiting a more specialist for a given quest.
I've gone on record saying that if the party splits ways, we'd be starting a new game, and I am sticking to my guns here. However, I also want the player to really get involved like he used to be again. Is this a case where I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, or is there something I (or the player) can do?
Thanks for the help.
Perhaps allowing him to drop his current character and bring in a new one would work.
Or perhaps starting a new campaign is the best answer for your group.
Or maybe drop a live lobster down his shirt while he's not paying attention.
I've tried all of these with various degrees of success, depending on the group.
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Good points above, but shellfish or no shellfish things must change somehow. I would even consider perhaps giving the player a chance to rebuild the character, partially - if you're group is okay with a meta level solution.
In-game, an option I might consider is giving that player some kind of cohort to fight alongside him. Generally though, most of the time adding player controlled characters is a risky idea.
Straight up buffing the PC with a template etc. could also work if it can be justified and doesn't rub the other players in a bad way.
But yeah, I think giving a partial rebuild might be worth a shot. But if the player wants a new character, you could always let the old one stick around in the world, being relevant and helpful if not an active PC. Retiring a character doesn't have to mean removing them from the world entirely.
Still, sounds like a tricky social situation considering the length of your current game.
You could try talking to the player in question and working out a narrative arc for his character; make him the focus of the story for a bit; alternatively, you could work out with him a way to have his character leave in a dramatic way(turned evil, or heroic sacrifice are nice)and allow him to bring in a new character that he is more interested in.
I've always loved writing a final, amazing event in which my character sacrifices themselves for the good of the group or the town, or something important.
Once that evening is over, my new character is ready to join the adventure.
Or, help them become a GM themselves. The game takes on whole new levels of interest if you're running the NPCs and moving the adventure along.
If the guy isn't having fun playing the character, then it's time for a new character. One of the players in my current game got tired of playing his character so he made a new one, but the old character still comes by every now and then as an NPC.
I like the shellfish idea, but he is usually pretty attentive during session. It seems the general consensus is to try and make a change of some sort. Have to think of something. Good ideas and keep them coming.
I would prefer not to have him make a new character, just because of the disruption it would have on 5 years of inter-party dynamics. That being said, if there were no other options...
As for the current party business, the party is somewhat in-between jobs. Right now they are hunting creatures and venturing into ruins in the pursuit of some cash after a year long quest that ended up having very little monetary reward (though the allies they gained will pay off far more than any amount of gold). The area they are in has some importance to his character's over-arching story, but he's already uncovered most of it. I could give him a new lead. He's currently been tasked to do something that... well, is morally complex and incredibly difficult.
Give the character an IC epic quest to go do on his own, such as "find the mcguffin" or "recent sighting of your father in X town, which is extremely odd". Have that PC re-roll a new character that could join the group.
Now the PC has two characters in this world, and can possibly juggle the two characters (or not - maybe he just wants to stick with the new one for a couple more years).
It's pretty easy actually. Have him retrain, don't give him any freebees (he won't appreciate that based on what you've said of him) but let him retrain every single level as something else as is explained in ultimate campaign, then all his feats (if necessary) and finally his attribute gains.
I'm assuming after 5 years the party is high level, and if he was a jack of all trades he almost certainly has a good charisma, so retraining as a sorcerer or an oracle would work well thematically, either latent blood echoes kick in, or an aspect of nature suddenly curses him as it's champion.
If he is skill based, which he probably is a bard would be good, unless he already is a bard, in which case I'd suggest a sorcerer with vmc bard, possibly take a prestige class with more skill points, these usually come with loss of spellcasting level(s) but if he takes prestigious spellcaster that's okay.
A bit of new life to an old character could be just what he needs.
As a build I recommend is the immortality oracle. It's a life oracle with all the healing options maxed, making sure that the whole party is full every round, it makes a tpk very difficult (not impossible, obviously, but hard), of course I don't know the character so this could be an inappropriate choice, but I would suggest the possibility.
Keep in mind that this option will cost thousands of gold, possibly tens of thousands.
Five years is a long time for a single campaign. He might just need a RL break for six months to recharge his batteries, etc.
...I didn't know there were rebuild rules in Ultimate Campaign. That could work quite well...
And if you combine it, with, say, something akin to Tinalles idea (perhaps the information to track this ancient hero is costly, or the item needed to free him requires a special ritual with rare components), then it gives it quite a bit of weight and a feeling of rarity. Nifty!
How about setting up a new enemy that kills him off and then a member of the group to fill in? It could be a cult that sets him up for a sacrifice and a disgusted/shocked pentient member, or a criminal organization that assassinates him and the undercover cop that tried to rescue him and failed.
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...I didn't know there were rebuild rules in Ultimate Campaign. That could work quite well...
And if you combine it, with, say, something akin to Tinalles idea (perhaps the information to track this ancient hero is costly, or the item needed to free him requires a special ritual with rare components), then it gives it quite a bit of weight and a feeling of rarity. Nifty!
A word of warning about the ancient hero idea if you go that route.
In my second campaign in pathfinder I began the game a multiclass sorcerer, and later in the campaign I regretted my build (I was very green when creating the character). I asked for a rebuild and I was given one sans restrictions.
I remade my sorcerer, and good lord did I optimize. No need to be conservative for lower levels, and I could buy whatever I wanted in my budget, with the only restriction being more than half my wealth couldn't go to one item.
I'm a clever guy and I crunched the numbers, but not clever enough to forsee what would happen.
I completely dominated most encounters with two massivly powerfull fireballs (that didn't nessesarily deal fire damage) per round (high high level, but that's where you are).
I deeply regreted what I had done by the time the AP was over. Thankfully it didn't kill the game or lose me friends (nor should it, I think we've all done it once).
My point is that the rebuild rules are there for a reason, and unrestricted character builds or rebuilds at high level are dangerous, and should be approached with caution.
First piece of advice don't let him rebuild his wealth. Let him sell stuff, if it's an issue you can deal with it later, but unrestricted buys at high level is the most dangerous thing.
Aside from that just proceed with caution, you clearly have the experience after five years, just think before you make any decisions.
retrain and murder his child. If he doesn't have one, give him one
Summary: ...A very good word of warning.
Yeah, no. Not letting him retrain wealth. That being said, he's been playing with slightly below average wealth for a while. He'll purchase single use items to use as potential solutions, or give NPCs cheap magic items as gifts. In game, he gave his in-game wife a 'Necklace of Communication', which is just a 1/Week Sending that can only send to the bearer of the other necklace, and stores the message in the necklace for when the wearer checks it. It was... something like 3000 gold? The limitations were severe enough on it to be really cheap. Overall, I think he is like, 40k gold below the rest of the party's wealth, but he's the only one with some very good connections as a result and he gets enjoyment out of the gift giving. Its win/win.
retrain and murder his child. If he doesn't have one, give him one
He actually has a daughter! She's five years old and basically a sweetheart (in part because he commissioned a 1/Day Major Image before he left on that trip that could only create an illusion of him, so she'd know who he was). Thank you, planes where time flows differently.
Honestly though at this point he might be better off retiring his character and reroll something else. The problem of "Jack of all trades" is that you do become a "master of none" in a d20 system and very quickly lose Power unless they have a "booster" or "powerlevel" comming up where their trade will Jack up a few steps.
A character "left behind" is never fun to play, is it behind on gear, cash, Levels, and thats enough that a player will lose interest as you get line like "why would i do it when X does it better?" or "I will just fail anyway, so i stand back and watch".
So the possible solutions are:
Let him "Retrain" his character to something more focused.
Reroll a entirely New character.
Let him Catch up in terms of costs and gear. And to Balance out the stuff he gifts away just give him more doodads thats technicaly is worthless but makes good gifts.
It does sound like he have a lovely character to play with, but if the game drains your player like this its better to stop and start again.
Hey if anything you could point him my way and i could walk him through on how to make the character he wants to make and be effective. I like making characters and do that a lot even tho i might never play them.
One of my players plays a nonoptimized cleric and sometimes ends up feeling borderline useless when the wizard player tries to cover everything magical on his own. But I noticed tough challenges help - if the monsters are dangerous enough, the party has to rely on the cleric's healing during combat. And the cleric player is happy again.
Is it possible to tailor challenges toward the apathic player's PC? Is it an option to give him items to augment his strengths, carving out his niche further?
I like the shellfish idea, but he is usually pretty attentive during session. It seems the general consensus is to try and make a change of some sort. Have to think of something. Good ideas and keep them coming.
Would retraining his character into filling a niche the party lacks work?