That might be annoying. If I've made a wizard I don't want my equipment to be full plate mail and an orc double-axe.
You could have them can start at WBL for one level below their current level?
I assume that since you say the other players don't have items they want you impose restrictions one them buying items. If this is the case then yeah you are going to need to add on some more house rules to keep the peace. Not something I would do but I don't see any other way to even things up.
Use this Death Table instead of new characters (i have seen the link here in the forum). It´s a nice way without creating new characters.
You killed them, you deal with it. Why would you punish the new characters for taking their adventuring career more seriously?
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I will say that I have been playing in a Carron Crown campaign with a very high body count. The DM has been very restrictive with buying magic items resulting in character wealth far below the standard WBL guidlines. Being able to start with WBL items was a pretty good consolation prize for getting killed.
I don't see too much of a problem. If you see any really problematic enchantments or items, you could always use DM fiat, the same way magic items are limited in shops. You could say "That is a rather rare enchantment, and it's unlikely that you'd be able to get that."
I don't get killer DM logic, especially when they wanna make sure killing the player characters is even easier once they get the new batch or are revived via magic like Ressurection or Reincarnate.
Hell, I'd tell such a DM that I have better things to do with my time than let my characters walk into one meatgrinder after another. And really, if I did want that, I'd just go play Dark Souls or Amnesia.
WBL -1 is what we tend to do.
I don't get killer DM logic, especially when they wanna make sure killing the player characters is even easier once they get the new batch or are revived via magic like Ressurection or Reincarnate.
Hell, I'd tell such a DM that I have better things to do with my time than let my characters walk into one meatgrinder after another. And really, if I did want that, I'd just go play Dark Souls or Amnesia.
The Killer DM logic, as I have often seen it, usually occurs with similarly minded players. The types of players who always want to play evil campaigns (not well done evil campaigns, usually just the ones that evil means backstabbing the other players, and killing off their fellow PCs for kicks), and will barely be able to contain their glee when they screw over another player, even in a non-evil game.
Not sure if it's a result of these players are the only ones who will play along with this attitude, or that these DMs act as killer DMs to force the players to focus on the enemies, rather than screwing over each other. Either way, I haven't seen too many of one without the other.
The surviving PCs didn't loot the magic items of the dead?
The surviving PCs didn't loot the magic items of the dead?
That is an important question. In my games, the party loses the equipment of the character who died. You can usually find an in-game justification if you look hard enough.
All PC gear is returned to their family/church/organisation in our games.
If your surviving party is equiped properly for their level this is just whining.Just because they got to pick a few items doesnt make those items inherently better in any way. However, if you are intentionally running a game where they are under WBL or are low magic or whatever, you need to come up with a system that is fair when introducing the new characters. Ideally you should take a census of what is out there in the exisiting party and using the average GP value of their equipment allow the new characters to purchase.
Well, if they died a little upgrade in equipment by cherry picking might not be the worst thing.
As for the whole thing being unfair: I see the point but there are ways around that.
- Turn one or two items per new character into cursed items.
- Lower the starting money to WBL-1 or -2.
- Alternativly roll a d100 for each item they want. Add half the result as % to the price.
- Tell them only x% (about 50%?) of their equipment can be chosen, the rest is random.
- Make them spend x% (10%?) of their starting wealth on items for the whole group (potions, wands, etc.) or even "donate" it to the other players.
- Ask the players of the surviving charcters what items they want and make some of them available to them by loot or merchant. If they survived because they were the smart ones, give it to them as a reward for a job well done.
Use any of the above and it should work out fine.
If I understand the problem correctly. The player comes into play with a fairly expensive item or two compared to what the rest have?
If this is the case. Use the WBL as normal, but restrict the maximum cost of any given item to a fixed percentage of the wealth. We have used a "no item may be worth more than 50% of your total allowed gold". You can change that value as you want though.
After all it doesn't make sense to see a character walk in wearing the best full plate his money could buy, and have mundane items for the rest.
I don't get killer DM logic, especially when they wanna make sure killing the player characters is even easier once they get the new batch or are revived via magic like Ressurection or Reincarnate.
Hell, I'd tell such a DM that I have better things to do with my time than let my characters walk into one meatgrinder after another. And really, if I did want that, I'd just go play Dark Souls or Amnesia.
The Killer DM logic, as I have often seen it, usually occurs with similarly minded players. The types of players who always want to play evil campaigns (not well done evil campaigns, usually just the ones that evil means backstabbing the other players, and killing off their fellow PCs for kicks), and will barely be able to contain their glee when they screw over another player, even in a non-evil game.
Not sure if it's a result of these players are the only ones who will play along with this attitude, or that these DMs act as killer DMs to force the players to focus on the enemies, rather than screwing over each other. Either way, I haven't seen too many of one without the other.
Not only does crit happen, but sometimes players just make bad decisions. Its not always a function of a killer GM out to get the players. While I think that in general, a GM should provide "fair" encounters, there does need to be some challenges along the way. Not necessarily impossible encounters, but certainly challenging ones. Those are the encounters that the players will remember for years to come, when the party was on the verge of tpk but that one timely spell, or crit, or whatever, changed the tide.
Sometimes though, standard encounters become tough too, either because the players make bad decisions, or dice go cold (or hot if you're the GM), etc. Particularly if the players are just being dumb, I don't think its the GM's job to bail them out. I've certainly seen my fair share of encounters where the players just ignored the most obvious threat, even when being told by the GM/skill checks, what the most obvious threat was. Dumb adventurers tend to lead short lives.
As to the OP though, there are potentially a couple of issues that may be at play. First, is the problem for the surviving PCs that they have LESS gear than the new PC? If so, there's an easy remedy. Drop items that are usable by the surviving PCs. Additionally, I would say that a new PC cannot have a higher value of gear than what his dead predecessor had. If; however, the problem is that because the new PCs get to pick their gear, their gear is more synergistic, that's a different issue. In that scenario, I would tend to agree with the concept of a mixture of random gear and PC purchased gear. Let the PC (for the most part) pick his major items (weapon, armor, etc.) but then use random rolls for things like Wondrous items, rings, etc. This way the wizard doesn't end up with Full Plate +3, but might end up with a tanglefoot bag that he had not really planned on getting.
There is no killer GM logic. The game can be lethal at times. I don't go out of my way to kill players but crit happens. Anyway I allow the magic items to be brought in towns the ones that I roll up for the alive pcs. So should I only do the same for the new characters?
So you roll randomly in towns to see what magic items they have and allow players to buy and sell amongst those? You should do the same for new characters. However many times you have done this for the party, do it again for the new player (or if you can keep the old lists from previous towns that might be best). Allow them to buy from those items, and from items the party has sold. Whatever you do normally is what you should do for the party.
What about this:
Take the worth of magic items the surviving PCs have that they actually use, for easy math like say the WBL is 10000, but the wizard uses 6000 worth and the warrior 4000 worth so half is really good gear and the other 5000 is either not good for them or just gold. Let them pick their 5000, and then choose the 5000 randomly or for them or just give them gold.
Then if like your wizard has a good item for the new rogue that gets rolled up, maybe you give the rogue a good item to trade with the wizard or something.
This may be a bit more work, but it could be a good compromise.
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Players should be warned when they get into a low WBL and/or no licking of items campaign. Just because the adventurer has no choice in the matter of what adventuring opportunities are placed before them does not mean the real life person does not have the chance to go play/run another group, or even spending the night, god forbid, going out for dancing/bowling/ hanging out at a bar. Not everyone's play style meshes well with everyone else's. Give people a heads up, it is better for someone to decline a seat and give that seat to a person who wants to take on that kind of challenge than have a player drop out after a few games and the person who joins already missed what they could have enjoyed from the beginning.
I think the real problem is that you are not allowing PCs to choose their gear in the first place and instead giving them scrapes they would never even bother to pay half the price for.
Consider letting a PC buy as they wish at WBL minus 1 or 2 levels and then pick the random garbage only for their most recent acquisitions. Every level, they can readjust that WBL minus 1 or 2, even selling stuff at full value(sometimes PCs get shafted on treasure, like getting a boat worth 10,000gp but only allowed to walk away with a measly 400 gp, say the difference in selling back at 1/2 vs full comes from stuff like that), you, the GM, then get to give them more of your random junk they would never even bother to purchase at half price.
In a campaign with deliberate low gear, you may have to be even more harsh, PC gets to pick 1/2 level WBL, or even only 1/4, then the GM throws the garbage of extras at the PCs, who pick them up only because they have no half decent choice.