Uses for DMC: Discussion, Proposal & Voting

Living PF Judge · Dec 17, 2011

This is a topic that's been brought up before, but fizzled out at some point for reasons unknown.

DMC are great for giving characters a little bump now and then to qualify them for an adventure or to speed the glacial process of leveling in PbP. Also very cool to be able to use them to get that third character (though I haven't yet, and am not sure I will). However, bumping character levels with DMC is a little self-limiting as one soon gets to the point that there aren't any characters of an appropriate level to go adventuring with. So once one has gotten that third character approved the DMCs start to pile up if you're running games regularly.

For some reason, I woke up today with a few ideas running through my head. Thought I'd start up the discussion again and see what sparks. My intention is to use this post as a collecting place for those ideas - as folks toss them out any of the judges can add them to this post so they can be easily found. The thread can be use to toss the ideas out, discuss them and vote on them.

If you are proposing a new use, it would be helpful to put that use in the title of your post to make it easy to find later.

Code:

                                                        Judges     Added to
[u]Proposal                                                 Say         Wiki    [/u]

Mystic Pearl Item: Auto Roll                               ?       ??/??/????
Mystic Pearl Item: Above City Size                         ?       ??/??/????
True Resurrection                                          ?       ??/??/????

Maidhc O Casain · Dec 17, 2011

Resurrecting a Character

This one was brought up previously, but didn't get much discussion. I think it's a great option to have, personally. A set number of DMC buys a true resurrection of a character. I'd personally like to see it role-played out as well - the other party members collect the body, carry it to the great temple in Venza and appeal to the high priest to restore their comrade to life or some such. My recommendation would be that characters resurrected in this way not finish the adventure in which they died. This is an instinctive thing, though, and I'll admit I haven't really thought it through as I'm just tossing things out as they pop into my head.

My thought on the cost is that we tie it to the cost of the spell. Initially, I was thinking it would cost the number of DMC that it would take a character of that level to earn enough gold to purchase the spell (10,910 GP assuming the minimum Cleric level to cast the spell). However, the purpose of DMC is to encourage members to run games so 1800 DMC to resurrect a first level character might be a little steep

. My current favorite thought is to set it at 40 DMC to resurrect a first level character, and to reduce that by 2 for each additional character level (38 for a second level character, 36 for a third level, etc).

Maidhc O Casain · Dec 17, 2011

Mystic Pearl Purchases

I think it would be cool to be able to cash in DMC to help with magic item purchases.

Maybe 1 DMC allows you to find the item you're looking for in the Pearl without the (otherwise) mandatory availability check.

We could also allow cashing in DMC to allow purchase of items not normally available in a settlement of the size in which one is shopping. Maybe for each level of size increase, that 1 DMC cost triples (or quadruples, or whatever those with a better head for math and balance than I have can come up with).

Qik · Dec 17, 2011

Thoughts/4th character?

Just a few quick thoughts in the early hours of the day.

First off, I like all your ideas. Although I'm fairly new to accumulating DMCs, I'd noticed how some of you seem to have accumulated more than you know what to do with, so I think adding options is a great idea.

Mowgli said:
A set number of DMC buys a true resurrection of a character.

My recommendation would be that characters resurrected in this way not finish the adventure in which they died.

I also agree with this stipulation, although it also mostly seems to be an instinctual preference. Perhaps it's because it provides some penalty for death.

Mowgli said:
My current favorite thought is to set it at 40 DMC to resurrect a first level character, and to reduce that by 2 for each additional character level (38 for a second level character, 36 for a third level, etc).

Is it just me, or does 40 seem really high? That's 572 days worth of DMCs, and my instinct is to say that the time it would take to accumulate that many DMCs far outweighs the benefit of resurrecting a low-level character. Did you set it that high because you want resurrection to be so rare? Which would make sense.

Also, my gut is to suggest that the cost for resurrecting be a flat one, for ease of use. Otherwise you'll have people calculating Time XP from an adventure to shave off a few DMCs resurrection cost, etc. At least, that's my thought.

The Mystic Pearl ideas all seem good to me.

I'm also just curious: what are everyone's thoughts on allowing a 4th character, for, say, twice the DMC needed for a 3rd (12)? I can understand the argument against allowing more, but it's just a thought.

Maidhc O Casain · Dec 17, 2011

Qik said:
Is it just me, or does 40 seem really high? That's 572 days worth of DMCs, and my instinct is to say that the time it would take to accumulate that many DMCs far outweighs the benefit of resurrecting a low-level character. Did you set it that high because you want resurrection to be so rare? Which would make sense.

I kind of pulled 40 out of my hat, but I was indeed thinking that resurrection should be pretty rare - and more rare at lower levels than at higher. Really, I was just tossing that out as a starting place for discussions. I'm not even really set on the idea of making it vary by level; both this system and a flat rate have pros and cons, and I'm not nearly smart enough to think through all of the ramifications without some discussion.

jkason · Dec 17, 2011

Mowgli said:
This one was brought up previously, but didn't get much discussion. I think it's a great option to have, personally. A set number of DMC buys a true resurrection of a character.

I think my only question here is: we already have replacement character mechanics in place, whereby you can replace a dead character with another one of the same level (or the same xp in the case of 1st level). I don't think there's anything in place that bars a player from replacing a dead character with a nigh-identical build and re-using the name, throwing in "resurrected by mysterious forces" as fluff, is there? And I'm not sure there's a compelling reason against just that scenario if someone's really fond of a character (the re-approval process would be enough reason to take them out of their current adventure so they didn't get 'free resurrection via re-build'). And none of that costs any DMC.

Qik said:
I'm also just curious: what are everyone's thoughts on allowing a 4th character, for, say, twice the DMC needed for a 3rd (12)? I can understand the argument against allowing more, but it's just a thought.

I suppose the general problem is that there tend to be more characters than games. If everyone GM'd just enough to get three - four characters, we'd have a heck of a lot of idle folks after that.

Qik · Dec 17, 2011

Yeah, that makes sense. Not saying that there needs to be a change, but if there were, I could understanding limiting a player to running, say, 3 PCs at one time, but allowing to have others waiting in the wings. That way, a PC could switch out characters, but the overall number of adventuring PCs would still be 3/person. Just a thought.

As for jk's comments as to the possibilities of practically resurrecting a character already - it's a fair point. I have to say, I've actually thought a bit about doing that with Quioan. There are some mechanical problems that I have with him, which are too extensive to rectify with a rebuild. At the same time, though, "starting anew" with essentially the same fluff (especially in terms of maintaining already-established IC relationships with others) seemed a bit cheap. I suppose the question is, then, would that be actually problematic?

Maidhc O Casain · Dec 17, 2011

There's just something distasteful to me about retiring a character only to replace him with one almost exactly the same . . . which I think is one reason I opposed the current character replacement rules. Under the current system, there is absolutely no danger to any character. Your character died? Oh, well . . . just replace him with one of exactly the same experience, equipment, stats and money and - as you said - say he was resurrected mysteriously. No need to even change the name, and approval is guaranteed because he'd been approved up to that point anyway. Honestly, it takes a LOT of the suspense and excitement out of it for me, and makes in character decisions (in dangerous conditions) very, well, meh. It also makes the Resurrection spell almost completely worthless. OK, end of off-topic pseudo-rant.

Anyway, that's my reasoning for suggesting the use of DMC in for resurrection. But as you say, under the current system there's no need

jkason · Dec 17, 2011

Mowgli said:
Honestly, it takes a LOT of the suspense and excitement out of it for me, and makes in character decisions (in dangerous conditions) very, well, meh. It also makes the Resurrection spell almost completely worthless. OK, end of off-topic pseudo-rant.

I think it's probably a pretty niche case that someone's going to go for that kind of option, but given the much more extended time commitments of leveling PbP characters, I'm not nearly as opposed to it. I'm not convinced the ability to resurrect makes dying any less frustrating, really. At least, I don't get any less annoyed when I keep dying in video games where I have unlimited lives.

IronWolf · Dec 18, 2011

I agree with the general notion of allowing DMCs to be used for other perks. The Mystic Pearl Item with an auto roll seems innocent enough and is a nice perk to be *sure* you get an item you want for your character.

Using it for an item above city size might be cool too, though maybe define a certain percentage above city size allowed? Not sure if that is necessary, but it could be a further check to keep things reigned in. If you look at DMC as a sort of prestige, that can explain why that character was able to source it.

True Resurrection. I think it is fine as well, but not sure how often it would be used given the character rebuild rules (which I am with Mowgli on not quite agreeing with due to the loophole of allowing the rebuild of an identical character). While I wouldn't be likely to exploit such a loophole, if I were I would probably just do that instead of spending precious DMC on a true resurrection. If the loophole from character rebuild it removed then the DMC option is much more attractive.