Surrogate downtime & renown

WilliamCQ · Sep 15, 2017

One of my PC died in Tomb of Annihilation (ToA). I understand all the XP, liquidity & magic items will be transferred to the PC (or a new PC should the dead PC soul is devoured) but I'm not sure about downtime (dt) & renown (re). I'm pretty worried about dt since a lot is needed for spellcasting services > level 5 (L5). About re, AFAIK the surrogate has no faction; I've never had a factionless PC, is the re spoiled on such PCs?

Thank you kindly

Pauper · Sep 15, 2017

The latest Death Curse guide states that "all cumulative rewards" are transferred from the surrogate to the original character, if the original character can be brought back. This would include renown and (unspent) downtime. Note, though, that if the surrogate isn't part of a faction, it doesn't earn renown.

Honestly, I tend to play wizards who don't get much out of the 'buy a magic item from your faction' activity, so for Season 7, where you don't get Faction Charity, it doesn't make sense for me to even pick a faction -- your mileage may vary (YMMV). I got a lot more mileage out of joining the Cloaks in Season 2 than I ever have joining a faction as a wizard.

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Pauper

KahlessNestor · Sep 15, 2017

Csn you choose a faction with your surrogate?

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

Pauper · Sep 15, 2017

KahlessNestor said:
Csn you choose a faction with your surrogate?

I'd say yes, based on existing AL rules.

No surrogate appears to come with a faction affiliation, which is normally done during character creation. However, the ALPG notes that "[a]t any time during your character's adventuring career, you can choose to become a member of a faction." (ALPG 6.0, p.3)

The presumption would appear to be, unless you the player specifically declare that your surrogate is joining a faction and note it in the character's log, the surrogate doesn't belong to a faction and doesn't gain renown. Nothing in the surrogate rules states that a surrogate cannot belong to a faction -- in fact, one piece of advice to the DM suggests that a surrogate can be quickly added to a party as a replacement character because it was sent by a faction. The rules for surrogates do say that surrogates cannot be rebuilt, but changing a faction can be done outside the rebuilding rules and thus in theory would still be allowed.

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Pauper