D&D 5E What to do when Pc's die? What then for that player?

[the Jester]

Unearned by whom?

By the pc.

The player has played in the game for however many sessions it has been played. Being unfortunate enough to lose your PC due to the variance of die rolling doesn't change that.

That's beside the point. It's not about the player, it's about the character. The player isn't the one who gets the xps and extra gear, it's the character. It's all about the character.

And this argument makes me wonder if any group of players you run ever goes down in level. Once you finish the Savage Tide adventure path and make new pcs, shouldn't they all be 18th or 21st level or whatever? After all, the players have all played in the game for all those sessions.

Obviously that's a bit of reducto ad absurdum there, but the point is that players aren't characters and they shouldn't be treated as if they're interchangeable. (IMHO.) I'm talking about stuff earned 'inside' the game. The players aren't 'inside' the game, the characters are. Nothing the players have gotten is taken away when they start a new pc- none of their memories, none of the fun they had, none of the excitement they felt.

I get the argument that "But ES@1 means that you're taking away his future fun!" I simply, completely, utterly, totally disagree. And this isn't theorycrafting- this is decades of 1e and 2e (and Basic, but far less of that) experience and a month or two of 5e experience talking. It might not work for every group, but it works for mine. My players haven't complained once about it, and seem to really enjoy their new pcs and getting them integrated into the party. And- and here's the key- if it doesn't work for someone, they're free to play in a different game, run by someone who has a playstyle more compatible with theirs. That doesn't mean that that player and I can't be friends, or have dinner, or play a one-shot together sometime; it just means that we're not suited to play in a regular campaign together, any more than I think I would be suited to play in a Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman run game full of plot and story. It's simply not my style. And there's nothing inherently right or wrong with either my style, Weis & Hickman's style, your style or anyone else's style, as long as the group that coalesces around it enjoys that style.

 

[Sailor Moon]

In our games the dice fall where they fall and if a character gets killed then that's just a part of the game. The system comes with built in ways of bringing your character back but if you are in a situation where you can't avail of those methods then you roll up a new character and start again at level 1. Dying in our games is more then just a speed bump, it is a big consequence that you may have to live with no matter how much you like your character. Also, players don't automatically jump back into the game with a new character, unless there is a perfectly good in game reason as to why they would. If the players are currently in an area or situation that wouldn't allow a new PC to enter, then that person would have to wait.

 

[Agamon]

That's beside the point. It's not about the player, it's about the character. The player isn't the one who gets the xps and extra gear, it's the character. It's all about the character.

It's not that the player gets xp, it's that the player is the one that cares about it. PCs don't think, "Time to start my adventuring career! Can't wait for those precious XPs!" It's an abstract in the game world. PCs aren't completely unskilled at level 1, it's really kind of an arbitrary starting point from the perspective of the game world. Game mechanics are the purview of the players, not the PCs.

And can't a campaign start at level 3 or level 10 or what have you?

I'm not arguing against restarting at level 1. Heck, my last campaign was ACKS and we did exactly that. It's just that this reasoning struck me as odd.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I had a PC die last session. Actually had 2 die but one was at the very end, he messed with a beholder and took a death ray. The other however "died" in the middle of the session by a medusa. Technically just stone but for all intensive purposes (my purposes are very intensive) he was dead. So instead of making him sit there, I let him run the monsters for the rest of the session. It's probably the most fiendish thing I could have done to the party at that point. It was great.

I've done this. Almost always, the player tries very hard to kill the remaining characters. In my experience, this has been a memorable experience.

 

[Evenglare]

I've done this. Almost always, the player tries very hard to kill the remaining characters. In my experience, this has been a memorable experience.

Yes!

 

[77IM]

It takes 21,000 XP to rise from level 10 to level 11. With the same amount of XP, a level 1 character will become level 6 -- very nearly level 7.

Then it's another 15,000 XP to get to 12. (Yes, D&D has a hell level, and level 10 is it!) This would put the lower-level character at 36,000 = level 8. He may never truly catch up, but he's closing the gap rather quickly!

This gives me another good idea. Usually the problem with low-level PCs is lack of hit points. If they can SURVIVE that first encounter, usually they level up (sometimes multiple times) and are in a much better position.

So one option is to calculate the XP award of an encounter of the party's level, and start the new PC with that much XP. At higher levels this should get them to level 2 or 3 right away, so they don't have to spend that first fight cowering in the corner. Basically you skip that first boring fight -- just assume it happened and give the XP reward.

Another compromise option that bears mentioning: start the new character at 1st or some other low level, but give them DOUBLE XP until they catch up with the party. This helps ensure that they will catch up eventually. You can use some other multiplier than 2x if you want. If you're replacing a dead PC, you could do double XP until you reach the previous total.

 

[Joe Liker]

Another compromise option that bears mentioning: start the new character at 1st or some other low level, but give them DOUBLE XP until they catch up with the party. This helps ensure that they will catch up eventually. You can use some other multiplier than 2x if you want. If you're replacing a dead PC, you could do double XP until you reach the previous total.

For reference, with the level 10 party I examined earlier:

From 10 to 11 = 21,000 XP x 2 = 42,000 XP, which will take you from level 1 to mid-level 8.
Then 11 to 12 = 15,000 XP x 2 = 30,000 XP, for a total of 72,000 on the start-over character, halfway through level 10.
Then 12 to 13 = 20,000 XP x 2 = 40,000 XP, for a total of 112,000 on the start-over character, halfway through level 12.

At this point, if you continue doubling XP, the new character will catch up before the rest of the party reaches 14. So it takes slightly more than three levels. It will take significantly longer if the character dies in his mid-to-late teens, and he may not actually have time to catch up before his friends get to 20.

In the option 77IM offers in his last sentence, you would have stopped doubling just before the rest of the party hit 12, when the dead guy hits level 10 (where he was when his original character died). So in the long run this is roughly equivalent to starting the new character one level lower than you were when you died. (Dying at lower levels causes this disparity to be smaller -- basically no level loss at all; dying at higher levels causes the gap to be greater -- and again there may not be a "long run" if the campaign ends at 20.)

 

[Lanefan]

A few thoughts:

1. Death in 5e seems trivially easy to undo compared to all previous editions: lower $ cost, automatically succeeds, no lasting effects (4 days does not qualify as "lasting"); thus getting characters revived should be simple by RAW.

2. Unless you've got more than 5 or 6 players, I cannot recommend highly enough allowing players to run more than one character at a time. That way, when one dies the player still has something to do.

3. For new characters I set a "floor" level that they'll come in at, based on the level of that party and of the game overall. Right now it's 5th, with existign characters as high as 9th.

4. Level variance within the party should be an expected outcome in the long run, if you allow items that can randomly give or remove levels and-or xp (Deck of Many Things, anyone?) and-or if you have level-draining monsters or spells in the game.

Lan-"not allowing the Deck of Many Things tells me enough about a DM to decline invitation into that game"-efan

 

[Anth]

nother compromise option that bears mentioning: start the new character at 1st or some other low level, but give them DOUBLE XP until they catch up with the party. This helps ensure that they will catch up eventually. You can use some other multiplier than 2x if you want. If you're replacing a dead PC, you could do double XP until you reach the previous total.

3E had a strange CR/xp-table (I liked it, but it was strange). As you gained level the monsters actually was worth less xp, until they were so insignificant that you gained zero xp to kill them.

So what happend if a level 9 knight went adventuring with his level 1 squire? You took the average level of the party (1 + 9)/ 2 = 5. Meaning that the knight actually got more xp for monsters and the squire got less xp. The reasoning was that the knight got more xp because had to spend time to keep his squire alive, and the squire got less xp as he got help from the powerful knight.

In the 3E FRCS there was an optional rule that I liked and used. Instead of using average level for calculating xp, you used the actual character level. So instead that the knight and squire above got half xp each as they were a level 5 party, the knight got half xp from a party containing 2 level 9 characters, and the squire got half xp from a party containing 2 level 1 characters. Meaning that the squire catched up quite fast.

Of course this required some extra math, but for me it was worth it.

This is my solution for a similar mechanic in 5E:
The highest member in the party gain as many parts of the xp as his level. Characters with lower level gain more parts equal tho the level difference.

Example:
A party contain 3 PCs at level 3, 4, 5.
The level 5 PC, being higest level gain 5 parts.
The level 4 PC, being one level lower gain one more part: 6 parts.
The level 3 PC, being two levels lower gain two more parts: 7 parts.
Together they have 5 + 6 + 7 = 18 parts.
Divide all gained xp with 18, then give the PCs their parts.

 

[txshusker]

As a player, if I didn't start at 1st level, I never felt that character was my own. If one character died and I started at 8th level because that's where the rest of the party was, then I lost 7 lvl of character growth and gaining items. I feel a little cheated from not having that time to level up the character normally. Perhaps that is a penalty for dying.... you can always have fun playing any character at any level, so forcing someone to play a different class isn't really a penalty to me. But playing a newly created high level character - unless it was a one off experiment - always made me feel like I was playing an NPC.

As a DM, I let the players choose. Really, a DM is there to enable the players to have fun, thus having fun yourself. If you ramrod everything because "It's my campaign and you should suck it up or leave", then I don't think you're doing you job very well D&D is a cooperative experience. Outside of HP, 5e - as has been stated - 5e makes it easier for low lvl characters to affect an encounter. With the high aspect of roleplaying in 5e and the way skill checks works, leveling doesn't really matter as much as in other revisions - only in combat does leveling come into major play. If you can't fudge dice rolls to save the low level character in a higher level campaign while a guy is trying to level up to everyone else and hasn't done anything strategically wrong, then you're probably not doing justice to the overall story or the fun of the group.

I definitely take their shtuff... maybe leave some useful items or consumables with the surviving characters... but the special armor or weapon the original - now dead - character earned was broken by the giant's clubs or burned up by the red dragon's breath. Remember when items had to make saving throws to survive magical problems?