Character "Swapping" during combat: PEACH.

[Herobizkit]

I'm debating on running a one- to three-shot Pathfinder adventure to help my new 3.5 group get a feel for the updated (and vastly improved) rules. There will be three players for certain, maybe four.

I came up with this concept while walking to work. It is completely unrealistic, but could be creatively explained.

My concept borrows the character swapping mechanic from the PS2 video game Final Fantasy X.

I would have each player create two characters (to better learn two classes) and choose one as their "active" character. During combat, on their turn, they may "swap" their active PC for their passive PC as a free action, but only before the PC takes any action otherwise.

I realize that clever players will find a way to manipulate this ability, but it's basically a tutorial with a short and finite end, so whoop de doo.

Please Evaluate And Critique Honestly (PEACH).

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall, I would say that being able to chance that much is not going to work well. What will you do with buffs and the like? Sub in the wizard to cast buffs and then the fighter to fight?

Also, how to handel hit points, etc when the switch occurs.

It seems highly abusable, and most players, especially new ones will just get more confused with a new sheet in front of them.

I would do it at about a short rest ( to use some good 4E terminology ) at the most frequent.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Just let them run two characters each. The combats will be a little larger and slower, but the players will get the experience you want.

 

[the Jester]

To be honest, if I want to play Final Fantasy or something, I'll go play Final Fantasy or something.

This would so completely break my immersion that I don't think I'd stick with the game past one combat, prolly not even for a full session. Even if it had some clever explanation, it would just feel like I was playing a video game way too much for my taste.

 

[RangerWickett]

If you flavored it right, it could work maybe. Like maybe there's a Chrono Trigger esque set of alternate realities, and early in the campaign the PCs find a mirror or portal that lets them see alternate reality versions of themselves.

Oh, in this world I was a wizard instead of a cleric. I was a ranger instead of a fighter. Etc.

And a dying chronomancer who needs them to restore the time stream and keep the two worlds from overlapping and destroying each other gives them the ability to switch who's in which world for a few minutes at a time.

 

[Herobizkit]

I do know they've been playing two characters off and on for the past few games, so maybe it would be easier. Combats tend to drag on (heh) as it is, but the last session I was in went really well as our party tactics started to come into focus... and the two players with the most experience were the ones running two characters (I had my PsyWar/Monk and another player's first-ever Rogue; the new addition to the group ran a Druid, the druid's companion, and the Fighter).

Being half-awake causes many ideas to flow, but they aren't all gems.

 

[Jhaelen]

I would have each player create two characters (to better learn two classes) and choose one as their "active" character. During combat, on their turn, they may "swap" their active PC for their passive PC as a free action, but only before the PC takes any action otherwise.

I've actually done something similar in my final adventure for my 3e campaign:
All of the players already had two characters, one serving as a backup in case the first one died. In the last adventure I allowed them to switch characters as long as they were not engaged in combat. My reason for this was that they didn't have any time to rest, so they would have a way to switch to a 'fresh' character when the active one ran out of resources. The passive characters were meanwhile busy leading an npc army.

In case the active character died, the player would be out of action for a single round and could then join the rest with his secondary character (although that never actually took place since the only permanent death happened out of combat).

One problem that came up was that several players basically turned their secondary characters into 'buff-bots' and hoped to breeze through the adventure with the buffed character. All in all it worked reasonably well, though.

 

[Richards]

My current campaign has a concept similar to this. Each of my four players has two PCs, and all 8 of them are part of an Adventurers Guild. Four PCs go out on each adventure, while the other 4 stay back as a ready reserve. At any point in the adventure, a primary PC can activate his Guild ring, which teleports him back to Guild HQ. His partner can then touch rings with the newly-arrived PC, and his ring "locks in" to where he just teleported from, allowing the reserve PC to teleport in, joining the rest of the adventuring PCs.

I developed this system because two of my four players had never played before, and were very hesitant about putting their PCs into any danger. This way, if things get too dangerous for a PC (low hp with no available healing, heavy ability damage/drain, etc.), the player can replace that PC with his
other one.

I did set a limit on the rings, allowing each ring to be able to teleport once per day only, and I also made it so they only work when both rings are on the same plane of existence, so there's still an element of danger - just with a little bit of "danger padding." And now that the PCs are in the 11th-16th level range, they hardly ever even use their Guild rings anymore. (But they're there if they need them.)

By the way, if anybody wants to do something similar, I've also implemented another rule for spellcasters: each non-spontaneous casting spellcasting PC must have a "default" list of spells prepared when in "ready reserve" status. This prevents metagaming abuse wherein one PC can find out what big monster the group is facing, and then trades places with a spellcasting character, who retroactively had all of the appropriate spells prepared. (Example, loading up on cold attack spells and fire resistance after finding out that the group is fighting a red dragon.)

Johnathan