Character trees?

[AuraSeer]

My group is about to start a new campaign. In the past, we've had trouble getting the whole group together at once. To get around that problem in the new campaign, we want each player to have multiple characters available; no matter who's missing on a given night, we can always field a balanced party.

I'm looking for rules for a "character tree" system-- one of those setups where when my primary char goes out adventuring, my secondary chars stay at home but still gain some XP. Has anybody put together 3E rules for this? If not, can you point me toward another system's ruleset, which I can convert for use in 3E?

 

[hong]

I've never heard of a "character tree". Why not just say that the secondary character is always 1 level behind the primary? Pro rata the actual XP based on how close the primary character is to going up a level, if you like.

 

[fba827]

Granting EXP for training

It sounds like what you want is basically a rule for granting XP points to characters who stay back and are, basically, in training.

(Mind you, to the best of my knowledge, there are no rules for this so anything I suggest is purely in theory)

Possible House Rules for granting experience points for training

(Note that I use "per week spent training" because I do not feel anything can be adequately trained in terms of days")

Option 1: Offer a flat-rate. Each week spent training equates to X experience points. For X, find some number you like. 1,000xp? and stick with that, for ever. With this system, you'll allow low-level characters to advance past low levels quickly. And high-level characters require much more personal training to go up levels (if they are not adventuring)

Option 2: Offer expotential rates. Each week spent training, you basically say that anyone who was training gains EXP points equal to 25% of their current experience total.
Thus low level and high level characters equally benefit. It just may seem to lack in the realism aspect since basically you are saying that by training you can gain about as many experience points as though who are risking their necks. (Perhaps change the percentage to 10% ??)

Option 3: Give training for a week a CL based on the resources at hand. If a sage is spending his training time in a library the CL will be high. If that same sage is spending his training time in a dark pit, the training CL will be low. At the end of the week, consult the CL/XP table and give the character the respect amount of experience points. This option is good in that it sticks with the predefined experience system (where exp points are relative based on CL). On the other hand, its major flaw is the potential for inconsitant CL ratings assigned to various things

Option 4: For each week in training, make some sort of Character level check (for the character level being advanced). Let's say DC 10. If the character level does not surpass the DC, then training was usless for the week and no new experience gained. If the level check suceeded, grant the training a CL equal to the number which by which the check was passed (thus if the level check resulted in 15, the CL for the training would be 5) . Consult the CL/EXP table and grant that character experience points as if he defeated a CL 5 for the week. I see two downisdes to this system, one is that it favors high level characters and requires low level characters to rely on luck! Secondly, the DC may be wrong (perhaps DC 15).

Option 5: hong's idea, just assume that whomever stays back starts the next adventure one level lower than the other adventureres are

-
Personally, I like Option 3 the best. But Option 2 is probably the simplest.

But maybe someone else has a better idea (or improvement on the above)??

fba827

PS. As Ias just reminded me, there should also be monetary costs for most of the options/ideas I presented above.

 

[med stud]

Im a DM in a campaign with character trees. I let all the characters in the tree gain the same amounts of XP, but on the condition that the players are writing up what the other characters are doing in the meantime.

The players can also change between characters, as long as it is feasible in the game world, and they have to wait for the transportations.

A good side effect of the system is that it is easy to do a solo- adventure or side adventure. The drawbacks are, of course, that the players have more then one character to devote their time to. But IMO it doesnt make any real difference.

 

[Ku Kullin]

The Darksun setting made use of character trees. To the best of my recollection they worked something like this.

a) All characters in the tree were required to have at least one alignment in common (ie: all Lawful, all Good, all Evil, etc).

b) The tree should start with four characters, only one of which may be active at a time.

c) The active character is called the primary character and adventures and receives experience points as normal. When the primary character advances a level the player may apply an additional level to any one of the inactive characters whose level is less than the primary character.

It becomes strategic in how you distribute your secondary character's levels. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket but you do want to have competent characters to draw from should your primary meet an untimely demise.

The only thing that I see to consider in this is characters getting easy advancement when they are in violation of their Favored Class. Something could prevent this abuse although Favored Class is a minor rule of the game at best.

As a DM is like character trees quite a bit. They allow players to try lots of different combinations or archetypes and I don't feel as guilty for butchering characters.

Ku

 

[Tonguez]

factions

I use factions in my games (which can range from a group of friends to a guild/society to a village to an entire country (technically anyway ic I haven't played beyond village level)

Within the faction the PC is able to appoint cohorts (sub-PCs) equal to her Cha bonus or instead of a new feat.

I give out x1.5 Exp. and the PC is allowed to apply it as they wish provided that no cohort gains more Exp than the Primary PC

FAction and cohorts also have a few other roles which can benefit the PC - eg they can build/make things which the PC can use, harvest resources which the PC is able to draw on (tax), run spy/espionage missions on behalf of the PC or fortify an area all whilst the PCs are out adventuring

Note however my games always tend to have a central base (a town or a church or a caravan even) which the PCs regularily return to and where the faction is based .

 

[las]

I like the Traning idea in my world it would be 500xp and they must pay 500 Gp X level of Chareter. For a munths worth of traning to get the XP.