D&D 5E DM's: what do you do with players who miss time?

[S'mon]

I think we might have a different definition of "friends."

S'Mon- "Nunly the half-wit... My friend, these shadows may be ravaging us, but you shall lay down your life that I might escape. Whilst they are feeding on your lifeless corpse, I shall drink ale and recount your glories!"

Nunly- "Ummmmmmmm .... okay."

If the other two hadn't fled it would have been a TPK and killed the campaign. They'd already
lost too much STR drained to have much chance. The barbarian tried to carry his friend out, I ruled he could carry him with STR 9+, the shadows' opportunity attacks then drained him to STR 8. It was not their day.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[S'mon]

There's a fine line between judging and joking. One that always escaped poor Nunly prior to his unfortunate demise. Well, prior to one of his many unfortunate demises.

On the plus side, Nunly was never bothered much by those feeblemind spells.

I'm guessing you've had a fair bit to drink this afternoon? Or are you always like this?

 

[The Human Target]

Why must it serve a point at all? It's simply the way it is.

That's crazy.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm a recruiter by trade so I guess it comes easy to me.

Also, you can run a criminal background check for about the cost of a pizza...

I meant there's really just not a lot of RPGers in town. Lots of Wargamers and lots of card sharks, but not a lot of table-top gamers.

I could, but technically I'd need their personal information and their consent to run one.

 

[Maxperson]

If that is common practice, its a terrible one. You are a team, and so it is in the interest of the whole team to have their deceased party member back. Why wouldn't everyone chip in?

Why? Most of my characters are nice guys and team players. Some are just not nice at all. Why would they chip in to bring someone back to life when it's cheaper to just find a new someone?

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Sure, it's an incentive if you are 12 or act like a 12 year old. Most people wouldn't do that, though.

I run games for drop-in players. Having a character fall behind is a strong reason not to come back and to instead join one of the other drop-in games.

 

[iserith]

Why? Most of my characters are nice guys and team players. Some are just not nice at all. Why would they chip in to bring someone back to life when it's cheaper to just find a new someone?

Because the person you chipped in to bring back from death now owes you.

(Or any other reason you care to imagine to justify contributing your imaginary character's imaginary resources to bringing your real fellow player's imaginary character back into play.)

 

[Lanefan]

Does that happen often? A player dies during an adventure, and the rest of the party finishes the entire adventure without her first, before resurrecting her?

A character dies, you mean?

And yes, it happens all the time, for a very obvious reason: most of the parties we play aren't high enough level to have revival available in the field, meaning it's not until the next trip back to town that anyone can get revived.

When we have raise-in-the-field capabilities we'll usually keep going until we find a place we can hunker down for a day and then revive the dead; our rules insist on a full day's undisturbed rest for someone who has just been raised, during most of which time they are incapable of standing up never mind adventuring. (resurrection doesn't have this rest requirement but it's a way higher level spell, we've never had a PC of high enough level to be capable of casting it)

Suppose she died during a boss battle, but she died before she was able to kill the boss. Does this mean she gets no exp for the boss being killed by the party? She took part in the battle didn't she? But she wasn't around when the boss died, she was dead on the floor. But I would still give her full exp.

She would get half xp for the battle, via the exact rationale you describe: she was involved in the battle but wasn't around for the end of it as she had died.

Lanefan