Help Needed: Campaign Climax and Back-up Characters

[Destan]

Hi all.

In a couple weeks my group and I will be finishing a campaign that's lasted a little over three years. The PCs are about 16-17th level. The finale will consist of only one evening's gaming (probably 8 PM - 4 AM). So about 8 hours. The next day we'll embark on a new campaign with 1st-level guys, and I get to hand the DM hat over to one of the players.

This one-shot finale will be almost entirely hack-n-slash. The roleplaying has been done, and now it's time to see if the PCs win (and the world survives) or they lose (and the world dies). Pretty dang standard, I s'pose.

What I'm struggling with - and here's the point of my post - is that I'm not sure how to handle individual character's deaths. Believe me - there will be some. A TPK would, in effect, be easier - everyone would be a goner, and we could march into the new campaign. I don't know how to handle it if a guy dies early on in the evening. It's the campaign's climax and the end of a lot of hard work on the PCs' parts; I'd hate to have them become a spectator. On the other hand, the final battles are occurring in a place that - even at the furthest stretch of imagination - doesn't make it easy to explain how a "back-up" character could arrive on-scene.

Hence, I was wondering how you cats handle the introduction of back-up characters. Mind you - we only meet about 2-3 times yearly, so that makes a little more difficult on any player whose characters perishes. He'll be losing out on game time that's of a very limited quantity. Some of my players throw down cash to fly into the area, too.

I figure I have a couple options as to how to handle this:

1) A character dies, and the PC watches until the campaign finishes.
2) A character dies, and we hand wave a new back-up character into the mix, without worrying about the "realism" of said back-up's arrival.

I've asked my PCs how they want to handle this, so that may make this post a moot point.

I'm thinking of splitting it down the middle. If a guy dies in the first four hours, we introduce a back-up for him. If he dies in the second half, however, he'll have to cheer on his buddies (or, perhaps, help me run some baddies in an effort to get some of his friends to join him on the sidelines).

Not sure if there's a "good" way to handle this. If you have any ideas or, even better, experiences with this sort of thing - I'd love to hear them.

Happy New Year!

Pudgy D

Edit: Other pertinent info - teleportation, plane shift, wind walk, etc. and other types of magic will be unavailable. The PCs won't be able to jump back to civilization to lick their wounds. There's also a "ticking clock" that forces them to keep a sense of urgency. I'm not trying to nerf their capabilities, and normally I follow Monte's maxim to allow PCs to use hard-earned spells/talents, but this is a bit of a special circumstance. Finally, one guy in a group of 7 PCs has the ability to resurrect his fellows, but if he buys the farm, we're back to my original question.

 

[Piratecat]

How about this? Make available a special ritual spell that is put on them by an ally. If they fall, it will allow them to briefly possess a (relatively weak) enemy nearby. They can only do so once each, but a fallen PC can possibly sow havoc amongst enemy lines by dying and possessing one of them -- making the players feel pretty good about their tactics, especially if they use this ability creatively.

This way they're still dead, but they have one last chance to make a difference in the fight.

 

[Ruined]

Since the place they're going seems extradimensional, perhaps you could offer them brief glimpses of other groups of adventurers trying to achieve something similar at the same time. Not mirror images, as that'd be a bit cheesy, but completely different groups, possibly even from different worlds.

Then when you have a suitable break, possibly in the middle of your session, you can have your fallen take the place of some of the other group and they get lumped together. The remainder of the alternate party has, of course, been gruesomely slaughtered, faring much worse than your PCs and their hard-fought battle.

If kept brief, it could also offer some needed RP in the midst of the hack 'n' slash.

 

[Old One]

PKitty has an excellent idea...

Lemme tweak that one a bit and suggest another one or two. On Pkitty's idea, you could make it variable. Something along the lines of time of possession inversely proportional to the power of the possessed. This way, PCs could choose between possessing a wuss for a relatively long period of time or possessing a more powerful NPC for a much shorter period of time.

I definitely like the idea of handing off major enemies to players knocked out of the action due to PC death (even if they get to do the possession thing). That keeps everyone involved and should make for great tension. Of course, that could make for more work on your part as you prep for this (combat cards, stats, etc) - but relieving you of running a bunch of NPCs/hostile forces and allowing you to concentrate on the big picture would be well worth it.

How tight is the timeline (weeks, days, hours)? Another thought would be allow a chance for the dead PC (WILL or CHA-based save) to rise as a revenant-type creature - stripping away most special abilities, but making them single-minded melee machines - and then kicking them over to the dark side if their revenant-PC gets hacked/toasted/frozen or otherwise fragged.

Do the PCs have access to feats like "Die Hard" and "Stay in the Game"? If not, consider granting them these (or similar powers) through a special ritual during the adventure. Something along the lines of letting them stay alive to negative CON and be fully functional to negative 1/2 CON and disabled from negative 1/2 CON to negative CON (dead after that).

I think anything you can do to keep it tense, keep it movin' and keep everyone involved is for the good, even if a PC bites it early.

Sounds like fun! Good luck and knock 'em...er...dead !

~ Oldie

 

[Quickleaf]

One Ritual we used in my campaign is called "A Ghost Coming Forth by Sunrise" -- basically, if cast on a dead person, they rise as a ghost on the next sunrise and can stay for the whole day. The caveat is, they only return from the dead provided the one performing the ritual and speaking their True Name observes a certain prohibition. For example: You cannot look at your friend's ghost or you will be stricken blind and they will return to the afterlife forever, unable to be resurrected. If the ghostly character successfully makes it to the end of the day without being slain a second time, they fade away to face a normal afterlife or be resurrected as normal. If they die or the prohibition is broken they can never be resurrected or restored.

Since you're going for "the final battle" feel, consider giving the PCs the opportunity of leading a small group of lower-level soldiers. A great opportunity upon introducing these soldiers is to introduce one or two "unusual" recruits by names, giving them just enough characterization to be interesting. Prepare 2-3 characters sheets detailing these soldiers. Voila! You can explain the presence of back-up PCs, and you provide your players with the memorable experience of leading a small group of troops.

Edit: Oh yeah! Another idea is to "blood-bond" the PCs, having them swear a blood oath to each other before venturing into the alternate dimension. Once blood-bonded, any PC can take on 5 HP of damage per day that would otherwise affect a fellow. I limited the distance to within 10 feet of one another, but you could increase that. If a blood-bonded PC dies, all others must make a DC 20 Fortitude save or be dazed 1 round. However, all blood-bonded PCs get +2 damage versus the one who killed their ally (provided they know the killer's identity). This will minimize the occurrence of PC death, while still weakening the party.

Have fun!

 

[Jesus_marley]

Of course there is also the old stand by of divine intervention.

Have the PCs get one resurrection granted by a Deity on the field of battle...

or if a player dies, allow them to "save" a fellow party member a la Valeria in the Conan movie.


If you want to be a little cheesy... you could give them an artifact called the Orb of Reespon. Any person who sacrifices a permament HP to the orb will have their soul pulled into the orb upon their death. Shattering the orb (from within) grants the person doing so one more day of life to finish what they were unable to. They can still be killed normally again before the 24 hours has passed. At the end of 24 hours, they die.

 

[nopantsyet]

Do the PCs have access to feats like "Die Hard" and "Stay in the Game"? If not, consider granting them these (or similar powers) through a special ritual during the adventure. Something along the lines of letting them stay alive to negative CON and be fully functional to negative 1/2 CON and disabled from negative 1/2 CON to negative CON (dead after that).

That's a cool idea. What books are those feats in? And finding someone to perform the ritual and convincing them to do so could be a cool side trek in itself.

If the timing of the death does not lend itself to introducing a new character, I'll give the player some baddies to run. It doesn't keep them as involved as a new character, but that's just a downside to dying I guess.

Either way, it's some time to work on a new character, because even if the campaign is ending, presumably a new one is about to start.

Mmmmmmh...makes me want to kill a PC.

 

[Old One]

Grim Tales...

That's a cool idea. What books are those feats in? And finding someone to perform the ritual and convincing them to do so could be a cool side trek in itself.

They may be in other sources, but I know they are in Grim Tales...

I was actually thinking of:

(1) Die Hard (Feat) - Benefit: When you are disabled, you automatically become stable (no need to roll to stabilize each round). When reduced to negative hit points, you may choose to act as disabled, rather than dying. When using this feat, you make make either a single move or standard action each turn (not both), but may not take a full round action. You may make a move action without injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any action deemed as strenuous, such as casting a quickened spell), you take 1 point of damage after completing the act. If you negative hit points exceed your Constitution score, you immediately die.

(2) Remain Conscious (Unbreakable Talent Tree - Tough Hero) - The tough hero gains the ability to continue to perform actions when he/she would otherwise be considered unconscious and dying. When the tough hero begins dying, he/she may continue to perform as disabled (move or standard action each round) until the hero dies or the hero's hit points return to 1 or higher.

They may also be in another source (such as d20 Modern), but I am too lazy to check the SRD !

~ Old One

 

[Destan]

Great ideas, fellas - thanks.

I plan on using some of 'em and fiddling with a couple others. Don't want to post 'em here (at least, not yet) because my players may happen upon this thread.

I'll take a moment to sing the praises of Grim Tales. It's about the best d20 product I've grabbed since the PHB. The GT-based adventure book Slavelords of Cydonia is also top notch. I think - and I'm trying not to use too much hyperbole here - that the structue of the adventures in SoC should/could become the standard for future d20 adventures.

As it turns out, my players were pretty much unanimous in that they don't want back-ups even as an option. Might make me feel badly about killing them off...

Nah.

Cheers,
D