D&D General How often do you complete a campaign as a player?

[Thomas Shey]

Again, just to be perfectly clear - campaign length and pacing is the solution, not the problem.

I'm not sure I quite understand that; can you elaborate a bit more before I respond and shoot at the wrong target?

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'm not sure I quite understand that; can you elaborate a bit more before I respond and shoot at the wrong target?

I believe their thesis was: a game will only last about X months, because Real Life (tm) eventually intrudes. So planning a campaign that will take three years to finish is, ultimately, planning to fail.

The solution, therefore, is to plan a campaign that will finish in, say, nine months and manage the pacing to hold to that goal, so that it's actually likely to reach a conclusion.

 

[Lanefan]

That doesn't happen. The 1e spell explicitly says that abilities change. Your former elf would remember having elven abilities and using them, but would no longer have them at all. He would need 8 hours of sleep and have dwarven abilities.

As memory (the way I rationalize it) is directly tied to experience, and thus xp, it has to be either all or nothing: you have the memoires and the xp and abilities etc. that go with them, or you don't.

The only headache is trying to find a wizard to polymorph you permanently back into an elf from a badger or dwarf. Reincarnation is a speed bump, which is why it also explicitly has no survival roll and specifies retained memories.

Polymorph Other in 1e isn't a spell you'd really want someone casting on you for any reason.

 

[Hussar]

I believe their thesis was: a game will only last about X months, because Real Life (tm) eventually intrudes. So planning a campaign that will take three years to finish is, ultimately, planning to fail.

The solution, therefore, is to plan a campaign that will finish in, say, nine months and manage the pacing to hold to that goal, so that it's actually likely to reach a conclusion.

This is exactly right.

 

[Lanefan]

Okay, that makes more sense. The last time I saw the spell used in a game I played in was...........................never. I've never seen the spell used. Not one single time. Nobody ever wanted to risk coming back as an animal and preferred to just make a new character if a raise dead or resurrection weren't available.

I've seen Reincarnation cast several times.

The most spectacular success came when a PC's pet dog died (due to violence, not old age); she had it reincarnated, and the damn thing came back as a Centaur. The player then took said Centaur on as her second PC, and one long career later we have a Centaur in the Hall of Fame.

On a few other occasions the result, though quite playable in terms of species-class, was immediately retired by the player as it wasn't what they had in mind.

And over the last fifteen years or so, for some inexplicable reason and against considerable odds all three Reincarnations cast in my game have each brought back a Hobbit. One of those Hobbits just happened to come back as the same class as it was before it died, meaning a high-Dex Elf Fighter specialized in darts became a high-Dex Hobbit Fighter specialized in darts...

 

[James Gasik]

.

I've seen Reincarnation cast several times.

The most spectacular success came when a PC's pet dog died (due to violence, not old age); she had it reincarnated, and the damn thing came back as a Centaur. The player then took said Centaur on as her second PC, and one long career later we have a Centaur in the Hall of Fame.

On a few other occasions the result, though quite playable in terms of species-class, was immediately retired by the player as it wasn't what they had in mind.

And over the last fifteen years or so, for some inexplicable reason and against considerable odds all three Reincarnations cast in my game have each brought back a Hobbit. One of those Hobbits just happened to come back as the same class as it was before it died, meaning a high-Dex Elf Fighter specialized in darts became a high-Dex Hobbit Fighter specialized in darts...

Now that's an interesting situation...coming back as a race that has a level limit that you now exceed. Given what you said in the obscure rules thread, I assume (prepared to be wrong) you'd bump them down to the maximum level, Lanefan, but I wonder how most people would rule on it.

I know what I'd say now, having long since felt demihuman level restrictions are bunk, lol, but it's definitely a gray area of the rules.

 

[TwoSix]

Man, now I'm heavily tempted to do an OSR style game where race-as-class is a thing AND reincarnation is the only way to bring characters back, with a really wacky table results table.

"Sorry, your 5th level wizard is now a 7th level wolverine."

 

[Maxperson]

As memory (the way I rationalize it) is directly tied to experience, and thus xp, it has to be either all or nothing: you have the memoires and the xp and abilities etc. that go with them, or you don't.

Polymorph Other in 1e isn't a spell you'd really want someone casting on you for any reason.

No. Memories are not XP, or you'd be 20th level by the time you started adventuring. What's more, XP in 1e is tied to killing/defeating monsters and gaining gold, not really the memories about who you are and how you lived. There's no reason dealing with XP that would cause a PC to lose all memory and just be a badger.

As for polymorph other, I don't see a reason to avoid it. The system shock roll is very easy to make, even with a low constitution. It changes your mentality into the target race, but since you are being polymorphed back into your original race, no harm no foul. And even if you were a different PC race, the mentality is pretty much all the same from an roleplaying point of view.

 

[Maxperson]

Now that's an interesting situation...coming back as a race that has a level limit that you now exceed. Given what you said in the obscure rules thread, I assume (prepared to be wrong) you'd bump them down to the maximum level, Lanefan, but I wonder how most people would rule on it.

In my experience it would generally be no change. 9 out of 10 DMs I encountered back then ignored demihuman level limits to begin with. They wouldn't have popped back into existence because of Reincarnation. With that last 1 DM out of 10, though, I expect you'd be capped at the lower level.

 

[Maxperson]

Man, now I'm heavily tempted to do an OSR style game where race-as-class is a thing AND reincarnation is the only way to bring characters back, with a really wacky table results table.

"Sorry, your 5th level wizard is now a 7th level wolverine."

Done!!!