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

[Lanefan]

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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 did away with demi-human level limits some time ago, thus no bumping-down required.

There's still some species-class combinations that can't and don't exist e.g. Dwarven Mages, but if you can be something you can potentially advance in it as far as you like...or to the ceiling, if the class itself has a hard cap e.g. Assassins only go to 15.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

I take the word "experience" more literally, I suppose: xp are an abstraction of what you've learned through what you've experienced in the field (I don't give xp for treasure); and a large part (if not all) of learning is memory.

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.

That SSS roll is right there reason enough to avoid it, 'cause all you gotta do is fail once and you're back getting reincarnated again.

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.

"Here Joe, this is either gonna fix you or kill you. Now stand still..."

This also assumes the reincarnated person/creature even wants to resume its old form, which may not always be the case particularly if-when memories of being the former form are lost.

 

[Maxperson]

I take the word "experience" more literally, I suppose: xp are an abstraction of what you've learned through what you've experienced in the field (I don't give xp for treasure); and a large part (if not all) of learning is memory.

That SSS roll is right there reason enough to avoid it, 'cause all you gotta do is fail once and you're back getting reincarnated again.

Which is no big deal. First off, dying is better than staying a badger. Second, if all I have to do is be reincarnated again, then I can be polymorphed again if it goes badly.

Eventually I'm going to end up with what I want. No need to avoid polymorph when we can just reincarnate and polymorph until I survive.

"Here Joe, this is either gonna fix you or kill you. Now stand still..."

This also assumes the reincarnated person/creature even wants to resume its old form, which may not always be the case particularly if-when memories of being the former form are lost.

The memories are not lost, though. That's your house rule. I'm saying that as written and what makes sense, memories stay and polymorph will eventually get you back to normal. Whether you want to change or not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Okay, I guess that's true to a point, though I'm not sure the time frame is longer IME than the time frames I tend to use anyway. I don't tend to find a campaign running less than around 40 sessions satisfying, but don't tend to aim much longer than that anyway.

Edit: I also just realized where this thread is, which may distort the question somewhat.

 

[James Gasik]

I did away with demi-human level limits some time ago, thus no bumping-down required.

There's still some species-class combinations that can't and don't exist e.g. Dwarven Mages, but if you can be something you can potentially advance in it as far as you like...or to the ceiling, if the class itself has a hard cap e.g. Assassins only go to 15.

Glad to be wrong!

I guess it depends on if you're using PHB or UA multiclass combinations. UA really opened up a lot of crazy new ones.

 

[James Gasik]

Which is no big deal. First off, dying is better than staying a badger. Second, if all I have to do is be reincarnated again, then I can be polymorphed again if it goes badly.

Eventually I'm going to end up with what I want. No need to avoid polymorph when we can just reincarnate and polymorph until I survive.

The memories are not lost, though. That's your house rule. I'm saying that as written and what makes sense, memories stay and polymorph will eventually get you back to normal. Whether you want to change or not.

Yeah because if you lose memories, then level drain is just weird.

Also obliviax (memory moss) doesn't take xp away when it steals memories, though obviously, easy to house rule if that's your take on it (does make it a lot nastier though).

 

[jmartkdr2]

Okay, I guess that's true to a point, though I'm not sure the time frame is longer IME than the time frames I tend to use anyway. I don't tend to find a campaign running less than around 40 sessions satisfying, but don't tend to aim much longer than that anyway.

Edit: I also just realized where this thread is, which may distort the question somewhat.

I'm not really agreeing, but I do like to understand other and see others be understood.

I'm currently in three campaigns with groups that have lasted since 2015, so 9 years now. Two of those have only finished one campaign in that time, but finish them we did. The other group has finished three long campaigns (2+ years) plus several shorter things. I di belong to one group that dissolved due to dm burnout after 1 full campaign and like 75% of the second, so I do know what people are talking about, but I do seem to be an outlier in terms of usually finishing and not just because my sample size is tiny.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not really agreeing, but I do like to understand other and see others be understood.

I'm currently in three campaigns with groups that have lasted since 2015, so 9 years now. Two of those have only finished one campaign in that time, but finish them we did. The other group has finished three long campaigns (2+ years) plus several shorter things. I di belong to one group that dissolved due to dm burnout after 1 full campaign and like 75% of the second, so I do know what people are talking about, but I do seem to be an outlier in terms of usually finishing and not just because my sample size is tiny.

I've had a number of failures out, but like I said most weren't duration-based reasons, other than the one game system that turned out to break down much earlier than you'd expect (actually, if you count D&D 3e you could argue two).

 

[Hussar]

Okay, I guess that's true to a point, though I'm not sure the time frame is longer IME than the time frames I tend to use anyway. I don't tend to find a campaign running less than around 40 sessions satisfying, but don't tend to aim much longer than that anyway.

Edit: I also just realized where this thread is, which may distort the question somewhat.

It’s in general DnD. Umm, why does that matter? But I agree that 40 sessions is likely a reasonable expectation for the half life of a campaign.

 

[Hussar]

I've had a number of failures out, but like I said most weren't duration-based reasons, other than the one game system that turned out to break down much earlier than you'd expect (actually, if you count D&D 3e you could argue two).

Again, I’m not really concerned about why the campaigns end. More simply recognizing that they do.

That you baseline to 40 sessions means you’ve basically implemented exactly what I’m talking about.