How to simplify absent players characters

[Obergnom]

in our group, when a player is missing, one of the other players controlls his character in combat. We do it that way for years, and it works well.

In our last campaign there was a Warblade. When the player was missing, we had a level aquivalent fighter, because playing a Warblade as a second character is to much of a hassle. Same with other complicated characters.

With 4e, I see this becoming a problem. I thought it might be a good idea to have the absent players characters use only their at will powers, but give them something to compensate for the lost power. 1 or 2 Action Points per encounter, maybe. Thus, the player controlling a second character does not need to be familiar with the encounter and daily powers.

What do you think?

 

[Mort_Q]

It depends greatly on the role/class of the missing player's character.

Not having a Cleric's encounter or daily powers available to a party is significantly different than not having the Ranger's encounter or daily powers available.

Perhaps instead of making it a single player's responsibility, run the PC by committee!? If you're party is at all effective they players will likely know something about the other PCs abilities and synergies.

The big question when playing someone else's character always is, what happens if you get 'em killed? Some people don't handle that well.

 

[kouk]

This may not be a great simplification, but if you have a sheet or two with all the powers on it, including all the dice to roll and such, it should be faster than having to look up powers from the book.

Along with a one-stop location for powers, you might want to have the controlling player make a note about what the power does, or abbreviated description (relevant to his thinking pattern) so he knows what power is what with a glance. For Spinning Sweep, the note could be "1d10+4 and knockdown" so he knows which is which without having to read the description each time.

You could also establish who is the substitute player for a given character, so that if your fighter's player doesn't show up as often as everyone would like, one of the other players (who shows up more reliably) can familiarize himself with the fighter character so he can run it more smoothly.

 

[ogre]

When I DM I always take the absent PC out of the story, via story. But, that requires a little on-the-fly compensation for battles.
If that's not your cup-o-tea, why not have the PC there in story-mode. The DM just describes what he does each round, taking on one of the creatures each encounter, having him battle it the entire encounter and killing it, just as the other PCs finish off everything else or there abouts. That way the missing player's contributions are compensated for, it doesn't break the story and everyone can still contribute and struggle as normal for each encounter. It shouldn't hamper the DM too much if he just handwaves all the powers and describes the missing PCs struggles in fluff-form, rather than rules-form.

 

[Shabe]

My players are all reasonably intelligent and don't have a problem with playing a power on something, I'll point out to them if they are unsure of how exactly the power is used(plus all the powers are on index cards), i've let them know that if they don't turn up then their character will be played by one of the other players, heck i do this if someone isn't in the room for their turn because they've gone to the toilet or for a fag, it just keeps the turns going.

When other players play the character then they tend to play it in accordance with how they have been played previously but perhaps with a slightly more cautious bent.

 

[Obergnom]

Well,

the basic idea of "Other players playing absent char" is what we agreed on long ago. We testet most if not all of the other methods you sugested and it is just what works best for our group.

It is just that we like to lessen the load of those who play two characters.

 

[Pickles JG]

I was wondering this too as I have a 4 player group with one guy who cannot make it often. We tried running a full PC but the options available to a PC nowadays made it too slow. I think I would therefore make up the character as an NPC in terms of powers - one at will, one encounter & one daily plus more at higher level. I might trade down the dailies for encounter powers too. If its got good secondary powers I would keep them - eg cleric healing.

I woud rather have 4 PCs as 3 player groups seemed a bit fragile in the past.* I would maybe not bother if the group was 5 going down to 4, unless you want to for consistency reasons.


*mind you with a Paladin, a Warlord & a Rogue (dosed up on CLW potions) they stormed through the KOTS stuff with hardly any retuning of the enounters - a couple of missing minions.