PC down and out for a session

[Dagger75]

Last game I ran, on of the characters was droppep by an extremely lucky shot by a stormtrooper.

Anyway; the way the story is going only an hour has past since the incident and there is still much combat left.

The player has said he will play one of the NPC soldiers that followed the PC's during there escape. I'm cool with that, but what about XP?

Personally I have no problem awarding full XP to the player for the session. If he shows up and participates and roleplays why penalize him because his character is in a coma cause of a lucky shot.

What do you other DM's think of this?

How about you players, would you feel jipped if this happened?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'd award the xp. But then, I award xp even if the player isn't there, so long as it isn't a common practice and I'm given advanced warning. It's a game, there's no reason to "penalize" anyone.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

I'd also award the XP. I know that experience is an in game type of thing for a character according to the books, but I also think of it as an OOC type of thing for the player. He's still there and wants to play and is willing to put a foot forward and even take part of the load off the DM by taking over an NPC character. Heck, you could give him two or three NPCs if you'd like and award him for being an Assistant DM.

I'm with Pendragon in saying that you shouldn't penalize the player, especially when it was "an extremely lucky shot." If it was something "extremely dumb", then maybe, but not for just some fluke of the dice.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm with Pendragon in saying that you shouldn't penalize the player, especially when it was "an extremely lucky shot." If it was something "extremely dumb", then maybe, but not for just some fluke of the dice.

Yes but that's the danger though, isn't it? What may have seemed dumb to you may have been completely logical for the character in question. Campaigns should just make a rule on this and go one way or the other consistently.

In any case, is the PC 'downed' as in 'dead, and not in the game anymore'..? If so, what relevance does XP have anyway?

 

[Dagger75]

He is not dead, just will take more than a few days to actually walk again.

The player in question was at 9/10 cover, the ONLY way the stormtroppers could have hit was a nat 20. I rolled that. No problem he could take a hit from a stormtropper. So I just rolled to confirm the crit, thinking it would never it him, well rolled another 20. The damage goes straight to wounds, -5.

If you know Star Wars rules, you really only get 2 healing attemps every 24 hours and thats if you have a jedi in the group. The group is heading to a place he can get into a bacta tank but that will take time, probably 1 session. In the mean time his sniper is unconscious with half of his face blown off.

 

[wedgeski]

If you know Star Wars rules, you really only get 2 healing attemps every 24 hours and thats if you have a jedi in the group. The group is heading to a place he can get into a bacta tank but that will take time, probably 1 session. In the mean time his sniper is unconscious with half of his face blown off.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. In my particular case, I would stick by the rules here. For a start the rest of the party is without him as a resource and so all of the encounters between now and when he is healed are going to be that much more difficult (in theory), putting more stress on them and possibly making them deserving of more XP. (This assuming that Star Wars XP is awarded the same as in D&D - I have no idea.)

If, for the session he's out of action, he played NPC's, or helped you out, or whatever, I would certainly want to do *something* as a thank-you, I'm just not sure that giving his character XP for encounters he didn't contribute to is the right thing.