PC Replacements

[sfedi]

How do you (DMs) handle a new PC?
I mean, what classes, race, level, equipment restrictions do you apply?
And how do you change these rules over the course of a campagin?

Example 1:
In my current campaign (running Forge of Fury) when a new PC appears:
-He must be recruited in a specific town (3 day distance from the site of adventuring)
-He joins the grupo 1 week after the party arrives
(each additional character takes an additional week)
-Starts at 3rd level (as everyone at the start of the adventure)
-He has the standard GP limit (2900 gp, IIRC), any single item can't have a value greater than half of this value: 1450 gp
-He must belong to the local races of the region
-Once this adventure concludes, the minimum level rises to 4

Example 2:
This was set in Undermountain:
-It takes 1 week per character to replace dead characters
-It begins at 2 levels below the lowest PC level, minimum of 4
-PC has standard GP limit, any single item can't have a value greater than half of this value
-If the PC was not of the region, he started one level lower
-If the average party level exceed by 3 the minimum PC Level, and the lowest PC level exceeds the minimum by 1 or more, then the minimum is raised by 1 (thus, new PCs start at higher level) (additionaly, the party must have explored a certain number of rooms)

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hmm...

I never make a new character begin more than 1 level behind the party, and often I start them at the same level. Nor do I make the PCs go hunting for them, but instead work them into the story--perhaps as a fellow traveler or adventurer, perhaps as a prisoner of the villain, or whatever else works--as soon as possible.

I find that making a new PC start well behind the rest of the group, or taking too long to introduce a new PC, leads to frustration. People come to the game to play, not to sit around and watch others play because they haven't been introduced yet, or to stand in the back cowering while their fellows slaughter a monster far too tough for the newbie to even dream of fighting.

 

[caudor]

I usually don't offer an immediate replacement. Everyone continues on without the dead PC (unless he/she is resurrected).

If everyone dies, then it is time to roll up first level characters. Everybody starts at first level.

Believe it or not, my players really like this approach.

 

[cincinnati reds]

I have never come up with a good way to do this, because my players seem to love dropping their current characters at the drop of a hat for a new one, which really messes with my continuity. So I feel I have to penalize them in some way if they switch characters (this includes dying without a Raise), but not so much as if they went for the Raise spell.

And I know that "hey, whatever makes the players happy" should be my DM Motto, but it irks me nonetheless.

For example, in my current game two of the PCs are cousins; PC A was abandoned by his father as a child and raised by PC B's father. PC B's father disappeared at the start of the game and for the last four months (Real-Time) they've been trying to find out what happened to him - and are about to discover that A's father killed him.

So of course, the player of B has been talking about dropping his fighter/bard for a dwarven fighter. Grrrr.

 

[hong]

If a PC dies on me, I get a replacement post-haste. Last time this happened was about ~12 months ago, when my PC's IBM 60GXP drive started coughing up blood. Frickin' IBM GXP drives.

Also, if you get a replacement PC, make sure you get a crossover cable. It makes transferring all your stuff over so much easier compared to floppies or even CDs, even if you have to struggle with Windows' networking crap.

 

[Southern Oracle]

How do you (DMs) handle a new PC?
I mean, what classes, race, level, equipment restrictions do you apply?
And how do you change these rules over the course of a campagin?

New PCs start at the average level of the party, from races that plausibly can be found wherever the party is when the new character joins. As we play a Planescape campaign, this doesn't provide too many restrictions, but we did have a player join while the party was visiting a "cleansed" world, and the only races left were fey creatures, t'kel (reptilian humanoids), and adu'jas (plant humanoids). (The latter two races are from an issue of Dragon magazine.) He chose to play a t'kel druid.

Gold piece limit for equipment is as appropriate for level, with no one item worth more than 3/4 of total. I allow any race, class, equipment, spells, etc., from any source, as long as I see it ahead of time and think it's balanced/appropriate to the campaign.

If a character dies, the player can make a new one and bring it in at average party level -1. I do this because I had a player who would get bored and deliberately kill his character every few sessions...after he started coming back weaker and weaker, he made more of an effort to keep his character alive so he could actually play. I work new PCs into the storyline, so it's possible one might not show up for a few sessions, depending on what the party is doing. I let new players know this is the case before they go through the trouble of making a character to join.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

If the player just drops a character, new characters start at a level equal to the lowest level of any (active) PC in the group; i.e. if the characters are 4th, 5th, 5th and 3rd level, the new PC is 3rd level.

If a PC dies, the new character starts at the same level as the now dead character. No real need to penalize the *player* because of a character death.

New players bring in characters at the average party level.

Gp is handled as per the "wealth by level" chart in the DMG.

As to how they're worked in story-wise, we can usually work something out. In extreme cases, the new characters are *poofed* into the group in a cloud of illogical circumstances.

 

[Arnwyn]

How do you (DMs) handle a new PC?
I mean, what classes, race, level, equipment restrictions do you apply?
And how do you change these rules over the course of a campagin?

Here's how we do it for our campaign:

New characters enter the party as soon as it makes sense for them to do so. Usually, this means returning to a settlement. We'll try to work them into the story earlier if reasonable, but this almost always isn't the case.

New characters come in at 1/2 the lowest level surviving party member if that surviving party member is 10th level or lower; or 3/4 if higher than 10th (and in any case, no higher than 2 levels lower than the player's previous character). Yes, I said 1/2. Hint? Don't die.

New characters only get maximum 1st-level starting gold for their character. Yeah, that's it. (It's extremely rare that the dead character's gear cannot be retrieved.)

This all works very well for our group, but I don't necessarily recommend it for others.

 

[Droid101]

I have had prisoners, reformed villians, random wanderers, and converted enemies join up the group as PCs/NPCs.

You gotta work it into the story. Makes it more fun!

 

[smetzger]

This is what I have done in the past.

New PLayer...
New PC gets same XP as the current lowest amount of XP in the party.
PC gets to equipment at the PC rate of money, no single item worth more than 1/2 total amount.

Replacement Characters...
XP as if the previous character had been Raised or the lowest XP in the party, whichever is less.
If the previous characters equipment are still in the parties posession then the PC starts with NPC rate of equipment.
If the original characters equipment is not in the parties possession then the PC gets PC money.