Replacement characters..what level?

[thullgrim]

I generally allowe players to bring a new character 1 level lower than lowest level character, generally this means one level behind everyone else. I make exceptions for those who died in a great way, such as saving another party member. For those type of sacrifices I usually allow them to comback at the same level they died at.

Thullgrim

 

[Pirotess]

We start new or replacement characters one level below the average party level.

Seeing as we are a lvl 16 or so party, a lvl 1 character wouldn't last long enough for the ink on the character sheet to dry.

 

[Mark]

What level do y'all start your players' replacement characters at if their original ones die?

One level less? 1st level? One level more?

Emirikol the Chaotic

I like to allow someone to come in equal in experience to that of the lowest current player in a group. If they've all stayed together, and all stayed at the same, then no one is slighted and people aren't afraid to take heroic risks with their characters.

 

[Tsyr]

IMHO, a newly-introduced character should never be a higher level than if the dead character was raised. You gotta get punished for dying somehow.

Yeah, other people have already called this one, but I have to interject here too...

Why do you feel the need to punish someone at all? I mean, honestly...

Despite what you are claiming, I assure you that death is *not* always avoidable, other than the far-far-far fallback of "Well, you didn't have to be an adventurer in the first place...", which doesn't fly with me.

And it's a game. People are normaly making time in a days shedule to play with you, investing money in the hobby, etc.

And to combine the two points, death is part of the game. Not every character you make is going to die, no, but you always are going to have characters die. As you yourself said, if there was no risk of death, where is the fun, right? So why are you punishing people for soemthing that by your own admission the game wouldn't be fun without?

Personaly, unless you have total meta-game players who are in it for the combat only, death itself is enough of a punishment for me.

As for myself, I have a more lenient system... If you make a new character (As opposed to being raised, which is hard, but theoreticly possible in my world), you come back at the same level your old character was... but just. That is, if you were 10th level and 3/4 of the way to 11th, your new character is just 10th level. Which can be almost as harsh as loosing a level, depending on where you were on the ol' XP bar, but it's a bit more random, and not quite as harsh.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Ok, I feel I have to defend my position now, but I don't think anybody's going to change their minds.

Perhaps you're misconstruing what I mean by "punishment." What I mean is, there should always be a feeling in the players mind, "What if my character DIED? That would be horrible! I can't let that happen!" as opposed to, "Heck, I'm going to do something really reckless because if I succeed, I get loads of treasure, and if I die, well, so what?"

By "punishment" I mean that having a character die should be a situation that carries certain disadvantages. My arguement can be summed up in a single sentance: If there are no disadvantages to death, there is no incentive to avoid death.

I beleive that avoiding personal death should be a very very big priority to any character.

Dying should suck. If it sucks, you won't die. If you want heroism, then what is more heroic than KNOWING you are losing a level (or maybe not coming back at all) to save the town/kingdom/world? If there's no disadvantage to death, there can be no heroic self sacrifice, 'cause you ain't sacrificing anything!

 

[Tsyr]

Merek, the discussion was replacement characters, not resurected characters. If your replacing a character, I'll say it again, unless you are playing with essentialy pure hack-n-slashers, death *itself* sucks enough that I don't feel you need to punish players further.

As far as resurected characters go, heck, I'm horrible for that. You can get raised or resed in my games, but it's not gonna be easy, or cheap (and I don't mean in terms of gold)... death is a bit more permanent in my world. And you're never the same when you come back... death changes a person.

 

[Arnwyn]

Bringing 'em in at first level is fun and cool until the rest of the party passes, oh, level 5 or so. Then they're just too fragile to do much except sit back, shoot an arrow (so they have "participated" in the fight), and level up.

Agreed. For our group, if someone dies, a new character comes in at level 1 until the lowest level party member is level 5. Then new characters come in at one-half of the lowest level party member. (Hint: Don't do anything reckless. Protect the new party members - they'll shoot up in levels fast enough.) This policy encourages teamwork and prevents reckless and/or other possible ridiculous behavior.

This works for our group, but I probably wouldn't recommend it for most groups out there.

 

[Tom Cashel]

We do minimum XP for party average.

 

[ichabod]

I do one session's worth of experience less than the lowest level PC in the group. That's for replacement characters, characters brought back from the dead are by the rules.

As for "punishing" players, my player Bill summed it up nicely: "If there is no penalty for doing badly, what's the point in playing?"

 

[Mallus]

Same level...

...and general amount of wealth/equiptment/fancy stuff {within reason}. What replacement characters don't have is the fame/infamy, influence, contacts, relationships and importance to the stories at hand {until they earn it again through play} that their previous characters had.

That's more than enough penalty {or punishment, if you care to frame it like that} for dying in one of my games...