Replacement PCs: what level?

[Woas]

Players make new characters 1 level + the XP to make them halfway towards leveling under their last character (party average has nothing to do with it)
So for example. Bob's character is 10th level. His character dies. He makes a new one at 9th level, but with 40,500 XP. (45k = 10th level. 36k = 9th level. 45k - 36k = 9k difference. Thus, half of 9k = 4,500. So 36,000 + 4,500 = 40,500.)

If its a completely new player entering the game and thus has no character level to go by they go off whatever the lowest level of the group is and use that as a number. So if the lowest party member is level 7, the new player would enter as a "Six n' a half" level character.

 

[was]

one less than party level..............

 

[Vegepygmy]

Can I ask those who have the -1 level or lower sort of rule why you'd do this?

Sure. My rule is that replacement characters come in 2 levels below the party average (which typically means 2 levels below the character being replaced). I do this because it gives the players some incentive to suffer the economic penalty and raise/resurrect dead PCs rather than just make a new character 1 level below who comes in with just as much "money" and doesn't have to pay anything to do so.

 

[Master of the Game]

I have been using the minimum experience to be the same level as the lowest in the party, but on the game we just started I will likely use a variant of the Mentoring system from Hackmaster. New characters start at level 1 unless their previous character has chosen an apprentice. A mentor can donate a portion of their experience to their apprentice to keep him from falling too far behind (I'll probably use a matching system to keep them from having to give away too much). If their character dies, the apprentice steps in for their master. This'll avoid trying to figure out how to introduce a new character... The party will already know him.

 

[Rykion]

My group is usually composed of characters of all the same level. A replacement character is brought in at the same level as the rest of the party. I don't want to penalize players for character loss, and I prefer new characters to raising the dead. I only allow characters who had a major unfulfilled goal to be raised. I figure the vast majority of dead characters actually prefer to stay dead.

 

[viscounteric]

Another vote for the Hackmaster Mentor-Protege system. It keeps the party level relatively close and it avoids the "Hey new guy, you want dead Bob's +1 sword, and armor, and potions, etc, etc..."

Hackmaster also has the sidekick rule, where the PCs trusted friend comes along to adventure. The PC must be 4th level (I think),to get the sidekick, but the sidekick could become the new PC if they die. I've had just as many sidekicks replace PCs as proteges.

Oh course, as a GM, I've made the PC's sidekick the character with 29 quirks and flaws that the player roled up previously and I had not allowed in the game.

 

[arscott]

I don't track XP in my current (on Hiatus) Dark•Matter game. Party members simultaneously level up every four sessions or thereabout. Applying a penalty is going to throw off my bookkeeping, and won't really add anything to the game. Of course, it hasn't been an issue... yet...

Were I to run a D&D game that uses the standard rules for experience, I'd probably take a different approach. The D&D XP system is self correcting, so a player that takes a level penalty won't stay behind for long. Plus, raise dead costs a level, and I'd like that to remain a viable option. If the penalty for raise dead was significantly more than the penalty for creating a new character, that wouldn't be the case.

So I'll probably rule that new characters start with the XP their previous characters would have if brought back from the dead. New players would start at average party levell, with no penalty of any kind.

 

[Wombat]

Well, in D20, our usual rule is "party average, rounded down", though in a few campaigns it was "party average, rounded down, minus 1 level".

In other games ... well, it kinda depends by system

 

[Korgoth]

Nice description of the difference between pulp swords-and-sorcery and Tolkienite epic fantasy. I particularly liked 'Satire of Industrial Man'...

But what does that have to do with PC (re)starting level? What challenges a 10th level character annihilates a 1st level one, no matter how smart the player is, unless of course, you consider 'not being anywhere near the 10th level character, preferably on another, safer, continent' a part of 'smart play', but then, that's not practical given a party-centric game.

What I meant to illustrate was something regarding the 'aboutness' of the game. Epic Fantasy is about being a hero chosen by destiny to accomplish a great quest. What is important in epic fantasy is the quest or task (that's not the only thing, but it's the guiding thing). So destiny will probably ensure that a hero of appropriate mettle is on hand to join the endeavor of greatness.

On the other hand, a Sword and Sorcery game is about clawing your way up from the bottom. The game itself is therefore truncated if you don't start at the bottom. There is no guiding hand of destiny in this, only the drive to overcome adversity. Since the game is not about the quest but about the individual, you don't start in the middle of the level progression in this game. The only reason that you can start in the middle of the quest in the epic game is because there is only one quest... but even that quest had a beginning: your 1st level high fantasy characters don't start out halfway through the quest. But each quest in the sword and sorcery game is personal, so everybody has their own quest and it always starts at the beginning.

 

[Shyloc]

1d Average Party level.