Retired PCs Making a Comeback

[SylverFlame]

Hello all. I am currently toying with an idea for an adventure; what the adventure entails is that a group of treasure hunters (the PCs) have been retired for about 10 to 20 years and they are coming back out of retirement. I have not decided why, but they are. Anyway, the problem I'm having is that I want to simulate that they haven't used their skills for a long time and are therefore fairly rusty. This is not really something supported with present rules and so I want to figure something out.

So far I've toyed with increasing DC's and applying negative modifiers to rolls, but I don't know if this will be sufficient and I don't know what the modifiers should be. The adventure will be written for a group of four to six adventures of either 10th to 12th or 15th to 16th level.

My other question is what skills and such should be affected? Should I apply the modifiers to all skills, attacks, saving throws and initiatives or not? Any help will be greatly appreciated, and if more info is needed from me, please ask away.

EDIT: Oh yes, how long is long enough to apply these modifiers? The whole adventure? A few game nights? Also, I intend to compensate for the decreased power of the group... slightly.

 

[JimAde]

How about this: Give everybody negative levels. Say they were 15th level characters when they retired. Give them all 5 negative levels, and remove one of the negative levels after each game session. As "10th level" characters they'll still be plenty dangerous, but they'll ramp up in power quickly as they "shake off the dust."

 

[SylverFlame]

I like it. It gives me the chance to not hurt them too badly but at the same time it makes scaling the encounters easier... hmmm... I must say its better than anything I've been able to come up with.

 

[the Jester]

I like the idea of negative levels- simple and elegant, with just about exactly the desired effect, n'est-ce pas?