D&D General When a character dies and a new one arrives

[Kodiak3D]

I apologize if this has been posted before, but I wanted to see how DM's handle a player bringing in a new character after one dies. I've always kept my players at the same level just for simplicity, so a new character came in at the same level as everyone else. How do you handle it?

 

[aco175]

I chose average level of party, but it is really same level as party. 5e has all the PCs at the same level generally. Older editions may have has one PC with level loss or such, but I figured the poll wanted what was current now.

 

[Steampunkette]

The player just lost their character. I'm not going to kick them while they're down and make the new character weaker than other characters in the party.

Unless I'm playing Hackmaster style. And then the character starts at level 1 and no I don't care that we're in the final stretch of the campaign and everyone else is level 15. You should've thought of -that- before you jumped into the acid pit ANDREW.

(Note, Andrew isn't a specific player I've had, but just a fun name to use in this context)

 

[Charlaquin]

Depends on the campaign. Usually either same level or 1st level. Occasionally the lowest level of the tier the party is currently in.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Looks for "New character tears it's way out of the old ones corpse, screaming for revenge and covered in it's predecessors viscera."

...

...

... No? Not an option?

Same level then.

(You get the behaviour you reward. If you penalize the players for the characters death, you wind up with timid over-planners.)

 

[Stormonu]

I used to make it that it was prior character -1 level*, but I just go with level of previous character nowadays.

* had a case a character was level drained by undead, and was horrified that instead of returning with a 9th level replacement, he thought he would be faced with starting a 1st level character. We all agreed it’d be better if the replacement was 9th.

 

[jmartkdr2]

With 5e, another totally workable option is "new character comes in at the start of the current tier" because mixed levels are fine if you're not spanning tiers of play, IME.

But I would actually put them in at the same level of the rest of the party because I don't use xp.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If I was dm'ing, it would definitely be at the same level as the rest of the party. I'd also be using milestone levelling, so all party members would always be the same level.

If you're not careful, an unlucky player could easily end up trapped with a useless low level character later on in the game, which would be no fun for anyone.

 

[cbwjm]

Same level as before which I guess is the same level as the average party level. I track xp for the whole party rather than giving out individual xp so everyone is the same level. Anyone new coming in or replacing a character uses that level.

 

[overgeeked]

Depends on the edition. Everyone should have the same XP. In some editions that means different levels depending on class options (multiclassing, dual classing, ECL, etc), in others that means everyone's the same level.