Post/Author/DateTime	Post
themind 12-06-07, 03:58 AM	This last weekend, my group made their way into the Jheamost's tomb and fought their way through the Spider encounters. The cleric ended up getting poisoned by the Tomb Spider and next round made an attempt to heal himself. Suffice to say he healed himself to death, due to the effect of the poison that switched how positive and negative energy worked on him. One Cure Critical spell brought him to -12. I'm curious to know what other DM's did with new characters brought into the game. They obviously have no need to follow along with the rest of the group, no ties to Surkil, and will get no extra bonuses later on which the rest of the group will get. Any suggestions to get a new character into the game and still make it worth it for him.
Zippis 12-06-07, 04:39 AM	It depends on what kind of "new character" you need to introduce ... ... if you needs just "a character" for a player, you can do almost anything, for example in the end of Jheamast Tomb there could be a "long sleeping character of any race/class", may be one of older Jheamast co-adventurers, may be also dragonmarked ... he will "awake" after the final encouter. but his memory is erased, just fragments of things, nothing that could give a player any advantage from the past ... then he has "some reason" to travel with them ... or he is some "treasure hunter" who came to the island and his party died ... or there could be another Surkil agent meeting them after this part of adventure, for example in Regalportu or Port Verge ... he has some "minor report" from Surkil, just a little bit usefull "last words" ... so again, he would be tied to adventure somehow .. ... or if you need to intruduce a new character without any connections to the adventure, you will need cooperation from other players ... they could need to "hire" him to refill the party. ... there could be some "mini adventure" in one of those ports. party attacked by emerald claw agents, bystander helped ... different scenarios for different purposes and different characters. Introducing a wizard could be very different from introducing a ninja, for example :)
Amaril 12-06-07, 04:15 PM	I understand the OP's problem. Any new character doesn't have a vested interest, nor will he or she reap the rewards of the mark in the end, which makes for potentially frivolous characters. I've seen this happen in my own campaigns in which characters died and players rolled up a new character. I've also seen instances in which a character becomes boring or broken, and the player wants to create a new one just for change. In the case of this adventure, however, the absence of the threat and reward of the mark for the new character reduces the incentive from an in-character perspective. One option is to make the new character a long-time friend or family member who has a strong connection with one or more of the other party members.
themind 12-07-07, 07:26 PM	Well I came up with an idea that maybe the new character would be wrapped up in webbing in the cavern that we ended in. He's lucky cause he was to be the next meal for the spider. I also had an idea where maybe since he was in the vicinity of the character that died, maybe the characters death caused the power of the mark to find a new body and this new character received it. The party hears his screams as the pain of the mark appearing, free him and explain what is happening. This way, the character has a tie to the plot of the game.