Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Grayson 11-07-06, 09:54 PM	Heyas all. I'm curious to hear what rules other DM's have for new characters joining an existing campaign. In a game I've just stopped playing, a new character brought in (through retiring an old character, new player, death of an existing character, whatever) came in at 1 level lower than the lowest member of the group, or 2 levels lower after anyone hit level 12. The game started at level 3, and is now early epic. The DM is an absolutely fantastic story-teller, and a great guy. The game is very high-powered, with the group being associated with a new god, lots of powerful NPCs, and equally tough enemies (the group is currently attempting to overthrow a gnollish empire). Current characters have far above the starting wealth guidelines. At the beginning of the summer, we had a new player join, and they started at level 16, while the rest of the group was 18-19. They just hit 21. Three sessions ago, my character died (at level 20), and two sessions ago I came in at level 18. As of the end of last session, I was 19 (1xp short of 20, it was a -big- xp session), two or three other players were 21 (two players had used several 5000xp miracles each), and one or two were 22. Imo, it's grossly unfair to new characters. There's never been a reasoning given, but I'm assuming the reason was to ensure players didn't just get themselves killed in order to bring in a new character (particularily if their gear was available to the party after their death). At this point, if someone were to die permadeath, they'd come in at level 19, with other players being level 21-22. If I was still playing and someone died, they'd come in at level 17. Anything less than permadeath is recoverable, because we've got access to true ressurection. Has anyone had a DM that used a similar system? How has it worked out?
Ashok_Lal 11-08-06, 12:10 AM	We play that way in our group. In all honesty it's not working out to well. Ok it's working for me, i can stay alive. i'm 12th level. The lowest in the party is now 7th level. Quite a power diferance. Im almost 2X his level. Having said that the player is preaty reakless with his charicters. But even then we have 2 8th levels 1 9th level & 2 12th levels. Its a nitemare for the DM to work out CR's
Elemental_Elf 11-08-06, 12:18 AM	The easiest way to fix your problem is to have the new players come in 1 level lower then the average player level. That's how our group does it, though we haven't had a death yet so I can't tell you how that works, though looking at it I'm sure it works better then your group's style. So in your group the averge level would be... 22+22+21+21+19=105 /5 = 21 - 1 = 20.
pinkbunny 11-08-06, 05:30 AM	that does have the problem of annoying players below that level, as anyone who dies will come in ahead of them
Grayson 11-08-06, 12:32 PM	Yeah, that doesn't make much sense to me either. In the example, if you died and weren't brought back at 19, you'd actually gain a level for doing so. But if you died and *were* brought back, you'd lose a level.
Cyan Wisp 11-08-06, 02:26 PM	There are 2 options for dead PCs in my game: :ghosted: 1. Raise them. They lose a level and are mid-way to their old level in XP. 2. New character. "Lose 2 levels", and are at the beginning of the new lower level in XP. Hopefully this encourages continuation of characters. But, even if the player chooses to make a new char, their hard work at keeping their old char alive is rewarded somewhat. I have also found it necessary to make a minimum new char level, usually something like highest level in party minus four. Why? Because of the vicious circle of lower level chars tending to die more often. Currently, my party's level range is 7-10, but any new characters would be minimum 6th level.
Echo_that_Pains 11-08-06, 02:34 PM	I was involved in a game like this before. The DM did the same thing only 2 levels behind no matter what. The difference is he used the average level of the party as a baseline instead of the lowest level character. It did work very well but could be irritating for the players when we would die due to some completely unforseen event. If your DM used the average I think it would work out better for everyone concerned.
Elemental_Elf 11-08-06, 02:36 PM	Well the problem with your group's numbers is that you (and probably a few others) were already brought back in a different way, thus your group's numbers are skewed. Let's take a group of 5 people, 3 are at level 10, 1 is at level 9 and your character, who was a level 10, just died. Under the system we use your character would not be counted. So there would be 3 10's and a 9. That's 10+10+10+9=39 /4 = 9.75, round down and your new character would be level 9. Ok, let's take another group but this time let's toss in a few level adjusted characters. Ok this group has 1 level 10, 2 level 9's, 1 level 8, and 1 level 7 plus a character who just died that was level 9. Ok so in this group we have - 10+9+9+8+7 = 43 /5 = 8.6 which becomes 8. So the person whose character died would come in at level 8. So yes the new character may come in a level or 2 ahead of otehr characters in the party but the other players maybe playing higher LA character or have a multiclass penalty, thus a new person would come in ahead of them, assuming they play a LA+0, no multiclass penalty character. To me this type of system makes far more sense then teh system you use. Coming in a level lower then the lowest only punishes the group as a whole if there happens to be a string of accidents or 1 player is playing a charcter wth a LA or is multiclassing too much. IMO the system punishes not only the person who dies but the person who is the lowest level, sice he now feels bad about making the person who died com in at such a low level. The system we use accounts for this and trieds to average out the Highest and the lowest, thus yo uare left with an average leveled character, rather then the weakest.
DarkNick 11-08-06, 04:46 PM	In my group we have always played that new characters come in with the same experience as the character with the lowest. Works fine for us. The biggest negative for dying is items and 'history'. We don't use the whole money by level rules and longer running characters naturally have more magic items not to mention other story benefits. I don't think having someone come back a level behind really motivates them to stay alive or continue a character, its just another added negative when they die "Damn it I'm dead, oh crap my new character is also a level lower". Perhpas this is just me. Its not something I would really think about as a player untill I was dead. I have just started a new campaign. For the first session 2 players could not make it and the current characters reached 2nd level. I'm just having the 2 players start at 1st next session and it fits in nicely with the dynamics of the group (plus thats what you get when you can't make it to the first session of a new campaign). It will even out fairly quickly as they are only 1500exp or so apart.
Kazeofwinds 11-08-06, 05:29 PM	In our game new characters come in at the same exp total as the lowest level member in the party, or the same exp total as your previous character. Wealth as per the DMG item table, though characters who have been around awile usually have more than that. Then again, nobody in our games bothers with ressurection magic, so death is usually permanant(or leads to undeath).
Cyresss 11-09-06, 09:43 AM	As a character reaches 10th or so level, one assumes that there has been signifigant energy put into developing said character, thus it seems one would WANT to be raised. In our campaign, to be raised one stays at his or her current level, but looses the experience points that he would normally loose for the spell. This way he is considered to not be handicapped but rather, he is dazed for a while and has to earn the experience back before he feels whole again. If a character dies too many times then he is considered to be poorly run\made and thus is allowed to cross over and another character is made. It is difficult sometimes though to get a character introduced without it being trite or cliche... Finding a new party member tied up in a dungeon only works so many times.
The_Undertaker 11-09-06, 12:12 PM	I just allow them to come in at the same level i've never seen the use in having them come in a level lower.
kelvinaw273 11-09-06, 01:07 PM	The whole idea about characters coming in a level below the party level is to discourage people from deliberately killing off their characters to get something "better". If this isn't an issue, don't do it. Also, the rule is NOT intended to be applied each time a new character is brought in; if you had a level 10 party and died, brought in a level 9 character and died immediately again you should still come back in at level 9, not level 8. A level 7 character in the same group as a level 12 is way to disparate to work, your level 7 character will just die again if the level 12 is challenged at all by an encounter. Now, on average party levels should even up quickly, as the lower level characters gain more experience proportionally to the higher level ones. You can speed this by changing the way experience is awarded: calculate the experience for each character as if their level was the party level, rather than taking an average party level. More work, but works out better for under-par PCs. If your DM does this, throwing some below-par challenges at the party should level the lower characters a bit as they 'learn' from the high-level characters. Another work around is to award 'training points' in the same vein: lower level characters are trained intensively by the higher level ones. TP are the same as XP, but you need at least as much TP as XP to make them count - ie if you gain 100TP, they don't count until you get 100XP, whereupon they vanish and you have 200XP in total. Say you have to have a three level difference for this to work and you should be good.