D&D 5E Do You Purposely Split Up the Party?

[KarinsDad]

I took over for our HotDQ campaign when our original DM got too many commitments. We were on a side quest in Waterdeep, so I gave the group an opportunity (influenced by me for two of the PCs) to head into Undermountain.

As they were exploring, they eventually came to a room with three giant statues. After a while, the three statues pivoted and the middle one stated in ancient Thorass "Ye Be Judged". Since it was Thorass which is similar to Common, I slurred the words together, but I think that most of the players understood it.

The party of 6 PCs and 2 NPCs were then teleported to different portions of the dungeon in three groups (all on the same level, about 80 feet apart from each other). The players rolled randomly to see who ended where and all of their equipment showed up in small piles, but none of the equipment belongs to any of the PCs in a given group. So now they have two groups of 3 and one group of 2 characters, each with none of their own equipment. So, players scrambled to find the equipment of others that they can use. I have a set of Tactiles which I will pre-draw the rooms on and after the short rest that everyone is taking to put on armor and equipment, and attune themselves to magic items that do not belong to them, we will be doing a round by round exploration where the players do not know which direction is which, and they could be heading away from others instead of heading towards others. Course, once the players get to a room that someone else has already explored, the jig is up, but until then, it should be good.

Note: the two NPCs are two levels lower than the PCs and were introduced with the ex-DMs new PC. They get 2/3rds of the XP of the PCs, but if a PC dies and takes over an NPC as a temporarily PC, that NPC gets 1.5x XP. I gave the players the option to take 0, 1, or both of the NPCs with them and they decided to take both.


Has anyone else done this type of thing? How often do you purposely split up your PCs and/or take their stuff?

 

[Locutus Zero]

I transitioned my party from LMoP to HotDQ. The party now had real roots in Phandalin, owning part of the mine, taking part in the government, and working to renovate the town. I told them that about two months would pass before any more action would happen, and asked what they would get up to. They opened up shops, one built a temple of Torm, they became integrated with the town.

I changed the raid on Greenest to a raid on Phandalin. The attack happened in the middle of the night, so the party were each in their own homes. They had to grab their weapons, forego their armor, and try to save as many people as they could. It was probably 20 minutes of in world time, or about half the session, before they met up.

It made a really nice transition from civilian life back to adventuring.

 

[Shiroiken]

As a DM, I seldom purposely split the party. However, as a Player, I understand that sometimes its necessary. Just yesterday, I had to stay behind while the rest of the party chased down the Mind Flayer. Another PC had been incapacitated due to an Intellect Devourer, and I was far to weak to continue anyway, so I stayed to protect him in case something else was looking for dinner.

 

[SirAntoine]

My players dread being split up, and they will never split up on their own. The normal PC group is already small, and it's built to have one character with knowledge and expertise in each of the important areas, so if they split up they won't be versatile enough sometimes. It can be a lot of fun, and necessary under certain circumstances, but maybe it's better for larger groups.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I used to do it all the time, mainly since I prefer a cinematic style of game with multiple individual climactic duels between PC and hated enemy and similar devices.

I'm also a fan of sliding walls, portcullises, slides and other craziness that can split up a party. It tends to shake up the tactical situation and force the players to improvise as the right person for whatever job is usually in the wrong place. Give me a diabolical villain with deathtrap lever in hand and I'm a happy DM.

Unfortunately, table time is now at a premium and I don't have the luxury of focusing on one PC for more than 5 minutes at the expense of the others. If the party gets split up I try to cross-cut as quickly as possible and get everyone back together before everything gets off track and someone gets left out.

 

[Unwise]

Most of my most memorable encounters come from the party being split up. It does not seem to happen in fantasy overly much, but in Shadowrun or Star Wars they are apart more than they are together.

The general rule in high tech environments is that you never want the party all in the same room. If you all go in the elevator, you want the engineer or hacker free in case it starts going where you don't want it to. There is always a reason to have to turn off the security cameras or tractor beams in one location to allow the rest of the party to pass through another section.

The trick is getting the same thing to work in fantasy. It generally involves overly elaborate magic, which I don't like to include often. A serious of portcullises and levers works well though too.

 

[iserith]

As you can probably see in my actual play transcripts, the party splits up fairly frequently on their own, so I don't go out of my way to split them up myself. I think it's a fine move otherwise to separate the characters as a cost of failure or to set up an interesting challenge.

As for taking things from characters, I tend not to and when I do it's framed as a part of the stakes that the player buy into ahead of time.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Back when I used to DM regularly, I would NEVER split up the party. If I left some of my players alone for five minutes, conversations would erupt and I could never get them to focus on the game again.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't force them to split, no. I do however present opportunities that force the party to make a decision on which path to proceed along. Sometimes one route is safer than the other, sometimes there is really no danger at all. What's important is the group making a decision and learning to live with it.

Sometimes parties make bad decisions and I do mean to say: sticking together is not always the right answer.

 

[Herr der Qual]

I do split up the party, not frequently though, the most severe split was actually in a different game system. I was running a Rifts campaign and the party decided to challenge a god, he's alignment allowed them to survive, they got decimated in a few rounds and he let them live but teleported the party in two parts, one to a random country in their home plane, the second to the realm of Palladium, was about four sessions a piece before they found a way to reunite.

When I do split up a party I try to do it at the end of a session, leaves the party on edge waiting for the next session, I then find a quick way to run a few speed sessions with each group, that way no one knows what the others are doing, I try to minimize players utilizing out of character knowledge, it's easier to prevent them from getting it then to punish them for using it.