D&D 5E 5E character trees

[FormerlyHemlock]

[Someone recently asked me for a writeup on character trees. Figured I might as well post my response publicly for the sake of anyone who doesn't own the DMG, or who wants a more complete ruleset for them than the DMG supplies. Some of my rules are based on AD&D's rules for character trees in the Darksun setting. -Max]

I think my character trees are almost identical to the DMG rules for character trees on DMG 236 (under Small Groups, last paragraph), but here's the full description:

Make as many PCs as you feel like.

At the start of an adventure, you tell me (the DM) which character you're using, and also make up some plausible reason for him to be there at the start of the adventure. (E.g. "I was guarding a caravan, but the merchant ran out of money and I got laid off.")

You can swap characters during play, but you have to come up with plausible reason for one to arrive and the other to leave. (You don't have to be this lenient--you could force players to wait for a break between adventures--but I have a pretty easygoing style.) Two PCs from the same character tree can never be onscreen at the same time.

PCs are separate, so no transferring possessions between PCs within a character tree. I'm pretty hardnosed about this. A player asked me, "Can I just have Thok give Mordenkainen's Sword to Jandar offscreen?" and I said, "Nope. If you want Jandar to have the sword, you can have Thok give it to another player's PC onscreen, and ask them to give it to Jandar onscreen." He thought it over and decided against doing that, even though it's mathematically equivalent. I think that means my rule is working: not allowing offscreen item swaps makes him treat Jandar and Thok more as distinct individuals.

Any time your onscreen PC goes up a level, you get to pick exactly one offscreen PC of equal or lower level to go up at the same time. (This is different from the DMG rule, which boosts all characters in the tree and doesn't restrict what level they are.) So if Thok the Barbarian 7 goes up to Barbarian 7/Wizard 1, Jandar the Shadow Monk 7 can go up to Shadow Monk 8 or Shadow Monk 7/Druid 1 simultaneously. But Thok couldn't boost Grindle from Sorcerer 11 to Sorcerer 12.

If an onscreen PC dies, the DM will ensure that one of your other PCs happens along shortly. Even if I have to create an interdimensional wormhole to manage it.

 

[guachi]

I like this and think it's a good way to expand play opportunities for players and can soften the blow of character death. Plus, some players just like creating characters.

 

[redrick]

[Someone recently asked me for a writeup on character trees. Figured I might as well post my response publicly for the sake of anyone who doesn't own the DMG, or who wants a more complete ruleset for them than the DMG supplies. Some of my rules are based on AD&D's rules for character trees in the Darksun setting. -Max]

I think my character trees are almost identical to the DMG rules for character trees on DMG 236 (under Small Groups, last paragraph), but here's the full description:

Make as many PCs as you feel like.

At the start of an adventure, you tell me (the DM) which character you're using, and also make up some plausible reason for him to be there at the start of the adventure. (E.g. "I was guarding a caravan, but the merchant ran out of money and I got laid off.")

You can swap characters during play, but you have to come up with plausible reason for one to arrive and the other to leave. (You don't have to be this lenient--you could force players to wait for a break between adventures--but I have a pretty easygoing style.) Two PCs from the same character tree can never be onscreen at the same time.

PCs are separate, so no transferring possessions between PCs within a character tree. I'm pretty hardnosed about this. A player asked me, "Can I just have Thok give Mordenkainen's Sword to Jandar offscreen?" and I said, "Nope. If you want Jandar to have the sword, you can have Thok give it to another player's PC onscreen, and ask them to give it to Jandar onscreen." He thought it over and decided against doing that, even though it's mathematically equivalent. I think that means my rule is working: not allowing offscreen item swaps makes him treat Jandar and Thok more as distinct individuals.

Any time your onscreen PC goes up a level, you get to pick exactly one offscreen PC of equal or lower level to go up at the same time. (This is different from the DMG rule, which boosts all characters in the tree and doesn't restrict what level they are.) So if Thok the Barbarian 7 goes up to Barbarian 7/Wizard 1, Jandar the Shadow Monk 7 can go up to Shadow Monk 8 or Shadow Monk 7/Druid 1 simultaneously. But Thok couldn't boost Grindle from Sorcerer 11 to Sorcerer 12.

If an onscreen PC dies, the DM will ensure that one of your other PCs happens along shortly. Even if I have to create an interdimensional wormhole to manage it.

Reading your posts about character trees had me planning to do some googling on the topic when I got home. Certainly seems like an interesting method!

Out of curiosity, how often do you have PC fatalities in your campaigns?

 

[Bacon Bits]

<snip>

You're aware the old school theme for this site has a black background, yes? Your post is black-on-black to me.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Reading your posts about character trees had me planning to do some googling on the topic when I got home. Certainly seems like an interesting method!

Out of curiosity, how often do you have PC fatalities in your campaigns?

Here's a quick rundown of the PCs I've seen in the last six(?) months of gaming:

Player 1:
* Nox, elven Necromancer 11(?). Died once to drow, revived that same session by the monk using an ancient biomodification chamber (think "nanotech autodoc"). Died once before that to a Death Slaad (due largely to his own arrogance in confronting it alone), used karma to rewind and retry. The second time he barely survived with two failed death saves, thanks to another PC carrying away his unconscious body. Almost killed a third time by the same drow but made his death saves, and Jandar used Chogorath (Silver Horn of Valhalla made mostly of twine; works when soaked in human blood) to counterattack and slaughter the drow before they could finish the party off[1].
* Lux, elven Paladin of Vengeance (10?). Nox's sister. Has never been onscreen. Would have taken over when Nox died to the Slaad but for the karma rewind.
* Flynn, halfling Sailor (Ranger 3?). Pilots the spelljamming ship. Never died.

Player 2:
* Thok the Barbarian 11(?), never died.
* Jandar the Shadow Monk 7/Druid 4(?), never died. Did get his brain extracted by the aforementioned biomodification chamber (it was built by mind flayers), and the shocked expression on the player's face after he set it to the skull picture and climbed in and pushed the button, when I said, "Yeah... this time, you never wake up," and left him in suspense for fifteen minutes while we switched to Nox's viewpoint... that was priceless[2]. But he spent karma to get Nox to come back to the machine and reverse the effects by re-running the setting. Yeah, I know, I'm a softie. I'll use that karma to make them unhappy someday though.

Player 3 (misses some sessions):
* Intis, Dragonborn Bard 7(?). Never died.
* Extis, Dragonborn Death Cleric 7(?). Intis' twin brother. Eaten by four wolves while adventuring alone (player's shocked face when I said, "They eat you," is a treasured memory). Stayed dead for a few weeks of real time, a day or so of game time, until the biomodification chamber rebuilt him from a skull and a few scraps of flesh (and a 1000 gp gem). Partially due to the trauma of that experience, I think, he's the only one who actually used the chamber's ability to give him trollish regeneration at the cost of -2 Int and -2 Cha (and green skin/bad temper, and a 1000 gp gem). I think he wants not to die again.
* Wrenn, gnome ranger 1. Blue hair, looks like a Troll doll. Eaten when he stood too close to a gelatinous cube during combat and Jandar failed in his attempt to pull him out.
* Wrenn, gnome ranger 1 (Wrenn's little brother). Eaten when he stood too close to a CR 12 chain worm during combat.

Player 4 (only two sessions so far):
* Din, Drow Bard. Has not died, thanks to his willingness to run away from chain worms while flinging daggers from a safe distance.
* Rupert, half-orc Barbarian 1. Has not died.

I think that's it.

-Max

[1] BTW, the Horn of Valhalla is an incredibly powerful item in 5E. It's saved them from TPK twice.

[2] He'd been having fun seeing what kinds of enhancements it could give him, pushing the envelope and spending gems to activate it, so I was just waiting for him to try setting #5... and it turned out that curiosity really does kill cats.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You're aware the old school theme for this site has a black background, yes? Your post is black-on-black to me.

No, sorry, I don't know anything about themes. I didn't do anything different for this post. Can you tell me what I need to do to fix it?

 

[Morrus]

No, sorry, I don't know anything about themes. I didn't do anything different for this post. Can you tell me what I need to do to fix it?

Here you go:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?348563-Dark-Text-on-a-Dark-Background-Tutorial

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Thanks Morrus! Fixed the first post.

 

[bedir than]

When you have drop-ins do they start at 1st?

 

[Mistwell]

I don't use Character Trees, but I love this idea and may adopt it for our games. So if anyone else has stories like this, I'd be interested in hearing about them.