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Lord Il Palazzo
2011-11-08, 03:29 PM
One of my players (who was brand new to the game) just left the game in mid-adventure for personal reasons and I'm trying to decide what to do about his character. He was playing a rogue who acted largely as the scout, skill-monkey and face for the party (as rogues tend to do). Without him, the party has only three characters (a wizard, a ranger/fighter and a druid).

I'm a very new DM with very new players so we've never had this happen before. What do most groups do in situations like this? Would you write the rogue out of the campaign at the next opportunity and let the party adventure with three characters and no rogue or would you keep the character around as an NPC/DMPC/Party-shared-PC for the sake of the things she brings to the party? I'm going to leave it up to my players, but wanted to get a few opinions from more experienced DMs and players before any decision is made.

Magesmiley
2011-11-08, 03:44 PM
I've done many different things in this case:

Have absent players become NPCs
Let another player control the character
Write the character out of the story
Have the character mysteriously disappear
Act like the character was never there

As it sounds like you've got a fairly new group, I'd suggest avoiding having the other players control the PC. Similarly, having it run as a DMPC is probably bad for new DMS as well.

Honestly... I'd run it as an NPC temporarily and get the character out of the picture ASAP. Given that its being used as a scout, that shouldn't be too tough - have the character go scout and not come back (ran into something that ate it).

As far as the remaining characters being balanced as a group... that's up to them to figure out really. One or more of them might find it prudent to start shifting their character as it advances to help cover the rogue's prior duties.

nedz
2011-11-08, 04:15 PM
Lots of options:-
Does the party need the character ?
Since they have a Druid and a Ranger they are not short of scouts: so no!

You could run him as an DMPC, briefly, whilst he careers into a terminal plot trap. You have to be a little careful here, because it could will look contrived.

You could just have a big predator kill and eat him in front of the party.

You could have him thrown into jail.

Or assassinated mystereously - perhaps by mistake.

Basically he is disposable.

Provengreil
2011-11-08, 04:24 PM
This happened to me once or twice. I wrote them out of the storyline by splitting the party via instructions from questgivers, having the "party" now doing multiple things at once. of course, this solution was because I was unsure if the payers in question were returning, so I wanted an easy way back in.

Provengreil
2011-11-08, 04:28 PM
bah. double post, ignore.

Lord Il Palazzo
2011-11-08, 05:06 PM
nedz: The problem is that the character isn't completely disposable. I'm in a situation like Provengreil mentioned, where the player might come back (either for a few sessions here and there or permanently if he has more free time to play somewhere down the road) so I don't want to just feed his character to a random encounter or railroad her* into into a lethal trap.

If I do write her out, it would have to be in a way from which she could return easily if her player comes back.

My big concern is that the character did bring a lot to the table that the other characters aren't really equipped to handle. We play mostly core so without a rogue things like trapfinding becomes a bit of a problem.

*Male player, female character. Let the pronoun confusion begin.

Rejakor
2011-11-08, 05:10 PM
Yeah, i'd go with NPC briefly and move towards getting rid of (protip; Rogue disappearing on a scouting mish is a fantastic adventure hook). Contrary to what the DMG says, you don't actually need a scout in order to adventure, although at lower levels a good one can help considerably. If you've had the difficulty ratcheted up pretty high, as in party has been nearly dying even with scouting knowledge, maybe make it a little easier, but otherwise mneh.


EDIT: Traps can be found through simple methods like pushing a steel block in front of the party. It's loud, and it's slow, but it works pretty good against everything except a kobold hiding in the wall with a lever.

If not, it's just more work for the cleric patching you back together, in Core.

Lord Il Palazzo
2011-11-08, 05:27 PM
The scouting isn't a really a huge concern, now that I think about it, as the wizard has a familiar (and a wild cohort, for that matter) who could function as very reasonable scouts.

One thought that's just occurred to me, regarding trap finding, is that the players are due to find a pretty fair amount of treasure in the next session or two. The circumstances are such that I could slip a homebrew magic item (I'm thinking lenses of some sort) that continuously uses Find Traps (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/findTraps.htm) into the loot if that turns out to be the party's main concern. (Finding creative ways to disable the traps would still be up to them, as nobody has ranks in disable device.) Does that sound reasonable, or is it a bit too blatant?

Sidmen
2011-11-08, 05:46 PM
If I were you, I'd just have em go out scouting one day and never return. If the player returns, give him a few short prods about what happened and let him extrapolate as he wishes. "You fell into a pocket dimension where everything was plushies". When he comes back - have him tell everyone else where he was.

Also, don't be mean - give him XP and some treasure if he misses some sessions for personal reasons.

Dr.Epic
2011-11-08, 06:11 PM
Just make them an NPC. In any other case, you could just say they go off and do something else, but mid-adventure, yeah, just make them an NPC.

boomwolf
2011-11-08, 07:03 PM
The best answer to this is to have the character leave from reason undisclosed to the rest of the party, that way if the player want back he has the option to get his character back without much fuss...in this case you should come up with him on where he was, and equalize his level and treasure for getting stuff and experience from the things he "did off screen in the meanwhile"

Gabe the Bard
2011-11-09, 01:24 AM
Making the rogue into an NPC and having her go missing seems like the best solution. You can figure out a way to have her rejoin the party if the player decides to return.

Providing a magic item to help them find traps sounds reasonable. Your players could also look for an NPC to replace the rogue. This could make for an adventure on its own. The NPC may have a quest that needs to be fulfilled, or he/she might be on the run from the local authorities or thieves' guild (or both).

Just_Ice
2011-11-09, 02:06 AM
If at all appropriate, this is a good time for them to betray the party and team up as the villain's second-in-command.

Lord Vukodlak
2011-11-09, 02:42 AM
In my group one of our players left because he was joining the army. In my campaign I had him brutally killed by one of the main villains. His character suffered a similar fate in another DM's campaign. Then a few weeks later we got a letter from him stating he hoped we didn't kill off his characters.

VariaVespasa
2011-11-09, 06:53 AM
Run him yourself for the rest of the adventure, and in the meantime find out if one of the remaining players would be interested in aquiring the Leadership feat and taking him as a cohort? (Turns out that the rogue didnt have the chops for heroing, but is happy to be someones sidekick) That lets the group keep a rogue character that they know and trust rather than doing without his talents or having to find one they dont know. Just pause his exp till he's the required number of levels below his buddy (2, iirc) if they decide to go that route.

That also relieves you of the burden of running the party scout impartially (would this guy open that door, or sneak by it, etc), while letting you retain ultimate control if the players start abusing the cohort.

And if the original player comes back well look, the rogue regained his nerve or learned enough from the other adventurers to become a hero again in his own right and be a full PC again, and the guy who took leadership can either be refunded his feat at the next level or find a new cohort according to the needs of the campaign.