Dealing with split party

[rufferv2k]

Hello. I never had problems with split party before. My players occasional split the party in situations where it was necessary, and I (in my opinion) always managed it well, because i always had a way to get them back together rather quickly. But this story is quite different.

The party chased after a mage who they suspect was in answer for kidnapping citizens of a large city. They chased him to the sewers, where he casted an invisibility spell on himself, so they could not just shoot him in the back. The thing was that it all happened in the sewers, and I told my players that they can perfectly hear him running in water, and see the splashes of water under his feet, but two of five players thought that it was not worth it, and they don't want to chase him through sewers. I did not want to stop them from leaving, but that has split the party drastically.

There was a big cave system under the city which is a hideout for this mage, and now only 3 of 5 players are there, wandering these caves, and have close to no idea how to get out quickly (i had a big underground adventure planned there), but other two not only have no idea that there is something under the city, but don't know where exactly the other half of the party went (the city is a big metropolis with a large sewer system).

I have no idea how to unite the party quick enough, so i would not have to run two separate campaigns for them. Any ideas or tips might help, thanks.

[John Longarrow]

Low level party I take it?

I'd have a chat with the players of the two character that didn't go in. Find out what they plan to do. With a couple gather info rolls they may find out about all the stuff under the city and head to a place that gets them in. They may be able to get ahead of the party and meet them as they are coming down into the sewers.

[Scorponok]

Put a narrative in that sounds something like this:

"After getting hopelessly lost in the sewers, and having no idea where the guy went, you guys see an exit from the sewers."

then

"When you get out of the sewers, you encounter a tavern in the city. Inside the tavern is NPC A, which says "Hey, your friends are looking for you guys. They are in location _____."

Contrived? Sure, but plausible, and gets the job done.

[daemonvatis]

If you have a pious character and are not against the gods interfering too much with mortals, you could send visions.

Or maybe a weak follower of the bad guy wants to desert and is willing to help reunite the party in exchange for their help getting far away/dealing with the fact that they are a wanted criminal/their former master's head on a plate.

[nedz]

Ideally you want the three to go back for the two, any other solution will be contrived — which you may be fine with.

Contriving a solution should be easy, if that's what you want, but otherwise you need to cause the three to pause.

Maybe use a trap, or an apparently tough encounter, or maybe a fear effect which causes (at least some of) the three to run away (and after getting lost in the sewers — more party splits, I know — they should regroup) ?

I'd just roll with it; after all you don't need to devote much table time to the two and the party should want to regroup themselves anyway.

[Segev]

I would first and foremost look for a way to give the 2 players who are not with the 3 in the big underground adventure you have planned some characters to control for the duration of this. Do run your adventure; you have 3 players interested in it and you have it planned.

You can give the 2 on the surface a chance to do something, of course. Ask them their plans and see if you can contrive a way to let them be useful from a distance. Either arranging something up top, or finding out something that gets them to meet up with the other 3 a little ways ahead, or something.

If you can't get them re-united in character, then invent a source of tag-alongs so that the two players can get temporary PCs to play. In old, old editions of D&D, hireling management was a big deal as they maintained the "expedition" that hauled the loot the PCs gathered. Hirelings could be promoted to PCs to replace fallen ones; it was one way of keeping the game going and having a ready source of new PCs. I don't know if any of your PCs have Leadership or not; if so, Followers can become temporary PCs. If not, then a group of monsters might not be all that hostile and have a couple of guides who could be hired, perhaps.

The key here is to give the two players something to play, without making them have to replace their PCs in the party permanently. (Of course, if they like the new characters better, they can keep them if you like, but you want to let them know in advance the intent is for this to be temporary.)

[Nibbens]

I used to deal with this all the time. Around our table its commonly known to not split the party.

If PCs split the party, that's their choice. You can either:

a) Run one group at a time during the session, make encounters fair for their level. It makes the session take longer, and one group sits around waiting for the others.

b) Rune one group at a time during the session. The encounters you had planned for 4 or 5 people are now encountered with just two. The other group gets to watch as the other dies horribly or runs for their lives.

In either scenario, most people realize not to split the party if they want to get to play during the session. lol.