Hi everyone, I'm going around asking others to gain tips as like a typical adventuring party, my party did something a little crazy.
So basically the party were fighting an ancient evil to accomplish their task, and it ended with the baddies trying to run away to his master's side by utilizing something similar to a gate spell (leaving the portal behind but opening up long distance teleportation in the world). Basically he had this method that if they didn't manage to beat him, he was going to run and become a reoccurring villain. Thing is a few party members managed to jump to the other side of the portal and finish him off, trapping them on the other side of the portal. Ironically, the group basically got divided down the middle so half the party remained while the other half were teleported away and I play with a slightly large group (7 and they just met an NPC to help them in that fight, so it's 4 and 4). Both sides were able to confirm that they are on the same plane and even through some clever uses of investigations determined a general idea of where they are in the world (I had these set up so that if 1 person had gone through and was trapped they could at least gets hints of where he had gone while I was going to tell the player to roll up a new character to use in the meantime as they probably would have died). Both sides have things they need to do- the party that didn't go to the portal have a variety of personal quests as well as finding their friends, while the party that went in needs to survive the city of the dead that they just happened to get teleported into the middle of.
Most of this, is me generally misreading the Gate spell after finding out the enemy from the Tomb of Beasts had it and not realizing that it doesn't do the same plane, but we had already progressed to several of the people trapped on the other side of the gate before I realized this, so I'm running wild with it.
So I'm basically asking what DM tips do you have to DM split parties? The groups have shown an interest in reuniting as soon as they can, because they know the managers of splitting the party.
You could try running two sessions instead of one. Have one of the groups come on the one day and have another of the groups come on the other day. But this can be kind of a pain to do if your schedule is full (as most are).
Assuming that you won't want to (or can't) do that, here's my advice:
1) Use "cliffhanger" moments to switch back and forth between the party members.
2) Realize that just because 4 rounds passed in combat for group A, that doesn't mean that only 24 seconds have passed for group B.
Example: Party A just fought monsters and cleared a room? Time for party B who has been walking towards the tower in the distance to arrive at the tower. They make their way through one room to find a magical marking on a doorway and the spellcaster decides to use an arcana check to see what it means... Time for party A to be making their way through the next chamber... Leave the party members always wanting more and skip mundane events like one party searching a room or walking to the next area and they'll be more interested in each others' events and how they will play out.
3) This should have been 1 because it's by far the most important rule: try to get them back together as quickly as humanly possible. It's a huge pain in the ass to have to run two "adventures" at once. If the gate was intended to send them halfway around the world, maybe instead it merely sent them to the next town over. It will still require them to make their way back, but it won't make the task so impossible for you. Remember, unless you tell them, your players will likely never know you didn't intend for something to happen.
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
Group that didn't get sent can perhaps return to a city and seek out a wizard to help locate and then teleport the party somewhere close.
alternatively, the group who went through could potentially stalk another demon (maybe an initiate/lower level one who had just learned the ability to teleport like that) with a similar portal spell, and follow through that one to wherever that demon is going (perhaps back toward civilization the party would recognize (or alternatively capture and force guy to open a portal to a known location)).
my ideas are basically get the party back together asap
Not sure if you're running a completely new universe or something in-line with Faerun and the Forgotten Realms, but here is my shot to throw some story-line inspiration your way. The City of the Dead is a ginormous grave site at the Waterdeep, a super convenient location for your party to regroup ASAP.
Quick fix story idea (I will reference the teleported party as Group A, and the left behind party as Group B):
Group A believes they are in some sort of hell, when really it is just Waterdeep's super-grave past curfew and undead run amok within the City of the Dead's walls. Let them feel fear since you now have the situation under control. Have fun DMing the train wreck. Group B is running around and track down a really stubborn, grouchy wizard and eventually convince him (your players will resort to making it sound tragic as all hell) to help you locate Group A through magic. The wizard will become angry and force them to leave when he discovers that they wasted his time, since Group A is only in Waterdeep (should be a good comic relief moment). As the sun comes up in Waterdeep, Group A is confused when undead go away, have them walk around a bit and realize they're in Waterdeep (should be another comic relief moment if done right). After that really its just either having Group A wait in Waterdeep, or trying to use some sort of communication. Look up "Silver Raven" in the DMG, it's an uncommon magic item Group A could buy from a sketchy street vendor in Waterdeep, therefor they can use "Animal Messenger". Group A can assume Group B is in the nearest township from the place where the teleportation happened. Afterwards, your party will get a cool little tool to use if someone in group A can't already cast animal messenger.
That's all I have, feel free to use whatever material you want. Bye Buddy, I hope you find your dad. I mean, bye DM, I hope you find your party.
First of all the gate should stay open for all the party to go through or none of the party to go through. This isn't really written in the rules, but its how I would handle the situation. Now if certain party members chose to not go in, that is a different story.
Future reference, I would never say a PC just dies. If he is trapped on the other side with the villain then that combat needs to actually play itself out, whether at that moment or later one on one.
Also what level is the party? That might give them some options that could make this really fast. I haven't read the tomb of beasts, but if they are facing an enemy with the gate spell, they should be really high level of course the Tomb of Beasts might give a really high level spell to a relatively low level monster.
I think you have three options, the first of which I would highly recommend against.
Option One: During each game session run both groups until they regroup....which could be a very very long time.
Option Two A: Split the party and run two game sessions until they reunite. This has the downside that Party one and Party Two might completely continually miss each other, but it could be exciting and enjoyable and since you have a large party anyway, not make a huge difference that you are no running two games. You can either run double the number of game sessions or simply run Party A one session and Party B the next game session.
Option Two B: Split the party and allow everyone to make new characters. Party A runs into Party B's alternate characters and Party B runs into Party A's. Basically half the game sessions go to following Party A and half go to following Party B. This removes any mystery from Party A knowing whether or not Party B survived and out of character they would know where the location of Party B is, but it does mean you only have to run one game session.
Option Three: Party B finds another portal to take them home in a very short amount of time. Depending on how long that time is, use Option one or Option Two A.
Option One is only viable for very short periods of time, and this doesn't seem like it is going to be one of those times unless you opt for option 3. Combat alone would be a pain here because one group may not be in combat and the other group might end up in combat and it will just be a headache for you. You could attempt to get both groups in combat at the same time and run each encounter as independent, but that is going to be hard to continue to do for significant amounts of time.
My personal preference is to use option 3 with option two A. They learn there is a portal someplace and its basically a game session to get them back to their friends. You can then have Party A get held up dealing with something and therefore Party B shows up relatively close to Party A. You can set up a battle where Party A is clearly overwhelmed and defeat looks likely and end with a cliffhanger and Party B coming to the rescue next game session.
I don't want anyone thinking I was just going to settle this by just telling the player trapped there that they just died. I would have gone through what their character did in their escape attempt, until they died. Letting the player know in advance that things really don't look good for them, because my group loves these bits of story information being shared even if their characters don't exactly know it. Probably leaving their character on a cliffhanger while they played their new character and depending on what they did, decide if it was reasonable for the character to have survived.
The group is a mix of characters level 6-8, as it's a slightly larger group the CR of the baddy was a 13. The creature was given the gate spell as mechanically it serves as a kind of assassin for a evil god.
I'm thinking at the moment, what I'm going to do is do the party division while they play temp character/NPC's. If things start to go on for too long, I'll run with it, but I feel like with some creative reworking I might just be able to get this to work.
You might even pre-make these characters to help speed things along and to help fill gaps in the party or give everyone advanced notice they are going to play temporary characters.
How long do you expect the group to be trapped in the other place? Also ask the party that is left for their plan to get to the other group.
I really would be tempted to do a one shot where they find another portal and return or else risk them never regrouping. It could take a while to get them back together.
If one group isn't going to be adventuring, I would make sure everyone keeps getting xp or if both groups are adventuring try to make sure the xp levels are approximately the same.
I might even suggest awarding quest based xp (or milestone xp) rather than encounter based xp until the groups come back together.
I've done stuff like this before. Ultimately it is easiest to have 2 separate sessions until they can regroup. OR keep them separate and have 2 sessions for good. I've done both in the past. Having them regroup was when the split was 2-3, but when I ended up having 2 separate sessions was when the group was split 4-5 (lots of friends of friends jumping in). It worked out that they were both in the same world still, and some of their actions affected the other party, but ultimately they only got together again from the final showdown against the BBEG.
I am not a fan of just killing off a party, but the team that went to the city of the dead may just be doing a survival campaign until they can find a way back home. Keep them separate until they either all die or escape the city. Have the other party adventure as usual, completing their personal quests. If the City of the Dead party dies, then new characters and continue as usual. if they escape, find a way to have them regroup with the other party. Maybe the portal opens up again and their friends step out?
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Hi everyone, I'm going around asking others to gain tips as like a typical adventuring party, my party did something a little crazy.
So basically the party were fighting an ancient evil to accomplish their task, and it ended with the baddies trying to run away to his master's side by utilizing something similar to a gate spell (leaving the portal behind but opening up long distance teleportation in the world). Basically he had this method that if they didn't manage to beat him, he was going to run and become a reoccurring villain. Thing is a few party members managed to jump to the other side of the portal and finish him off, trapping them on the other side of the portal. Ironically, the group basically got divided down the middle so half the party remained while the other half were teleported away and I play with a slightly large group (7 and they just met an NPC to help them in that fight, so it's 4 and 4). Both sides were able to confirm that they are on the same plane and even through some clever uses of investigations determined a general idea of where they are in the world (I had these set up so that if 1 person had gone through and was trapped they could at least gets hints of where he had gone while I was going to tell the player to roll up a new character to use in the meantime as they probably would have died). Both sides have things they need to do- the party that didn't go to the portal have a variety of personal quests as well as finding their friends, while the party that went in needs to survive the city of the dead that they just happened to get teleported into the middle of.
Most of this, is me generally misreading the Gate spell after finding out the enemy from the Tomb of Beasts had it and not realizing that it doesn't do the same plane, but we had already progressed to several of the people trapped on the other side of the gate before I realized this, so I'm running wild with it.
So I'm basically asking what DM tips do you have to DM split parties? The groups have shown an interest in reuniting as soon as they can, because they know the managers of splitting the party.
You could try running two sessions instead of one. Have one of the groups come on the one day and have another of the groups come on the other day. But this can be kind of a pain to do if your schedule is full (as most are).
Assuming that you won't want to (or can't) do that, here's my advice:
1) Use "cliffhanger" moments to switch back and forth between the party members.
2) Realize that just because 4 rounds passed in combat for group A, that doesn't mean that only 24 seconds have passed for group B.
Example: Party A just fought monsters and cleared a room? Time for party B who has been walking towards the tower in the distance to arrive at the tower. They make their way through one room to find a magical marking on a doorway and the spellcaster decides to use an arcana check to see what it means... Time for party A to be making their way through the next chamber... Leave the party members always wanting more and skip mundane events like one party searching a room or walking to the next area and they'll be more interested in each others' events and how they will play out.
3) This should have been 1 because it's by far the most important rule: try to get them back together as quickly as humanly possible. It's a huge pain in the ass to have to run two "adventures" at once. If the gate was intended to send them halfway around the world, maybe instead it merely sent them to the next town over. It will still require them to make their way back, but it won't make the task so impossible for you. Remember, unless you tell them, your players will likely never know you didn't intend for something to happen.
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“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
Group that didn't get sent can perhaps return to a city and seek out a wizard to help locate and then teleport the party somewhere close.
alternatively, the group who went through could potentially stalk another demon (maybe an initiate/lower level one who had just learned the ability to teleport like that) with a similar portal spell, and follow through that one to wherever that demon is going (perhaps back toward civilization the party would recognize (or alternatively capture and force guy to open a portal to a known location)).
my ideas are basically get the party back together asap
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
Wave!
Not sure if you're running a completely new universe or something in-line with Faerun and the Forgotten Realms, but here is my shot to throw some story-line inspiration your way. The City of the Dead is a ginormous grave site at the Waterdeep, a super convenient location for your party to regroup ASAP.
City of the Dead Wikia Article.
Quick fix story idea (I will reference the teleported party as Group A, and the left behind party as Group B):
Group A believes they are in some sort of hell, when really it is just Waterdeep's super-grave past curfew and undead run amok within the City of the Dead's walls. Let them feel fear since you now have the situation under control. Have fun DMing the train wreck. Group B is running around and track down a really stubborn, grouchy wizard and eventually convince him (your players will resort to making it sound tragic as all hell) to help you locate Group A through magic. The wizard will become angry and force them to leave when he discovers that they wasted his time, since Group A is only in Waterdeep (should be a good comic relief moment). As the sun comes up in Waterdeep, Group A is confused when undead go away, have them walk around a bit and realize they're in Waterdeep (should be another comic relief moment if done right). After that really its just either having Group A wait in Waterdeep, or trying to use some sort of communication. Look up "Silver Raven" in the DMG, it's an uncommon magic item Group A could buy from a sketchy street vendor in Waterdeep, therefor they can use "Animal Messenger". Group A can assume Group B is in the nearest township from the place where the teleportation happened. Afterwards, your party will get a cool little tool to use if someone in group A can't already cast animal messenger.
That's all I have, feel free to use whatever material you want.
Bye Buddy, I hope you find your dad.I mean, bye DM, I hope you find your party.First of all the gate should stay open for all the party to go through or none of the party to go through. This isn't really written in the rules, but its how I would handle the situation. Now if certain party members chose to not go in, that is a different story.
Future reference, I would never say a PC just dies. If he is trapped on the other side with the villain then that combat needs to actually play itself out, whether at that moment or later one on one.
Also what level is the party? That might give them some options that could make this really fast. I haven't read the tomb of beasts, but if they are facing an enemy with the gate spell, they should be really high level of course the Tomb of Beasts might give a really high level spell to a relatively low level monster.
I think you have three options, the first of which I would highly recommend against.
Option One: During each game session run both groups until they regroup....which could be a very very long time.
Option Two A: Split the party and run two game sessions until they reunite. This has the downside that Party one and Party Two might completely continually miss each other, but it could be exciting and enjoyable and since you have a large party anyway, not make a huge difference that you are no running two games. You can either run double the number of game sessions or simply run Party A one session and Party B the next game session.
Option Two B: Split the party and allow everyone to make new characters. Party A runs into Party B's alternate characters and Party B runs into Party A's. Basically half the game sessions go to following Party A and half go to following Party B. This removes any mystery from Party A knowing whether or not Party B survived and out of character they would know where the location of Party B is, but it does mean you only have to run one game session.
Option Three: Party B finds another portal to take them home in a very short amount of time. Depending on how long that time is, use Option one or Option Two A.
Option One is only viable for very short periods of time, and this doesn't seem like it is going to be one of those times unless you opt for option 3. Combat alone would be a pain here because one group may not be in combat and the other group might end up in combat and it will just be a headache for you. You could attempt to get both groups in combat at the same time and run each encounter as independent, but that is going to be hard to continue to do for significant amounts of time.
My personal preference is to use option 3 with option two A. They learn there is a portal someplace and its basically a game session to get them back to their friends. You can then have Party A get held up dealing with something and therefore Party B shows up relatively close to Party A. You can set up a battle where Party A is clearly overwhelmed and defeat looks likely and end with a cliffhanger and Party B coming to the rescue next game session.
I don't want anyone thinking I was just going to settle this by just telling the player trapped there that they just died. I would have gone through what their character did in their escape attempt, until they died. Letting the player know in advance that things really don't look good for them, because my group loves these bits of story information being shared even if their characters don't exactly know it. Probably leaving their character on a cliffhanger while they played their new character and depending on what they did, decide if it was reasonable for the character to have survived.
The group is a mix of characters level 6-8, as it's a slightly larger group the CR of the baddy was a 13. The creature was given the gate spell as mechanically it serves as a kind of assassin for a evil god.
I'm thinking at the moment, what I'm going to do is do the party division while they play temp character/NPC's. If things start to go on for too long, I'll run with it, but I feel like with some creative reworking I might just be able to get this to work.
You might even pre-make these characters to help speed things along and to help fill gaps in the party or give everyone advanced notice they are going to play temporary characters.
How long do you expect the group to be trapped in the other place? Also ask the party that is left for their plan to get to the other group.
I really would be tempted to do a one shot where they find another portal and return or else risk them never regrouping. It could take a while to get them back together.
If one group isn't going to be adventuring, I would make sure everyone keeps getting xp or if both groups are adventuring try to make sure the xp levels are approximately the same.
I might even suggest awarding quest based xp (or milestone xp) rather than encounter based xp until the groups come back together.
I've done stuff like this before. Ultimately it is easiest to have 2 separate sessions until they can regroup. OR keep them separate and have 2 sessions for good. I've done both in the past. Having them regroup was when the split was 2-3, but when I ended up having 2 separate sessions was when the group was split 4-5 (lots of friends of friends jumping in). It worked out that they were both in the same world still, and some of their actions affected the other party, but ultimately they only got together again from the final showdown against the BBEG.
I am not a fan of just killing off a party, but the team that went to the city of the dead may just be doing a survival campaign until they can find a way back home. Keep them separate until they either all die or escape the city. Have the other party adventure as usual, completing their personal quests. If the City of the Dead party dies, then new characters and continue as usual. if they escape, find a way to have them regroup with the other party. Maybe the portal opens up again and their friends step out?