In summary, I've been playing some AL and I figured out that sometimes you will die. And it's all beyond the limitations of resurrection. Say if you lose a battle and have to retreat. Obviously the monster isn't going to leave behind a corpse to let you raise dead on them using downtime or the magic item trade, so the bad takes their time making sure no one is able to be brought back with any spell shy of True Resurrection or Wish.
This can feel really awful, especially when you get to a higher tier of play and you don't have many backup characters. People can only do a limited number of campaigns at a time. You might have a few backup characters that are AL legal, but most are probably Tier 1. Meanwhile all the other members of the party are 8th Level with scores of magical items and facing down baddies--or groups thereof--that can crank out an average of 20+ damage. If you bring in a level 1 character as AL intended, that little squishy is going to last maybe a combat round or two before overwhelming damage brings them out. I had to bring in a life cleric at 1st Level to a game in the heat of Curse of Strahd because I lost my dwarf to a wizard (DM made sure that I couldn't resurrect him through any means shy of True Resurrection or Wish). I built her with a decent AC of 18 (Life cleric for Armor Proficiency, Hill Dwarf to not be slowed by having too low strength and get a little more HP, get a shield in there) and goodness was it essential to surviving. Minimum damage from quite a few creatures we fought would have knocked me out. I had next to no movement options and I was frequently abandoned by my party and left surrounded, needing to disengage every action to not die outright.
Then the next fight a single fireball brought me down. Even though I'd made level 2 by that point it was kind of pointless. I didn't die die, that wasn't until 2 fights later at level 4 where the boss took me out and caused the others to retreat. Afterwards the boss then executed me beyond capacity to be resurrected. We lost 4 people in that fight of the 7 players at the table. 4 level 1 characters with 3 level 8 characters all facing threats with Tier 2 appropriate CRs. Rather than go through that mess, we called the game a bad end and abandoned it. This was kind of frustrating.
So I had a thought: Can't there be a way to jump in with a character that isn't -insanely- underpowered compared to everyone else in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 party? So I did a little reading, comparing, contrasting of the multiple AL guides, and I think I found a suitable way to include a catch-up feature that isn't game breaking. Obviously you don't want someone to just come in with an exact duplicate of the dead character, that would be -boring.- It would also undercut the threat of encounters. And of course... Being dead or doomed to die isn't any fun either. Let's see if we can't balance this out a bit.
This feature saw some brief used during a homegame for Tomb Of Annihilation after a player lost 6 characters consecutively, which is where I got the idea.
Creating Characters At Higher Tiers
In certain situations, it might be necessary to make a character higher than 1st Level. At the Dungeon Master's sole discretion, they can allow a player to either create a new character or change an existing character to a pre-determined level. You gain no gold, treasure, or downtime days rewarded by leveling up. You do, however, get the associated Renown Rank Benefits only for the appropriate tier of play. Beyond that, characters receive the starting equipment and gold as determined by class and/or background.
When using this feature, a player creates a character at 5th level for Tier 2, 10th level for Tier 3, and 15th level for Tier 4. They will be considered to be somewhat seasoned and at the DM's discretion may have some history with the current adventure. They may have heard of the party's exploits and sought to join them, or they may find themselves in the same dungeon and join forces. Reasonable uses for this feature include:
A player wishes to join the play session but has an under-leveled character which would cause the game pace to be broken up or make encounters unnecessarily difficult.
In a higher tier of play, a player's character has died or otherwise been removed from the game and there are no means to return them.
Just a really rough draft of how such a feature would be written out. Essentially, by creating a character at the beginning of the tier you still have a fair amount of catch-up to do without being useless to the party because of how weak you are.
I'd love to hear the community's thoughts on this. Is it necessary at all? If it's broken or doesn't make sense, how would you make it better? If you like the idea of the feature upvote this post to get more traction and get more people involved in the discussion. Dungeon Masters, if you have insight to this subject, share your thoughts and experiences.
1) You shouldn't get a bunch of level 1s adventuring with level 8s. It is not a fun experience for anyone. Although it is AL legal, the guidance suggests it be avoided.
"Mixed-Tier Parties Provided they’re able to play in the adventure, characters of different tiers can adventure together. Some DMs choose to avoid mixing tiers in order to maximize ease of play—restricting play to that a specific tier within the adventure’s level range. When adventuring in a mixed-tier party, be careful to avoid overwhelming lower-level characters while still providing a challenge for their higher-level groupmates. If a character falls within 1 or 2 levels of the Average Party Level (APL), they should have no problem fitting into a group, but characters of different tiers may find the adventure too difficult or may make it too easy for their companions." ALFAQ v9.0
Honestly, it isn't possible avoid overwhelming a level 1 if trying to challenge level 8s. As you noted, a single fireball has a decent chance of instantly killing a level 1/2 character. Mixed tier parites are arimed at situations where "a character falls within 1 or 2 levels of the Average Party Level (APL), they should have no problem fitting into a group" ... a level 3 in a group with level 5-6 would probably work. Level 1 or 2s with level 8s? No.
2) AL is not concerned with continuity or logic. In your example, the enemy destroyed the bodies of the level 1 or 2s. The DM then claimed that they could not be restored. This is true in a campaign but it is not true in AL. The goal of AL is to have fun and characters dying is not fun. There are some circumstances where a character could be lost permanently but there aren't many and the actions of an NPC in some module is not one of the reasons. Your character being disintegrated isn't a reason. Your character jumping into a sphere of annihilation and being completely destroyed isn't a reason (I've seen AL characters returned to life using the AL rules on character death in both these circumstances). Restoring your character to life isn't a DM decision, it is your decision, it costs downtime, gold and a magic item if you have one. Even if you don't have a magic item you can STILL be restored.
From the ALDMG v9.1:
"Character Disease, Death, and Recovery Bad things happen to characters; adventuring is a risky job. Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate (see Player’s Handbook). Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured. Characters returned to life suffer the effects from the ordeal as normal, but each downtime day spent reduces any penalties to attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks by 1. Bodies are recovered unless otherwise specified in the encounter. If the group can’t return a character to life or cure conditions that remove it from play themselves, the following rules apply:
•The Character Pays. Characters can use their gold to pay for a spellcasting service that would return them to play. Alternatively, the character can trade a permanent magic item (excluding common magic items) to an NPC that is capable of providing spellcasting services (see below)—who in turn returns them to life and removes any conditions (or in some circumstances, story awards) that removed them from play—including those requiring a wish.This option reduces their Magic Item Limit but is available even if their limit has been reduced to 0 or they have no magic items."
"During a session, characters can receive spellcasting services from an NPC located anywhere that is town-sized or larger but must be able to travel there. Otherwise, they’re available only between sessions. Spellcasting services provided by NPCs are limited to the spells on this list. However, characters can purchase spell scrolls which NPCs can cast for free, but only to benefit the character who purchased the scroll."
If you happen to be near a town during a session and you can travel there you can use NPC spellcasting services during a session. Otherwise they are only available as a downtime activity between sessions. However, they are ALWAYS available even if the restoration requires a wish.
If you want a narrative explanation, perhaps a relative goes to a temple in a town far from where you died, after consulting, the NPC at the temple says their god could restore their relative to life at the moment before they died but they must agree to pay a magic item to the temple. The NPC prays to their god, your character appears next to the alter, gives up their magic item, thanks their relative for the help and goes happily off to adventure some more.
This is NOT something the DM can say no to ... it is a downtime activity available to ALL characters who have died by whatever means in AL, assuming you would like to restore your character to play.
In the context of a hardcover, most DMs I know would simply create a circumstance or NPC that would allow the character to be restored as seamlessly as possible from a narrative perspective. They would pay the magic item or gold cost for the spellcasting service and would rejoin the party. If you are playing in CoS, perhaps the hag would restore the character because they have been using divination spells to keep track of the party and wants them to succeed ... so restoring a party member and getting them back to the group might make sense from an in-game and narrative context.
Some folks will object to this point of view. Many folks figure that if their character is dead then its dead, why bother? However, as you point out, people may not have many tier appropriate characters, or they may really like a particular character, or perhaps they make the death and restoration to life a turning point in the character development. Whatever, the reasoning, in AL, the character can always come back if you choose to do so.
P.S. I have no connection to AL admins anywhere but I've chatted to some folks who do and starting characters at higher tiers is something that has been discussed as far as I know but there seems to be a fair bit of resistance.
- playing a high level character takes a fair bit of knowledge to play properly. They have a much broader selection of abilities, spells, possible magic items ... playing a high level character can be hard. My highest are level 16 and 14 and trying to remember everything they can do and apply it appropriately within the group context takes practice.
For example, does my bard use cutting words to reduce the chance of a hit, does he save the reaction to cast shield in case he is attacked or, perhaps most important, does he save the reaction to counterspell the chain lightning the opposing caster is just waiting to fire off? Someone who just creates a tier 3 or 4 character isn't generally going to be able to figure out which is the best choice.
A player just jumping in to tier 3, 4 will likely lack the experience with tier appropriate opponents, may not be fully familiar with the spells they have or what they can do. I see this ALL the time with folks playing tier 1 and 2 characters, learning the game, choosing less useful spells because they sound cool rather than because they work well. There are also players who forget to use their character abilities. The champion fighter who needs to be reminded that they crit on a 19. After playing through 11 levels into tier 3, the player usually remembers their class abilities. Starting at tier 3, very unlikely for most players.
However, many people love to dive into the deep end and might choose to just create a tier 4 character rather than playing through to get there if they could. They would be faced with a vast array of options that many wouldn't be able to use effectively and would likely result in a less enjoyable experience for everyone else playing tier 3 or 4 who are familiar with their characters.
Finally, since your character can ALWAYS be restored to play, even if they have no magic items and even if a Wish would be required to restore them to play ... the ability to start at higher levels isn't really necessary. You can always bring back the character who died since this is one of the "features" of AL.
P.P.S. Why does AL have this feature? Unlike a home game, you can't start an AL character at a higher level, so you can't just bring in a new level appropriate character when yours dies (which is what 90% of home games would do). Instead, in AL, you can ALWAYS bring back the character who died, less some downtime plus gold or a magic item. Since AL is a "shared" campaign with characters being played at multiple venues across the world, restoring the dead character to life makes more sense in AL compared to allowing folks to just make up whatever level of character they want.
- playing a high level character takes a fair bit of knowledge to play properly. They have a much broader selection of abilities, spells, possible magic items ... playing a high level character can be hard. My highest are level 16 and 14 and trying to remember everything they can do and apply it appropriately within the group context takes practice.
Interesting point here, actually. I would imagine this restriction would be limited to more experienced players one way or another, mostly with the 'by DM discretion' stipulation, most DMs would be aware to not hand a newbie an exceptionally powerful character off the bat. Though I really didn't know a lot of these things, I hadn't gotten my hands on the DM guide, my DM just said 'you need a whole, intact corpse or you're out of luck.' in which case I think he may have misread it. I guess I'm going to be bringing my Brianna back to life using her downtime days! :D Which is great because she was such a gentle little redhead, I loved her dearly.
- playing a high level character takes a fair bit of knowledge to play properly. They have a much broader selection of abilities, spells, possible magic items ... playing a high level character can be hard. My highest are level 16 and 14 and trying to remember everything they can do and apply it appropriately within the group context takes practice.
Interesting point here, actually. I would imagine this restriction would be limited to more experienced players one way or another, mostly with the 'by DM discretion' stipulation, most DMs would be aware to not hand a newbie an exceptionally powerful character off the bat. Though I really didn't know a lot of these things, I hadn't gotten my hands on the DM guide, my DM just said 'you need a whole, intact corpse or you're out of luck.' in which case I think he may have misread it. I guess I'm going to be bringing my Brianna back to life using her downtime days! :D Which is great because she was such a gentle little redhead, I loved her dearly.
The raise dead spell needs a whole intact corpse less than 10 days old (unless it has been preserved with Gentle Repose).
Resurrection requires some part of the body but will close all wounds and restore any missing pieces so you can probably get away with a small part. :)
True Resurrection doesn't need a body. All you need is the name and it will recreate a body.
Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection are all available spellcasting services.
Note that the magic item is provided to an NPC capable of providing spellcasting services and they then return your character to life without conditions that would prevent it from participating in play (e.g. true resurrection plus remove lycanthropy). It doesn't actually say that the NPC performs a spellcasting service since they can restore conditions requiring a wish to fix and Wish is not an available spell casting service.
So, in my opinion, the DM was incorrect when they said you needed an intact body to restore the character to life.
P.S. As for starting at higher levels, I think the one time it would really be needed would be when your character unexpectedly dies in a module ... but AL allows for characters who die to be restored ... so the only real reason left to start at high levels is to bypass playing the other content when creating a new character. However, even an experienced player playing an unfamiliar class at high levels can be almost as problematic as a newer player starting at higher levels.
Good thoughts about the catch-up mechanic, seems at the end of the day it's a bit poorly balanced and not really useful all around. I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to be spending downtime to get Brianna back on her feet. Brought it up to my DM and he insisted raise dead was the only option and 'you guys are just skulls on Baba's fence now', but... She's still AL legal and it's my downtime. I'm gonna say someone in her backstory had a True Resurrection cast for her lore-wise and ding her magical item count. Thank you very much for your thoughts on this thread.
Good thoughts about the catch-up mechanic, seems at the end of the day it's a bit poorly balanced all around. I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to be spending downtime to get Brianna back on her feet. Brought it up to my DM and he insisted raise dead was the only option and 'you guys are just skulls on Baba's fence now', but... She's still AL legal and it's my downtime. I'm gonna say someone in her backstory had a True Resurrection cast for her lore-wise and ding her magical item count. Thank you very much for your thoughts on this thread.
Its too bad your DM doesn't want to read the ALDMG. However, you will need to pay the gold or magic items cost for the spellcasting service. Reduce your magic item limit by one until you reach the next tier if you paid a magic item (after which point the reduction in your magic item limit goes away), pay whatever downtime is required (again check the ALDMG on character death and recovery) and make sure you log all of it on your log sheet.
Done and done and done! Brianna is alive now, granted with much less downtime and a magic item carrying capacity of 0. She's only a few experience points from level 5 anyways, which means it won't last very long. Also... I kind of want to -keep- her lycanthropy on her. My DM told me that you can either embrace lycanthropy (forced chaotic evil) or resist it (keep control of your character, but be wary of the full moon.)
Since lycanthropy changes your size to medium, and dwarves are already medium creatures... I just imagine she'd be a barely 4' 6" werewolf with strawberry red hair just like her dwarf form's. So basically an extremely chaotic and angry corgiof a werewolf once a month. I just love the quirkiness of the idea. "Hey guys, I'm an ilmater cleric so... Suffering is holy and all that. So chain me up in a basement once a month plz <3 "
It's admittedly a pretty goofy idea that's almost exclusively for the comedy and character of it, but it sounds fun. So if I have her true resurrected, can she still have that curse on her?
Done and done and done! Brianna is alive now, granted with much less downtime and a magic item carrying capacity of 0. She's only a few experience points from level 5 anyways, which means it won't last very long. Also... I kind of want to -keep- her lycanthropy on her. My DM told me that you can either embrace lycanthropy (forced chaotic evil) or resist it (keep control of your character, but be wary of the full moon.)
Since lycanthropy changes your size to medium, and dwarves are already medium creatures... I just imagine she'd be a barely 4' 6" werewolf with strawberry red hair just like her dwarf form's. So basically an extremely chaotic and angry corgiof a werewolf once a month. I just love the quirkiness of the idea. "Hey guys, I'm an ilmater cleric so... Suffering is holy and all that. So chain me up in a basement once a month plz <3 "
It's admittedly a pretty goofy idea that's almost exclusively for the comedy and character of it, but it sounds fun. So if I have her true resurrected, can she still have that curse on her?
Just a quick question :) ... you mention experience points but they haven't existed in AL games for two seasons now. Season 8 replaced experience points with Advancement Check Points ... usually 1/hour of play requiring 4 to advance one level in tier 1 and 8/level for the rest. Season 9 has simplified this even more with every module allowing you to choose to level up or not while hardcovers are 1 level/8 hours of play in tier 2+ and 1 level/4 hours in tier1. Was your DM giving out experience points?
Also, unfortunately, a character with lycanthropy is not AL legal either. (mostly because a character with lycanthropy is immune to damage from non-magical weapons and other abilities).
From the ALDMG: "Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured."
Are you sure you are playing Adventurer's League? It sounds more like a home game especially if it was using experience points and allowing lycanthropy.
Also, out of curiosity, was your character killed in the encounter with the hut you mentioned in another post? If they were a lycanthrope at the time then they would have been immune to damage from the hut since it is non-magical bludgeoning.
Now I'm starting to get a little bit confused here! It does sound like a home game now that there's all these inconsistencies getting pointed out.
It was explained that lycanthropes can -resist- non magical damage and the nature of the curse taking over every full moon was enough of a detriment to keep it balanced enough. So it was never immunity with what I was told...
And yes, they were killed during the encounter with the hut. The bludgeoning damage was enough to bring them down because we had resistance to the damage, not immunity. As for experience points, it was more or less because I had to come in at 1st Level, the DM told me I was going to be on experience instead of milestone like everyone else because it was a hardcover.
Resisting lycanthropy is an option though, so I can't imagine it would remove you from play?
Pretty wild how far off we are. Though I did learn this was our DM's first time running an AL game. Ever. So I'm really not surprised at how much he's deviated from the rules, he's as green at AL as I am to D&D in general.
Now I'm starting to get a little bit confused here! It does sound like a home game now that there's all these inconsistencies getting pointed out.
It was explained that lycanthropes can -resist- non magical damage and the nature of the curse taking over every full moon was enough of a detriment to keep it balanced enough. So it was never immunity with what I was told...
And yes, they were killed during the encounter with the hut. The bludgeoning damage was enough to bring them down because we had resistance to the damage, not immunity. As for experience points, it was more or less because I had to come in at 1st Level, the DM told me I was going to be on experience instead of milestone like everyone else because it was a hardcover.
Resisting lycanthropy is an option though, so I can't imagine it would remove you from play?
Pretty wild how far off we are. Though I did learn this was our DM's first time running an AL game. Ever. So I'm really not surprised at how much he's deviated from the rules, he's as green at AL as I am to D&D in general.
Yep ... lots of screw ups. :)
In AL, there is no choice about leveling up, there is no choice between XP and milestone. In Season 9, there is only milestone leveling and it happens in a hardcover either when the DM says or after every 8 hours of play.
ALDMG v9.1: "Advancement. Characters gain a level once they’ve completed an adventure. In hardcover sessions, they advance as you decide (or when directed by the adventure) or after four hours of play (or eight hours at tier 2 – 4), to a maximum of one level per session. Characters advance to the next level at the end of the session."
Experience points is NOT an option.
ALDMG v9.1: "Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured."
AL characters can not be afflicted by lycanthropy or vampirism for more than a single session. It must be cured before they can start a new session. The reason for this is because the effects are both unbalanced and can result in intra-party conflicts where one character has to attack another. This behaviour is NOT allowed in AL (unless the character is otherwise controlled). Voluntary PVP isn't allowed in AL.
From the monster manual on lycanthropy:
"A lycanthrope can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthrope retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form.It lives its life as it always has, burying deep the bestial urges raging inside it. However, when the full moon rises, the curse becomes too strong to resist, transforming the individual into its beast form-or into a horrible hybrid form that combines animal and humanoid traits."
"PLAYER CHARACTERS AS LYCANTHROPES A character who becomes a lycanthrope retains his or her statistics except as specified by lycanthrope type. The character gains the lycanthrope's speeds in nonhumanoid form, damage immunities, traits, and actions that don't involve equipment."
"Werewolf. The character gains a Strength of 1 5 if his or her score isn't already higher, and a+ 1 bonus to AC while in wolf or hybrid form (from natural armor). Attack and damage rolls for the natural weapons are based on Strength."
"Damage Immunities bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non magical attacks that aren't silvered"
So, if you have a PC werewolf they gain immunity to " bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non magical attacks". The hut could not harm the characters suffering from lycanthropy. However, it is AL, this condition can only last a single session and must be cured before the character is legal to start another session. Mostly because immunity to the most common damage types is too strong for a PC in the shared world environment of AL. Even if you are resisting the effects, you still change at the full moon and still have all the benefits which makes the character vastly overpowered compared to other comparable characters without lycanthropy.
AL is run a little differently from a homebrew game because the characters are portable. You can play an AL character at any AL tier appropriate table in any city or at any convention. The log sheets are used to verify the adventures you have played and items you have received since you could take your character from your current game and play with complete strangers somewhere else. There needs to be a bit of a paper trail though mistakes and occasional cheating do happen.
Anyway, this is why AL has more options for bringing back characters as well as constraints on how a DM runs the modules. In theory, a person playing CoS at your local shop should have pretty much the same experience at another shop a thousand miles away. Encounter difficulty would be adjusted to fit with the party composition and average party level but there would not be invisible walls, pre-charmed/kidnapped party members, characters with lycanthropy unless it was only one session ... the DM is not entitled to completely rewrite or homebrew the module as much as they may want to do so ... it isn't a home game, it is an AL game and so, within reason, follows the general plot and encounters of the published materials.
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In summary, I've been playing some AL and I figured out that sometimes you will die. And it's all beyond the limitations of resurrection. Say if you lose a battle and have to retreat. Obviously the monster isn't going to leave behind a corpse to let you raise dead on them using downtime or the magic item trade, so the bad takes their time making sure no one is able to be brought back with any spell shy of True Resurrection or Wish.
This can feel really awful, especially when you get to a higher tier of play and you don't have many backup characters. People can only do a limited number of campaigns at a time. You might have a few backup characters that are AL legal, but most are probably Tier 1. Meanwhile all the other members of the party are 8th Level with scores of magical items and facing down baddies--or groups thereof--that can crank out an average of 20+ damage. If you bring in a level 1 character as AL intended, that little squishy is going to last maybe a combat round or two before overwhelming damage brings them out. I had to bring in a life cleric at 1st Level to a game in the heat of Curse of Strahd because I lost my dwarf to a wizard (DM made sure that I couldn't resurrect him through any means shy of True Resurrection or Wish). I built her with a decent AC of 18 (Life cleric for Armor Proficiency, Hill Dwarf to not be slowed by having too low strength and get a little more HP, get a shield in there) and goodness was it essential to surviving. Minimum damage from quite a few creatures we fought would have knocked me out. I had next to no movement options and I was frequently abandoned by my party and left surrounded, needing to disengage every action to not die outright.
Then the next fight a single fireball brought me down. Even though I'd made level 2 by that point it was kind of pointless. I didn't die die, that wasn't until 2 fights later at level 4 where the boss took me out and caused the others to retreat. Afterwards the boss then executed me beyond capacity to be resurrected. We lost 4 people in that fight of the 7 players at the table. 4 level 1 characters with 3 level 8 characters all facing threats with Tier 2 appropriate CRs. Rather than go through that mess, we called the game a bad end and abandoned it. This was kind of frustrating.
So I had a thought: Can't there be a way to jump in with a character that isn't -insanely- underpowered compared to everyone else in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 party? So I did a little reading, comparing, contrasting of the multiple AL guides, and I think I found a suitable way to include a catch-up feature that isn't game breaking. Obviously you don't want someone to just come in with an exact duplicate of the dead character, that would be -boring.- It would also undercut the threat of encounters. And of course... Being dead or doomed to die isn't any fun either. Let's see if we can't balance this out a bit.
This feature saw some brief used during a homegame for Tomb Of Annihilation after a player lost 6 characters consecutively, which is where I got the idea.
Just a really rough draft of how such a feature would be written out. Essentially, by creating a character at the beginning of the tier you still have a fair amount of catch-up to do without being useless to the party because of how weak you are.
I'd love to hear the community's thoughts on this. Is it necessary at all? If it's broken or doesn't make sense, how would you make it better? If you like the idea of the feature upvote this post to get more traction and get more people involved in the discussion. Dungeon Masters, if you have insight to this subject, share your thoughts and experiences.
Just a couple of comments ...
1) You shouldn't get a bunch of level 1s adventuring with level 8s. It is not a fun experience for anyone. Although it is AL legal, the guidance suggests it be avoided.
"Mixed-Tier Parties
Provided they’re able to play in the adventure, characters of different tiers can adventure together. Some DMs choose to avoid mixing tiers in order to maximize ease of play—restricting play to that a specific tier within the adventure’s level range. When adventuring in a mixed-tier party, be careful to avoid overwhelming lower-level characters while still providing a challenge for their higher-level groupmates. If a character falls within 1 or 2 levels of the Average Party Level (APL), they should have no problem fitting into a group, but characters of different tiers may find the adventure too difficult or may make it too easy for their companions." ALFAQ v9.0
Honestly, it isn't possible avoid overwhelming a level 1 if trying to challenge level 8s. As you noted, a single fireball has a decent chance of instantly killing a level 1/2 character. Mixed tier parites are arimed at situations where "a character falls within 1 or 2 levels of the Average Party Level (APL), they should have no problem fitting into a group" ... a level 3 in a group with level 5-6 would probably work. Level 1 or 2s with level 8s? No.
2) AL is not concerned with continuity or logic. In your example, the enemy destroyed the bodies of the level 1 or 2s. The DM then claimed that they could not be restored. This is true in a campaign but it is not true in AL. The goal of AL is to have fun and characters dying is not fun. There are some circumstances where a character could be lost permanently but there aren't many and the actions of an NPC in some module is not one of the reasons. Your character being disintegrated isn't a reason. Your character jumping into a sphere of annihilation and being completely destroyed isn't a reason (I've seen AL characters returned to life using the AL rules on character death in both these circumstances). Restoring your character to life isn't a DM decision, it is your decision, it costs downtime, gold and a magic item if you have one. Even if you don't have a magic item you can STILL be restored.
From the ALDMG v9.1:
"Character Disease, Death, and Recovery
Bad things happen to characters; adventuring is a risky job. Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate (see Player’s Handbook). Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured. Characters returned to life suffer the effects from the ordeal as normal, but each downtime day spent reduces any penalties to attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks by 1. Bodies are recovered unless otherwise specified in the encounter. If the group can’t return a character to life or cure conditions that remove it from play themselves, the following rules apply:
•The Character Pays. Characters can use their gold to pay for a spellcasting service that would return them to play. Alternatively, the character can trade a permanent magic item (excluding common magic items) to an NPC that is capable of providing spellcasting services (see below)—who in turn returns them to life and removes any conditions (or in some circumstances, story awards) that removed them from play—including those requiring a wish. This option reduces their Magic Item Limit but is available even if their limit has been reduced to 0 or they have no magic items."
"During a session, characters can receive spellcasting services from an NPC located anywhere that is town-sized or larger but must be able to travel there. Otherwise, they’re available only between sessions. Spellcasting services provided by NPCs are limited to the spells on this list. However, characters can purchase spell scrolls which NPCs can cast for free, but only to benefit the character who purchased the scroll."
If you happen to be near a town during a session and you can travel there you can use NPC spellcasting services during a session. Otherwise they are only available as a downtime activity between sessions. However, they are ALWAYS available even if the restoration requires a wish.
If you want a narrative explanation, perhaps a relative goes to a temple in a town far from where you died, after consulting, the NPC at the temple says their god could restore their relative to life at the moment before they died but they must agree to pay a magic item to the temple. The NPC prays to their god, your character appears next to the alter, gives up their magic item, thanks their relative for the help and goes happily off to adventure some more.
This is NOT something the DM can say no to ... it is a downtime activity available to ALL characters who have died by whatever means in AL, assuming you would like to restore your character to play.
In the context of a hardcover, most DMs I know would simply create a circumstance or NPC that would allow the character to be restored as seamlessly as possible from a narrative perspective. They would pay the magic item or gold cost for the spellcasting service and would rejoin the party. If you are playing in CoS, perhaps the hag would restore the character because they have been using divination spells to keep track of the party and wants them to succeed ... so restoring a party member and getting them back to the group might make sense from an in-game and narrative context.
Some folks will object to this point of view. Many folks figure that if their character is dead then its dead, why bother? However, as you point out, people may not have many tier appropriate characters, or they may really like a particular character, or perhaps they make the death and restoration to life a turning point in the character development. Whatever, the reasoning, in AL, the character can always come back if you choose to do so.
P.S. I have no connection to AL admins anywhere but I've chatted to some folks who do and starting characters at higher tiers is something that has been discussed as far as I know but there seems to be a fair bit of resistance.
- playing a high level character takes a fair bit of knowledge to play properly. They have a much broader selection of abilities, spells, possible magic items ... playing a high level character can be hard. My highest are level 16 and 14 and trying to remember everything they can do and apply it appropriately within the group context takes practice.
For example, does my bard use cutting words to reduce the chance of a hit, does he save the reaction to cast shield in case he is attacked or, perhaps most important, does he save the reaction to counterspell the chain lightning the opposing caster is just waiting to fire off? Someone who just creates a tier 3 or 4 character isn't generally going to be able to figure out which is the best choice.
A player just jumping in to tier 3, 4 will likely lack the experience with tier appropriate opponents, may not be fully familiar with the spells they have or what they can do. I see this ALL the time with folks playing tier 1 and 2 characters, learning the game, choosing less useful spells because they sound cool rather than because they work well. There are also players who forget to use their character abilities. The champion fighter who needs to be reminded that they crit on a 19. After playing through 11 levels into tier 3, the player usually remembers their class abilities. Starting at tier 3, very unlikely for most players.
However, many people love to dive into the deep end and might choose to just create a tier 4 character rather than playing through to get there if they could. They would be faced with a vast array of options that many wouldn't be able to use effectively and would likely result in a less enjoyable experience for everyone else playing tier 3 or 4 who are familiar with their characters.
Finally, since your character can ALWAYS be restored to play, even if they have no magic items and even if a Wish would be required to restore them to play ... the ability to start at higher levels isn't really necessary. You can always bring back the character who died since this is one of the "features" of AL.
P.P.S. Why does AL have this feature? Unlike a home game, you can't start an AL character at a higher level, so you can't just bring in a new level appropriate character when yours dies (which is what 90% of home games would do). Instead, in AL, you can ALWAYS bring back the character who died, less some downtime plus gold or a magic item. Since AL is a "shared" campaign with characters being played at multiple venues across the world, restoring the dead character to life makes more sense in AL compared to allowing folks to just make up whatever level of character they want.
Interesting point here, actually. I would imagine this restriction would be limited to more experienced players one way or another, mostly with the 'by DM discretion' stipulation, most DMs would be aware to not hand a newbie an exceptionally powerful character off the bat. Though I really didn't know a lot of these things, I hadn't gotten my hands on the DM guide, my DM just said 'you need a whole, intact corpse or you're out of luck.' in which case I think he may have misread it. I guess I'm going to be bringing my Brianna back to life using her downtime days! :D Which is great because she was such a gentle little redhead, I loved her dearly.
The raise dead spell needs a whole intact corpse less than 10 days old (unless it has been preserved with Gentle Repose).
Resurrection requires some part of the body but will close all wounds and restore any missing pieces so you can probably get away with a small part. :)
True Resurrection doesn't need a body. All you need is the name and it will recreate a body.
Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection are all available spellcasting services.
Note that the magic item is provided to an NPC capable of providing spellcasting services and they then return your character to life without conditions that would prevent it from participating in play (e.g. true resurrection plus remove lycanthropy). It doesn't actually say that the NPC performs a spellcasting service since they can restore conditions requiring a wish to fix and Wish is not an available spell casting service.
So, in my opinion, the DM was incorrect when they said you needed an intact body to restore the character to life.
P.S. As for starting at higher levels, I think the one time it would really be needed would be when your character unexpectedly dies in a module ... but AL allows for characters who die to be restored ... so the only real reason left to start at high levels is to bypass playing the other content when creating a new character. However, even an experienced player playing an unfamiliar class at high levels can be almost as problematic as a newer player starting at higher levels.
Good thoughts about the catch-up mechanic, seems at the end of the day it's a bit poorly balanced and not really useful all around. I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to be spending downtime to get Brianna back on her feet. Brought it up to my DM and he insisted raise dead was the only option and 'you guys are just skulls on Baba's fence now', but... She's still AL legal and it's my downtime. I'm gonna say someone in her backstory had a True Resurrection cast for her lore-wise and ding her magical item count. Thank you very much for your thoughts on this thread.
Its too bad your DM doesn't want to read the ALDMG. However, you will need to pay the gold or magic items cost for the spellcasting service. Reduce your magic item limit by one until you reach the next tier if you paid a magic item (after which point the reduction in your magic item limit goes away), pay whatever downtime is required (again check the ALDMG on character death and recovery) and make sure you log all of it on your log sheet.
Done and done and done! Brianna is alive now, granted with much less downtime and a magic item carrying capacity of 0. She's only a few experience points from level 5 anyways, which means it won't last very long. Also... I kind of want to -keep- her lycanthropy on her. My DM told me that you can either embrace lycanthropy (forced chaotic evil) or resist it (keep control of your character, but be wary of the full moon.)
Since lycanthropy changes your size to medium, and dwarves are already medium creatures... I just imagine she'd be a barely 4' 6" werewolf with strawberry red hair just like her dwarf form's. So basically an extremely chaotic and angry corgi of a werewolf once a month. I just love the quirkiness of the idea. "Hey guys, I'm an ilmater cleric so... Suffering is holy and all that. So chain me up in a basement once a month plz <3 "
It's admittedly a pretty goofy idea that's almost exclusively for the comedy and character of it, but it sounds fun. So if I have her true resurrected, can she still have that curse on her?
Just a quick question :) ... you mention experience points but they haven't existed in AL games for two seasons now. Season 8 replaced experience points with Advancement Check Points ... usually 1/hour of play requiring 4 to advance one level in tier 1 and 8/level for the rest. Season 9 has simplified this even more with every module allowing you to choose to level up or not while hardcovers are 1 level/8 hours of play in tier 2+ and 1 level/4 hours in tier1. Was your DM giving out experience points?
Also, unfortunately, a character with lycanthropy is not AL legal either. (mostly because a character with lycanthropy is immune to damage from non-magical weapons and other abilities).
From the ALDMG: "Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured."
Are you sure you are playing Adventurer's League? It sounds more like a home game especially if it was using experience points and allowing lycanthropy.
Also, out of curiosity, was your character killed in the encounter with the hut you mentioned in another post? If they were a lycanthrope at the time then they would have been immune to damage from the hut since it is non-magical bludgeoning.
Now I'm starting to get a little bit confused here! It does sound like a home game now that there's all these inconsistencies getting pointed out.
It was explained that lycanthropes can -resist- non magical damage and the nature of the curse taking over every full moon was enough of a detriment to keep it balanced enough. So it was never immunity with what I was told...
And yes, they were killed during the encounter with the hut. The bludgeoning damage was enough to bring them down because we had resistance to the damage, not immunity. As for experience points, it was more or less because I had to come in at 1st Level, the DM told me I was going to be on experience instead of milestone like everyone else because it was a hardcover.
Resisting lycanthropy is an option though, so I can't imagine it would remove you from play?
Pretty wild how far off we are. Though I did learn this was our DM's first time running an AL game. Ever. So I'm really not surprised at how much he's deviated from the rules, he's as green at AL as I am to D&D in general.
Yep ... lots of screw ups. :)
In AL, there is no choice about leveling up, there is no choice between XP and milestone. In Season 9, there is only milestone leveling and it happens in a hardcover either when the DM says or after every 8 hours of play.
ALDMG v9.1: "Advancement. Characters gain a level once they’ve completed an adventure. In hardcover sessions, they advance as you decide (or when directed by the adventure) or after four hours of play (or eight hours at tier 2 – 4), to a maximum of one level per session. Characters advance to the next level at the end of the session."
Experience points is NOT an option.
ALDMG v9.1: "Dead characters or those afflicted with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until returned to life or cured."
AL characters can not be afflicted by lycanthropy or vampirism for more than a single session. It must be cured before they can start a new session. The reason for this is because the effects are both unbalanced and can result in intra-party conflicts where one character has to attack another. This behaviour is NOT allowed in AL (unless the character is otherwise controlled). Voluntary PVP isn't allowed in AL.
From the monster manual on lycanthropy:
"A lycanthrope can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthrope retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form.It lives its life as it always has, burying deep the bestial urges raging inside it. However, when the full moon rises, the curse becomes too strong to resist, transforming the individual into its beast form-or
into a horrible hybrid form that combines animal and humanoid traits."
"PLAYER CHARACTERS AS LYCANTHROPES
A character who becomes a lycanthrope retains his or her statistics except as specified by lycanthrope type. The character gains the lycanthrope's speeds in nonhumanoid form, damage immunities, traits, and actions that don't involve equipment."
"Werewolf. The character gains a Strength of 1 5 if his or her score isn't already higher, and a+ 1 bonus to AC while in wolf or hybrid form (from natural armor). Attack and damage rolls for the natural weapons are based on Strength."
"Damage Immunities bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non magical attacks that aren't silvered"
So, if you have a PC werewolf they gain immunity to " bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non magical attacks". The hut could not harm the characters suffering from lycanthropy. However, it is AL, this condition can only last a single session and must be cured before the character is legal to start another session. Mostly because immunity to the most common damage types is too strong for a PC in the shared world environment of AL. Even if you are resisting the effects, you still change at the full moon and still have all the benefits which makes the character vastly overpowered compared to other comparable characters without lycanthropy.
AL is run a little differently from a homebrew game because the characters are portable. You can play an AL character at any AL tier appropriate table in any city or at any convention. The log sheets are used to verify the adventures you have played and items you have received since you could take your character from your current game and play with complete strangers somewhere else. There needs to be a bit of a paper trail though mistakes and occasional cheating do happen.
Anyway, this is why AL has more options for bringing back characters as well as constraints on how a DM runs the modules. In theory, a person playing CoS at your local shop should have pretty much the same experience at another shop a thousand miles away. Encounter difficulty would be adjusted to fit with the party composition and average party level but there would not be invisible walls, pre-charmed/kidnapped party members, characters with lycanthropy unless it was only one session ... the DM is not entitled to completely rewrite or homebrew the module as much as they may want to do so ... it isn't a home game, it is an AL game and so, within reason, follows the general plot and encounters of the published materials.