My players all just finished fighting Cryovain in Dragon of icespire peak, and they are ready for the next campaign. But some are wanting to Tweak their characters. For example: the team Thief didn't like that there wasn't much Breaking and entering/ locking picking, stealing etc. in Dragon of Icespire peak and wants to change his rogue to a swashbuckler to be more combat oriented. and our Barbarian want to change his subclass. I'm not opposed per-se but I want there to be a cost/benefit associated with this so that a change isn't something they take lightly. I was thinking of saying if they want to change then make a new character all together, and they take a two level hit putting them at Lv4 and all their unique items are gone. But maybe that's too harsh? Maybe have a wizard who's specialty is she can do some mindwipe/reset in exchange for some GP? I wanted to consult some other DMs on this before I make a ruling.
just let them change. If they haven't been using their subclasses features much or at all it's not even going to strain the narrative that much. You don't want people to be stuck with things they thought would be cool at level 3 and that turn out to be not.
My general rule (and even AL uses it) is that you have up until level 5 to change anything about your character except your name. After that, then it's going to take some serious role-play and sacrifice to make sweeping changes that are that dramatic.
You might first discuss what’s coming up in the new campaign. I bet the rogue would be really annoyed if the new features more chances for the things he didn’t do in this one.
Also, I agree with those letting them swap things now and easily. It’s a new campaign, and they want to try something different. You could just hand wave it and say, you’re in town for 6 months, you have the time to retrain anything you like, or even just make a whole new character.
All valid points. And I guess being that Dragon of Icespire peak is really a simple starter campaign it is just to get people an Idea of the game. so Probably just working their changes into the story might be best rather than a Cost/benefit system.
Exactly. It's why I use it, it's why AL uses it. I run two games at the moment. Between the two games, I have 10 players. 3 have never played before, two are only on their second campaign. one is on her first actual campaign, and one has been playing since Basic D&D (as long as I have).
Things that sound cool and fun when you're creating a character may not turn out to be so after playing them, so I always let players, even veteran players, have the fallback of changing those things before level 5. Because they maybe new, they may have misread something, or the adventure they are on isn't cohesive to what their characters are wanting to do.
Of course, a Session Zero helps out a lot as well. Before the game even starts, sit everyone down if you can (or post on Discord/ Skype/ whatever) what you as the DM will allow or not allow. If anyone had a concept that contradicts with that, message them personally and discuss it. You may find you limited something that could be fun to explore, or they may realize that you have valid reasons for limiting it and change their concept. It may even give them new ideas to pursue.
In addition to running two campaigns, I'm playing in one. The DM said that she was only allowing Human characters initially, then she changed it to Human variants, including Tiefling and Aasimar because of the session zero we all had.
Now I'm playing one of my favorite characters ever in 40 years of Tabletop RPGs and it's all because of the Session Zero.
Good luck to you going forward, and I hope you and your party have a lot of fun. :)
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My players all just finished fighting Cryovain in Dragon of icespire peak, and they are ready for the next campaign. But some are wanting to Tweak their characters. For example: the team Thief didn't like that there wasn't much Breaking and entering/ locking picking, stealing etc. in Dragon of Icespire peak and wants to change his rogue to a swashbuckler to be more combat oriented. and our Barbarian want to change his subclass. I'm not opposed per-se but I want there to be a cost/benefit associated with this so that a change isn't something they take lightly. I was thinking of saying if they want to change then make a new character all together, and they take a two level hit putting them at Lv4 and all their unique items are gone. But maybe that's too harsh? Maybe have a wizard who's specialty is she can do some mindwipe/reset in exchange for some GP? I wanted to consult some other DMs on this before I make a ruling.
just let them change. If they haven't been using their subclasses features much or at all it's not even going to strain the narrative that much. You don't want people to be stuck with things they thought would be cool at level 3 and that turn out to be not.
My general rule (and even AL uses it) is that you have up until level 5 to change anything about your character except your name. After that, then it's going to take some serious role-play and sacrifice to make sweeping changes that are that dramatic.
Is a change of campaign, let them.
You might first discuss what’s coming up in the new campaign. I bet the rogue would be really annoyed if the new features more chances for the things he didn’t do in this one.
Also, I agree with those letting them swap things now and easily. It’s a new campaign, and they want to try something different. You could just hand wave it and say, you’re in town for 6 months, you have the time to retrain anything you like, or even just make a whole new character.
All valid points. And I guess being that Dragon of Icespire peak is really a simple starter campaign it is just to get people an Idea of the game. so Probably just working their changes into the story might be best rather than a Cost/benefit system.
Exactly. It's why I use it, it's why AL uses it. I run two games at the moment. Between the two games, I have 10 players. 3 have never played before, two are only on their second campaign. one is on her first actual campaign, and one has been playing since Basic D&D (as long as I have).
Things that sound cool and fun when you're creating a character may not turn out to be so after playing them, so I always let players, even veteran players, have the fallback of changing those things before level 5. Because they maybe new, they may have misread something, or the adventure they are on isn't cohesive to what their characters are wanting to do.
Of course, a Session Zero helps out a lot as well. Before the game even starts, sit everyone down if you can (or post on Discord/ Skype/ whatever) what you as the DM will allow or not allow. If anyone had a concept that contradicts with that, message them personally and discuss it. You may find you limited something that could be fun to explore, or they may realize that you have valid reasons for limiting it and change their concept. It may even give them new ideas to pursue.
In addition to running two campaigns, I'm playing in one. The DM said that she was only allowing Human characters initially, then she changed it to Human variants, including Tiefling and Aasimar because of the session zero we all had.
Now I'm playing one of my favorite characters ever in 40 years of Tabletop RPGs and it's all because of the Session Zero.
Good luck to you going forward, and I hope you and your party have a lot of fun. :)