New characters joining a group

[Saldre 44]

Hello all

 

So, I've got a bit of a problem.

 

Recently had two new players join my group, for a total of eight player, Seeing as this was going to be impossible to run, we figured now would be a good time to split the group into 2 four player teams.

 

Now, due to logistics issues and vacations [players coming and leaving]- we managed to play two games with four players [two newbies, two vets].

 

Now, 1 of the Vets and the Two newbies are rank 1, with about 750 Exp.

 

When we play next time, everybody will have come back, this group will split with one newb and one vet going into each separate group. 

 

So they are going to be meeting with the remaining four players (and one vets) main characters on the Hospital planet so that the groups can be officially split.  Those characters are all at rank 4, about 2k Exp. 

 

So... how in the WORLD... can I somehow equalize the new characters with the old characters.... 

 

We may play ONE last time on Wednesday to wrap up a Boss fight. 

 

We play with reduced EXP gain as character building is one of the things that my group as a whole really enjoys, so giving them a large boost of exp at the end of a session would feel like a cop out. 

 

I was thinking about awarding a large amount of fate points instead, seeing as it won't contribute to character evolution/progression, but still enable them to survive. 

 

How disadvantaged are rank 2 characters compared to rank 4 ones? [the easy answer is about 1000 exps worth of disadvantage ]  

 

I am not sure how to deal with this at all. 

 

Any suggestions? 

 

Thanks

 

 

[TormDK 3]

My group shares XP across the group, so even people that are not there can still progress at the same rate as everyone else.

[Saldre 44]

Same here- though other than straight up giving the "new players" 1000k exp for the last mission, I don't see a way to bring up to par with the old characters, who are at 2k exp. 

 

They may progress at the same rate, but there's still a vast discrepancy there. 

 

What about the fate-point idea? If I boost up their fate points to 4 or 5, they'll have more survivability. Or maybe I can give them enough EXP to buy all of their Sound Constitution Talents? Or... i am not sure... 

[Adeptus-B 926]

I don't have the books handy, so I'm not positive about this, but- don't Rogue Trader characters start out at the equivellant of Rank 4 in DH? The systems don't cross over perfectly (most of the RT backgrounds and careers contain modifications to Profit Factor, which has no relevance in DH, for example), but it might be worth considering giving the New Guys Rank 1 RT characters...

[Lynata 2,228]

My suggestion would be to give them a certain amount of bonus XP (+25%? +50%? +100%?) for as long as they need to catch up with the other characters, so that they still experience a fairly normal progression and still have a chance of ending up at the same spot. You could justify it as a sort of "learning bonus" as they operate together with and soak up knowledge from more seasoned Acolytes.

 

I would advise against both additional Fate Points (as those don't really make the characters better, they only serve to cushion their insufficiency - or provide an "unfair" bonus later on if they ever do manage to catch up xp-wise) as well as using classes from other systems. Rogue Trader is still somewhat close to DH, but ultimately the different games are not balanced towards each other. Rank 4 DH characters will have more skills than Rank 1 RT characters, and conversely RT characters will have special talents not available to DH ones.

It is certainly possible to play such a game anyways (for DH+RT I am "only sceptical" rather than vocally opposed), but my recommendation for crossover games has always been to rather whip up an entirely new class from the book you are actually playing. Since this isn't even an intentional crossover but just a possible way to balance the characters, I'd say there are more elegant options.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Lynata

[Saldre 44]

Thanks for the advice- 

 

And I am likely to be using a mix of all of it!

One of my players is taking a rank in "The Defenders of the Fourth Cipher", though Ironically, he's one with that has a rank four character ready for his when the groups meet up, so this won't be very relevant.

 

What I am going to do is run extensive "play-by-post" style downtime with each player individually and take them on their own side-quests, directly rewarding their actions with EXP.

 

So far, I have the Templar Calixis psyker who is going to find a "Warp reactive Jewel" of some sort, and, on the two weeks journey to Reshia aboard the Rogue Trader  "The Fortune Finder", will attempt to cleanse the jewel of its taint and use it to create his own force weapon [or as material for the creation of his own force weapon]. I already have a damned good idea for this plot, and it could easily be worth 1000 exp  

 

The others are a Malfian-born Scum, and a Duskian Penal Legionnaire.  

[Lynata 2,228]

That approach takes up more work, but if you and the players have the time, it sounds like a good solution! Especially since these mini-adventures help the characters develop further. Who knows, maybe this bit of their past will come back to haunt the entire party some time down the road.. 

 

Good luck!

[Angel of Death 126]

It will also depend on whether or not the newbie PC can offer the party skills and abilities they don't have.  I brought a Sister Lucy Dark, and SOB CIS in on and her 1st game.  She offered the party medical and research help they didn't have.

 

In our group, we use the following rules for EXP:

Primary PC used in the mission- 100%

Selected PC gets 50%

any other PC you have 25%..

[Alistair Cookie 3]

Why make it an equal playing field for new commers?

In a military platoon do the veterans recieve more veterans to fill out the ranks? No they get new boots. At work in the office are all your new employees coming with tons of experience or do you get some fresh out of school?

Theres a lot of potential for roleplay when you have the whole mentor/aprentice relationship happening.

 

Part of the fun of playing a game is watching your new character become someone. It is an evolving process that builds upon each advesnture. I tend to see characters developed from the begining being much different from a character that was started with 2000xp out the door. The choices players make are less intuitive based on experiences and more guiding directly towards a specified goal. 

 

Unlike a game such as D&D where hitpoints can be drasticly different based on levels, DH characters are mostly differenciated by their skill acess and levels. Most still have low HP compared to a starting character.. heck my Rank 8 assassin has never taken Sound Constitution. What this generally means is that the higher level characters are more effective but in some ways thats just true of real life in general. These "salty" characters should be acting as a mentoring force to the newer characters. As a GM you may want to scale down enemies suitable to both types of characters.

 

Generally, the complaint I hear from a new player is how do I keep up with the Jones? They feel insignificant next to all that experience. But what I find, is new players jump right in and start roleplaying and discover their sheets and stats don't mean all that much compared to their interaction in role playing. They also tend to raise quickly and find themselves at rank 4 quickly. And lets face it, after you hit rank 4, you are over the hump.

 

One nice thing about having the more experienced characters already established, is that they can often drag new characters into situations a low rank character may never have been able to survive. Facing a demon at rank 2 may have been very frightening, but not as much when your partner has a santified blade.

 

Plus being the new guy is a lot like having an older sibling, there are generally a lot of hand me downs. Our group maintains an armory of all our cast off weapons. I no longer need my bolt pistol, so I donated it to the armory... guess who gets a bolt pistol soon as he's ready for it?

 

I just don't think that it is neccissary to draw everyone up to a specific exp level. It can be a lot more fun and rewarding to just do it the natural way and earn it.

[Askil 123]

We used to have characters who took part gaining full xp (variable based on the length of session and events of it) and people who were elsewhere gaining half.

 

We had new players gain a one-off bundle of exp like somebody who was absent for all the preceding games. That way the group were not hamstrung by their lack of experience.

[Inquisitor Kleeves 0]

All I can say is that yes new guys are usually just that. But when i got t ino my unit '10 the guys in my unit made sure we got what we needed to learn so i agree with an experience boost of some sort up to 25% but make it based on their intelligence modifier and if thats low than their str mod...its either they get stronger or smarter push ups or answer me right. And the armoury idea is gold just make it that the acolyt has to prove they can hit with it.