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| Family Tree |
I've long desired to run a dynastic campaign, importing something like Pendragon's "after every session/adventure/tourney/happening, a year passes", where eventually you're expected to retire your character and their heir takes over -- D&D meets Crusader Kings (Crusader Kings having been designed in a lab to be precisely catnip to Malimars).
But that's the only thing I really like about Pendragon, so I want to hack it onto a system I do like. Seems like a half-decent fit for Daggerheart, but I don't yet know the likelihood of persuading my group to try that one.
The Issue
The main problem with hacking it onto D&D would be: presuming not everybody retires at the same time (so, presuming elves and humans in the same party); and presuming I don't want any given character's heir to just automatically straight-up start at the level their parent retired at; how do I make a mixed-level party more or less balanced? How might I let one player do a New Game+ while remaining in a party with a player who just keeps playing their original character?
My second instinct is: abandon allowing mixed-level parties: heirs just start at the level of their parent, and/or every character always retires at the same time. But I low-key hate both of those options? I want players to have the option to play an elf (eg, one player just straight-up hates the dynastic game idea and wants to opt out -- if multiple players hate it, of course I would run something else). I want players to be able to pick when their character is done (perhaps using the aging rules from 3.5e to encourage done-ness, though that does hardly encourage spellcasters to retire). I want players to be able to play an Obi-Wan from the previous generation or a sidekick/apprentice from the next.
My first instinct is: something like beginning with magic items or Epic Boons or bonus feats or something? Like, establish some exchange rate: new characters begin with some amount of Stuff for each level lower your new character is than your old character would have been.
New Game+
Assumption, while we think this out:
Every time the party would level up (so, basically every adventure/delve, ish), some number of years passes. I was thinking 1d6 or 1d8 or 1d10 or 1d12, but randomness does us no favors here; another solid possibility is 5, plus or minus a few depending on DM fiat; another possibility is that it can depend on how successfully and effectively the adventure's task was accomplished, that a party gets a decade or two of peace if they completely smash it out of the park, only a year or two if they straight-up fail.
Perhaps, in the middle of some adventures, there could be an extra level-up point that applies only to characters of below the party's max level. If this were 3.5e and we were playing with experience, the increased XP and decreased XP-to-next-level from being lower level makes it balance; we need to approximate that with an inelegant hack, because we don't want characters who are behind to remain behind forever.
A new-generation character begins with all the physical loot of the previous-generation character they're taking over for.
A new-generation character starts at any level below the level of the previous-generation character they're taking over for (this may get to be a bit of a wibbly muddle if, like, one player's new character takes over for another player's old character, or two PCs get together and make babbies who then take over as new characters, or whatever, but ad hoc DM adjudication is a thing).
For each level so sacrificed, a new PC begins with an additional Thing (eg, 1st-gen PC is lvl7; 2nd-gen PC elects to begin at lvl3; the difference is 4 levels, so they begin with 4 Things).
What shall be the Things?
My first notion: each Thing is a rarity level of magic item. A 1-level difference lets you start with an extra Common item; a 2-level difference lets you start with an extra Uncommon item (or 2 Commons); a 3-level difference lets you start with an extra Rare item (or 3 Commons, or a Common and an Uncommon); a 4-level difference lets you start with an extra Very Rare item (or a Rare and a Common, or two Uncommons, or an Uncommon and two Commons, or four Commons); a 5-level difference lets you start with an extra Legendary item (or a Very Rare and a Common, or a Rare and two Commons, or a Rare and an Uncommon, or an Uncommon and three Commons, or two Uncommons and a Common, or five Commons), etc. You cannot begin with an Artifact (unless the previous-generation PC gained it during play, of course). Raising the question: can a level 5 character with a Legendary item (plus level ten character worth of miscellaneous loot) hold their own with a level 10 character (with only ten levels worth of miscellaneous loot)? Can a level 5 character with three Legendary items hold their own with a level 20 character?
Another notion: each Thing is a free bonus feat (and every so many Things is a free Epic Boon bonus feat? no, I think not, some Epic Boons may be fine for this purpose, but some are very powerful). Can a level 5 character with 5 bonus feats hold their own with a level 10 character (with only the normal number of feats)? And what happens to the bonus feats as the character acceleratedly levels up -- do they evaporate; do they start to occupy real feat slots as such become available to the character; something else?
One big issue is hit points. PCs progress fast in terms of HP, so monsters correspondingly progress fast in terms of how hard they hit. I think some kind of free bonus HPs may be the only thing to do here, though that is an inelegant solution. Maybe 5 bonus HP for each level you are different from the party's level (which you gradually lose as you level up faster than the party does, until you have 0 bonus HP when you reach the party's level)? No, I think I like this better: all characters have Hit Dice, and consequently HP, in accordance with the maximum level of the party, regardless of their character level.
Another issue is hitting power. PCs progress fast in terms of how much damage they do (doubling at level 4, among other things); monsters correspondingly progress fast in terms of HP. A single really good weapon and/or some bonus feats can make up this difference handily.
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