Never Split the Party 2
Well guys, it’s been 444 comics. I think we’re due for a running gag. The first “Never Split The Party” came out in Handbook of Heroes #7, and has been live as long as the comic. This is only the second time we’ve returned to the theme, but I have a feeling it won’t be the last.
Like we said way back in the fall of 2015, splitting the party is usually a no-good-very-bad idea. Most encounters are based around challenging the whole party, so blundering into a group challenge all loneliest wolf style is generally going to result in chunky salsa. I mean, there’s a song about it for crap’s sake. But like so many things in this hobby, there are exceptions to the rule.
As Fighter so ably demonstrates in today’s comic, there are certain times when splitting the party is absolutely the right call. Complex heists, multi-stage combats, and character-specific duels can all result in cool moments around the table. That’s something you can’t achieve when everyone insists on sticking together in one big group.
And so, since we’re anticipating a return to this theme in the future, what do you say we put our heads together for a little brainstorming? For today’s discussion, let’s come up with a few answers to a simple question. Aside from the obvious, what are some situations where you definitely WOULD want to split the party? Let’s hear all about your ideal solo-missions down in the comments!
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My usual is the ‘social event’ adventure; where the party are present in a small, densely populated location (a noble gala is the typical, but any similar thing where many different people are in close proximity), where many, vastly different plots are occuring simultaneously, and the party have to spread themselves around in order to intercept as much of the shenanigens as possible.
My first dabble in this type of adventure is the classic WFRP adventure “Rough Night at the Three Feathers” which is an excellent adventure (it helps that it mixes WFRP’s grim-darkn style with traditional farce themes) that sees six or seven plots occurring simultaneously in one evening in a coaching inn. Absolute chaos, and my players still recall it as one of their favourite sessions, and it encouraged me to try it again at various scales since.
Welp, in one PbP game, my Spy PC had an IC reason to sneak out of the hotel at night and scout a local crime syndicate’s port warehouse. It was a set-up for him to get captured by doppelgangers and replaced. GM had an idea he wanted to try.
I got to play the not-me version for a bit, with the idea of luring the party into the warehouse, past some traps, and right into the middle of the secret base hidden underneath. Where the bad guys intended to take out the rest of the party.
Apparently I’m not very good at this sort of ruse, the others suspected pretty soon that something was up. I was probably my suspiciously specific denying in the OOC thread…
But it was okay. Since the party wizard had also been replaced (without me knowing!), he could hide in my ‘aura of suspiciousness’ and remain undetected. Led to the capture of the whole party, who then had to escape from an evil lair.
Unfortunately, the whole thing led to some inter-player strife (something something betrayal, something metagaming, something etc.), so it has to be called a failed experiment.
Apart from that though, our parties had little reason to split up. We made sure of that since our Decker experiences in Shadowrun. Putting the rest of the party in pause mode just isn’t fun it turns out. 🙁
I successfully ran a similar adventure years ago (the Ravenloft adventure Hour of the Knife).
The general plot is the investigation of a Jack-the-Ripper style series of murders with dopplegangers. Any time a character was alone with an NPC who was a doppleganger, he would be murdered off-screen, and replaced with a doppleganger.
The reason it worked successfully was that the idea was that the first act would end once the entire party had been replaced, at which point an NPC (the former doppleganger lord whose position had been ursurped by the now-murderous ones), would ressurrect the entire party and set them on the second act mission to take the evil(er) dopplegangers out. Each time I “killed” a PC in this way, I took them aside, explained what happened, and read them the “ressurection” flavour text, so they knew their character wasn’t really dead for good, and they could go out and have fun as their new doppleganger selves, without being down over losing a character.
My players had tons of fun with it, and started getting competative over who could take out the most other members of the party, culminating in a memorable moment where two (now doppleganger) characters had an arguement over which of them was least useful at the particular point of the adventure, so they could accompany another character on a quick shopping trip (and murder him of course).
The knowledge that the entire first chapter was going to be an automatic failure (as the real adventure started at the beginning of act two), prevented any sore feelings over the acts of betrayal by the doppleganger-players (especially as every player but the last man standing, who had the own reward of being the last man to fall, got a chance to play about as a doppleganger)
Funnily enough, a toilet/bathroom encounter does feature in certain campaigns/adventure paths, with monsters/surprises involved.
As for when to specifically split up – the party is being chased by something nasty and wants to avoid getting tracked to their hiding spots/HQ, or to avoid everyone getting caught simultaneously (your chaser can focus on only one target, usually). Better to have the slowest / clumsiest PC caught and thrown in jail than the whole party.
It’s also relatively safe to split up when gathering info (e.g. a party), during downtime, or if one PC is too criminal/wanted to be seen with the rest of the party.
In my current game our group seems to get separated a lot. Not of all of it is our fault though- people keep getting mind-controlled and/or kidnapped!
Luckily though early on two members of our party got linked magical-items that let them know roughly where the other person is (basically what direction they are in). I didn’t think it was going to be all that useful for the very sentiment you express here, but it’s come in handy in practically every arc so far.
I want to know why they all ended up in there in the first place. Were they hiding from something? Ambushing someone? Trust Fighter to mess up the best laid plans…
Scouting/infiltration is when splitting the party is called for. A party trying to be stealthy is as stealthy as their least stealthy member. Do you want the Paladin with a dexterity penalty who wears heavy armor and can’t lie sneaking with the party?
My party recently learned how cumbersome splitting the party could be, when we spent the entirety of last session in initiative. Enemies kept retreating to get reinforcements, and party members thinking that the retreating enemies were a non-issue would wander off, only for those who hand’t wandered off to be stuck fighting enemies who would then retreat and grab more reinforcements.
I made a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad GMing mistake: I allowed my players to play multiple characters. And hoo boy did they run with it. Each of my players runs three to seven different characters, playing a minimum of two at once.
Now, as far as RP goes, we all love this decision; the party’s evolved into an ever growing network of ships and friendships, a big, happy family on a quest to save and/or destroy the world. But as far as actual adventuring? I am constantly DESPERATE to split the party. Aside from the occasional superboss that takes all of their combined might to defeat, they steamroll combat through sheer numbers and take forever to get all of them past simple obstacles. Splitting the party is an absolute necessity to balance the game.
Some tactics I have employed:
-Three different NPCs want the lead the party in three different ways around a mountain. Too large a group would draw unwanted attention. Split the party!
-There are so many enemies in this combat that we’ll only focus on half the party fighting this side, while the rest of the group will fight the rest. Choose your characters!
-A bandit lord is besieging the party’s hometown! Looks like most of the party will have to stay behind to defend it while a small group continues the adventure elsewhere. Delegate!
I should point out that “For a good time scry succubus” would be a cam show. If you wanted to actually get in touch with her it would be “Send succubus” which I admit sounds confusing to the average reader. “Sending Succubus” is less linguistically confusing but sounds weird.
And for a really good time, Planar Binding Succubus?
What about a montage of training during a time-skip? 🙂
Who needs a time-skip? All you need are twenty minutes, five backdrop changes, three costumes. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0391.html
@It’s_A_Trap, never underestimate the strategic value of a good Training Scene Montage. It could save your campaign someday. Though i guess maybe you should actually do some of those things if you play as the Fair Folk 😉
Whenever you need two things done at the same time. My group split the party in a heist: 2 members caused a distraction by burning down the corrupt governor’s mansion while the other two got the loot to our pirate ship (tied on the far side of the island for stealth purposes) and sailed it back to the docks, where we reunited with the other two PCs and used our combined forces to steal a better ship while the guards will mostly away dealing with the distraction.
As GM, one time we split the party was when we had two major tasks that we intended to do simultaneously, infiltrate an enemy castle and something else that I expect to recall later.
This situation worked because we had a PC party and a NPC party with similar goals but different means. Some of each group went to each place, and the players controlled their main characters or the character from the NPC party as prudent. (The NPC party’s characters were generally more powerful than their main characters, but the players preferred their characters.)
This was, in short, a nonstandard ‘split the party’ scenario.
Every single thief I’ve played has had to go rogue at least once, whether scouting ahead, watching behind, or taking watch. Heck, even characters that only had stealth but weren’t actual Thief/Rogue profession types have gone solo for at least once or twice.
Even my current Psagent (Psi+Sage+Agent) goes solo on research missions to the Dismal Tower… what? Paper cuts can be deadly yo. You bleed out alone in a library, to weak to call out, no backup? And them bookworms are vicious.
But my favorite “split the party” story goes like so…
So, it’s the dawn of 3e and we’re playing in a Night Below campaign. My Rogue and our Ranger are on watch. Luckily we’re both elves, so we split the watch between ourselves since no else has any stealth or alertness to speak of, and we’re in the level where stealth and alertness are . So on her watch a pair of Mindflayer Rogues sneak up on our picket. The Ranger, she’d spotted them but didn’t want to alert them that they were spotted and so remained quiet. They beeline right for me and lay in the grapple + brain suck. I’m incapacitated for the fight as I had dump-statted ST (but managed to roll well enough to keep them from insta-sucking). The Ranger jumps out and engages, but doesn’t kill them before the one suckin out my melon gets done. And it wasn’t a quick fight, it took like 15 rounds for her finish the first one and then on the second.
Her reason for not shouting for help at at all? “I didn’t want to draw any other monsters.” Or apparently any help from our oblivious comrades slumbering 60 feet away…
So wait… Did you actually die because this ranger refused to raise the alarm?
I remember one time in 4th edition where I definitely did a bad split the party decision.
In my defense, I was new to DnD, and we were handed a time sensitive mission. The whole party actually split up to go do various things. But I decided to be the only character to go solo, on a quest to get some kind of mcguffin to help us fight the BBEG.
Ended up getting into a miniboss fight. Now 4e bosses are the type that essentially are designed to fight a whole party on their own. But I managed to go toe to toe with it by my lonesome.
I don’t imagine my partymates were very enamoured watching me fight all alone from the sidelines. I was too excited in the moment in my life or death struggle to care, but on reflection…maybe shouldn’t have.
Got the mcguffin though.
I’m gonna say… class specific stuff, should your GM plan on that kind of content. My headcanon ideas include….
Rogue needs to hit up a a contact. She visits the local lord in her finest, requesting ownership of a specific plot of unwanted land while undercutting by a specific amount of gold. She will be dismissed and escorted out by a guard. That guard will lead her towards the back entrance, remove his mask, revealing that he is Krell, Master of Shadows.
In order to get a clue to help with her party’s latest scheme, Witch has to go back to an old coven, a trio of women who have a complicated relationship with their former comrade. While they didn’t split up on the worst of terms, they tend to hope for the best while expecting the worst. If Witch showed up with backup, they assume she’s there to kill them. But if she shows up alone? That means she wants something. That means they can GET something out of her in return. And with that, they welcome her with venomous smiles.
Hey I’m all caught up! Quick question, I remember how Wizard got genderswapped, but how come it didnt wear off? I thought it was just a disguise or polymorph.
Two answers. The first is implied in the last comic in that series:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/classy-quests-part-4-4
Succubus altered the robe of the archmagi so that it wouldn’t fit Wizard’s male form. As you can see in this comic…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/crossplaying
…she’s still got it on under her robes.
Also of note, grats on catching up! Comic updates Mondays and Fridays. We hope you stick around. 😀
The second reason has to do with our Patreon. We’ve got a pledge level called “Quest Giver” where folks are invited to vote on upcoming topics for the comic.
https://www.patreon.com/laurelshelleyreuss
“Is Fem-Wizard here to stay?” was one of those questions.
Ah ok. Not really my thing but hey, I’m not even a patreon supporter (yet) so you’re far from being beholden to my opinion. Keep up the good work!
I mean, the classic example is when you want to pull off something sneaky, but you have Clanky McClankerson with his 10 Dex and plate mail tagging along, so the sneaky people scout ahead and retreat/yell for help if somebody flubs a roll and they get caught.
Another situation might be a heist or assassination — something where the sneaky person can sneak better if you have everybody else providing a diversion of some sort. Or maybe the wizard is casting some sort of ritual or working on a puzzle while everybody else holds the line until he’s done.
I don’t think my group’s ever really split the party unless you count downtime stuff like going shopping or visiting the blacksmith. We had a couple bits in a cave where the sneaky people with darkvision sort of scouted ahead while everyone who relied on torches hung back, but they never let anyone get out of earshot.
I actually like it when players split the party, and I like to do it when I’m a player. My rule as GM, though, is: everyone plays every scene (unless they legitimately want a break for whatever reason.)
If your character leaves the party for longer than a brief time, be ready to step into the shoes of a friendly NPC. Or an unfriendly one; I’ll tell you what you need to know to play a convincing antagonist, and trust you not to metagame later.
Meanwhile, hoe to share screentime between the two fragments of the party? If the smaller party is alone, they’re offscreen, and can be handled later through messages or emails. If they’re among other interesting people, then agsain, everyone grab an NPC and we’ll play out the scene.
Some of my favorite NPCs in a recent campaign are the ones I took over when my character was elsewhere. One of them, our ship’s mechanic, became best drinking buddies with a deadly enemy of my main PC, without any of them realizing the connection in-character. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop…and I expect the NPC mechanic to side with his new buddy over my PC, who he never really liked anyway.
My group typically splits for one of three reasons:
To attack from multiple angles.
There’s a big task at hand, and we all need to apply our skills in different areas.
Plot reasons.
As for other situations that are exploitable for comedy, how about:
Thief and Wizard want alone time.
Everyone cramming into a single-person inn room.
“No, Fighter, you cannot bring the party with you to a duel.”