Justifying RCR in RP

[Miyuki]

Hi hi,

i saw some players who did RCR for the new hair models, to change their build or for other reasons. I myself did it only at lower levels until now. So i never lost more than 1 level or so.

But if i see players who lost 8 or 10 levels, i think that takes much power away from the character. I would not know how to justify or explain, how the character lost it. I would like to find some ideas and inspirationas in case i would do it at some point later.

How did you rp out a greater level loss or even class changes in RP?

[Deathgrowl]

If you're playing a pure kind of character. Say a cleric 30 or a bard 30 and you RCR to level 20, basically, you still have all the essential class abilities. You're weaker, sure, but from an RP point of view, you can still do everything.

Maybe play it off as injury and needing to retrain. Hard to do with Heal and Regeneration spells, I suppose, but it's easy enough to get around those as well. There are mechanics for level drains that cannot be magically restored, after all. Indeed, if you get hit by the spell Energy Drain in PnP, you lose 2d4 levels temporarily at first. After 24 hours, you do a Fortitude roll. If you fail, those levels are permanently lost and cannot be regained through magic.

So if you need to lose 10 levels. Argue that you got hit by two Energy Drains and then failed the save!

[Rhifox]

For my 50% RCR, it happened to take place shortly after character did an action that angered one of her major spirits (a fire spirit, which was taken under the ocean and considered this act unforgivable). That spirit abandoned my character, which was a good excuse for why she lost so much power. I followed that up with choosing not to take high level fire spells I used to have, like Firestorm, while leveling up again.

Most of my other RCRs (during the 100% RCR) I didn't treat IC as I was still experimenting with what build actually fit the character's roleplay. During the 50% though, the warlock levels I took were to represent the character becoming more reliant on her demon companion after the loss of the other spirit.

There's many different things that can work for justifying the exp loss, if you want to be able to explain it. A serious injury, a curse, etc. Changing a class is probably the easiest to explain, as the character is still learning those new abilities ICly and it makes sense that you're not as capable with your new abilities as you were with your old ones.

And yeah, Energy Drain is a great way to explain away level loss. Resurrections too (as weaker forms cause level loss in pnp).

[Miyuki]

Well, i actually almost never do PvP fights. But as i remember, some monsters, higher level vampired for example have energy drain, too.

Thanks for the ideas already.