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Out of curiosity, why is it important for characters to start at 1st level?
Organic character growth and history in a long-term campaign. It's not essential that pcs start at first level, but I vastly prefer it, and it is simply not viable in 3rd and later editions. (In 1st and 2nd it actually worked out pretty well, although much better in 1st than in 2nd.)
Everyone that comes to the game should have fun, if your starting someone at first when everyone else is higher in level, your basically penalizing them for being new to the game.
I don't really think that there's a way to make it fun for the low level guy either, practically every combat is an instant death situation for him.
So, not only does have to deal with the confusion of starting in a new campaign, but he also has to deal with being almost compleatly useless in combat.
It's a lame old school practice that needs to die and stay dead.
I disagree. Old school games are more about exploration than combat, and a 10th level pc is no better than a first in this regard. It's not for everyone, but deveoping a character from scratch is often more fun than starting at 6th level.
I'd say if both the DM and Players were up for the challenge and agree it would be fun it could work. It would be a lot of work though. The DM would need to constantly need to find challenges for the various players at different levels. And the players would have to enjoy taking on the "non-big combat" challenges. I've seen it work, but I do not think the mechanics should be changed if this is your goal. It means constantly tinkering with the encounters.
The 1st and 10th level character should stay out of the level 20 fight. They probably shouldn't even be in the same dungeon. They should go off to keep the kobold from running with the key information while the big boys keep the dragon busy or smooze with the local law to make sure the rest of the party who is off saving the world on another plane doesn't come home to find their lands have been confiscated. Personally I find constantly coming up with split party challenges is very draining, especially for the DM. YMMV.
While I have done this in the past it is not always the game I want to play. I'd be sure the DM and Players are all excited about the concept before making a go of it. I had a blast keeping my low level character alive, but I was also charged up when the next campaign started as now I could join the big boy fights.
As others suggested a game system with a small power curve over time helps with this as well. WHFR & CoC come to mind as the best examples I can think of.
As a player I *much* prefer starting at 1st level, whenever possible. Carefully done, (and with right players and campaign), mixing and matching levels is viable in any version, and could be a great story hook to boot. Mixing levels seems like it would be particularly easy to do in 4e, since the math is so rigid.
Some good suggestions were already in terms of having lower level enemies for the lower level folks to fight, etc. But also consider having places for the lower level characters to take cover, (to boost AC and possibly minimize the number of enemies that would engage).
Also, you may also have a kit for the new meat: an item to boost AC, and/or Fort, Will, Ref, attacks, or something to give an extra daily--anything that would get the new player closer to par with the rest of the group and help him or her to survive. Just have one of the higher-level players toss it to the new one with a "Here, kid. You're gonna need this stuff to survive. But its only a loaner!"
How would you need to change the game to keep it fun for everyone if you wanted all pcs to start at 1st level, even if the party was significantly higher level?
Back in my AD&D days, this was what we always did. Start a new character and join in, that's 1st level.
The whole thing about starting PCs at the level of the party, or one level behind or whatever came around in 3e, for the groups I played with anyway.
It was viable compared to later editions of D&D for several reasons:
1. The XP handed out in higher level games meant that lower level PCs would level up very rapidly. In the first D&D campaign I ever played in, I joined a game with 9 PC's averaging about 12th level. I leveled up once per session for the rest of the campaign, when my PC was 14th level.
2. Damage totals were lower, especially melee damage, meaning that PC's were less likely to be killed in one hit even in higher level games. My first PC, the one from the above example, was a Cleric who started with 8 HP, and since the Death's Door (aka -10) rule was in effect, she wouldn't die until she hit -10. In practice this meant that most times monsters hit her she would be at critically low HP or knocked out, but she wasn't killed because the number of monsters that could do 18 or more points of damage in 1 hit in AD&D was pretty small. You had a non-negligible chance of not being killed outright by a min-strength 5d6 Fireball or Lightning Bolt, and you could probably soak up a casting of Magic Missile without dying. This meant my PC was getting knocked out a lot, but I was still getting lots of XP and certainly enough to level.
3. We didn't use miniatures, thus in a more narrative-oriented combat it was accepted, even expected for the less powerful PC's to state that they were standing back out of the fight and just running up briefly to heal or something, or staying in the middle of the group if it was a large melee. The DM accepted this and the monsters generally attacked the fighter-types that were attacking back unless it was a huge mob of monsters (like an orc horde or waves of zombies or something) where there were enough to attack everybody.
In D&D (and similar class/level-based games) this simply does not work (well).
No, it works great. This is how I run Empire of the Petal Throne (1975/OD&D) and I haven't gotten any complaints.
In the rules, you gain levels based on accumulating Experience Points. These come from two sources: killing monsters (not much) and gaining gold (a ton).
So far, the experience has been that "rookies" have to hang back for an adventure or two and do ancillary tasks: provide supporting fire with missile weapons, guard the flank/rear, use flaming oil (a big tactical component in many battles), hold the light sources and provide additional knowledge (such as languages not already covered in the party).
After a couple adventures, the XP rewards that roll in from the large amounts of treasure bump them way up there. I would expect a rookie to gain a level every couple of sessions on average... sometimes one might gain nearly two levels in a single session.
Very soon, rookies get up to speed and become second-stringers. And soon after that, they're first-stringers just like the old veterans.
Seriously, I think that most people who think this would be a problem are either playing a new school game (no XP for treasure) or have just never really tried it in the first place.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
I think that the old-school play technique of "hang around behind all of the tough characters and contribute in minor or nearly meaningless ways" would still work in 4e. A 1st level PC doesn't need much XP to level up, and the character would probably catch up to the others relatively quickly, at least in the heroic tier. Maybe give them a couple of higher-level magic items to help compensate; consider them family heirlooms and remove them from whatever treasure parcels are given out until they've been "paid off."
I've never been a fan of this approach, and I was always allowing new characters (whether new players or replacing a character who died) to start at one level below the party average way back in 1e and BECM games. A new player just trying out the game is likely to get extremely bored hanging around watching everybody else play for the first few sessions; I'd hate to have a potential new player give up on the game because they never had a chance to experience what gameplay was actually like. But I've also lost much of my "make the players work for it" mentality as I've gotten older. Back when we were all in high school and playing every week (or more often), I was often hesitant to "give away stuff for free." Now that we're in our thirties, most of us married, some of us with kids, and all working full-time, we can actually get together once or twice a month to play and I want those sessions to have as high a "concentration of fun" as possible. I don't want anyone sitting around without being able to contribute meaningfully for even one game session, as it seems disrespectful of that person's time to penalize him because his character died or he had to miss four sessions in a row because of family or work commitments.
Not trying to get into wrongbadfun accusations here; I just really dislike the idea now.
I would question how it provides organic character and history building when the character will basically be going from a 1st-level nobody to a hero of the caliber of the rest of the party at the likely rate of one level every session (or two as he catches up). There are already a lot of complaints about how quickly PCs level up in 3e and 4e and how it's not very believable for characters to go from peon to superhero in a year of game time; I find that starting at 1st level with a party of higher level PC and catching up strains the suspension of disbelief even more.
Hmm from my point of view I don't see the point in starting a character at a lower level/points total than the rest of the crew.
The organic experience I get is from leveling up with a party all together from 1-6 is from the shared experience of it, not the leveling process on its own.
I'm 1st and the rest of the party are superheroes at 20th of so, erm no thanks.
The only way I would be willing to do this is if it was for roleplaying reasons or the lower level character had some kind of massive advantage that the higher level characters didn't (political influence, speaking/reading an ancient language, having more money that god etc.) preferably both.
I like everyone in a party to have their unique niche of what they are good at at such a level disparity without an extreme advantage Mr low level xp will only have the niche of being sucky
__________________ Ginnel
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Shabe on sharing loot
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Originally Posted by Shabe
Of course you may be talking about all of the above in character where all the characters in the party count every single coin and keep track of it individually and all know the exact price of items, all can divide big numbers in their heads and all carry around a handy set of dice with them for when the roll off occurs, then of course you are fine, else well done you've taken some of the r out or rpg.
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Originally Posted by Ginnel
If you want to create something different do it.
All elves are fat and prone to flatulence and their nickname is Gary.
Bang I've just changed my world do the same with yours.
I really can't see starting well below the rest of the party working real well in 3e or 4e. Even though you tend to asymptotically approach the level of everyone else, you'll always be behind. You're also easier to hit, quicker to die, do less damage, have lower skill abilities, etc. In fact, based on skills, there's little reason for an N+10 level party to take in an Nth level adventurer. The non-trained abilities of the party will be pretty close to the trained level abilities of the new adventurer. At best I could see it working only with <5 levels difference, at which point there's not much of a point to begin with.
That said, I could see possibly doing something like treating the character as having amnesia. Every fight or so, the character recovers more of his memories and abilities such that he effectively levels quickly. But this would be accelerated greatly from standard leveling (especially as he approached party level).
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All we want to do is eat your brains
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Last edited by malraux; 14th June 2009 at 08:39 PM..
Mind you, the "rookie hanging out and throwing oil" idea works best when the New PC...
1.) Isn't the primary source of his class function (IE: isn't the primary meat-shield, healer, trap-finder, etc)
2.) Has enough people of competent level to "hide behind" (Its easier to be the third line of a team with 6-8 people than one where your PC #4).
3.) You can "skip" levels from XP gain (IE, a 1st level thief gains 5,000 XP in kill/treasure, so, he can now skip 2nd and go direct to 3rd)
4.) The player and group is comfortable with the rookie/veteran system; some groups and players aren't comfortable with this dynamic (the rookie feels useless and bored; the veterans feel tied down with an "XP sponge" who isn't pulling his weight). This will vary from group to group, of course.
5.) Isn't replacing a dead PC with a rookie constantly; I found that having a moderate-level PC and having to start from scratch can grind even the best veteran player. I wholly suggest replacing dead PCs higher than 1st level (1/2 level was my rule waaaay back in the day, now dead PC's level -1 is the rule) and this is doubly true if more than one PC died at once (or nearly so; its very frustrating to have one 7th-8th level PC survive and a bunch of n00bs join, so its back to the Caves of Chaos we go until we can get back to the Giant's Steading...)
It seems to me there's a bit of the mentality here that DEATH MUST BE PUNISHED, and it's certainly nice to have players rewarded for good decisions & suffering a bit for bad ones, but IMHO being punished for your whole next PC's nasty, brutish and short career seems less than fun. It might encourage me to stab the high-level PCs in their sleep so we could all start over together. (Note to self: don't play a Rogue.)
Anyway, here's another PUNISH DEATH technique that my group came up with, mostly as a joke, but it might actually work -- particularly in 4e where monsters are easier to run.
I call it the Monster Barrel.
Monster Barrel
One player is in the Monster Barrel. He runs the monsters (as handed to him by the GM). The GM is strictly a referee.
If a PC dies to a monster's attack, that PC's player spends the next session in the Monster Barrel, and the current MB player plays a new PC (or comes back from the dead).
Cheers, -- N
__________________
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To address a lot of the comments here: being a fun game for widely mixed levels is one of the explicit design goals of the project I'm working on. Many of the standard assumptions of what you get for leveling are under a process of significant reconstruction in this project. If you look at the example pc at 1st and 10th level above, you'll note that the gap in stats is actually fairly narrow- and it's figuring in his feats and exploits and stuff, so it's not like there will be another +3 put on top of it.
No, it works great. This is how I run Empire of the Petal Throne (1975/OD&D) and I haven't gotten any complaints.
In the rules, you gain levels based on accumulating Experience Points. These come from two sources: killing monsters (not much) and gaining gold (a ton).
So far, the experience has been that "rookies" have to hang back for an adventure or two and do ancillary tasks: provide supporting fire with missile weapons, guard the flank/rear, use flaming oil (a big tactical component in many battles), hold the light sources and provide additional knowledge (such as languages not already covered in the party).
After a couple adventures, the XP rewards that roll in from the large amounts of treasure bump them way up there. I would expect a rookie to gain a level every couple of sessions on average... sometimes one might gain nearly two levels in a single session.
Very soon, rookies get up to speed and become second-stringers. And soon after that, they're first-stringers just like the old veterans.
Seriously, I think that most people who think this would be a problem are either playing a new school game (no XP for treasure) or have just never really tried it in the first place.
Well, this is basically saying that it does not work.
If it would work, it would not be necessary to bump them up to high level quicker than they are supposed to.
Why not start them at the high level right away and skip the unnecessary boredom for them.
Yeah, you can build the adventures allowing them to hang back and do something, that seems meaningful (but really isn't, since the higher levels could just do the same with pretty much no effort at all).
In the end, they are just tagalongs who are there to get leveled up.
I don't see the point of starting at level one, when the party is actually much higher level.
Organic growth? This isn't organic growth, this is forced growth.
Bye
Thanee
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Last edited by Thanee; 14th June 2009 at 10:14 PM..
Organic character growth and history in a long-term campaign.
What does 'organic' mean in the context of character growth? I seems to refer to characters that are developed over time in response to in-game events, rather than built according to a predetermined build path.
But isn't that decided by player preference? Simply starting a PC at 1st level doesn't guarantee the player won't use a canned build. In fact, it encourages it, because a level disparity encourages players to wring every last drop of mechanical advantage from the system.
Also, doesn't character history effectively begin when that character starts play? (Much to the chagrin of those who favor ten pages of backstory)
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(In 1st and 2nd it actually worked out pretty well, although much better in 1st than in 2nd.)
Starting everyone at 1st level certainly did work better in the older edition. But why was it easier in 1st than in 2nd (in AD&D for a while and 2nd for nearly a decade). Baseline 1e and 2e are almost identical mechanically.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
No, it works great. This is how I run Empire of the Petal Throne (1975/OD&D) and I haven't gotten any complaints.
It works better for a game that's built around OD&D's rules. BTW, I'm a little jealous... I've never played EPT, but I read two the novels by M.A.R. Barker back in high school and loved them. He out Vance's Vance in places.
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So far, the experience has been that "rookies" have to hang back for an adventure or two and do ancillary tasks:...
Ah yes... D&D... a fantastic game of performing ancillary tasks. There are some people who prefer D&D to be a fantastic game of high adventure.
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... hold the light sources and provide additional knowledge (such as languages not already covered in the party).
Perhaps 1st level PC's could serve as the party's accountants? They could spend the adventure back in the relative safety of a walled town and contribute by tallying the gold brought back. They would still get XP from being paid, right?
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After a couple adventures...
Why treat meaningful participation --in a mechanical sense, at least-- like it's a privilege? Requiring PC's to start at 1st level only makes sense if the entire campaign is construed as a competition between the players.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
I have been running it this way since the 80's and see no reason to change. Do people die, yes of course they die and being brought back to life is seldom worth the effort (Just ask any cleric). I also do not run CR based encounters but rather situational based, meaning if you walk stumble into a dragon's lair that has been there for 1000 years he suddenly won't drop in size just to be fair to the party's current level.
More to the topic, if someone is forced to start over (because all PC's do start at first level) then he or she is usually hired or starts as a henchman of someone else. After all, no respectable adventuring party just lets someone in as an equal you have to earn your way into the ranks. I award XP's to the lower level members not so much based on what they kill but rather how they handle their tasks given to them by other members or such.
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