BigVanVader
First Post
Don't be fooled by the rocks that she got, she still enjoys quality seafood at affordable prices.
That's how that song went, right?
D&D 5E Everyone Starts at First Level
Don't be fooled by the rocks that she got, she still enjoys quality seafood at affordable prices.
That's how that song went, right?
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
I once created Jennifer Connelly (the actress) as a Torg character. She lasted half of an adventure. She ran over a ninja with a convertable then was killed by the remaining ninja.
RE: Letting the high level guys fight the dragon while the low level guy holds off the orcs. This requires way to much suspension of disbelief to pull it off more than once or twice EVER.
GM: OK, the dragon breathes fire on all you guys, make a save....except STEVE, he just happens to be out of range fighting the orc.
JIM: Why is there an orc hanging around in Smaug's cave?
STEVE: Hey, shut up, it give me something to do.
GM: Smaug gets lonely too, he needs a shoulder to cry on. The orc is his bestie.
STEVE: Crit! I slice the orcs face off!!!!
SMAUG: NOOOOOO!!! Not Bob's face!!! If you ever show your face here after you gain a bunch of levels I am SO going to eat YOUR face off. Until then I am just going to eat your friends.
RALPH: Wouldn't it make more sense if the dragon had an orc army?
GM: Yes, you are probably right. 20 more orcs charge from a hidden doorway.
RALPH: Quickened Widened Fireball. Save for 38 damage.
GM: *roll* *roll* *roll* All dead. Except one. He charges STEVE.
STEVE: Awesome. 2nd levell here I come!
RE: Letting the high level guys fight the dragon while the low level guy holds off the orcs. This requires way to much suspension of disbelief to pull it off more than once or twice EVER.
GM: OK, the dragon breathes fire on all you guys, make a save....except STEVE, he just happens to be out of range fighting the orc.
JIM: Why is there an orc hanging around in Smaug's cave?
STEVE: Hey, shut up, it give me something to do.
GM: Smaug gets lonely too, he needs a shoulder to cry on. The orc is his bestie.
STEVE: Crit! I slice the orcs face off!!!!
SMAUG: NOOOOOO!!! Not Bob's face!!! If you ever show your face here after you gain a bunch of levels I am SO going to eat YOUR face off. Until then I am just going to eat your friends.
RALPH: Wouldn't it make more sense if the dragon had an orc army?
GM: Yes, you are probably right. 20 more orcs charge from a hidden doorway.
RALPH: Quickened Widened Fireball. Save for 38 damage.
GM: *roll* *roll* *roll* All dead. Except one. He charges STEVE.
STEVE: Awesome. 2nd levell here I come!
the Jester
Legend
This is absolutely a complication of troupe play. For me, it's one that is worth working through, and I've so far always avoided the sort of paradox you mention; I'm trying hard in my urban game to have a sort of 'forced downtime' for most pcs, as they have to spend the work week doing their day jobs (one is in the army, one works for his clan, etc). Then they have the weekend for adventures. That's a mechanism that exists for several reasons, and it may fade if the pcs give up a lot of their ties to faction, clan, army, etc., but so far it has been very handy.
That rather defeats the purpose, though.
It would be fine in some games, but in one where part of the "style guideline" (if you will) of the campaign is ES@1st, then, well, your suggestion is pretty much not that.
Oooh, I kinda like that. Maybe I'll allow pcs to do that. That's really cool.
Because every high-level bad guy has no minions under its level - 2 or something?
Dragons really ought to have plenty of kobolds or other low-level lackeys serving them. I don't know why the image rubs you wrong, but it's actually rather traditional and typical of bad-ass monsters in D&D, at least before 4e, to have a wide range of lower-level creatures serving under them. Heck, in some old modules, you have multiple levels of lackey- you have giants served by ogres and trolls served by goblins, for instance.
So I have to disagree with you on that.
Moreover, I don't know if you read my posts addressing exactly this issue upthread, but you're assuming that every adventure including one or more high-level pcs has monsters at that pc's CR, and you're overlooking the fact that a mess of low-level monsters is a very valid encounter for high-level pcs in 5e.
More like:
STEVE: I'm staying in the back and to the side, so that if the dragon breathes I'm not caught with everyone else.
Or at least, that's my experience with this sort of scenario.
Because every high-level bad guy has minions under its level - 2 or something?
It works both ways. Both cases "always has minions for the low level PCs to handle", and "never has minions for the low level PCs to handle" are problematic".
And why does the big nasty not just squish the low level PCs like a bug some times, so that his minions can swarm the higher level PCs? Sounds out of character for big nasties to not be nasty.
the Jester
Legend
I think it's far more likely that a major high-level bad guy has a team or organization than not. Dragons typically have slaves and servants; mind flayers typically have thralls; demons and devils typically have cultists.
There are definitely exceptions, but again, the fact that, in a sandbox, the pcs choose their threat level to a great extent lets them take responsibility for what sort of encounters they are likely to have.
Nonetheless, I'll agree that not every high-level monster or villain has minions, and sometimes the low-level guy is in a great deal of danger if he or she insists on rushing to the forefront of the combat. But that's okay; I like that decisions have consequences, and my players seem to, as well.
Sometimes it might, but given the choice between spending your action on the guy who just dealt 7 points of damage with an arrow or the guy who just smote you for 45 points, there's a clear and present danger posed by the high-level guy that sometimes just can't wait. Not to mention if two or three pcs just whacked you for 45 each.
Sounds like his minions are not doing that great of a job if they let a bunch of guys get close enought to smack him for 45. Maybe he should call a better temp agency.
Actually, in 4E, I had some interesting discussions about action economy. My theory was that PCs should take out most of the mooks in the first two rounds and leave the big bads for later rounds. Sure the big bads do more damage and sometimes have real nasty attacks, but from an action economy POV, the mooks fill up the battlefield, limit movement, and as an overall group, they can sometimes do about as much damage as a big bad. As an example, 5 minions and a big bad. Minions do 5 average points of damage, big bad does 20 average points of damage per round.
It takes 10 PC attacks to take out the big bad, it takes 2 PC attacks to take out a mook. 5 PCs. The NPCs attack first (just to simplify it).
Attacking Big Bad: PCs take 130 damage
1) Big Bad and 5 mooks do 45 points to the team.
PCs damage Big Bad with 5 attacks.
2) Big Bad and 5 mooks do 45 points to the team.
PCs take out Big Bad with 5 attacks.
3) 5 mooks do 25 points to the team.
PCs take out 2.5 mook with 5 attacks.
4) 3 mooks do 15 points to the team.
PCs take out last 2.5 mooks.
Attacking Mooks: PCs take 120 damage
1) Big Bad and 5 mooks do 45 points to the team.
PCs take out 2.5 mooks with 5 attacks.
2) Big Bad and 3 mooks do 35 points to the team.
PCs take out 2.5 mooks with 5 attacks.
3) Big Bad does 20 points to the team.
PCs damage Big Bad with 5 attacks.
4) Big Bad does 20 points to the team.
PCs take out Big Bad with 5 attacks.
Not much of a difference and granted, one can change these numbers around to make either side look better, but the basic idea is to get fewer attacks per round from the enemy as possible as soon as possible. The real gain in the latter example is that the PCs only have one foe in rounds 3 and 4 whereas in the earlier example, they still have multiple foes even in round 4. The more foes per round, the higher the chances that something bad will happen that the PCs cannot necesarily react to.
This doesn't mean that the PCs totally ignore the big bad, but they could wall off the big bad with a spell, do hold monster, or whatever so that they have enough time to take control of the mooks. And for big bads that get a lot of attacks per round (like 4 or 5), this strategy might just be reversed (presuming that the big bad is not too uber like maybe a Dragon).
In 5E with many mooks being one or two hit foes, it is probably even easier to clean up mooks quickly (maybe while the Fighter holds off the big bad).
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
A little late to the party here...guess that makes me the 1st-level guy in the experienced group. 
What I started out doing is to start new PCs 1 level below the lowest in the party. I learned the folly of that when I ran a party that just couldn't do anything right, and the average party level went backwards quickly.
Then, I went to bringing new PCs in 1 level below the party average. Problem there became that once a significant level disparity arose (and it always does) sometimes new PCs were coming in at a higher level than some of the established PCs; making death a viable choice in order to advance.
So, on to plan C: for this campaign I've been setting a floor - it was 3rd for a long time, now it's 4th or 5th depending on which party it is (highest level PCs just got to 9th, average is about 6th-7th). So far, so good.
And in all cases there is a significant exception: if you are a new player to the game your first character starts at the party average.
Something that hasn't been brought up yet is that sure, one might find oneself bringing in a 1st-level PC to a 9th-level party; but that's pretty unlikely in that if your old PC died chances are there's been some other deaths along the way as well, leaving the party's levels spread all over the place between 1st and (for this example) 9th.
It gets really messy when there's a) some sort of key world-altering event or plot twist (e.g. the moon inexplicably vanishes) that you want all parties to experience at about the same real-earth time so players in one group don't spoil the surprise for the others; or b) an in-game reason for all the various parties to meet at the same place and time (e.g. the King has called all adventurers based in his kingdom to defense of the realm, they are to report to place X on date Y and may the gods have mercy on them should they fail to appear).
Lan-"right now in one game I'm running a 5th-level Fighter in a party where nobody else is lower than 8th; and somewhat shockingly he is still alive"-efan
What I started out doing is to start new PCs 1 level below the lowest in the party. I learned the folly of that when I ran a party that just couldn't do anything right, and the average party level went backwards quickly.
Then, I went to bringing new PCs in 1 level below the party average. Problem there became that once a significant level disparity arose (and it always does) sometimes new PCs were coming in at a higher level than some of the established PCs; making death a viable choice in order to advance.
So, on to plan C: for this campaign I've been setting a floor - it was 3rd for a long time, now it's 4th or 5th depending on which party it is (highest level PCs just got to 9th, average is about 6th-7th). So far, so good.
And in all cases there is a significant exception: if you are a new player to the game your first character starts at the party average.
Something that hasn't been brought up yet is that sure, one might find oneself bringing in a 1st-level PC to a 9th-level party; but that's pretty unlikely in that if your old PC died chances are there's been some other deaths along the way as well, leaving the party's levels spread all over the place between 1st and (for this example) 9th.
Preach it, brother! In multi-party campaigns like the ones I tend to run, time management can become a complete PITA. It's doable, of course, but it needs some player co-operation sometimes and can be a tricky juggling act.
It gets really messy when there's a) some sort of key world-altering event or plot twist (e.g. the moon inexplicably vanishes) that you want all parties to experience at about the same real-earth time so players in one group don't spoil the surprise for the others; or b) an in-game reason for all the various parties to meet at the same place and time (e.g. the King has called all adventurers based in his kingdom to defense of the realm, they are to report to place X on date Y and may the gods have mercy on them should they fail to appear).
Lan-"right now in one game I'm running a 5th-level Fighter in a party where nobody else is lower than 8th; and somewhat shockingly he is still alive"-efan
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
I TOTALLY agree with everything you said here. I even agree that if I staged a high level battle versus a high powered BBEG I would include lesser creatures to round out the challenge and make the scene feel more organic.
What breaks down for me is not that the bad guy has that mix of high, medium, and low level minions. It is the fact that in those battles only the low level minions can target the low level characters, the middle level minions the middle level characters, and the BBEG only attacks the highest level characters. If you didn't do this as the GM, the low level guys are going to be dead in one round the first time they are targeted by someone of a higher power level. It seems super cheesy to me that every battle ever the high power creatures won't target the new guy, or else the new guy just has to hide all the time to avoid being targeted.
Maybe your sandbox games don't make any attempt to match encounter levels with party levels, but mine do. If I know the 3rd level party is going to go investigate a ruined tower I don't seed a beholder or demilich in the tower. I do have areas I have prewarned them about they might want to avoid until later (in my campaign there is a "Vampire's Fortress" high in the mountians the PCs are aware of) but those are not the normal.
Sacrosanct
Legend
OK, something about this high level minion discussion doesn't sound right. On one side of the argument, it seems as if that low level replacement PC immediately runs into that big baddie. When does this ever happen? Most big baddie lairs have a lot of lower level creatures around (the dragon's territory, etc). By the time the low level replacement PC even runs into the big baddie itself, he or she won't be so low level anymore, so it seem the entire discussion is moot.
I.e., even if you had a 10th level party pick up a 1st level PC, the way adventures are structured, the party would most likely get enough XP to hit level 11 before the finale. XP to go from 10 to 11 is roughly the same as going from level 1 to 7. So a 7th level PC in a party of 11th level PCs doesn't necessarily need to just pick off the little guys.
I.e., even if you had a 10th level party pick up a 1st level PC, the way adventures are structured, the party would most likely get enough XP to hit level 11 before the finale. XP to go from 10 to 11 is roughly the same as going from level 1 to 7. So a 7th level PC in a party of 11th level PCs doesn't necessarily need to just pick off the little guys.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Can PCs in your campaign be returned to life by means of spells such as revivify, raise dead and reincarnate? Or would that defeat the purpose of ES@1st?
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