D&D 5E Poll: What is a Level 1 PC?

[tlantl]

Never played 1e so how it was back then isnt really of interest to me. My earliest game was AD&D and we houseruled it so much it would have been barely recognizable to anyone comparing it to RAW

FYI 1e is AD&D

 

[FireLance]

Never played 1e so how it was back then isnt really of interest to me. My earliest game was AD&D and we houseruled it so much it would have been barely recognizable to anyone comparing it to RAW

Um... I think there's been a slight misunderstanding here.

Normally, the term "1e" is used to mean AD&D (as opposed to the 2nd edition of AD&D or "2e").

"Basic" D&D is usually abbreviated as "BD&D", or referred to by the (I think) author of the version: Holmes, Moldvay or Mentzer.

See this Wikipedia article for some additional details.

 

[Ashtagon]

Um... I think there's been a slight misunderstanding here.

Normally, the term "1e" is used to mean AD&D (as opposed to the 2nd edition of AD&D or "2e").

"Basic" D&D is usually abbreviated as "BD&D", or referred to by the (I think) author of the version: Holmes, Moldvay or Mentzer.

See this Wikipedia article for some additional details.

Actually most of the people who played (and play) what you call "Basic D&D" refer to it as "Classic D&D". And the white box sets that AD&D grew out of are usually referred to as "Original D&D" (or sometimes, "0e").

Edit: "Basic D&D" would normally be understood to refer specifically to play at levels 1-3 using the classic D&D rules set.

 

[FireLance]

Actually most of the people who played (and play) what you call "Basic D&D" refer to it as "Classic D&D". And the white box sets that AD&D grew out of are usually referred to as "Original D&D" (or sometimes, "0e").

Interesting. On ENWorld, I usually see it referenced as "Basic" D&D (as opposed to "Advanced" D&D).

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is reflected in the adventures. At first level you're not guarding caravans or exterminating giant rats in a basement. You're wiping out tribes of kobolds and saving the town. You can survive dangerous fights, have four or five battles in rapid succession, and finish the day fighting a large dragon.
Keep on the Shadowfell begins with the PCs fighting eight kobolds. Eight!

Eight? Eight kobolds vs five first level PCs. Yup. Sounds about right by historical D&D standards.

In 3.0 Kobolds had a CR of 1/6. A CR1 encounter for four PCs would therefore be six kobolds. You really want to quibble about the difference between six kobolds vs four PCs and eight kobolds vs five PCs? In 3.5 kobolds were upgraded to a CR of 1/4. Only a slight difference.

So I guess you didn't like 3e then? And that the PCs were too heroic there too?

So let's look at the 2e Kobold. "Kobolds will ... think twice about attacking humans, elves, or dwarves unless the kobolds outnumber them by at least two to one. ... Should the kobolds be reduced to only a three to two ratio in their favor, they must make a morale check."

Eight Kobolds vs five PCs is almost exactly a three to two ratio in their favour. One single kobold falls and the kobolds are making morale checks. The game is openly telling you that Kobolds won't attack in numbers as small as eight to five.

I guess 2e is off the table. And 1e with it.

One day of adventuring, and they've killed 30 kobolds and saved Winterfell.

I believe last time I played Labyrinth Lord, four of us killed 20 goblins at first level. In one day. And how the hell many monsters are there in The Caves of Chaos? There goes Basic D&D.

So your objection appears to be not to the idea that you can kill numbers of kobolds that are only slightly different to historical levels (and should certainly be in reach of L2 characters) but to the idea that killing a few handfuls of kobolds should save Winterfell? Am I right?

Is this bad? Nope. Just depends on your game. Any campaign or story that started at a higher level in earlier editions would work fine in 4e.

As has been shown would most stories that started at first level. You can set the stakes differently in most editions. Your problem would appear to be the fact the kobolds are a threat to the town rather than the numbers of kobolds.

Dragonlance as an example, 1st instead of 7th.
I'm more curious about where the majority actually lies.

Seemingly where it has always lain. That a PC is a match for more than one kobold in a fight and you can do this several times per day.

 

[Obryn]

As masochistic as it sounds I think random, brutal deaths at first level are pretty important to the feel of D&D for me.
....
I don't know that new players nowadays need to be guaranteed an easy, fun first experience.

Simply put, I couldn't disagree more. I don't even know where to start, honestly.

Almost all new TTRPGers are going to have experience playing RPG videogames, many of which are quite difficult (Dark Souls anyone?). I think making sure that the DMing experience is smooth and easy is far more important than the playing experience when it comes to creating and sustaining new gaming groups.

The difference is that CRPGs have difficulty sliders, and are generally set to fairly moderate-low by default. Just like I'm suggesting for D&D. Also, you can save and reload, which is another substantial difference.

I couldnt disagree more. NPC classes are a positive to the game and to world building IMO and losing them would be losing an extremely valuable tool for fleshing out your game world.

Why?

Really - why? What worldbuilding goal is served by having farmers and blacksmiths use the same class/level restrictions as PCs?

-O

 

[Jester David]

Eight? Eight kobolds vs five first level PCs. Yup. Sounds about right by historical D&D standards.

In 3.0 Kobolds had a CR of 1/6. A CR1 encounter for four PCs would therefore be six kobolds. You really want to quibble about the difference between six kobolds vs four PCs and eight kobolds vs five PCs? In 3.5 kobolds were upgraded to a CR of 1/4. Only a slight difference.

So I guess you didn't like 3e then? And that the PCs were too heroic there too?

So let's look at the 2e Kobold. "Kobolds will ... think twice about attacking humans, elves, or dwarves unless the kobolds outnumber them by at least two to one. ... Should the kobolds be reduced to only a three to two ratio in their favor, they must make a morale check."

Eight Kobolds vs five PCs is almost exactly a three to two ratio in their favour. One single kobold falls and the kobolds are making morale checks. The game is openly telling you that Kobolds won't attack in numbers as small as eight to five.

I guess 2e is off the table. And 1e with it.

Your tone is unneeded. I almost walked away from the discussion rather than reply.

First off, the difference is one of encounter difficulty and balance. The 8 kobold fight was a same-level fight. In fact, at 475xp it was lower than the threshold and could have had an extra kobold minion brining the total to 9. Likewise, in Keep on the Shadowfell there's an 11 kobold fight that's also level 1 a couple encounters later.
Level 1 fights in 4e are not designed to challenge. The PCs are all but assumed to win, and potentially win without using daily resources and few healing surges. They're designed to be able to chug along and have three or four fights after. You're meant to go hard until Irontoooth.

While in 3e, it's 6 and 4 kobolds per fight in a harder even level fight that will consume 1/4 of the party's resources. But, in 3e, that math was always more skewed and it would likely burn more resources. They'll likely need to rest after one or two more fights at most.

In 2e this gets a little harder to compare as there was no encounter balance. But from story reasons, you get the impression kobolds like 2:1 odds so they can win, which implies it shouldn't be a fair fight. Not the easy odds of a 4e fight.

Plus in 3e and 2e kobolds are roughly one-hit wonders, not the elite forces that are 4e kobolds. While they have a greater chance of dropping a hero with a lucky strike, they're little more than minions themselves.
Putting a group of L1 4e PCs against L2 minion kobolds doing 3x damage would be similar. I still don't think 8 or even 10 would be a challenge.

 

[timASW]

Um... I think there's been a slight misunderstanding here.

Normally, the term "1e" is used to mean AD&D (as opposed to the 2nd edition of AD&D or "2e").

"Basic" D&D is usually abbreviated as "BD&D", or referred to by the (I think) author of the version: Holmes, Moldvay or Mentzer.

See this Wikipedia article for some additional details.

should have clarified. Mine was 2nd edition AD&D

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I had a longer answer, here is the resumee:

Kobolds over all editions only challenged the PC´s, if there were enough of them.

Maybe ADnD Kobolds had the best chances of overwhelming 1st level PCs...

 

[timASW]

Really - why? What worldbuilding goal is served by having farmers and blacksmiths use the same class/level restrictions as PCs?

-O

1. Unified mechanics for a start. If humanoid adventurers have levels then non-humanoid adventurers should t0o. But instead of learning how to fight they learned how to smith and farm.

2. Its a good, fair way to control NPC's and available resources. Why doesnt this small village have a blacksmith that can forge mithril? Well because thats a higher DC then the small town level 2 blacksmith can master.

3. Because sometimes PC's like to start, or inadvertantly start fights with random townsfolk. So there should be good rules for that which arent minion rules (which suck).

4. RP reasons. Sometimes its important to know how many ranks of some social skill an NPC has and just pulling a number out of your butt is unfair. Its a direct, glowing, invitation to railroading.


The unified mechanics is the most important to me though. Things should work the way they work and work that way all the time.