"Earned" Characters

This is in response to some thoughts I've seen in other threads.

As a DM, you're starting a new, 10th-level campaign. Perhaps the players will be taking on the roles of an experienced adventuring company, or an elite assassin squad, or the heads of various guilds, etc. The exact reason likely doesn't matter - you, as the DM, have decided that 10th-level is the appropriate place to start this campaign.

One of your players comes to you with a character he played in another campaign under a different DM that started at 1st-level and made it to 12th before the campaign ended. He'd saved versions of his character at each level, and selected the 10th-level version. He has equipment roughly equivalent to DMG recommended values and was created with the same point buy you've recommended.

Another of your players comes to you with a character concept he's tried before, but never at such a high level. He played the character in another DM's campaign that started at 1st-level and made it to 5th before the campaign ended. He's advanced his character to 10th-level, equipped him with roughly DMG-recommended levels of gear, and, when he created him, used the same point buy you've recommended.

Your third player comes to you with a brand new character based off of an idea he's always wanted to play, but has never had a chance to. He created him using the point buy you recommended and with roughly-DMG recommended levels of gear.

Are any of these characters more "legitimate" than the others? Why or why not?

EDIT:

I accidentally posted this in the Rules forum, so I reposted it here.

I'd like to add the following clarification, based on initial input:

1. Assume that, whatever home brew races, rules, etc., that you're using, the PCs meet that rule. (I.e., if there are no elves in your world, assume that the characters in examples 1 and 2 are not elves.)

2. Assume that, when I say "roughly-DMG recommended levels of gear" or something similar, I'm talking about within a very small margin of error. If the DMG says 10,000gp is recommended, the characters have something within 9,800gp and 10,200gp.

They are all equally legitimate if they fall within the standards you as the DM set down for the campaign. The two "previously played" Characters could just as easily have been used as "concepts" to build a Character within the standards you gave them.

Patryn of Elvenshae said:

Are any of these characters more "legitimate" than the others? Why or why not?

Click to expand...

No, they are all the same. The reason is because the DM started the campaign above 1st, so anything goes. No matter what you decide, you can always drum up a reason for that character. Personally, I would never do the second option and I'd express reservations about the 1st. I don't like to take levels off a character for really what amounts to IMO no reason. Since I normally DM, I'm used to making lots of characters and lots of storyline, so I'm not really hard-pressed to just have to use a specific character (concept).

I'd say "Make a new character to play in this campaign." So that leaves option #3.

That being said, I feel that option #1 is more legitimate, since it has been played from 0xp with no level skipping, etc.

Most of my campaigns begin at level one, and the rest are low level, always with new characters.

As a Dm the only thing I would look at are the Magic items. If player 1 had items that were found during adventuring and even out to level wealth they still may not be as good as 2 and 3 where they could buy items that matched their strength or addressed weaknesses. I would ask player 1 if he wanted to rethink his items giving him the same advantage as players 2 and 3. (Of course the same thing may be said of feats ...they tend to come out different as your playing than if you built all at once.) Other than that I think they are all equally legit characters.

On a side note since I run a homebrew I don't allow characters from another game to port straight over.

I would say that the 1st character would be the most legitimate... because the magic (& experience) "grew" with him. Rather then *poof* you're 10th. Go spend 49,000gp!


Mike

I would say all the methods are fine and equally valid, as long as you make sure they don't have any items that are really powerful, like ye old uber artifact which destroys time and space in an instant, saving only the user. As long as you check for that, you should be fine .

I think the most important thing though would be that the people with old characters will actually have a backstory and personality in their characters already, and that should help with the roleplaying alot, as well as them being familiar with their attack possibilites so they won't be like a deer in headlights when it's their turn.

I would say that the 1st character would be the most legitimate... because the magic (& experience) "grew" with him. Rather then *poof* you're 10th. Go spend 49,000gp!


Mike

None of them is more "legit" than any of the others. New campaign means all things are equal.

from a straight rules standpoint, the first character would most accuratly reflect the process of becoming level 10, since the wealth/growth was on a level by level basis. the second and third characters are basically the same thing - two characters who were created with 10th level in mind already.

I really think that none of the characters is more "legitimate" than any other, provided that the players do a good job with their roleplaying.