Does anybody else miss 1st L Characters

[Aramax]

It seems that every incarnation of what we play is full of power creep.I'd like to see real true 1st L chars again 4th has them w/ as much as 40 HP,
Pathfinder has them dealing huge amounts of damage.How often is ANY char made that does not have at least 1 18.When I had decided on switching away from 4th I searched the clones and settled on Pathfinder as a 4th(or maybe 10th)choice.

I know Im in the minority, but would love to see a cross between 1st and
3.x that returned a little humility to 1st leval char.I dont want to go back to MUs w 1 spell but I really need something toned down.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I know Im in the minority

How do you know that?

FWIW, if I were playing a system with powerful characters from the start, I would miss the lethality too. But I've used and created one that doesn't.

Hopefully, the designers will bring back the danger of low-level play. If you don't like it, start at 5th level.

 

[MarkChevallier]

I like weak 1st level characters and awesome 20th level characters. I like zero-to-hero, so I'm with you. And I liked having one lousy spell (or two lousy spells, in 3E) as a 1st level mage!

 

[Deadboy]

I wouldn't mind lower hit points at first, but I would hate Wizards without some sort of at will spell option so they don't have to resort to a crossbow (or sling, or whatever).

 

[Ormazd]

No. I don't miss it at all.

At GenCon last summer, I played in a Pathfinder game in which I was playing a bard. As the dungeon crawl developed, and I quickly found myself out of daily powers and with only a handful of hit points, my character chose the better part of valor and fled. It would have taken (at most) two hits to kill me, so melee combat was really not an option (not that I was very good at it, anyway), and I am not one who enjoys the tension of choosing the "right" moments to use my daily abilities. Obviously, they shouldn't be squandered on the first goblin that sticks its nose out, but not using the powers for several encounters for fear of not having them later is actually less fun than using them up too early (at least I get to use them).

Ultimately, it is not fun to run out of useful things to do and be forced to hide in the back or run away (or soak up valuable healing) to stand a chance of surviving.

It is perfectly easy to make a 1st-level 4e (or other edition) character feel threatened without restricting him to a handful of hit points and only a pair of cool things he can do before he has to run home for the rest of the day. If, as you (and others) say, you appreciate a more scaled back opening to your heroes' quests, such that they are fragile enough that they can be killed by a single swing of a sword, by all means, do so. I assume your campaigns are tailored to this sort of opening and have ways of handling these issues (or you go through a ton of characters, in a sort of Darwinian approach to role-playing). But please, don't encourage game developers to force us all to play that way. I argue that the default adventure in D&D is more along the lines of the dungeon crawl I mentioned above, that is not conducive to weak 1st level characters, than the kind of campaign that you are describing.

O

 

[Kaodi]

A while back I proposed that you could decide that the first " tier " of the game was a short one called the " Novice Tier " , with the default assumption would be starting at the next tier up, the " Veteran Tier " ( I thought Heroic should be the one after that ) .

 

[keterys]

The problem there is that logically speaking the novice tier should be _easier_ and less fraught with danger and resource management than a later tier, so that newbies can learn the ropes and not get turned off the game.

There's a real dissonance in goals there.

 

[MarkChevallier]

Ultimately, it is not fun to run out of useful things to do and be forced to hide in the back or run away (or soak up valuable healing) to stand a chance of surviving.

If, as you (and others) say, you appreciate a more scaled back opening to your heroes' quests, such that they are fragile enough that they can be killed by a single swing of a sword, by all means, do so. I assume your campaigns are tailored to this sort of opening and have ways of handling these issues (or you go through a ton of characters, in a sort of Darwinian approach to role-playing). But please, don't encourage game developers to force us all to play that way. I argue that the default adventure in D&D is more along the lines of the dungeon crawl I mentioned above, that is not conducive to weak 1st level characters, than the kind of campaign that you are describing.

Well, we can both get what we want. If a game is designed to allow for weak, fragile characters at first level, and for those characters to grow in strength over time, I can get what I want by starting campaigns at level 1 and you can get what you want by starting campaigns at level 4. Problem solved!

Even with fragile characters, I don't see that much death at low levels in games I play or run. I'm not aware of doing anything extraordinary to prevent them; I think you just play a low-level character differently and more carefully than you would a higher-level character.

 

[DonTadow]

1st level can last as long as you like if you throw out the xp system and let the party decide when they want to level. (which i believe should be an option obviously not in the core).

Pathfinder and 4th edition both have per encounter abilities at 1st level for most classes ( bards are not a good option at that level. But then again, ure playing a bard which is a gish class that isnt going to be powerful at any one thing at any level. The problem may come in the adventure you're playing.The problem is not in characters in either system, it's in challenge design and figuring out how to get it right. So the real problem is, figure out a way to design balanced encounters for a party.

 

[Aramax]

A while back I proposed that you could decide that the first " tier " of the game was a short one called the " Novice Tier " , with the default assumption would be starting at the next tier up, the " Veteran Tier " ( I thought Heroic should be the one after that ) .

The Idea of breaking L 1-3 into say 1-6 sounds awesome!