Zero-level Adventuring

[not-so-newguy]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but you might want look at the adventure Treasure Hunt. Although it gives away waaaay too much treasure, there are some great encounters you might be able to use. Particularly in the abandoned temple, from what I can recall. For a 0 level adventure, there is a lot of combat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Blue, level 1PCs in 5e do have a full class. It’s loterally in the title and what is listed on your character sheet. What you get at level 3 (or 2 in some cases) is a subclass. But the full class is determined at level 1

Also, if you think 0 level is redundant, then I suggest you reread some of the threads we’ve had, or follow the link I provided above. Since people have already created rules for how to do 0 level, it very much isn’t redundant. In fact, 5e gives so much to level 1 characters, that creating rules for 0 level was very easy.

 

[Seramus]

Seems like less fun than 1st level characters.
1st Level is already tragically low on resources and lethal.
But go for it, if that is more fun for you and your group!

 

[Horwath]

As mentioned:

Race and background bonuses only.

6Hp + con mod

d6 hit die,

wizard armor and weapon proficiencies

proficiency bonus +1

 

[MNblockhead]

Since this was started to break the discussion off from the background instead of feat discussion, I'll repost my response here:

I love level-0 games. I use the Dungeon Crawl Classics zero-level funnel and apply to 5e. Basically, each player gets four zero-level characters. The idea is that most of the characters are going to die. Typically, the first adventure will either be a group of brave non-adventurers brought together by some event that would lead a fairly large group to come together to address, e.g.:

• A posse is put together to hunt down some baddies, free someone captured from the village, exact justice on someone who wronged the people of the village, etc.
• A sink hole appeared below Abe's house, and Abe and his house fell into some ancient ruins that nobody knew were located under his farm. A brave group goes to investigate and hopefully save Abe.
• A group of people of all walks of life is enjoying a traveling circus, which is actually a group of cultist who plans to perform dark rituals and human sacrifices.

You get the idea. In a four-player game, there will be 12 characters, in a 6 player game there will be 24, so it needs to be a scenario where that will work. It won't be a stealth job. The idea is that most of them are going to die. Of those that survive, you select one and choose a class.

It works well because it gives an origin story to the party that the players play an active role in making. It works best as part of a session zero so that nobody is disappointed if they were expected to come in with a 1st level character with a rich backstory written up and expecting to have plot armor protecting their precious, single character.

I'm going to be using this for my next campaign and here is how I am thinking of doing it:

I will schedule an 8-hour chunk of time for session-0 discussion, character creation, a level-0 game, lunch, and general hanging out together.

Session 0 will be maybe an hour or two. Everyone will be given a sheet of paper that is split into four sections. Each section will have a form for basic stats and equipment. All players will create four characters. Stats will be based on standard array, because it is quick and helps prevent players from getting too attached to their characters at this time. Next everyone selects one background for each of their four characters and adjusts stats, proficiencies, skills, and equipment accordingly. That's it. Noboby is allowed to write up any background for their characters at this time. That is done as part of the level-0 game.

Next, I run a four-hour introductory adventure to the campaign setting. My next campaign will the be the 5e conversion of Rappan Atthuk, which was recently Kickstarted by Frog God Games. For this adventure, I plan to have the party as members of a merchant's caravan travelling along the Sea Coast Road on their way to Felkor's Ferry. There will be a some small events to set the scene and one major encounter/event that will be the party-defining event to kick things off. It is up to the players to decide why each of their four characters is travelling to Felkor's Ferry and how the events shape the motivations of the surviving character they choose to continue with.

After the adventure, each player selects a surviving character and selects a class for it. This will be a group exercise.

 

[Tallifer]

I first encountered Level 0 games back in the early 1980s. No spells, no wealth, no skills, 1 or 2 HP: you went and explored a bit and soon got to 1st level.

However, it was not a group adventure, but rather a thing we did individually with the dungeon master like a session 0, or instead of using a background story.

I enjoyed it very much.

 

[Li Shenron]

1. How do you start a zero-level campaign?
2. How does your no-level campaign run?
3. How do characters get to 1st level?
4. What are the pros, cons, and/or caveats?

Well I always start at level 1 but it should be fine to give starting PCs something less. Race + background is a nice idea but I would still start with +2 proficiency bonus so that the background fully matters.

3. Start at negative XP, for example -500 or whatever, depending on how long you want to stay at level 0.

4. The only real drawback IMO is low HP. I don't usually feel safe until level 3 or so, therefore I would not want to start with even less HP. Maybe go with 4+Con or 6+Con, but not 1d4.

 

[Blue]

You keep mentioning this point. yes, the characters are "apprentice adventurers". However, you seem to be taking this to indicate that the characters are completely ignorant as to the aspects of their class.

That is in fact not at all what I said here's the relevant quotes from both of my comments, with some bolding.

First post:

It's not until level 3 where you really even fully have your class, and you're not of heroic stature until level 5.

Second post:

All of that said, I do soften my comment some. 1st level 5e characters are apprentices - they don't have full class until usually 3rd when they pick up their subclass. Levels 1-4 are the apprentice tier. If you want to play pre-teens who have not even started shaping towards a career then I could see 0th level.

I hope it's pretty clear that they do get some of their class, and that the only option I considered no-class-at-all was 0th. I hope that clears up that point.

 

[Blue]

I don't think you'd have to be younger than 13 before you start taking a class (and that seems to ignore the various lifespans of races.), especially since 5e uses backgrounds such as Gladiator or Pirate. If those are your backgrounds before taking a class, you probably weren't preteen. Page126 states, "Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring?" If an apprentice adventurer starts at level 1 with 0 xp, then she could have been a Mercenary Veteran.

I agree with you, I was generalizing to pre-teen because by 13 in a medieval society you're likely already either apprenticed or doing your family's work. It was a cut-off that after that it wasn't likely for the general populous. Of course, any setting could differ, or there could be people who are exceptions.

As a side note in regards to racial lifespan, if you read the age descriptions in the PHB, for the most part the races have been normalized for how fast they physically mature (unlike previous editions). Even elves physically mature at the same rate as humans. The outliers are dragonborn, who mature a lot faster, and orcs who mature a bit faster.

The age of "adulthood" varies, but I've seem (and played) plenty of pre-adult characters. And of course the lifespans are all over the place.

 

[Staccat0]

In an edition like 4e, where 1st level characters are already heroic, the idea of 0th level character can really shine. However in 5e, many of the concepts of 0th level have already been incorporated into the first two levels. It's not until level 3 where you really even fully have your class, and you're not of heroic stature until level 5. Even the description of the first tier (levels 1-4) is "apprentice adventurers" (PHB pg 15).

In other words, I think the concept of 0th level character can be a great fit depending on the experience you want to project, but that it's redundant in 5e because it's already be factored in to some degree.

I can appreciate this POV but in the big wide world of D&D and it’s many clones a lvl 1 pc in 5e is still pretty durable. It’s easier to get a TPK than it used to be but PCs are still hunting monsters for sport.

That said, a lot of that is just DMing. If you stop balancing encounters with the assumption that the PCs should survive the majority of punch-ups at level 1 they will start to play a bit more like old school PCs... so I dunno. I can see it both ways.