D&D 5E Everyone Starts at First Level

[the Jester]

From the very earliest days of my gaming career, from way back in the pre-1e Basic days, I always had new pcs begin at first level. Your party is wandering along and you get eaten by a giant spider/turned to green slime/choked to death on yellow mold? Make a new first level pc. Doesn't matter what everyone else's level is; the new guy, always, starts at the start.

(There was one noteworthy exception- if I ran a one-shot adventure or module, I'd let the pcs start at whatever level was appropriate to the adventure. So, if I ran Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, everyone starts at level 8-12. But I'm talking about campaign play here.)

I maintained this through Basic, 1e and 2e. I only changed when we hit about 4th level in 3.0, when it became apparent that this approach was utterly unworkable in 3e. The numbers disparities were too great; a 1st level pc simply couldn't survive, much less keep up, with a higher-level group. This held true through 3e and 4e.

5e, though, looks like it will support mixed-level play pretty well. The math is flattened/constrained enough that a low-level pc can contribute to a higher-level party, even if he or she can't really take a hit. But clever play, a good mix of foes including low-level enemies (which can still be relevant to a higher-level group of pcs) and the bounded accuracy will really enable me to bring back one of my favorite playstyle elements.

I'm sure that a lot of you guys are asploding with nope right now, and that's fine. I get that "everyone starts at 1st" isn't for everyone. But I am totally excited that 5e will re-enable it. I feel like it also re-enables larger, troupe-style play (either larger groups of players or players with multiple characters) by virtue of it being so fast, especially in combat.

So here's a toast to 5e re-enabling a lot of classic playstyle elements!

 

[Sacrosanct]

My experiences and assumptions about how 5e handles mixed level parties mirrors yours. I've been saying for a while now that bounded accuracy doesn't just mean lower level monsters stay viable longer, but that lower level PCs do too.

 

[Paraxis]

Yeah not for me, but thats fine glad it works for you.

I don't do different levels or xp amounts, if you are new to the campaign or just bringing in a replacement character you are the same level as everyone else.

I would imagine revivify (aka combat rez) will be a very popular spell in your campaigns.

 

[Mercurius]

In 4E I took the approach that when a character died, the player made a new character that was at the lowest level and minimum experience points of the lowest level member of the party.

But I've always preferred characters starting at 1st level - there is just something more satisfying about it, about working your way up. So when I start a 5E campaign in January, I will be taking your approach - as I agree with you that 5E enables this more fully than previous editions.

 

[Li Shenron]

I had the same idea.

In 3e I've always had some policy about new PCs starting e.g. at the lowest party level, but clearly starting at 1st when everybody else was already a few levels higher wasn't feasible.

Bounded accuracy made me wonder if we can once again let newcomers start at 1st, but perhaps I'm so used to the 3e mechanics, that I am still afraid to try... attacks, saves and checks should be ok, but I am not sure about HP and damage. At least the range of different PC levels could be larger than before, but there is probably a limit anyway.

 

[Murkmoldiev]

I hold to this as well and have in every edition.

Ive even had three 1st level characters adventuring with a 24th level character in a 3.5 game.
The 1st level Wizard wandered off by himself and touched a Lichs spellbook and all the 24th level guy found of him was part of a smoking sock. But the ones who survived got to go up 3 levels .

I do a xp system that gives you a % of XP needed for your next level.
We currently have a 7th level a 6th level a 5th level and a 1st level.
In the last game the 7th got 20 % the 6th 25 % the 5th 30 % and the 1st 100 % .
I graphed out the XP curve and try to stick to that .

5th ed is the best for this though it is much eaiser for 1st levs to adventure with 7th levs.
The Main difference is HP and powers. But participation and ability to help and do things with skills and tools is high.

There is no much the poor 3.5 1st level guy could do Vrs the DC 30s of a 3.5 adventure.

 

[Authweight]

In my campaign I'm planning on doing something close to this (everyone will start at level 3 no matter what), but I also plan on giving everyone double XP if anyone in the party is higher level than them and triple if they are the lowest overall. The flavor is that they learn much faster with experienced people around to teach them. With that amount of bonus, new characters should be able to catch up pretty quickly.

If the party average gets to be around 7 or so, I'll probably up the starting level for new characters so they aren't so terribly behind. That will be a bit before I need to deal with, though.

 

[Paraxis]

What are the Pro's of doing this?

I can clearly remember a few Con's from back in the good old days.

• 1st level PC sits in the back during any dangerous situation twidling thumbs for multiple game sessions
• 1st level PC gets killed by any area effect attack on the party, doesn't matter if he saves.
• Either the DM takes it easy on the new PC or he pretty much just dies to the higher level threats.
• The new PC levels up pretty fast anyway from the huge amounts of XP, so why bother.

 

[Tormyr]

This is a really interesting idea. I am concerned though that the 1st-level character will die repeatedly. 1 fireball, 1 multiattack, etc. will kill a 1st level character outright. Now at higher level play (even 5th level) it only takes 1 encounter to go up a level or more, but getting there could be dicey. Even a fifth level character would be scared with a 15th-level party.

This also might not work as well for a converted adventure path. The XP thresholds don't seem to really line up between 3.5 and 5e, and I have gone to just levelling up the party twice per chapter. Although letting the character level up once per session until they catch up with everyone else might work (we do quite a bit in our sessions).

I could see this making players more tentative both because of dying in the first place and starting over as well as being fragile compared to the rest of the party. Interesting idea though. I might incorporate it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I suspect you should be able to start new PCs at 1st level without there being a big number of issues... although not because of the flattened math necessarily, but because of how the XP advancement chart was written. *That'll* be what helps your new characters to survive.

There is a marked difference between the XP proportions between levels 1-5 and all the levels after that. You need triple the XP to go from level 2 to 3 (from 300 to 900), and more than double the XP to go from 3 to 4 (900 to 2700), 4 to 5 (2700 to 6500), and 5 to 6 (6500 to 14,000). After that... the amount of XP needed to go up in level is always less than double, and in fact exceedingly small at later levels in comparison to the XP already earned.

This allows new 1st level characters to catch up to their higher brethren quickly to at least level 6. If you have a party of newly fresh 5th level characters (6500 XP), a new 1st level PC will get all the way to 5th level before the party dings 6th (assuming of course equal distribution of XP to all characters).

Now sure, once the new PC reaches 5th level they won't catch up to their higher-level brethren as fast after that. A 10th level party (64,000 xp) will ding 11th after a gain of 21,000 more, and thus the new PC would be 6th. Dinging 12th takes another 15,000, making the new PC 8th level (at 36,000 XP). After that, the new PC will always remain probably four to three levels behind the party. But that probably isn't going to cause that much of an issue at that point, due to the bounded accuracy as was said.

It's those first five levels the new characters fly through to catch up with the others that will allow your plan to probably work out okay in the end.