D&D 5E Everyone Starts at First Level

[the Jester]

So you have to pull punches to keep them alive? Isn't that the point, that the only way to keep a 1st level PC alive with a much higher level party is to either keep the away from combat or the DM has to pull punches to make sure he stays alive (such as not having powerful spells or creatures target him). So, again how is that fun for the person playing the PC? Either you do very little to nothing to help the party or you know that the DM is going easy to keep your character alive. Sounds like fun.

Have you read the rest of this thread?

The pcs choose their challenges. There isn't a 14th-level wizard around every corner in my campaign, nor are there a bunch of well-hidden ancient dragons. The pcs choose their challenges to a great extent. But if you look around for a while, you'll probably find a lot of threads wherein I declare that I'm a high-lethality, campaign-before-characters, no punches pulled kind of DM. So your characterization of me as keeping the low-level guys safe is absolutely false. If the pcs DO choose to face a foe, such as a dragon, who can annihilate half of the group in one breath, yeah, it may happen if the pcs don't take a smart approach.

And as far as the relevance of how long I've been running a game goes, it's relevant because I have made this style work- exactly the same style that I am discussing- literally for decades. That speaks to its viability. That is the ONLY reason it is relevant. But if you haven't had decades, or at least years, or hell, at least SOME experience with this playstyle, it means that I am experienced and qualified to speak to how it runs in play, and it's possible you're just theorycrafting.

 

[pkt77242]

Have you read the rest of this thread?

The pcs choose their challenges. There isn't a 14th-level wizard around every corner in my campaign, nor are there a bunch of well-hidden ancient dragons. The pcs choose their challenges to a great extent. But if you look around for a while, you'll probably find a lot of threads wherein I declare that I'm a high-lethality, campaign-before-characters, no punches pulled kind of DM. So your characterization of me as keeping the low-level guys safe is absolutely false. If the pcs DO choose to face a foe, such as a dragon, who can annihilate half of the group in one breath, yeah, it may happen if the pcs don't take a smart approach.

And as far as the relevance of how long I've been running a game goes, it's relevant because I have made this style work- exactly the same style that I am discussing- literally for decades. That speaks to its viability. That is the ONLY reason it is relevant. But if you haven't had decades, or at least years, or hell, at least SOME experience with this playstyle, it means that I am experienced and qualified to speak to how it runs in play, and it's possible you're just theorycrafting.

Played that way in 1E and the beginning of 2E before changing to where the new PC started a few levels below the current PCs so if the Party was 15th level the new PC would probably start around 12th or so (depending on a few different things).

The point I am trying to make is that by the numbers a 1st level character (or even a 2nd or 3rd level character) is much more likely to die when adventuring with much higher level characters which sets off a chain of a players characters dying (well at least that was my experience with 1E and 2E, can't say the same about 5E) and can lead to player frustration. You said earlier that "And it's not hard to avoid.

After all, it's not like I have decades of experience running a game this way or anything."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ne-Starts-at-First-Level/page10#ixzz3F6Dncv1k

I took that to mean that if it is easy to avoid that the DM is purposefully avoiding the 1st level PC with AoEs etc that would easily kill the player as that is what we were discussing? Are you now saying that you don't do that? Did I interpret it wrong?

I get that you do a high lethality campaign but do you treat the 1st level characters in a high level party different? or are they all treated the same?

 

[Boarstorm]

I feel like much of the resistance to this idea comes from players steeped in the 3E/4E mindset (which is not a bad thing!). It represents a different style of play and one which would, frankly, be miserable in those editions. (IMO, of course).

With 5E, it doesn't have to be. I find that exciting. Other playstyles are always welcome, but I'm glad this one is also supported.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This topic would be much easier to have a conversation around if one side didn't keep saying things like "that's stupid/worthless/a dick move to do it your way."

Because ultimately, lots of people have done it both ways (starting at level 1 and starting at the same level) and it obviously works or so many people wouldn't keep doing it. I also feel it's a bit disingenuous to characterize starting at level 1 like some lengthy period of torture. PCs are only at level 1 for a very short amount of time, especially when with a higher level party.

 

[the Jester]

Okay, I totally get how it could work (albeit with a lot of tender loving DM attention and care.) The question for me is "why do I want to do this?" Or heck, "why is this a good idea?" It seems unrealistic on a narrative level; when the high-level grifters on Leverage lost Sophie for a season, they brought in an experienced ex-CIA grifter, not a neophyte, for example. And if your company has a mid-level manager quit, they don't then hire a high school intern for the same job. I have trouble understanding why any group of professionals would bring on anyone but someone of their own caliber to replace a position.

First, I appreciate your chiming in with this question- it's entirely valid. My answer here refers to my upcoming 5e game plans, since that's the game being discussed, and I freely admit that, in a game with a different style, it becomes harder to justify. However, let's keep in mind that not every professional manager/soldier/anything, really, is competent. Heck, I've gone from having a great manager who knew what he was doing to having a guy who was scared to be on the work floor or interact with customers, and who didn't know how to do anything else that his job entailed other than figuring out the numbers for labor and the like. So just because someone seems to be a high-level, experienced adventurer, that doesn't necessarily mean that he actually is.

Anyhow. So about game style- the campaign will be largely urban, with lots of politicking and factions and interaction-type stuff going on. The party won't even be a party per se, but rather a loose group of pcs who occasionally meet up to adventure for one reason or another.

I plan on asking each player, upon generating a pc, to designate an npc with whom she has a positive connection, an npc with whom she has a negative connection and a connection to another pc, along with the nature of those connections (subject to a veto from the other pc in question; I wouldn't let one player force another to be his character's lover or father, for instance!).

So as far as the integration of the low-level pc with the rest goes, maybe the low-level pc is the one who brings the adventure hook. Maybe she comes along because the faction that she and another pc belong to sends her along. Maybe she tags along with her hero (another pc) regardless of that pc's wishes. Maybe they are at a tavern and the adventure happens right there in the tap room. There are tons and tons of ways for the party assembly to work, especially given that "the party" is going to be far less consistent, and far more loosely constructed, than most D&D parties.

As I've stated a couple of times upthread, I'm anticipating a degree of 'troupe style' play, where everyone eventually has multiple pcs and picks 'the right one for the job' for each adventure.

And that illogic kind of grates at me, completely aside from any mechanical concerns. The DM is imposing a penalty on the whole party (who has just had its effectiveness lowered, even while they have to babysit an extremely fragile fledgling adventurer) in addition to the 1st level hero's player.

I think the style of play at work here will handle this. After all, if it's too rough on the low-level pc, the other players can bust out some of their own low-level guys. And with an amorphous party that keeps shifting composition from adventure to adventure, there's lot of room available for different pc strengths to come out and mix with different adventure needs. Also, with lots of interaction-based encounters, there's another factor at play. Higher level pcs tend to be fairly well-known. Sometimes you need the guy nobody knows to sneak into the noble house's kitchen unnoticed, or to masquerade as a servant at the ball to keep an eye on the assassin's target, or to join up with the bad guys as a new recruit or whatever. So sometimes, and I'll totally grant that this is a corner case, being low-level can actually give you an edge.

Any thoughts, Jester? Presumably the rewards for you are greater than these drawbacks, or else you wouldn't do it, but I'm having trouble grasping the real benefit to the game.

As a player, I always find the game more rewarding if I start at first level. I find that I know my pc better, I feel a more organic sense of growth, I get a much stronger sense of achievement from becoming higher level, etc.

As a DM, I find that it helps make high-level pcs feel special, like you've really earned your spurs. It avoids the problem of "too many high level guys running around that you've never heard of", especially in a setting that is essentially a "One Last Remaining Point of Light" kind of setup (which is basically what I am using). It also helps model the "young hunters go out with the veteran to learn from him" thing that is so common in most cultures (after all, who teaches the new hunter to hunt? --The old grizzled veteran hunter!). I put a great deal of stock in my campaign world's internal consistency. If almost everyone is low-level, but every time there is a pc death, there just happens to be the perfect high-level replacement handy, it strains my credulity.

(Also, as was pointed out upthread- and I didn't even consider this until it was- at mid to high levels, 5e pcs can often treat death as little more than a speed bump. So I don't think I'll see a lot of "18th level, 18th level, 18th level and 2nd level" groups. That is orthogonal to my overall point, but it does add to my conviction that ES@1st can work pretty well.)

Thank you for the courteous reply, PCat! I appreciate it. You set a great example of polite disagreement (or at least questioning).

 

[the Jester]

You said earlier that "And it's not hard to avoid.

After all, it's not like I have decades of experience running a game this way or anything."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ne-Starts-at-First-Level/page10#ixzz3F6Dncv1k

I took that to mean that if it is easy to avoid that the DM is purposefully avoiding the 1st level PC with AoEs etc that would easily kill the player as that is what we were discussing? Are you now saying that you don't do that? Did I interpret it wrong?

I get that you do a high lethality campaign but do you treat the 1st level characters in a high level party different? or are they all treated the same?

I treat them all the same. In practice, though, this means that (for instance) monsters tend to target the higher level pcs because they are more threatening and dealing out more damage. This certainly doesn't always hold true, but it usually does. As for area of effects, the low-level pcs are much more likely to be killed by them, yes, but only if they are targeted by them. In my experience, a lot of the difference comes from the fact that low-level pcs know that they are fragile, and will make good use of positioning, distance and cover. Combined with the fact that they are less of a threat, that makes them even less inviting as targets.

Of course, some low-level pcs just rush in, and that's fine. Boldness may be rewarded with success, if the dice, luck and situation favor the pc. It may be rewarded with death, if (for instance) a first-level guy charges alone into a room with two balors and five hezrou. I'm okay with that; heck, even a high-level pc rushing alone into that room is practicing just about the exact opposite of smart play, and I have no problem with the logical result being death. But with a little savvy and judgment, it certainly doesn't have to be- that lone rusher could instead flee, stay in the back, fire a missile, cast a spell, wait until someone else is in the room, heck, just about anything.

Even with all that, there are the occasional ambushes, surprise attacks, etc. that begin with dragon breath or whatever. I strive to be fair about these things- I try to avoid having a scenario like that come up if it's an instantly-dead-if-you-make-your-save situation for the low level guy. If it's the logical repercussion of party actions, though, then it happens. I might give the low-level guy some kind of out- maybe he's off pooping in the woods when the part camp is breathed on or something- but only if it seems credible. If it's the result of the party's actions, though, it's not exactly my place to overrule what happens. (This is a weird instance where my attitude about DMing probably significantly overlaps with the more recent approach of giving significant narrative control to the players in a very strange way.)

I hope that clarifies what I meant.

This topic would be much easier to have a conversation around if one side didn't keep saying things like "that's stupid/worthless/a dick move to do it your way."

True dat!

 

[jrowland]

I think most of this ground has been covered, but I am too lazy to read the whole thread.

First Caveat: You have to be using XP. If you use narrative leveling, a lot of what follows is moot

At higher levels, players often "choose" to seek Raise Dead rather than bring in a new character, so keep Raise Dead rules in mind as well. 2 or more levels usually guarantees a Raise Dead option, so you'll have to tighten those if you don't want that to be the go to.

As noted elsewhere, 1st level with a 10th level party means basically a level raise after every encounter until about 1/2 the way to the rest of the group, then things slow. So starting more than 1/2 levels than the rest of the party is often an exercise in character advancement than any real contribution.

In a long campaign I usually give one Deus Ex Machina...at any time a player may choose that when a character has died, didn't actually die. This is a freebie. My long time players know this and usually hoard this until later levels. They feel fine re-rolling low levels but at higher levels they appreciate the "out". Newbies to the game often like to use it early. If the freebie isn't used, then they must create a character 1 level lower than the lowest surviving member for every character death the player has had, including the Freebie! (ie 3 deaths and you are rolling another new character? start at 3 levels lower then the lowest survivor). For us it works, Dieing kinda sux, but isn't all that bad, especially if you really want to play a new character, and you get a freebie anyway, so if it is just too sad to die, here's a free out. That said, Raise Dead requirements in my games are a bit more difficult with quest components (ie a geas is placed on the raised character by the deity of the cleric who raised...divine level geas, so no way to remove). Its only a bit more difficult in that questing is fun, but the DM (me) gets to send you in a direction you may not want/enjoy going.

 

[Piratecat]

Awesome! Thanks for the explanation. I get it. I'm not sure I'd do it, myself (I'd be more likely to tell the player "you can bring in a character of any level from 1st to X, your choice"), but I get it.

I really agree with you about the organic sense of growth, and the importance of rank to players who have worked their way up. The "young hunters go out with the veterans" thing is fascinating.

The one time we did this, we had a 1st lvl PC apprenticed to one particular PC in the party, technically as a punishment and to teach him some responsibility. It worked quite well because the player had insisted on being 1st level. I did have to pull a punch or two, though, letting other heroes give the apprentice full cover vs fireballs by throwing themselves on the low-lvl PC (a ruling that no one complained about, even if it felt a little weird to me.)

 

[KarinsDad]

Decades of experience has shown me that this is utterly untrue. Low-level characters can and have contributed meaningfully to a party in combat. Will the high-level guy be the team's MVP much of the time in combat? Sure. Will he necessarily be the MVP every time? No. And there's plenty of non-combat in the game (at least in my game) anyhow.

I have to wonder if that is decades of experience being the low guy on the totem pole, or being the DM?

I understand that there are different play styles. I get it. And I wish you all the best with your game.

But what I don't understand is how you think that nearly every new player that comes to your table wants to take on the role of Nodwick.

You state that it is not punitive, but my experience with it and common sense seems to dictate that it will be perceived by some players as being punitive (or at least unnecessarily harsh). My experience says that new younger players from the Millennial and Z generations will flock away from D&D if this is how the older generation treats them.

Now granted, you might level up that PC very quickly, course that kind of defeats the purpose of them starting at first level and even with the normal rules, they will be leveling faster than other PCs leveled (because they are in a higher level party, assuming the DM does not divide XP by levels which is something done in the past by some DMs for mixed level parties).


Bringing in a first level henchmen? Sure. Go for it. That henchmen is not a PC, hence, a player does not have to slog through one or two years of gaming, just to catch up (or never catch up). Bounded accuracy is great for henchmen.

For a living person playing a PC? Yeah, not buying it. Been there. Done that. Burned the tshirt.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Starting all PCs at 1st level (really mixing 1st level PCs with PCs with 3 or more level jumps on them) doesn't make much thematic sense to me. It's not like if the Navy Seals lose a man during a mission they return to base and grab some teenager off the street, throw him a gun, and begin planning their next raid.

On a separate semi-related note, I always like to start my PC's at 2nd level to allow for multiclassing. I hate 1st level rogues who, over the course of one adventure suddenly develop wizard powers it took the (probably more intelligent) party wizard an entire backstory to accomplish. I'd pefer the rogue/mage be a rogue/mage from the beginning of the campaign.