Before I respond to EzekielRaiden's post, I want to re-emphasize that playstyle differences between groups exist. In four and a half hours of play last week, my group arranged a diversion (splitting off the NPCs) to escape from entrapment by hostile forces in the cave where they were resting, snuck through six miles of enemy territory on foot (shooting down an enemy flying ape who was about to reveal their position), got caught out in the open by some more hostile forces, effectively surrendered to those hostile forces and then found out that they're not bloodthirsty just isolationist (enforcing a quarantine in the face of a threat) and had a long conversation with the hostile Drakons and then got sternly escorted back to neutral territory, went to talk to a "friendly"-ish vampire and received some crucial intelligence made them finally realize that the individual who gave them their quest in the first place is probably the real bad guy (death slaad). Then they spent some time discussing with each other whether to raise some zombies, went back to the Enkidu enclave where they got their quest--along the way they met a triceratops and the barbarian spent some time trying to domesticate it--and almost got arrested by Enkidu guards but managed to run away, and went looking for some friendly NPCs whom they want to help them unmask and kill the death slaad, but found them in jail. The wizard snuck into the jail and used his familiar to deliver a Bestow Curse on one guard to give him a severe case of diarrhea (he blurted something out to his buddy and then quickly waddled stiffly out of the room) and then ambushed the other guard from behind while he was laughing at his buddy's plight. And... that's where the session ended.
The session was unusually combat-light in that there were, I think, only 4 attack rolls made in the whole session, and the only other combat roll made was initiative to see if the arrested guards would get an attack of opportunity on the wizard before he managed to vanish into the crowd. In this session, character level played almost no role at all--the 1st level guy
[edit: oops, he is 3rd level now] didn't contribute much but that wasn't because he was first level so much as because he wanted to dig a hole and set traps while the other guys were busy surrendering and then having a conversation. (Eventually he wandered over but still didn't have that much to say to the Drakons.) It might have mattered a little if a 20th level Gandalf had been along in that Gandalf would have been able to wipe out the Drakons instead of surrendering to them, which would have altered subsequent play, but given the way things actually played out, combat ability didn't even matter this session. (I.e. the only effect combat prowess had was latent.)
I'm amazed BTW when people talk about having introducing PCs, then having 6 fights and a diplomatic negotiation in three hours of play. Either you guys enforce ruthless time limits, or your players don't like to explore and talk to each other nearly as much as mine do.
[Edit: and maybe smaller combats?] Did I mention that we spent twenty minutes trying futilely to tame a triceratops last session?
Now to address EzekielRaiden:
He's a human (though could be sold as a half-elf, what with being descended from Elros). If we presume the default array, he started at level 1 with 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9. (This would be easier if he'd rolled lucky, or used point buy, but we'll stick with it for now). Presuming he put his best scores as Dex, Cha, Int, he could have 18 Dex at level 4, and 18 Cha by level 12 (and be partway to 18 Int, too). I figured he wasn't really pushing Int though, and focusing only on Dex/Cha. If he had rolled even moderately lucky (that is, done more than slightly better than the array, which is the "expected value" for rolling), he could potentially have all three 18s, or one 20 and one 18, since he'd have a total of +6 stat points to distribute. (For example, if he rolled 16, 15 as his highest two stats, plus the human bonus for 17, 16, he'd have more than enough points to be 20, 18 at level 14.) Meanwhile, Gandalf--even with the array--easily has 20 Int and 20 of whatever one other stat he wants, since everyone gets a total of +10 stat points to distribute (except Fighters, who get 14; if Aragorn is built as a Fighter instead, he could absolutely have two 20s by level 14, regardless of method used, and possibly a 16 in a third stat if he rolled well.)
There's pretty much no way I'll be able to actually check an MM, so I'll have to take your word for it. When the free rules include three threats, of challenge levels not-inappropriate for first- or second-level characters to face, that a first-level character can't possibly hit (on average) more than 40% of the time if they rolled lucky (or picked highly synergistic race/class options), I'm not particularly impressed with the claim that a sub-level-3 character can adventure alongside a higher-than-12 character and "contribute meaningfully."
Sadly, I haven't played tabletop anything for a good three months, and no D&D for over a year--lack of group, moving, schedule conflicts, etc. So I haven't actually seen either way. What I can do, though, is look at to-hit values and damage values, and consider the reports I've heard. Admittedly, people with "extreme" situations are more likely to mention something, but I've heard a lot of complaints about TPKs in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure because of the...Redbrand Thugs, I think? And the fight you're apparently supposed to run away from (a half-dragon, IIRC?) where that is poorly telegraphed.
As for "quite hard" to kill PCs without trying--when they're at least level 3, sure, it's not trivially easy to kill people anymore. But for a level 1 or level 2 character, even with a +2 Con and d8 hit dice (since the Hobbits are pretty clearly not Fighters, Rangers, or Paladins), they only have 10 HP at level 1 and ~17 at level 2. A couple of hobgoblins, which I'd call decent approximation of Uruk-hai, can hit for 1d8+2d6+1, on average 4.5+7+1 = 12.5. A lucky crit (8+12+1 = 21) kills a first-level character outright, no death saves at all (-11 HP is greater than the total), and drops a fresh second-level character to Dying. Two below-average hits puts a second-level character at Dying; a slightly above-average hit on a Dying second-level character is also instant death (17+ damage happens ~12% of the time, before counting crits).
The hobgoblin is a CR 1/2 creature. Two of them are worth 200 XP; since there are two, the difficulty multiplier is x2. So the "fight difficulty" is 400 XP. This is exactly the threshold for a "medium" encounter for four level 2 characters, and exactly the deadly threshold for four level 1 characters. I think it is thus fair to say that facing off against a mere two Hobgoblins/"Uruk-hai" is "deadly" for the 1st-level people, and very dangerous for the 2nd-level people, while being a breeze for a 20th-level person and not particularly challenging for the 14th-level person.
If the hobbits were at least level 3, which is the "this is where things change" point I've been using this whole time, then a pair of hobgoblins ceases to be super duper dangerous. I can pretty easily buy the idea that many challenges are also much less scary at that point--not non-lethal, to be sure, but not a meatgrinder either. They'd also have all their specialization stuff squared away by that point, so they'll have all the basic tools 5e gives them (more or less) for interacting with the world, whether combatively or skillfully.
Again: I am not trying to say that 5e can't accomodate a spread of character levels. It absolutely can. I just think your "some level 1 and 2 alongside level 20" example is hyperbolic to the point of not actually supporting your argument. If, instead, it had been level 3-4 hobbits alongside a level 7 Boromir, level 10 Aragorn, and level 14 Gandalf? I could buy it. It'd still be too wonky *for my tastes,* but the group could make it work, without "coddling" the hobbits and without throwing them headfirst into lethal danger.
[sblock=Digression about 4e]I am, however, also saying that if you adjust the level range for the altered numerical scaling, 4e and 5e don't actually accommodate THAT much of a different range. In 5e, it is "best" (in the sense of "everyone is damn close to the same footing") to have a range of +/- 2 (range of 4) levels, or as I said before, "everyone within 4 levels of each other." The first two levels are excluded from this, because they are so squishy and have fewer tools (sometimes far fewer) regardless of what "pillar" you look at. If you're comfortable with some people lagging behind noticeably, but not dramatically, then you can double that range to +/- 4 (range of 8; again, excluding levels 1 and 2). Since 5e scales about half as fast as 4e, its ranges should be about twice as big--and lo and behold, 4e is pretty much identical for characters that are all within +/- 1 (range of 2) level of their average, and can work (though will have some noticeable-but-not-dramatic hiccups) for +/- 2 levels. And as I've noted with DCs, the half-level bonus in 4e means tasks that had previously been impossible become quite achieveable. (If you look at "tasks that are very hard for a particular level," then non-specialists do fall behind, but the world is not typically scaled to fit the character, so that's not as important to me IMO.)[/sblock]
Believe it or not? This is one of the very few mechanical structures taken precisely as-is from 4e. Death saves are how dying works there. (Minor caveat: I don't *think* 4e had "massive damage = instant death" rules, but it might have, possibly as a later option.)
1.) RE: Aragorn. If he doesn't pump Int, then you can't really object to my not estimating Aragorn's Nature skill at +10. In that case, even my estimated +8 was over-generous. It would be a waste of time to argue over whether Aragorn rolls lucky on his stats, whether he pumps Str for his broadsword as well as Dex for his bow, how much he pumps Dex, etc. The point is that if you spend a minute thinking about it, you'll quickly see that there are things that a low-level Hobbit can contribute on the skill side of the game (thieves' tool proficiency? Disguise kit?) because Aragorn and Gandalf and Boromir will
not have everything covered between them all, especially if they're all paying the skill tax of taking skills useful for combat like Stealth and Perception. Now, maybe combat is the only thing that matters in your game, but as you can see from my game narration, it's not the only thing that matters in mine. If yours is all-combat, that's a playstyle difference, and it exacerbates power disparities because in combat there is usually only one possible goal (kill the enemy) and all
effective roads to that goal are equally acceptable, which is not true in diplomatic or social negotiations.
2.) Don't get too hung up on the differences between first level and third level. When I introduced the notional party, I said,
You could have a 20th level Gandalf, a 14th level Aragorn, an 11th level Boromir, and a couple of 1st through 3rd level Hobbits in the party, and they'd all be able to contribute meaningfully.
and yes, I included 3rd level in that range precisely because claiming that exclusively first-level Hobbits in the party would be a much stronger claim that would require caveats about "as long as there's not too much combat." But I want you to also think about the implications of the math you did. A first-level hobbit can be killed outright by an Uruk-hai,
if he's in melee with the Uruk-hais (so the Uruk-hai gets martial advantage)
and the Uruk-hai is attacking the hobbit instead of Boromir or Aragorn
and the Uruk-hai scores a critical hit on the hobbit. In practice I haven't found that to happen much, because the first level guy
doesn't try to tank for the group and is pretty content to let someone else draw the enemy attention. If we go back and compare it with the fiction (in this case I'll pick the movie fiction):
1.) Merry and Pippin are chucking rocks at the Uruk-hai despite Boromir telling them to "Run! Run!"
2.) Boromir is fighting in the front line
3.) The Uruk-hai are fighting Boromir in melee until a big Uruk-hai with a bow shoots him.
How many of you guys said, "That's stupid! The Uruk-hai would totally be shooting at the hobbits first because they're easier to kill!"? Probably not many people, both for dramatic reasons and for the common-sense reason that the hobbits aren't the real threat in this situation--once Boromir is dead the Uruk-hai can just run them down. (And yes, I know that the Uruk-hai were ordered to capture the hobbits.)
You have to get into a pretty unlucky and unusual situation before even a first-level character will die in D&D, and it has to happen before that character goes up to second level (thus making it even
harder to kill him outright), and even if it did happen, you would just roll up a new character since you've hardly invested anything in the first-level guy yet. Heterogenous-level play is
totally feasible in 5E, in my experience, and I think this experience is supported by reasonable analysis. I can imagine scenarios and settings where heteregenous-level play doesn't work at all (e.g. you're adventuring on plane of Elemental Fire and it's common to take 2d6 points of damage from environmental hazards) but you obviously wouldn't choose to run those scenarios if you're interested in heterogenous levels.
3.) I'm not responsible for HotDK, but I'll note two things: you said yourself that the complaint was about a fight that was "poorly telegraphed", which is a DM issue not a PC level issue, and you're also talking about TPKs and not just incidental deaths of low-level characters. In fact, because of the math of 5E death saves/bonus-action healing/etc., a TPK is probably the
most likely way for character death to happen. I've said that nobody in my game has died yet, only gotten knocked out, but they've had hairy situations where they almost
all got knocked out, and if this had happened against certain enemies they certainly would have died. I'll note that this is the exact same logic PCs themselves employ IME: rarely do you waste extra attacks on downed foes in combat while there are live foes still up, but once everyone is down you might cut their throats just to make sure. PC death and TPK aren't quite synonymous in 5E but they're very closely linked--and heterogenous-levelled parties are no more subject to TPK than anyone else. Aragorn and Gandalf probably aren't going to get TPKed by a Balrog (and in fact they weren't), and as long as the party "wins" the encounter, the low-level guys probably survive it too. Even if they are occasionally unconscious, at first and second level. Such is my experience.
4.) Since you don't have a MM and are going off the Basic Rules, here are a few CR/AC pairings for you that I looked up this morning, since I think perusing the Basic Rules and not being able to play 5E has misled you about AC ranges:
Adult Red Dragon: CR 17, AC 19
Beholder: CR 13, AC 18
Pit Fiend: CR 20, AC 19
(I think Mind Flayers are CR 7, AC 15 but it could be 16. I'm AFB now.)
You're looking at hobgoblins and knights, but the fact is that armored humanoids have atypically good AC for their CR, and it would be incorrect to extrapolate that high-level creatures will therefore have stratospheric ACs that make 1st level PCs totally unable to affect them. It doesn't really work that way in 5E.
Again: I am not trying to say that 5e can't accomodate a spread of character levels. It absolutely can. I just think your "some level 1 and 2 alongside level 20" example is hyperbolic to the point of not actually supporting your argument. If, instead, it had been level 3-4 hobbits alongside a level 7 Boromir, level 10 Aragorn, and level 14 Gandalf? I could buy it.
I chose that example as a best-guess of how you would actually represent the fiction, including the fiction of the movies, and also because the level 1-20 gap had already been mentioned in this thread. (As mentioned above, I said "1st through 3rd" not "level 1 and 2" but that's basically just me quibbling about quoting inaccuracy.) You could run that party group through the events of LotR and the hobbits would be about as useful to the party as they are in the fiction, possibly moreso. (Gandalf would be
massively more useful than he was in the fiction.)
If it can work for a "hyperbolic" group that actually supports the argument
better than if I entertained only a modest level spread.
Again, it depends on playstyle. If your group is all about running combat encounter after combat encounter this style probably wouldn't work well, but LotR isn't like that and neither is my game. (Not that those two things bear any resemblance at all to each other.)
And here is the point, once again: if 5E rules didn't support heterogenous-style play--if proficiency bonus per level weren't so flat--my game wouldn't support that experience no matter what my playstyle was.
TLDR; 5E rules support heterogenous-levelled parties, if your group is interested in that experience.
