D&D 5E Followup on "Everyone Starts at First Level"

[iserith]

(I'm reading through the thread from the start so apologies if this has already been covered.)

This assumes that your group allows multiple level gains per encounter. Doing so has never made sense to me regardless of which edition it was. It breaks the immersion. One hostile encounter doesn't make seasoned veterans.

My "immersion" is not so easily broken. In any case, there is nothing in the rules that requires a delay on gaining levels when the experience is earned, so as far as that is concerned, ES@1 is viable.

 

[Catwithafez]

My "immersion" is not so easily broken. In any case, there is nothing in the rules that requires a delay on gaining levels when the experience is earned, so as far as that is concerned, ES@1 is viable.

I haven't fully read through the DMG yet so I'll take your word for it.
In game terms though, how would you rationalize a first level wizard that survives a tenth level encounter suddenly having the ability to cast spells several levels higher?

 

[iserith]

I haven't fully read through the DMG yet so I'll take your word for it.
In game terms though, how would you rationalize a first level wizard that survives a tenth level encounter suddenly having the ability to cast spells several levels higher?

I can think of many reasons that would work for me e.g. a sudden and dramatic leap of logic stemming from contact with powerful enemies that inspires the wizard to create more effective spells. A real "eureka" moment that only a brush with death can spark. Fictional justifications are easy to come up with for me.

If you're asking me to come up with a justification that would work for you, that's a guessing game I'm not up for playing.

 

[Catwithafez]

My intent is not to be antagonistic, but rather to explain my position. Perhaps I may be stuck in the mindset of the early editions but I've always preferred a modicum of reality/believability in my games beyond the basic foundational 'realities' of the game itself (Elves, orcs, wizards, etc. all exist).

To illustrate my point, take the hobbits from the Lord of the Rings. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were regular hobbits at the beginning and by the end they were rather extraordinary compared to other hobbits of the Shire. They didn't get that way by making it through one encounter while Aragorn did all the heavy lifting. From a character's perspective it's not believable.

Now, from a player's perspective, I can totally see why they might want rapid advancement and catch up to the other players in the group and if gaining multiple levels at a time works for you and your group and you're all having fun then all the power to you.

In my current group I have three individuals that are completely new to rpgs and one that I used to play with back when first edition was the new edition. He would probably be able to handle a multiple level jump and I'm sure I could come up with something to explain the sudden massive power gain in his character but doing the same with the new players very quickly overwhelm them. Maybe after they went through the process of gaining individual levels a few more times they would be ready for such a thing, but not now.

Then again, if it turns out that the new people prefer hack and slash to a campaign with an evolving world around them then multiple level jumps or higher level starts might be the solution.

What works for any particular group varies, the ultimate goal is to have fun.

 

[SirAntoine]

You can get much more realism out of experience points if you attach them to time. Setting level advancement to once per year of game time, for instance, provides for all the different sorts of practice, experience, research, and training characters should receive.

 

[iserith]

Now, from a player's perspective, I can totally see why they might want rapid advancement and catch up to the other players in the group and if gaining multiple levels at a time works for you and your group and you're all having fun then all the power to you.

To me it's the player's perspective that matters - the fictional justification is the easy thing to establish being a game of imagination.

Then again, if it turns out that the new people prefer hack and slash to a campaign with an evolving world around them then multiple level jumps or higher level starts might be the solution.

I'm not sure there's any necessary correlation between preferring to solve challenges the DM provides with violence to wanting to advance multiple levels to catch up with higher-level characters played by other players. Challenges resolved without combat are also worth XP comparable to challenges with combat.

What works for any particular group varies, the ultimate goal is to have fun.

Yep.

 

[Catwithafez]

You can get much more realism out of experience points if you attach them to time. Setting level advancement to once per year of game time, for instance, provides for all the different sorts of practice, experience, research, and training characters should receive.

I like this idea although I see both pros and cons to it. (Partial list of each follows as I am on mobile.)

Pros

• It makes for very realistic advancement of experience.
• It allows for any research of spells, acquisition of manufactured goods (shiny suits of armour), etc.

Cons

• Experience and training happens faster with low levels than at higher levels. (Going from a mere beginner to reasonably proficient person may not take an entire year, think of a civilian that enters the military, he is a trained soldier at the end of basic training four months later but still has much to learn in his chosen trade.)
• If the group is playing a campaign wherein certain events will happen at specific times and the party is expected to be a certain level in order to prevent or cause those events from/to happen then waiting a year for each level may not be feasible.

 

[Catwithafez]

I'm not sure there's any necessary correlation between preferring to solve challenges the DM provides with violence to wanting to advance multiple levels to catch up with higher-level characters played by other players. Challenges resolved without combat are also worth XP comparable to challenges with combat.

I wholeheartedly agree. Much can be gained with words.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Why?

One player loses his mid to high level PC either due to dumb blind luck, or the bad choices of another player and that player should be penalized with "Go back to square one".

Meh.

I find this POV to be the anti-fun one. It's as if the DM is penalizing the player for playing his PC, let alone for taking risks and making the game more memorable.

For Combat As Sport play, you'd be correct. If every encounter is supposed to be balanced within itself, then it would be wrong for what happens in one encounter to affect the next. (Corollary: you shouldn't award XP either, just set the party's level to whatever the scenario calls for.)

But for Combat As War play, the game isn't just one encounter, it's the whole campaign. That doesn't necessarily imply that you have to start at first level (a 5-11 campaign is still a campaign), but it isn't alien to the play experience the way it is for Combat As Sport players. Also the nature of CAW enables low-level characters to contribute meaningfully because so much happens outside of the initiative roll. For example, a low-level character is perfectly capable of aiming and firing a trebuchet as effectively as a high-level one, so if part of the plan involves sneaking into the castle to load the trebuchets and then ambushing the Duke Ronald when he returns from his hunt, the low-level guys can man the trebuchet while the high-level guys are on the front line.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sure a 1st level PC CAN survive a fireball IF the spell rolls average AND they make a save. The point is that damage scaling in 5E goes up abruptly at 5th.

In my own game, my PCs are now 5th, but they recently took a liking to a 1st level "henchmen" who they bring along everywhere-- like a lucky charm. He is knocked unconscious every single fight, and has only survived due to a few lucky die rolls. I'm not a killer DM by any means. I'm just putting the pcs in level appropriate fights.

It sounds like this works in a lot of campaigns. But I can't imagine how without fudging rolls and creating soft fights.

I do ES@1 with character trees, and I have had level ranges up to a 1st-through-7th-level spread, and I love throwing large groups of opponents at my PCs without balancing them first (usually works out to Deadly x2 or worse). I do telegraph those foes so the PCs can prepare themselves or work around them, but usually they just batter their way through--and it's actually fairly rare to get a low-level character knocked unconscious or killed.

Can I make a wild guess and predict that the first-level henchman is wading into lopsided melee with a low AC? The one death we've had in our 4-month-old campaign was from an NPC ally doing exactly that, trying to take on 3 skeletons while the barbarian PC took on 4 skeletons. Since these skeletons got +4 to damage from necromancy, and the NPC had an AC of only 12 and 30 HP, the NPC took two rounds to become flying chunks of shredded meat (i.e. failed 3 death saves due to crits in melee). The players were pretty shocked how easy he went down.

Lesson: you shouldn't try to take on 3 enemies at once unless you are actually tougher than 3 enemies at once. 1st level PCs take heed. When you say "I can't imagine how it works without fudging rolls an creating soft fights," that's how. I play the monsters realistically, which means they have no clear idea who is high-level and who is low-level, and for the most part monsters like Slaads and skeletons and allosaurs will just attack whoever is closest in their attempt to rip off some juicy meat. As long as the low-level guy doesn't get himself attacked by multiple allosaurs at once, and he wears decent armor, he's probably going to be fine. (This is even more true if he plays tactically smart and throws daggers instead of charging into melee, but it's not strictly necessary--I have one player who likes to do zany dangerous things with his low-level guys, and has gotten knocked unconscious at least three times, but hasn't died with any of them. You can be a stupid heroic paladin fighting an allosaur with a sword at first level, in a battle full of allosaurs, and probably not die.)

P.S. Increased survivability at low levels in 5E is a mechanical consequence of several design decisions: 1.) PCs get full HP at first level (i.e. essentially double what they got in AD&D; there are no first-level fighters with 1 HP any more, they always have at least 10); 2.) death saves are a very forgiving mechanic, and the gap between "unconscious" and "dead" has never been wider; 3.) the XP table has been modified so that instead of having to defeat 334 orcs to reach 2nd level, you now only have to defeat 3 to advance. Spending less time at level 1 decreases your chances of dying at level 1.