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

[FormerlyHemlock]

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?

Er, to be fair, that's a general problem with the XP system. How would you rationalize a first level wizard that survives ten encounters with 8th level encounters over the course of six months suddenly having the ability to cast spells several levels higher? Once you figure out an answer to that question, you can answer the question of whether levelling up multiple times in a session is realistic.

In my games, you gain all the XP, but can only level up once per session. It takes you some time to fully process all your experiences. Players are okay with this.

 

[KarinsDad]

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.

Even in Combat as War, there is nothing wrong with having a PC come in two levels lower or some such. Starting at one is an arbitrary decision made 40 years ago by someone (maybe Gygax, maybe not). Meh.

PCs are played by players, not by automatons. Not in 5E, but in GURPS, I came in as the "inexperienced PC" who is expected to pull the trebuchet lever. Meh. I hated it. It sucks to be the sidekick while the actual superheroes go do their thing.

Again, this is the anti-fun solution. I'm not even sure why it is still in the game system other than game designers think that players are too stupid to learn a PC without actually slogging through levels 1 to X.

 

[Eirikrautha]

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".

Because, past 2nd level or so, that's pretty much not possible in 5th edition. At all. There's no save-or-die like in 1st or 2nd edition, and the number of hit points pretty much excludes the one-hit-kill. What you are talking about is almost completely a feature of earlier editions.

To die in 5th ed. requires effort on the part of the players, or a near-unfair confluence of choices on the part of a DM. Unless the DM runs a dozen CR 20 monsters against a 5th level party, or the player makes a series of very stupid decisions, then death is nowhere near the threat it used to be.

It's the second situation (gross stupidity) that has been the cause of PC deaths so far for my group. If a single random roll could kill a 10th level PC, you might have a complaint. But a PC who makes the multiple stupid decisions necessary to die in 5e has no room to complain about having to start over...

 

[Catwithafez]

In my games, you gain all the XP, but can only level up once per session. It takes you some time to fully process all your experiences. Players are okay with this.

That's the way we played in previous editions as a house rule. My groups were fine with it also.

 

[KarinsDad]

Because, past 2nd level or so, that's pretty much not possible in 5th edition. At all. There's no save-or-die like in 1st or 2nd edition, and the number of hit points pretty much excludes the one-hit-kill. What you are talking about is almost completely a feature of earlier editions.

To die in 5th ed. requires effort on the part of the players, or a near-unfair confluence of choices on the part of a DM. Unless the DM runs a dozen CR 20 monsters against a 5th level party, or the player makes a series of very stupid decisions, then death is nowhere near the threat it used to be.

It's the second situation (gross stupidity) that has been the cause of PC deaths so far for my group. If a single random roll could kill a 10th level PC, you might have a complaint. But a PC who makes the multiple stupid decisions necessary to die in 5e has no room to complain about having to start over...

Who said anything about dumb blind luck being a single die roll?

Dumb blind luck could be a series of a few bad for the PCs or good for the NPC rolls.

Three PCs look at the Medusa and all of them fail the DC 14 Con save by 5 or more. 3 petrified PCs, the other PC runs away.

You are mistaken. Dumb blind bad luck can happen in 5E. It happened in our game when my PC wizard rolled two 1s on death saving throws before the rest of the party could heal him.

 

[Sunseeker]

To die in 5th ed. requires effort on the part of the players, or a near-unfair confluence of choices on the part of a DM. Unless the DM runs a dozen CR 20 monsters against a 5th level party, or the player makes a series of very stupid decisions, then death is nowhere near the threat it used to be.

It's the second situation (gross stupidity) that has been the cause of PC deaths so far for my group. If a single random roll could kill a 10th level PC, you might have a complaint. But a PC who makes the multiple stupid decisions necessary to die in 5e has no room to complain about having to start over...

I tend to agree that 5th edition mitigates pretty much everything the dice gods could do to you, but I would bump the magic level up to 4th, ESPECIALLY if you're using the variant rolled HP rules. Once you hit 4th you're usually sitting on 10-15 points of HP from CON alone, you've got probably 20-30 HP just in your class, and by the book, not accounting for custom-monsters, at-level challenges for a 4th level party should not pose much risk here. It takes a pretty significant level of RNG failure to down a player by sheer bad luck. It CAN happen, but I think its rarer in this edition than others.

But I would argue the sweet spot of "protection from dice gods" doesn't really happen till about 4th.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Because, past 2nd level or so, that's pretty much not possible in 5th edition. At all. There's no save-or-die like in 1st or 2nd edition, and the number of hit points pretty much excludes the one-hit-kill. What you are talking about is almost completely a feature of earlier editions.

This is actually not quite true. There are save-or-die effects. Look at the Medusa and Basilisk. If you fail a DC 14 check by 5 points or more (effectively DC 9) you are instantly turned to stone. It's possible to reverse the situation with a Greater Restoration spell at 9th level, if you have a healer in the party (not guaranteed), but that still makes it harder to reverse than an actual save-or-die effect, which is reversible at 5th level via Revivify.

 

[Eirikrautha]

This is actually not quite true. There are save-or-die effects. Look at the Medusa and Basilisk. If you fail a DC 14 check by 5 points or more (effectively DC 9) you are instantly turned to stone. It's possible to reverse the situation with a Greater Restoration spell at 9th level, if you have a healer in the party (not guaranteed), but that still makes it harder to reverse than an actual save-or-die effect, which is reversible at 5th level via Revivify.

With one or two exceptions, this is not the normal mechanics of 5e, especially when compared to 1e or 2e. I stand by my statement.

And, to KarinsDad, if it's not one roll, then it isn't "blind luck", it's poor choices. At some point over the three or four rounds it takes to get those crappy rolls piling up, the character should be doing something to save themselves as they see things going down the tubes. It reminds me of the newspaper articles published every so often about young, unmarried women with children and how hard they have it because of [insert complaint here]. They invariably start with a line like, "When Susan found herself pregnant at 17, she didn't know what to do..." as if her circumstance was totally a freak occurrence out of her control. Ditto that with a character failing death saves. Unless your DM starts each session with all of your characters at 0hp, then there was a whole pile of "your fault" that led up to the death saves. Starting your narrative at the point where the saves are failed is disingenuous at best.

More than any other edition, characters are protected from single bad rolls and one unlucky occurrence. More than that, and it's either a challenge well beyond you (that you chose not to avoid) or your own poor choices that get you killed.

Mod Note: Folks, let us leave the real-world phenomenon of teenage pregnancy off EN World. It is a hyperoblic comparison, and has little to do with how we pretend to be elves. ~Umbran

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

With one or two exceptions, this is not the normal mechanics of 5e, especially when compared to 1e or 2e. I stand by my statement.

And, to KarinsDad, if it's not one roll, then it isn't "blind luck", it's poor choices. At some point over the three or four rounds it takes to get those crappy rolls piling up, the character should be doing something to save themselves as they see things going down the tubes. It reminds me of the newspaper articles published every so often about young, unmarried women with children and how hard they have it because of [insert complaint here]. They invariably start with a line like, "When Susan found herself pregnant at 17, she didn't know what to do..." as if her circumstance was totally a freak occurrence out of her control. Ditto that with a character failing death saves. Unless your DM starts each session with all of your characters at 0hp, then there was a whole pile of "your fault" that led up to the death saves. Starting your narrative at the point where the saves are failed is disingenuous at best.

More than any other edition, characters are protected from single bad rolls and one unlucky occurrence. More than that, and it's either a challenge well beyond you (that you chose not to avoid) or your own poor choices that get you killed.

Fair enough. You are correct that save-or-die is much rarer in this edition. I was just nitpicking, because I found the Medusa really interesting when I reread its stat block and I wanted to share the interesting trivia. I agree that 5E is relatively robust against bad luck occurrences, and is mostly about wars of HP attrition by design.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Fair enough. You are correct that save-or-die is much rarer in this edition. I was just nitpicking, because I found the Medusa really interesting when I reread its stat block and I wanted to share the interesting trivia. I agree that 5E is relatively robust against bad luck occurrences, and is mostly about wars of HP attrition by design.

I hadn't read through Medusa too carefully, so the fail-by-5 was news to me. So your efforts were successful!