D&D 5E (2014) Do You Start At Level 1?

[Burnside]

Is that slower and lasting longer than average? i thought the average was 18 months to level 11 or 12.

It's always hard to gauge what people mean on things like this if you don't know how frequent their sessions are, and how long they are.

 

[Burnside]

Out of curiosity, what do you consider the benefit of those levels when they go by so quickly?

Is 16 hours on levels 1-2 "quickly"? At some tables, that would be slow. In recent years, the official WotC campaigns generally get the party to level 3 after ~8 hours.

I think people don't realize how much pacing varies from table to table.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is that slower and lasting longer than average? i thought the average was 18 months to level 11 or 12.

Apples and carburators. Not sure where those stats come from or what they are looking at but yes my games advance slower with much reduced exp awards and level higher than the 90% of games that end before 10
Cracks start forming late tier2 early tier3 & advancement accelerates a bit just to end the pain without rocks fall or a sudden curtain fall on the campaign.

I once had a player comment about how it took them like 6 months of weekly sessions to get level 5 after another exclaimed how they feel high level now that they are $iforgetlevel, the group broke into happy chatter about specific cool stuff they did along those first 6 from there.

The healthy games tend to last until I get tired of fixing the cracks in higher level 5e behind the screen. The unhealthy ones have a lot more effort into fixing the cracks caused by Bob's hexadin spreadsheet or whatever & end in the lower teens when he can't self moderate and is grumpy because he feels nerfed.

So yes, my games advance slower until the system starts being more gm work than gm support. Nearly all of my non-AL games run into the teens

 

[Li Shenron]

I voted "sometimes" but I should have read the post first... I don't really run campaigns but adventures only. If the same players ask for another adventure with the same PCs, I haven't planned for it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Generally level 3. Exceptions.

1. Newbies often see point 2.

2. We are running a starter set or a lvl 1 or 2 adventure that looks good.

3. New edition or revision.

1-3 is 2-4 sessions Generally.

 

[Reynard]

I think they are in the PHB because many, many, MANY players don't bother with starter sets. I jumped straight into AD&D 1e and skipped Basic entirely. And also because a lot of folks want to start at the beginning of something.

Right. I don't mean "Why is there a first level?" I mean "Why is first level training wheels?" 5E is the only edition to ever do that. Obviously character got more powerful and more complex as they leveled in previous editions, but no edition besides 5E has said "Character generation isn't done until 3rd level." It is kind of bonkers.

 

[MGibster]

I feel as though developers are hampered by having to balance multiclassing at both high and low levels.

 

[Reynard]

I feel as though developers are hampered by having to balance multiclassing at both high and low levels.

There is an easy solution to that: eliminate it.

 

[payn]

I feel as though developers are hampered by having to balance multiclassing at both high and low levels.

Its odd folks worry about this. Even in 3E it was fine. It was prestige classes that were an issue.

 

[Reynard]

Its odd folks worry about this. Even in 3E it was fine. It was prestige classes that were an issue.

I feel the opposite. prestige classes made sense, and often had a place in the world. Dipping for class features via multiclassing is the problem. Just make a Gish class.