0th level, prequel , beginning , commoner. Come inside !

[Evenglare]

I was just reading on the boards , and i came across an interesting post about house ruling a so called 0th level. The commoner level. This was in respect to 2nd edition, but i was thinking it would be really easy to do in 4th. Hear me out. We know what we get at level 1 right?

2 at wills, one encounter power, and one daily. Along with 100 gold.

What to stop us from creating this so called commoner for beginnign adventures. it would be very easy to do .

level 0 parcels.
1. 10g
2.10g
3.10g
4.10g
5.10g
6.10g
7.10g
8.10g
9.10g
10.10g

Starting HP , whatever your normal level 1 starting hp is minus your hp gained normally per level.

Now the powers is the tricky part. Lets say 1 at will power only.

SO you would have to rely on your basic melee/ranged attacks more often. Upon reaching level 1 you would gain your other at will , and encounter and daily. Presumably your first quest, would be learning the arts of your class.

Not sure how much xp it would be to reach level 1, Perhaps 1000?

I dont know , but im just putting this out there to see any feedback or reaction.

 

[hectorse]

I would say 500xp is enough

 

[LowSpine]

It would be a good idea to keep enemies as low level minions as well.

It would be a good trainer for new people because all you would have to learn is the hit bits and not the damage bits.

You could chop up level 0 into smaller levels.


Level 0.1 BA + At will 1
Level 0.2 BA + At will 2
Level 0.3 BA + At will 2, Encounter 1

Level 1 - Daily.

I wouldn't bother with XPs. Just have landmarks where the adventure/DM decides when the PC goes up.

It would be interesting to see what kind of adventures you could come up with for this concept. As the combat options are limited I would concetrate, mostly, on Roleplay/social/skill challenge type adventures that would kick off into the more combat focused level 1.

These levels would be good for
teaching
campaign story plot involvement
character background generation.

 

[FireLance]

I've considered splitting the pre-1st-level stage into the the "Novice" and "Apprentice" levels in order to ease new players slowly into the game by gradually introducing them to the game rules and their characters' abilities. Note that this approach only roughly balances the classes and races (classes and races that have a higher proportion of constant and at-will abilities will be relatively more powerful at the Novice level).

At Novice level, the idea is to introduce the players to the simplest abilities of their characters and to the basics of gameplay. Novice-level characters have the following abilities:
[SBLOCK]Hit Points: Constitution+3 for defenders, Constitution+2 for leaders, strikers and controllers.

Healing surges: same as a 1st-level character, but can only be used between fights as Novice-level characters cannot catch a second wind (healing surges don't increase with levels, after all)

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: same as a 1st-level character (lack of money will be a bigger restriction on choice of weapons and armor for low-level characters, so further restricting proficiencies seems rather pointless)

Class Defence Bonus: same as a 1st-level character (it's a small and constant bonus, and helps to differentiate the characters)

Racial Abilities: All at-will and constant abilities*
Class Abilities: All at-will and constant class features, and one at-will power*
(* Except those related to action points and second wind, which will be introduced in the Apprentice level, along with encounter abilities and powers.)

Trained Skills: All free skills (e.g. Stealth and Thievery for a rogue) and one other.

Novice-level characters do not have action points and cannot catch a second wind.

Novice-level characters become Apprentice-level characters when they have earned one-quarter the XP that a 1st-level character needs to gain a level.[/SBLOCK]At Apprentice level, players are introduced to the more tactical aspects of gameplay, including action points, the second wind action, and encounter abilities. Apprentice-level characters gain the following abilities:
[SBLOCK]Hit Points: +6 hp for defenders, +5 hp for leaders and strikers, and +4 hp for controllers.

Racial Abilities: Gain their remaining racial abilities.

Class Abilities: Gain their remaining class features, another at-will power, and one encounter power.

Trained Skills: Gain an additional trained skill.

Apprentice-level characters become 1st-level characters when they have earned one-half the XP that a 1st-level character needs to gain a level.[/SBLOCK]At 1st-level, the characters gain their remaining abilities, namely:
[SBLOCK]Hit Points: +6 hp for defenders, +5 hp for leaders and strikers, and +4 hp for controllers.

Class Abilities: Gain one daily power.

Trained Skills: Gain their remaining trained skills.

Feat: One feat.[/SBLOCK]

 

[mattdm]

Level 0.1 BA + At will 1
Level 0.2 BA + At will 2
Level 0.3 BA + At will 2, Encounter 1

Or go back a step further:

Level 0.0: BA only, and you don't have to pick a class. You do get your racial abilites right away, though, and the initial feat.

At 0.1, you pick a class and get trained skills.

At each sub-level and when you reach 1, you can retrain your starting feats and if applicable powers and skills. Additionally, you can swap any two ability scores (leaving racial modifiers where they belong, of course) at each sub-level.

EDIT: or, yeah, FireLance's way is better.