Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Pale said:
The moderators are starting to lose patience with people who threadcrap. If 4e threads rile you up, don't participate in them.
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D&D 4E 1st level 4E characters are already Heroes
- Thread starter Zaruthustran
- Start date
The moderators are starting to lose patience with people who threadcrap. If 4e threads rile you up, don't participate in them.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Destil said:
Quick clarification:
In Saga, 0 is unconscious unless the damage that took you to 0 is greater than your damage threshold, in which case you die.
Weaponbreaker
First Post
I love running low level, it has that dangerous feel. By 10th level the only death is an unprepared death at 1st level you treat every threat as a real threat. I give a lot of slack to lowbies and let them only die for stupidity. The whole attititude of "OMG we died again, I hate this game!" Is vastly under-represented in every group i have played with or ran. 1st level allows you to really learn to work within the party and develope the correct stategies for your group as teamwork is practically required for survival.
As to the characters barely being of age and by their next birthday being uber-powerful, play a campaign like RHoD and you will see that it is quite hard on the group to actually have nothing but combat and dungeon crawl encounter after encounter. Besides rules are a poor substitute for good DMin.
As to the characters barely being of age and by their next birthday being uber-powerful, play a campaign like RHoD and you will see that it is quite hard on the group to actually have nothing but combat and dungeon crawl encounter after encounter. Besides rules are a poor substitute for good DMin.
Li Shenron
Legend
The only thing to add is that yes, 1st level characters are heroes, but 4e (like 3e) will be quite inevitably based on settings where 10-20% of the population are heroes. So if you just stop calling them "heroes" and just call them "adventurers", it all makes sense!
If you want starting characters to be more powerful, why not simply start them off at a higher level?
It sounds like first-level is going to get front-loaded with all kinds of special bonuses -- which distort the meaning of one level, when you consider multi-classing -- when we just want characters to start out at fourth level.
Who are these powered-up first-level characters going to face, anyway? Specially designed fractional-level monsters and NPCs?
It sounds like first-level is going to get front-loaded with all kinds of special bonuses -- which distort the meaning of one level, when you consider multi-classing -- when we just want characters to start out at fourth level.
Who are these powered-up first-level characters going to face, anyway? Specially designed fractional-level monsters and NPCs?
Pseudopsyche
First Post
delericho said:
For me, this issue comes down to two questions. First, who wants to play the wet-behind-the-ears proto-hero, the novice gamers (getting their first taste of D&D) or the veteran gamers who enjoy the challenge of bringing their character up from lowly beginnings? Second, should level 1 cater to the novice gamer or the veteran gamer?
I conjecture that the typical novice gamer would have more fun starting with a hero already heads and shoulders above the typical commoner. In the current edition, I can introduce this novice as a level 1 character who can drop after one hit or die from one crit. Alternatively, if I start my friend out at level 3 as a basic human fighter, she must choose five feats before even getting a feel for the game, right before selecting 2700 gp worth of equipment.
First level has always had a dangerous edge to it and to me that is a good thing. I don't think being heroic in DnD has to correlate to having x amount of hitpoints or bab for that matter. Being heroic is about what you do. Your PCs can be heroic by killing a couple skeletons at the local graveyard or a few kobolds harrasing a local farmer. It shouldn't have anything to do with how much more powerful we can make a PC starting at level 1 in my opinion.
Jim DelRosso
First Post
Not knowing how they plan on implementing this idea in 4e, I'll just throw in that I've been running a SWSE game with 1st level PCs, and it's been great. Even with triple HP, there's still a distinct sense of danger in the combat, but now the PCs can get roughed up quite a bit and still win the day like the plucky underdogs they are, rather then dropping after the first or second hit.
Actual quote from one of the players, "Man, that fight was awesome. We really could've lost it." To me, that's really hitting a sweet spot: tough enough that everyone knew it could've gone sour, but the PCs could take some hits and still emerge victorious.
Actual quote from one of the players, "Man, that fight was awesome. We really could've lost it." To me, that's really hitting a sweet spot: tough enough that everyone knew it could've gone sour, but the PCs could take some hits and still emerge victorious.
The Souljourner
First Post
This is great. We almost always start off at level 3 anyway....
I think you'll find that this will not stop you from being wet-behind-the-ears. You're still only going to have 1st level abilities, you just will have more hitpoints (most likely). One of the problems they've stated is that at low level, it's too easy for random chance to kill you. Hell, even at 3rd level, if you you can die from one big hit if the attacker is a raging orc barbarian with a great axe (1d12 +9 damage).
If you want the game to be grim and gritty, start players off with fewer hitpoints (I'm pretty sure we'll see something like a static bonus to hitpoints at first level).
I really hate 1st & 2nd level. I recently started in a game where I was playing a high con, super highly armored (heavy armor + tower shield + dodge) crusader, and I went to negative hitpoints approximately 3 or 4 times in the first couple of levels. That's not fun. Yes, I want enemies to be a challenge, but when you only have 12 hitpoints, every attack can be lethal.
The game just doesn't scale down far enough for it to be fun at that level. Longswords do 1d8 damage... if you only have 1d8 hitpoints, that's a problem! It makes 1st level less like D&D and more like "run away and try not to die until 2nd level".
D&D is supposed to be heroic fantasy. If you want grim and gritty, go elsewhere, this ain't it.
-Nate
I think you'll find that this will not stop you from being wet-behind-the-ears. You're still only going to have 1st level abilities, you just will have more hitpoints (most likely). One of the problems they've stated is that at low level, it's too easy for random chance to kill you. Hell, even at 3rd level, if you you can die from one big hit if the attacker is a raging orc barbarian with a great axe (1d12 +9 damage).
If you want the game to be grim and gritty, start players off with fewer hitpoints (I'm pretty sure we'll see something like a static bonus to hitpoints at first level).
I really hate 1st & 2nd level. I recently started in a game where I was playing a high con, super highly armored (heavy armor + tower shield + dodge) crusader, and I went to negative hitpoints approximately 3 or 4 times in the first couple of levels. That's not fun. Yes, I want enemies to be a challenge, but when you only have 12 hitpoints, every attack can be lethal.
The game just doesn't scale down far enough for it to be fun at that level. Longswords do 1d8 damage... if you only have 1d8 hitpoints, that's a problem! It makes 1st level less like D&D and more like "run away and try not to die until 2nd level".
D&D is supposed to be heroic fantasy. If you want grim and gritty, go elsewhere, this ain't it.
-Nate
