D&D 4E 1st level 4E characters are already Heroes

[Grog]

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3742722&postcount=185

Sun Knight - Still waiting on the explanation you must have.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Please explain, how is it a "No?"

Simple.

For a person to up the starting level to 3rd in 3e or 3.5e breaks less the rules of the game than lowering the starting hit points in 4e, does it not?

No, it doesn't. Not in my mind.

Wanna know why?

Because (provided I'm the DM), I make the rules. The books are a nice reminder of what the baseline is, but if I don't like it, I blow it. If I don't like the whole baseline of a game, I blow the game and look for a different one. The only reasons why I don't make up my own are that I don't have the time, and am a lazy bugger.

Seriously, why should it cramp my style more to go "every 1st level PC rolls hit points with 1dx and adds Con" instead of "Guys, simply take hit points equal to your Con on 1st level"? Starting at 3rd might not be to everybody's taste either, just so you don't get killed by one lucky stroke.

 

[Sun Knight]

I don't think that is right. WotC makes the rules, you simply change the rules, Geron.

 

[Sun Knight]

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3742722&postcount=185

Sun Knight - Still waiting on the explanation you must have.

Same way that others have proclaimed that I am trying to force my way of gaming on them.

 

[drothgery]

"Redo" their characters? Sounds more work that what it would be than to up the 1st level character to third in 3e.

It's really not, unless you stumble into a nonheroic 1 that's not a strict subset of a heroic 1 (possible, but you'd almost have to do it on purpose). Alternatively, you'd just keep the level of nonheroic, and go on from there. In a grim-n-gritty game, you probably wouldn't want the extra sauce a character whose first level is heroic gets anyway (triple max HP, heroic class starting feats, heroic class starting skills).

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

"Redo" their characters? Sounds more work that what it would be than to up the 1st level character to third in 3e.

Why?

It's not particularly diffferent from giving everyone a free level in Expert or Aristocrat, and I've seen that done often enough in 3E.

Heck, I'll be doing it in Saga Ed. in the not-too-distant future (the PC's will take over their R2s - nonheroic droids - for a session, and the results of that session will determine the "heroic" form of their droids).

Moreover, you wouldn't even necessarily need to redo the characters. That was merely a suggestion to prevent people from losing juicy tidbits like the 3x Max HP that starting heroic characters get in Saga. There's nothing preventing a NH / H multiclass progression (which many example bad guys in the core rulebook use).

 

[Grog]

Same way that others have proclaimed that I am trying to force my way of gaming on them.

Well, that's you bringing your baggage from conversations with other people into conversations with me. I don't appreciate being accused of hypocrisy for no good reason.

I have never tried to tell anyone how they should play their game.

 

[Fenris_x]

Sun Knight, it seems to me that what you're saying is:

"I find it fun to suck for the first three to five hours of game time, and also fun to risk several more hours of not actually playing the game because my character is dead. Why won't 4e cater to my style of fun?"

The answer is, 4e is not the game for you. Not all games are fun for everybody.

I started playing this game with 1e, with 1st-level wizards who had no cantrips or bonus spells, couldn't use crossbows, had rolled HP instead of max HD, and no Con bonus either. We cheated *cough* I mean houseruled on our stats and HP rolls, because it was the only way to make the game even playable. We had fun, but the game sucked, from a design standpoint. I loved playing it at the time, but you couldn't drag me back to that rule system with a team of rabid centaur.

I suggest you should play 1e, not 4e. There you have a ludicrously low chance of succeeding at anything and spend the majority of play hours rolling up new characters, so it should be exactly the type of thing you find fun.

 

[Sun Knight]

This is exactly what I mean. Fenris, you are making a judgment that I like to have my characters "suck." I do not. Also to assume that I am incompetent that I cannot keep my character alive or that my character's party members would be selfish and not use their skill to stabilize my character in case he does fall is downright insulting.

I want my gaming to be challenging and rewarding, not mindlessly easy which 4e seems to be heading to if SWSE is any indication.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I don't think that is right. WotC makes the rules, you simply change the rules, Geron.

Sure, that's one way to look at things. But see, from my point of view, the rules that were put out by TSR/WotC over the years are as much advice as they are rules. In other words, they are made to be changed by the individual DM in order to fit his personal preferences more. That goes for the very first versions of D&D already, and continues throughout every edition. Even AD&D 1E, which has a reputation of being the "ironclad Gygax rules" were that only in context of tournaments. Mr. Gygax himself played with houserules more fitting his personal style.

I've tinkered with every game system I laid hands on, Sun Knight. And I suspect most of us did, to one degree or another. There are aspects that are hard to change (taking out AoO of 3.X was one for me personally, for example), and stuff that is easy to change (I switched to Wound/Vitality points for my Iron Kingdoms game, and it was a breeze to put in). Downsizing hit points for starting characters is, in my opinion, as work-intense as upsizing them. All it requires is the change of one number, at one level. As long as nothing else is hardwired into hit points (as opposed to HD), it doesn't cascade into any more problems.

All in my opinion, of course.