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

payn · 2026-03-05T19:24:56+0000

Reynard said:
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.

Well, yes that was the intent of prestige and I liked the concept. The execution was either an uplayable PC or an overpowered monster. MC in general lets you trade raw power for more versatility.

Reynard · 2026-03-05T19:31:55+0000

payn said:
Well, yes that was the intent of prestige and I liked the concept. The execution was either an uplayable PC or an overpowered monster.

We made our own for our setting, which is I think part of the intent behind them.

payn said:
MC in general lets you trade raw power for more versatility.

I think that is a rosy view of how MCing is generally used. Most of the time, folks seem to seek out broken combos and power gaming.

Scribe · 2026-03-05T19:35:32+0000

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

I think multiclassing is a huge mistake.

Scribe · 2026-03-05T19:40:45+0000

Sorry @payn I can get on board for specific systems, but I just dont think its great design in general and leads to a lot of nonsense in a system that on the surface strives to be more clean like 5e.

Let it live in PF1/3.5 or PF2 (I guess?)

payn · 2026-03-05T19:43:25+0000

Scribe said:
Sorry @payn I can get on board for specific systems, but I just dont think its great design in general and leads to a lot of nonsense in a system that on the surface strives to be more clean like 5e.

Let it live in PF1/3.5 or PF2 (I guess?)

I guess because of 5E's "cleanliness" its really not an issue like it was in 3E/PF1.

Scribe · 2026-03-05T19:45:03+0000

payn said:
I guess because of 5E's "cleanliness" its really not an issue like it was in 3E/PF1.

I've seen a few obnoxious builds, hell, anything Paladin/Warlock is just asinine to me. I just feel it runs counter to what the edition was looking to do.

On the other end, I feel like its exactly what 3/PF1 WANTED to be doing, so just lean into it and let players go wild, if that makes sense.

payn · 2026-03-05T19:48:15+0000

Scribe said:
I've seen a few obnoxious builds, hell, anything Paladin/Warlock is just asinine to me. I just feel it runs counter to what the edition was looking to do.

On the other end, I feel like its exactly what 3/PF1 WANTED to be doing, so just lean into it and let players go wild, if that makes sense.

Oh yeah thats more to do with short rest and long rest classes design than MC, IMO.

Brotton Goodfellow · 2026-03-05T19:58:18+0000

Voted usually: I love playing in those first few levels and I love running games for those levels. If I’ve got some veterans at the table I might start at 2 or 3.

Reynard · 2026-03-05T20:04:16+0000

I think if I were to start at level 1 for a new campaign, I would really stretch that level out -- use it to build the Starter Town and the relationships the characters have there, to emphasize the "normal life" of these characters BEFORE they become adventurers.

THEMNGMNT · 2026-03-05T20:11:18+0000

My players dig zero to hero progression. They seemingly always want to start at 1st level. We tend to play to Tier 3 or Tier 4. So they're long campaigns.

For my next campaign, I'm going to house rule that at 1st level they add their CON to starting hit points (not CON mod) and then do not add CON mod at all after that. The goal being to make the power curve a little higher at the start and lower at the end.