Does anybody else miss 1st L Characters

[JoeGKushner]

I'm relatively happy with the starting power of 4th edition.

The days of wizards being killed by cats are over at long last.

 

[Nivenus]

I personally like low-power 1st level characters, but I'm not sure if this is a popular enough option to be strongly supported. I have a feeling a lot of players like to start the game already several cuts better than the average, though I feel that on a thematic, narrative level, this approach fails on several fronts.

I personally like the idea of weak characters who gradually improve themselves like the heroes of many a tale. But I don't know how many people care enough about a narrative feel for campaigns to make that worthwhile.

 

[jbear]

Running out of spells and pulling out a crossbow teaches you the importance of resource management.

You can learn about resource management without being forced to pull out a crossbow when you have used your powerful spells. Wizards pulling out crossbows is frankly a lame concept. The mechanics here force wizards to use crossbows when otherwise the character probably wouldn't because mechanically its better to take a pot shot than do nothing. So a wizard pulling out a crossbow is gamist, nothing to do with pure RP.

Dying suddenly teaches you that your actions have consequences, that the world you're playing in is not built around you and can be arbitrary and capricious, and that character death is a natural and expected part of the game as it is of any adventure story. These are really important lessons for the players to learn, and it's best to learn them early before the players develop a sense of entitlement and start feeling like they're playing a game and not roleplaying.

Lethality is fine. But it doesnt lend itself towards making a great adventure. Dead mean don't walk.

As a DM I don't think its my role to 'teach' players how they should be playing by slapping an arbitrary death on them. So what you say here is not a truth. Far from it. You are talking about your preference of game. So what a player 'needs to be taught' will/can/must vary from game to game. I would say that it is important to teach players that the only limits are there imaginations, and that attempting heroic actions will be met with not arbitray deaths to teach them the supposed values of RP, but with heroic outcomes. Different strokes for different folks

Your use of the phrase 'sense of entitlement is very revealing about your attitudes towards your players. God forbid they feel like they are playing a game while they are playing a game!!! Roleplaying and Game are not mutually exclusive.

Thus the game should be easier and less lethal to them than it was at 1st level. The converse can be very discouraging. If players gain a level only to have every challenge they might face grow correspondingly more difficult, what did they gain?

Well before they were facing lethal bandits ... now they are flying airships in the astral sea battling deadly hordes of Githyanki. If they were to fight bandits they wouldn't be lethal. But why would you have high level characters facing those threats? That would be boring.

Now that I have that out of the way: "No, I personally don't miss crap 1st level characters"

I do remember the games I grew up playing as a kid which we would always begin as little kids and play through the characters childhood. I do have a recollection of us trying out 0-level rules in a celtic campaign, but we were kids and didn't really give a stuff about the rules. It was all about the adventure and the story. We reached lvl 1 when our childhood had finished and we had become young adults, at which point the real adventure began. We didn't even bother with xp during that initial part of the adventure. At certain points when challenges were overcome we received a reward like a metal dagger instead of out wooden sword etc etc.

It was plenty of fun, and I'd love to see this option as part of the system. Just make it an option. HP reduction? Not fussed. You can do this and still have 1st level heroic heroes. You just have to reduce dmg out put of monsters. The question is how many hits do you want characters/monsters to take.

[sblock=For me 3 should kill pretty much all but the most important monsters so 3 for a PC as well. 2 big hits could take a monster/PC down, a crit should be able to down both as well on a big hit. Weak monsters should be able to be killed in one, two at the most. [/sblock]

If character building is going to involve a point buy system so that different players can have the style of character they prefer and still be able to play the same game, I'm sure it will be easy enough for DMs to offer players a low, medium or high point buy to achieve the level of 'heroicity' of PCs they want for the start of the campaign.

 

[Hassassin]

Except I never discussed excluding any style of play. Zero level play as the "gritty" level(s) is inclusive of everyone and no one ever has to skip level one.

*shrug* Whatever. It remains to be seen what Wizards actually does. Maybe we'll both be wrong.

If you have 1-20 levels and gritty 1st, those who like to start with heroes have to skip a level. If you have 0-20 and gritty 0, the same is true. This is really just an argument about labeling, and I don't see why counting from zero is better than counting from one.

 

[TrippyHippy]

In answer to the original poster, and without reading the rest of the thread, I have to say yes, I miss playing first level characters.

I like low HP games, and actually getting a thrill when beating up low level monsters, and maybe picking up a low level magical item. And so on.

For those people that say they want more cool powers and the like, or who don't like the gritty nature of low level play, why can't you just award characters Experience points to take them out to Level 5 from the get go?

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Numbers are relative. 40 hp at level 1 in one game may seem like a lot at first glance when compared to 8 hp at level 1 in another, but if the first game assumes that the average level 1 attack deals 10 damage and the second assumes the average level 1 attack deals 2 damage those original hp totals are effectively equal.

Rather than argue about the number hp, powers and the like, how about we talk about what we want first level encounters to look like, because the specifics of that data is probably more useful.

Do you want the encounters level 1 characters face to look like these?

4 Goblins - 80% chance of the PCs winning a straight fight. 25% chance of a PC dropping to 0 hp.

4 Orcs - 50% chance of the PCs winning a straight fight. 50% chance of a PC dropping to 0 hp.

2 Bugbears - 30% chance of the PCs winning a straight fight. 65% chance of a PC dropping to 0 hp.

1 small white dragon - 20% chance of the PCs winning a straight fight. 80% chance of a PC dropping to 0 hp.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Now for the serious bit: I think the tiers approach really is the best way to go. And really, why do we need continuous numbers? Just reset the level number to 1 at the start of each new tier. So, you can have Novice 1 to 5 (or whatever), Veteran/Heroic 1 to 10 (or whatever), Paragon, Epic, etc.

So far, this is my favorite suggestion. It keeps the theme and value of levels, while also informing play. It seems very "dial"-like in that "if you want gritty play, start the game at level 1 Gritty! If you want heroic play, try level 1 Heroic! If you want epic play, start the game at level 1 Epic!"

This seems to be "here's how you adjust the dials" for play style. When the stated goal is to be able to change the modes of play, "setting" the game to "gritty" or "heroic" is a pretty cool idea, especially with the possibility of graduating from one tier of play to another.

I'm not a big fan of tiers as presented in 4e, but that doesn't mean it can't be done in a way I'd like. I think FireLance might be onto something here. As always, play what you like