D&D 5E Everyone Starts at First Level

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Normally, our group plays everyone starts at first level and has since beginning 3E (and even back in Basic/Advanced D&D in the 80's).

Our group has recently added a new player. So, that threw us a wrinkle.

We've been running a long time campaign in PF/3X that we've converted to 5E. Under the PF/3X rules, my basic DM assumption has been that it's an E6 type world, though sixth level isn't the level cap. But, sixth is considered high level. Highest level PC's, so far, in the story were 7th level. The players each run multiple PC's in different but connected adventures (so that there's a pool of PC's of higher than 1st level to join the higher level group in the event of PC death). The character composition of each group changes based upon the expectations of the current needs of each group. Higher level PC's may join the lower level group and lower level PC's may join the higher level group (assuming they aren't prevented from doing so by their location and/or timeframe in the game world).

So, the discussion came up about having the new player's character join the group with 5th to 7th level characters and whether or not he should start at 1st level? And if started at 1st level, should he be given hit points as if he were 3rd level (to improve survivability)?

Ultimately, we made the decision to start him at 1st level with normal 1st level hit points. The rest of the group felt as if it were too much of a freebie to give him levels or hit points for free. Also, his experience playing D&D is that of a neophyte, so we didn't want to rob him of the 1st level experience.

So, he made up three first level characters. And, each member of the group made up a new first level character. One of his new characters joined up with the new characters of the experienced players for a mission to rescue one of the local farmer's daughters who'd been kidnapped by cultists and taken into an underground labyrinth. This allowed him to gain some experience playing without being outshone by higher level PC's and to hopefully get a handle on the basics he'd need to survive with one of his other 1st level characters with the higher level group. (Do to the logistics of the situation, the 1st level PC's from this group wouldn't be able to join or interact with the higher level group until much later on.)

All that said, it was a lot of fun. Ultimately, two of the new first level PC's died. One was that of one of the most experienced players (his character's body was irrecoverable, being dissolved from the inside and turned to goo by massive amounts of acidic poison from a certain variety of monstrous centipedes). The new player's character also died, but was brought back life through the use of an extremely rare Elixir of Revivification (only two of those have appeared in adventures since the 80's).

The higher level group has a cleric of sufficient level to cast Revivify, if the neophyte's character needs it. But, he doesn't have (or currently have access to) the diamonds to do so. And, the highest level fighter in that group is in need of that same spell, too (having recently been slain due to very poor PC tactics by a skeletal monstrosity created by an insane gnoll huecuva cleric). The point of which is that even the high level characters aren't immune to death. So, if the new 1st level character dies, it's not anything that couldn't happen to the higher level characters.

I don't always run encounters that are necessarily level appropriate. Some are beyond the characters' abilities. And, more often than not, the encounters are below the characters' abilities (as I run the game as if being higher level shouldn't be rewarded by increasing the difficulty of everything in the game world). And, the experienced players know this and know that it's not always wise to fight, discretion being the better part of valor. And, I trust that they'll help the neophyte character as much as they can, as their own PC's lives may depend upon him at some point.

I'm looking forward to our next session.

 

[Jester David]

Interesting.
I'm sad I didn't look at this thread earlier. Having replacement PCs start at level 1 is a fun idea. Catching up might not be possible (unless downtime rules are employed) but they should level up quickly, allowing that player to make swifter progress.

 

[dagger]

This is the play style I prefer and we have mostly done. Since I still run 1e as a DM its not a problem for us, but I am flexible and have let people come in with higher level characters.

As a player in past 1e game I hated dying but bringing in a young buck was a lot of time fun as heck. Also you tended to be a lot better equipped than the standard 1e thanks to hand me down magic gear.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Also you tended to be a lot better equipped than the standard 1e thanks to hand me down magic gear.

There's a lot to be said for that!

 

[KarinsDad]

Dude, your dice are cursed. There is only one solution. You need to go buy more dice.

I switched out my dice. Last night, I rolled 7 D20s. One of them was above 5 (a 13). Six of them were 5 or lower. This had not been a good dice rolling campaign for me. And the 13 was my off handed dagger attach that did 1 point of damage.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

What are the Pro's of doing this?

I can clearly remember a few Con's from back in the good old days.

• 1st level PC sits in the back during any dangerous situation twidling thumbs for multiple game sessions
• 1st level PC gets killed by any area effect attack on the party, doesn't matter if he saves.
• Either the DM takes it easy on the new PC or he pretty much just dies to the higher level threats.
• The new PC levels up pretty fast anyway from the huge amounts of XP, so why bother.

Thank you. I totally agree with this. The one time I tried Organized Play (maybe D&D 3.5?) I started at 1st level and basically just got to follow the party around. My class might as well have been "benchwarmer/servant/waterboy" while other higher level PCs walked around with literally decks of magic items.

Like I said, I did this the one time I played and decided it wasnt worth the bother and didnt go back.

*As an addendum, I did try D&D 5E Organized Play/Adventure League(?)at Gencon this year as everyone was 1st level (Shadow on the Moonsea?), but the last encounter resulted in a single NPC killing each member of the party in consecutive rounds (whatever he was, he got 3 attacks per round, any one could kill a PC) (I managed to escape because I had slowed his movement with Ray of Frost, and then jumped off the boat and swam away). yes, i got awarded the Magic Item for the session, but again this reinforced the unsatisfying feeling I had originally.

 

[Wrathamon]

OP is only as good as the DM and the players that attend ...

 

[Warunsun]

OP is only as good as the DM and the players that attend ...

Very true. Plus you have to give a Dungeon Master a little time to get used to a system. If Desh-Rae-Halra was at GenCon the DM may have only seen his or her PH once before running the adventure. It is not a great excuse but it is true. Heck, the DMG isn't even out yet. So I would suggest to Desh-Rae-Halra not to swear off all Organized Play yet. You might not like it, however. It isn't for everyone. But you might want to give it a try again around Origins next year. By then the convention judges should be more used to the system.

As far as the original post goes:
I am currently DMing a Castles & Crusades based game set in the Forgotten Realms circa the 2nd edition timeline. C&C is very much like 1st or 2nd edition AD&D with a much simpler system. We recently had a returning player join us. He hadn't played AD&D in at-least 10 years, maybe a few more. I chose as the DM to have him create a first level character. During my game groups experiences with 3rd edition D&D and 4th edition D&D we generally always had a new player character come in at average party level or perhaps one level lower. We never made them join up with a first level character. It just doesn't work with 3E or 4E. It did work just fine this time with Castles & Crusades but the average party level was only 5th and C&C uses those "exponential" experience charts of yesteryear. He was able to mostly catch up pretty quickly. It also didn't hurt that you get experience points for finding magic items and gold like in old school AD&D. My group is definitely going to try out D&D fifth edition after the DMG comes out. I am not sure I would have had the returning player come in at minus 4 levels under the 5E system. It might work but I would have to read over the DMG and expectations on experience gain before deciding that. I would say it is too early to make such a decision for 5E but it definitely was fine with AD&D/C&C at levels 4-6.

 

[BASHMAN]

I'm not a fan. Currently I'm 7th level in a campaign. We've had a lot of people join at 1st level as we adventure. Invariably, they either hang out near the back and cringe in fear from danger for the first session, simply trying to survive without being noticed,then auto-level to 3rd from their "share" of the XP. Then they try (and fail) to play a useful role as we are fighting monsters they cannot harm much at all (oh that isn't a magic weapon? Sorry, the monster pretty much ignores it). They invariably take a single hit and get hurled across the room into unconsciousness and death saves (everyone's idea of a good time). After their "share" of XP, they invariably level again, but the contribution of eating a single attack from an enemy is off-set by other group members having to use their actions to keep that character alive and also other group members getting less XP for the privilege because it is divided up more ways.

I am also not a fan because after seeing this, I know I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT to be in the boat that these PCs are in. I've thought "I have this cool alternate character idea in mind, but I cannot dare switch from my 7th level character because I'd be forced to start at 1st." If my PC dies without chance for raise dead, and I had no choice but to start over, I'd be tempted to quit, because "no gaming is better than bad gaming" and from what I've seen (and this is my experience, do not try to deny my experience of what I've actually seen in games I've played), nothing is suckier than being 1st level in a party of higher level people. Constantly failing at everything is not fun. Constantly making death saves and feeling like a drain on the party's XP and resources is not fun. The "Real Role players" may call me a "munchkin" for that, but I want to play BIG DAMN HEROES not someone who needs to be babysat.

Starting at 1st level is great and fine; when everyone else is also 1st or 2nd. But past that, it is a real drag, from my perspective as a player in a campaign using this rule (though I've been fortunate enough to not be on the receiving end of it).

 

[howandwhy99]

This works best if the game is actually designed to support it. I'm not sure 5th edition is, but it may altered to make it so. I don't know.

In earlier editions all new characters started out at level 1, 0 XP.
To start a new character is to begin playing the game over from the start.

You could fully retire or make your PC an NPC temporarily, but you didn't get to keep anything but your memories.
Though I know some people tried to will their offspring PC their stuff.
But having your memories of course really helps care at all about playing the game.
Not every level 1 character is being played by a novice player after all.

Perhaps the most important point to remember about 1st level characters is that as soon as the dice are rolled to generate them they are unbalanced with other 1st level characters.
The game is balanced at start and 3d6 scores do bound them outside of rewarded magical stats.
But after the character is generated and begun in play the difference simply increase from there.

Every player begins equally and balanced before play begins, but then the dice are rolled and some characters are stronger while others are weaker and so on.
That all stats must be rolled or derived (or have no variability as some non-D&D games used) is a vital part of the game.

Party balancing is part of game play and individual strategy by each and every player.
Treasure division is a big part of this, but by no means all.
That 5e removed treasure balancing for each player is a big step toward enabling this cooperative play again.

When players share resources, their ideas of the game world, their maps, their weapons, items, even go so far to work together as a unit.
Then cooperation balances the party. Not the rules.

Cooperative games that don't reward players individually remove individual accomplishment.
And remove the ability for players to sacrifice and succeed together or apart as part of their own desire.
Choice matters in D&D about whether or not to cooperate.