D&D 5E Followup on "Everyone Starts at First Level"

[the Jester]

So I've been running a strict "ES@1" campaign for 5e so far. There are a total of about 30 players spread between a couple of different groups that swirl into different permutations for pretty much every adventure. As of yet, the high level pcs are 5th. I know ES@1 isn't for everyone, and when I posted a previous thread on the subject a few months ago there was quite an uproar over the idea. That's fine, if you don't like it, don't do it. For those who were interested in hearing how it was going after a while, here's my basic report.

It's going great!

So far, smart play has been enough to keep the low level pcs from dying in droves, even in unexpected and very dangerous battles. Last night, a party of seven pcs, including two brand-new first level ones (a druid and a warlock), a couple of fifth level guys (vengeance paladin and evoker wizard) and a few 3rd level pcs (two barbarians and a cleric) were in an interesting and very dangerous encounter.

It started with 6 hyenas, 4 gnolls and a gnoll pack leader (or whatever it's called). But the gnolls quickly released a hydra.

The hydra, of course, is something like CR 8- it's burly, it's bad, it deals tons of damage and it had just under 200 hps. It was one of those encounters where I seriously thought there was a good chance of a TPK- but the party hung together, used smart tactics and killed it with no deaths. It was a harrowing, barely-made-it kind of fight, but the party triumphed.

And even those 1st level guys both survived and contributed.

The warlock's eldritch blast dealt somewhere around 25 damage to the hydra. The druid kept pinging it with a sling, but more importantly, healed one of the barbarians who was nearly down (I think he had 4 hps left) at a crucial moment.

For the record, I neither pulled punches nor fudged at all.

Another recent encounter with a different group that included some level 2 and level 5 guys was with a pair of winter wolves. Again, the lower-level pcs not only survived, they contributed meaningfully.

I'll update again- either this thread or in a new one- once I have a greater level disparity to report on. I absolutely acknowledge that the ES@1 paradigm doesn't work for everyone, doesn't work for every edition of D&D and might break down eventually. So far, though, my players and I have found it to be working just fine.

 

[Umbran]

I'm glad it is going well.

Of course, my concerns with ES@1 are not about the gap from 1st to 5th. It is more about 1st to 10th+ that I think would be problematic, in terms of work to maintain spotlight balance and interest on that person now playing the 1st level character among well-established, powerful heroes.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It has been working well in both the campaigns I'm running right now too. IMHO the ability of 1st level characters and higher level ones to interact meaningfully with each other is an indication that the designers did something right. Kudos to the D&D design team.

 

[neobolts]

Ugh, I detest ES@1. This is a follow up thread, and I don't recall participating in the orginal, so here's my two cents which is likely a retread so bear with me...

Based on a personal experience I had, I think ES@1 is terrible. The one game was a store game where I was the new player, it was 4e and I was too understatted (lack of level + lack of gear vs well geared higher level heroes) to contribute in battle. I could only hit most mobs on a 20. Mobs could only miss me on a 1. The session was a minimal dialog dungeon crawl and I felt like a peasant tagging also with some heroes and trying not to die. While this could be a neat concept for the right night with the right group, this was NOT the heroic exploits I was seeking and the session stunk like crazy.

The point is, (ES@1 or otherwise) no idea or house rule is a good rule if it doesn't meet the needs of everyone at the table. Glad to hear things are working out better in your group! If ES@1 is what you and your players want, you'll be fine.

Even with 5e's bounded accuracy, the math is likely to eventually fall apart due to AC and save scaling. Consider switching "New PCs start at the same level as the lowest PC." if things start to fall apart.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've always done ES@1 and never really had a problem. Especially in 5e. The difference in an attack hitting between a 1st level and a 5th level PC is only around 1, or maybe 2. On a d20 roll, that's pretty insignificant. And they level really fast to 3, so it's not been an issue in any of my games. I'll also note that PCs really didn't start getting bonuses to AC until level 5 or so anyway, as that's when they started seeing the better armor, or they got a stat bump. With the exception of HP, the ability to hit and be hit between PCs with a 4 or 5 level gap is not significant, in my experience.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ugh, I detest ES@1. This is a follow up thread, and I don't recall participating in the orginal, so here's my two cents which is likely a retread so bear with me...

Based on a personal experience I had, I think ES@1 is terrible. The one game was a store game where I was the new player, it was 4e

4E? Yeah I wouldn't do ES@1 in 4E. Whole different animal.

 

[neobolts]

I've always done ES@1 and never really had a problem. Especially in 5e. The difference in an attack hitting between a 1st level and a 5th level PC is only around 1, or maybe 2. On a d20 roll, that's pretty insignificant. And they level really fast to 3, so it's not been an issue in any of my games. I'll also note that PCs really didn't start getting bonuses to AC until level 5 or so anyway, as that's when they started seeing the better armor, or they got a stat bump. With the exception of HP, the ability to hit and be hit between PCs with a 4 or 5 level gap is not significant, in my experience.

I'm going to flip this into an question, for anyone, not just directed at Sacrosanct.
1) In 5e, does PC level gap eventually become a problem?
2) If so, what size is the gap when the problems start?

 

[Tormyr]

I too will be interested to see how this goes for higher level parties. Life will be scary even for the level 2 or 3 PC. Fireballs, giants, and more will mean instant death if they connect. I will be interested to see if ES@1 still works or if something like "A tier is 5 levels, so new players start 5 levels back," works better.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The main issues I see with this method at mid-high levels (7-10 or so) are the annoying book keeping ones. When the XP per encounter starts climbing really high the new guy is going to jump a couple levels in one encounter then another couple levels in a few more encounters. At that point the actual time spent at those levels is effectively zero anyway so the player won't have time to even record new abilities on the character sheet before leveling again.

When the party reaches that point, I would switch to other options.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm worried that the choice of new-character rules might affect which characters actually end up being played. If a new character comes in at level 1, then that's fine if you're an archer or a wizard, because the scary monsters are probably just going to ignore you while you're obviously not the biggest threat. If you want to play a barbarian, or a great-weapon paladin, then that's a fairly suicidal choice in a party that will be facing high-level monsters.

At least 5E does give you the option of hanging back, since your javelins are guided by Strength, but that still leaves you with a long time where you're not playing the character you want to play.