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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DamionW" data-source="post: 2569689" data-attributes="member: 18649">On a tangent, albeit relevant one, I wanted to discuss the disadvantages of rolling a character up from 3rd-6th level just to start playing with the abilities desired.  I understand the tedium of having less than 10 or 20 h.p. and how perilous this is in a conflict, but there is a lot of character background and non-statistical advantages that starting a character at this point can lose.  Case in point:  I decided one DnD campaign that I wanted to play a manipulative, Rasputin type of evil mage as my central character concept.  It wasn't out of seeing some nifty new supplement or whatever, I just wanted to play out the progression of such a character.  I always read about these evil powers behind the throne in fantasy settings, but never saw a depiction of how one gets that far.  Every figure like that has to start somewhere and I wanted to explore that.So, a DM I know was running a DnD campaign, and I decided I'd join it with this character concept in mind.  He's an experienced and good DM, so I thought he'd give me leeway to explore it.  Because he and the other players wanted to, they were starting the campaign with PCs at the 6th level or so.  I did some power gaming design to focus my character on being persuasive and made a Rogue 1, Specialist enchanter wizard 5.  I took feats such as negotiator, etc. to max out my diplomacy, bluff, and relative skills to be able to influence people with or without magic.  Then I talked with the DM about what spheres of influence I would have generated in those five levels of advancement before the campaign started.  In my imagining, with that kind verbal prowess, I should at least have a "Baker Street Gang" of street urchins at my disposal, or perhaps a few merchant company agents who owe me some favors.  He agreed to give me ties to a mercenary company that was influenced by me.Then when I went on the first mission the company assigned me, I find myself in a seedy Underdark sord of slums where the company rep was waiting to kill me.  That immediately turned me off from the game he was running.  How could I walk into it with strong central concept for the character and specialize him so adeptly at being persuasive and say flat out that that's what he's been doing for five levels, and this is the only advantage I've been given?  A rat-bastard merc company that turns on me on my first mission?All that rant was to highlight this point:  How can you quantify the life experiences and character background gained in advancing from 1-5 level if you're just going to jump right to 6th because you don't like low-level gaming?  There are many contacts, allies, enemies, memories that are being glazed over just to make the statistics match the combat capabilities the concensus of the party wants to be able to survive with.  I know playing a 1st-2nd level PC is difficult and you're on the edge of being killed very often, but the DM should reward that with giving you friends and experiences that are distilled beyond just XP.I'm starting my own campaign soon, and I intend to start the party at 1st level for that reason.  I may have to just throw animals and goblins at them for awhile, but I feel there is much to the formative/infant levels of a character that define who they'll be when they can wield sway over the campaign world in their later years.  What are peoples thoughts on this matter?</blockquote>

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