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Is it cheating to start a PC above 1st level?
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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 1614701" data-attributes="member: 15999"><p>No, the examples do prove something. Rogueattorney was responding to AaronL’s assertion that there was no <em>in-character</em> reason why high-level characters would associate with low-level characters, and his examples prove that this can happen in a fantasy adventure story. Now, whether or not D&D adventures can resemble such stories is a separate issue and one that is also being discussed here. My thought is that a very skilled DM or a very tolerant group of players could probably pull it off, but I didn’t read rogueattorney’s post as addressing that point.</p><p></p><p>Looking at another issue – the complaint that level 1 characters have no backstory – level 1 doesn’t have to mean “no prior experience.” Clearly, every PC has to have been doing something before the story starts, but since it isn’t part of the game it doesn’t count. I think of it as "the PC XP meter only starts ticking when the first session kicks off." That interpretation requires being a little less literal, but I could wrap my brain around it. Yes, I understand that the RAW imply nothing of the sort, but they do suggest that the fighter has somehow learned to use every weapon and gotten toughened up, while the thief has somehow learned a bunch of skills and how to fight dirty. Or, one could assume that it takes 1000 XP to turn a Commoner 1 into a PC 1, and that the unique feature of the commoner class is that it can be actually converted into a level of another class. Again, nothing in the RAW supports this interpretation, but I play this game to be creative.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 1614701, member: 15999"] No, the examples do prove something. Rogueattorney was responding to AaronL’s assertion that there was no [I]in-character[/I] reason why high-level characters would associate with low-level characters, and his examples prove that this can happen in a fantasy adventure story. Now, whether or not D&D adventures can resemble such stories is a separate issue and one that is also being discussed here. My thought is that a very skilled DM or a very tolerant group of players could probably pull it off, but I didn’t read rogueattorney’s post as addressing that point. Looking at another issue – the complaint that level 1 characters have no backstory – level 1 doesn’t have to mean “no prior experience.” Clearly, every PC has to have been doing something before the story starts, but since it isn’t part of the game it doesn’t count. I think of it as "the PC XP meter only starts ticking when the first session kicks off." That interpretation requires being a little less literal, but I could wrap my brain around it. Yes, I understand that the RAW imply nothing of the sort, but they do suggest that the fighter has somehow learned to use every weapon and gotten toughened up, while the thief has somehow learned a bunch of skills and how to fight dirty. Or, one could assume that it takes 1000 XP to turn a Commoner 1 into a PC 1, and that the unique feature of the commoner class is that it can be actually converted into a level of another class. Again, nothing in the RAW supports this interpretation, but I play this game to be creative. [/QUOTE]
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Is it cheating to start a PC above 1st level?
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