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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6111231" data-attributes="member: 1465">IMXP most experienced groups in 3ed after the first few years started every game at some level between 3rd and 10th. That's what they called the "sweet spot". Lower than that, experienced players felt probably that their PCs weren't flexible or tactically interesting enough, and a few levels above 10 experienced DMs probably started to have issues designing adventures that could withstand the powers of the PCs. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean to me that the game would have been better if levels 1-2 and 15-20 had been totally missing. The choice was there, some people still managed to run a 15+ level game despite the difficulties, and almost everyone used levels 1-2 at least for learning the game, and still many people used levels 1-2 of a single class in multiclassing, even if their PC overall was higher level. Just because there is a "sweet spot" doesn't mean that the dial isn't fine, or that what is lower and higher should better not be available. Additionally, it is useful for NPCs, although clearly not essential (there are other ways for them).Personally I consider myself experienced enough not to be called a beginner, and yet I have been writing here many times my feelings that 1st level was a bit too full of stuff. There might be an issue of different expectations here: some gamers like thinking that all PCs are superior individuals, the only ones who can become heroes, thus they should be at 1st level already far better than commoners; other gamers prefer seeing PCs as people who started off as any other commoner but then raised high upon the masses thanks to good decisions and hard work, and sometimes those players they actually want to roleplay and not skip that early phase of PC's career. I just think that a game that supports that option is simply better than a game that doesn't. Of course, the way suggested in L&L article is not the only way tho!I agree those are the goals, but I don't get how you arrive at the conclusion...First of all, Basic means two things, as there is Basic characters and Basic in-game rules, the second being IMO much more important for me. As a player I am not interested in Basic characters because I like customization, but as a DM I am very interested in Basic rules that let me focus on story and action without totally sacrifice tactics, but without the need for "system mastery" or long preparation times. So let's focus on Basic characters only, and let's elaborate a bit on those goals...First goal is not just to "attract" new players but to "keep them playing" after the first few levels. If the game gets too complicated (for both players and DMs, and both in character complexity and in-game rules alike) there is a risk that non-expert players are quitting the game after a few levels. This is one reason for Basic to cover at least 10 levels IIRC (otherwise it could have been enough to sell a Basic box that covered the regular first 3-5 levels like in the past) to give those players enough room for many adventures without having a burn-out. Adding apprentice levels below actually makes the room 20% larger.Second goal is not just for a whole group of players wanting a low-complexity game, but more specifically to allow different players at the same table, the expert ones and the casual ones, the first playing highly customized complex PCs and the second being able to jump on board of some friends' evening game without fear of not being able to play. The coexistence of Basic and Standard PCs is quite a lot more ambitious that just making two versions of the game, but the latter wouldn't allow to mix expert and casual players on an existing game, it would require the DM to setup a new campaign with Basic characters for all in order to accomodate a newcomer. It might be too hard to achieve this goal, but it's IMHO a very worthwhile goal to let gamers try and bring friends, spouses, co-workers, children etc. to try out the real game together, without even stopping their current campaign. That said, this second goal has nothing to do with apprentice levels <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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