Levels without Combat?

[hong]

Are there any publishers planning on crafting methods for players to gain experience points without combat? Many people of noble rank or those who've received training at special colleges or halls often do not emerge as 1st level characters. To me, this is part of the biggest problem with a level based system. In GURPS or Champions, you just say, "You're playing very heroic characters. Here's X." In D&D, it's generally assumed you start off first level.

All I can say is, "huh?" D&D gives you a range of power levels, going from the puny to beyond superheroic. There's nothing in the rules that requires you to use all those levels, or that you have to start at the puny end.

If you wanted to, you could easily say "next campaign, we start at 10th level". In fact, one could say that that's what the starting wealth tables by level in the DMG are for. The last campaign I DMed, the PCs started at 4th level. The next one (hopefully kicking off in a few weeks) will start at 3rd.