D&D General Mixed Level Party

[Scott Christian]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5. So, my questions to all of you are:

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?
2. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?
3. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?
4. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Thanks.

 

[aco175]

I have not run anything lately other than an AL adventure at a convention a couple years ago. That was when we had a group of 2nd level PCs and one was 4th level. He could take more damage and do a couple things more than the others, but it did not feel overpowered. I think the player did a good job of not doing more and letting the rest of the party do things as well.

In 2e times I played joined a long standing campaign as a one-off for a night. It was ok since we were in high school and went to a college in Boston to play with the 'cool kids'. Were were allowed to make 5th level PCs to join their party of 9th level PCs. It was a bit of a mashup since we were joining their party and it made for like 10 PCs that night. We did contribute some, but not as much as we could have. The DM did do a good job of having a side attack from the main fight come around to where we were so we has something we could handle.

In 3e, we had a couple campaigns where we would allow dead PCs to join at one level less than the rest of the group and it was ok. We had played with starting at 1st level, but that wore thin after we had a part at 10th level and the new PC was 1st level and kept dying. Might have worked in 2e since each class had a different XP chart and some classes could catch up fast if the high level PCs earned 5,000xp, then the 1st level PC is suddenly 3rd of 4th level.

 

[Richards]

In my 3.5 Wing Three campaign, we ended up with each player having two separate PCs, and at the beginning of each adventure we'd have them decide which of the two they'd be running for that session. As they started occasionally favoring one PC over the other, that PC ended up earning more XP and becoming higher-level than the other one. I ended the campaign when the higher-up PCs were at 20th level, but we had others still at 14th-level or so.

It made it difficult to come up with level-appropriate adventures, since I never knew ahead of time which PCs would be going through the adventure. But that ended up being not too much of a problem, since the PCs were all part of an Adventurers Guild and had Guild rings that allowed them to teleport back to their headquarters and send their counterpart (that player's other PC) back in their place, so if the lower-level PCs found themselves in over their heads, they could always swap out with the more powerful PCs. Of course, that just ended up with the more-powerful PCs gaining even more XP than their counterparts....

The players liked having the flexibility of having more than one PC, and as three of them were new to D&D, it allowed them to test out more character concepts than they would have been able to do with a sole PC. (This campaign ran for 9 years.)

Johnathan

 

[LordEntrails]

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?

Yes, players did not like it. Many players left the campaign due to the disparity in the ability to influence the campaign. Last one like this was 3.5E and probably a decade or more ago.

1. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?

Recently only for AL and it worked fairly fine because of the limited amount of combat and the short term keeps such things from becoming overly aware.

1. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?

Not in decades. We've gotten competent at managing the campaigns so this doesn't happen.

1. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Decades ago I used to think that their should be some sort of 'natural consequences' or penalty for character death. Or that it somehow made in game sense to replace lost characters with new characters at first level or at least some lower level. But no, not anymore. It's a game, and if something doesn't add fun to the game, then why put it in? And for me, such natural consequences doesn't add fun.

 

[Yora]

I guess being the lowest level character in a party is much less of an issue when there will frequently be other parties in which the same character will be one of the higher level ones.

It really us based on the assumption of non-permanent parties with rotating and replacing characters.

 

[iserith]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5. So, my questions to all of you are:

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?
2. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?
3. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?
4. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Thanks.

1. Yes, and currently doing so. A player pool with more than one PC per player will tend to result in this outcome, particularly if you have to start at a much lower level should your character die. It works, and we like it just fine.

2. Yes, but the level spread wasn't anything outside of a particular tier (so levels 1 to 4 or 5 to 10 for example). It was normal for everyone in the context of those sort of pickup games, so there were never any issues, and the game worked fine.

3. I'm not sure what this means.

4. I didn't see it as any different than running any other adventure, from a DM's perspective.

 

[R_J_K75]

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?

Yes, I have run and played in them. Two reasons I recall this happening was 1) not everyone in the game group played every game, so naturally some players advanced quicker than others. 2) PC death, we usually started new characters at two levels lower than the average party level. These both were acceptable for us, everyone understood this before they started playing and no one complained, whined or took their dice and went home.

 

[Lanefan]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5.

First off, starting all the way back at 1st level is a bit harsh. Were the rest of the party all 5th I'd most likely start the new one at 4th. That said...

Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?

Always, and so far (38 years later) so good. Rare indeed (other than when they're just starting out as raw 1sts) is the party where everyone happens to be the same level.

1. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?
2. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?

No; and no, at least not intentionally.

1. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

As DM I don't even think about it - it's simply another element the game contains. BUT, I should throw in a huge caveat here: mixed-level works much better in some editions than in others.

0e-1e-2e and to some extent 5e can handle mixed-level groups without much problem if any, IME provided no single character is more than 2 levels from the party average in either direction; or 1 level off the average if the highest in the party is 5th or less. Thus, a range of 2nd-4th (average 3rd) or 6th-10th (average 8th) works OK, but one 2nd in a party of 5ths or a single 6th where everyone else is 10th isn't really sustainable beyond the very short-term (e.g. the lower-level character got there by losing a bunch of levels and is awaiting Restoration). Flip side: a single 7th in a party of 3rd-4ths doesn't work very well either.

3e and 4e don't handle mixed-level parties well at all: the power curve is too steep in 3e and the ability mismatch too great in 4e, paerticularly if the level range spans a tier break.

Further, in 0e-1e-2e where a) level drain is a thing and b) classes advance at different speeds, it's pretty much guaranteed there'll be level variance within the party now and then; and the system is flexible enough to deal with such.

 

[Lanefan]

3. I'm not sure what this means.

I think the OP is referring to situations where while the characters are the same level (and maybe even the same class) there's a vast imbalance between them somewhere else, be it in stats or magic items or whatever.

A souped-up example: two 6th-level Fighters - one is Str 18 Con 18 and has +5 plate and a bunch of other magic, the other has Str 14, Con 12, and his prized possession is a +1 shortsword that glows in the dark.

 

[Charlaquin]

I haven’t yet, but I would like to. I find the idea really interesting. I do think it would work best for a group where there’s a large stable of rotating party members, either because there is a large group of rotating players, the players each have multiple characters, or both. That way, any power disparities are dynamic. One session you may have the weakest character in the party and the next session you may have the strongest. Most of the time you’ll probably be somewhere in-between.

 

[Mort]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5. So, my questions to all of you are:

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?

Yes, but not since 2e. The players liked the campaign, but I suspect that was because I designed it in such a way that everyone could contribute. It was, frankly, enough work that 3e onwards I preferred to keep the levels equal.

1. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?

Yes, when I ran some Adventure's League. While the players liked it, It was VERY clear that the higher level characters (ESPECIALLY in the lower tier 1-4 stuff) either had a much easier time or were doing more of the heavy lifting. Especially the spell casters (there is a massive difference in a lvl 4 caster and a level 1 caster).

1. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?

Not 100% sure what this means?

Is it when some characters have significantly better stuff than others?

If that's it, I don't think so.

1. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Not a big fan of significantly different power levels as DM as it meant I had that much more work to do to ensure everyone had somewhere to contribute and ways to have fun. I had noticed from PLAYING in campaigns with huge level differences that those at the lower end tended to have a lot less fun and didn't stay long.

 

[James Gasik]

I never really saw a good reason for letting a party be mixed-levels for very long. To be sure, there are reasons it can happen, but it messes with my encounter design. I stopped using level drain entirely as a mechanic in 1993 and I don't miss it. Losing levels for having the nerve to be brought back to life was similarly obnoxious to me; you died, your friends had to find the means to bring you back, you didn't get to play during this time, do you really need more penalties?

I've seen plenty of instances over the years of a character dying and the player going "don't bother bringing me back, I'll just make a new guy" largely because of the hassle.

I use milestone leveling, so characters all level up at the same pace. Some might say "well doesn't that reward people for not showing up to game?". To which I'm like, most of the time people miss games not because they want to, but because they gotta adult.

The reward for playing D&D is playing D&D, and there are other advantages to actually being able to participate than "gaining levels".

Now if you're playing AD&D, there's no way around this; not all classes progress at the same rate, some people get lucky and have +10% xp boosts, and you never know when someone is going to get a magic book or playing cards that can randomly award them with 50,000 xp and a beneficial magic item, lol.

 

[aco175]

I wonder if some of the old stuff from 1e/2e days contribute to this. I used to have just one or two PCs that we played and they travelled to other DMs games and such. It was hard to advance to a good level, so you tried to keep them alive and tried to keep them going. Newer games has a new PC every campaign and every DM so there is less portability. XP may have changed as well with the newer editions. I know I just use event based leveling instead of awarding XP nowadays. I'm thinking there is other things that make having a mixed party of levels difficult in the modern game. I think once 3e started to try and balance the classes.

 

[Scott Christian]

Not 100% sure what this means?

Yeah, I just meant when you have characters of the same level, but there is a huge disparity between their abilities. It might be because one player didn't know how to build their character, a few magic items stockpiled to one PC, or one player purposefully chose to be weaker and another min/maxed.

 

[Laurefindel]

I’ve DM and played in mixed level parties. Long story short; some players live with it more easily than others. I know I lean more toward the « others » as a player.

Mixed level party (or any amount of power discrepancy) works as long as all players can contribute equally and focus is equally distributed. If combat is the main metric of focus and contribution, then it’s not gonna work. But in a game where intrigue, exploration, investigation etc weighs more, it can work. In certain cases it can even work better than a more homogeneous party because the new challenges bring new opportunities, or allow different narratives.

In combat, the more powerful character usually get locked with the most powerful opponents, allowing more mobility for the weaker characters.

 

[Shiroiken]

Until 4E, mutliple levels of play was pretty much assumed. In OD&D, BCEMI, and AD&D different classes were balanced around different XP charts for leveling, so it was very common to have a rogue 2-3 levels higher than the magic-user/mage. In 3E there were lots of level draining effects, plus XP costs for magic item creation, so level would often vary by up to 2 (more than 2 and a character had fallen too far behind). 4E was the first one that truly balanced it out, but even then you had the possibility of different levels because of XP lost by missing a session.

5E has really tried to move away from it, but I've ran games with multiple levels. The key area are levels 5 and 11, because the power boost is pretty significant, making those under the bar obviously weaker comparatively. While some groups can work with it, a single lv 5 character will completely outshine a party of level 3 PCs. Having a split of levels 4/5 or 10/11 is much more manageable.

 

[Oofta]

In my home game, everyone is always the same level, even new PCs. It's just easier.

I have run (and played in) groups with mixed levels in public games. But even then, PCs are within 3 levels of each other since you balance by tier.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5. So, my questions to all of you are:

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?
2. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?
3. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?
4. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Thanks.

1. No. I've always seen several potential negatives in this, and no positives.

2. This is common in Adventurer's League games where the characters aren't part of a set party, and are a fairly random jumbling as long as they're all the same tier. (Although there is a heavy bias towards the top of the tier.)
Occasions where the party don't like the adventure overall are reasonably rare (everyone is there because they like playing D&D), however I don't believe that they specifically like having a character level difference in the party. (The thankfully occasional powertripper aside.)

3. Sort of. - A fairly sandbox campaign at tier 3. The houserules in place were not sufficient to keep the power and spotlight time shared evenly among the group. The players were not happy about it because some of them were deliberately not doing things that their characters were capable of and felt that they were limiting themselves, or just felt overshadowed. Fortunately there was no-one in the group who would have enjoyed being significantly more powerful than others and so not avoided overshadowing them.

4. I do not like it as a DM. In Adventurer's League it is just one of those things that you have to accept, but running a tier 1 adventure with a 1st level Paladin and then 2 druids, a wizard and a cleric all at level 4 is hard, takes effort away from making the adventure generally more fun for the participants, and I find it generally unpleasant.
Similarly for the sandbox campaign. Also did not like having a wide power discrepancy within the party.

 

[GreyLord]

I've seen several threads on other sites lately about how one PC is stronger than another, and it is ruining the game for the other players. It got me thinking how we used to run mixed level parties. Sometimes a character would die, and they would start back at level 1, even if the others were level 5. So, my questions to all of you are:

1. Have you ever run a mixed level campaign? If so, how did the players like it?
2. Have you ever run a mixed level short adventure? Did the players like it?
3. Have you ever run a same level campaign, but the power balance so consistent with a three or four level difference? If so, how did the players respond?
4. Lastly, if you have run any of these things - how did you, as DM, like it? Why?

Thanks.

1. yes
2. yes
3. no
4. It was okay. It depends on what your game is based on whether you will have it be a good game or not. If it is based primarily like a 3e game and later where combat is the focus of XP, there may be those that are not having fun because what challenges a higher level character will wipe out a lower level character, and what will be challenging for a lower level character may be a cakewalk for a higher level character.

3e and beyond can be a pain for multi-level PC games where levels are vastly different.

TSR D&D can be very different in this regards and shows WHY I consider it a different game with a different focus in many instances.

Rather than being based on combats giving XP, if it is all about the roleplaying interactions, puzzles, and other obstacles not so easily done by combat (and it's even easier if the XP is based on treasure found or milestones or storybased rewards as found in TSR D&D), even if there is combat mixed in, I find it works out very well in many instances.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think I've ran mixed level campaigns since 2e when the xp charts will so different. Since 3e, I've just ran it so that each PC is the same level, even new PCs coming in are at the same level. I generally don't even bother with asking the players to track their own xp, I just keep track of the party xp which determines everyone's level.