Pvt. Winslow
Explorer
I never said they would win. They are allowed to fight whatever they find in the game. They are also allowed to lose.
Well, if you're saying it like that, then obviously any party can fight any monster. It doesn't hold much weight.
We have a new player to the game who has a negative constitution modifier. The character is 3rd level and has 13hp.
This informs how she plays (she currently has Aid up for 18hp) as well as the rest of the party. As a Trickery Cleric she is by far the best one in the party to enable stealth and contributes to combat with valuable buffing and such.
Here's a great example. She's playing a support character with next to no hp. So likely, she stays in the back, avoids any kind of attention, and focuses on buffing her allies.
That works for support, but what if she was playing a monk? Even pretending she had more hp, like 30 or something, how long do you think she'd last on the frontlines?
In some ways, by making your players reroll at lower level, you might even be influencing the types of classes they choose. Ranged types, support, casters, those all work better at avoiding an axe to the face. But a ranger at 3rd when the others are at 8th would have a rough time, so maybe the player decides not to roll a ranger, when otherwise they would have if they'd been the same level.
Our game is pretty even between exploration, social interaction, and combat. The combat part really isn't that important. The current campaign, Out of the Abyss, has a large focus on exploration.
The whole party avoids combat in general, though it happens.
Here we go. So no wonder starting at low level isn't an issue. You don't focus much of a campaign on it, and actively avoid it. Meaning if you give them XP for exploring and other tasks, they'll level up without risking their characters. By the time a big combat comes around they'll be higher level.
Then again, have you ever asked them if they avoid fights because they have low level party members and they're trying to protect them? It would be interesting if their playstyle has been molded, at least in part, due to your rule on rerolling.
I don't look at encounters and the party's capabilities and look at whether they are balanced. They are what they are. I roll for random encounters, sometimes they are difficult, sometimes they aren't, and sometimes there aren't that many.
As an aside, characters tend to be different levels in our games anyway as people are busy and don't always make the sessions. So there is a gradual spread of character levels.
It's not like there is one level 3 character and 3 or 4 level 11 characters. The current campaign is still early on, but it would not be unlikely for us to end up with 4 characters of levels 4, 6, 6, and 8 at one point.
Whatever happens, happens.
Ah. So they lose out on XP if they can't make a session either. That's another thing I've never understood. Another penalty when the penalty was already them missing out on a night of fun gaming with friends. But that's another topic altogether.
It's good to see that their levels aren't that far off. Have you ever had a game with a larger gap in levels, and if so how did that go?