D&D 5E New Players same level as Current Players?

[Pvt. Winslow]

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?

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

Maybe a solution would be to start out at 20th (or some other high) level then?

If the desire is to be super powerful then that is trivially easy to accomplish.

I also don't think my games are low combat. We run published adventures. 5e is designed to be 1/3 combat, and we are around that mark. I would say our games are average for 5e. Maybe you are just running super high combat games?

Honestly, I have run games where they started at high level. There's nothing wrong with that. The only difference between our groups in that regard, is that they feel they've 'earned' their high levels by reaching them with one character. They don't feel they need to keep re-earning them on every character they make.

As for the amount of combat in my games, I run homebrew campaigns and my players do love combat. It's at least 50% on our game, with the other half being RP and exploration. I also don't run a sandbox, but a plot based game, so they don't usually wander around and sometimes run into hordes of weak monsters and other times run into Godzilla. I try to make sure they have fun and let their characters be awesome.

 

[MG.0]

Kind of an odd way of phrasing it. Shoehorning. As if you're forcing them to be higher level. Do your players resent the idea of coming back the same level without having 'earned' it?

I've discussed it with the players before. They prefer to have actually developed a character all the way from beginning to end. They strongly identify with their characters and starting at higher level is like skipping the first half of a good book.

Shoehorning is not so much referring to merely bringing characters back at the same level so much as the thought process that demands all players must level together.

I'm curious as well for how your encounters go with such a diverse party. Are yours similar to ad_hoc in that combat is rare or avoidable? Or do your players hide with their low level characters?

Combat definitely isn't rare. It is often but not always avoidable with intelligent play. My players also know from hard won experience when their characters need to run for their lives. Overall it works well because the players work well together and try to not take on more than they can handle based on which characters are involved in the current session.

I'm earnest when I ask about this stuff, because I'm trying to find where the true divide is. It feels like there's another factor at play here that draws people to bringing chars back at low level. Whether it's sandbox vs story arc, low combat games, or something else.

My own players seem to be the opposite of a few here. They would feel penalized if I made them reroll as 1st or even just lower level, because they enjoy levelling up and taking on bigger challenges. Challenges don't just mean combat. It could mean intrigue or espionage or saving a Kingdom.

My players definitely enjoy levelling up, but they also enjoy the entire journey form low to high, with all the character development and interesting stories that occurs along the way.

They like having more abilities and capabilities, so they'd never be happy with that kind of cost for death.

Ah, I think that's where the difference lies. My players often have a stable of characters most of which know each other and work together. So instead of 6-8 players with one character each in a party of 6-8, we have 6-8 players with nearly 30 characters all part of an extended "party". Sometimes a player will run two characters at the same time, but not too often. Death typically means switching to another character that may be higher or lower than the one currently in play. Of course, resurrection is always on the table as well when the opportunity presents itself. Every character starts at level one, but the choice of when that start happens is entirely up to the player.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

Maybe a solution would be to start out at 20th (or some other high) level then?

If the desire is to be super powerful then that is trivially easy to accomplish.

I also don't think my games are low combat. We run published adventures. 5e is designed to be 1/3 combat, and we are around that mark. I would say our games are average for 5e. Maybe you are just running super high combat games?

Honestly, I have run games where they started at high level. There's nothing wrong with that. The only difference between our groups in that regard, is that they feel they've 'earned' their high levels for that campaign by reaching them with one character. They don't feel they need to keep re-earning them on every character they make.

As for the amount of combat in my games, I run homebrew campaigns and my players do love combat. It's at least 50% on our game, with the other half being RP and exploration. I also don't run a sandbox, but a plot based game, so they don't usually wander around and sometimes run into hordes of weak monsters and other times run into Godzilla. I try to make sure they have fun and let their characters be awesome. That means finding the right level of challenges.

 

[Aribar]

If it's a brand new player who has never played any edition of D&D before, I'd try to run them through their own session as a level 1 character just to learn the game. D&D is stupidly complicated and they don't need the burden of leveling up and making lasting mechanical choices while still learning the very basics. Maybe towards the end of the session guide them through leveling up to 2 and do some culminating encounter at the end before giving them "homework" to level up to the same point as the rest of the group.

If it's someone who has played D&D before, they can just start at the same level as everyone else. I find it silly to tie game attendance to a character's level. Why would I want my players (or myself for that matter) to be not as mechanically capable of interacting with each other and the game world as everyone else at the table? To not have the same level of influencing the story?

 

[ad_hoc]

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?

What you aren't understanding is that it is not a penalty.

If I missed a couple sessions and I was told my character was now a higher level I would be pissed. That would be a large penalty to me. Not only did I miss the games, I missed the opportunity to progress my character in the story.

We play different games and have different preferences.

Character creation is not influenced by what level they are going to be. We use a Tarokka deck to suggest events and traits and do random stats in order. It's not for everyone, but we find that it creates unique and interesting characters.

I have never been one for high level play. In 3.x I used the e6 variant because of how the game broke down at those levels.

I am excited to play higher levels in 5e though I still have no desire to go past 15. If the party is 13th level I would rather wait for the campaign to finish before introducing a new player. Irrevocable character death would be rare and if there was a TPK at that point I think it would be a good place to stop.

So realistically the biggest gap would be at around 11th level. I haven't introduced new characters there, but I have a feeling that a 5th level character would be fine in a party where the highest level is 11.

I know others (even in this thread) have done it and said that it was fine.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

I've discussed it with the players before. They prefer to have actually developed a character all the way from beginning to end. They strongly identify with their characters and starting at higher level is like skipping the first half of a good book.

Shoehorning is not so much referring to merely bringing characters back at the same level so much as the thought process that demands all players must level together.

I definitely agree that it's more enjoyable to level a character up over multiple levels. My players often make multiple characters as well and sometimes switch between them. Heck I tried a campaign with 3 players playing 2 chars each. It actually was a heck of a lot of fun. Generally though, I have a plan with my campaigns and definite end points. So say by the end of the game someone dies, remakes a character and only levels once more before they finish the campaign, they don't mind, because they know they can just play a new character next campaign.

Combat definitely isn't rare. It is often but not always avoidable with intelligent play. My players also know from hard won experience when their characters need to run for their lives. Overall it works well because the players work well together and try to not take on more than they can handle based on which characters are involved in the current session.

From this, do you think you can tell me what percentage of fights your party runs from? My own maybe runs from two to three a campaign. Retreat isn't often feasible when the fate of the world is on the line. Maybe this is looking more and more like a difference between groups that run plot based games with higher stakes and more combat vs. groups that run sandboxes or games with more exploration than save the world kind of story's.

 

[MG.0]

If I missed a couple sessions and I was told my character was now a higher level I would be pissed. That would be a large penalty to me. Not only did I miss the games, I missed the opportunity to progress my character in the story.

Same here.

Not giving XP for missed sessions isn't a penalty. If the player is really focused on gaining XP for some reason, I will allow someone who will miss a session to have their character played by another player or by me, with the normal potential for character death.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

What you aren't understanding is that it is not a penalty.

If I missed a couple sessions and I was told my character was now a higher level I would be pissed. That would be a large penalty to me. Not only did I miss the games, I missed the opportunity to progress my character in the story.

I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder. Technically you already missed your chance to progress in the story, because you weren't there. On top of that, your level is lower. What part of levelling is where you get the fun from? I assume the fun is from the game itself, the story itself, so missing the session is the real enemy here. Just going from level 4 to 5 means little other than potentially new abilities. It's the adventure you go on that adds to your story.

We play different games and have different preferences.

I am definitely starting to see that. A tarokka deck and rolling random stats in order. Can't say I've heard of that combo before.

Though I will say, a 5th level martial melee character in a party of level 11s would have a pretty rough time all around, unless the next few adventures are all exploring, him staying back, or the party fighting really weak monsters.

 

[MG.0]

From this, do you think you can tell me what percentage of fights your party runs from? My own maybe runs from two to three a campaign. Retreat isn't often feasible when the fate of the world is on the line. Maybe this is looking more and more like a difference between groups that run plot based games with higher stakes and more combat vs. groups that run sandboxes or games with more exploration than save the world kind of story's.

Percentage? It's pretty random, but maye 15%. I play a very sandbox style campaign world where characters can easily get in over their heads if they aren't careful. I don't generally "end" a campaign and continue to roll with the changes to the world. While our 5th edition campaign has been in progress only a little over a year, it has characters drawn from continuing stories we've been playing since 1st and 2nd edition (never played 3rd or 4th and never wanted to). Some of the older characters have been all over the cosmos and back, although they rarely make an appearance these days (otherwise our party would be over 100 characters). We do epic storylines just fine, but I try never to make only one "correct" story path that depends on the players unrealistically winning every battle along the way. The best fantasy stories are replete with heroes suffering terrible setbacks and mangaing to find a clever way to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.