I just got done playing in a game where I was a 16th level Lizardman druid. And now I cringe that we are starting over -- especialy since I am now a thief. My Farscape game, however, is a different manner.
Every game and player is different, but I was sort of starting to enjoy my 16th level wizard for several reasons. My group wasn't into role playing and in 2 years of gaming the GM never had us explore the lizardman homeland -- unlike the countless visists to the elven and human kingdoms, so the Lizardman half of the character was pretty much shut down or ridiculed. All I had left was my Druid stuff.
And with the Druid, the GM has to keep the class in mind when designing an adventure or it gets short changed. Animal Companions are not familars, so a lot of GMs seem to not even want to bother with them. At 16th, I felt my character was starting to shine with the help he brought to the party with his spells.
Instead of the same old fights, the GM had to get creative, sticking us in city alley ways so as area effect spells were too dangerous. We just got Wind Walk, so it felt as if the whole world had opened up to us. Plots were starting to move a lot faster because we could travel half the continent in a couple of days. But we could tell the GM wasn't enjoying himself any more since he couldn't just open the monster manual and toss most anything at us anymore.
As an aside at this point, when I GM DND, I ususaly start the game at 4th level. The classes seem to finaly settle into their roles at that point, the PC are not total newbies (I run and play rpgs to be a competent hero), and players still get a chance to "develop" their characters. (As a personal opinon only, I see the whole "development" of a PC through levels as an excuse to not fully develop the personality during creation. Anything you can do in play can be made up as backstory. I have seen several highly developed characters at 1st level. Now for development of the party's dynamics, some of that can be done with improv and flashbacks, it mostly happens in play.)
And I can't fathom why thieves are penalized for 2 levels (before Weapon Finesse). Before they get to shine. That's another reason I skip the earliest levels.
As for my Farscape game, the design of a first level character is completely different. 1.) Before the errata, one added his constitution score to 1st level hit points, making even weak combat classes have double digit hit points. 2.) The game mechanic called Control lets PCs temporarly have boosted skill roles of up to +5 or even a reroll. It's like getting more experienced characters for half the paperwork. In that game with only 3 months of play, the group already have ton of memories to reminise about and strange villians chasing them. In this version of d20, 1st level rocks.
