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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herobizkit" data-source="post: 3125263" data-attributes="member: 36150">If your players are new, starting them at level 5 probably isn't a great plan.  By level 5, many players will have gotten the feel for their characters' abilities and will probably be working towards a prestige class.  If a new player takes the 5th level character from the start, he has that many more skills, feats, abilities, and combat option to learn before he becomes comfrotable in that character's shoes... and if he doesn't LIKE the character, he'll just have to do it again...A high-powered suggestion would be to consider the Gestalt rules as seen on <a href="http://www.d20srd.org" target="_blank">www.d20srd.org</a> and in the UNearthed Arcana; these allow for a sort of simultaneous multi-classing of two classes but taking the best options of each.  For n00bs, the wealth of options might bog them down, but at least they can tackle the options one level at a time. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Monster challenges can be simple, or you can simply just drop whatever and see how it goes.  Some players might try and beat an apparently unbeatable monster before they realize that they're all toast... many players get caught up in the fighting and forget that running is usually an option.  IF the DM's allow the PC's to escape more often than not, then they just might consider running to fight another day.In short, though, the monster challenge ratings go something like this:Assuming a party of 4, the CR of an encounter is based on the ability of a party of 4 to defeat the enemy/enemies with a minimum expenditure of resources (HP and healing, ammunition, spells cast etc.)So, a party of 4 standard 1st-level characters has an ECL of 1.  A "vanilla" orc (one that is used exactly as written in the MM) has a challenge rating of 1/2.  This means that 2 orcs, with a total CR of 1 (1/2 + 1/2), is a fair challenge for the party in the example.  The more orcs you add, the tougher the fight becomes.  If you want the PCs to sweat, it might be okay to test them up to an ECL of the PC's average level +2.  Six orcs, or one ogre (CR 3) could give this party a go, and might even beat them all, but the PC's could have a fighting chance if they approached their enemy carefully and intelligently.If you have access to d20 Modern, I prefer to use their method of calcualting CR over the standard DMG way; it just seems simpler to me.</blockquote>

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