Starting Level

[Centaur]

I started playing AD&D in the fall of 1984, that means I have now been playing for 26 years... scary!

In all those years, every game I have ever run or played in, has had the characters start at 1st level. And most games either die off or run to completion before characters reach beyond 12th level. Only twice can I remember playing a character to the point where I could cast a 9th level spell.

We have all played low level soooo much that it has been done to death. A few times now we have run games where the first 2-4 game sessions, characters are automaticaly advanced a level after each session so as to get them up to functional qucik!

Lately, a couple of us have been discussing a change of procedure if you will. We are all very experiences gamers, do we really need to do 1st level again? is there a point? Why not start off at a higher level, skip the preamble and lets get into some epic story telling!

If we were to say, start at somewhere in the 5-8 range, that would mean starting in that range where you initialy want to get to when you are 1st. then you can focus on other goals, not yet again yearning for the fire ball spell or woundering when you will finaly get your improved critical feat.

We all watch movies or read books depicting heroes who are already experienced and tough as nails when the story starts.... Rambo was not 1st level when the sheriff messed with him outside of town and John Mclean was not a beginner when he got stuck in his wifes office tower when the terrorists took everyone hostage.

We simply want to play the hero tough guys from the start!

So, the question is, has anyone else out there discussed or gone down the same path. Does anyone have any thoughts... is there an invisible price to be paid for not starting from 1st level? Such as a lack of evolving the characters personal and character from a stage when he was weak till the time when he gets tough!

 

[Alexander123]

It's really up to you, but you also have to consider that you have been playing for 26 years which is a long time so it's understandable.

Now for me who have not been playing for that long, I think it's important to start from first level but that's because of the fact that I have not been playing as long as you.

I think that if there is an interesting adventure at the lower levels I want to start at that level, but if I have to fight goblins for the thousandth time, it does start to wear on me. That is the job of a good DM to make the game interesting for his players.

 

[bobhayes]

There are a lot of "invisible prices" to pay for not starting at first level...but for your group, none of them are relevant. You are grognards. It's like married sex - after a few years, you can skip the preliminaries if everyone is agreeable.

My suggestion would be to start at 5th to 8th level, but have your first session be a super-compressed/super-accelerated character builder session, where you decide what your group did to get to that level. "Yeah, we defeated the bandits of the Elkscar Forest and we really ticked off the people of Hamletville because we kind of led an orc army to their walls, oh, and Fizwink the Wizard has a love-hate thing going on with us because we saved his daughter from the werewolf lord but also let her get infected with lycanthropy, so we can call on him for a favor but we should read the fine print on the contract..."

That kind of stuff. You can decide, with your DM's help, what kind of relationships the party members have, who their mentors are, etc. Basically, write down all the backstory that you would normally have generated during that first year or two of play. You won't have all the fun you might have had doing those adventures, but you'll also skip all the tedium of dodging kobolds to get your wizard to second level.

Have fun with it. You've figured out how to do that by now.

 

[Sekhmet]

If you've DM'd much during that time, especially if you've had players drop in unexpectedly ("Hey, a buddy of mine came along and brought one of his characters along to see if he fits in, I hope you don't mind!"), you know the difference between a person who has played his character from start to level 6 and the person who just rolled a level 6.

The former knows his character. He knows the gear, the major numbers, and can answer offhandedly about direct questions without having to consult his sheets.
The latter is constantly looking back at his sheet for confirmation on every aspect of play. "Whats your AC again?" - "Oh, let me check... it's -4." Whats your THAC0? "Uhh... 12?".

I tend to shy away from letting inexperienced players pick up characters above level 1, just because of the amount of options a PC has at his disposal at level 5 or 10.
You guys seem to know whats up, though, so I don't think it will be a problem for you.

 

[Gilladian]

I've been playing for 34 years (nya-nya!) and I have to say we have about the same situation. I don't think until 3e I ever played a character over about 15th level. Maybe my bard, who was 7/7/9 when I retired him...

I still really like 1st level, and don't want to start higher, because it is so hard to get to know a higher level character WELL.

But really, it's up to you. I'd still suggest not starting above 5th level, just because of the need to "get powers" slowly and learn what they do and how they interact with THAT character.

Still, whatever you do will be fun. It may just not be quite as fun as you expect. Then again, picking out a massive amount of magic is loads of fun for high level characters!

 

[Alexander123]

I still really like 1st level, and don't want to start higher, because it is so hard to get to know a higher level character WELL.

Agreed, this is my reason for always starting at 1st level.

 

[kitcik]

I have been playing for 33 years, I have played one character to 33rd level (a cleric in 1st Ed) and several others above level 20. I still enjoy first level. I started a new campaign last July at first level and just got 6th level last week. I love it.

To each their own.

 

[Celebrim]

One thing I've learned over the years is that there is no one right style or way to play. It's true that a particular style of play can be done very badly, and some styles are harder to pull off than others, but if you have the experience - and you seem to - I have very little fears about you adopting a radically different style for one campaign and just going with it. In fact, I would strongly encourage you to. If you have spent most of your time doing a thinking man's dark and gritty game, then you might well have a blast doing a thinking man's over the top uber-epic monte haul game of sword and spell slinging superheros. Yes, there are tradeoffs that you may after a few years come to miss, but there are things you can do by going crazy with the scope and power level that are fun. The good news is that you don't have to play just one way. Campaigns can be radically different. Maybe on campaign has a sci-fi thing going with alien invasion and interplanetary travel and magic as technology. Maybe another is set in the stone age with neither magic nor technology known and practiced at a high level. Maybe one campaign has a huge epic political scale, with massive battles, intrigue, and the fate of the universe at stake. Maybe another involves small scale murder mysteries and PC's as local heroes on an intimate scale small town scale where everybody knows your name and you know everyone.

There is no wrong theme, just bad implementations. So, after 20 years, if you want to do some thing different, my advice is to just go for it. I'd probably caution new players from jumping headlong into high level play, but that's not the issue here. Heck, if you want to start a game where not only everyone is 8th level, but they get free LA +5 either through racial templates or paragon classes that's cool too.

We simply want to play the hero tough guys from the start!

My only note of caution that I'll sound is that 'tough guys from the start' doesn't depend on level, but on style of play. You can start at 10th level and not have the feeling of 'tough guys from the start' because everything is relative. Conversely, you can start at 1st level and have a feeling of 'tough guys from the start', and in fact I strive for this. If you are feeling that this element is lacking from your game, it may not be a matter of level that is the issue but style of play and the construction of the setting. That feeling of not being 'tough guys from the start' is based on NPC's stealing too much focus. If you start at 8th level and every NPC is a suitable combat challenge for the PC's and every villain has a stat array higher than the PC's could possibly have + four levels on them to boot, and there are mooks in the guard room that are all elite 6th level fighters (to say nothing of finding 10th level mooks latter on), and there is a sense that the NPC mentor/allies could do the job better than the PC's could if they would just bother to leave the castle, then you aren't going to achieve what sounds like your goal simply because your numbers are bigger than they would be at 1st level.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If we were to say, start at somewhere in the 5-8 range, that would mean starting in that range where you initialy want to get to when you are 1st. then you can focus on other goals, not yet again yearning for the fire ball spell or woundering when you will finaly get your improved critical feat.

I haven't been playing for nearly as long as you have, but in my group, we start characters at the level appropriate to the adventure / campaign. Sometimes, it's 1st-level. Sometimes, it's 5th, or 8th.

There's really no harm in doing this, especially if, like me, you've done the "Kobold Caves" so very, very often, but have never really done much in the "Dragon Caverns."

 

[pogre]

I've been playing for 36 years.

We have always started at 1st level. However, I am trying something different in this campaign. The PCs are levelling after every adventure. It has been successful for the most part. The PCs are at level 11 now, and to my surprise their is some slight frustration from the players at having to adjust their combat schticks on a continual basis.

I'm glad we are trying it. I'm not sure whether I will do it again - I have always loved running 1st level stuff.