D&D 5E (2014) Starting level

[Hastati]

For campaigns, I've never had a character start at anything other than 1st level. Most people I've gamed with like to see their character progress from new adventurer to seasoned world saving hero.

 

[the Jester]

Not only does each group in my campaign start at 1st level, every pc starts at first level. If the party is 3rd level... you start at 1st. If the pcs are 13th, 6th, 7th and 10th level, you start at 1st.

Despite the "That can't possibly work!" protests I always get in threads where ES@1 comes up (which I found to be true in 3e and 4e), it works really well in 5e.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Despite the "That can't possibly work!" protests I always get in threads where ES@1 comes up (which I found to be true in 3e and 4e), it works really well in 5e.

Not exactly the point of Bounded Accuracy, but BA does help with that, especially when it comes to checks, and the rapid advancement through the apprentice Tier certainly helps. A big level gap can still be problematic when the damage starts flying, though.
In AD&D it 'worked' if the higher-level party protected the new member some, at first (maybe handed-down some spare items), and worked better if you played fast-and-loose with the rules for gaining levels.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

So, pretty much as expected, the majority of voters who expressed a preference start at 1st level.

There is a pretty high proportion of support for starting at 3rd - a shade over a quarter. This is seemingly down to a choice to have the starting characters begin as more fully-actualised versions of the players' concepts, based on the comments.

That is interesting - thank you all for your input and feedback.

I am tempted to start level 3 for the reasons others have said, so long as the players have a firm idea of where they want to go archetype-wise and/or MC-wise. If the players are easy-osey about the eventual path the character will take, it's more likely that a 1st level start is just fine and dandy. Just wanted to gauge what others felt. Again, thanks.

 

[S'mon]

1st level is great for feeling like a novice, discovering the world. Ideal for eg The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.
3rd level is great for feeling like you're a badass straight out the gate. Ideal for Swords & Sorcery genre.

There are quite a few published Adventure Path campaigns where 1st level PCs are tasked with stuff more appropriate for badass types, eg Kingmaker's "Go Found A Kingdom please" - for these I'd recommend starting at 3rd in 5e.

 

[Hjorimir]

I prefer 2nd level. First is just a tad too fragile for my liking.

 

[Bacon Bits]

First or third is fine. I used to strongly prefer third because first and second get pretty boring pretty fast, but now that first and second are much smaller, I don't mind so much. I don't like starting much later than that.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Ive never started a non Dark Sun game higher than level 1. Like most people have suggested its the early levels that really define how your interact to the fellow players. Ive played in games that started at much higher level. They never lasted more than a couple of months.