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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8054982" data-attributes="member: 53980">We used to do this as well, although we were more forgiving with respect to XP (a character standing WAAAY back with a bow or sling or tossing rocks was considered to be &quot;participating&quot; and would therefore get a full share of XP). While this could have been admittedly abused, I can't recall that it ever was, and was really just reserved for characters who were significantly below average level.Ultimately, though, the newbie would level up very quickly (assuming they survived) to somewhere within the vicinity of party level and mostly stall out at that point. In the interim the party members were stuck babysitting this lowbie until he was leveled enough to be relatively competent, which wasn't much fun for either the &quot;babysitters&quot; or the &quot;baby&quot;. The character would remain below party level for a long time, making it likely that one death would result in a spiraling series of deaths for that player.The fast leveling, babysitting, and &quot;death spirals&quot; were undesirable. For us, this culminated (during 3.5) as an arms race between the DMs and the players, where players would try to create unkillable PCs, and the DMs would then come up with even deadlier ways of challenging those PCs. In the end, we just decided to stop doing things that way, which lead to characters coming back at the same level.Mind you, that only applies to PCs. If someone wants to bring Wilhelm the stable boy along on adventures, he's going to have to start from scratch. Bringing PCs along, however, isn't really optional.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 8054982, member: 53980"] We used to do this as well, although we were more forgiving with respect to XP (a character standing WAAAY back with a bow or sling or tossing rocks was considered to be "participating" and would therefore get a full share of XP). While this could have been admittedly abused, I can't recall that it ever was, and was really just reserved for characters who were significantly below average level. Ultimately, though, the newbie would level up very quickly (assuming they survived) to somewhere within the vicinity of party level and mostly stall out at that point. In the interim the party members were stuck babysitting this lowbie until he was leveled enough to be relatively competent, which wasn't much fun for either the "babysitters" or the "baby". The character would remain below party level for a long time, making it likely that one death would result in a spiraling series of deaths for that player. The fast leveling, babysitting, and "death spirals" were undesirable. For us, this culminated (during 3.5) as an arms race between the DMs and the players, where players would try to create unkillable PCs, and the DMs would then come up with even deadlier ways of challenging those PCs. In the end, we just decided to stop doing things that way, which lead to characters coming back at the same level. Mind you, that only applies to PCs. If someone wants to bring Wilhelm the stable boy along on adventures, he's going to have to start from scratch. Bringing PCs along, however, isn't really optional. [/QUOTE]

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