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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8252196" data-attributes="member: 29398">Voted &quot;other&quot; - my usual rule for new characters is they come in at either a) one level below the party average or b) at a &quot;floor&quot; level that slowly rises as the campaign goes on.&nbsp; The &quot;floor&quot; concept is to prevent a party's average level backsliding too much if they hit a string of character turnover in short succession, and it's set differently for each party.&nbsp; Example: a party of mostly 8ths might have a new PC come in at 7th (one lower than the 8th average) and have a floor at 6th just in case too many new characters come in and drag the average down.That said, that's for new characters only.&nbsp; There's two exceptions.&nbsp; One, if the party's still 1st level you'll come in at 1st level as there's nowhere lower to go (I don't usually run 0th-level characters except as occasional henches).&nbsp; Two, if you're a brand new player joining an existing game your first PC comes in at the party average, rather than a level below.A retired character returning to play comes in at whatever level it was before, unless significant in-game time has passed since it was last seen in which case it might have earned some xp etc. (or died!) doing other things in the meantime; I have a system for handling this.Other than at raw 1st it's extremely rare in my games that a whole party is at the same level.&nbsp; I do individual xp, I have level loss (and occasional level gain) in the game, and I have uneven progression charts by class a la 1e.&nbsp; I've found over the long run that as long as everyone's within 2 levels of the party average it usually works out OK.Rarely, a character might die early in a campaign and not be revived until years later.&nbsp; As you don't earn xp while dead, that revived character is whatever level it was when it died even though everyone else has gained loads of levels in the meantime.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8252196, member: 29398"] Voted "other" - my usual rule for new characters is they come in at either a) one level below the party average or b) at a "floor" level that slowly rises as the campaign goes on. The "floor" concept is to prevent a party's average level backsliding too much if they hit a string of character turnover in short succession, and it's set differently for each party. Example: a party of mostly 8ths might have a new PC come in at 7th (one lower than the 8th average) and have a floor at 6th just in case too many new characters come in and drag the average down. That said, that's for [B]new[/B] characters only. There's two exceptions. One, if the party's still 1st level you'll come in at 1st level as there's nowhere lower to go (I don't usually run 0th-level characters except as occasional henches). Two, if you're a brand new player joining an existing game your [I]first[/I] PC comes in at the party average, rather than a level below. A retired character returning to play comes in at whatever level it was before, unless significant in-game time has passed since it was last seen in which case it might have earned some xp etc. (or died!) doing other things in the meantime; I have a system for handling this. Other than at raw 1st it's extremely rare in my games that a whole party is at the same level. I do individual xp, I have level loss (and occasional level gain) in the game, and I have uneven progression charts by class a la 1e. I've found over the long run that as long as everyone's within 2 levels of the party average it usually works out OK. Rarely, a character might die early in a campaign and not be revived until years later. As you don't earn xp while dead, that revived character is whatever level it was when it died even though everyone else has gained loads of levels in the meantime. [/QUOTE]

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