Where do you draw the line for ECLs?

[EOL]

The more I play the more I lean towards starting most campaigns at 4th or 5th level. I DON'T think this should be tried if you haven't got a group who already started at 1st and clawed their way up, but once you've done that. I think starting at 4th or 5th allows some people to play some cool >0 ECL's without having to change characters mid-stream or die. Plus it avoids some other realism problems. Like why 1st level characters are the best choice for ANY job...

YMMV

 

[Garmorn]

A slightly different approch.

Our powergaming DM started a Dragonstar campian and alowed any of their core races. Two people chose Half-Dragons. He then started every one at zero EP and did not allow them to level up until they reached 6th level.

I am still not sure if I will evey allow that in one of my campains but our other DM is also following that approach. In her case I think the maximum ECL is +1, and we are still 1st level. In her case I have not seen any effect yet.

 

[Zerovoid]

I would let players choose anything that doesn't have any monster hit dice. Drow won't unbalance a 1st level party. They just have higher stats, and a few spell like abilities. Just hold the drow back when the PC's advance to levels 2 and 3. Don't let them go above 1st until the experience table indicates that they can.

The half-dragon player may dish out the damage at level 1, but when the whole party is lvl 4, and he still has only one level, I think the half dragon will be more an object of pity than envy.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Balance?

Good point, vuron.

Many people don't value role-playing penalties, and I can see that, but then they go on to ignore the role-playing benefits of having these races involved in the story. If it works, let it happen. The game that I run has 8th level chracters running around with 11th level, and no one seems to mind very much. The stats are just raw stuff underneath the story. I guess if you are playing Diablo and Dragons, hack and slash door-busting, then this is an issue. But then, I don't really care about your balance issues much.

I guess I'm on a mission to mature people out there to try to run a good story, and not let small balance issues get out of the way. One level of hit dice or some magical abilty can be overcome by tailoring magic item distribution to the other characters. (Gosh! I actually gave a balance answer, I must be slipping!) Try to run a story in your D&D game, and try to get things to work out that way.

Could you fail? Yup! But in failing, perhaps you and your players will learn something. The next game will be better. In order to grow, howevr, you've got to shed some restrictions on your playing, and one of those restrictions is looking to the rules to guide your game, rather than looking to the rules to figure out how to implement your story.

 

[Desdichado]

I prefer to start campaigns usually at 2nd or 3rd level. Even starting at 1st, though, I'd probably allow any ECL +1, and maybe, just maybe, and ECL +2. Sure, he'll be more powerful initially (in theory) but he'll gain levels much slower.

 

[Florin]

Personally what I like to do is have everyone choose their race and class, anything they want, and then I take the character with the highest ECL, make them first level, and then have each character take character levels to bring them up to par with the higher ECL character. I've found this actually helps keep ECL's down to +1 or +2, because people don't want to sit around at 1st level that long.

 

[Galfridus]

I worry that a high ECL character would cause dissension among the players: "If he gets to play a powerful race, why can't I?", and suddenly everyone is rushing for non-standard races just to get the power trip. Balancing the party against their encounters is simple compared to this.

For a 1st level game, I would allow ECL 1 PCs, and would twiddle the rules a bit to have them start with no character class until they gained a level. I wouldn't allow higher ECL races until there was a pressing story reason to do so and I was /sure/ that the other players wouldn't be bothered by it.

 

[buzzard]

Re: Balance?

Good point, vuron.

Many people don't value role-playing penalties, and I can see that, but then they go on to ignore the role-playing benefits of having these races involved in the story. If it works, let it happen. The game that I run has 8th level chracters running around with 11th level, and no one seems to mind very much. The stats are just raw stuff underneath the story. I guess if you are playing Diablo and Dragons, hack and slash door-busting, then this is an issue. But then, I don't really care about your balance issues much.

I guess I'm on a mission to mature people out there to try to run a good story, and not let small balance issues get out of the way. One level of hit dice or some magical abilty can be overcome by tailoring magic item distribution to the other characters. (Gosh! I actually gave a balance answer, I must be slipping!) Try to run a story in your D&D game, and try to get things to work out that way.

Thank you Oh Mighty God for telling this player of 20+ years how to play the game.

I have played in games, and run games where a character overshadows the rest. It is not fun. I don't care how you rationalize it. Of course you then went onto say one level is no big deal, yes you explain the obvious well. Four levels OTOH is a substantially bigger deal. That will definitely overshadow. I imagine one could permit a ECL of one in a 1st level campaign, but it would be more fair to start everyone higher if you wish to allow more powerful races. The point of the game is fun, not some nonsensical 'learning experience'.

Buzzard

 

[War Golem]

In the FR campaign I am playing in right now, we started with a very large group of characters. We started at 1st level, and we were free to choose any FR race. Three people chose races with an ECL adjustment - 2 aasimars and a deep gnome. The DM gave us 2 choices, either start at 1st level and counterbalance each level adjustment with a negative level (as in undead energy drain stuff), or start at 0 level with no penalty other than that you would not reach 1st level until you gained enough XP for the level one above your race's ECL modifier.

Both aasimars (ECL +1) chose to start as level 1 characters (a cleric and a paladin) with 1 negative energy level; once they gained 1000 XP they were still 1st level characters but the negative level was removed. At 3000 XP they became 2nd level characters and so on. This seemed to work just fine and I would have no issue with doing this in one of my campaigns.

The player of the deep gnome (ECL +3) wasn't interested in working off 3 negative energy levels, so he chose the 0 level route, where he would not gain a level until he reached 6,000 XP, at which point he would be a 1st level monk. This character had a really tough time holding up with the rest of the party once the party was 3rd level; even with all the deep gnome special abilities, the 0 level deep gnome simply didn't have enough hit points or firepower to be of much use to the group. I would not take this approach again in one of my campaigns.

On a more hypothetical note, I would be disinclined to allow any races with an ECL adjustment to start play with regular 1st level characters without some sort of mitigating factor (such as the negative levels, which seemed to handle the situation pretty well).

 

[Jezrael]

If someone wants to play an ECL character I use the apprentice rules and make them play "negative levels", gaining experience to make up for their powers. So an aasimar would start at -1000XP and have to make that up to gain 1st level. It's a pretty tangible penalty, esp. when everyone else is for example 4th level and your ECL 4 character is just now 1st. It works well for my purposes, but YMMV.