Why are we trying to make 1st level PCs tougher?

[Virel]

Yes, much of the time it is bad players not thinking things thru.

I was playing with a 3e group. They all knew the rules inside out etc much better than I do for 3e. We were about to get into a fight, with an unknown opponent. There was a bridge we could have fallen back too. It was TEN feet away. If we had done that, the enemy would have only been able to bring three people to bear against three of ours. Our guys were better than theirs. I pointed it out we should fall back to the bridge to channel them into a fight on our terms, the DM smiled at me, commented about that sounds like something an old school player would notice.

Of course the whole party charged into the enemy and our guys ended up with two or three and sometimes four opponents to fight at the same time. I ended up going to because they needed the support. It almost ended in a TPK. Half of our group went into the negatives, the other half got the snot beat out of them. We did win but if you replayed that five times, I'm sure stastically, we'd have lost about 30 to 40 percent of the time. We got by with it, but the point is we were STUPID as party to fight like that. Several players felt like the encounter was too hard and above our challenge level.

It was above our challenge level...because we were stupid and we played stupid.

If the whole group had died, it wouldn't have been the DM's fault, it would have been the players. This gang had played 3e for years and were really good at most stuff, tactics wasn't one of the things they were good at.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Yes, much of the time it is bad players not thinking things thru.

Maybe that's just your experience. I've seen lots of 1st-level players get killed while using reasonable and even excellent tactics.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

If we eliminate the unlucky crit from a greatsword - which shouldn't come up all that often at first level - then I think we are able to eliminate the one-hit-and-your-dead stuff. There is still plenty of one-hit-and-your-needing-to-staalize, of course. But, with the one hit crit removed for just a moment I think we can say a few things. If a TPK occurs at 1st level, it is either: Bad DMing (poor CR estimation), Bad tactics, or massive bad luck with rolls.

1. Bad Dming - there is little excuse for this. If I sit at a table, I trust that my DM should be able to gauge CR reasonably. If the Bad DMing mistake happens too often, I'll leave. Because I tend to get attached to my characters and I don't want to always wonder if they're going to die because the DM is a bad DM.

2. Bad tactics - This is the players ability to control. If they take on a CR 5 at first level and die, then they got what was coming. [Unless they had to take it on, in which case refer back to #1]

3. Massive bad luck with rolls - there is nothing that can be done with this, and it certainly isn't the fault of the rules. This can be solved with either a rewind or a group agreement to restart with new characters. At the very least, this is one you can see coming when the d20 doesn't go over 10.

 

[Hussar]

If we eliminate the unlucky crit from a greatsword - which shouldn't come up all that often at first level - then I think we are able to eliminate the one-hit-and-your-dead stuff. There is still plenty of one-hit-and-your-needing-to-staalize, of course. But, with the one hit crit removed for just a moment I think we can say a few things. If a TPK occurs at 1st level, it is either: Bad DMing (poor CR estimation), Bad tactics, or massive bad luck with rolls.

1. Bad Dming - there is little excuse for this. If I sit at a table, I trust that my DM should be able to gauge CR reasonably. If the Bad DMing mistake happens too often, I'll leave. Because I tend to get attached to my characters and I don't want to always wonder if they're going to die because the DM is a bad DM.

2. Bad tactics - This is the players ability to control. If they take on a CR 5 at first level and die, then they got what was coming. [Unless they had to take it on, in which case refer back to #1]

3. Massive bad luck with rolls - there is nothing that can be done with this, and it certainly isn't the fault of the rules. This can be solved with either a rewind or a group agreement to restart with new characters. At the very least, this is one you can see coming when the d20 doesn't go over 10.

A point about the one hit kill. Remember, the original encounter that spawned this thread was an EL+5 encounter. That is more than enough to whack even the dwarven barbarian in a single round of attacks. Also, even going back to low EL encounters, look at a darkmantle. Hits, improved grabs and then constricts all in the same round. It might not kill the PC in the first round, but it drops him and, unless the party kills it in the next round, the PC dies. Or, worse, the PC gets knocked to 1 hp so there is a legitimate reason for the darkmantle to continue attacking. Grapple+constrict can easily do 12 damage.

What I don't understand is DM's playing RAW games and not whacking PC's regularly.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Why not go the other way and keep matching low level characters with low level opponents?

Mostly because if I wanted to do glorified pest control, I would play an MMO.

For a less flippant answer, there are a number of reasons for having tougher 1st level characters.

- Narrative continuity is easier if your not having half your players roll up new characters after every fight.

- Players usually put a bit of thought even into a low level character. If they get unlucky, they will either be annoyed at having to try a new character, or just put out an identical clone.

- A single Dire Rat, while CR appropriate, is pretty much a waste of time as far as entertainment value. If your going to have a fight, you may as well have one that provides some real jeopardy.

- Sturdier characters give the DM a much better margin for error. At low levels, it is very hard to do run interesting combats without risking a TPK.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Olaf the Stout]

If one hit can drop you, you have no margin for error. You must guess how much trouble you're in. Makes people play very conservatively if they're attached to their character at all.

Cheers, -- N

How attached are most players to their 1st level character though? Not very attached at all I would suggest.

You have only been playing the character for a few sessions at best so there isn't anywhere near the same level of emotional attachment as a character you have played for years. Also, if your 1st level character bites the dust, it won't take you too long for your new character to reach the same level of experience as his predecessor so you aren't losing a lot from an out-of-game perspective.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Nifft]

How attached are most players to their 1st level character though? Not very attached at all I would suggest.

Some folks get offended when you tell them how they feel.

I dunno. When I (rarely) get a chance to play, it's usually a concept that I've had in my head for a while -- thus, I'm often far more attached than I would be to a pre-gen someone handed me. The PC is sometimes someone upon whom various plots rely -- those would be the DM's problem, but why waste the background both of us came up with?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Asmor]

wimpy 1st-level mages with three spells

Three spells? I have the pleasure of playing a low-level Wizard/Archivist going towards Mystic Theurge. At level 1 I had two spells. TWO! 2! (not counting level 0s).

Now that I'm level 3... I have 3 level 1 wizard spells and 3 level 1 archivist spells, iirc.

 

[pawsplay]

1st level characters getting tougher is just a recognition of a basic fact: classic RPG characters were too often nebbishes.

GURPS gives more points now, which is good, since a conservative tally put me and several of my friends close to 150 points each.

D&D, until Oriental Adventures came out, gave you, on average, average people (3d6, six times, in order). Your typical fighter was basically as if the guy who sacked your groceries decided to take a stab at stealing diamonds from warlords in Africa.

Hero System added a couple of hundred points, so you no longer had to make that difficult choice between Batmobile or the utility belt, or faster than a speeding locomotive or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

DC Heroes (mayfair) graduated the basic character creation assumptions, whereas in the original rules, a handmade character would be hard pressed to take Jason Todd.

 

[the Lorax]

Playing smarter, usually does wonders for making charcters more survivable at all levels but most of all at 1st.

Run away today to fight another day.

Use bait, to get the monster to come to you, then ambush it.

Don't fight fair.

Hire some mooks and red shirts to carry the torch etc. Dwarfs and 1/2lings are good choices because they usually run slower than the rest of the party. This matters when the group has to bug out and run for it.

You know avoid the encounter until the party is ready for it af 2nd level or whatever.

Teamwork and some basic tactics go a long way a lot of the time.

I can remember for a number of years, parties pooling their left over starting cash to add a hireling or two and the infamous War Dog to theiar groups. Pre-printed adventures frequently included npc who could become henchmen or hirelings. Heck, IIRC, the darn 2+2 HD War Dogs had an attack matrix equal to a fifth level fighter