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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickaxe" data-source="post: 3671853" data-attributes="member: 10812">I've only played in about dozen campaigns since 3e came out, so maybe I haven't played enough 1st level characters to become jaded. I also haven't been in a campaign that got past 11th level, so it could be said that I haven't experienced enough high-level play to know how much better it is than low-level.But I'd like to throw out a couple of reasons why I actually like 1st and 2nd level:1) Everything's a challenge. One of the big complaints is essentially that low-level characters have limited resources. For me, one of the fun aspects of D&D is problem-solving, and problem-solving is much more difficult (and more fun) when you have limited resources. Low-levels are the only time that half of the equipment in PHB is even useful, so there is some reward for buying these things. At higher levels, characters have to go much further afield to find challenges.Related to this, I don't understand the claim that encounter possibilities are so limited at low-levels, especially in 3e. There are infinite ways to create a challenging encounter with any group of humanoids, especially since they can have class levels. I also don't see this as a criticism unique to low-levels; one could argue that every level has a finite number of creatures with an appropriate CR for a given level, and I get the impression that 20th level adventures have their own issue of scarcity of encounter possibilities. ("We're killing another god?")2) Players can relate to the challenges of low-level play better than those of high-level play. Many of things you run into in a low-level campaign are situations not entirely removed from our experience, or at least from experiences we've heard or read about. This means that I can approach an encounter or an adventure from a perspective informed by my own knowledge; in high-level adventures, the encounters are often so alien that your only feasible approach is through your knowledge of the core rules. Thus, in a low-level campaign, someone new to D&D, or at least to 3e, can come in and be successful just by using his/her head, even if they have little knowledge of the rules. In contrast, success at higher levels appears to be dependent on having and using the right magic, which is really about knowing the rules.When my friends and I played 1e, one of the highest compliments we could give was "good first level player", for those who asked good questions and sought creative solutions to problems.--Axe</blockquote>

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