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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 105109" data-attributes="member: 1049">This is true, but I think most DM's would have the good sense to not play with anyone who comes in with a stack of premade characters unless everyone at the table wants to play a Diablo style hackfest.  Having to sit out of play for a little while is a good "penalty" for dying, but someone intent on remaking their character, it's a negligible drawback.If the player wants to play a cheap class/race/spell/gear/what have you combo, the only thing stopping him is the DM, preferably with a heavy, blunt object.  That applies no matter when they enter game.  But ECL+ races and gear are specifically written to apply to characters entering the game at greater than first level.  Most DM's I know would accept that these are balanced (which is a dispute for another thread, but for the sake of arguement I'll say they are), and as such, allow the characters to come in with what they're "due" for coming in.  Which is fine if you were talking a CRPG style exchange of numbers, but many of the cool special abilities and inherent neatness factor can make simple raising seem a weak choice in any case, unless new characters lose more than one level.And if you're talking the chance to handpick gear and class spread, I see no reason not to come in first level as a dual Toughness Human Sorcerer with Sleep, Daze, Monster Summoning I, and all sorts of other spells that start out great but peter out soon, and when I get to a level where those choices are useless, remake my character without any of those "flaws".  I know many a character who'd give up a full level to take back some earlier choices, and when you throw in the chance to chose your magic items to fit, you'll overpower an organically grown character of even a couple of levels ahead of you.  That, IMHO, is horrible game design.  (It does make me wonder how many classes are balanced on the "build to level" design, as an aside.  I see several things that should be built as more forgiving, and that are quite underpowered if you're forced to live with them over any length of time.)And if you allow any prestige classes, you run the risk of characters being homemade for them.  As prestige classes are most often cooler and/or more powerful than standard classes, characters who can ignore the drawbacks and build required "from the ground up" come in at an advantage.Losing a single level isn't, IMHO, harsh enough.  Given the choice of raising a sub-optimal, organic character or rebuilding from scratch, if both cost a level, you'd be a fool to chose the former, power-wise.  And even if you have the most noble intentions coming in with a new character, getting all your abilities in one fell swoop can be overwhelming to you and likely even the DM.  Personally, I'm hard on this kind of thing, but I'm trying to find the right balance between not bending over players who have honest reasons to change characters or whos characters die "naturally", and making sure that characters who have survived from level one have more than nostalgia, allies, and other roleplaying bonuses to hold over the heads of these fresh-faced whippersnappers.</blockquote>

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