Your preference for how "fragile" 1st-level character should be

[Aristotle]

If it works pretty much like Star Wars SAGA I'll be quite happy.

I like having multiple encounters a day and not having one or more characters nearly incapacitated and in desperate need of healing after every encounter. More health means that characters could theoretically move through a couple of encounters without healing, if at some personal risk, because they won't necessarily see more than half their HP lost on every encounter. This in turn reduces the need for stop-gap solutions like healing spells that heal a single HP.

I also see hit points as more than just lifeblood, and I think more granularity in hit point totals will better allow me as a DM to communicate losses of health as something other than direct hits.

 

[Gundark]

1st and 2nd levels were mere fomalities that I hurried to get through

 

[JohnSnow]

Well, I tend to DM more than I play, so I answered in the DM's part.

That said, whether I'm playing or DMing, I'd like if 1st-level characters were a bit tougher. I hate doing the "start at 2nd-level" or "start at 3rd-level" thing because I feel like I've taken those all important first adventures and relegated them to backstory. At 1st-level in 3e, four characters teaming up to kill a wolf is a significant event. While that may be true in reality, it implies 1st-level heroes who are more like kids wandering in a forest. That doesn't really work for me. And, as I said above, shoving those events into the background doesn't work for me either.

I think the whole point of giving the PCs more hit points is this: the way they're building encounters now (monsters equal to PCs) you will get attacked 4x as often as you did under 3e. So, all else being equal, in order to survive going one on one with a goblin, you need to have more hit points than he does. It is my feel that the tougher 1st-level characters will actually be able to face a party of goblins as a challenge.

Perhaps it's merely perception, but I find heroes taking on equal (or even greater) numbers far more heroic, unless the solo opponent is like a dragon or something. Four guys teaming up to kill two wolves seems a bit...pathetic. I want 1st-level heroes to be more like Tarrant Hawkins in Michael Stackpole's The Dark Glory War. He and his companions killed a Frostclaw (a predator basically like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park - but with feathers).

However, I support there being rules in the DMG for playing "normals."

 

[The_Gneech]

I prefer slightly tougher characters as a DM because then I don't have to send the players through "baby dungeon rooms #1-6" (which tend to be very dull) for the first two sessions.

I prefer slightly tougher characters as a player because the kind of characters I always think of have a bit of history to them, even as relative beginners, and it doesn't make sense for them to be one-hit wonders.

-The Gneech

 

[JDJblatherings]

I prefer slightly tougher characters as a DM because then I don't have to send the players through "baby dungeon rooms #1-6" (which tend to be very dull) for the first two sessions.

Well, don't send them inot baby dungeon rooms. My players 5- with 1st and seconf level characters with 6 hired men-arms took on 60 skeletons. They won, by EL they should have been stomped flat. But they fought semi-wisely and were really lucky so they get to survive the low levels to become heroes.

Deeds make folks Heroes birth seldom pulls that off.

 

[mmadsen]

I think we're conflating a number of separate ideas here.

I think first-level characters should be fragile, but I don't necessarily think first-level player characters should be fragile. Player characters have fate (plot-protection) on their side.

Also, I think first-level characters should merely be competent, not awesome, but I don't necessarily think starting player characters should be first-level characters. If a character's supposed to be a kick-ass hero, he shouldn't be first-level.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I start all 3e games at 3rd level at the lowest... it will be interesting to start at 1st level again with 4e!

 

[JDJblatherings]

Player characters have fate (plot-protection) on their side.

they realyl shouldn't, not all of them at least it cuts down on the fun. sometiems there is no plot other then "Stop Lord Black" or "Free Princess Purelight" or "kick in the door and take stuff" those realyl don't require characters with plot protection. Don't kill them all and the plot is protected.

 

[The_Gneech]

Well, don't send them inot baby dungeon rooms. My players 5- with 1st and seconf level characters with 6 hired men-arms took on 60 skeletons. They won, by EL they should have been stomped flat. But they fought semi-wisely and were really lucky so they get to survive the low levels to become heroes.

Deeds make folks Heroes birth seldom pulls that off.

I'm glad that instance worked out for you, but you yourself pointed out that they were "really lucky." The problem with being "really lucky" is that it only happens when, y'know, you're really lucky. What about the other 90% of the time?

There are ways around the baby dungeon room, by all means. Nonlethal traps, "fetch" quests, story XP, "outrider" encounters, etc. ... but why come up with a ton of workarounds when you can just make starter characters less fragile and be done with it?

-The Gneech

 

[Commonblade]

I start all my games at level one, as soon as the first game/intro/"hi my name is ____" is over, everyone gets 1000 xp. Then we really start the game.