Archived thread started by Mort:
I'm curious as to why you regret not re-starting at 1st level? You have given one reason regarding the equipment. I'm just wondering if there is something else that bothers you about starting at a high level?
Personally I dislike the low levels of play, mostly because your character is utterly and completely useless.
D&D are all about heroic campaigns where your character performs mighty deeds, the stuff of legends. The only problem is that when you start out at first level you'd be happy if you could hit a measly goblin. I think D&D is one of the few games (well high fantasy anyway) where you are utterly crap when you start out. The general idea these days is that if you are playing a high fantasy game you should start out pretty kick ass and only get better as time progresses. Look at Exalted for instance, even a normal mortal character in there can start with a fairly decent amount of kick-assness, in Star Wars they encourage you to start at third level, because you are pants at level one. In Earthdawn a new character can be pretty much the ultimate swordsman, right off the bat. I don't know why everyone insists on trudging through the first few levels in D&D? I guess it's they way it's always been, or something.
If you start at a higher level it's also much easier to create a decent and interesting background for your character, he's not just some schmuck who just wandered in off the street; he's actually done something. All those silly goblins was slain off screen, all the better, it's not much fun anyway. You got some decent equipment and you can get on with some more interesting and heroic adventures. Not to mention skills, at first level you can have a maximum of four in a skills or nine if you blow both of your starting feats as a human on skill focus feats. But taking two skill feats means you suck in other ways because you only have one good skill and that's it. Higher level gives you a decent range of skills that you can actually do something with.
Oh well, this is just my opinion why I dislike low level play. Rant over.
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteI dunno, it's probably as you say, that that's just the way things have always been done. It's just that by starting out even at 6th level, you miss out on the opportunity to face off against orcs, goblins, and the like. I mean, how many 4th level orcs are there? (4th being the minimum level they'd need to be a challenge worth facing.)
On the other hand, now you get to face off against nastier creatures...
Incidentally, the equipment thing was an observation, rather than any sort of a complaint.
Archived comment by Andrew:
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the campaign that the DM wants to run if I like first level. I prefer lower-levels to introduce players to campaign settings and only start increasing beginning levels once people have an idea of the world and can make interesting backgrounds based on it. First level seems to be a generic starting point for any campaign setting so that anything like prestige classes, etc. can be thought about before devlopment at later levels. Vibius, for example, started off as a couple of generic statements; "Son of a general/minor noble" and "Black sheep of the family". Luc will hopefully be more interesting now that I have an idea of the setting (his family has minor influence in the Avatain League if suitable).