Not starting people at level 1.

[Krusk]

Internet crow sourcing to make monsters.

Also you write out the. Class and like 4 or 5 sample monsters for carrying power levels.

Monster Classes are more streamlined than 3.x base classes. They get a neat thing at level 1 and 2 and then again very 5 levels or so. In-between is just number padding. +2ac sort of stuff. Caster monsters get a few slas at will or maybe even with 4e recharge as their nea thing.

On my iPod there are typos

[RobbyPants]

Edit: Low level TWFing Rogues always flank

So the sample rogue has an 18 Str? Doesn't look like it from the 2-12 damage.

[tussock]

Human with TWFing and Finess (toward fair AC for survivability).

+4 Dex, -2 TWFing, +2 Flanking. 10/18/14/8/8/8 and however many points extra you get over 24.

If I wanted to twink things a bit for 1st level play, I'd go for 32 point buy, with 20 Str half-orc fighter and cleric holding the line, while a Rapid-shot Rogue fires from the concealment of an Obscuring Mist that hides our Sorcerer. If the front line is at the edge of concealment, they get the benefit and the opponents don't. Woot!

[RobbyPants]

You don't get Weapon Finesse at level 1 as a rogue. I think it's incredibly shitty and houserule otherwise (I've given it for free in the past), but as printed, the poor rogue needs to either wait until level 3 or take a level of fighter or something.

[Xur]

A lot of problems could be solved by making starting races have two HD and then using the RAW.

Sounds very interesting... out of curiosity, what are 'a lot of' problems in tghis case? I can see the point of 1st-level characters not being that much threatened by goblins or housecats, as mentioned here.

A problem I see is how spells with a HD-dependancy work at low levels... if an emey caster trys sleep on a party of 1st-levels with an extra racial HD each, the spell suddenly becomes a lot less dangerous (and interesting).

[icyshadowlord]

I've noticed the high chance to suddenly die with level 1 characters, both in my current campaign and in the one where I wasn't the MC. Now what exactly are we getting at here?

[fectin]

1/720? Oh no! Why, that's going to happen about once every four years if we do nothing but fight a dozen goblins over and over again and never get any gear or XP.

So, you only play every six months? Because 1/720 times (say) 2 hits per goblin times 12 goblins times 4 encounters per session seems to add up to about a 2 in 15 chance of the fighter getting one-shotted, per session.

That's not "hitting the fighter at all", that's "Hitting and dealing enough damage to knock him out, from full health".

[Chamomile]

So if a Fighter fights 48 Goblins in a single session without any help from his party, he has a 2/15 chance of being killed in one hit at some point? That doesn't strike me as a bad thing.

[Wrathzog]

This scenario sucks. Stop arguing about it.

[Bihlbo]

This scenario sucks. Stop arguing about it.

+1

[Aryxbez]

Well agreed that nobody likes to play 1st level (or at least for long anyway). Limited options in combat, stuff you can fight, and high lethality to pretty much everything in the entire world. Sorta reminds me of Dragon Quest games, where being that low of level, everything reflected that. Fighting small slimes and various bird/insects, with nothing but Stick/club, working way up just to get something like a sword made of copper (haven't even gone on to be worthy of getting a weapon made out of iron, let alone steel!).

Course I guess that works for a video game, especially one which market is for the whole "old school" feel anyway. I know FantasyCraft did this as well, where your starting money sucked, so would actually have characters with like a crude shortsword, let alone any respectable armor of any kind (despite apparently being "PC" of some renown). That's part of the reason people want to stick to being 1st level, feel being all "extreme" for playing at these levels!

Of course, 3rd edition had the CR system to represent lower than 1st level threats (where goblins 1/4 CR, Commoners probably 1/6-1/10 or however rolls), just should've been better reflected in its execution. So you don't have Farmers fearing their own cats, or party with a fear of being mauled in the alleyway by a swarm of housecats. Future editions should continue the simple solution of having 1st level with more stuff, better initial stability, not have the default game to those extremes of lethality, where a goblin or cat, murders a wizard straight up.


Also agreed, in my play experience, most games don't get off the ground, or hell last past 3 sessions, let alone move more than a few levels, if that. Chronic enough in my area, grow tired of playing RPG's in the whole lower level spectrum of 1-6th, unlikely go any higher than 10-12th, want to move on to the more "higher level" stuff (if there was an RPG that handled high level stuff well, with an RNG in mind to matter in the first place...).

[tzor]

Actualy, I kind of like 1st level play (but as you say, not for too long, the question is how long is too long). Actually I found as a DM my biggest "problem" with 1st level was "flavor." You have to work hard at setup to make a first level encounter "interesting." You don't have the special effect department to back you up that that level. No fire/ice/acid/huge frigging rocks/regneration monsters. Just orgdinary joes like the adventurers.

The key is that if you can do it at 1st level, you can use the same ideas at 20th level, because the things that first level lack, really don't make for long term interesting adventurers anyway; they are just window dressing.

[Aryxbez]

My DMing style lends me to like lower level stuff, and media I enjoy is around that too(old habits die hard I guess). I'd probably say most people don't want to be 1st level past the first adventure, or hell, Session even. As then likely got peoples attention and interest in playing the game, well to signify progress, bump em to level 2.

Not sure what you're saying on the last part there, guess that 1st and 20th level ideas for adventures, don't really need to lead up to anything, former being scope isn't all that grand, and the latter, being that the scope of actions resolve it rather quickly, regardless if PC's passed or failed. How it's the endgame anyway, so not many are going to worry, or care too much if the adventure doesn't really lead elsewhere.