Kill the level 1 sacred cow in medieval fantasy tabletop RPGs

>levels
Levels are the worst sacred cow of the industry

>This way, a PC's first level up is not such a huge leap in HP and class features that level 1 enemies immediately become a joke, and an illiterate barbarian who multiclasses into wizard will not get all the benefits of a starting wizard who supposedly studied for years.
Stop playing Pathfinder

This.

Mulitclassing is a shitty relic that should have been abandoned when prestige and archetype sub-classes became a thing.

y'all talking shit about DnD 5e,

but it implemented this kind of curve

so actually you are shitting on the system AND whining "if only a system could ever do this, but we can only dream"

but Veeky Forums is all about speaking about things you don't know about, right?

Is this it?

Is this the birth of the first 5e grognard?

5e never actually suggests starting at level 3 in the PHB or the DMG.

Much less any of the setting books intended for actual play or the modules. 5e is pretty insistent that 1 is the starting level.

"Here at my table we disallow multi-classing and start counting at 5 because I'm so autistic I went around the spectrum twice and now I'm bad at fractions"

>and now I'm bad at fractions
I don't get it.
Am I supposed to play a Barbarian 1 + Wizard 1/5 who can cast half a spell?

Pathfinder and D&D are literally the only games I've played that actually uses them. A sacred cow I think not.

>I cast Spray! There's no color in it, but it's better than nothing!

>children and small animals should have levels
No, YOU are the problem.

>in medieval fantasy tabletop RPGs.

Have you tried not playing D&D?

Seriously this shit was worked out 20+ years ago.

>Too shit to re-calibrate any AP to party level

>Playing class and level systems
>Thinking they represent all of RPGdom
Found your problem. You have brain damage.

>This way, a PC's first level up is not such a huge leap in HP and class features that level 1 enemies immediately become a joke,

>and an illiterate barbarian who multiclasses into wizard will not get all the benefits of a starting wizard who supposedly studied for years.

Crybaby snowflake PC detected, sorry the game doesn't necessarily have to fulfill your power fantasy.

Dark Heresy seems to forego the whole "level" thing.

Right, ranks are totally not levels. ;)

>Yes, I know you buy advances for XP. :P

Levels are for chumps.

The game you like is shit

you mean by making every class do nothing at all in early levels while lategame still involves you throwing everything out to kill that one dqmage sponge grunt.

all published adventures start at level 1

Commoners should be able to be one shot by an adventurer with a normal weapon. Taking multiple stab wounds to kill anything more than a toddler is ridiculous

You're an idiot. Most of the setting books have you start at a higher level and only include a poorly designed optional intro for level 1 characters that says to bump everyone to at least 3 once they finish it.

And the person you're quoting didn't even claim what you're implying they claimed. They just said that characters don't get all their basic class features until level 3, which does prevent multiclassing issues.

being an adventurer does not mean that youre a walking legend and cant be killed or kill at whim.
Gurps implemented that well without making everything damage spongy

Curse of Strahd is level 3
Out of the Abyss encourages starting at level 3
Horse of the Dragon Queen suggests using the starter adventure first

I guarantee if I open up PotA it will say something about starting level 3.

>Curse of Strahd is level 3
Curse of Strahd opens with Death House, which is level 1

Shut the fuck up.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamet: "Tyranny of Dragons is an epic story told acrosstwo adventure products, of which this is the first. Characters begin at 1st level, and by the end ofHoard of the Dragon Queen, they should be 7th or 8th level and ready to continue with The Rise of Tiamat"

Out of the Abyss: "Prisoners of the Drow assumes the characters start at 1st level" (p. 4)

Curse of Strahd: "The adventure is meant for characters of levels 1-10" (p. 6)

The only book that *vaguely* suggest it should be started any different is Princes of the Apocalypse: "Princes of the Apocalypse presents an epic campaign against the forces of Elemental Evil that can occupy you and your players for many months. Characters who are at least 3rd level can dive right into the main adventure. A party of 1st- or 2nd-level characters should start with the mini-adventure in chapter 6."

And that's only because it's intended to extend the story started in Phandelver.

The only place you can vaguely find "LOL go ahead and start at 3" is by pulling it out of your own ass. The designers have said time and time again that 5e is intended to be played from Level 1 and Adventurers League enshrines it into policy.

You are simply wrong and too stupid to know it.

Death House is optional adventure in case you want to start at level 1, it's intended to bring the party to level 3 so they can start the CoS proper

You can't just out of context quote the start of the optional adventures from several books and then say they're the intended beginning. That's why they're optional.

Not even remotely.

They're not optional. There's literally no indication they're intended to be optional. "If you are at least 3rd, go here. If you are not 3rd, go here" does not mean "Mark yourself down as 3rd and go here."

You are retarded if you don't understand the module listing a set of options and letting the DM decide means they are optional.

You're actually trying to tell the class that DM fiat is the intended override for the published materials that are advertised as having 1st level as their starting point? How twisted is your viewpoint that you see the writers giving you options and you see it as this secret wink to you and only you that "Yeah, 1st and 2nd levels are stupid and yucky. We REALLY wanted you to start at 3rd."

>HotDQ
Start at first level.

>Princes of the Apocalypse
Start in chapter 6 if characters are not level 3, so you literally can't start at the start of the adventure until level 3.

>Out of the Abyss
This can start at level 1, but consider starting your players at level 3. Proceed to the adventure that 100% is impossible for 1st level characters to do more than run away.

>Curse of Strahd
If you start at level 1 run the adventure in Appendix B first to get them up to speed in a session or two and then use the actual module.

"Modules" are for AL play. AL requires all characters to start at level 1. Every setting book published directs you to either bring an existing character or start in a level 1 chapter. None of them direct you to roll up a level 3 chapter. You are simply wrong about how the game is designed.

Now, you are fully within your rights to play a game where you hit a ball with a bat and then run around bases and insist everyone call it "Golf" because it's your yard, but the rest of us will think you're a goddamn idiot.

This guy gets it.

If only you weren't an eternally triggered bitch.

I blame 3.5

So you are saying a campaign that doesn't start at level 1 is not D&D?

OP didn't say "can we get rid of organized play" he said "can we get rid of level 1", and 5e was designed around players bot getting their class features until level 3 with 4/5 adventures suggesting or starting after level 1.

That defeats the point of level 1. It's the start of an adventurer's career. It's not meant to be a measurement applied to NPCs but just to PCs. NPCs shouldn't even be using the same character building rules

Yes. Once someone says "fuck the rulebook, I do what I want" they are no longer playing the game outlined in the rulebook but instead a game they made up based on the rulebook. There may well be degrees of how far they are from the rulebook, but as Churchill said "we've already determined what kind of woman you are, now we're simply trying to agree on a price."

There is simply nothing in the rulebook that says to do anything other than start at level. Repeatedly. Every single book, every single rules document, every single communication from the company and the developers has said to start with level 1. They have gone so far as to say where to start instead for characters that aren't level 1. There is no indication that anyone should do any less.

At your own table you are free to do different. You may, for example, elect to replace all d20 rolls with d12s in hopes of creating a grittier game. And if that works out for you I hope you enjoy it. But at that point you should not be asking people over to "play D&D" without mentioning it, nor should you be using your experiences with it to make claims that combat in D&D takes too long, armor is too powerful, or that skill challenges are unrealistically difficult.

5e is designed to be run from lvl1. That is what the books say, that is what the books assume, that is what the developers intended. You are as free to play it differently as you wish. But getting good at hitting a baseball with a hockey stick doesn't mean anyone else is going to recognize you as a golfer.

>But getting good at hitting a baseball with a hockey stick doesn't mean anyone else is going to recognize you as a golfer.
user, I think you're getting your metaphors mixed up.

No, I meant what I said. Golf is a sport where you hit a golf ball with a golf club.

You might decide that you think the golf ball is too small and replace it with a baseball. You might decide that the club is too strangely balanced and unforgiving and replace with it a hockey stick. You might find that you thoroughly enjoy seeing how far you or how accurately you can hit the ball with the stick. You might have great health benefits and maybe other people might decide to join you in your fun.

But you're going to have a hard time convincing people that it's still golf with a few house rules, or that a grand total of 2 changes is insignificant compared to the hundreds of things in the rulebook you didn't change.

Now, admittedly this is a very exaggerated example. A more fair example might be a golfing foursome that skipped teeing off because they thought teeing off was the boring bit and wanted to get straight to the irons game so they drive their carts halfway down the fairway and play from there. What they are doing might be undeniably golf-like, but it's no longer golf.

How about we bring back Level Zero?

We can't, someone might discover a combination of rules that forces them to divide by their level, and crash the whole edition.

>crash the whole edition

How many would survive such a thing?

Hello baneposting my old friend

>it's not following the rules if you start past level 1, the developers intended it to be that way
>the DMG tells you what wealth to start at for players starting above level 1
>none of the official D&D streams run by or approved by WotC start at level 1
Autism in action

The real problem is why people assume that commoners should follow an adventurers level system.

The weak old man just has 8 HP with no combat abilities.

The strapping father has 18 HP and deals +2 damage when defending his family.

The squirrely pickpocket had 12 HP and +2 AC when fighting in the streets, and so on. Commoners don't need to be systemic ed the same way the players are, it's just a lot of DnD autism that makes people codify everything.

I should mention my system doesn't have HP bloat like DnD does at higher levels, but the point stands.

WotC modules are usually 3-15 nowadays.

There is not a single 5e 3-15 "module" or book in existence. You can't point to a single one without resorting to "No book starts at chapter 1. And on't point to chapter 1 because it doesn't count."

Alright user you keep getting bogged down in semantics everyone else will not be autistic

Here you go, retard:

OP here, getting this thread back on track.
Making level 5 the starting level would allow race levels for everyone. You're not a human fighter 1, you're a human 2 fighter 3.

>race levels

For what possible reason?

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

Consider not being a faggot

How about having commoners and other fucking things that don't matter count as "Normal Men" like back in the days of good (read pre-WotC) D&D.

So you can have races that are supposed to be better than human and still be balanced.
D&D has already done this to some extent.

I say we go whole hog and go back to race as class like back in the good old days.

post your system fag

Good thing you're not in charge of making RPGs then.

>Commoners don't need to be systemic ed the same way the players are, it's just a lot of DnD autism that makes people codify everything.
This this this.
And 5e even disposed of the idea that you need to give people "Commoner levels" and essentially told the DMs to just give the NPCs whatever stats make sense.

...and nothing of value was lost.

>Princes of the Apocalypse presents an epic campaign
against the forces of Elemental Evil that can occupy you
and your players for many months. Characters who are
at least 3rd level can dive right into the main adventure.
A party of 1st- or 2nd-level characters should start with
the mini-adventure in chapter 6.

The adventures are written with 3rd level characters in mind for the start of the campaign but if a newbie GM picks up the module and wants to start at 1st level than they have a way of getting to that point you gigantic autistic retard.

The books are written to help newbies get going if it's their first D&D product. But obviously you're too braindead to realize that.

>not starting at level 0

wew

>you encounter a LEVEL 20 COW

Goddamnit, we're fucked, aren't we?

The first hit die counts quintuple. Congratulations, your problem is solved, is fully backwards compatible with all existing material (it's very easy to double the first hit die's HP on a monster), and the house rule can be easily explained to your players in the space of two minutes. You've also opened up some lower HP amounts to use for things like housecats and small children, who can have their first HD not get doubled on a case by case basis to create a weaker set of characters.

Yes, exactly one of the four released campaigns recommends starting at level 3. Or one of the eight if you count the Adventurer's League material released alongside the home play campaigns. That is not 5e recommending play begin at level 3. That is one specific campaign being set up for play at level 3. The Adventurer's League *requires* you to start at level 1.

...

I'm not any of the anons you've been talking to thus far, but I have to wonder. Why is starting at Level 3 so bad? This isn't a video game, there's no tutorial to go through.

While the designers do suggest starting at Level 1, they present starting above that as a valid option too, seeing as they provide rules on how much wealth a character of X Level should roughly have.

>It's a level 20 Sorlock cow

>Congratulations, your problem is solved
Except a level 1 wizard who went to wizard school for years gets the same number of spells as a level 1 barbarian + level 1 wizard who killed a dozen goblins in two days and decided to multiclass for the lulz.

>This isn't a video game, there's no tutorial to go through.
levels 1-2 are designed specifically to be tutorial levels. Learning curves exist in everything.

Then fluff the barbarian's wizard levels as something else than 'reading books for several years'. Maybe the tribe's shaman started tutoring him in spirit-talking or whatever, problem solved.

Wouldn't you then agree that going through the tutorial levels just isn't very fun, especially if you're an experienced player? In D&D many class features don't kick in until around level 3, and to me it seems backwards not getting to play the kind of character you want before some arbitrary waiting period. Why not have your character do their Thing straight out of the gate?

but shamans are an actual thing in the game that wizards are not

I can't think of a single rpg with levels that doesn't suffer from this issue.

>Good thing you're not in charge of making RPGs then.
Says who?
He can make his own RPG right now!

Doesn't matter what you call it as long as the game mechanics stay the same. A wizard is basically 'guy who studied to learn magic' (versus an innate talent or being given by supernatural entities). The nature of this study has no effect on the mechanics, so it can be whatever is appropriate to the setting.

>5e was designed around players bot getting their class features until level 3 with 4/5 adventures suggesting or starting after level 1.
Seemed to me to be more about giving players a chance to familiarize themselves with their class before they made a commitment to how they were gonna specialize them.

Right, so players new to the game use the level 1 starter set and then move on to a published adventure/homebrew adventure.

Anyone with any degree of knowledge in the system has no problem starting at level 3.

If a game pdf lands on the internet, and no one reads it, does it make a game?

Its less an issue with the players and more the fact that there are 50 year old commoners who are still first level. The 4 hp stat block is for a CHILD.

But there are mechanical differences that come with the name. Wizard is not a shaman is not a druid is not a bard etc, but they are all "guys who studied to learn magic". DnD is not a game that assumes you fluff things however you want; mechanics are closely tied to names/fluff

Men die as quickly to stab wounds as children.

Except that bit where they can survive having their limbs detached and can lose a child's worth of blood and still survive.

You know, the sort of things that are supposed to make a human stronger than a kobold (which on average has 1 hp more than a level 1 commoner.)

So can a child, if the story calls for it. HP is not meat points, it's plot points. An adult commoner has as much as a child, which is almost none.

And if kobolds weren't tougher than the average commoner, what use is there in hiring adventurers to take care of them and not just a mob of angry farmers? Kobolds are enemies, challenges to overcome, and that instantly gives them more plot points than a no name commoner. Besides, kobolds are pretty sturdy to begin with. Not strong, but tough what with that dragonblood.

My Npcs all have class levels... Usually commoner, expert, aristocrat, etc. Most people have jobs. There are splats for 3.x for giving them levels in their professions. It's not my fault gms aren't using them.