Starting Level?

[Rogahn's Bluff]

At what level do you usually start your games, and why?

I've traditionally been a 1st level, trial-by-fire GM; but after recently rereading Fafhrd and the Mouser I thought it might be fun to start at 3rd.

[gentleman john]

It all depends on how experienced you consider "experienced" to be. 1st level characters are supposedly better off than the mass of their (unadventurous) fellows, but are obviously only on a par with 1HD monsters. The question I'd like to ask is: why 3rd level in particular?

[austrodavicus]

I always start a campaign at 1st level as the player's love the sense of achievement that comes from surviving those first couple of levels. However, I do occasionally play one-shot games that involve the players rolling up characters of higher levels just for that game.

[kaomera]

I have a big urge to start at first level, but I also often thinking of starting at third level (given time constraints, etc - if I'm going to run a "one dungeon" game, or even just considering that I don't know if I could keep a campaign going for several years at this point, just due to scheduling stuff). I'm not sure why third, exactly, it's just what seems "right". It might be that third level always seemed to be when your character "graduated" to being a real factor in the campaign. At that point you could expect to go a few sessions without a PC death and possibly trying to get a dead PC raised was at least somewhat reasonable to discuss (argue about).

When I started playing AD&D our solution to high mortality rates was to have each player control 3 characters. It also may have improved overall ability scores (we did 3d6, in order), but it seemed like an awful lot of the time the "wrong" character would be the one who bit it. By the time you got to be third or fourth level you'd be down to about one PC apiece. We also didn't allow rolling new characters at above 1st for quite a while, although someone would probably give you one of their characters if they still had more than one and your last guy died. So I think we tended to not do a ton of character development / roleplay before about 3rd, as it was liable to be "wasted" by a failed save or something.

[Rogahn's Bluff]

It all depends on how experienced you consider "experienced" to be. 1st level characters are supposedly better off than the mass of their (unadventurous) fellows, but are obviously only on a par with 1HD monsters. The question I'd like to ask is: why 3rd level in particular?

I see 3rd level as a good balancing point between survivability and cockiness. Characters are tough enough not to fear combat with low HD opposition but not so powerful that they'll sneer at it. It still leaves plenty of room for advancement over long term play and doesn't assume magical gear as default. To me it feels like the area Fafhrd and the Mouser occupy, at least in their early careers.

[gentleman john]

I see 3rd level as a good balancing point between survivability and cockiness. Characters are tough enough not to fear combat with low HD opposition but not so powerful that they'll sneer at it. It still leaves plenty of room for advancement over long term play and doesn't assume magical gear as default. To me it feels like the area Fafhrd and the Mouser occupy, at least in their early careers.

I must admit, when I am running convention games, I tend to generate characters that are in the region of 3rd - 4th level for use by the players. However, this is because I believe characters start to become mechanically "interesting" at about this level. For example, Clerics and MUs gain a 2nd level spell at 3rd level. This gives them more flexibility in a low-level adventure. Given the XP required for 3rd level for Clerics and MUs, this puts the other classes (with the exception of Elf) at 4th level.

Your approach is more thematic and, as such, I can't disagree with it. If it fits the campaign you want to run, then do it.

[gentleman john]

When I started playing AD&D our solution to high mortality rates was to have each player control 3 characters. It also may have improved overall ability scores (we did 3d6, in order), but it seemed like an awful lot of the time the "wrong" character would be the one who bit it. By the time you got to be third or fourth level you'd be down to about one PC apiece. We also didn't allow rolling new characters at above 1st for quite a while, although someone would probably give you one of their characters if they still had more than one and your last guy died. So I think we tended to not do a ton of character development / roleplay before about 3rd, as it was liable to be "wasted" by a failed save or something.

Reminds me of when I played T&T5e. For those games our group used to roll up veritable armies of characters for dungeoncrawls. We never felt the need to do this for D&D - it didn't feel "right". It might have had something to do with the fact that a 1st level D&D Fighter stood a reasonable chance against a D&D orc, while a 1st level T&T warrior would be handed their proverbial on a plate by a T&T orc. The end result was that by the end of a T&T dungeon (even a a published dungeon), we'd usually have whittled down the characters by about 50%, with at least a couple up to 2nd level.

Published D&D dungeons seemed more balanced, somehow.

[Dyson Logos]

Almost all games we start at level 1. The end result is typically that one or two players end up playing level 1 characters for quite some time - especially fighters who get chewed up and spat out by many critters (in the Temple of Ilhan campaign we chewed through something like 5 level 1 fighters before one managed to level up with the rest of us).

I have played and run in games starting at higher levels. One-shots, con games and so on.

[rabindranath72]

When playing Mentzer D&D, sometimes I start at third level, so that:
1) magic-users and clerics have a good selection of spells
2) thieves' abilities are on par with at least 1st level AD&D thieves
3) fighters are very close to gaining a bonus to hit and improved saving throws (at 4th level)

[Thaleia]

I don't GM, but as a player I prefer to start at 3rd. I like the grittiness of bringing a character along from the start at 1st, but part of the fun for me in playing d&d is watching a character develop, and watching a narrative unfold. The high mortality rate of 1st-level characters makes it difficult to care about them before around 3rd level (because they'll just die on you); and the constant switching out of party members makes the narrative disjointed.

Also, I like playing magic-users and I cannot tell you how boring it is to take sleep or magic missile ALL the freaking TIME.

When I started playing AD&D our solution to high mortality rates was to have each player control 3 characters. ... So I think we tended to not do a ton of character development / roleplay before about 3rd, as it was liable to be "wasted" by a failed save or something.

I like this idea -- I think it would at least overcome the narrative difficulty. At least there would be someone in the party who remembered why you kept going back to this cave in the hills!