It always seems like first level characters start their stories all over the map, you ever noticed that? It seems sometimes like they have to overcome overwhelming odds just to get to the area where they're all supposed to meet up.
Take my Pathfinder game. One PC is from Wartle, down in the far southern swamplands. Another is from the burning wastes of Shoanti lands. The third is from Korsova, the metropolitan center of culture and imperialism. They're having to each make their way nearly five days journey to the town they're meeting up in--and only if they each decide to beeline toward that town in a straight line rather than do what PCs do, explore around, visit towns for a while, help out with things.
You would think that by the time they hooked up they would have leveled up a couple of times--or at least have run into something that would have given them 1 XP.
I mean yeah, there's the hamfisted approach (okay you're starting in Magnimar--everyone make characters from Magnimar!) but that's no fun. Half the fun of game settings is to have the various nations as starting points for characters.
Then there's the videogamey approach (the game doesn't start until they're together, so of course they don't get XP, because the game hasn't started yet!) but it seems really fake that characters only get XP when they're onscreen. I mean the one Shoanti guy had to come down through Kaer Maga--you'd better believe he learned something there.
My gut reaction is to start them all off with a good 600 XP to reflect their experiences during their travels. It's what they probably would have earned if they'd roleplayed through it (usually around 300 a session) though it still assumes a relatively unrealistic beeline course.
What's your guys' take?
It sounds to me like those journeys and the "XP" they earn from them are what make your PCs 1st level Fighters/Clerics/Rogues in the first place (as opposed to Warriors/Adepts/Experts). I would leave it at that.
A character in my Pathfinder game grew up as a leech-collector in Wartle, was lured to Kaer Maga to become a Tallow Boy, escaped, fled home, then fled again from the bounty hunters to Sandpoint, where he's been holed up for a couple years. All of which explains his current rogue abilities (sneak attack +1d6 damage alone is a way cooler ability than the average commoner ever gets, not to mention his amazing talent at hiding and sleight of hand).
If you REALLY feel like you need to make it "realistic," have the PCs start as 1st level warriors or commoners and then give them 1000 XP for writing their adventures in the process of making it to Sandpoint, so they level up and become Warrior 1/Fighter 1 (or whatever).
Ultimately, though, I don't think you need to fix anything here.
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XP and levels are just artificial ways of creating balanced encounters for the players. I really don't care how many creatures the characters slay, if I want them to go through three 1st level Dungeon Modules, I simply won't give them enough XP to level to 2. The most important thing to remember is to create challenging encounters that are neither too easy nor unbalancing. If I had been playing RoTL, I would have started them out at 1. Since APs tend to be on the hard side, it wouldn't have been unbalancing to give them 600 bonus XP. That way, they level faster to the coveted 2 level which gives them more hit points.
As long as the encounters are still challenging, I think your method is a good one.
I got around this by having the players in my last campaign being the children of a group of retired adventurers who set up a Wizards Covenant in the backwoods of a quiet kingdom. The Parents came from a number of very different cultures/ species (including those not usually accepted), and while the group has some general knowledge of the world, it's mostly from older books. It made for a case not unlike the commune in "The Village" and blossomed into some very epic stuff indeed as their parents unfinished business needed seeing to.
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None of my players is running an 'adventurer'; their characters would avoid any trouble on the road.
One has enough back story to be a level 3+ rogue, another could well have an extra level of ranger, the sorcerer should probably have a level extra of rogue and the paladin and cleric are greenhorns.
Should one player be advantaged and another disadvantaged for having different backstories? Should the PC who came to Sandpoint on a boat full of pilgrims lag behind at the start because the ranger came cross-country?
I think it's probably fairer to just start them on zeroXP. What's the point of free XP anyway; the player is supposed to earn it RPing his character - not have it accrue in the background whilst he/she goes for a cuppa.
I've played in games before where the GM roleplayed a mini starting scenario (one small session) at 1st level for each PC to get them to the starting point where everyone meets. We all started the group adventure at 2nd level.
Last campaign I started my players started at 2nd level and had to write up the journey and explain what happened to justify the level up. The reason I did it had more to do with the fact there were only 3 players and their PCs, and they needed the levels to tackle the enemies I had already prepped.
Last campaign I started my players started at 2nd level and had to write up the journey and explain what happened to justify the level up.
You could pass this responsibility to each player (you might already require them to come up with backgrounds) and offer xp or level up in return.
I have two options.
In Dark Sun, characters all start at level 3. Boom, it's such an instantly lethal campaign setting, that it's assumed a PC "has" such a backstory to justify their beginning levels. Otherwise, they'd be among the boneyard already. (If multiclassing, the levels need to add up to 3.) The party can start with meaty adventures and don't need to cringe in fear from a single Orc.
I hand out a free rank in a craft/perform/etc. skill, and in the Knowledge: local of their choice. I also enjoyed J.J.'s approach to hand out a freebie feat at first level, and I've adopted that approach as well.
I do see where the OP comes from. Just look at Valeros's background at first level. He's seen it all and done it all as a Merc, and, yet, he's still just "1st" level. My take then veers to an above comment where that means that explains the difference between starting out with a PC class versus playing a Warrior or Expert class.
I think adding an NPC level to the first level of a PC class certainly can add flavor, but then I'd wonder about adjusting their current EL. I think that depends if the DM perceives the PC's as heroes, etc. An NPC and a PC class isn't as powerful as 2 PC levels, but neither are the PC's 1 EL. As a DM, I'd certainly feel a bit bolder in making a challenge more diffcult for them.
I'm tempted now to do the NPC/PC class combo for the 2D AP.
That whole "the PC's didn't become real adventurers until the game starts" argument just sounds really fake and arbitrary to me. I've always felt that level should reflect who the character is within their career lifespan. Game balance be darned. Then again, I've always felt it was really weird to have characters rise up and become level 20 over a few months. Yuck.
I tend to see level as character's place in the world. If a guy's seen it all as a mercenary (or through investigating the framing of his father) then for me that is NOT a level 1 character. It's somewhere between a level 4-10 character. Now my players understand and agree with this, so when I say "level one" what I mean is you kiss your mom, take a pouchfull of coins and your dad's sword and march out into the world for the first time. That's level one. Everyone has been really good about that--they've got pretty rich backstories and are just finished with whatever training or grand epiphany they needed to be who they are and are now on the road.
The problem is, you get out on the road, you learn things. It just makes sense. In the past I've tried to just smuggle them to their starting marks as quickly as possible, sorta' sheltering them from anything that might cause them to have more storyline than they should. My new approach (that I'm becoming increasingly hopeful for) is that instead I will account for a couple of weeks adventuring by starting them all off with two sessions worth of XP. Thinking about it more, I'm also thinking of giving each PC a small interactive rundown on their adventures thus far--so it feels like they are a rooted, organic part of the world. The old way was just really contrived and forced and caused the player group that came of it to feel a bit coerced. I never want that. But yeah...
I tend to flatten the power curve dramatically in my games. My games assume a more egalitarian world. Player Characters are not automatically the top 5% just by sheer virtue of being Player Characters. I tend to run everyone with the assumption of having levels somewhere between 1-20 be they PC or NPC. There's nothing special about the nature of being a PC. The gods didn't specially choose them for some fate. They aren't better or cooler than other people. It's pretty baseline. There's a lot of rules in the DMG for dumbing down badguys to make them pushover ECL balanced encounters. I basically dump all of that. Everyone's pretty well equipped and statted out the same.
Now that said, adventurers do a job that is a lot more dangerous and demanding than what farmers or booksellers do. They are routinely in kill or be killed situations. Many of them have developed magical powers beyond the ken of most folks about town. They tend to make good money at what they do (but they also shell out a ton of money on temporary lodging, eating at restaurants every night, and getting magically healed, uncursed, etc. at various temples) So better training, a bit more money to work with--but not a whole different kind of person.
So in that light, the build I choose for the characters is the build I choose for the NPCs. Gold the PCs have per level is not the insano amount listed in the DMG, it's the more reasonable amount of gold an "encounter" has on him or her when you kill them.
They're pretty much people in the world. I like it much better that way.
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I tend to flatten the power curve dramatically in my games. My games assume a more egalitarian world. Player Characters are not automatically the top 5% just by sheer virtue of being Player Characters. I tend to run everyone with the assumption of having levels somewhere between 1-20 be they PC or NPC. There's nothing special about the nature of being a PC. The gods didn't specially choose them for some fate. They aren't better or cooler than other people. It's pretty baseline. There's a lot of rules in the DMG for dumbing down badguys to make them pushover ECL balanced encounters. I basically dump all of that. Everyone's pretty well equipped and statted out the same.
Now that said, adventurers do a job that is a lot more dangerous and demanding than what farmers or booksellers do. They are routinely in kill or be killed situations. Many of them have developed magical powers beyond the ken of most folks about town. They tend to make good money at what they do (but they also shell out a ton of money on temporary lodging, eating at restaurants every night, and getting magically healed, uncursed, etc. at various temples) So better training, a bit more money to work with--but not a whole different kind of person.
So in that light, the build I choose for the characters is the build I choose for the NPCs. Gold the PCs have per level is not the insano amount listed in the DMG, it's the more reasonable amount of gold an "encounter" has on him or her when you kill them.
They're pretty much people in the world. I like it much better that way.
Reading Alex Y's excellent link I'm minded to suggest that you shouldn't be levelling up NPCs to flatten out the curve. Rather you should be giving PCs 15 to 18 point buys (or 3d6 no throwaway) and slowing the rate of level advancement.
In fact the only thing I diagree with in that link is about kicking down doors - you're an idiot if you try to kick down a door and you're probably going to hurt your foot. Slam your shoulder into it like the rest of us...
It always seems like first level characters start their stories all over the map, you ever noticed that? It seems sometimes like they have to overcome overwhelming odds just to get to the area where they're all supposed to meet up.
That happens because the DM doesn't specify (and enforce) a "party formation backstory." There are basically three different ways a party forms: chance met, gathered by patron, and common background. For example, AoW assumes a common background (grew up in Diamond Lake) while ST has the party gathered by patron (Lavinia).
Chance met- The usual method; a group of strangers from diverse backgrounds get together and decide to kill monsters and take their stuff. Provides the most freedom to the players, but can cause lack of continuity (how they got together in the first place) and party cohesion (why they stay together for any length of time).
Gathered by patron- The characters are brought together by a person/organization to kill monsters and take their stuff. PCs need to be a part of or willing to work for the person/organization (increasing continuity and cohesion), but still allows a fairly wide range of characters.
Common background- The characters grew up together (relatives, childhood friends, apprenticed together, etc.) and have known each other for years before starting out. Provides the most continuity and cohesion, but also the most restriction on the range of characters.
You can always talk to the players and have them come up with plausible ways for the characters to get together. For characters of distant cultures, children of expatriots (like the Kaijitsus of Sandpoint) are always a possibility. Mixing and matching the three ways can give the party a more "organic" feel (PC's A and B grew up together, were gathered with PC C by a patron, and met PC D by chance while working for the patron).
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I actually require not just a back story write-up (about a paragraph to a page) but also that each character have a plausible connection to at least half of the other characters in the group (this usually means you need to know 2-3 other characters in a standard 4-6 player group). This last is separate from the background, although the more verbose and prose-minded include it in their extensive backgrounds.
The simplest example of this is from my illiterate friend (no he's not actually illiterate - He just gots his schoolin' done bad). Copy and pasted:
"Halloran knows Ghent from the Tavern they drink at. They played darts together many times. They were partners in a tournament. I knows Momar because they are brothers. Halloran doesn't hang out with Momar because momar is a nerd all magic users are. Halloran kinda knows Jasper. Hes a bard so hes probably played in the tavern Halloran drinks at. I don't know kiana."
ok, so maybe he IS illiterate...I am not an English professor, I just want them to think about how thy know each other and to commit it to paper. As this write-up suggests, even bad write-ups have some flavor.
To be sure, if I had players who insisted on being from the far corners of the globe, the operative word here is "plausible". Booking passage on a ship and sailing thousands of miles is plausible. Trekking across the Desert-Certain-Death at or before 1st level is not. However, attempting to read your "masters" book on teleportation at 1st level and finding yourself in a foreign country is plausible albeit fantastic and bit contrived (and for that contrivance the "master" will be sure to track said apprentice down and exact punishment for the damage caused to the library in the magical backlash!)
Years ago, I had a player who would try to hijack any game he was in, designing characters that he knew didn't fit in the setting (In a Call of Cthulhu mystery set around a high-society auction, he drew up an unwashed, bomb-throwing bolshevik; for a Viking-themed horror setting, he produced a Native American warrior named "Richard Nixon", etc.).
After dealing with that guy, I determined that it's best to give the players lots of choices, but make them come up with the tools the DM needs to motivate adventures. I request that the players come up with a reason to be where the game begins and a link to one of the other PCs. If they start out by providing a few "hooks" for me, I can send them in directions that mean something to the characters. I will try to give them some background information to facilitate this, but the character is theirs, and the responsibility for making him someone who fits with the rest of the party is likewise theirs.
Starting out the characters with experience points? I always believed that members of "heroic" PC classes were somewhat experienced to start out with. Those fighter feats and magic spells didn't come from a home-study course.
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I do several things:
1. I have for my last few campaigns enforced a strict limit on race and class selection. Only one or two demi-humans, only one or two arcanists, and similar restrictions. I announce these well before the campaign begins, and leave it to the players to select the specific roles they want.
Neither group I did that with had a problem.
2. I discuss power issues with the players before we begin, and gain a consensus to avoid the worst offenders. In one case I simply ran an entire encounter again because it was obvious a power stack for a bad guy was too much, and I did not want the players ever using it, so we all agreed to delete it retroactively.
3. In my most recent campaign, I have required the PCs to take heritage feats. I will definitely continue this with other feat and background requirements. Not only do they tend to be weaker despite the synergistic effects which helps with power spiral, they also help focus character development.
4. I constantly link from previous campaigns with my current main group, and will extend that to another group. The ability to be connected, however tenuously, to a previous character helps a lot in controlling background decisions by giving the players a reason to accept those limits.