New campaign starting with child npcs in orphanage

[rrllmario]

Hey i was starting a new campaign relatively soon and was going to set the first game in a maximum security orphanarium(More serious than the Futurama counterpart). I was wondering what would be a good way to set them as children, i was going to do no trained skills as they are kids and haven't trained yet and lower gold. But what other suggestions would you have? i was also thinking of having either an underground theme or naval travel theme once they grow up. the second session will be a few years after once they have started their true adventuring career. The first game they would be around 12 years old the second about 16. so any advice would be helpful.

[Rynjin]

What might be interesting is having that first session with them as simple Commoners with the Young template applied to them. You'd have to tailor the challenges to accommodate but it would make a bit more sense than the "Party of 12 year old Rogue/Barbarian/Sorcerer/Paladin".

So they really are helpless little kids trying to outsmart the guards at the orphanage to escape. Or at the actually I think this is better, give 'em an NPC class based around the class they want to be. Martials are Warriors, Rogue type classes are Experts, and caster types are Adepts. Or even simpler, pure martial (Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin/Cavalier/Monk/Gunslinger) and hybrid martial (Inquisitor/Magus/Whatever I missed) are Warriors and everyone else is an Expert (That's all spellcasters, Rogues, and the non-combat focused half-casters like Bards).

Make it so they can ONLY use their class skills (can't put points or make untrained checks in anything else).

No gold (why would they have gold?) and no gear, they have to find stuff in the orphanage or loot corpses/KO'd/Sleeping guards and other people.

Perhaps in the final battle or summat tell them to level up into the classes they were going to be at level 1. The kid Barbarian Rages for the first time and beats a guard to death with his bare hands, the kid Paladin connects with his god for the first time, the kid Sorcerer fires off a Magic Missile, and so forth. The only classes this wouldn't really work for are Wizard and Alchemist since they NEED gear to function at all.

Hm. This might be something interesting to do to kick start my Thieves Guild campaign when we get done with Carrion Crown.

[Calex]

Doesnt the new Ultimate Campaign book have stuff for running 0-level characters? I thought that I read that somewhere, but I could be wrong.

[rrllmario]

i was planning on them being the classes they wanted for simplicity sake. Also i was picturing it as a bit of a work camp and so they get paid a bit maybe not gold maybe i'll just do it as copper instead, also having a small economy inside the orphanarium. i do like the idea of having them come into their class and having that as most of the story but dont really know the best way to do that. also the part of the flavor of the camp is that is meant to contain races seen as strange, unusual, or dangerous. The pcs will all be characters from the advanced race guide. but if my players wanted to be a standard race that is easily changed.