I was invited to join a table (5e) at lvl 5. Both DM and players capped my new character at lvl 4, saying it would be unfair to give me the same XP everyone worked hard for. They made clear they were already doing me a favor by allowing lvl 4 at all, and criticized my "greed" for demanding the same lvl for everyone in the party. They stated eventually I would reach their lvl.
I was honestly surprised, since I thought this approach would create more problems than it would solve, even for the DM.
Since neither them nor I are experienced DnD players, I thought of looking for some other take on this. What are your thoughts on this, folks? Thanks!
It's very common for late-starters to be a level or two behind everyone else. Personally I don't understand the point of it - having characters at different levels only serves to make things more difficult for a DM to balance. The only person getting "punished" as it were is the DM. A level or two behind isn't too big, but the DM has to balance your lower ability, proficiency and health - which is an unnecessary headache.
As a DM I'd say you start with less magic gear and gold but same level. The less stuff is the balance for starting late but the levels being the same keeps it easy to make a balanced encounter.
This is also why I prefer milestone - I get to dish the Level Up when it suits the story and when it feels right rather than by number crunching - especially since encounters could just be puzzles, spying, solving something, etc which don't have "XP" costs like monster battles.
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I sort of get it for groups that use Exp. At higher levels, gaps in exp are less meaningful, and players may have even earned individual exp bonuses.
I get it, but I don't prefer it. Milestone leveling where everyone is the same level regardless of when they started or if they missed a session is just simpler.
Back in the day, as kids, we did stuff like this and it was always a mistake. It led to the various issues that occur when one player at the table has a character much better or worse than the rest. There is a reason why game balance exists as a concept, and why D&D has had to go through 5 editions (and then some, since some of these like Basic Set are not counted as "editions") - to balance the classes against each other so no one class was clearly "better" or "worse" than all others. I'm sure there are people who would say it's still not balanced in that regard but it is way better than it used to be. Giving a character -1 level to the table for no good reason ensures the very kind of imbalance that the progressive changes of the various editions have tried to correct.
To me, the players and the DM should all want the party to be balanced. It's almost always the best way to run a game. Frankly, I suspect these players are not thinking very clearly about this. If you are -1 level to them, and thus have less HP and everything, they're going to have to keep helping and carrying you. Did they think of that?
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Eh, roll with it. You'll be behind for a little bit but eventually it evens out. I joined a group that had been playing off and on for like a year and started a level lower than them - and the group was all within a few levels of eachother (i think when I joined the highest was 7 and the lowest (me) was 5). Now, a year later, we're all the same level because the DM decided to push us all to the same level as we went into a new chapter of the story.
If it bugs you to be a level behind, that's something you need to figure out for yourself if you're gonna stick with it or not. personally 1 level difference isnt huge, especially level 4-5. if it were like 11 and 12, that might be a different story lol.
Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I really dont see why a late-starter should be punished at all (level-, gear- or otherwise). In my specific case, I was abroad when the table formed; were I not, I wouldve joined them from the start. I suppose the "same level, less magic stuff" approach is a reasonable compromise (although one I still dont understand).
And interestingly, they are using milestone and not XP. Go figure.
EDIT: btw, I found very interesting the notion of this -1 "for no good reason" (as I see it too) rendering the iterative balancing effort useless
Sounds like the players are really being jerks about this, which is its own problem. Honestly, if they insist on being rude to you because you're new, you deserve better, even if you might not be able to find another group right away. Playing with no one is better than playing with jerks. (If they're your friends, well, hopefully they're not jerks, and you can have an adult conversation with them if you think they're acting like it. Friendship trumps game rules, even house rules.)
That said, I've run games both ways. Usually I'll have new players/characters start at 1st level, but only when the game I'm running goes no higher than 3rd or 4th level. (I also use milestone XP, but it's every session and I don't award it to people who don't show up, which could explain why they'd be a little upset, but not how they just happen to all be the same level.) 5th level is an odd one to start you a level down at, if only because it's such a huge power jump from the lower levels, but there's nothing too horrible about starting a new character just one level down. However, it sounds suspiciously like these players are doing this more as "hazing" than anything else. I'd be interested to see whether they'd do the same level-down for a replacement character if one of the originals died...I worry they wouldn't.
Eh, roll with it. You'll be behind for a little bit but eventually it evens out. I joined a group that had been playing off and on for like a year and started a level lower than them - and the group was all within a few levels of eachother (i think when I joined the highest was 7 and the lowest (me) was 5). Now, a year later, we're all the same level because the DM decided to push us all to the same level as we went into a new chapter of the story.
If it bugs you to be a level behind, that's something you need to figure out for yourself if you're gonna stick with it or not. personally 1 level difference isnt huge, especially level 4-5. if it were like 11 and 12, that might be a different story lol.
"we're all the same level because the DM decided to push us all to the same level as we went into a new chapter of the story" - they are in this exactly situtation, going into a new story arc. Would it be reasonable to enforce lvl differences?
Sounds like the players are really being jerks about this, which is its own problem. Honestly, if they insist on being rude to you because you're new, you deserve better, even if you might not be able to find another group right away. Playing with no one is better than playing with jerks. (If they're your friends, well, hopefully they're not jerks, and you can have an adult conversation with them if you think they're acting like it. Friendship trumps game rules, even house rules.)
That said, I've run games both ways. Usually I'll have new players/characters start at 1st level, but only when the game I'm running goes no higher than 3rd or 4th level. (I also use milestone XP, but it's every session and I don't award it to people who don't show up, which could explain why they'd be a little upset, but not how they just happen to all be the same level.) 5th level is an odd one to start you a level down at, if only because it's such a huge power jump from the lower levels, but there's nothing too horrible about starting a new character just one level down. However, it sounds suspiciously like these players are doing this more as "hazing" than anything else. I'd be interested to see whether they'd do the same level-down for a replacement character if one of the originals died...I worry they wouldn't.
We did have a conversation, and they quite fiercely imposed this level-down condition. The DM suggested he would level me up "quickly" (no specific number of encounters was mentioned).
As for the character replacement in case of death: the DM said losing a character had to be "punitive", as an incentice to play well and get invested on your current character, but he admitted that he didnt like the level-down for death replacements, and was unsure what else to do.
Half way through your post my thought is find a new group. How would they handle it if a pc died and needed to roll new. It is a game that is fun. They should not be wound so tight
if the goal is to have fun, i'd try to get them to lift their heads out of the book and adjust however is need so everyone (including you) is having fun. Neither the players nor the characters worked for anything...the characters were drug along an improbable reality because the players were playing a game and marching them around like imaginary puppets.
As for the character replacement in case of death: the DM said losing a character had to be "punitive", as an incentive to play well and get invested on your current character, but he admitted that he didn't like the level-down for death replacements, and was unsure what else to do.
Wow, I do not think i would like this table. First they impose a -1 level penalty on newcomers for no particular reason, claiming that it is "unfair" because you didn't do all the work that the other characters did. Now they say if you die you take a level penalty also. To be blunt these people sound like jerks. Let me address both issues.
Issue 1: "Your character just joined and didn't work as hard as the rest of the party." This exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of RPGs. A roleplaying game is about cooperative storytelling. As anyone who has every told a story knows, things happen "off screen" all the time in a story. New characters get introduced to existing storylines in nearly every story I can think of (Luna Lovegood, Lando Calrissian, Faramir, Treebeard, etc.). They do not pop out of thin air with no history or background. They have a backstory -- just not one you have seen on screen. Your new character, if you brought him in at 5th level, worked just as hard (off-screen) in his in-character life as the other PCs whose lives were tracked from level 1 in gory detail by the table. To assert otherwise is to misunderstand storytelling to its very core. I would support the DM saying, "Please write a backstory that justifies you being 5th level" and makes you have more detail than a level 1 PC would have. That is fair enough. But to say, "Sorry no, if your character didn't do work at the table in front of us, we will not be able to accept a backstory that he did that work at all" is literally them saying they do not accept RP. Because they are saying you can't RP yourself to be a level 5 character unless "they saw the rolls." and that is not roleplaying, it is roll playing.
Issue 2: "Death penalty." No... just no. The loss of a character you spent hours and hours playing and developing, and to whom you have gotten attached, is already a penalty. It's not fun to have happen to you and nobody (reasonable) likes it. If your fellow players need an incentive to play well and get invested in their own characters, there is clearly something very wrong at your table. Wanting to play well and getting invested in your own character is the default assumption of any RPG, not just D&D. If the DM has to try to "incentivize" doing what a good group of RPG players would do without being told, something is badly askew.
Personally, I'd be gone from that group, for sure. Just based on this description of both new players and death penalties.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Why would the DM want to "punish" players, ever? For dying, or for anything else?
And you're new - not getting to play those sessions is itself a negative, no need to double down on it by making you start lower than everyone else is!
I would say find a new group this type of play doesn't follow the number 1 rule of DND....everyone gets to have fun. It also sounds like the DM is letting the other players boss him around. The other players have no reason to even know what lvl your coming in with.
Why would the DM want to "punish" players, ever? For dying, or for anything else?
And you're new - not getting to play those sessions is itself a negative, no need to double down on it by making you start lower than everyone else is!
100% agreed. I actually told them that "D&D is not a chore" and that I had already been punished for not playing with them, but I must be pretty bad at being assertive because it did not move them.
As for the character replacement in case of death: the DM said losing a character had to be "punitive", as an incentive to play well and get invested on your current character, but he admitted that he didn't like the level-down for death replacements, and was unsure what else to do.
Wow, I do not think i would like this table. First they impose a -1 level penalty on newcomers for no particular reason, claiming that it is "unfair" because you didn't do all the work that the other characters did. Now they say if you die you take a level penalty also. To be blunt these people sound like jerks. Let me address both issues.
Issue 1: "Your character just joined and didn't work as hard as the rest of the party." This exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of RPGs. A roleplaying game is about cooperative storytelling. As anyone who has every told a story knows, things happen "off screen" all the time in a story. New characters get introduced to existing storylines in nearly every story I can think of (Luna Lovegood, Lando Calrissian, Faramir, Treebeard, etc.). They do not pop out of thin air with no history or background. They have a backstory -- just not one you have seen on screen. Your new character, if you brought him in at 5th level, worked just as hard (off-screen) in his in-character life as the other PCs whose lives were tracked from level 1 in gory detail by the table. To assert otherwise is to misunderstand storytelling to its very core. I would support the DM saying, "Please write a backstory that justifies you being 5th level" and makes you have more detail than a level 1 PC would have. That is fair enough. But to say, "Sorry no, if your character didn't do work at the table in front of us, we will not be able to accept a backstory that he did that work at all" is literally them saying they do not accept RP. Because they are saying you can't RP yourself to be a level 5 character unless "they saw the rolls." and that is not roleplaying, it is roll playing.
Issue 2: "Death penalty." No... just no. The loss of a character you spent hours and hours playing and developing, and to whom you have gotten attached, is already a penalty. It's not fun to have happen to you and nobody (reasonable) likes it. If your fellow players need an incentive to play well and get invested in their own characters, there is clearly something very wrong at your table. Wanting to play well and getting invested in your own character is the default assumption of any RPG, not just D&D. If the DM has to try to "incentivize" doing what a good group of RPG players would do without being told, something is badly askew.
Personally, I'd be gone from that group, for sure. Just based on this description of both new players and death penalties.
Very well put overall, and yeah I eventually decided against joining them. Probably for the best for everyone!
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(1st time posting, please be gentle)
I was invited to join a table (5e) at lvl 5. Both DM and players capped my new character at lvl 4, saying it would be unfair to give me the same XP everyone worked hard for. They made clear they were already doing me a favor by allowing lvl 4 at all, and criticized my "greed" for demanding the same lvl for everyone in the party. They stated eventually I would reach their lvl.
I was honestly surprised, since I thought this approach would create more problems than it would solve, even for the DM.
Since neither them nor I are experienced DnD players, I thought of looking for some other take on this. What are your thoughts on this, folks? Thanks!
It's very common for late-starters to be a level or two behind everyone else. Personally I don't understand the point of it - having characters at different levels only serves to make things more difficult for a DM to balance. The only person getting "punished" as it were is the DM. A level or two behind isn't too big, but the DM has to balance your lower ability, proficiency and health - which is an unnecessary headache.
As a DM I'd say you start with less magic gear and gold but same level. The less stuff is the balance for starting late but the levels being the same keeps it easy to make a balanced encounter.
This is also why I prefer milestone - I get to dish the Level Up when it suits the story and when it feels right rather than by number crunching - especially since encounters could just be puzzles, spying, solving something, etc which don't have "XP" costs like monster battles.
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I sort of get it for groups that use Exp. At higher levels, gaps in exp are less meaningful, and players may have even earned individual exp bonuses.
I get it, but I don't prefer it. Milestone leveling where everyone is the same level regardless of when they started or if they missed a session is just simpler.
Back in the day, as kids, we did stuff like this and it was always a mistake. It led to the various issues that occur when one player at the table has a character much better or worse than the rest. There is a reason why game balance exists as a concept, and why D&D has had to go through 5 editions (and then some, since some of these like Basic Set are not counted as "editions") - to balance the classes against each other so no one class was clearly "better" or "worse" than all others. I'm sure there are people who would say it's still not balanced in that regard but it is way better than it used to be. Giving a character -1 level to the table for no good reason ensures the very kind of imbalance that the progressive changes of the various editions have tried to correct.
To me, the players and the DM should all want the party to be balanced. It's almost always the best way to run a game. Frankly, I suspect these players are not thinking very clearly about this. If you are -1 level to them, and thus have less HP and everything, they're going to have to keep helping and carrying you. Did they think of that?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Eh, roll with it. You'll be behind for a little bit but eventually it evens out. I joined a group that had been playing off and on for like a year and started a level lower than them - and the group was all within a few levels of eachother (i think when I joined the highest was 7 and the lowest (me) was 5). Now, a year later, we're all the same level because the DM decided to push us all to the same level as we went into a new chapter of the story.
If it bugs you to be a level behind, that's something you need to figure out for yourself if you're gonna stick with it or not. personally 1 level difference isnt huge, especially level 4-5. if it were like 11 and 12, that might be a different story lol.
Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I really dont see why a late-starter should be punished at all (level-, gear- or otherwise). In my specific case, I was abroad when the table formed; were I not, I wouldve joined them from the start. I suppose the "same level, less magic stuff" approach is a reasonable compromise (although one I still dont understand).
And interestingly, they are using milestone and not XP. Go figure.
EDIT: btw, I found very interesting the notion of this -1 "for no good reason" (as I see it too) rendering the iterative balancing effort useless
Sounds like the players are really being jerks about this, which is its own problem. Honestly, if they insist on being rude to you because you're new, you deserve better, even if you might not be able to find another group right away. Playing with no one is better than playing with jerks. (If they're your friends, well, hopefully they're not jerks, and you can have an adult conversation with them if you think they're acting like it. Friendship trumps game rules, even house rules.)
That said, I've run games both ways. Usually I'll have new players/characters start at 1st level, but only when the game I'm running goes no higher than 3rd or 4th level. (I also use milestone XP, but it's every session and I don't award it to people who don't show up, which could explain why they'd be a little upset, but not how they just happen to all be the same level.) 5th level is an odd one to start you a level down at, if only because it's such a huge power jump from the lower levels, but there's nothing too horrible about starting a new character just one level down. However, it sounds suspiciously like these players are doing this more as "hazing" than anything else. I'd be interested to see whether they'd do the same level-down for a replacement character if one of the originals died...I worry they wouldn't.
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"we're all the same level because the DM decided to push us all to the same level as we went into a new chapter of the story" - they are in this exactly situtation, going into a new story arc. Would it be reasonable to enforce lvl differences?
We did have a conversation, and they quite fiercely imposed this level-down condition. The DM suggested he would level me up "quickly" (no specific number of encounters was mentioned).
As for the character replacement in case of death: the DM said losing a character had to be "punitive", as an incentice to play well and get invested on your current character, but he admitted that he didnt like the level-down for death replacements, and was unsure what else to do.
Half way through your post my thought is find a new group. How would they handle it if a pc died and needed to roll new. It is a game that is fun. They should not be wound so tight
Generally my thoughts tend to be "Level and treasures are free, magic items are not"
if the goal is to have fun, i'd try to get them to lift their heads out of the book and adjust however is need so everyone (including you) is having fun. Neither the players nor the characters worked for anything...the characters were drug along an improbable reality because the players were playing a game and marching them around like imaginary puppets.
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Wow, I do not think i would like this table. First they impose a -1 level penalty on newcomers for no particular reason, claiming that it is "unfair" because you didn't do all the work that the other characters did. Now they say if you die you take a level penalty also. To be blunt these people sound like jerks. Let me address both issues.
Issue 1: "Your character just joined and didn't work as hard as the rest of the party." This exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of RPGs. A roleplaying game is about cooperative storytelling. As anyone who has every told a story knows, things happen "off screen" all the time in a story. New characters get introduced to existing storylines in nearly every story I can think of (Luna Lovegood, Lando Calrissian, Faramir, Treebeard, etc.). They do not pop out of thin air with no history or background. They have a backstory -- just not one you have seen on screen. Your new character, if you brought him in at 5th level, worked just as hard (off-screen) in his in-character life as the other PCs whose lives were tracked from level 1 in gory detail by the table. To assert otherwise is to misunderstand storytelling to its very core. I would support the DM saying, "Please write a backstory that justifies you being 5th level" and makes you have more detail than a level 1 PC would have. That is fair enough. But to say, "Sorry no, if your character didn't do work at the table in front of us, we will not be able to accept a backstory that he did that work at all" is literally them saying they do not accept RP. Because they are saying you can't RP yourself to be a level 5 character unless "they saw the rolls." and that is not roleplaying, it is roll playing.
Issue 2: "Death penalty." No... just no. The loss of a character you spent hours and hours playing and developing, and to whom you have gotten attached, is already a penalty. It's not fun to have happen to you and nobody (reasonable) likes it. If your fellow players need an incentive to play well and get invested in their own characters, there is clearly something very wrong at your table. Wanting to play well and getting invested in your own character is the default assumption of any RPG, not just D&D. If the DM has to try to "incentivize" doing what a good group of RPG players would do without being told, something is badly askew.
Personally, I'd be gone from that group, for sure. Just based on this description of both new players and death penalties.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, D&D is a game, not a chore!
Why would the DM want to "punish" players, ever? For dying, or for anything else?
And you're new - not getting to play those sessions is itself a negative, no need to double down on it by making you start lower than everyone else is!
I would say find a new group this type of play doesn't follow the number 1 rule of DND....everyone gets to have fun. It also sounds like the DM is letting the other players boss him around. The other players have no reason to even know what lvl your coming in with.
100% agreed. I actually told them that "D&D is not a chore" and that I had already been punished for not playing with them, but I must be pretty bad at being assertive because it did not move them.
Very well put overall, and yeah I eventually decided against joining them. Probably for the best for everyone!