Variant E6/P6: why are adults 1st level?

[exelsisxax]

It makes no sense whatsoever to start at 1st level. Almost nobody can swim, your average sword strike is an instant KO but can't kill anyone, and you'd lose a fight with 2 children. At least these days you don't lose fights to a housecat(it takes several now)

Why are we starting at 1st level? I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense to set 1st level as being a child. Things start working out pretty well - getting hit by just about anything puts you down, because kids don't do well with even minor stabbings. Losing fights to cats or a dog? Yes. This is how real life works.

So as an adult, you've got 3, maybe 4 levels of NPC classes under your belt. You have enough skill points to actually function as a human being, you don't faint from a stern clubbing, and your society is in far less danger of being exterminated by several dozen kinds of infectious monster spawn-things. The village herbalist can probably even make a knowledge check to identify a yellow musk creeper and what to do about it, isn't that neat?

Alright, so you're living your humdrum commoner life, making your prof(dirt farmer) checks most of the time or whatever, when you are seized by THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. You and your band of fellow(probably orphaned) village folk go out and find a dying old man with a dire warning or save the town from dire toads or what have you. You, in a totally metaphorical and not at all literal and mechanistic sense, have PROVEN YOUR METTLE. When you had once been a commoner 3/warrior 1, resolutely defending tavern wenches from the wandering hands of foul criminals and felling the trees surrounding your good home with righteous fury, you are now c3/fighter 1, ready to brave monsters and obscales the world over! Maybe your old friend the hedge-mage finally got his damn act together, coming into his own as a wizard/c3, the pickpocket with the heart of gold(stolen, of course) exchanging his expert level for that of the inimitable rogue. And so on as is reasonable.

Then you go and kill off dozens of species of creatures threatened by habitat destruction or something. Whatever adventurers do around here. Slay noblewomen and bed dragons or something.

tl:dr start a campaign with 3 commoner levels and 1 advanced NPC level, upgrade the advanced NPC as your first "level", then add levels of whatever up to 6 or 8 or whateverthecap, then upgrade your commoner levels until pure PC class awesomeness. Instead of inexplicably being able to take 7+ times as many arrows to the face, you can probably take about double.

PS: no, you cannot do The Chicken Thing.

[Fizban]

Did Pafthfinder raise the swim DC for calm water, nerf taking 10, and get rid of bit where you start bleeding out as soon as you hit -1? 'Cause I think you're exaggerating there. As a matter of fact, if two children with weapons were dead set on killing an adult in real life, that adult would be in serious danger.

I've got nothing against conversion based leveling to allow skilled non-adventurers to become proper fully classed adventurers, and if you want everyone to have extra hit dice for whatever reason that's fine, but I've yet to find a convincing argument how "people die when they are stabbed" is mechanically bad.

Edit: also, arrow math. An average commoner 1 can take 1/2 an arrow to the face, 2hp vs 4.5 damage, which is to say zero because the first drops them. An elite 1st level adventurer can take one arrow to the face, unless they're of the toughest classes, in which case they can take 2, or maybe 3 if barbarian. I suppose 3 is 6 times as many as 1/2, so sure the most average of the average becomes the toughest of the tough and can now take 6x as many arrows to the face, the best-case scenario when retraining from com1 to barb1. Otherwise, an elite PC gains +1/2 to +3/2 arrows to the face per level, so it takes several levels before they can multiply their starting value by the 7x hyperbole. Even a barb gaining 2 arrows per level needs to reach 18 arrows, requring 7 or 8 levels, to hit 7x their starting 3 arrows.

[umbergod]

Did Pafthfinder raise the swim DC for calm water, nerf taking 10, and get rid of bit where you start bleeding out as soon as you hit -1? 'Cause I think you're exaggerating there. As a matter of fact, if two children with weapons were dead set on killing an adult in real life, that adult would be in serious danger.

I've got nothing against conversion based leveling to allow skilled non-adventurers to become proper fully classed adventurers, and if you want everyone to have extra hit dice for whatever reason that's fine, but I've yet to find a convincing argument how "people die when they are stabbed" is mechanically bad.

3.5 got people caught up in the math and powercreep methinks. Hell, a fresh lvl 6 character is likely world renowned in whatever their particular talent set happens to be, given that the average person prob only has like 2 levels. That, and the whole HP abstraction doesnt translate well into how much physical damage your body can take before death. Probably why i prefer the vitality/wounds system

[Dr_Dinosaur]

3.5 got people caught up in the math and powercreep methinks. Hell, a fresh lvl 6 character is likely world renowned in whatever their particular talent set happens to be, given that the average person prob only has like 2 levels. That, and the whole HP abstraction doesnt translate well into how much physical damage your body can take before death. Probably why i prefer the vitality/wounds system

That’s because HP isn’t physical damage, negative HP is.

[iTreeby]

That’s because HP isn’t physical damage, negative HP is.
Personally I run HP as more like stamina, even when you are taking damage you are still blocking or dodging, just getting worn down. once you are about half out of HP I have you getting scrapes and cuts and bruises (you are bloodied to borrow from 4th edition). A hit connects and you go down.
When I'm DMing it also give the players some clue as to how the fight is actually going. The game doesn't really reinforce my viewpoint when things like blood magic or dessication damage to HP damage.

[Pleh]

It probably has some to do with the idea that a game starting at the recommended beginning level would tell the story of a group of adolescents who are all probably going to die horrifically.

It just didn't seem the smart marketing tactic for a game that was already being conflated with satanism and witchcraft. Sure, let's add child murder to the aesthetic.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Personally I run HP as more like stamina, even when you are taking damage you are still blocking or dodging, just getting worn down. once you are about half out of HP I have you getting scrapes and cuts and bruises (you are bloodied to borrow from 4th edition). A hit connects and you go down.
When I'm DMing it also give the players some clue as to how the fight is actually going. The game doesn't really reinforce my viewpoint when things like blood magic or dessication damage to HP damage.

That’s what I (flippantly, in retrospect) was expressing, put far better. Positive HP is how much stamina you have or real punishment you can avoid, while negative HP is actual injuries

[Fizban]

The fact that any hit is capable of delivering poison cannot be ignored, as nice as it would be to abstract everything away into just beating on armor and shield. Thus, while positive hp clearly indicates a lack of any life-threatening wounds, each hit must involve some amount of at least superficial flesh wounding. Considering the fact that most wounds you can deal through heavy armor are already quite superficial, this shouldn't actually be much of a leap of logic.

I find the point about adolescent characters interesting. The starting ages in the PHB are of course quite low by modern standards of 18-20, but you can absolutely have a 14 or 15 year old character running off to die a gruesome death. It's buried pretty deep though, so it's not surprising it doesn't seem to have been a problem.

The simple act of running a teenage character with nothing but 1 character level and a handful of gold, and what they do from there, is a fine way to actually define a character by their character, rather than a written backstory which might very well be immediately contradicted. Nothing stops one from moving that starting age even lower, aside from the usual questions about what if any modifiers to apply to "child" characters. And if the setting uses lower valid starting ages, but you're playing more mature adults starting at a higher level, you've already done the thing.

[Nifft]

There were previous editions where PC could start as 0-level apprentices.

It's mechanically feasible to model PCs as starting with one (or more) NPC level(s) and converting those into PC levels as experience is gained, using the retraining guidelines as a starting point.


That said, mostly people just don't care, since the game focus is more on stabbing dragons and less on SimCity.

[Spore]

People are both notoriously easy to kill AND durable as heck. Dismemberment usually does not kill one (blood loss and infections do) but you can trip on the stairs and break your neck. So both really makes sense.

[Razade]

tl:dr start a campaign with 3 commoner levels and 1 advanced NPC level, upgrade the advanced NPC as your first "level", then add levels of whatever up to 6 or 8 or whateverthecap, then upgrade your commoner levels until pure PC class awesomeness. Instead of inexplicably being able to take 7+ times as many arrows to the face, you can probably take about double.

This sounds so insanely boring I can't even put why into words. I don't play games for realism and I certainly don't want enjoyment gates for the content that I choose to play in person, for a few hours with friends. I'd rather jump right into the fun and skip all the insanely micro-managing, trite, needless attempts at verisimilitude.

[umbergod]

This sounds so insanely boring I can't even put why into words. I don't play games for realism and I certainly don't want enjoyment gates for the content that I choose to play in person, for a few hours with friends. I'd rather jump right into the fun and skip all the insanely micro-managing, trite, needless attempts at verisimilitude.

So then dont play in the game? Not everybody is going to like everyone's custom game. Theres no need to come in here and comment about your extreme dislike for his game.

[exelsisxax]

This sounds so insanely boring I can't even put why into words. I don't play games for realism and I certainly don't want enjoyment gates for the content that I choose to play in person, for a few hours with friends. I'd rather jump right into the fun and skip all the insanely micro-managing, trite, needless attempts at verisimilitude.

You've successfully boggled my mind. This isn't some attempt at trying to make everything realistic. This is an idea that basically boils down to "hey, isn't 1st level kind of lame and you have wierdly low HP and skills? here, have some more" without having to make up new ways of generating each of them(like racial HP, or background skills).

Also, I specifically mention in the title that this is E6. Why are you complaining about gating in this thread? The entire point of E6 is to put a ceiling on progression. How is starting at a higher level preventing you from having fun? Are you in the small minority that thinks that starting at anything above level 1 isn't fun?

[Fizban]

On the contrary, if can't go any higher than 6th, starting at a higher level just means you get less room to grow. One of the biggest draws of the level based RPG is that you start out pitifully weak, and become drastically more powerful and harder to kill, in fairly large discreet chunks. 1st to 6th is still 5 level-ups, but if you're converting NPC levels to PC levels you're only gaining half a level at a time. You can squeeze more "levels" out of the mechanical range, but if you're starting at a higher level then you're just compressing the actual range.

Basically, instead of playing 1st to 3rd, you're trying to hit 3rd-5th in terms of effective hit dice, but with class abilities weirdly spread out so the three levels of body are stretched over 6 levels of abilities.

[exelsisxax]

On the contrary, if can't go any higher than 6th, starting at a higher level just means you get less room to grow. One of the biggest draws of the level based RPG is that you start out pitifully weak, and become drastically more powerful and harder to kill, in fairly large discreet chunks. 1st to 6th is still 5 level-ups, but if you're converting NPC levels to PC levels you're only gaining half a level at a time. You can squeeze more "levels" out of the mechanical range, but if you're starting at a higher level then you're just compressing the actual range.

Basically, instead of playing 1st to 3rd, you're trying to hit 3rd-5th in terms of effective hit dice, but with class abilities weirdly spread out so the three levels of body are stretched over 6 levels of abilities.

Pretty much. Start a bit higher and end up at the same place. Nowhere near as much a compression as the E6: start at level 6 scheme though.

[BassoonHero]

It does seem like a good many kludgy mechanics might have resulted from the twin premises that 1) PCs should start at first level and 2) first-level PCs should be competent:

- Double hit points at first level.
- Extra skill points at first level.
- Front-loaded classes.
- Classes that struggle at first level to avoid front-loading.
- NPC classes.

What would the game look like if player characters started at, say, third level instead?

- No extra hit points or skill points. These mechanics are no longer sequence-dependent.
- Everyone is established in their class and can use their signature abilities multiple times per day.
- Players can multiclass from the get-go.
- NPCs can be level-1 fighters without mucking around with NPC classes. Cannon-fodder enemies can be beefed up as well.

Downsides:

- Character creation may be a little more complicated.
- Multiclassing is possibly nerfed (if classes are made less front-loaded).

[Fizban]

2) first-level PCs should be competent:
First level PCs are already competent. They are only "incompetent" when one deliberately sets their baseline above the one the game actually uses, which is 1st level non-elite NPC classes for 95% of people.

(Yes, I did use the phrase "pitifully weak," which is in relation to the every increasingly powerful monsters you're expected to take on with not even half a dozen people, not the rest of the population.)

[BassoonHero]

They are only "incompetent" when one deliberately sets their baseline above the one the game actually uses
This is a tautology. If you set the baseline to the one the game uses, then of course the game meets that baseline.

But what I was getting at is that the game goes out of its way (and out of the players' way) to meet that baseline at first level. Specifically, it gives first-level characters extra skill points and hit points. I see these features as necessary evils given that PCs start at first level -- necessary, because without them first-level characters would be clearly incompetent (too fragile in particular), but evils because they are kludges on top of systems that would otherwise be very simple.

In addition, the game front-loads class features. There is a built-in tension here. On the one hand, first-level characters should be able to function at a basic level as members of their class. Their class features should be useful enough to feel truly distinct. On the other hand, if class features are too front-loaded, this cheapens them by encouraging dips. In my opinion, neither concern is entirely satisfied by the system as-is.

The current system gives starting PCs two levels' worth of hit points, four levels' worth of skill points, and often a couple levels' worth of class features. It does this with special rules and by sometimes front-loading classes. I think that an equally good or even better outcome could be attained by removing those kludges and streamlining class progressions, but having PCs start at second or third level.

[Fizban]

You cut out the most operative part of that sentence: 95% of people are non-elite 1st level NPC classes. A 1st level member of an NPC class can have nearly the same skills as a PC (though Rogues still beat them on skill points, as one would hope). 4 skill points in your main skill is expected of every adult that is specializing in a skill, though there are plenty of skills you can do with just one point for proficiency since the common tasks are DC 10. PCs are distinct because any amount of class features is more than an NPC class gets, whether they're seen as frontloaded or not, and elites have maximum hp on their first die, and higher stats.

Streamlining is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but making things more complicated isn't actually streamlining. The system already knows exactly what it wants at 1st level and every level after for basic hit dice. Undoing that without removing the expected minimum bonus requires something like 5e, where you drop the base DC to 8 and then give everyone +2 on all skill checks and DCs at 1st level. With a d20 roll, there has to be a gap of several points between the completely untrained, the dilettante, and the competent, otherwise there's no actual difference between them.

So it all ties back to forcing adults to have multiple levels because. . . reasons? There's not really much to argue over, I mostly just wanted to point out that you cut the most important part when quoting me. If you want a system where there are multiple "levels" while people work through their 1st level skill points and BAB and divide up class features you don't think should happen all at once, it's far easier to just do that than mess with the level/HD system that permeates the entire game. If you want to start with what 1st level characters already get, why would you upend everything just to claim they're not actually 1st level?

[BassoonHero]

You cut out the most operative part of that sentence: 95% of people are non-elite 1st level NPC classes. A 1st level member of an NPC class can have nearly the same skills as a PC (though Rogues still beat them on skill points, as one would hope). 4 skill points in your main skill is expected of every adult that is specializing in a skill, though there are plenty of skills you can do with just one point for proficiency since the common tasks are DC 10. PCs are distinct because any amount of class features is more than an NPC class gets, whether they're seen as frontloaded or not, and elites have maximum hp on their first die, and higher stats.
What, exactly, is your objection? I think it's that you feel that my suggestion would make it more difficult to represent NPCs with reasonable skills but no other abilities (and without several levels' worth off hit points).

My response to that objection is that the old system was already very bad at representing skilled noncombatant NPCs. More generally, I think that the skill system is a poor fit for knowledge, crafts, and professions. I prefer to use a simplified "background" system that doesn't involve skill points and almost never requires rolling dice. With such a system, the NPC skill point problem vanishes.


making things more complicated isn't actually streamlining.
I suggested eliminating the first-level special cases for skill points and hit points. I'm not seeing the added complication you're talking about. What do you feel becomes more complicated as a result?

[prufock]

Almost nobody can swim
The DC for swimming calm water is 10. As long as your strength score is 10 or higher, you can take 10 to succeed.


your average sword strike is an instant KO but can't kill anyone
Short sword: 1d6 (average 3.5) + strength modifier.
Long sword: 1d8 (average 4.5) + strength modifier (x1.5 if wielding with 2 hands).
Bastard sword 1d10 (average 5.5) + strength modifier (x1.5 if wielding with 2 hands).
Greatsword 2d6 (average 7) + 1.5 strength modifier (it has to be 2-handed).

Average 1st-level commoner HP: 4. So you need 5 damage to knock them out, 14 to kill them outright.

So depending on which sword you're using, it may not quite be an instant KO, but you're correct that a single strike does not, on average, kill anyone. However, it is possible to kill someone with one strike via critical hits and/or good damage rolls and/or high strength scores.


and you'd lose a fight with 2 children.
Needs evidence.

[Fizban]

What, exactly, is your objection? I think it's that you feel that my suggestion would make it more difficult to represent NPCs with reasonable skills but no other abilities (and without several levels' worth off hit points).
Yeah, that sounds about right. The common complaint that "oh this farmer/blacksmith/etc has a bajillion hp 'cause he needs a bajillion levels to do his job," is bogus. 1st level NPCs have all the skill they need, as long as the DM understands the skill system and builds them appropriately. Forcing them to have 4 levels to hit the same benchmarks actually causes that problem. The OP wants people to have more hp of course.

Normal people are supposed to drop in one hit, two if they're lucky, because normal people drop in one or two hits from an actual weapon. But normal people are also competent at skills. So everyone gets 4x skill points at 1st level with a cap of 4 ranks (and skill DCs expect a skilled person to start with at least +4), but only 1 HD. Which is the same size as most weapon dice, so they have about an even chance of dropping when hit by another normal person wielding a weapon.

My response to that objection is that the old system was already very bad at representing skilled noncombatant NPCs. More generally, I think that the skill system is a poor fit for knowledge, crafts, and professions. I prefer to use a simplified "background" system that doesn't involve skill points and almost never requires rolling dice. With such a system, the NPC skill point problem vanishes.
And this is where we disagree, because 1st level noncombat NPCs are already skilled. Knowledge is barely defined, making it a terrible world building skill, true, but craft and profession are fine. The easiest fixes to any part of the skill system is to address that specific skill, modifying the DCs or function of the problem skill. Messing with the bases means you have to adjust all of the skills.

I suggested eliminating the first-level special cases for skill points and hit points. I'm not seeing the added complication you're talking about. What do you feel becomes more complicated as a result?
For starters, "eliminating the first-level special cases for skill points and hit points." Every single statblock in the entire game is built using the same basic HD rules. The 4x skill points at 1st level isn't a special case for anyone, it's a fundamental part of the HD system, specifically to reflect the fact that 1 HD adults did in fact learn things before they became adults. Trying to remove that means you have to redo every monster, every premade NPC- and every assumption about skill progression (even if you give a global "proficiency bonus" a la 5e, or reduce all DCs by 3, you've still drastically limited their ability to know anything but a couple of skills at 1st level). If your response to the problems you perceive in the skill system is just abolishing the skill system, then of course you're not going to see why uprooting it would be a complication- you dumped that outcropping into the sea already.

Max hit points at first level being a kludge? Sure, because dnd gets less lethal as the editions go on, with PCs getting better stats and more starting hp. It's still the simplest possible solution aside from just giving a flat bonus of hp instead. Even "vitality+wound point" systems are just giving you bonus hp at 1st level, with pretty labels. Starting the PCs at 2nd level without the max hp at 1st still leaves them more fragile, but the effect gets smaller as you level up. But why not have the extra hp at 1st level? The PCs aren't just competent, NPCs are already competent, they've got skills and proficiency and BAB 1 when appropriate- PCs are elite, the best of the best, for whatever reason. Aside from access to PC classes they already have higher starting stats than the average person, so why not have higher starting hp too?

Now, one thing the game doesn't support is the conversion from an average to an elite. There is no provision for converting your ability score array or retroactively maximizing your first hit die (and if those stats are supposed to be your adult stats after you've stopped growing, there really shouldn't be). But those changes are also distinct enough you can just make them part of the pre-1st "apprentice" level track, before or after you've upgraded your partial HD/NPC class/PC class status. I just don't see any point in pursuing that much granularity in early character development, or stretching it into later levels, especially when there's a CR system that expects normal leveling progression.

Another thing the game doesn't do is really acknowledge the elite-ness of the PCs inherent in it's own rules. People are encouraged to write whatever backstory they want, which leads to people described as never having had a decent meal in their life, having super stats when they should be distinctly below average based on that description. No good excuse for that failing except that it's been going on in all sorts of games for ages.

[BassoonHero]

craft and profession are fine
The reason that I disagree is that the outcome of a Craft or Profession check will almost never have a significant effect on the game. The main mechanical effect of these skills is to make or save small amounts of money. Unless you do something cheesy, the quantity of money involved will never be relevant past the first couple of levels.

It may not surprise you that I am not a fan of the wealth crunch of first-level characters trying to figure out how to afford basic starting equipment, the cost of which will be rendered utterly trivial by the time they hit level 3 or so. As a DM, I hate fiddling small change; I tell my players not to bother accounting for meals, lodging, replacement ammunition, trail rations, and the like. All of this, over the entire course of a character's career, will never add up to anything worth worrying about. On the flip side, I don't think it's worth my time or players' time figuring how many pennies a character would earn selling trinkets or would save making their own arrows. If a character wants to do that, that's fine; it's good RP and characterization, but it's not worth a mechanic. It certainly isn't worth putting skill points into. In fact, having Craft and Profession as skills forces players to sacrifice character effectiveness to have glorified flavor text on their sheet. I would much rather have a separate section for glorified flavor text that doesn't compete for scarce resources with abilities that actually do something.


The easiest fixes to any part of the skill system is to address that specific skill, modifying the DCs or function of the problem skill. Messing with the bases means you have to adjust all of the skills.
In this case, all that's minimally necessary is to eliminate the Craft and Profession skills. You can handle their functions purely as flavor. The next least intrusive change would be a sort of nano-system: each player names two or three things their characters can do. ("Bob the fighter was a blacksmith; he forges his own weapons. He also likes to create iron puzzles for children.") Myself, I'm working on a slightly more complex background system with an enumerated list and minor benefits. This system replaces the Craft and Profession skills, but also Appraise, Decipher Script, Knowledge, Perform, and Survival.


Every single statblock in the entire game is built using the same basic HD rules. The 4x skill points at 1st level isn't a special case for anyone, it's a fundamental part of the HD system, specifically to reflect the fact that 1 HD adults did in fact learn things before they became adults.
It's not a special case in that it applies only to PCs, but rather in that it only applies at first level. Right now, the rule is that you get 4N skill points at first level and N skill points at each other level. The proposed rule is that you get N skill points at each level. This is why I feel that the proposed rule is less complex.


Trying to remove that means you have to redo every monster, every premade NPC- and every assumption about skill progression
Practically speaking, you don't have to do this. Yes, in an ideal world the entire D&D universe should be modified to match, but honestly, you can just use existing monsters as-written and you probably won't have any problems.


If your response to the problems you perceive in the skill system is just abolishing the skill system, then of course you're not going to see why uprooting it would be a complication- you dumped that outcropping into the sea already.
To be clear, the "background" suggestion only pertains to a small set of skills that I feel are poorly matched to the skill system in the first place. That suggestion would not apply to more typical skills like Bluff, Tumble, or Spellcraft.


Max hit points at first level being a kludge? Sure, because dnd gets less lethal as the editions go on, with PCs getting better stats and more starting hp. It's still the simplest possible solution aside from just giving a flat bonus of hp instead.
Another simple solution is just starting at second or third level. That's the point I'm trying to make. Without maxed hit points at first level, level-one PCs are far too fragile. But level-two PCs without maxed hit points are less fragile than level-one PCs with maxed hit points.


Starting the PCs at 2nd level without the max hp at 1st still leaves them more fragile, but the effect gets smaller as you level up.
The average gain from maxing the first hit die ranges from 1.5 hp for a Wizard to 5.5 hp for a Barbarian. The effect will become negligible at high levels no matter what. It should only be expected to matter at very low levels.


But why not have the extra hp at 1st level? The PCs aren't just competent, NPCs are already competent, they've got skills and proficiency and BAB 1 when appropriate- PCs are elite, the best of the best, for whatever reason. Aside from access to PC classes they already have higher starting stats than the average person, so why not have higher starting hp too?
Where special cases are concerned, I would rather ask "why" then "why not". I don't think that these special cases are needed because there are other ways to solve the problem without special cases. I think that the rules should be consistent by default unless there is a compelling reason to make a special case.

I'd like to clarify that I don't think that the existing rules are stupid, purposeless, or egregious. I prefer another way of solving the problem, and I value this discussion on the consequences of that solution.

[Asmotherion]

Pathfinder aside (I have only played once, and don't know too much), 1 level is the most realistic you can get for an Average Humanoid NPC. Give him 8-12 (average 10) to all stats, and an occasional 7 or even 6.

Average Joes are not a Cut above the Common rubble. They are not fit to be Adventureres. They are fit to live a Common Life.

Most would die With a single Dagger stab. They have a single HD after all and no Con bonus.

Being an Classed Character means you are somewhat exceptional in some domain. Not a Commoner. NPCs may be Classed characters, but most are not.