Party imbalance: Coming back in at level 1

[Sliver]

You are also assuming surviving the encounters, and many DMs use the rule that you have to do more than just hide from the monster to get experience. Not that a level 1 character could effectively hide from a CR10 anything. Not to mention you are squishy enough that a single stray AoE will be a Save Or Die Anyways.

You could still contribute on a fight. If you are a caster, you can use party wands.

But you should remember that either your DM is messing with you (because the DMG says that only those who contribute to a fight gain XP, you will never gain combat XP and will be stuck at level 1, thus never helping and the party asks why are you hanging with them as no one took leadership) or he is ignoring that "must contribute" clause anyway.

I think that if you are making a new character for a high level party and your DM forces you to be at level 1, he thinks that it is unfair for the other characters to have worked hard for their XP and survived.