as mentioned … the quote above was the reply I got from 3 different players within one week
… and I can assure you … “cool” was not meant as a complement
that is the reason we came up with the “start at level 1,5,11, or 17” stuff in the last season (level 3 was added since we also added T0 games with T1 games starting at level 3)
… but if you wish we can put it up for a vote?
just wanted to point out, that we have been there before and it did not work out great
edit:
same with “create a character at any level you’ve previously reached”
the result had been that every T1 game back then had only level 4 characters (T1 back then was level 1-4) unless it was a new player, who joined with a level 1 character
This could be avoided by DMs explicitly restricting their T1 games to Lvl 1 or Lvl 2 or whatever they desire. Something’s that already happening sometimes with T2 with restricting to max level 8 or so.
Unrelated, another thing:
Right now DMs can user their rewards for DMing either for Downtime Days plus money or one of the magical items try drop.
That’s fine but I’d like to suggest limiting this to dropping a maximum of 20 Downtime Days and one magical item to a single character.
Right now I could create a new character and drop 3 magical items from my reward pool and and a few level ups on top of that all on that single character.
Ofc self-restraint exists, and nobody is actually gonna go and check what a DM does, but it would nice to have a guideline/rule to not stuff one single character with all your rewards.
I think this might feel unwelcoming to the group of people who joins mid-season and has plenty of dnd experience elsewhere. Plenty of people hate level 1 enough to not play if they’re forced to.
Also, that means if I as a DM want to run a T3 game but there aren’t enough players who’ve previously played level 10, I can’t.
I like the idea in theory but think it’s flawed in practice.
generally, I think the rule of starting characters at the start of tiers is fine, except with getting rid of t0 that would mean no creation at level 3 (though that can always be an optional rule).
In my opinion, We don’t need to define and limit all the potential ways that the rules can be abused.
Of course it’s happened before and probably will happen again, but in my mind that’s something to talk about. It’s a matter of wanting to play WITH the table rather than against. And well, that is also part of our CoC.
if it helps
most of those classes (sadly not all) you could play with a “makeover” in September
a Ravenloft book is coming out in early summer and a magic book with the missing Wizard subclasses in September
an Oathbreaker-version is also in the works (was in a recent UA playtest)
Firearmes are in the 5.5 Players Handbook, so every character can have them
they are martial weapons (so fighters, paladins & rangers can use them; as well as some clerics & druids, and several subclasses)
Sorry, but of course I can. Same as I am free to allow homebrew, give out custom rewards or stuff at my table.
What I cannot do is allow for a character that was created at level 8 to be brought into other VALUE games that are not my own.
(but yes, “basically the rule” was bad wording on my part, sorry)
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However, honestly, how would I as a DM know what level the characters are created at if the player doesn’t tell me? It’s not like we can or should keep track of people’s characters and their levels, or the amount of times people can level up because they DMed, and so on, and so forth.
Also, let’s consider that this very likely happens quite a bit and we just don’t know.
Our system is based on trust and also a little bit not questioning too much whether someone created their character correctly. And if someone creates a character at level 5, and then levels up to 8 without having previously played the character or having gold or items, all they’re doing is making their character weaker.
Which brings me back to my point: I think because our last vote was quite challenging on a number of points, we were quite strict about what we thought we should and shouldn’t allow and making sure we limit stuff as much as possible. But we’re forgetting that we play because we want to have fun.
Does someone creating a character at level 8 because that’s what the adventure is and the DM says it’s fine limit fun for anyone? Does it put anything into imbalance? I think those two things - fun & balance (and simplicity) should be the guiding principles for rules.
Regarding downtime & rewards (though this is just a thought, not sure what I think about it):
We could also limit the number of items a DM gives out even further, say 1 - BUT that item can just be something that fits the adventure. Characters can spend downtime days to acquire magical items (say, 10 days for uncommon, 20 days for rare, …) - it makes it possible for characters to build the way someone wants them, but DMs also don’t have to research items so that everyone in the party can have an item they enjoy.
With the item carry limits still in place, it might work. But it does take away all the fun of having a character that’s a result of all the adventures you have played and the items you were given. So yeah, don’t know.
yeah that is what I wrote (see above)
you can do it as homebrew as long as that player is aware that this only works at your table
(but your phrasing suggested that this is already a general rule; and on top of that as a reply to one of our newer DMs)
one Idea could be to allow characters to be created at any level combined with that new characters always start only with starting gear regardless of level
= new level 1 or new level 17 character same starting equipment
the only issue I see with that is that the level 5 starting magic item right now serves as the only way to get the several class specific magic items like the Rod of the Pactkeeper that no DM is gonna drop as one of their few magic item drops
I can’t speak for others but especially before I started DMing part of the reward for me always was this “what am I gonna get as reward” and if you just let anyone get any item they want this becomes irrelevant.
If you want to drop something thematic for your adventure you’re gonna have to research anyways and if you don’t, you just drop something from a shortlist you have and done. Hence I suggest allowing dropping 3 or so items to cover a bigger range.
I agree. At least for me character progression and rewards were always more about what cool items I can assemble rather than whether I’m lvl 8 or 9.
First of all, thanks for creating this topic and giving us space to contribute!
Here are a few thoughts from me:
I’m all for changing to 5.5, I think it’s a good point in time to make the switch.
Going back to T1 being levels 1-4 seems easier in my opinion. I rarely saw any T0 games so having the “old” T1 tier feels like it would offer more flexibility.
No downlevelling. I think it just adds a level of complexity that’s not necessary. I often chose not to level up with my downtime days, just because I knew I wanted to play that character again at lower levels, so that’s always an option.
As for the "we all start at Level 1, no initial character creation at other levels": I’m against it. All it does is add a barrier for people to play the characters they want. Sometimes you might want to try out a character build at level 5 - why should you be forced to play a number of games before that? Many people have played for many years and might not enjoy lower levels. Also, some people are kind enough to fill spots on tables whenever needed - if they haven’t achieved a certain level yet, they couldn’t do that. And for people with less time to play (say they only come to 3 games per season), they’d be limited to the lower tiers. I don’t feel that entry barrier is necessary. I am all for fairness and in my opinion, the current system is great and achieves just that.
Another, unrelated thing: I noticed that some newer players (and when I joined, it was the same for me) were a bit unsure what to do and how to prepare for a game. Now, with the knowledge I have now, I think the existing threads offer great information, but for some newbies they might be a bit overwhelming. So maybe we could ask people who recently joined what they were missing or how we could make things a bit easier?
I love the current system of being able to create a character at each tier
no downleveling, it is not necessary with being able to create characters at each tier.
I love T1 to start at lvl 3, it makes running the games so much easier, since nobody dies to one random hit as is often the case with T0. Lvl 3 is, in my opinion a good starting point for new players - if they get help with character creation. Edit: maybe we can write something in the forums to make it easier? Maybe some pregen characters they can fall back to?
I would love to try 5.5 (Edit: without backwards compatibility, just new stuff)
That’s great news! I checked out Oathbreaker UA, looks nice with some annoying undead-related quirks fixed.
But still, it’d be nice to allow compatibility until they are official - beside subclasses, species and backgrounds feel limited too. On DnD Beyond, selecting 5.5 only offers a fraction of choices of everything compared to 5.0.
I’ve been reading about how compatibility works, and seems like feats have some problems too. For example, the Gunner feat wasn’t updated to 5.5, probably because firearms are now just martial ranged weapons. But without that, there is no other way to ignore the Loading property like with Crossbow Expert (at least I didn’t find anything with a decent amount of Googling and reading rules :D).
So overall if moving to 5.5, I’d propose to allow official 2014 subclasses that wasn’t updated, 2014 species and backgrounds as the new PHB suggests (“Backgrounds and Species from Older Books” section), and older feats that weren’t updated. If something is updated in 2024, then that version must be used.
Probably not an absolutely perfect solution, but it offers a lot of fun, and that’s what we’re here for
So those who want vanilla 2024, can still do that, but then nobody is locked out of anything who prefers something from 2014.
Hey everyone and thank’s for setting up the preplanning!
It’s indeed time to make the jump to 5.5e! There is enough source material and many of us have played it by now.
My main thought: I like the VALUE rules we have and would suggest, that we do not change too much of it. Almost everything should be compatible with the new version. Minor tweaks - sure, but don’t try to overhaul everything. Focus on the issues which come up repeatedly and make some changes for the new version - not more.
Agreed! Most old subclasses work just fine. Cleric, Druic, Sorcerer and Warlock shift their subclass features to level 3 and that’s it. The only exception I’ve found so far is the Shepherd Druid, their main features won’t work with the new version of conjure animals anymore.
It’s officially stated to be backwards compatible and 95% of the time it works just fine. Most of the cases where it’s not optimal it reduced character power, so no need to worry about it. I feel like adding more character options is always the way to go.
I agree that level 3 can be a good starting point for players, specifically if they’ve managed to dive somewhat into the world for D&D.
But I think the question is, which ruleset is easiest to maintain while offering a decent amount of balance for DMs and choice for players.
Sure, Level 1 characters die so much more easily than level 4 characters. But it’s not like characters kept dying back when they were mixed, because those higher leveled characters in T1 were usually able to provide either healing or a potion to keep them in the game (even if it happened after combat).
By combining Levels 1-4, we can enable everyone to play what they want:
DMs can still say my game is level 3+, if that’s what they want.
Players can still choose not to play in games that are not level 3+, if that’s what they want.
Anyone who does not care can run / play in the mixed groups and create characters at level 1, taking the higher risk for death, if that’s what they want.
By limiting levels 1+2 to T0, I think we are taking away a choice from players that we don’t need to take away.
I also think the reason T0 exists was that last time in the chaos we wanted to keep the “create characters at the beginning of a tier - thing” but also wanted to create characters at level 3, so we added T0 to make it possible. But really, we can just say, T1 = Levels 1-4 and as an exception to the tier rule, you can also create a character at level 3.
I can’t find which post proposed this change so I don’t know the details, but this feels basically a martial character nerf. Casters can do fine without buying anything special, but martials need the cash to get viable starting equipment.
Or at least the freedom to use what they want - casters can select level appropriate spells however they want, but martial starting equipment isn’t nearly as flexible.
I only made very few 5.5 characters so maybe it’s better there, but for 5.0 characters I always had to buy and sell some starting stuff to make the character viable at a tier start (and I don’t mean getting the best possible gear at start, just good all-arounder options, or simply getting my preferred items).
I had a bit of a thought while at work (it is the solvent fumes, I swear)
What if instead of giving 20 Downtime days, the DM cam choose to „Trade" in 10 of those to drop an addional item (up to the Maximum allowed rarity. They would have to say it beforehand but then you have the decisiom between faster level progression or more item Variation.
Players can still only pick one but that would make it more variable but also Contained.
What do you guys think. Not sure of that makes perfect sense. I’m slightly intoxicated by solvent fumes right now and on break.
Just wanna add that even on sites like DnD beyond it has been very smooth trying combine old subclasses with updated classes.
And as you said, the only issues are in some cases features that are less useful with the new rules, but we don’t have to worry too much about broken builds in terms of them being overpowered
the result had been that every T1 game back then had only level 4 characters (T1 back then was level 1-4) unless it was a new player, who joined with a level 1 character
sounds much more fun than mine
