I once did a one-off session with my group as 0 level. It was actually quite a bit of fun for everyone, it ended up playing as more of a survival-horror adventure as a result of the characters’ fragility. Skeletons and stirges were faced with genuine caution and fear by the players. When the mere rumour of a ghoul in the nearby graveyard sends trepidation and panic into the adventuring party, then they are reacting just like a 0-level villager who’s never before faced the unkown should react. 
No, I’ve never played a 0 level character and never heard of anyone who has. I have no idea where the OP came up with it.
There are no dangerous levels - only dangerous DMs.
Speaking of levels…
Just how long does it take to level up in the game? The Burnt Offerings adventure only spans about 50 pages or so, but it talks about how your characters can level up to 5 in that time! The way you guys are making things out, a typical character needs a minimum of a few months to level. I don’t see that much material in this adventure.
Also, what is the highest level a character will typically get to? Keep in mind I am used to the WOW, Vanguard, Aoc MMO’s so seeing a character to level 70 is the norm. I don’t find any material to support a character beyond 20 or 21 out there.
Also, how does game time pass? If I am told by the adventure pack that I should roll 1d4 to determine how many days until something happens, how fast in real time do those days occur?
I guess I should acquire the DM book before I go asking these questions. I should have it Friday.
I’ve been DMing for years, so I happily fly by the seat of my pants a lot, but IIRC the ‘official’ leveling speed should be the characters gaining a level after approx 10 encounters. (Don’t quote me on that. I’m posting from work and don’t have me DMG handy.)
My group hit 5th level at the conclusion of Burnt Offerings, once I handed out some bonus “quest completed” XP for successfully destroying the goblin threat.
How long that takes, really depends upon how often you play. With my group we are all 30’s+ with careers, wives and kids (for some) so we only get to play on a saturday night, once a fortnight. So it has taken my group about 6 months to get to the end of Burnt Offerings. Back in High School/Uni days we’d get a full days gaming in every weekend, and I would have finished something like Burnt Offerings in a few weeks.
The official levels run from 1st through 20th, there is a rulebook floating around to take play beyond 20th level, called Epic levels. Rise of the Runelords I believe is built around the PC’s getting to 15th or so by the end. I haven’t played WOW but I understand (could be proved wrong here) that the power curve is reasonably linear? In D&D the power curve is not, if you get a character to 20th level they are realistically world powers, especially any of the magic wielding classes.
There is a general consensus that there is a sweet spot in D&D of between 9th -15th level, where the PC’s have power and can be real heroes & fight interesting creatures & be involved in “major” events in the game world. Anything over 15th starts getting real hard to DM effectively, because of the powers the party has at it’s disposable, and the balancing act of a “fair” fight becomes hard, and the proliferation of ‘save or die’ effects.
Game time versus real time is entirely up to you. If you decide a certain event doesn’t happen for 3 game days, and there is nothing you need to happen “in game” in that time, just tell the players 3 days has gone past. As easy as that. 3 days passes by in 4 seconds
I thought it was great. Really enjoyable. My biggest piece of advice, which is mentioned in the adventure is get the PC’s involved in the town. Play out interactions with the town. Try to give life to some of the NPC’s.
My group has developed a properietry interest in Ameiko (the owner of the Rusty Dragon), even to the point where one of the PC’s who was a member of the Scarni (the mob) has double crossed them to help her!
The general store owners daughter is chasing one of the PC’s a priest of Saranrae, but he is playing the character as a super serious priest, casuing much teasing form the other players 
It’s that sort of stuff, the intereaction that makes Tabletop D&D better than CRPG’s.
What you describe is good. As others have already said that’s the way to go. I have seen the other extreme where a DM’s ‘character’ was included, but the DM had too much invested in him and wound up running the show. That character had the spotlight at all times and was essentially a dues ex machina for every problem. So the players were just bit parts in the DM telling ‘his’ story. That’s not what D&D is about.
Aha! This is a reference to the Cavalier (most overpowered and silly class ever :eek: ), which started as follows:
XP = -1,500 to - 501 *; 0 level; hp d4+1 (horseman)
XP = -501 to - 1 *; 0 level; hp 2d4+1 (lancer)
XP = 0 to 2,500; 1 level; hp d10+3 (armiger)
*whatever negative experience is supposed to be 
The other new classes (e.g. barbarian) all start as normal at 1st level.
Going up levels depends on how often you want to play and whether your players enjoy low-level games (i.e. roleplaying as much as combat).
My school roleplaying club play about sixteen 2 hour sessions per year and go up about 3 levels roughly in that time.
My regular group are now only playing a few times a year, but each DM (we take it in turns) is playing at different levels and in varying backgrounds.
Remember you can award xp for good roleplaying and achieving story objectives. it’s not all about killing x monsters and gaining y treasure.
As **GreedySmurf ** rightly says: ‘Game time versus real time is entirely up to you. If you decide a certain event doesn’t happen for 3 game days, and there is nothing you need to happen “in game” in that time, just tell the players 3 days has gone past. As easy as that. 3 days passes by in 4 seconds .’
E.g. “You rest in the Inn for 3 days, paying 5gp each for room and board. Your wounds heal and you hear a rumour that the town tailor is a werewolf.”
Or “You travel to Hommlett, with no encounters in the 3 days.”
I fully agree with this too:
With 3.5, the designers created the xp award and level advancement tables with the following rule in mind.
A group of four Player Characters of any given level will gain enough xp to advance to the next level after successfully overcoming thirteen and one-third encounters with a Challenge Rating equal to the individual character’s level.
It will easily take months of real-time play to handle that many encounters. How quickly it happens in-game is a function of the intensity of the adventure - can the PCs stop and create items, do they have to train, etc.
I’m 30 and work a full-time job. My gaming group is around the same age, with a couple of outliers in either direction. We roll stats randomly, and start at first level.
So I have all the books and I have been reading them and getting an idea about how the various mechanics of the game work, and I have a couple of questions where the books just aren’t written clearly enough.
Rolling for initiative in combat: I understand that in a situation where there are no surprises and everyone is ready for the encounter, the PCs roll for initiative and the DM rolls for initiative as well for the baddies. The trouble is that the book states that the DM is taking the highest initiative value of all the NPCs in the encounter and rolling once for all NPCs. This doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. It sounds like that if the PCs roll 19, 13, 11, and 8 and the DM’s NPCs roll 12 as a group then the initiative order dictates that two of the PCs will play their round and then all of the monsters will take their respective turns (say a group of 5 orcs) one after another, and then the remaining two characters get to take their turns. Am I really understanding that correctly? I would have thought that the DM would roll initiative for the NPCs individually just as the PCs have to and the order of play is mingled among the two groups.
This is the kind of thing that always aggrivated me before when I was trying to learn to play the game. The rules are not always clearly written and things are vague.
Can anyone straighten this out for me?
There’s always a certain amount of simplification for the DM, because he has so many things to do.
I tend to roll initiative for named monsters individually, and for groups of basic monsters. So, if I had an encounter with a number of PCs facing off against an Orc warband consisting of six 1st level Orc warriors, three 2nd level Orc rangers with the missile combat speciality (all with elves as a favoured enemy) Grashnakh the 5th level Barbarian and Pitkosh the 4th level Cleric of Gruumsh, I’d roll initiative for four monster groups. Each member of a monster group would have the same initiative modifier, and all act at the same time.
So then when it came time (initiative order) for the 6 first-level orcs to take their turn, their would be six seperate attacks against your PCs, right? As opposed to the group of sixth-level orcs striking once as a group. That is the confusion that the books aren’t getting into with me, and I think that is how I am understanding you.
Think about this for a minute. You’re playing make believe that you’re a Half-Elf Wizard named Sneezore and you’re afraid that playing a 17 year old means you’re not acting your age? :dubious: I understand the difficulty in finding time to play. I’m fortunate in having a group that meets regularly on Sundays and we just finished the Rise of the Runelords campaign a few weeks back. I lost three different characters during the course of that campaign and of our four player party only one player managed to keep the same character throughout the campaign. Good times.
Marc
I’m also very curious about what you thought of the campaign, because this is the one I am chomping at the bit to play. I am already preparing props (letters, maps, etc.) to have ready when I can finally get to play it, and I’ve heard so many good things about it.
Also, if you are looking to sell your books and stuff for that campaign, let me know. I have all the pdf files, but need to purchase the books, and if you decide you don’t need them anymore…
Also, did you keep the same DM throughout the campaign, or did you rotate the job out, say different one per adventure?
And hell, while I’m at it, if a character dies and the rest of them are level 4, and the player rolls another character, does he bring him/her into the campaign at level 4, adjusted, or does that new character start out at level one and plays alongside the level fours?
Bringing the new character in at 1st level would be a disaster. You’d find the new guy can do virtually nothing, and is likely to die from the effects of spells even if he makes the save against them.
As a general rule, if one of the characters is more than two levels below the levels of the rest of the party then that character will be so weak that they die quickly, or they’ll cause the death of other PCs who try and keep him alive and take more hits as a result. It’s generally better to adopt a rule that the incoming PC be not more than one level lower than the lowest-level member of the party (excluding the dead char).
One thing to note is that the design of the xp award system is such that the xp award for two PCs of different level from the same encounter varies with the level of the PCs - so if a party overcomes (say) a CR8, then lower-level members of the party will get more xp than higher-level members. In this way, the level gap will close over time.
You’re right, the group of six all attacks individually.
Sorry, somehow I missed this one.
The six Orcs all act on the same initiative point. However, by the rules, two creatures never act at exactly the same time. Each creature completes its turn fully and then you go on to the next. Thus your PC group would be subject to six attacks delivered one at a time.
I thought it was a decent campaign if a little hack & slashy with some serious Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibes. Part of that might have been our group but the TCM vibes are definitely part of the modules. Goblins and Ogres never looked so scary. I don’t actually own any of the books as our DM buys them all. I offered to cover some of the cost of the subscription but he said not to sweat it.
We kept the same DM throughout the campaign as is our custom and new characters start out the same level as the rest of the party. No reason to punish players for taking risks.
Marc
Well… yeah.
You humans and your “logic”!