>Character background : Professional soldier with decades of real combat experience
>Starts as a level 1 fighter
How do you deal with this kind of ludonarrative dissonance?
>Character background : Professional soldier with decades of real combat experience. >Starts as a level 1 fighter
Outis a cute.
Gregor best girl.
i prefer female hong lu
By not allowing a level 1 character to have a background that involves decades of real combat experience. If you're a soldier, you did your five or seven years of mandatory service, tops.
If it doesn't make sense than don't do it, how is that a question?
>how is that a question?
it's a recycled Gankerermin shitpost
Either
A: it doesnt matter, its all just window dressing for the ends of an easily managed game progression.
B: Make a justification like they are rusty and did it a while ago. now they are an older man getting back to grips with it will still having some bits he remembers.
Even in DnDogshit, a level 1 character is already paragon who stands out from his peers. This literally how you are expected to play.
>a level 1 character is already paragon who stands out from his peers.
only in 4e and 5e
You're right. In 3e they were just superheroes straight from the rip.
Guards are CR1/8
Veterans and Knights are CR3 most armies probably consist mostly of level 1 soldiers
Op is talking about a 5e mechanic
"Starting at level one" is equivelent to you having a really low point buy pool but you still say you are a veteran. Its the same problem absolute power not aligning with background.
Why do morons water down d&dogshits actual problems by making shit up?
Have them start at level 3 or 4, easy.
>but what about the rest of the party
Figure it out with your players.
Because in D&D (you're talking about D&D) most humans don't even qualify as Level 1.
D&D's systems are not good at real world simulation on any deep level. Shock horror.
____ ___ _____ ___ _______ ___?
The limbabs are a bad example for this question because they start the game capable of absolutely bodying most normal people. They're just low-tier in the grand scheme of The City.
Either you never were hot shit, you were injured/amnesia'd and suddenly stopped being hot shit, or your hot shit days were so long ago you need a shit refresher.
I explained my PF2e Inventor with an epic backstory starting off at level 1 by saying he got buried alive in a rockslide just prior to the game. His suit saved his life but it was busted to shit, so most of the power gains he's gotten have been from restoring old functionality. He's also been out of the saddle for a little while, combat wise, so he's been getting back into that groove too.
By not starting at level one. Who wants to fight wolves and bandits yet again anyway?
Level 11 characters are canonically legendary beings. Level 17 Wizards or Archivists are essentially gods of magic or divinity given enough time. Threats like dragons are often underplayed, as they're beings that change topography just be being there long enough. CR mid-50s monsters can canonically easily slay whole pantheons.
Quit trying to make fetch a thing.
After his previous adventures he got lazy and just watched magical television until his level went back down to 1.
By not saying you have decades of combat experience?
You can play a soldier who has combat experience and still be level 1 you know
There's a difference between being a soldier and having the experience in fighting weird shit like giant dog-sized rats and gangs of goblins. Hell, being level 1 in a player class implies you're already far more competent at being one than the average peasant and noble. It might just be a matter of reapplying your combat tactics into ones more useful for hunting monsters as opposed to other human soldiers.
Page 133 of the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide paints a distinct picture for PC vs. npc power levels. What do you make of it?
>Typical Conscript: A typical conscript is a 1st-level commoner wearing padded armor and carrying a wooden shield and a half-spear. After a conscript has been dealt even one wound, even if he’s still above 0 hit points, he most likely drops to the ground and pretends to be dead. Conscripts don’t follow orders well, and they often break ranks and flee when the fight goes against them.
>Typical Soldier: Most soldiers are 1st-level warriors who wear studded leather armor and carry either a Small or Medium martial weapon (default to a longsword) and a wooden shield or a longbow. These soldiers are professionals or experienced conscripts from harsh lands where conflict is common. They’re better trained and more likely to hold their ground and follow orders than typical conscripts.
>Typical Mounted Soldier: A typical mounted soldier is a 1st-level warrior wearing scale mail and bearing a light lance, a wooden shield, and a Medium martial weapon (default to a longsword). These soldiers are always professionals, and they are among the best trained typical warriors on the field.
The commoner and warrior NPC classes of D&D 3.5 are deliberately weak. The same page says:
>Just as rare as actual fighters are wizards, sorcerers, or clerics present to provide magical support and firepower. Well-funded and well-organized armies have small units of low-level spellcasters armed with wands or other magic items that allow them to execute multiple magical attacks. Other armies elect to have a single spellcaster with each unit of soldiers to cast protective spells or supplement the soldiers’ attacks with offensive spells.
This paints a picture wherein a 6th-level PC (i.e. the E6 stopping point) is a rare superhero who can carve through even "the best trained typical warriors on the field," mere 1st-level warriors. And even low-CR monsters are terrifying.
Now I'm wondering, could there be some way for a system to let one player start as a veteran with decades of experience and another as a new adventurer fresh off the farm, both of which have the stats to match, yet somehow make both options reasonably balanced?
No, what the frick? What you're describing is definitionally unbalanced as it should be.
Don't know about the stats to match, But maybe something like the traveler term and old age system?
Probably have the veteran trade physical stats for knowledge, if that's something the system is capable of supporting
>old vet knows the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, and the 'what even the frick's of the trade but his back fricking hurts and his knees creak and he would probably rather retire. He's been out of the groove for a few years recovering from an injury so he's gotta re-learn a couple things before he can really get at it
>new kid doesn't know shit, but he did cave an orc's ribcage in with a log the other day so he's got that going for him
I don't think it's all that difficult tbh.
PF 1e, all splats in effect, unoptimized high lvl Fighter vs well optimized low level full caster
I play a better game.
War injury or our of pratice. takes a while for the body to get into the swing of things again
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FsCqZS9juSFEsthz0AQFfSq5_gBMfQCl-B3CH7dl_tI/edit#heading=h.mjooyls1mo70
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fQIA1W0AfKwBJI_Rr8bJ9OK7dfkHXWuXAKy_oEAH3kI/mobilebasic
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15nMYLz0sB5xWUiSOG4oN6IsteRJjpdZk
play the homebrews anon, and invite me
A level 1 fighter is a veteran, not a novice.
It makes perfect sense when D&D came out the title for a level 1 fighter was "veteran." Normal soldiers are level 0/basic "men" in the monster section. Once you're level 5 you are approaching Beowulf tier
In original d&d, level 4 is hero, at which point normal men LITERALLY cannot harm you, and level 8 is superhero where a similar thing happens