Summary
Creating your next campaign, or even a short adventure, forDungeons & Dragonscan be a lot of work. The world your characters interact with, the enemies they face, even the goals they set, it all comes down to your ideas.
One of these facets you’ll have to consider is what level your adventurers will start their journey at. It may not seem like much, but it is one of the crucial parts of the more mechanical side of D&D. Their level directly relates to their abilities, prowess, and even how the world sees them. Thankfully, here are some tips to help you pick the perfect level for your adventurers to start at.
7How Long Your Adventure Is
A Brief Glimpse, Or A Whole Quest?
How long you want your adventure to be is a key to making the decision on what level to start them.
One-shots can be any level, as they only take a few hours to complete, although pre-made ones usually have a range in which they run best. Campaigns, though, are a little bit more open-ended. If you want a campaign to last years, starting at level one never hurts.
If you want a few months of play though, a middle level isn’t bad either. Usually, around level five to ten, characters really start diving into their expertise on things, so that’s sometimes a good range for those mid-length campaigns.
6Enemies
Building combat encounters is one of the more tedious aspects of being a GM. One thing about building these that really makes or breaks your party’s survivability is what level they are. This and how many characters there are directly correlates to the encounters CR.
If you want themfighting a few wolveswith a fair amount of challenge, then lower levels it is. But, if you want them taking on Terrasques, Beholders, Mindflayers, and the like, then definitely look to higher levels.
Part of this is figuring out what fits the theme and tension of your adventure, but another is how much combat you want your characters to see, especially early on in their journey.
There are a lot of great sites online to help with managing CR dependent on level and party number. Don’t be afraid to give them a shot.
5Stakes
Never Higher?
D&D adventures come in all shapes and sizes, some are all about saving the world, while others may solely be about solving the problems of a little village. The level of your characters should also directly relate to the stakes they are facing.
World-saving parties should probably be at a pretty high level, if not twenty outright. While smaller problems may easily be solved by a determined party under level ten.How much renown your party hasin the world around them also connects to this, which can be fun to tie into your worldbuilding.
4Spells
Mages And Witches
Abilities and proficiency for rolls is one thing, but the spells that characters who are magically inclined can cast are another thing entirely. At lower levels, many of the spells available to them are low-yield and can’t affect much.
At higher levels, though, with spells like Power Word Kill, and the infamous Wish, players can change the fabric of the world around them at will. Take note of that when you are considering their levels, not only where combat is concerned.
This is also a big one for puzzles and problem-solving. Some players aren’t shy about Fireballing their way out of a particularly tedious riddle.
3Players' Experience Level
How Many Campaigns Under Your Belt?
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the better TTRPGs when it comes to accessibility at any level of the journey. Still yet, it can be a good idea to check in with your players to see just how much they’ve played D&D before.
Completely new players aren’t locked in at playing level one characters, but it can help them from getting lost in all the decisions and rolls with the limited amount of actions their character can take. More experienced playerscan get bored with a level one character, but it also doesn’t hurt to start from scratch every so often.
2Success Rate
Win Or Lose?
This is something that somewhat gets tied in to the stakes of your adventure. From time to time, you’ll throw combat encounters, saves, and ability checks at them, really anything that requires a roll, but before you do, you’ll want to understand how often you want them to succeed at these things.
Low-level adventurers may not have to roll very high to get a success on a roll, but they still may fail more often than not when they branch out to do difficult things, or tasks they aren’t trained in. Knowing how often you want them to fail or succeed is a great way to gauge their levels as well.
This also comes down to what kind of tone you want your campaign to have. Lighthearted campaigns shouldn’t be marred by bad rolls. But, darker campaigns shouldn’t have your players succeeding constantly.
1Level-Ups
More And More Power
Dependent on how long your adventure will be, you may have your characters leveling-up a handful of times, or maybe not at all. Knowing what you want your party to end at, level wise, and how often you plan on handing out levels is a great resource for you.
Every GM runs level-ups differently. Some only go off of combat XP, while others like to go off of important events in their journey. There is no wrong answer, but it does help to have a range of levels you plan for your characters to move through.
