A few of us at work today were chatting about the last 2 sessions, and something that came up was the disconnect in the transition from 0 lvl to 1st lvl characters.
Basically, there are tonne of occupation to class lvl transitions that make no sense at all. Things like Dwarves and Elves suddenly gaining innate abilities, or a gravedigger suddenly becoming magic user who "has been studying for years" overnight.
Now i know some of these oddities can be hand waved, but why not do something that will bridge this gap and also give players something fun to play with.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Why not let each lvl 0 character choose a "path". Basically the player decides what path the 0 lvl character will take, and each path is linked to a class. So you would have a Warrior path, a Cleric path, a Thief path, a Elf path (mandatory if you have a Elf occupation), a Dwarf path (mandatory if you have a Dwarf Occupation) and a Halfling path (mandatory if you have a Halfling occupation).
Each path grants the 0 lvl character access to 1 or 2 set additional trained weapons and one set ability. Eg. The Wizard path might grant the cantrips spell, the Cleric path a healing spell, the Warrior path might grant some basic attack bonus, and each racial path would grant them their racial abilities. Now these are all set in stone, so it wouldn't take any more time, but would accomplish the following:
-Allow for the -4 untrained penalty to be reapplied to 0 lvl characters.
-Make the transition from 0 lvl to 1st lvl a little more "realistic".
-Give players a little control of the destinies of their 0 lvl characters without making them less disposable.
![Twisted Evil :twisted:](./images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif)
-Allow for 0 lvl adventures to be a little more involved.
-Teach the basic rules of each class to players without inundating them with options.
-Explain why these 0 lvl characters decided to go adventuring in the first place.... because they already had done some training and were now looking to find gold and glory!
-Probabky some other things that i can't think of right now.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Anyway, this is just a little idea we had, maybe it isn't feasable, i don't know, but even if these ideas don't appeal to people, i definitely think something should be done to make the transition from 0 lvl to 1st lvl a little less "Boing! You are now a Wizard!".
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Food for thought.