A New PC Joining the Party Should Be What Level?
A new PC joining the party is a fairly common occurrence. Maybe a new player is joining the group or perhaps a character has died and that character’s player wants a new character. Often, there is a question of what level to make the new character.
The question comes up for two primary reasons:
- A sense of owing the other characters some advantage because they played in the other games.
- The idea that earlier adventures shape the personality and background of the character. Since the character won’t have these played out, the character should have less experience.
I always put the new PC at 1 level lower then the lowest current PC. That difference will become minimal as they get to higher levels, but they do need to “earn their keep.” Plus this also prevents people from abadoning their PC after they die instead of sucking up the level loss and 5k gp res requirement. It can be up to you if you want to start them at base XP or and mid-way point.
Sweet, that’s exactly what I do 🙂
Party leader is always starts 1 level higher than the rest as well. It all evens out in the end, the leader just levels a session before everone else – in general.