I still remember DM’ing a game session for a friend of mine back in the 90’s where the first paladin he’d ever rolled was quickly losing a solo combat encounter to a small group of Giant Ants. At some point during the encounter,—after his horse died, I think—something changed for him. Radically altering his tactics, his paladin became remarkably creative and graphically violent. With this abrupt shift in my friend’s approach to the combat, his paladin turned the battle. He then proceeded to brutally dispatch every last Giant Ant he could find.
After this random wilderness encounter, I asked my friend what had changed in his thinking. “I’m playing a paladin,” he said, mentioning that he’d wondered how his character would explain his death in the afterlife. “There’s nothing heroic or honorable about dying to a bunch of ants.”
Level 1 characters are fragile. “Cheap” is the more accurate descriptor Matthew Coleville uses in several of his videos when referring to his mid-80’s gaming origins. Coleville shares that he doesn’t get too attached to characters until they reach somewhere around 5th to 7th level.
As a DM, designing adventures is always a balancing act, and many of 5e’s core mechanics work differently, and feel very different, when compared to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons experience. 5th Edition D&D is weighted as a low magic experience, and characters gain a lot of their power from class abilities while other important statistics, such as Armor Class, don’t really change that much as characters gain higher levels. It’s significant that 5e’s combat system is biased in favor of the side of opposing groups that has greater numbers.
The fantasy setting of Dungeons & Dragons promises horrific threats. A fall into a spiked pit trap, a simple dagger wound, or the bite of a giant rat may represent a considerable portion of any 1st level character’s total Hit Points. Even worse, many low level monsters use special abilities—such as poison, fear, charm, or sleep—which all have the potential of completely neutralizing an adventuring party’s frontline defenders with just one missed Saving Throw, leaving the rest of the characters exposed and vulnerable.
As a DM, I’ve never been inclined to dumb encounters down for players or to “fudge” dice rolls. I hope players remember that their low level characters are likely to have been mere common folk—such as menial laborers, humble entertainers, or lowly scholars—just a few short weeks prior to embarking on their new personal quests to become legendary heroes.
The world of Daharqbrü is both fantastic and perilous, and the monsters and villains want to win.