DCC #35: zero-to-first level advancement

[Smokeless Joe]

Two questions about advancing from zero to first level:

1. What is the resulting Character Class? Do you count the zero level NPC class for purposes of getting feats? What about extra characteristics? What about maximum skill rank?

For example: If a zero level warrior becomes a first level fighter, can he have 5 ranks in a class skill becasue he has 1 class in warrior and 1 class in fighter? Or is he stuck at 4 ranks becasue he's technically only 1st level?

2. How does spell accumulation work?

If a zero level adept becomes a first level cleric, how many of what spells does he get? Does he get 3 zero and 1 first from adapt in addition to the 3 zero and 1 first from cleric? Or do they merge somehow?

[Cardinal]

how I did it:

1. What is the resulting Character Class? Do you count the zero level NPC class for purposes of getting feats? What about extra characteristics? What about maximum skill rank?

Level 0 is level 0, i.e. a character with Level 0 Adept and Level 1-4 Wizard has a caster level of 0+4=4. He also has a character level of 0+4=4
Feats are received at character level 1,3,6,9,12,15,18 - see above.
Ability points are received at character level 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 - see above.
Maximum skill rank ist character level +3 - yes, this means level 0 characters were not allowed to have more than 3 ranks in any given skill in my game.

2. How does spell accumulation work?
If a zero level adept becomes a first level cleric, how many of what spells does he get? Does he get 3 zero and 1 first from adapt in addition to the 3 zero and 1 first from cleric? Or do they merge somehow?

The spells/day of the 0-level simply do not stack with any positive level thereafter. So a Level 0 Adept & Level 2 Wizard has just 4/2 spells per day (plus bonus spells for high INT).

[Ludyee]

I also have been wondering how to handle this and found it surprising that an approach was not present in DCC#0 which is the 0-level adventure I have considered using.

Using the pre-gens in that mod I fed their statistics into The Only Sheet (an Excel psreadsheet I use to track characters and check their legality). The pre-gens are ECL 1 and in my opinion 1st level characters with a level in an NPC class.

Once they gain 1,000 exp they will have the ability to take their 2nd level, either a 2nd in thier NPC class or 1st in another class, either way their ECL is now 2.

Using the pre-gen adept from DCC#0, let's say she takes Druid at 1,000 exp. She is now an Adept 1/Druid 1 with seperate spell lists and allotments. She is CL 1 in Adept and CL 1 in Druid.

She gets 4 + int mod skill points for her 1st level of druid. BTW I had to adjust all the pre-gens a bit to get their skill points to be accurate for a 1st level NPC class.

Some might believe this a bit crippling as having a 1st level PC classed character is so much better. That is actually not the case because the pre-gens in DCC#0 have outrageously good ability scores. I normally use the point-buy system with 28 points as is done in Living Greyhawk. The pre-gen adept has ability scores using 41 points. These great ability scores offset the fact that the character used up its first character level on an NPC class.

So I was considering going that way. Conversely it crossed my mind to have the player morph their character from a 1st level NPC class to an appropriate 1st level PC class at the end of the mod. They would then have some EXP due to role-playing awards or other that would still be less than 1,000. From there on they are like any other PC.

[Ken Hart]

This is similar to the approach I took when my group ran through the Halls of the Minotaur a few months ago. Although they were "0-level," I considered them CL 1, with all that comes with it, except that they were starting at -1,000 XP. When they gained 1,000 XP (to reach 0 XP), they chose their first standard PC level (CL 2).

This results in the standard D&D XP column being "off" by one for these PCs, i.e., CL 3 comes at 1,000 XP, CL 4 comes at 3,000 XP, etc. The only major difference is that the jump from CL 1 to CL 2 and from CL 2 to CL 3 is the same (1,000 XP), but considering that the players were willing to jump in and play hapless villagers armed with shovels and lice-ridden hide armor, they deserved a reward.

--Ken