Playing as a 'Non-Committal'

[Menelaus]

The character would never survive a standard CR20 creature. It can't hit it and it has no spells that would hurt it.

A pit fiend would laugh at your pathetic attempts to hit it (you would have to roll a 20) and would be completely immune to your first level spells. All the while, you would be meat for its massive array of melee attacks.

If all the characters in the party were only first level, then that would mean you best healing spell would be cure light wounds. Yay. You are pit fiend food.

Gary

Couldn't ability-enhancing equipment, wands and weapons help to bolster this type of character sufficiently?

After all, even though they have never progressed past first level in any class, they would presumably have still travelled around enough to have potentially gathered a plenthora of magical items.

[Ed Zachary]

Couldn't ability-enhancing equipment, wands and weapons help to bolster this type of character sufficiently?

No.

It would be dead meat because of poor attacks spell lists available.

After all, even though they have never progressed past first level in any class, they would presumably have still traveled around enough to have potentially gathered a plenthora of magical items.

The question needs to be asked... why would anyone want to create such a character (other than boredom), and what DM in their right mind allow such a concept (other than because of boredom)?

[Farcaster]

why would anyone want to create such a character (other than boredom)

I think it's pretty much an esoteric excercise. It certainly doesn't make sense from a roleplaying perspective. Although if someone wants to challenge that and give me backstory to such a characters progression through their levels, I'd love to hear it. Neither would it make sense from a strategic character generation point of view. Some folks revel in playing with the numbers and off the wall concepts, and more power to them even if "that's not my bag, baby."

[ronpyatt]

This 1/20th character concept is the closest thing I could see for someone trying to mimic a pacifist in D&D. So, yes, I could see a couple of back story models that fit this mold. I had a witch character (Dragon Mag) that started that way and wanted to do something similar, but it was a max 2nd level. Couldn't go through with it.

I know a couple D&D players that like variety, a challenge, and to play something they've never played before. They'll take penalties to their character if they can go with a concept that looks like it has roleplay potential.

Billier, an elf, spent his entire life not fitting in. Every time he got close to someone they died, and as a result people tended to shun him. After each death, it became harder and harder for him to find friends. He took up a career as a Monk, but his friend died. This made him change career paths, because obviously he couldn't use those skills to protect his friends. Being a Druid for a while didn't really amount to anything more than getting his new friend killed by wild dogs. He was actually a very good Monk/Druid, but he wasn't good enough. He quickly realized he didn't like killing, so he never got good enough in any career to ever have to raise a hand against anyone.

D&D is not really geared toward those types of characters, but because we are dealing with a fantasy system where many players play D&D exclusively. This tends to leave players that are interested in non-standard characters out of luck.

Even though it works in a story, it may not translate over to the system. There are a few character concepts that are just not playable using D20. I think this 1/20th is one of those concepts.

Perhaps someone wants to have a BAB 0 (pacifist) character. (No scoffing!) Some people don't like psionics, some do. Some like fighters, others hate them. So, boredom, although a good enough reason for some, is not the only reason to play such a character.

A slight alteration in the rules might facilitate a 1/20th type of character. Using half BABs & third BABs for the lesser combatant classes. This way a sorcerer/wizard/psion would have a BAB +1 at 3rd level. Let arcane spellcasting levels stack as half levels in regards to each other. Same thing with divine casting. Still might be a pretty weak character, but an improvement.No?