Zero Level Rulebook (5E)

Herein lies complete rules for running Zero-Level (Commoner) Playable Characters in 5E.

These rules allow players to quickly roll up Zero-Level characters to be used in funnel content in 5E. It can also be used to quickly generate fully-fleshed out commoner NPCs for your campaign.

WHAT IS ZERO-LEVEL?

Zero-Level “adventurers” are commoners. This is your character before they mastered the fighting arts, studied to learn how to wield arcane spells, or made pacts with otherworldly creatures for amazing powers.

As a Zero-Level, you know you are destined for greater things, and while you toil away at the occupation society has tossed you into, you know that someday, you will get a chance to prove yourself and rise above the rabble.

WHY PLAY ZERO-LEVEL?

Playing a Zero-Level adventurer is an exciting experience. Any wrong move could result in a permanent (and messy death.) Taking risks means something entirely new when the risk could mean the end of a character’s story. Zero-Level campaigns are no less epic than a standard 5E campaign; you’ll uncover ancient artifacts, battle vicious abominations, explore unlit depths, and solve mind-bending puzzles.

The aim with this supplement is to open up this fun, alternative avenue of play to 5E players.

THE FUNNEL

In standard 5E gameplay, the emphasis on character creation is putting a lot of thought and effort into creating your character’s background from scratch. You can use the Backgrounds systems to create a backstory and history for your character. With Zero-Level characters, you actually create your character’s history through rolling dice and gameplay. But be warned! Adventuring as a Zero- Level is deadly work, so you will generally be playing 2-4 characters in a Zero-Level adventure hoping that at least one survives.

At the conclusion of the adventure, you hopefully will have at least a couple of adventurers with a story of how they became what they are; ready for their level one adventures. They also provide complete rules for leveling up a Zero-Level adventure to level one.