I'm a new DM playing Lost Mine of Phandelver with two other adults and our kids, two 11-year-olds. We started with the pre-generated characters; I'm playing the Dwarf cleric as an NPC.
One of the kids is very interested and wants to create their own character: a Dragonborn ranger with a snake for an animal companion. However, they really don't want to give up the coins, items and EXP they've collected thus far. We'll finish with Tresendar Manor soon and reach level 3.
Would it go against all DM standards/etiquette/etc. to let someone substitute their own character for a pre-generated one midway through an adventure and keep everything if their level is still quite low?
Best Answer
If everyone at the table is ok with it, there's nothing wrong with letting a player have a new character.
Everyone is meant to have fun in these games, and if a player would have more fun with another character, then there is no downside for letting them change except other players being annoyed at it.
There are two ways to handle the changing out of a character - an in-character swap or an out-of-character swap. The in-character swap would require the party going to a town or outpost or similar, and the player's existing character parting ways and the party accepting a new member. In this case the money and items would probably have to be "given" to the party. The out-of-character swap would just be swapping the character and everyone agrees to ignore that any swap happened.
Balance-wise, there shouldn't be any issues with the new character being the same level as the other characters.