Ideas for the campaign, Part 1

So I'm thinking that I should post some ideas behind the campaign I've been working on since I was still on the boat. So here's the start, the basics of character creation for this campaign.

I am not a fan of 1st level DnD characters. I don't like players running characters that can be slaughtered by a house cat, so I don't start at level 1. Plus anyone who has seen my design philosophy or has played under me before has seen the terror I create for players. The last campaign I ran was using nothing but pre-made WotC modules and I almost slaughtered 4 players without trying multiple times.

So for my campaign I decided that the players will start at level 4 or 5. The level depends on the number of players I have. If I get up to 5 or 6 players it will start with level 4 characters. 3 or 4 players will be level 5. I'm pretty happy with that starting level because it gives you access to the abilities and skills that are a lot of fun and you still have plenty of time to adapt the character to the feel of the campaign.

I don't like random stats anymore. Just too many broken hearts and whining players happen with the use of it. I also think most of the point buys end up with too low of stats. So what I'm doing for this campaign setting is this, the characters are meant to be high powered. They are high end combatants to begin with, exemplars of their current experience level. So with this I decided to use the following starting stats to give the players the best possible chance to make the ideal character. The stats are 13-18.

What I mean by that is that they use 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 to be distributed as they see fit. This gives them nothing but positive stats and let's them have high end characters from the beginning. It fits the feel of the player characters that I want for this campaign as well.

I'm still up in the air on this next one, I want to allow double starting gold. Not sure what that will really do for the PCs but I think it fits the feel I want for the PCs.

Class selection is up to DM approval, but is pretty much open. I just want it to make sense for a character.

Finally I want people to have free reign on race selection for characters. I've never liked the way the Savage/Monstrous Races are handled by the game. I've decided to eliminate the Monstrous Hit Die and the advantages they confer. I want to allow the players to use a monstrous race if they want to. The race selection needs to be kept simple and is up to DM approval in the end.

I'm still up for suggestions on this. I'm still up in the air on all of this. If anyone has ideas let me know. I'm always open for improvements.