The CRB has recommendations for number and level of permanent items by level, but how do you actually select what these are?
It recommends that in place of 1st-level items, giving out mundane stuff including weapons & armour, so would that be things like giving a shortbow user a composite shortbow? Other than composite bows (and full plate, which is outside the 10–20 gp price range it lists anyway), won’t characters usually have started with all the mundane equipment they want?
What other options make sense to give low-level characters?
And as you level up to higher levels, are the bread-and-butter permanent items going to be runes for them to place on their weapons & armour? How do you decide what to give and how to balance the “necessary for balance” with “fun flavourful stuff”?
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@Zagorath I look for items the players need and for items that are thematic! Anything else matters very little! Certain mundane things could be useful, but magical items are generally more fun! Oh, and if you’re willing to balance your encounters for things like “the party refuses to get any kind of armour rune because there are cooler magical items in the magical shop”, then it really shouldn’t matter too much!
Adding onto this: do you hand out the loot in the adventure or adapt it with new stuff?
The table from the CRB is my basis. I look at the characters and think about what they could use well. Then I look at the items and pick the items that seem useful for the characters and which sound the most fun or thematic or powerful. That’s it.
Yeah the table seems really good. I’m just not completely clear on how to actually apply it.
It gives guidance that says a level 1 permanent item can/should be a mundane item:
When assigning 1st-level permanent items, your best options are armor, weapons, and other gear from Chapter 6 worth between 10 and 20 gp
I’m confused about this advice, because with the sole exception of upgrading from a basic to a composite short/long bow, everything from Chapter 6 that they might want is probably stuff they’ve already picked for themselves at character creation, or is outside that 20 gp price limit. So I’d love to know if there’s anything I’m missing in applying the advice.
Aside from that, do you just give your players any magical items? Like, you’d give them a cool sounding sword rather than a rune to put on the sword they’ve already got?
If there is something a player wasn’t able to afford during creating characters you can reward that. Also for martials having a different damage type available can be a nice reward. Some enemies resist piercing or bludgeoning etc.
I just reward any items that seems nice. Runes, tune stones, a weapon with nice runes on to transfer. Staves and wands. Scrolls. Potions. Alchemist bombs. Crafting material.
My group just uses a table where a d100 decides.
Interesting! How does that go with balance and with giving out the basic runes the game seems to expect as part of its progression?
I use ABP so that we can skip the less interesting +X stuff.
One of my players is very into crafting, and they work as a group to be able to afford things, so one of the best treasures I can give are uncommon or rare items, or even just the formulas.
I tend to focus more on fun than utility items, though this varies. And I like to give out thematic stuff. Recently they fought a Skuln, which is described as having adamant claws and teeth. But it has no listed treasure, so I gave them adamantium chunks as treasure from scavenging the body.
Yeah ABP kind of appeals to me. I’m not using it for two main reasons. First and foremost, I really wanted to see how Pathfinder plays with all the default rules. For now, I’m even tracking XP and encumbrance, which I wouldn’t normally do. (Though I’m already thinking about ditching XP, at least for the low levels. In D&D I usually wanted to get through levels 1 and 2 and get up to 3 after 3–5 sessions at most, before slowing down after that.) I wanted to see how things go in vanilla and adapt when I see what is and is not working.
The second is Pathbuilder. It’s an incredible tool and I’ve already bought it, as has at least one of my players. And at least one more player is seriously considering it. But the free version doesn’t support ABP and I didn’t want to force the players to purchase it to play.
