New character's starting wealth and gear?

[JackLuminous]

Hi!

I've recently picked up DnD again in the form of Pathfinder and we've completed the first carrion crown adventure and now we're about to begin the second installment in this campaign.

One of the player in my group decided to start a new character. I allowed him to start at level 4 (the level every other character is) minus the extra xp.

Now I'm wondering what should his wealth and starting gear be?

I've always had a very hard time to manage wealth in DnD before...

So I guess my question touches wealth, but also magical items, availability of magical items and such...

Do I give him a set amount of gold and let him decide?

[Dennis Deadsky]

I suspect everyone will enjoy the experience more if he starts at first level. I don't know why people want to skip the low levels.

[thegreenteagamer]

Dennis Deadsky wrote:

I suspect everyone will enjoy the experience more if he starts at first level. I don't know why people want to skip the low levels.

Because it often takes a long time to get to high levels, and sometimes you want to play a bad mother (shut your mouth) without working through seven months of gameplay to get there.

Or maybe he just doesn't want to be gimped, playing a weak character while everyone around him runs circles around him. It'd drive me out of a group real fast, that's for sure.

[thegreenteagamer]

Oh, and to answer the OP: 6000gp. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement

[Toirin]

Well, on page 399 of the Core Rule Book, there is a section for character wealth by level. Personally I consider this high and my GM uses this as a guideline for when we make new characters (usually because we die). I would take into consideration how much wealth the other party members have and go from there if I were you.

As far as availability of magical items, there is a guideline on page 461 for that. Ultimately it is up to you as the GM though.

[RumpinRufus]

1) Set him on par with the party. Roughly tally their total wealth, and allow him roughly that.

2) But err on the low side. If he needs better gear, you can always drop it later, but you can't really take gear away. And, if the rest of the party notices he has better gear than them, they will be upset because their characters earned theirs, and he's walking in off the street fully loaded.

[Lifat]

RumpinRufus wrote:

1) Set him on par with the party. Roughly tally their total wealth, and allow him roughly that.

2) But err on the low side. If he needs better gear, you can always drop it later, but you can't really take gear away. And, if the rest of the party notices he has better gear than them, they will be upset because their characters earned theirs, and he's walking in off the street fully loaded.

I'd say that this is probably the best suggestion.

And don't make the mistake of setting him/her at a lower level. Trailing behind the party is bad for everyone.
You as a GM will either quickly kill the character or have to pull punches alot. Neither of those things are what you want
The player will feel worthless and wont have much fun intill the character catches up with the party.
The party will be annoyed with getting stuck with a character that they have to carry so much. I'm not saying that there aren't characters being carried by the group from time to time, but having to do it because the character is much lower lvl is no fun.