APL change for no equipment


Advice

Liberty's Edge

So, say that the party is stripped of all their equipment. Maybe able to keep a dagger, at most. They got captured and thrown in a jail cell, or something, or marooned on an island. How does this affect their APL? I imagine it would drop by 1 or 2, but what exactly, if not more? Assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.


It really, really depends on the class.

Sorcerer? Doesn't really care too much.

Kineticist? Laughs in your face.

Summoner? Thinks it's mildly amusing.

Druid? Smiles serenely while petting her kitty.

Brawler? Too busy pretending to have 13 intelligence.

Mostly though, starting the party nude is about as boring and cliched as "low magic" games. What does it add to the story to deprive a large amount of the classes in the game access to their normal class features?

If I was playing a game that started this way, I'd probably gravitate to one of the above classes since I'd be wary of the GM being overly stingy with loot later as well.


JDLPF wrote:

It really, really depends on the class.

Sorcerer? Doesn't really care too much.

Kineticist? Laughs in your face.

Summoner? Thinks it's mildly amusing.

Druid? Smiles serenely while petting her kitty.

Brawler? Too busy pretending to have 13 intelligence.

Mostly though, starting the party nude is about as boring and cliched as "low magic" games. What does it add to the story to deprive a large amount of the classes in the game access to their normal class features?

If I was playing a game that started this way, I'd probably gravitate to one of the above classes since I'd be wary of the GM being overly stingy with loot later as well.

i would beg to differ every class is reliant on gear


Ultimagus wrote:
So, say that the party is stripped of all their equipment. Maybe able to keep a dagger, at most. They got captured and thrown in a jail cell, or something, or marooned on an island. How does this affect their APL? I imagine it would drop by 1 or 2, but what exactly, if not more? Assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.

each persons cr would drop by 1 as they would no longer have pc WBL meaning for a group of level one pcs their APL would be 0


Lady-J wrote:
i would beg to differ every class is reliant on gear

Except those that aren't.

Sorcerers, oracles, kineticists, likely even monks - for instance - function at nearly full offensive capacity without gear. Taking away a ranger's bow isn't at all the same as taking away a sorcerer's cloak of resistance.


Anguish wrote:
Lady-J wrote:
i would beg to differ every class is reliant on gear

Except those that aren't.

Sorcerers, oracles, kineticists, likely even monks - for instance - function at nearly full offensive capacity without gear. Taking away a ranger's bow isn't at all the same as taking away a sorcerer's cloak of resistance.

casters are reliant on their gear that buffs their DC's buffs their spells per day, spell component pouches/holy symbols for those that need them, their to hit boosting items

Sovereign Court

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Depends on the level but anyway op just mean the basic party: rogue, fighter, cleric, wizard.

Level 1: doesn't matter. Monsters and npcs hp are so low,they will most likely kill them and get their gear, then be ready to fight some more.

The higher level you get, the more they rely on gear.

Should be noted that npcs with npc gear are only CR-1 and npc gear value is very low compared to PC WBL.


Officially, the PCs' gear is worth about 1 CR. In practice, WHAT gear they have strongly influences its value. Damage-dealers generally need weapons. Tanks generally need armor and other defenses. And so on. Casters are less-reliant on gear. They may not have as many spells, or as high of Save DCs, if they're missing their gear, but they can often still cast something, which by default is better than not being able to do much of anything they normally would. (Mind you, needs for material components or focuses can still hobble many caster classes.)

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

To back up what others have said, this will vary WILDLY by class.

In general, casters rely on gear for 'gas' and non-casters rely on gear for options.

(Everyone relies on gear for bigger numbers.)

Casters need gear for 'gas' because 1) wands/scrolls/staves are literally gear that gives them spell slots and 2) they can replace a lot of gear with spells: If you have bracers of armor +4 you can stop casting mage armor

Non-casters need gear for options because gear, or an allied spellcaster, are their only ways to get abilities like flight, defensive buffs, or simply things to do with 'hit it with a big stick' isn't the best option.

(This doubles down the 'gear for gas' thing from casters because when you need a fly spell for everyone in the party, it'll run you out of spell slots real quick.)

If you truly take away EVERYTHING, only the Sorcerer and the Monk are fairly intact. Their saves, attacks, and DCs went down, but their class features are largely intact.

Other martials are reasonably intact once they have a weapon in hand, and even better with some armor. Fighters and warpriests have strong opinions on WHAT weapon they want.

Divine casters just need to find a divine focus, and maybe a cudgel.

Wizards (and arcanists) have yesterday's spells left over, but the lack of a spell component pouch hurts a lot of their spells, and without a strong pattern to which ones. Until they get their spellbook back, they can't reload.

Alchemists/investigators are affected most, since even their 'prepared spells' are items, and all their class features assume pocketfuls of random ingredients and glass vials.


Pretty much it just drops everyone's numbers. Martial characters are hurt more than magic users ironically. Saves are the most affected particularly at high levels

Shadow Lodge

It depends less on party composition that it does on initial APL.

High level, the PCs are hopelessly screwed (at least until somebody consults Google-Scry and then teleports everybody to the nearest Menard's to stock up).

Low level, any stick will do. (I remember my frail old wizard critting with a longspear and doing 3 total points of damage -- dropping his opponent.)


It depends on class. No spell component pouch the CR of the wizard goes down quite a bit, same with no divine focus.

It probably impacts spontaneous caster and some melee the least, but the degree to which CR for each character is lowered depends not only class, but individual build.


A kineticist is pretty much equally as effective whether they're nude or wearing gear equal to WBL. Aside for a belt to boost Dex and Con, and a bit of gear for AC and saves, their damage output isn't meaningfully affected by equipment to any real degree.

In fact, one of the biggest complaints is that there's very little equipment that does actually affect a kineticist's ability to do more damage.


Drop the WBL to NPC levels and it is -1 CR. Drop WBL to 0 and there is no official rues, but it should be about an additional -1 per 4 levels.


I GM'ed an evil campaign where the whole party had been stripped of their gear and started with -4 Con. They woke up shackled to stone slabs in a desert to be sacrificed to a deity (the deity these pygmies worshipped was fake though). The party started with 4-7ish HP, no weapons or gear, but had all their spells. They had to stealth, use improvised weapons and whatever magic they currently had. I figured their APL was roughly 1/2, so I made the first encounters roughly 1/3 - 1/2 until they had stealthed around and beat up enough guards to retrieve all their starting gear.

I dislike starting campaigns where the group meets in a pub around a "wanted" poster and instantly start singing kumbaya together. Especially evil campaigns. It makes more sense to cause a unifying factor amongst an evil party with an event like this before all the inter-party backstabbing of an evil campaign starts.


Lady-J wrote:
Anguish wrote:
Lady-J wrote:
i would beg to differ every class is reliant on gear

Except those that aren't.

Sorcerers, oracles, kineticists, likely even monks - for instance - function at nearly full offensive capacity without gear. Taking away a ranger's bow isn't at all the same as taking away a sorcerer's cloak of resistance.

casters are reliant on their gear that buffs their DC's buffs their spells per day, spell component pouches/holy symbols for those that need them, their to hit boosting items

Were arguing over nomenclature. Semantics. The word here is "reliant", and in "relying on". A sorcerer does not rely on any of the items you've referenced. Yes, those items help, and increasingly so at higher level, but it's a world of difference from any fighter who doesn't have Improved Unarmed Strike, who therefore provokes every time they attack, needs to be right up against their foe, and does minimal damage (non-lethal at that) if they manage to punch someone. The fighter relies on his equipment to not utterly and completely suck.


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Ultimagus wrote:
So, say that the party is stripped of all their equipment. Maybe able to keep a dagger, at most. They got captured and thrown in a jail cell, or something, or marooned on an island. How does this affect their APL? I imagine it would drop by 1 or 2, but what exactly, if not more? Assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.

2 at 1st-6th level; 3 at 7th-12th; 4 at 13th-16th; 5 at 17th+ in broad brushstrokes.


Anguish wrote:
Lady-J wrote:
Anguish wrote:
Lady-J wrote:
i would beg to differ every class is reliant on gear

Except those that aren't.

Sorcerers, oracles, kineticists, likely even monks - for instance - function at nearly full offensive capacity without gear. Taking away a ranger's bow isn't at all the same as taking away a sorcerer's cloak of resistance.

casters are reliant on their gear that buffs their DC's buffs their spells per day, spell component pouches/holy symbols for those that need them, their to hit boosting items
Were arguing over nomenclature. Semantics. The word here is "reliant", and in "relying on". A sorcerer does not rely on any of the items you've referenced. Yes, those items help, and increasingly so at higher level, but it's a world of difference from any fighter who doesn't have Improved Unarmed Strike, who therefore provokes every time they attack, needs to be right up against their foe, and does minimal damage (non-lethal at that) if they manage to punch someone. The fighter relies on his equipment to not utterly and completely suck.

they most certainly do rely on that gear especially when the creatures they are fighting start having really good saves/touch ac the only way to make them better and actually able to do anything against those foes are with gear


By the rules, NPC wealth is normal CR, +1 CR for PC wealth, -1 CR for no wealth whatsoever. So naked PCs would be -2 CR if they were enemies. This is, of course, clearly wrong. A naked Fighter (who did not build for unarmed) and a naked Sorcerer are not the same level of threat. So at least -2 APL but beyond that it depends on the classes, the builds, and everything else.


Past level 10, Wealth By level is worth at least 2 character levels, I'd ballpark it.

The lower level you're playing at, the less gear matters.

Animal companions, summons and eidolons are designed to function effectively without gear, and casters with enough buff time can hoist themselves up to fight at comparable levels to what they'd be doing if they had their gear around.

Fighters, of course, rely on armor and weapons for basic function, which means that without gear their challenge rating drops considerably.

This applies to all non-casting classes.

Monks are less hosed, but still rely heavily on gear to be numerically on par with the challenges they face. Expect a monk past level 5 or so to have outright pathethic armor class, for instance. It won't touch unarmored fighter levels of ridiculousness, but the difference is still noticeable.


Lady-J wrote:
they most certainly do rely on that gear especially when the creatures they are fighting start having really good saves/touch ac the only way to make them better and actually able to do anything against those foes are with gear

Against CR-equivalent challenges, most caster I know would do okay for save spells, especially if they have good knowledge skills to know what the good and bad saves are. It also depends on if their spells are save negates or save partial spells. As for touch AC, only a limited amount of creatures have a huge touch AC for the level.

Not having equipment does stop them from being completely dominant over an encounter. but it does not limit them as much as martial builds.

Liberty's Edge

The Mad Comrade wrote:
Ultimagus wrote:
So, say that the party is stripped of all their equipment. Maybe able to keep a dagger, at most. They got captured and thrown in a jail cell, or something, or marooned on an island. How does this affect their APL? I imagine it would drop by 1 or 2, but what exactly, if not more? Assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.
2 at 1st-6th level; 3 at 7th-12th; 4 at 13th-16th; 5 at 17th+ in broad brushstrokes.

Thank you for giving the most concise answer I was looking for on this thread. Broad is the keyword.

That being said, I saw a lot of debate regarding casters. I agree. Which is why I said "assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard." Two of these classes being heavily equipment-centric, one half as much, and one really just needs their spellbook, maybe.


Ultimagus wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:
Ultimagus wrote:
So, say that the party is stripped of all their equipment. Maybe able to keep a dagger, at most. They got captured and thrown in a jail cell, or something, or marooned on an island. How does this affect their APL? I imagine it would drop by 1 or 2, but what exactly, if not more? Assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.
2 at 1st-6th level; 3 at 7th-12th; 4 at 13th-16th; 5 at 17th+ in broad brushstrokes.

Thank you for giving the most concise answer I was looking for on this thread. Broad is the keyword.

That being said, I saw a lot of debate regarding casters. I agree. Which is why I said "assume this is a basic party of a fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard." Two of these classes being heavily equipment-centric, one half as much, and one really just needs their spellbook, maybe.

For the fighter and rogue they're hating life unless they happen to have two or all three of the improvised weapon feats. They're hp sponges with one good save that might hold up against APL-1 or APL-2 enemies ... maybe. The cleric is hosed if they've not mitigated the lack of a divine focus via trait as their channel energy is unusable as are an awful lot of their spells. The cleric's player will be spending hours, depending on character level, scouring the books for V and/or V,S only Cleric spells to prepare. The wizard is also hosed as they lack an arcane bond (if it is an object) and their spell book. If the have a familiar and it bought the farm, they're still hosed. Few Wizards take Spell Mastery. They'll have what spells are memorized, but a surprising number of them require that spell component pouch to function (obviously barring Eschew Materials, rather rare for Wizards along with Spell Mastery).

For that group I'd go with the above reductions in APL.

For a group comprised of a monk, oracle, sorcerer and barbarian adjust down by 2, 1 once they cobble together a basic kit. They're going to be burning spells like crazy to survive, but they can manage.

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