Magical Gear Expectations

[Shadewest]

Somewhere, somehow, I got left behind in the discussion on High vs Low magic campaigns and what items are needed for characters to be competent against monsters of appropriate CR. However, while I can find references to appropriate level of wealth in the Pathfinder rules, I don't see anything official regarding the specific items that are needed.

To come down to it, what are the "Big Six", and how strong are they supposed to be for a character of a specific level? If I've missed something directly from the Core Rules, I'd really appreciate a reference.

Cheers!

[Abraham spalding]

Big Six are the staple items everyone always wants:

Magical weapons
magical protections
Cloaks of resistance
stat boosters

Are they *needed*? Yeah to a point. If *nobody* has them then you still come out about even -- if some people in the party has access and not others then things are much more lopsided depending on who/what each character is and who the character is played by.

[ProfessorCirno]

I expect what is needed.

As a caster my expectations are rather low. I don't even fully expect to get any spell I want. I more or less expect to get most to half of the scrolls I desire and an item that increases my primary stat; other then that, the vast majority of items I take are for "cool stuff" reasons.

As a meleer, my expectations are high, as I require those magic items to do the job.

[EWHM]

My players have this expectation:
They expect that the availability of magic items will make sense given the amount of magic and the other conditions persisting in the particular campaign world I happen to be running at the time. They also expect that if I'm going to hit a particular class or group of classes with explicit or effective nerfs that I make it clear at the onset of the game---normally in a sort of 'brainstorming' mode that precedes the actual start of the campaign. At a meta level, my players expect that through a combination of house rules, campaign setting, and choice of potential adversaries in a simulationist environment that every major character archetype has at least one decent avenue to being a reasonable contributor throughout the designed scope of the campaign. This means that if I lower the magic item availability that I'd be seriously remiss not to apply a heavy setting-specific nerf to casters. They don't expect to necessarily be able to take on foes of CR+4, CR+2, CR, or even CR-2 necessarily---that depends pretty heavily on the magic level in the particular game. They DO expect to be able to take on something meaningful within the scope of the game though, and for that something to ratchet upwards as they gain levels. They also expect for the rate at which they advance and gain treasure to be commensurate with the levels of risk that their characters accept.

[Maerimydra]

EWHM wrote:

Stuff

+1. We need more GMs like you out there, and some kind of brainstorming that precedes the start of the campaing should be obligatory. A great game is a game created in a common agreement between the GM and his players ! :)

[Mistah Green]

Shadewest wrote:

Somewhere, somehow, I got left behind in the discussion on High vs Low magic campaigns and what items are needed for characters to be competent against monsters of appropriate CR. However, while I can find references to appropriate level of wealth in the Pathfinder rules, I don't see anything official regarding the specific items that are needed.

To come down to it, what are the "Big Six", and how strong are they supposed to be for a character of a specific level? If I've missed something directly from the Core Rules, I'd really appreciate a reference.

Cheers!

Big 6, if I remember right:

Magic weapon.
Magic armor.
Natural armor item.
Deflection AC item.
Saves item.
Stat boosting items.

As for how strong they're supposed to be...

Take the listed WBL. Assume the player uses every penny of that, or close to it to get their numbers up. Also assume they do so efficiently, which due to the way item costs work means a number of small items are better than one big one. That's... probably lower than their numbers should be as a non caster. Actual casters will be just fine though, especially since they can ignore half the Big Six.