I made up a spreadsheet that shows recommended wealth by level and attempts to come up with a gameplan on magic item accumulation by level as a result. I'm not completely happy with it, and I realize that this is just a guideline and not a hard and fast rule, but I plan on utilizing something like it for my campaign (which should wind up at level 20). Thoughts?
Level; Wealth; Weapon; Armor
2; 1,000; 350; 250
3; 3,000; 1,050; 750
4; 6,000; 2,100 (+1); 1,500 (+1)
5; 10,500; 3,675 (+1); 2,625 (+1)
6; 16,000; 5,600 (+2); 4,000 (+2)
7; 23,500; 8,225 (+2); 5,875 (+2)
8; 33,000; 11,550 (+3); 8,250 (+3)
9; 46,000; 16,100 (+3); 11,500 (+3)
10; 62,000; 21,700 (+4); 15,500 (+4)
11; 82,000; 28,700 (+4); 20,500 (+4)
12; 108,000; 37,800 (+5); 27,000 (+5)
13; 140,000; 49,000 (+5); 35,000 (+5)
14; 185,000; 64,750 (+6); 46,250 (+6)
15; 240,000; 84,000 (+7); 60,000 (+7)
16; 315,000; 110,250 (+8); 78,750 (+8)
17; 410,000; 143,500 (+8); 102,500 (+8)
18; 530,000; 185,500 (+9); 132,500 (+8)
19; 685,000; 239,750 (+9); 171,250 (+9)
20; 880,000; 308,000 (+10); 220,000 (+10)
Any thoughts about weapon and armor progression by level? Just curious if anyone else uses any guidelines based on WBL, or anything else for that matter. Thanks!
It seems like you are spending a huge amount of your WBL on only two items. Although, I could be totally missing what your table means.
Here are my thoughts on a Normal-WBL/Half-WBL/No-WBL breakdown.
Actually, it is more about magic-items then mundane items.
10th level magic item breakdown
The "weapons" and "armor" are loosely based on the NPC gear table breakdown from the Creating NPCs section of PF core. So they do encompass more than any one, single weapon or piece of armor certainly. But it boils down to roughly one-third on weapons, one-third to protection, and one-third to miscellaneous magic items and mundane items. I probably need to tweak the values some. Good point.
Considering your linked example, would you ever expect a PC to have a +10 weapon (along with a couple of +5's as backups or ranged, maybe) or armor at level 19 or 20? Or would you expect them to have a myriad of lesser items? Just curious.
I have no idea how it will work out by the end of the campaign for my group, but I'm just trying to plan ahead so they won't be a party of 10th level characters running around with nothing better than +1 weapons and +1 full plate. Know what I mean? Thanks for your input!
As long as each enemy has standard wealth the table normally takes care of itself. The only way this might be an issue is if there are to many enemies with no wealth, double standard, or triple standard wealth.
Since all PC should get about the same amount of loot I would choose one person to track, and every 3 to 5 levels see how much loot they have, and adjust up or down.
While it is optimal to have the best armor or weapons they won't need the best to survive. How much you allow magic mart to exist will also be a factor. If the only loot comes from dungeons it takes more work on your part so more monitoring is needed.