I get that the "Big Six" (adding up to enhancement bonuses to abilities, weapons, and armor, resistance bonus to saves, and I think Deflection/natural armor?) is built into assumptions about character stats as they level, but since I've never been in a group with predictable treasure or players familiar with such traditions, I've never had beyond a vague clue at what levels players are expected to have what degree of bonuses from those items. Can someone lay that out for me, at least in general terms?
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I'd be very surprised to see anyone give a great answer to this question.
I've never bought a cloak of resistance or ring of protection.
I think the idea is that it has some relationship to proportions of wealth by level, but I don't know what the proportions would be aside from like, you're not supposed to put half your WBL into one item.
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So, short answer, it's a measure of cost.
The big 6 are weapon, armor/shield, stat, cloak of resistance, ring of protection, and amulet of natural armor.
In terms of cost it's cloak1=armor1<ring1=weapon1=amulet1<stat2=cloak2=armor2... and it just goes on from there. It's just ordering by cost.
Now, within the cost categories the only one that actually has an order is that a ring of protection is better than amulet of natural armor (because deflection applies to both flat-footed and touch). Everything else depends on build. A paladin might upgrade their armor before their cloak (better natural saves), a wizard might put off upgrading their weapon forever (since they don't use it), etc.
In game terms I expect +1 armor or cloak +1 at level 3, both and a +1 weapon at level 4 (for a weapon user, otherwise a ring), that and a ring and amulet (or a stat booster) at level 5 (stat booster for caster, ring and amulet for martial), and I'm not going to do the rest. Because as you can already see the choices branch wildly depending on what kind of build you're using. Basically you just look at the list of stuff, what's cheapest (that you care about), and whether you can afford it with the difference between two levels. If so, you should probably have it by that level. That's about it.
Where/when do stat boosters really become considered necessary? At what level is it terrible to not have one, or one physical/one mental or whatever?
Avatar-1 wrote: I'd be very surprised to see anyone give a great answer to this question.
I've never bought a cloak of resistance or ring of protection.
The Ring I can understand (I sometimes forego it myself if I have enough AC from other places), but the Cloak?
Unless you always play Paladins or Divine Protection Oracles (or stick to low levels), you must really like failing saves because most of the monsters as written at mid to high levels will REAM you without the cloak.
Like, even targeting your Good save. Frex if you're a Fighter. Level 8. 14-16 Con max, you have a Fort save of +8 or +9.
Things are already slinging DC 19 saves at CR 8, and that's your GOOD save you have a 50/50 shot at passing.
Stat boosters should first show up around level 5-6, if you don't have at least your primary stat booster by 8th I'd say you're falling behind. Casters get it earlier than that (less need for a weapon) but martials should still pick it up before increasing their weapon from +1 to +2 (because it's cheaper and +2 Strength is better than just +1 att/dam).
Secondary stat boosters can start as early as 6th (more likely 10th), as for when you need to have them... eh. It's a lot more open. Wisdom is good for one save (and a few skills) and +2 Wis costs as much as increasing your cloak from +2 to +3... but is 1/3rd as useful for saves (and +1 doesn't mean much for a skill). So buying your wisdom up isn't really important until you have a +5 cloak. This is for martials. For casters Dex should be treated like the Amulet of Natural armor (applies to AC and touch AC but not flatfooted, provided you have enough max Dex on your armor). Con is a little harder to judge, in theory a better goal is not to be hit in the first place (AC). I really can't place a limit to when you should have the combined boosters (+2 Str/Con, for instance) or the secondary boosters without a build. Because a Wizard could go all Int and not have a problem, a Monk wants that Wis boost sooner because it works like Dex while not making their physical booster more expensive, for a Paladin a Cha booster is better than a cloak. It's just too complicated for anything that isn't the primary stat.
Personnaly, I look at it has every 4 levels a character should get +1 to all his main items.
For exemple, a 12 the level character should have a +3 armor, a +3 shield, +3 weapon, +3 ring, +3 amulet, +3 cloak. That totals up to 81,000 gp. Thats leaves you with maybe a belt of +2 to two stats...for total of 91,000 gp. That leaves another 17,000 gp to boost or buy other stuff to get to the WBL of 108,000 for a 12th level character...
Of course, a character not using a shield would distribute 9,000 gp to other stuff....
Depends upon the game, the other element of this is whether your DM plays monsters intelligently and targets likely weak saves, spell users with melee and so forth.
I usually play with very experienced players and if your saves are poor you will either get items or force (generally) a divine caster to buff you (which for some reason some of them resent...) Likewise tactically, combat will present a range of challenges and so even an arcane caster cannot forego defence. And all of this ignores such thing as the relative ease, or otherwise, that you may or may not purchase said items.
As I often say in these threads a lot of this is determined by playstyle and the willingness of a party to co-operate and plan.
Oh, and we also do not play wealth by level.
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