I'm the DM for my group of newbies, including myself. We don't really follow a lot of the rules as we don't know a whole lot of them and if anything comes up I tend to make it up on the fly and maybe checking it in the book later. With that in mind I had a question about making and dishing out loot.
I have a group of 5 and they are all lvl 3 at the moment, I'm pretty sure they all have a +1 something on them. At what point is it ok to start doing +2's or weapons with more than one affect? I don't want them to be over powered but I would like to be able to throw harder baddies at them soon.
I also have a question about armor, for the most part they all are around 15-17ish AC, my paladin is at 23 AC(not too sure how that happened but it works for the group) How do I increase their armor rating without just giving them armor that is to big or heavy for them?
I'm the DM for my group of newbies, including myself. We don't really follow a lot of the rules as we don't know a whole lot of them and if anything comes up I tend to make it up on the fly and maybe checking it in the book later. With that in mind I had a question about making and dishing out loot.
I have a group of 5 and they are all lvl 3 at the moment, I'm pretty sure they all have a +1 something on them. At what point is it ok to start doing +2's or weapons with more than one affect? I don't want them to be over powered but I would like to be able to throw harder baddies at them soon.
Hmm, we don't usually do this in reverse, but.... If you were going by the book, it says you should have maybe 25% of your wealth in weapons. Assuming each person has two weapons they want to upgrade (melee and ranged, perhaps), that's 12.5% of wealth on each. A +2 weapon (or +1 flaming weapon, whatever) is worth 8,000, so their total wealth should be at least 64,000, which happens at roughly 10th level (62,000). If they only want to upgrade one that's a total of 32,000, which happens around 8th level (33,000). If you want to go up to 50% of wealth in one item (another guideline) then a total of 16,000, which happens at 6th level (16,000).
OTOH, that's all assuming standard wealth by level. If you're doing a high-powered game, and now that I think about it you probably are, then the total wealth by level ~doubles. In this case you could have a single 8,000 gp weapon between levels 4 & 5 (12,000 to 21,000 gp wealth total).
See Placing Treasure under Gamemastering in the Core Rulebook for the source of those values and percentages.
I also have a question about armor, for the most part they all are around 15-17ish AC, my paladin is at 23 AC(not too sure how that happened but it works for the group) How do I increase their armor rating without just giving them armor that is to big or heavy for them?
You give them magic armor, which works a lot like magic weapons. It has to be masterwork (adds 150 gp to the cost for armor) and then enchanted (for armor it's 1000 gp for a +1, 4000 for +2, 9000 for +3, etc).
You can also hand out rings of protection, which give a deflection bonus to armor class for double the cost of magic armor (because deflection bonuses apply against things like touch attacks that regular magic armor doesn't help with).
You can also encourage them to use spells like mage armor on themselves / each other, possibly from wands (only 750 gp for a 50-charge wand of mage armor).
I also have a question about armor, for the most part they all are around 15-17ish AC, my paladin is at 23 AC(not too sure how that happened but it works for the group)
You can easily get to 23 with full plate (+9) and a tower shield (+4), but at a penalty to your attacks. If you use a heavy shield (+2) instead, the rest can be made up by a combination of +1 armor, +1 shield, +1 Dex bonus (the maximum for full plate), and/or Shield Focus.
How do I increase their armor rating without just giving them armor that is to big or heavy for them?
Fuzzy-Wuzzy covered the basics, but I'll add: magic shields (same enchantment cost as magic armor), amulets of natural armor (2,000 for +1, 8,000 for +2), and dusty rose prism ioun stone (+1 AC, 5,000).
They can also invest in feats such as Combat Expertise, Dodge, and Shield Focus, but that's a question of advancement choices they make rather than treasure they find.
The caster level required to craft a magical weapon or armor is 3 times its plus (or equivalent) bonus.
I usually consider this a hint that around level 6 the players should start having some +2 items. For the first one, I think level 5 is ok.
I agree with Megistone. Player characters should probably have a +2 weapon well before 10th-level.
AC values can be increased with class abilities, Dexterity score increases, heavier armor and shields, higher magical enhancement bonuses on their armor or shields, or through a variety of magical items (such as amulets of natural armor, bracers of armor, or rings of protection, for example) or spells (barkskin, mage armor, shield, etc.).
Be aware though that bonuses of the same type do NOT stack with one another, unless they happen to be dodge bonuses, racial bonuses, untyped bonuses, or circumstance bonuses (provided they are from different circumstances)--these types of bonuses are an exception to the general rule described in the Magic chapter of the Core Rulebook. Bonuses from the SAME source (such as from the same spell) also do not stack.
For example, a mage armor spell or bracers of armor grant an armor bonus to AC, just like traditional worn armor does. If you have all three, you add the highest bonus to your AC; you do not add all three values together.
Likewise, you could not cast mage armor on yourself twice to get +8 armor bonus; you would only get +4.
Hope that helps. :D
or through a variety of magical items (such as amulets of natural armor, bracers of armor, or rings of protection, for example) or spells (barkskin, mage armor, shield, etc.).
Right, forgot bracers. Though those are rarely worth the price to anyone with armor proficiency, unless they desperately need to shave off every point of armor check penalty and/or pound of encumbrance that they can.
or through a variety of magical items (such as amulets of natural armor, bracers of armor, or rings of protection, for example) or spells (barkskin, mage armor, shield, etc.).Right, forgot bracers. Though those are rarely worth the price to anyone with armor proficiency, unless they desperately need to shave off every point of armor check penalty and/or pound of encumbrance that they can.
...or are fearful of incorporeal creatures (since the bonuses from bracers of armor or the mage armor or shield spells, being force effects, are not ignored like most other armor/shield bonuses against incorporeal touch attacks).
Whats the party composition? Different classes want different items for AC. For example monks want Wand of Mage Armor while druids want dragonhide breast plate/full plate. Mithril bucklers are great for most any caster. Wand of Protection from Evil is a real help if they get a chance for prefight buffs.
So lets see, I have a heavy duty human paladin, a half-orc barbarian and two druids, one is a gnome and the other is a human wild child. I think with all the advice I can kind of figure out hows to dish out loot. I love making up my own weapons but for this early in the campaign I might need to tone down the loot I'm giving them lol