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I just want to clarify what John posted for character creation.
Can items from the "treasure" section be purchased? I ask because some things we are accustomed to being standard starting gear (like holy water and alchemist's fire) are in that section.
I would have just assumed that any common item of my level or lower is available, but then the 5th and 10th level rules give you six items of specified levels for free. If I can buy items, then there would be no need to list items of specific levels; just give us extra gold and be on our way.
OTOH, if "treasure" items aren't available, what would I spend my 50gp/350gp on? There isn't *that* much equipment available.
Similarly, are armor and weapon special materials and runes available? If so, at what level?
I'm clearly missing something. Help!
Organized Play Lead Developer
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First off, you start with the array of items-per-level as listed, which should give you six permanent items of note. The selection of items does a solid job of representing what you might have found over the course of your career over that time, so you might have a couple 1st- or 2nd-level items from earlier levels, while your 3rd- and 4th-level items represent more recent acquisitions.
Then you get your pile of gold. You can use this to purchase whatever common-rarity gear (or your one uncommon item at higher levels) you like from the book—low-level magic items, potions, runes, whatever. At the extreme end, you might spend all of this on a single expendable item several times above your level, but in practice we're found that it makes sense to purchase a few lower-level consumable items, assorted gear, tool kits, and the like.
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Organized Play Lead Developer
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The item array's going to better represent what someone might have found by that point in their career, compared to how a lump sum of gold often results in one or two really big purchases to maximize the impact in a key area—the somewhat infamous "I spent most of my gold on this cool sword, the rest on this cool armor, and now can't even by rations, much less a potion" effect.
Two characters might end up with slightly different absolute wealths because one chose slightly pricier 3rd-level items compared to the other, but this system should result in fairly even builds.
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Organized Play Lead Developer
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So now I'm having a little trouble again ... ;-)
You specify "permanent" items for the "array" ... but the only 1st level item that isn't consumable is a dull gray aeon stone. Is there a place other than the treasure chart on pages 349-350 that I should be looking?
This absolutely baffled me at first while developing playtest scenarios and designing pregenerated characters, but there's an answer in the Equipment chapter.
Check out the Item Level section on page 174. Any item that doesn't have an item level listed is level 0 (even half-pate armor), so you could snag something like that with a level 1 slot. Take another look at some of those item tables. See how full plate (page 176), expert alchemist's tools (page 185), and expert repair kit (185) all list a level? That indicates they're appropriate choices for a level 2 or higher slot.
