Equipment

Whether you find yourself in the cobbled confines of an alleyway meeting an alchemist of ill repute, peering into the weathered face of a tinker as she shows you her wares, or navigating the bustling crowds and heady aromas of a marketplace to find a traveling armorer, the world offers many objects to enhance your adventures. You may find mundane and miraculous items ranging from the small and inconsequential to the legendary and deadly.

For day-to-day adventuring there are some staples that come in handy at any level. A sturdy length of rope, well-made armor, and a source of light could well be the difference between a successful quest and an early demise.

In this chapter you’ll find both common items and more unusual knickknacks that you may find most efficacious in your travels.

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Starting Equipment

Your character’s beginnings determine the supplies they have access to at the start of your adventure. Choices made during character creation provide a list of default gear, but there is also the option to forgo this standard list and select items that you feel better fit your character. Simply choose your class from the table below and spend the allotted amount of gold on the equipment detailed in this chapter.

  How your character came by your starting equipment is up to you. Perhaps they pickpocketed gold until they could afford the shiniest axe, or excelled in transmutation class and were given a beautiful crystal spell focus as a reward. An herbalism kit may be passed down through generations of village healers, or a holy text may be a treasured inheritance from a devout relative. These items are not simply useful implements for your adventuring—they are opportunities to flesh out your character.

Starting Gold Per Class

Adept   30 gp

Bard 135 gp

Berserker 120 gp

Cleric 125 gp

Druid 115 gp

Fighter 140 gp

Herald   200 gp

Marshal 200 gp

Ranger 150 gp

Rogue 125 gp

Sorcerer 100 gp

Warlock 110 gp

Wizard 100 gp

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Trading

While gold pieces and other coinage are used to describe the value of items throughout this chapter, they are not the only way wealth manifests itself in the world. Merchants and crafters accept coins, and most people will have access to coins to give as quest rewards. Other types of currency and trade are common too. Gems, information, services, and exchanged goods are useful ways for the average person to acquire what they need. Working people of every stripe may find it easier to barter day-to-day, and many local governments accept taxes in valuable items that meet the amount due—whether that be poultry or fine wines. The wealthy may trade in the same way albeit on a grander scale such as with deeds, parcels of land, or full bars of precious metal.

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Currency

Coinage varies widely in appearance across realms and sometimes even between cities. Coins are minted with the faces of different rulers and in different shapes or patterns. Sometimes these designs represent their originating culture, and sometimes simply to make a forger’s job harder and rightly so—despite best efforts to thwart them, forgeries are common. Merchants and vendors may be suspicious if your character’s spending power is incongruous with their appearance, and may test coins (either openly or surreptitiously).

Most coins from across the world are made from the same weight of their respective metal, ensuring easy trade across continents and oceans. A gold piece is the usual standard unit of wealth, and when discussing deals and trade merchants will often refer to value in gold pieces even if the final trade involves gems, metal bars, or services.

The average day’s wage for a skilled artisan such as a tailor, carpenter, or armorer is a single gold piece. 

One gold piece is equivalent to 10 silver pieces. A silver piece is half a day’s wages for an unskilled laborer. 

One silver piece is equivalent to 10 copper pieces, the most common coinage amongst the lower-paid working class. 

Other coins of less common metals may be found while traveling. Electrum and platinum are not unheard of, but may not spend easily. Cautious merchants may avoid unfamiliar currency to avoid being duped by a forgery.

On average, 50 coins of any value weigh 1 pound.

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Table: Exchange Rates and Relative Value

 

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Trading Valuables and Treasure

It’s likely that on your adventures you’ll come across an immense variety of valuables ranging from unusual trinkets to weapons and armor of every make, shape, and size. While common items can be sold in almost any town, some more unique items may be difficult to sell without locating a specialist or a sufficiently wealthy collector.

Used Weapons, Armor, and Equipment

Used equipment in good working order will usually sell, but it may be worth half (or even less) than a new item. This is not a hard and fast situation and vendors may be swayed into giving more—how your character persuades someone to do that is up to them.

Magic Items

The ease of selling magic items differs from place to place. If in a region where magic is commonplace—perhaps an arcane academy is nearby—selling these items is relatively straightforward and can be highly profitable. In regions where magic is rare, vendors may not believe the item is genuine let alone be willing to buy it. If they can be sold, magic items are valuable and often cost more gold than the average person would see in a year or even a lifetime.

Treasure and Art

Items such as gems, precious metals, jewelry, and art are valuable because they are sought after across the world. For this reason they rarely diminish in price and may even gain value as time goes by. Lost relics or pieces by master crafters are especially likely to bring in vast amounts of gold despite their lack of magical or practical utility.

Basic Trade Goods

Trade goods such as grain, salt, and domesticated beasts are sought after everywhere and so are unlikely to diminish much in value from place to place. Because of their almost universal usefulness, these are the items most commonly used to barter for the average person.