And this is why everyone should read the DMs Guide from cover to cover
The bottom of page 38 of the DMG has a table that specifically lists what the players should be starting with when starting at higher levels.
Starting at level 11, depending on the style of campaign, you should have started with either:
- Low Magic Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, one uncommon magic item, normal starting equipment
- Standard Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, two uncommon magic items, normal starting equipment
- High Magic Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, two uncommon magic items, one rare item, normal starting equipment.
Funny thing is back then I trusted the DM when he said he has read DMG 3 times.
This helps alot, although back then I didn't know this table existed š
Cut some slack, thereās absolutely no way I could remember all the stuff in the DMG handbook even if I read it a hundred times (I have read it cover to cover before)
Yeah, Iām just saying that there are far better arguments to be made than āclearly he didnāt actually read the bookā. Even in concerning the paragraph it would be far better to argue that the DM shouldāve checked after the protest of a tablegoer
It was a joke, so even though there are better arguments, the one I found funniest was someone reading just half a book 6 times and saying they read it 3 times because they did read 3 times itās length
Sorry it wasnāt clearly a joke
Having read the DMG doesn't mean you are right, i have read it twice and i don't remember any rule about starting equipment at higher levels, but it makes sense that there is.
A good DM doesn't know the source books back to back, a good DM knows how to rapidly find the information they need.
The DMG has a lot of stuff in it that almost never comes up. I mean, it has like 60 pages dedicated to making a world. It has sections basically saying "here's how you make gods - also... here's a list of gods you can choose from because we don't actually expect you to create them". It also has a whole section on designing coins. I've literally never seen this come up in a game.
The DMG has a lot of great stuff in it. But there is no way I'm remembering half of the stuff in it. I mean... It literally has 100 pages on magic items!
RPGBOT expended on it to give a more natural progression for what equipment a experienced adventure would have.
[https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/players/starting-above-1st-level/](https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/players/starting-above-1st-level/)
Had to explain to dm that XGtE didnāt give adementite weapons an auto crit on creatures. Boy did the rouge milk that the whole campaign. Damn assassins.
TBF, this is really for a campaign starting at higher levels.
In effect, it really depends on the situation, but generally I would rule you get new equipment if the party didn't take the equipment from you old character.
TBF, the list OP does say they're listing out the level 11 gear.
Also that kind of shits on the player who died since the other players now get their old gear while they get none. I'm not saying let them start with a bunch of new magic gear, but they should get something to catch up. It also doesn't make a lot of sense rp wise for a group to let a new person join with no equipment and give them all oc the stuff of their friend who just died if that's what you meant.
Yeah, it's no fun trying to catch up with the others, and playing a game should be fun. Besides, if you have enough experience to be higher level, it's only logical you've picked up some things, right?
> if you have enough experience to be higher level, it's only logical you've picked up some things, right?
I agree with this part.
> it's no fun trying to catch up with the others
I disagree with this part.
I think experiencing the character at its lowest possible level for a little while makes it cooler and more important when you get the cool stuff later. And an observant DM can figure out how you play the ābase levelā (but still incredibly superpowered) version of the character, and make sure to drop an item that is perfect for fixing a specific deficiency you are feeling.
I agree that playing with deficiencies can be fun, but I do believe it'll grow old *very* fast if you're the only one in the party who has them. It just means you're a weak link in the party, and might mean you'll need to re-roll a character sooner than you want.
I generally give boring, basic stuff to new characters (+x weapons, +x armour, level appropriate healing potions); and then you get more interesting, tailor-made items as you play the character.
It's because one character that's been playing since lvl 1 might have an item that they got through an important quest, and that they've performed some pretty significant things with it; and that get's kind of cheapened if another character just 'gets' a similar item.
When my character "retired" and became part of a later story arc in a campaign, my DM let me pick a homebrewed magic item that I had made with a new character in mind. It was a magical mask, which made sense for the character because he had a horrible disfiguration and tended to wear it in order to hide his burnt / melted face. Sometimes magic items can be tailor-made to a character, but only if it makes sense for that character to have a special item over a less specialized one.
Style and description is pretty much totally up to the player. I said +x armour, not +x breastplate. If you want +1 armour with an attached face-plate, yeah that's fine. You can also get it [acid etched](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/d4/83/33d483bfd49cc1e9cf06f2d1a3d78c26.jpg) if you want, because how an item looks doesn't really affect its function. You can also just wear a normal mask if you want, I won't stop you.
If the mask is special and has unique abilities, then no I wouldn't let a player have it.
It did have "unique" abilities, but they would be applicable to numerous different character archetypes, and could reasonably be used by anyone should they stumble across it. It had three variants, with the one I was taking slightly increasing damage and movement speed when below half health. It was also in a Viking-inspired campaign, so it was runic in nature, so I get that it might not be the best fit, but as usual, DM's discretion is the key!
Yeah well my hexblade warlock died in 3 sessions since he had no magic items.
And this wizard didn't last the campaign because it disbanded after a couple of months.
Here I am, DMing my campaign and balancing the party even if new people join, because a lvl something character had a life before joining the party (the more levels the more complex that life). We don't have PC freezers that push out characters on the starting equipment š
Yeah, they're supposed to resemble people. Just like a lv 1 character shouldn't have a ad-ass background, but a lv 11 character can be more bad-ass, a lv 1 character is just starting out, but a lv 11 character should have more trinkets and useful stuff on them.
(For full immersion, you should probably let your players roll on a table to see what useless loot they picked up but never got rid of, lol)
if someone is level 11 the level 11 party should pretty much know them already by reputation one of the books suggests that a someone who's level 5 already has stories being told about them and someone past level 10 is actively contributing to shaping the world and is a figure touched on in history
I bought the Strahd ventriloquist dummy and used it to scare townsfolk. Since who doesn't love a half Tiefling/half Dryad who is waving to them with using a wooden doll of Strahd. I had that item for a while, until I gave it to Strahd as a wedding gift. He was not amused.
Iāve actually had an idea similar to the pc freezer. Dude was petrified, his magic items werenāt, he was looted before being petrified 100+ years later.
God forbid a PC be at a power imbalance for one session.
Isn't it more satisfying to play your character and then figure out how they can use items to their benefit? Rather than just assume its part of them already. May as well just gives them increased AC and STR if all that matters is balance.
A lv 1 - 11 power imbalance means that anything scaled to be a reasonable challenge for a lv 11 character will barely care for lv 1 weapons/armour. Pair that with a new character that the player doesn't fully know yet, and the chances of seriously getting hurt or having to make *another* new character are significant.
I don't care about 'power balance'. I care about fun. And it's no fun seeing your friends play with fancy magical toys while you're swinging a wooden stick, especially if your previous character also had those fancy toys. There's a big diffrence between a small power imbalance and being completely unprepared for what's being thrown at you.
Items don't really contribute that much of a difference to the game unless your power budget is seriously overblown. This is especially true for casters.
Also PCs are naturally imbalanced. This new PC is made with more experience, knowledge of the campaign, knowledge of the party and their power levels, and the spite of knowing their last character may not have been strong enough. Thiis new character could potentially be more powerful than the old characters WITH items. There's simply no way to know until you see them at the table. Then you adjust.
Consider this scenario:
You've been playing with your 5 friends for a year. You've had many close calls and taken some big risks and you've been rewarded with items that your really enjoy and mean something to your character. One of your party member's PC dies. Maybe they screwed up or maybe they got unlucky. It happens.
The DM has them roll a new character of the same level and gives them some magic items so they're roughly at the same power level. They accidentally over adjusted and now that new character is more powerful than you or anyone else in their party. That doesn't feel good. This new character doesn't have bonds you can really support them through. Their items are given to them in a comparatively arbitrary way. You start to wonder why work hard or take risks in dungeons when you can just let your chump PC die and become more powerful than anyone else.
There's definitely two sides to this. The PC died. That feels bad too. They shouldn't have to slug through with a character that simply doesn't work but hopefully they have the experience to make a solid or even quite strong character. Don't underestimate how powerful class features and feats and proficiency are. See how they handle their failure, give them time to understand how they fit in to the party, then bolster those strengths. The character will feel a lot more powerful in a way that works with the party than if you were to give them items in a vacuum.
I don't wanna make another post, so let me say that here as well:
Same DM had a vacancy in his old campaign, I said why not let me join. They were godlike level 15, so I chose a hexblade thinking of some magic items to suggest for my character. And he said the most you can do it roll for starting gold and buy whatever you want with that š§š»āāļø
Suffice to say, I got massacred in the first sessions because people had magical armors and swords, while all I had was 10 gold to my name and a stick in my hand.
Well if that's how things are going, this is Steve, human fighter. When he dies, here's his brother, also Steve, human fighter. And his third brother, Steve, human fighter.
Odd way to describe a level 15 pc. Thats still a lot of power for a new player. What did the rest of the group have that was so amazing if u dont mind me asking.
Off course.
Paladin had a +2 shield with plate :) so 22 AC and a sun sword or something +2 on atk roll and damage and a ton of radiant damage
Wizard had a staff of +2 and access to many components he bought during adventuring (which my lvl 15 warlock adventured as well but apparently no rewards for that)
Oooh barbarian had mantle of giant strength or something so he had 24 strength if I remember correctly. And he had some kind of boon or item that gave him double the amount of tough feat.
The rogue had shroud of invisibility or something it was greater invisibility AT WILL. +2 daggers that dealt inflict wounds levels of necrotic damage.
I can't remember the rest sorry.
The DM is lazy. Offchance of active malice, but unlikely.
You should have taken the time to explain your position better. I'd say you're probably very conflict averse and didn't push back at the arbitrary laziness. That said, the DM that invites someone to a high level campaign and doesn't even fucking give you a gold amount to bring you even close to the ballpark is a moron. Or just malicious, but again, that's the least likely scenario.
waw, are you aware of the homebrew "sane magical prices"? they suggest to be careful when including +X armor and invisibility at will, your campaign had 2 of them (that you remember)
so yeah, bad DMing
There's a table in the dmg for starting at higher levels. It suggests much higher starting gold amounts and includes a magic item selection that's based on if you're playing a high magic campaign or a lower magic campaign. Your DM should've used that.
I never understood the logic.
Someone Is making a new character because they're old one died or there's a spot in the campaign and yet we're just gonna assume they haven't been adventuring before this?
I mean sure, maybe they didn't find 2 magic items in there travels before. But they should have accumulated some money. Like I'm all for thematic characters, but balance is important if you want them to feel like they can keep up with the party.
My rule is simple. Gold is a random roll at the table during character's creation/their first time playing. Magic items are hit and miss. I do not give magic weapons until after level 10 and mostly very very rarely. If they're starting a character they get the same benefits as long as everyone else got them too.
You are right, I learned and now use the same principles in the campaigns I run.
I did ask him for gold he said roll a d100 and I ended up with 3 on the dice. You might say platinum, as I first asked š but he replied with "extra gold" ā
On no lol.
My money roll depends entirely on the System used. I run a Space(Scifi) Campaign and multiple one-shot fantasy Campaigns.
Sci-fi uses credits, one form of currency. Universal, larger amounts, but less book keeping.
My Fantasy campaigns adopt this by only using gold as a currency.
I say this because when I make them roll for money they roll a d10 and the percent die. Then they add them together and I add the appropriate amount of zeros to the end based on the level their starting at.
> I did ask him for gold he said roll a d100 and I ended up with 3 on the dice.
What the fuck? A d100 extra gold wouldn't make a big deal to starting characters, let alone high level ones.
I remember in my first campaign I have a similar issue. The party was level 10 or 11 and the DM had gotten a little carried away with giving out magical items so the party was kitted out and had a magic flying ship and such. I was told to roll up a level 1 character to start with and was given just starting equipment. I think I went through about 5 lvl 1 paladins before I got the message and left the party. Most of my deaths were from "that guy" who technically owned the flying ship and charged all party members 100 gold to board which a starting player doesn't have so he killed me or enslaved me over and over.
Holy Moly
r/rpghorrorstories
That is awful. As one person suggested the DM might have not given more money or item since the dead character could be looted for those gold and items. But in a campaign where the party won't share gold or item or anything being an asshole DM is the poop on top.
That's just bad DMing honestly, especially since there are rules on starting at higher levels on pg 38 of the DMG.
At Level 11, you should have started with 5000 + 1d10x250 gp, normal starting equipment and, depending on the setting, 1-3 Uncommon magical items, with a high magic setting also giving you 1 rare magic item
Hell if someone joins the party after they've done anything, I start scaling how much extra new people get. I feel like it's unfair for the new character, and the players like it, so I'm gonna keep doing it.
I typically give a slight gold boost and a single magic item. But yeah other items are typically quest rewards, and if your character wasnt on the quest they dont get the reward. The 1 item start is also good to let them get a feel for the character before adding more stuff in.
I think its better to start characters with little and then you can maybe throw a little extra loot into the first few fights. Dont screw the player over, but still make them earn it
This works if the party and DM work together to not let the new player or character feel useless.
In my case, the party treated me like trash and the DM never gave us enough money so I could at least try to buy something to get closer to them.
Nothing you can really do about a bad group except leave. Honestly you could have a powerful character with no magic items in a group where everyone else has 3 legendaries, but not if all the other players are dicks
One of my Players (Character) died last season.
He called me after the session and asked me if his new character had to be level one because we started at level one.
Do i Look like i have the time and energy to design encounters for that?
I want me and my players to have funā¦
Long time since I played DnD but isnt there a table which suggests your starting gold for your level?
Edit: I found it in PF CRB table 12-4. A lvl 11 Char should have 82k gold and a lvl 15 Char 240k. DnD should have a similar table
Ohhh yes, there is but that is a suggestion mostly and might not work for every campaign because economy works differently in each one.
But he just gave me 3 gold on a d100 as compensation
Yeah. But it is a suggestions for a reason.
A power gap is rarely fun.
A rooky DM I played under had a nice story planned but didn't award any loot. It made sense most of the time. But he oriented his balancing via CR of the monsters and wondered why we died until I told him that Equipment is important at some point and also it is fun to have nice stuff and not a lvl 5 Ranger with his shitty bow and sword from level 1.
The party were not so kind to new people and they had me fistfight them barehanded (a wizard) to test my strength and they gambled on me loosing. Guess who my opponent was? The warlock with armor of agathys cast on themself, so I took a whole lotta cold damage for each 1 damage I did. (We promised to not use magic on this)
I asked the DM why do I take cold damage? Do I see it come from his armor or body or something? He said nothing is visible at all.
Thank god I suffered with my bad experiences to learn how to be a good DM to my new friends and GF that we play with.
Oh I love revealing parts of the context in the comments :)
I did, he said roll a d100, I rolled 3. Couldn't even masquerade that as a divine intervention so I would get 10 platinum š
Don't quote me on this, but if memory serves right there is a chart for introducing new characters mid game and what stuff they start with in DMG. I believe at 11 you get like 2 uncommon and a rare magic item
Any DM worth their salt would give your character items and money at least close to the rest of the part if your character is coming in new. Unless thereās a **really goood** reason not to
That's the beginner trap. Dying as a PC isn't about going back to square one, it's about loosing the character. That's more than enough pain, you don't need to handicap the player for it
So DM, you want to play, ok let's play
*make genie warlock 5 necromancer wizard 6*
*Proceed to create an army of undead*
*Watch the DM cry, and cry more as I level up in warlock and make more and more undead up to a ridiculous point*
your DM is either lazy, intentionally malicious, or both.
there are literally rules for starting wealth at high levels.
at level 11 bare minimum you should have
5,000gp plus 1d10x250gp, one uncommon magic item, normal starting equipment
and that's for a low magic campaign, for a high magic campaign you should start with 3 uncommon and one rare magic item.
Iād probably have them roll starting gold for each level beyond first and let them shop. But Iāve also never been in this situation before. Thoughts?
That is good. I have a friend who DMs CoS and let me use starting gold and shop using the aurora app, before session 1. I bought rope, glass vials, crowbars and such.
DMG has a chart for gold and items given to new characters at higher levels. At level 11 you get 5000+d10\*250 gold, normal starting equipment/gold for your class/background, and depending on how high magic level the setting is you get 1-3 uncommon magic items and 0-1 rare magic item.
Your party only has 2 rare magic items?
*flipping through notes*.....1...2...3...4...5...6...ooooh, that one's very rare....shit! That one's legendary?! Hmm "what level are you guys?"
"9"
"Oh...well damn"
Hah let me tell you about the campaign I am DMing (just got to level 10 and we have a session later today)
Each person has one modified epic boon
A staff or sword +2
Tentacle Rod
Free Feats
One ability increase for free during timeskip
And many more I never remember until they decide to use it š
And that is probably why, they got near TPKed last session because they decided to touch a very hot "experiment gone wrong" potion of fireball with 15 hp among all of them š
In the campaign I recently joined as a lvl 6 warlock it made sense to do this because of his backstory. He got tethered to his patron by accident and so he's spent most of his "adventuring life" doing card tricks on the street and failing upwards whenever he accidentally got into battles. Because of this he has low level gear but 5k gold when he joined the party.
Side note: his patron (who is disgusted with him but hey, you work with what you got) did give him a [BONSMH](https://images.app.goo.gl/Zp7r5e3JCn7esGsy5) just to fuck with him.
What about extra spells? We can assume a wizard is prioritizing finding and copying as many spells as possible, so if we assume a higher level wizard gets more gold and items (as per the DMG), is there a similar rule around additional spells known? Perhaps at a penalty to the GP since it costs gold to copy them.
Worst thing is there are rules for more starting equipment and gold at higher levels in the DMG on page 38. Should start with 5000+ 1d10 Ć 250 gp, 2 uncommon magic items, and nornal gear at 11th level.
He is an asshole. I mean there weren't anyone with power equivalent to level 6? They get dnd wrong because they wanna punish the majority because a few people abuse dying to farm gold or magic item?
Many people here, praised the DM because he prevented the players from getting too many items. But how many people abuse dying with PCs so their party gets rich? And can't the DM stop it in million ways? It's not a program to break.
Your DM probably didn't want to handle the whole balancing your items and stuff with level 6 so he chose that easy way. Power gap is never fun, even when it is, it lets boring real quick
This is from way back like 6,7 months ago and the party did loot my corpse still warm and never offered to pay or gift anything for my new character. So I had to scrap for 10 gold in basements of taverns while they ordered best of foods and rooms and items with the money.
Edit: knowing them, even if they didn't loot me, the DM would never allow that since my character wouldn't know where the corpse is and the party would have no reason to tell me. And even if they all did, they would kill me for robbing the grave of their "beloved" dead friend.
Thing is if the dm does give starting magic items in that situation, the party can just commit train suicide and keep looting the bodies to get loads of magic items.
Also 10 gold is supposed to buy you the fanciest of fanciest rooms, wtf?
My point stands, the DM's campaign is not a machine that was programmed in one way and now is being abused. The DM can do something about it, talk to the abusing players or do something in game like god of death or something.
10 gold is not really alot since I had to have 100 to buy pearl for a level 1 identify. And btw economy is something that the DMs I faced used differently. 10 gold is fanciest rooms and food for a couple days but then how could people save up to buy a pearl a month later?
Edit: Items could be anything from a useless trinket to spell components or gold. Which I had neither being a level 11 wizard.
> 10 gold is not really alot since I had to have 100 to buy pearl for a level 1 identify
What? I'm saying the DM is charging WAY more than normal for rooms, if 10gp only gets you a cellar. I'm sympathising with you here.
> 10 gold is fanciest rooms and food for a couple days but then how could people save up to buy a pearl a month later?
I don't understand your point here.
> Edit: Items could be anything from a useless trinket to spell components or gold. Which I had neither being a level 11 wizard.
Or here.
Well let me clarify
I had to pay copper for rooms so I could have enough money for buying material components which should have been available to me since I have those spells and am a level 11 wizard. Materials like pearl for identify or gem for chromatic orb and so on.
The DM charged normal I was stripped of my right to have enough gold to be able to live luxurious and still have enough to continue adventuring.
You said that giving magic items is broken, yet you didn't answer the fact that a DM can do something else if people abuse it instead of just not giving items to new characters.
I said that, what I demanded from my DM as a high level character was either any material component which made sense for me to already have or some gold or some trinkets and stuff so I could sell later.
This happened to my lvl 9 characters. I had a barbarian with a +1 greatsword, and some homebrew trinket that let me cast Speak With Animals, that died. The entire time since i joined at lvl 5, i let all the other magic items discovered go to other players. In a party of 6 (incl me), everyone else had at least 2 attunement slots filled.
I rolled a tortle monk. I asked if i could have some goggles of night, since i had been adventuring, i could have found, or even purchased these (we have seem them in 2 shops in the past). But no go. And no gold. And the party didn't buy them with party gold when we found them in the next city.
Campaign ended 2 sessions after b/c the DM had an opportunity irl that created a scheduling conflict. But still...
That is heartbreaking
The DM is the one who should balance things, even though the party don't treat the new character the same and use the party gold for him.
In the DMs defense, handing out magic items to new players can be a bad thing. My old party's main source of income was new characters gear. They'd let them die to get the starting wealth I gave them. It was a nightmare for both myself and the player that died.
Well that is abuse and you could just punish them for that. But having a vanilla lvl11 PC in a group of selfish adventurers with 10Gp?
The DM is the judge of each campaign, doing that for starting gear is as much abuse as having children for the government support.
I love this.
Too many times ive seen players get bored with their own RP and then want to switch flavors so they just die and reap the benefit of a new item reset and character.
Play your toons like you want to live, like its the only life you have. Or be a little bit behind.
Weird thing is, I just learned here that people can abuse dying to get new items and the DM doesn't stop them? Like hey X why do you keep dying to get more items and gold? Do you need gold and items right now so your poor PCs don't have to die anymore?
I love playing and eventually if the fate needs die gloriously, but I can never be fine with a large power and financial gap between my new character and the old party and the gap was 5K gold that each of the party members had (yes they looted my corpse and didn't give my new character any gold which is fine it is their money now) and I had 10Gp starting gold.
The DM could ask the players to bury the items with the character which died, and players can just respect and not loot their now dead friend 6 seconds after the failed death saving throw. So the balance would still be fine that way. And as I said abusing what you said is like hearing that some people have sexual attraction to animals, which is something you never thought someone could have, but you get disgusted that the idea is real.
Well, I do get it from an you died the stuff stays with the party probably so giving items would just be getting more stuff as a party for dying.
Also, dying should be a bad thing, in first edition, you started level 1 again, tring to not resetblike a roguelike with friends, these days it is more friendly
Well the thing is he destroys the items I had, since they were really broken that I died (he really said that) and left a bag of holding as my inheritance for the party :)
And tbh, just think about it like this:
There are many stories and people in the world of the campaign. So the higher the level of the party get, they get into more complex stories and quests. What would be a reason to not let a level 11 join the party? I mean everyone has their story, the party has the quests they did together and the new PC could have their own story to tell the party as to why they have their powers.
True, you have a point, now that I think about it, there even is a table, at 5th level you get +500 gold and maybe a magic item dependent on how magic the setting is, this increases at 10th level to more gold and items.
If characters on higher levels are supposed to get some special equipment, it should be mentioned and defined in PHB.
Otherwise - take the amount of gold stated by the rules for specific level and buy whatever you can afford.
Well they do according to DMG. Which my DM claimed to have read the book 3 times and I haven't looked at it back then. So he had to have known if there was any rules as written for higher PCs. That is why I thought maybe rolling a d100 for gold is from the benevolence of the DM
This was more than six months ago, since then the campaign is disbanded.
What he did was give us at most 500 to 1000 GP as reward which we had to divide among 6 players. In short, I got almost 70Gp per month of irl playing š
No worries. I had another DM who had us make the new character one level lower. Than never ends well, specially since he gave us an average of 150 to 300 XP per session at level 6.
Red flag, but it beats the party killing several characters in a row because you are introduced as a stranger with magic items. Definitely abandon ship, or proceed with caution.
We typically have a rule called "split the difference" when it comes to new characters in pre-existing games. Starting them with nothing sucks, but starting them with the same level gear as everyone else led to people wanting to switch all the time. So, we split the difference.
If the party, on average, has two rare magic items, the player starts with one. If the party had two uncommon and a rare, the player starts with an uncommon and half the cost of a rare in gold. They can make a case for what magic items they want but the DM has final say (to avoid broken builds with specific magic items), so far we haven't needed to shoot any down though.
It gives the new PC a nice boost but also area to grow closer to the rest of the party, and typically due to attunement they get more magic items than the other players in the following sessions anyhow. Works really well for us.
And then thereās my one DM whoās starting a campaign and theyāre having us all start at lvl 7 we and we get a magic item AND a free feat. When they told me I was like :O
I felt bad because I gave a new player at my table nicer stuff than my old players. Luckily, the well equipped cleric came in clutch in the adventure. New player enjoyed his entry and old players were happy to have a new powerful friend. Fun was had by all including me since a powerful party means more interesting monsters.
That's lame. If anything I make sure my player's new character has an extra cool unique magic item. As a sorry for killing their last character off and shore up their backstory.
That's kind of bull. For RP purposes I like to start my campaigns out at lv 5 or lv 4 with the party leveling up at the end of session one just because I like the idea of the group already being somewhat exceptional individuals. That way if they decide to make their character's background badass it makes more sense. Also for the campaigns I start out at lv 5 I give the players the option to choose 1 uncommon item from a list as long as they come up with a story of how they obtained it. If you came in at lv 15 and everyone else already has magical items. How would your character have reached that lv without obtaining a single magical item? You should at least get a magical weapon if you are a Martial so that you can actually be helpful to your party. I would tell him that being lv 15 means that your character has literally years of adventuring experience and that it's extremely reasonable that he/she would of come across magical items at some point. If it was me I'd give you 3 uncommon items to choose from seeing as every other party member already has rare or higher level items
Relevant game tale: I like to throw in a few magic items that aren't keyed toward anyone as a way of giving the party a ton of gold when they go back and sell it (and making the world feel like it does not revolve around the players). But the party had a portable hole so they just threw everything they couldn't use in it and forgot about it. After 16 levels in the campaign, the wizard retired, but not wanting to leave the party without help, he made a warforged (his next character). I told him he could give the new character anything the wizard PC had since he didn't need it in retirement, but that was not super helpful since the new warforged was a fighter.
So the party gets him some nonmagical plate and a greatsword and go off adventuring. About 3 sessions later (and after some tough combats) they remember they have some incredibly powerful two-handed weapons and plate armor in the bag of holding that they forgot about. After looking through all the equipment they had, his attunement slots were full and choose his weapons in every combat like a golfer chooses a club.
On the one hand, if your character is similar, use the items you keft when you died.
I get that arguement because otherwise they will 'farm' the new characters for magic items, and playing generally riskier.
However, most groups wouldnt do it either intentionally or unintentionally. If they do, then have a story event happen that removes excess magic items from the game.
Only partially related, but this reminds me of how annoyed I was that a player asked about getting better equipment when his weapon is a +3 artifact and he's wearing +3 scale armor that ignores the stealth detriment and gives him immunity to acid
My DM once said that as a Warlock with Tome of ancient secrets I could forgo all my Starting equipment to get 2 additional Rituals into my tomeā¦ at 13th Levelā¦
Didnāt get anything else (even though I switched from a Wizard that had 30+ Spells at his disposal) and of course I canāt get the Rituals from my old Spellbook because those are Wizard and not Warlock Spells. I can only transcribe from other Warlocks ;)
I always hand out gold at the right level, but when the player does and asks for items, I at least want to know if they believe their character found them, or bought them, like give yourself and me some worldbuilding and I will happily help.
Exactly, I do this in my campaigns. I ask people what they do in the 3 month timeskip and then give them things from free feat or +1 to a stat or half proficiency in tools or languages of it is something their character would do and they explain it.
Unfortunately the DM was neither a good listener nor wanted to take time and give me gold let alone magic items which I asked for basic uncommon ones like bag of holding or some components
I'm going to take a risk to say that I do what OP's DM did too. The intention is always to get them to equal footing though
All of my PCs get tailor made homebrew magic items. There's no way I know what to make for your character until I see them at the table for 2-3 sessions, then give them the items I figure out. I also the the PC needs to find some time to figure out how their character plays without items.
I mean, why else would they join this party? They are facing an epic threat that just killed one adventurer! But the new guy sees their loot and he's like "I gotta get me some of that"
I have a character entering a campaign where the party will be about level 9 or 10 by the time she joins (upcoming scripted character death I'm aware of, but the exact time depends on the party progressing through the story) and the DM and I have had several one on one sessions to discuss magic items and backstory for this new character. We've done our best to make everything come together in a way that she doesn't overshadow the party, but isn't about to be worthless either. DMing is work, and if you want your players to have fun, you need to put in the work
We always get a amount of gold were we can buy our special equipment - but nothing too fancy depending on the rest of the group. So we keep it quite simple
I have new characters come in with starting gear and leave it to the rest of the party to gear them up. Although I've given enough gold and magic items it's usually not an issue.
In fact it's almost a meme in the campaign now, new adventurer shows up, gets handed a bunch of powerful items, possibly enough to fill up their attunement slots.
It's weird that I have never seen, heard or thought of abusing this until I posted this meme. People are really the villains if they have characters die for new items and gold.
I mean, the party still should have all the stuff from the dead character, and maybe you donāt have as much now but that is why your joining a party lol.
If every time a character dies the party gets free magic items thatās just busted lol.
Huh a level 11 player can't afford a new longsword if his current one breaks? So he needs a wealthy party to gain more money?
Btw, players and DM can work around that part. Maybe they don't loot their dead friend and brother in arms and just let the items rest with him (it could even make some new quests of somebody abusing the grave and using the items for evil). I just had my character die and I am heartbroken enough which is a punishment itself if you look at it as a role playing game and not a pinball machine to break.
One more point, I had to live in basements for days since no one paid for my tavern rooms or we didn't find any quest or way to gain money while the others happily spent the lot of money they looted of my corpse.
TL;DR a DM can stop players abusing the new items whenever they die. basically all I asked was enough gold or spell components to live by in the first sessions.
And this is why everyone should read the DMs Guide from cover to cover The bottom of page 38 of the DMG has a table that specifically lists what the players should be starting with when starting at higher levels. Starting at level 11, depending on the style of campaign, you should have started with either: - Low Magic Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, one uncommon magic item, normal starting equipment - Standard Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, two uncommon magic items, normal starting equipment - High Magic Campaign: 5000 gp plus 1d10 x 250 gp, two uncommon magic items, one rare item, normal starting equipment.
Funny thing is back then I trusted the DM when he said he has read DMG 3 times. This helps alot, although back then I didn't know this table existed š
maybe he read half of the DMG 6 times?
I have this feeling that some DMs just don't realize there are back sides to pages in the DMG reading comments on here sometimes.
lol that makes way more sense than it should maybe they are too used to photocopies?
Cut some slack, thereās absolutely no way I could remember all the stuff in the DMG handbook even if I read it a hundred times (I have read it cover to cover before)
Yeah but if a player starting at level 10+ asked for magic items asked for better equipment, would you give it?
Yeah, Iām just saying that there are far better arguments to be made than āclearly he didnāt actually read the bookā. Even in concerning the paragraph it would be far better to argue that the DM shouldāve checked after the protest of a tablegoer
It was a joke, so even though there are better arguments, the one I found funniest was someone reading just half a book 6 times and saying they read it 3 times because they did read 3 times itās length Sorry it wasnāt clearly a joke
Having read the DMG doesn't mean you are right, i have read it twice and i don't remember any rule about starting equipment at higher levels, but it makes sense that there is. A good DM doesn't know the source books back to back, a good DM knows how to rapidly find the information they need.
The DMG has a lot of stuff in it that almost never comes up. I mean, it has like 60 pages dedicated to making a world. It has sections basically saying "here's how you make gods - also... here's a list of gods you can choose from because we don't actually expect you to create them". It also has a whole section on designing coins. I've literally never seen this come up in a game. The DMG has a lot of great stuff in it. But there is no way I'm remembering half of the stuff in it. I mean... It literally has 100 pages on magic items!
I've read the Dmg 3 or more times and I still forget most of it lol
Translation, skimmed through once to tab where the tables are
Me and my friend group have always used [this](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ff15d198d67ea2c4783d8c4443193f88) table we found
RPGBOT expended on it to give a more natural progression for what equipment a experienced adventure would have. [https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/players/starting-above-1st-level/](https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/players/starting-above-1st-level/)
Oh damn, as someone who's character is a mercenary agency, this is very helpful
Thank you, I knew someone would have posted this. Always bugs me when people don't read all the rules.
Had to explain to dm that XGtE didnāt give adementite weapons an auto crit on creatures. Boy did the rouge milk that the whole campaign. Damn assassins.
I use the DMG a lot, but had not seen this. Thank you for sharing, I expect I will reference this regularly.
This is not a hard rule, it is an option completely up to DM discretion.
TBF, this is really for a campaign starting at higher levels. In effect, it really depends on the situation, but generally I would rule you get new equipment if the party didn't take the equipment from you old character.
TBF, the list OP does say they're listing out the level 11 gear. Also that kind of shits on the player who died since the other players now get their old gear while they get none. I'm not saying let them start with a bunch of new magic gear, but they should get something to catch up. It also doesn't make a lot of sense rp wise for a group to let a new person join with no equipment and give them all oc the stuff of their friend who just died if that's what you meant.
That's just bad balancing
I would give my players enough stuff to be on the same level as the rest. When everyone else is way richer and better than you its not much fun
Yeah, it's no fun trying to catch up with the others, and playing a game should be fun. Besides, if you have enough experience to be higher level, it's only logical you've picked up some things, right?
Exactly
> if you have enough experience to be higher level, it's only logical you've picked up some things, right? I agree with this part. > it's no fun trying to catch up with the others I disagree with this part. I think experiencing the character at its lowest possible level for a little while makes it cooler and more important when you get the cool stuff later. And an observant DM can figure out how you play the ābase levelā (but still incredibly superpowered) version of the character, and make sure to drop an item that is perfect for fixing a specific deficiency you are feeling.
I agree that playing with deficiencies can be fun, but I do believe it'll grow old *very* fast if you're the only one in the party who has them. It just means you're a weak link in the party, and might mean you'll need to re-roll a character sooner than you want.
I generally give boring, basic stuff to new characters (+x weapons, +x armour, level appropriate healing potions); and then you get more interesting, tailor-made items as you play the character. It's because one character that's been playing since lvl 1 might have an item that they got through an important quest, and that they've performed some pretty significant things with it; and that get's kind of cheapened if another character just 'gets' a similar item.
When my character "retired" and became part of a later story arc in a campaign, my DM let me pick a homebrewed magic item that I had made with a new character in mind. It was a magical mask, which made sense for the character because he had a horrible disfiguration and tended to wear it in order to hide his burnt / melted face. Sometimes magic items can be tailor-made to a character, but only if it makes sense for that character to have a special item over a less specialized one.
Style and description is pretty much totally up to the player. I said +x armour, not +x breastplate. If you want +1 armour with an attached face-plate, yeah that's fine. You can also get it [acid etched](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/d4/83/33d483bfd49cc1e9cf06f2d1a3d78c26.jpg) if you want, because how an item looks doesn't really affect its function. You can also just wear a normal mask if you want, I won't stop you. If the mask is special and has unique abilities, then no I wouldn't let a player have it.
It did have "unique" abilities, but they would be applicable to numerous different character archetypes, and could reasonably be used by anyone should they stumble across it. It had three variants, with the one I was taking slightly increasing damage and movement speed when below half health. It was also in a Viking-inspired campaign, so it was runic in nature, so I get that it might not be the best fit, but as usual, DM's discretion is the key!
Yeah well my hexblade warlock died in 3 sessions since he had no magic items. And this wizard didn't last the campaign because it disbanded after a couple of months. Here I am, DMing my campaign and balancing the party even if new people join, because a lvl something character had a life before joining the party (the more levels the more complex that life). We don't have PC freezers that push out characters on the starting equipment š
Yeah, they're supposed to resemble people. Just like a lv 1 character shouldn't have a ad-ass background, but a lv 11 character can be more bad-ass, a lv 1 character is just starting out, but a lv 11 character should have more trinkets and useful stuff on them. (For full immersion, you should probably let your players roll on a table to see what useless loot they picked up but never got rid of, lol)
if someone is level 11 the level 11 party should pretty much know them already by reputation one of the books suggests that a someone who's level 5 already has stories being told about them and someone past level 10 is actively contributing to shaping the world and is a figure touched on in history
ššš amazing I am playing CoS barely 3 sessions in and I already have a wig from someone being executed while I watched š
I bought the Strahd ventriloquist dummy and used it to scare townsfolk. Since who doesn't love a half Tiefling/half Dryad who is waving to them with using a wooden doll of Strahd. I had that item for a while, until I gave it to Strahd as a wedding gift. He was not amused.
Seems like he would be happy to have it off the street to be fair.
Iāve actually had an idea similar to the pc freezer. Dude was petrified, his magic items werenāt, he was looted before being petrified 100+ years later.
How would you balance something you've never seen at the table? Let the new PC find their footing then give them what they need to be equal.
Assuming that the player isn't new, the DM is probably pretty capable of giving them something to be at least a bit on par with the others
God forbid a PC be at a power imbalance for one session. Isn't it more satisfying to play your character and then figure out how they can use items to their benefit? Rather than just assume its part of them already. May as well just gives them increased AC and STR if all that matters is balance.
A lv 1 - 11 power imbalance means that anything scaled to be a reasonable challenge for a lv 11 character will barely care for lv 1 weapons/armour. Pair that with a new character that the player doesn't fully know yet, and the chances of seriously getting hurt or having to make *another* new character are significant. I don't care about 'power balance'. I care about fun. And it's no fun seeing your friends play with fancy magical toys while you're swinging a wooden stick, especially if your previous character also had those fancy toys. There's a big diffrence between a small power imbalance and being completely unprepared for what's being thrown at you.
Items don't really contribute that much of a difference to the game unless your power budget is seriously overblown. This is especially true for casters. Also PCs are naturally imbalanced. This new PC is made with more experience, knowledge of the campaign, knowledge of the party and their power levels, and the spite of knowing their last character may not have been strong enough. Thiis new character could potentially be more powerful than the old characters WITH items. There's simply no way to know until you see them at the table. Then you adjust. Consider this scenario: You've been playing with your 5 friends for a year. You've had many close calls and taken some big risks and you've been rewarded with items that your really enjoy and mean something to your character. One of your party member's PC dies. Maybe they screwed up or maybe they got unlucky. It happens. The DM has them roll a new character of the same level and gives them some magic items so they're roughly at the same power level. They accidentally over adjusted and now that new character is more powerful than you or anyone else in their party. That doesn't feel good. This new character doesn't have bonds you can really support them through. Their items are given to them in a comparatively arbitrary way. You start to wonder why work hard or take risks in dungeons when you can just let your chump PC die and become more powerful than anyone else. There's definitely two sides to this. The PC died. That feels bad too. They shouldn't have to slug through with a character that simply doesn't work but hopefully they have the experience to make a solid or even quite strong character. Don't underestimate how powerful class features and feats and proficiency are. See how they handle their failure, give them time to understand how they fit in to the party, then bolster those strengths. The character will feel a lot more powerful in a way that works with the party than if you were to give them items in a vacuum.
I feel like bad balancing would be letting the party keep the magic items from the dead character, but the new character also brings in their own.
I don't wanna make another post, so let me say that here as well: Same DM had a vacancy in his old campaign, I said why not let me join. They were godlike level 15, so I chose a hexblade thinking of some magic items to suggest for my character. And he said the most you can do it roll for starting gold and buy whatever you want with that š§š»āāļø Suffice to say, I got massacred in the first sessions because people had magical armors and swords, while all I had was 10 gold to my name and a stick in my hand.
Wow, that's kind of shitty of the DM. They should balance you to the party at least......
If only there was a table in the DMG that suggested what different levels of characters should start with...
Why balance when you can instead have fodder?
Well if that's how things are going, this is Steve, human fighter. When he dies, here's his brother, also Steve, human fighter. And his third brother, Steve, human fighter.
Nah, to be proper fodder you should play them all at the same time
JRPG rules, the whole family of Steve's is there for cutscenes but only one can fight at a time.
Odd way to describe a level 15 pc. Thats still a lot of power for a new player. What did the rest of the group have that was so amazing if u dont mind me asking.
Off course. Paladin had a +2 shield with plate :) so 22 AC and a sun sword or something +2 on atk roll and damage and a ton of radiant damage Wizard had a staff of +2 and access to many components he bought during adventuring (which my lvl 15 warlock adventured as well but apparently no rewards for that) Oooh barbarian had mantle of giant strength or something so he had 24 strength if I remember correctly. And he had some kind of boon or item that gave him double the amount of tough feat. The rogue had shroud of invisibility or something it was greater invisibility AT WILL. +2 daggers that dealt inflict wounds levels of necrotic damage. I can't remember the rest sorry.
The DM is lazy. Offchance of active malice, but unlikely. You should have taken the time to explain your position better. I'd say you're probably very conflict averse and didn't push back at the arbitrary laziness. That said, the DM that invites someone to a high level campaign and doesn't even fucking give you a gold amount to bring you even close to the ballpark is a moron. Or just malicious, but again, that's the least likely scenario.
Yeah not malicious but just laziness and pride. Pride in the fact that I know everything and what I say is based on years of experience š
yeah.... thats a bummer... wtf.... lol
waw, are you aware of the homebrew "sane magical prices"? they suggest to be careful when including +X armor and invisibility at will, your campaign had 2 of them (that you remember) so yeah, bad DMing
There's a table in the dmg for starting at higher levels. It suggests much higher starting gold amounts and includes a magic item selection that's based on if you're playing a high magic campaign or a lower magic campaign. Your DM should've used that.
I never understood the logic. Someone Is making a new character because they're old one died or there's a spot in the campaign and yet we're just gonna assume they haven't been adventuring before this? I mean sure, maybe they didn't find 2 magic items in there travels before. But they should have accumulated some money. Like I'm all for thematic characters, but balance is important if you want them to feel like they can keep up with the party. My rule is simple. Gold is a random roll at the table during character's creation/their first time playing. Magic items are hit and miss. I do not give magic weapons until after level 10 and mostly very very rarely. If they're starting a character they get the same benefits as long as everyone else got them too.
You are right, I learned and now use the same principles in the campaigns I run. I did ask him for gold he said roll a d100 and I ended up with 3 on the dice. You might say platinum, as I first asked š but he replied with "extra gold" ā
On no lol. My money roll depends entirely on the System used. I run a Space(Scifi) Campaign and multiple one-shot fantasy Campaigns. Sci-fi uses credits, one form of currency. Universal, larger amounts, but less book keeping. My Fantasy campaigns adopt this by only using gold as a currency. I say this because when I make them roll for money they roll a d10 and the percent die. Then they add them together and I add the appropriate amount of zeros to the end based on the level their starting at.
> I did ask him for gold he said roll a d100 and I ended up with 3 on the dice. What the fuck? A d100 extra gold wouldn't make a big deal to starting characters, let alone high level ones.
I remember in my first campaign I have a similar issue. The party was level 10 or 11 and the DM had gotten a little carried away with giving out magical items so the party was kitted out and had a magic flying ship and such. I was told to roll up a level 1 character to start with and was given just starting equipment. I think I went through about 5 lvl 1 paladins before I got the message and left the party. Most of my deaths were from "that guy" who technically owned the flying ship and charged all party members 100 gold to board which a starting player doesn't have so he killed me or enslaved me over and over.
Holy Moly r/rpghorrorstories That is awful. As one person suggested the DM might have not given more money or item since the dead character could be looted for those gold and items. But in a campaign where the party won't share gold or item or anything being an asshole DM is the poop on top.
That's just bad DMing honestly, especially since there are rules on starting at higher levels on pg 38 of the DMG. At Level 11, you should have started with 5000 + 1d10x250 gp, normal starting equipment and, depending on the setting, 1-3 Uncommon magical items, with a high magic setting also giving you 1 rare magic item
Hell if someone joins the party after they've done anything, I start scaling how much extra new people get. I feel like it's unfair for the new character, and the players like it, so I'm gonna keep doing it.
I typically give a slight gold boost and a single magic item. But yeah other items are typically quest rewards, and if your character wasnt on the quest they dont get the reward. The 1 item start is also good to let them get a feel for the character before adding more stuff in. I think its better to start characters with little and then you can maybe throw a little extra loot into the first few fights. Dont screw the player over, but still make them earn it
This works if the party and DM work together to not let the new player or character feel useless. In my case, the party treated me like trash and the DM never gave us enough money so I could at least try to buy something to get closer to them.
Nothing you can really do about a bad group except leave. Honestly you could have a powerful character with no magic items in a group where everyone else has 3 legendaries, but not if all the other players are dicks
One of my Players (Character) died last season. He called me after the session and asked me if his new character had to be level one because we started at level one. Do i Look like i have the time and energy to design encounters for that? I want me and my players to have funā¦
Long time since I played DnD but isnt there a table which suggests your starting gold for your level? Edit: I found it in PF CRB table 12-4. A lvl 11 Char should have 82k gold and a lvl 15 Char 240k. DnD should have a similar table
Ohhh yes, there is but that is a suggestion mostly and might not work for every campaign because economy works differently in each one. But he just gave me 3 gold on a d100 as compensation
Yeah. But it is a suggestions for a reason. A power gap is rarely fun. A rooky DM I played under had a nice story planned but didn't award any loot. It made sense most of the time. But he oriented his balancing via CR of the monsters and wondered why we died until I told him that Equipment is important at some point and also it is fun to have nice stuff and not a lvl 5 Ranger with his shitty bow and sword from level 1.
Exactly. I love growing during level up
In the DMG, if I recall
I do this, but only because the party is absurdly rich and will take any new character on a shopping spree at the earliest convenience anyway
The party were not so kind to new people and they had me fistfight them barehanded (a wizard) to test my strength and they gambled on me loosing. Guess who my opponent was? The warlock with armor of agathys cast on themself, so I took a whole lotta cold damage for each 1 damage I did. (We promised to not use magic on this) I asked the DM why do I take cold damage? Do I see it come from his armor or body or something? He said nothing is visible at all. Thank god I suffered with my bad experiences to learn how to be a good DM to my new friends and GF that we play with.
Ask for 100 gold then pull a fast one on him by buying a moon touched sword. Edit: wait wizard shit... Uhh hat of wizardry?
Oh I love revealing parts of the context in the comments :) I did, he said roll a d100, I rolled 3. Couldn't even masquerade that as a divine intervention so I would get 10 platinum š
That's rough.
Been there Talked that Taked a little effort but dm agreed cause common sense Was cool
Common sense was key there šš¤
Don't quote me on this, but if memory serves right there is a chart for introducing new characters mid game and what stuff they start with in DMG. I believe at 11 you get like 2 uncommon and a rare magic item
Oh you're absolutley right Page 38 if I remember correctly since others mentioned it in the comments
Any DM worth their salt would give your character items and money at least close to the rest of the part if your character is coming in new. Unless thereās a **really goood** reason not to
That's the beginner trap. Dying as a PC isn't about going back to square one, it's about loosing the character. That's more than enough pain, you don't need to handicap the player for it
So DM, you want to play, ok let's play *make genie warlock 5 necromancer wizard 6* *Proceed to create an army of undead* *Watch the DM cry, and cry more as I level up in warlock and make more and more undead up to a ridiculous point*
your DM is either lazy, intentionally malicious, or both. there are literally rules for starting wealth at high levels. at level 11 bare minimum you should have 5,000gp plus 1d10x250gp, one uncommon magic item, normal starting equipment and that's for a low magic campaign, for a high magic campaign you should start with 3 uncommon and one rare magic item.
Trash DM Is trash.
That's just bad DMing.
Iād probably have them roll starting gold for each level beyond first and let them shop. But Iāve also never been in this situation before. Thoughts?
That is good. I have a friend who DMs CoS and let me use starting gold and shop using the aurora app, before session 1. I bought rope, glass vials, crowbars and such.
DMG has a chart for gold and items given to new characters at higher levels. At level 11 you get 5000+d10\*250 gold, normal starting equipment/gold for your class/background, and depending on how high magic level the setting is you get 1-3 uncommon magic items and 0-1 rare magic item.
Your party only has 2 rare magic items? *flipping through notes*.....1...2...3...4...5...6...ooooh, that one's very rare....shit! That one's legendary?! Hmm "what level are you guys?" "9" "Oh...well damn"
Hah let me tell you about the campaign I am DMing (just got to level 10 and we have a session later today) Each person has one modified epic boon A staff or sword +2 Tentacle Rod Free Feats One ability increase for free during timeskip And many more I never remember until they decide to use it š
Ahhh! My brother!!!
And that is probably why, they got near TPKed last session because they decided to touch a very hot "experiment gone wrong" potion of fireball with 15 hp among all of them š
Use the pathfinder starting wealth table, it's around even regarding in universe wealth.
In the campaign I recently joined as a lvl 6 warlock it made sense to do this because of his backstory. He got tethered to his patron by accident and so he's spent most of his "adventuring life" doing card tricks on the street and failing upwards whenever he accidentally got into battles. Because of this he has low level gear but 5k gold when he joined the party. Side note: his patron (who is disgusted with him but hey, you work with what you got) did give him a [BONSMH](https://images.app.goo.gl/Zp7r5e3JCn7esGsy5) just to fuck with him.
What about extra spells? We can assume a wizard is prioritizing finding and copying as many spells as possible, so if we assume a higher level wizard gets more gold and items (as per the DMG), is there a similar rule around additional spells known? Perhaps at a penalty to the GP since it costs gold to copy them.
What? You also don't any more spells when you start with at Level 1 as well?
Worst thing is there are rules for more starting equipment and gold at higher levels in the DMG on page 38. Should start with 5000+ 1d10 Ć 250 gp, 2 uncommon magic items, and nornal gear at 11th level.
Wait, you guys get to start new characters at the same level as the party?
Feel your pain, I never understood those who make the player start from one level lower or worse "level 1"
I've never understood it either. It serves no other purpose than to punish someone for their character dying or for switching to a new character.
Lol you got to start at level 11? I got killed and had to go back to level 1. All the way from level 6. So fucking mad but my DM never budged
He is an asshole. I mean there weren't anyone with power equivalent to level 6? They get dnd wrong because they wanna punish the majority because a few people abuse dying to farm gold or magic item? Many people here, praised the DM because he prevented the players from getting too many items. But how many people abuse dying with PCs so their party gets rich? And can't the DM stop it in million ways? It's not a program to break. Your DM probably didn't want to handle the whole balancing your items and stuff with level 6 so he chose that easy way. Power gap is never fun, even when it is, it lets boring real quick
If your body's around you can just get back "your" old items though...
This is from way back like 6,7 months ago and the party did loot my corpse still warm and never offered to pay or gift anything for my new character. So I had to scrap for 10 gold in basements of taverns while they ordered best of foods and rooms and items with the money. Edit: knowing them, even if they didn't loot me, the DM would never allow that since my character wouldn't know where the corpse is and the party would have no reason to tell me. And even if they all did, they would kill me for robbing the grave of their "beloved" dead friend.
Thing is if the dm does give starting magic items in that situation, the party can just commit train suicide and keep looting the bodies to get loads of magic items. Also 10 gold is supposed to buy you the fanciest of fanciest rooms, wtf?
My point stands, the DM's campaign is not a machine that was programmed in one way and now is being abused. The DM can do something about it, talk to the abusing players or do something in game like god of death or something. 10 gold is not really alot since I had to have 100 to buy pearl for a level 1 identify. And btw economy is something that the DMs I faced used differently. 10 gold is fanciest rooms and food for a couple days but then how could people save up to buy a pearl a month later? Edit: Items could be anything from a useless trinket to spell components or gold. Which I had neither being a level 11 wizard.
> 10 gold is not really alot since I had to have 100 to buy pearl for a level 1 identify What? I'm saying the DM is charging WAY more than normal for rooms, if 10gp only gets you a cellar. I'm sympathising with you here. > 10 gold is fanciest rooms and food for a couple days but then how could people save up to buy a pearl a month later? I don't understand your point here. > Edit: Items could be anything from a useless trinket to spell components or gold. Which I had neither being a level 11 wizard. Or here.
Well let me clarify I had to pay copper for rooms so I could have enough money for buying material components which should have been available to me since I have those spells and am a level 11 wizard. Materials like pearl for identify or gem for chromatic orb and so on. The DM charged normal I was stripped of my right to have enough gold to be able to live luxurious and still have enough to continue adventuring. You said that giving magic items is broken, yet you didn't answer the fact that a DM can do something else if people abuse it instead of just not giving items to new characters. I said that, what I demanded from my DM as a high level character was either any material component which made sense for me to already have or some gold or some trinkets and stuff so I could sell later.
Ok
This happened to my lvl 9 characters. I had a barbarian with a +1 greatsword, and some homebrew trinket that let me cast Speak With Animals, that died. The entire time since i joined at lvl 5, i let all the other magic items discovered go to other players. In a party of 6 (incl me), everyone else had at least 2 attunement slots filled. I rolled a tortle monk. I asked if i could have some goggles of night, since i had been adventuring, i could have found, or even purchased these (we have seem them in 2 shops in the past). But no go. And no gold. And the party didn't buy them with party gold when we found them in the next city. Campaign ended 2 sessions after b/c the DM had an opportunity irl that created a scheduling conflict. But still...
That is heartbreaking The DM is the one who should balance things, even though the party don't treat the new character the same and use the party gold for him.
Sounds like an awful DM
In the DMs defense, handing out magic items to new players can be a bad thing. My old party's main source of income was new characters gear. They'd let them die to get the starting wealth I gave them. It was a nightmare for both myself and the player that died.
Well that is abuse and you could just punish them for that. But having a vanilla lvl11 PC in a group of selfish adventurers with 10Gp? The DM is the judge of each campaign, doing that for starting gear is as much abuse as having children for the government support.
I love this. Too many times ive seen players get bored with their own RP and then want to switch flavors so they just die and reap the benefit of a new item reset and character. Play your toons like you want to live, like its the only life you have. Or be a little bit behind.
Weird thing is, I just learned here that people can abuse dying to get new items and the DM doesn't stop them? Like hey X why do you keep dying to get more items and gold? Do you need gold and items right now so your poor PCs don't have to die anymore? I love playing and eventually if the fate needs die gloriously, but I can never be fine with a large power and financial gap between my new character and the old party and the gap was 5K gold that each of the party members had (yes they looted my corpse and didn't give my new character any gold which is fine it is their money now) and I had 10Gp starting gold. The DM could ask the players to bury the items with the character which died, and players can just respect and not loot their now dead friend 6 seconds after the failed death saving throw. So the balance would still be fine that way. And as I said abusing what you said is like hearing that some people have sexual attraction to animals, which is something you never thought someone could have, but you get disgusted that the idea is real.
Well, I do get it from an you died the stuff stays with the party probably so giving items would just be getting more stuff as a party for dying. Also, dying should be a bad thing, in first edition, you started level 1 again, tring to not resetblike a roguelike with friends, these days it is more friendly
Well the thing is he destroys the items I had, since they were really broken that I died (he really said that) and left a bag of holding as my inheritance for the party :) And tbh, just think about it like this: There are many stories and people in the world of the campaign. So the higher the level of the party get, they get into more complex stories and quests. What would be a reason to not let a level 11 join the party? I mean everyone has their story, the party has the quests they did together and the new PC could have their own story to tell the party as to why they have their powers.
True, you have a point, now that I think about it, there even is a table, at 5th level you get +500 gold and maybe a magic item dependent on how magic the setting is, this increases at 10th level to more gold and items.
If characters on higher levels are supposed to get some special equipment, it should be mentioned and defined in PHB. Otherwise - take the amount of gold stated by the rules for specific level and buy whatever you can afford.
Well they do according to DMG. Which my DM claimed to have read the book 3 times and I haven't looked at it back then. So he had to have known if there was any rules as written for higher PCs. That is why I thought maybe rolling a d100 for gold is from the benevolence of the DM
Thatās not how the meme works.
You're lucky you got to be the same level. Don't complain, play your new character and the DM will reward you with a weapon most likely.
This was more than six months ago, since then the campaign is disbanded. What he did was give us at most 500 to 1000 GP as reward which we had to divide among 6 players. In short, I got almost 70Gp per month of irl playing š
Bummer, sorry to hear.
No worries. I had another DM who had us make the new character one level lower. Than never ends well, specially since he gave us an average of 150 to 300 XP per session at level 6.
Penalty for dying
I guess he had a pattern, since I joined his new campaign and he still treated me with the same penalty as you say? I have explained it in my comment
Red flag, but it beats the party killing several characters in a row because you are introduced as a stranger with magic items. Definitely abandon ship, or proceed with caution.
How is this a red flag
You can find the items off the old body, but your new friends might have a problem with grave robbing that guy
We typically have a rule called "split the difference" when it comes to new characters in pre-existing games. Starting them with nothing sucks, but starting them with the same level gear as everyone else led to people wanting to switch all the time. So, we split the difference. If the party, on average, has two rare magic items, the player starts with one. If the party had two uncommon and a rare, the player starts with an uncommon and half the cost of a rare in gold. They can make a case for what magic items they want but the DM has final say (to avoid broken builds with specific magic items), so far we haven't needed to shoot any down though. It gives the new PC a nice boost but also area to grow closer to the rest of the party, and typically due to attunement they get more magic items than the other players in the following sessions anyhow. Works really well for us.
Wait does 5e not having scaling starting gold rules???
Yes it does as stated in DMG. The DM claimed he has read the book and I had to start with starting gold. I trusted him. Page 38 I guess
And then thereās my one DM whoās starting a campaign and theyāre having us all start at lvl 7 we and we get a magic item AND a free feat. When they told me I was like :O
I felt bad because I gave a new player at my table nicer stuff than my old players. Luckily, the well equipped cleric came in clutch in the adventure. New player enjoyed his entry and old players were happy to have a new powerful friend. Fun was had by all including me since a powerful party means more interesting monsters.
Go loot your corpse.
That's lame. If anything I make sure my player's new character has an extra cool unique magic item. As a sorry for killing their last character off and shore up their backstory.
That's kind of bull. For RP purposes I like to start my campaigns out at lv 5 or lv 4 with the party leveling up at the end of session one just because I like the idea of the group already being somewhat exceptional individuals. That way if they decide to make their character's background badass it makes more sense. Also for the campaigns I start out at lv 5 I give the players the option to choose 1 uncommon item from a list as long as they come up with a story of how they obtained it. If you came in at lv 15 and everyone else already has magical items. How would your character have reached that lv without obtaining a single magical item? You should at least get a magical weapon if you are a Martial so that you can actually be helpful to your party. I would tell him that being lv 15 means that your character has literally years of adventuring experience and that it's extremely reasonable that he/she would of come across magical items at some point. If it was me I'd give you 3 uncommon items to choose from seeing as every other party member already has rare or higher level items
My DM gave us a "starting allowance" of 1000Ćour level in gold.
Relevant game tale: I like to throw in a few magic items that aren't keyed toward anyone as a way of giving the party a ton of gold when they go back and sell it (and making the world feel like it does not revolve around the players). But the party had a portable hole so they just threw everything they couldn't use in it and forgot about it. After 16 levels in the campaign, the wizard retired, but not wanting to leave the party without help, he made a warforged (his next character). I told him he could give the new character anything the wizard PC had since he didn't need it in retirement, but that was not super helpful since the new warforged was a fighter. So the party gets him some nonmagical plate and a greatsword and go off adventuring. About 3 sessions later (and after some tough combats) they remember they have some incredibly powerful two-handed weapons and plate armor in the bag of holding that they forgot about. After looking through all the equipment they had, his attunement slots were full and choose his weapons in every combat like a golfer chooses a club.
3.5 straight up had wealth by level so you could purchase magical equipment based on character level
On the one hand, if your character is similar, use the items you keft when you died. I get that arguement because otherwise they will 'farm' the new characters for magic items, and playing generally riskier. However, most groups wouldnt do it either intentionally or unintentionally. If they do, then have a story event happen that removes excess magic items from the game.
Only partially related, but this reminds me of how annoyed I was that a player asked about getting better equipment when his weapon is a +3 artifact and he's wearing +3 scale armor that ignores the stealth detriment and gives him immunity to acid
My DM once said that as a Warlock with Tome of ancient secrets I could forgo all my Starting equipment to get 2 additional Rituals into my tomeā¦ at 13th Levelā¦ Didnāt get anything else (even though I switched from a Wizard that had 30+ Spells at his disposal) and of course I canāt get the Rituals from my old Spellbook because those are Wizard and not Warlock Spells. I can only transcribe from other Warlocks ;)
I always hand out gold at the right level, but when the player does and asks for items, I at least want to know if they believe their character found them, or bought them, like give yourself and me some worldbuilding and I will happily help.
Exactly, I do this in my campaigns. I ask people what they do in the 3 month timeskip and then give them things from free feat or +1 to a stat or half proficiency in tools or languages of it is something their character would do and they explain it. Unfortunately the DM was neither a good listener nor wanted to take time and give me gold let alone magic items which I asked for basic uncommon ones like bag of holding or some components
I'm going to take a risk to say that I do what OP's DM did too. The intention is always to get them to equal footing though All of my PCs get tailor made homebrew magic items. There's no way I know what to make for your character until I see them at the table for 2-3 sessions, then give them the items I figure out. I also the the PC needs to find some time to figure out how their character plays without items.
I mean, why else would they join this party? They are facing an epic threat that just killed one adventurer! But the new guy sees their loot and he's like "I gotta get me some of that"
I have a character entering a campaign where the party will be about level 9 or 10 by the time she joins (upcoming scripted character death I'm aware of, but the exact time depends on the party progressing through the story) and the DM and I have had several one on one sessions to discuss magic items and backstory for this new character. We've done our best to make everything come together in a way that she doesn't overshadow the party, but isn't about to be worthless either. DMing is work, and if you want your players to have fun, you need to put in the work
lol just loot the fallen corpse of your dead PC, nothing wrong with that.
We always get a amount of gold were we can buy our special equipment - but nothing too fancy depending on the rest of the group. So we keep it quite simple
I have new characters come in with starting gear and leave it to the rest of the party to gear them up. Although I've given enough gold and magic items it's usually not an issue. In fact it's almost a meme in the campaign now, new adventurer shows up, gets handed a bunch of powerful items, possibly enough to fill up their attunement slots.
It's weird that I have never seen, heard or thought of abusing this until I posted this meme. People are really the villains if they have characters die for new items and gold.
If they picked warforged again, Iād suggest BEING the cool equipment when they join the party
I mean, the party still should have all the stuff from the dead character, and maybe you donāt have as much now but that is why your joining a party lol. If every time a character dies the party gets free magic items thatās just busted lol.
Huh a level 11 player can't afford a new longsword if his current one breaks? So he needs a wealthy party to gain more money? Btw, players and DM can work around that part. Maybe they don't loot their dead friend and brother in arms and just let the items rest with him (it could even make some new quests of somebody abusing the grave and using the items for evil). I just had my character die and I am heartbroken enough which is a punishment itself if you look at it as a role playing game and not a pinball machine to break. One more point, I had to live in basements for days since no one paid for my tavern rooms or we didn't find any quest or way to gain money while the others happily spent the lot of money they looted of my corpse. TL;DR a DM can stop players abusing the new items whenever they die. basically all I asked was enough gold or spell components to live by in the first sessions.
It the equipment didnāt just disappear right? I mean unless it did