Equipment for higher lvl characters?

[redsand26]

My apologies in advance, I've been driving myself nuts trying to find the rules for equiping higher level characters. Ive been through both the PHB and the DMG and still cannot come up with a page number.

Help before i go insane.

thx

 

[dragon_eater]

Starting at Higher Level, page 143 of the DMG. Look at #7 for choosing equipment and magic items.

 

[redsand26]

Much thanks!

 

[mattdm]

The suggested rules there will probably make sense once the 4E Arms and Equipment Guide/Magic Item Compendium book (to be called Adventurer's Vault, I guess) is out. Right now, I found it an excercise in frustration, as there's relatively few items of any given level. It works better to just calculate the equivalent amount of gold and spend it, with the limitation of only one item of a level one greater than yours and the rest your level or below.

 

[cdrcjsn]

It's relatively easy:

One item of level +1
One item of equivalent level
One item of level -1
Gold equal to the value of one item of level-1 that you can spend on items, rituals or just have as gold.

Make sure to buy:
One armor
One weapon or implement
One neck slot item
Everything else is just gravy.

 

[Kraydak]

It's relatively easy:

One item of level +1
One item of equivalent level
One item of level -1
Gold equal to the value of one item of level-1 that you can spend on items, rituals or just have as gold.

Make sure to buy:
One armor
One weapon or implement
One neck slot item
Everything else is just gravy.

You forgot the "pray you don't need two weapons/implements" step. Dual-wielding rangers, clerics and paladins are ill-served by the above. Some multi-class combos also need multiple weapon/implements (any wizard MC, for example). I'd suggest given a higher level character the above AND any number of implements/weapons of his level needed to add an enhancement bonus for any powers he has (so long as he bought one weapon/implement with his base allotment). A fighter doesn't have any powers that need a magical longbow, so he doesn't get one, but a paladin probably has both Weapon and Implement powers and so should get a freebie holy symbol or weapon.

 

[cdrcjsn]

You forgot the "pray you don't need two weapons/implements" step. Dual-wielding rangers, clerics and paladins are ill-served by the above. Some multi-class combos also need multiple weapon/implements (any wizard MC, for example). I'd suggest given a higher level character the above AND any number of implements/weapons of his level needed to add an enhancement bonus for any powers he has (so long as he bought one weapon/implement with his base allotment). A fighter doesn't have any powers that need a magical longbow, so he doesn't get one, but a paladin probably has both Weapon and Implement powers and so should get a freebie holy symbol or weapon.

I've recently had the opportunity to stat out 40+ characters recently of high heroic/low paragon levels and this isn't as big a problem as you think.

The only difference is that the character that needs multiple weapon/implement types will have to be satisfied by generic enhancement bonus items rather than one with flaming, thundering or whatever.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

You forgot the "pray you don't need two weapons/implements" step. Dual-wielding rangers, clerics and paladins are ill-served by the above.

True enough. But in typical group, where the player with the item hungry PC isn't allowed to bully the table into getting more than his fair share of the wealth, these PCs tend to have some weaker items in use.

In a team with both a cleric and a paladin, for example, the holy symbol of the paladin will almost always be a hand me down from the cleric, obviously enough.

And if a team of 5 only gives 20% of the wealth to a ranger, you can expect his second weapon to be of lesser quality unless the DM is unusually generous in magic items allocation (in which case, what must he give the other PCs in order to not obviously favor one PC over the others?).

In that sense, these rules for high level character just reflect reality.

 

[Destil]

Right, the prices scale so fast that this really isn't a big deal, and you can usually grab your second weapon / implement easily with the extra gold. Even if you need two, we're looking at 2/5th or less penalty vs your primary plus.

This can be a bit of an issue for the worst case: Half-elf Ranger/Cleric with a nice selection of both two-weapon and ranged powers and with an arcane power for their racial, who needs 3 weapons and 2 implements...

 

[Starbuck_II]

You forgot the "pray you don't need two weapons/implements" step. Dual-wielding rangers, clerics and paladins are ill-served by the above. Some multi-class combos also need multiple weapon/implements (any wizard MC, for example). I'd suggest given a higher level character the above AND any number of implements/weapons of his level needed to add an enhancement bonus for any powers he has (so long as he bought one weapon/implement with his base allotment). A fighter doesn't have any powers that need a magical longbow, so he doesn't get one, but a paladin probably has both Weapon and Implement powers and so should get a freebie holy symbol or weapon.

Really, it might be better to convert the 11th or other 10th level item to gold too.
But it mostly works: Say we start level 11 Wizard:
We get a 12, a 11th, and a 10th item plus 10th item money cost (5000).

So we can get say
Bloodthread Armor (10th, 5000 gp), Being knocked to bloodied can happen.
Cloak of Survival (9th, 4, 200 gp),
Gloves of Piercing (3rd, 680 gp),
Boots of Springing (9th, 4, 200)
Bracers of Defense (7th, 2, 600)
Now our implement, I'll go with Orb: Orb of Indispitable Gravity will do (+3 implement bonus to hit). Lv12.


So we get our Twelve: Orb of Indispitable Gravity
We get our 10th: BloodThread Armor (+2AC)
Convering 11th is 9, 000 +5000=14, 000 gp.
We buy:
Cloak of Survival
Gloves pf Piercing
Bracers of Defense
Boots of Springing
Maybe convert rest into residuum with the 1, 400 gp we have left to use with Rituals.

It works pretty good in general.