How do you figure starting wealth?

[Mark]

As a DM I always involve myself heaveyly in starting wealth. Most of the time it's not the players picking their items, but them telling about their characters and then I assign equipment based on race, geography, and other campaign issues. I don't see starting wealth as a spending spree in the catolog part of the DMG.

Sounds prudent...

 

[Umbran]

The first guy is going to get a lot more utility out of his items than the second guy.

I think what we've got here is a false assumption. Sure, if you're planning to make the game all dungeon crawls killing orcs, there's going to be a big utility difference. But is allowing a concept without much utility into your game doing the player any favors?

If a player comes to me with a focused concept, I as a DM will either make sure that the concept is useful in my game, or strongly discourage the player from going down that particular route. If someone plays a gruff dwarven prospector in my game, then you can bet that his skills will be useful. Which means that those items will also be useful. And thus, he ought to be sticking to similar wealth limitations as everyone else.

 

[Malk]

I think what we've got here is a false assumption. Sure, if you're planning to make the game all dungeon crawls killing orcs, there's going to be a big utility difference. But is allowing a concept without much utility into your game doing the player any favors?

If a player comes to me with a focused concept, I as a DM will either make sure that the concept is useful in my game, or strongly discourage the player from going down that particular route. If someone plays a gruff dwarven prospector in my game, then you can bet that his skills will be useful. Which means that those items will also be useful. And thus, he ought to be sticking to similar wealth limitations as everyone else.

what he said

 

[Uruush]

I think what we've got here is a false assumption. Sure, if you're planning to make the game all dungeon crawls killing orcs, there's going to be a big utility difference. But is allowing a concept without much utility into your game doing the player any favors?

If a player comes to me with a focused concept, I as a DM will either make sure that the concept is useful in my game, or strongly discourage the player from going down that particular route. If someone plays a gruff dwarven prospector in my game, then you can bet that his skills will be useful. Which means that those items will also be useful. And thus, he ought to be sticking to similar wealth limitations as everyone else.

Those are good points. I should have said that in many campaigns the first character is going to get a lot more use out their items than the second. I think my general point still holds though. I understand that there is a formula that arrives at a figure of 10500 for a rod of Metal and Mineral Detection, and a formula that arrives at a figure of 10000 for a Ring of Climbing, improved. I just don't agree with that formula in conjunction with following a strict protocol for determining character wealth because those items (and items like them) have an extremely narrow focus. Regardless of the focus of the campaign, the fellow with the Cloak of Resistance +5 (25,000 gp) is going to be much better off than the gruff dwarven prospector. Well, okay... if the focus of the entire campaign is to find large quantities of adamantium in difficult to reach mountain peaks and bring them down w/o pack animals and there are very few saving throws to make, then the prospector is ahead, but still...

I like your approach as a DM, and I agree with it. I guess my question is, if you are willing for player X to keep his concept, and to provide him with opportunities to help the party by carrying heavy things, finding adamantium, and scaling sheer cliffs, are you also willing to allow him to start with those items in a campaign that begins with 6th level characters? If you answer to that is also "yes," then I really like your style.

 

[Nightfall]

Um, I agree with you but not every one things as intelligently as you do. But regardless, starting gold usage, I always say depends on the setting. For FR stuff, I always use a no more than 45% gp on one item. This way no one goes off and spends like mad.