OSR OSRIC - how much wealth and magic items should 3rd level characters begin with?

[winemaker81]

Third level is where monsters that can only be hit by magical/silvered weapons come in. Wights, wererats, and the like. So, you should have a couple +1 weapons sprinkled amongst the warrior-types. A low-powered wand of some sort (trap/magic detection, perhaps) with about a dozen charges might be nice for magic-users. A couple single-use potions or protection scrolls would also do some good.

As for money, in a one-off, you should just let them have whatever standard equipment they want off the PHB list.

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[grodog]

In addition to Appendix C @ page 175 DMG, you can also use the rules in Appendix P: Creating a Party on the Spur of the Moment on page 225+. The two systems are different, however, so you may want to play with both to see which results you like better (then you can use your sample parties as rival adventuring groups, of course! ). You can also use Rogues Gallery to help generate PCs or NPCs at the drop of a dime, or, Kellri's fabulous OSRIC-friendly CDD Reference netbooks @ http://kellri.blogspot.com/ (links in right-nav).