Rules for Creating Character higher than 1st Level

[zlorf]

Hi,

Does anyone have any advice or house rules they use for bring in new character into the campaign? Especially if their starting level is above 1st, ie 10th level.

How do you deal with character wealth, create magic item feats, gold saved, magic items bought...etc?

As the rules are writen, a mage with Create Magic Item feats can make most of their items for 1/2 the price, normally without time restraints. There's pro's and cons, the same Mage starting from 1st lvl could also do the same and even make stuff for the other PC in the party.

Is it feasible for a new character to have 30000gp in gems and then spend it on 2-3 magic items or not spend a large ammount of gold, where a PC starting from 1st, buys cheaper magic items to survive and spends gold on healing, upkeep, potions etc.
I guess the con for the new character is that they dont find magic items from battles, adventuring etc.

Cheers
Z

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Well, you give them wealth based either on the charts in the DMG (character wealth above 1st level) or on the average of what the rest of the party has (if their wealth significantly differs form the norm, the new guy may have a huge (dis-)advantage)

The usual rule is that he may not spend more than 50% of his total wealth on one item (so if the character starts with 40.000, he can't just get a periapt of wisdom +6 for 36.000)

For item creation: Note that this also costs XP, so he'll have to deduct that XP from his total (which might leave him at a lower level than he otherwise would - if they're only 500 XP above 10th-level when he drops in, and he creates stuff for 1000% XP, he'll only be 9th-level)

Beyond that, you might want to give him a limit "no more than items worth X gp may be created by yourself), and of course he must have access to the proper feats and spells (which might mean that he has to pay others to cast the spell for him - don't let the "my friend the cleric cast that spell for me each day for nothing" count).

I would base the max amount of items he can create himself on the down-time the party had so far:

If they were being chased from one spot to the other all the time, with hardly a minute of spare time to heal or write a spell in the spellbook, You might only allow very little crafting.

If they had one dungeon crawl a year for the last 10 years, he may blow all his money on creating items (still subject to XP limits and levels, of course)

Ways to limit his crafting are
total market price
total crafting cost in XP
total crafting cost in materials
Total days used (this could vary wildly depending on what items he makes. giving him 8 days could mean two stat boosters +2 or 8 0-level scrolls.

Finally, make sure that he was even able to create the stuff yet: Minimum caster levels and so on.

 

[cmanos]

Starting Wealth is easy, there is a table for it in the DMG. Don't have the book in front of me at the moment, so I can't say where.

Magic items bought is also easy. Deduct the cost from your starting wealth. Some DM's have a house rule that you can't spend more than a certain amount of gold (most often heard is 1/2 starting wealth) on any one item.

Crafting items......you, as a DM need to decide if you are going to allow this. This gets even hairier when you are talking about artificers from ECS, their craft pool and their ability to retain essence on items. The easy way around it is to say you can only craft after you start the character. The more difficult way is to approve everything the character wants to make. It is your choice. There are no rules govorning it.

 

[starwed]

where a PC starting from 1st, buys cheaper magic items to survive and spends gold on healing, upkeep, potions etc.

Actually, the PC wealth tables are supposed to take this into account.

Some DM's have a house rule that you can't spend more than a certain amount of gold (most often heard is 1/2 starting wealth) on any one item.

I think this "house rule" is actually in the DMG. ^_^ I think your next most expensive item can't be more than 1/4 starting wealth, too. It's supposed to address the concern that a new high level character should have purchased some cheap items along the way.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think this "house rule" is actually in the DMG.

Yes, but as far as I know it's marked as optional.

 

[Darklone]

I do take care the Feats are taken correctly... and I like to see some low level survivability in the char.

 

[GorTeX]

I've seen DM's allow players with crafting feats to buy magical items at 75% of cost (only the ones they could have made of course).

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The interesting thing about the "one-half max wealth" house rules is that an assortment of cheaper items will usually be more powerful than a single more expensive item of the same cost.

You can have five +2 stat enhancers and a +4 stat enhancer for the same price as a single +6 stat enhancer, for instance.

IMO, you're better off limiting higher-level starting PCs by number of items, rather than by cost. Otherwise you risk have characters wearing so much magic that they looks like Christmas trees.

 

[Mistwell]

DMG pg 135 table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level
Char lvl Wealth (gp)
1
2 900
3 2700
4 5400
5 9000
6 13000
7 19000
8 27000
9 36000
10 49000
11 66000
12 88000
13 110000
14 150000
15 200000
16 260000
17 340000
18 440000
19 580000
20 760000

DMG Page 42 under "Making a New Character" it says:

"As a general rule, a new character can spend no more than half her total wealth on any single item, and no more than one quarter the total wealth on consumables such as ammunition, scrolls, potions, wands, or alchemical items."

See also:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050118a

"A reasonable cost for a single item that such a character might own would be somewhere between 10% and 40% of the character's total wealth."

 

[Li Shenron]

The interesting thing about the "one-half max wealth" house rules is that an assortment of cheaper items will usually be more powerful than a single more expensive item of the same cost.

Aboslutely true.

The other interesting thing is that this house rule is regarded by most gamers as a way not to let PC be too powerful