Starting w/o equipment at 1st level

[Tinker Gnome]

How often do you have PCs start without any equipment other than clothes in your games? Htis is my preffered method as it does at first somewhat limit what they have and allows me to have good encounters to gain equipment they need.

 

[ChristianW]

How often do you have PCs start without any equipment other than clothes in your games? Htis is my preffered method as it does at first somewhat limit what they have and allows me to have good encounters to gain equipment they need.

That'd be a pretty fun way to play, I think. It'd encourage very careful planning and tactics when facing foes under-armed and unarmored.

Do wizards start with their spellbooks in your games, or clerics with holy symbols?

 

[thalmin]

In my game, they not only don't start with equipment, they don't start with adventuring classes. They start as Slaves (a variation of Commoner). No weapon proficiencies. No feats, just skills (that don't count against their first-level x4 skill points.)
I'm mean.

 

[Mad Mac]

I did a start with no equipment game back in 2nd edition, just for kicks. It was cool for about 2-3 encounters, really.

Honestly, you can loot your average hobgoblin warrior and not be that far behind a typical 1st level character, gear-wise. (Which is exactly what the characters did, as I recall...)

 

[interwyrm]

Of course, the characters can pretty easily acquire clubs or quarterstaves, assuming there are forests.

 

[sydbar]

And half-ogres can use the bodies of the guards as a club, i know because it happend to one of the groups i was in, during a 2nd ed game a few years ago.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

That'd be a pretty fun way to play, I think. It'd encourage very careful planning and tactics when facing foes under-armed and unarmored.

Do wizards start with their spellbooks in your games, or clerics with holy symbols?

Yeah, it is fun.

No, they usually do not, but they will find them pretty quick. And I usually have the Wizard or Cleric start out with some basic spells that they still have in their mind.

For insatnce, to get the Wizard a spellbook I had them encounter a minor spellcaster that ambushed the party. It was a Spider Goblin Thingy in a tree, it had trapped the part using it spell-lile ability that allows it to use the web spell. But some of them managed to escape, the Paladin then charged the tree which he had hidden himself on(he had gone invisible) and then they managed to find him a do a coup de grace. Oh yeah, and while the part was trapped in the web the Spider Goblin had cast a fire spell on the web, so they had to find a way to get out pretty quickly.

 

[JediSoth]

This approach works fine unless the DM is a stingy treasure-giver. When you're a few XP from 2nd level, you're on your 3rd session and you're a fighter still in leather armor using a club, it starts getting old.

I dislike games that take my character concept and completely nullify it from the beginning. I had someone describe a sea-based game to me, so I made a sailor, and it started off by shipwrecking us with no equipment. We spent the whole campaign on dry land. Had I known, I would have made a different character.

JediSoth

 

[irdeggman]

A friend of mine was (is) planning on doing a one-shot (maybe more) game where PCs start out as slaves w/o anything.


IMO there are great problems for wizards in this scenario. They are pretty much left withuot any class abilities (he was also trying to figure out how to separate the familiar w/o killing it)

Sorcerers, clerics and bards are pretty much fine since they don't have to rely on their spellbooks.

Learning spells from someone else's spell book is not that easy a process.

Wizard Spells and Borrowed Spellbooks
A wizard can use a borrowed spellbook to prepare a spell she already knows and has recorded in her own spellbook, but preparation success is not assured. First, the wizard must decipher the writing in the book (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Once a spell from another spellcaster’s book is deciphered, the reader must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level) to prepare the spell. If the check succeeds, the wizard can prepare the spell. She must repeat the check to prepare the spell again, no matter how many times she has prepared it before. If the check fails, she cannot try to prepare the spell from the same source again until the next day. (However, as explained above, she does not need to repeat a check to decipher the writing.)



ARCANE MAGICAL WRITINGS
To record an arcane spell in written form, a character uses complex notation that describes the magical forces involved in the spell. The writer uses the same system no matter what her native language or culture. However, each character uses the system in her own way. Another person’s magical writing remains incomprehensible to even the most powerful wizard until she takes time to study and decipher it.

To decipher an arcane magical writing (such as a single spell in written form in another’s spellbook or on a scroll), a character must make a Spellcraft check (DC 20 + the spell’s level). If the skill check fails, the character cannot attempt to read that particular spell again until the next day. A read magic spell automatically deciphers a magical writing without a skill check. If the person who created the magical writing is on hand to help the reader, success is also automatic.

Once a character deciphers a particular magical writing, she does not need to decipher it again. Deciphering a magical writing allows the reader to identify the spell and gives some idea of its effects (as explained in the spell description). If the magical writing was a scroll and the reader can cast arcane spells, she can attempt to use the scroll.

Complete Arcane has rules for mastering a foreign spell book DC 25+ highest level spell in book and 1 week.

 

[Mark Hope]

Clothes? You munchkin!!

Although I didn't do it this time around, previous Dark Sun campaigns have started with me telling the players that their characters start with a loincloth and a suntan and nothing else. Oh, and that they're slaves in a wagon that is under attack from 300 marauding Jura-Dai elves.

In the current DS campaign I allowed them to adventure for two or three sessions before enslaving them and taking all their stuff away. Much better that way. It's due to happen again in a couple of sessions...