Wealth by level and Class Abilities

[Paraxis]

Is there a published rule on using wealth by level from the DMG for balanced play and classes with magic weapons as part of their class, ie Kensi from Complete Warrior, and Samurai from Rokugan or OA?

Was wondering if a 11th level PC Samurai with a +4 katana and say a +3 wakizashi would the cost of those weapons (32K+18K=50K) subtract from the 66,000 gp worth of gear they should have for their level.

I see both sides, on one you must maintain balance in the game and wealth is part of that.
On the other its a class ability and one that they pay XP for (although a small amount).

Same thing goes for casters with craft feats when making higher level characters, whats fair to let them start with and anything they make should it count against expected wealth?

 

[TessarrianDM]

To prevent hard feelings between players, we count everything at full retail value. The only exception is for charged items that have been partially used, such as a wand with 20 charges left. These are calculated by percentage (20 out of 50 charges equals 40% of full price).

 

[cmrscorpio]

To prevent hard feelings between players, we count everything at full retail value.

See, to me, that seems unfair to the character who spent feats on item creation, provided that they pay all costs, including xp which would mean that they start with less xp than the other characters, which usually means that particular character is a lower level.

 

[irdeggman]

What I do is give the players the following:

starting xp (more than the minimum necessary for the "level" I wish to start at)
starting gold

They can then take race/class as they wish.

If they take an item creation feat I allow them to use that money (and their xp) to create those items as if they were doing it normally.

I only use the wealth per level table as a guide and not an absolute anyway.

So a player who creates his own magic items gets them cheaper than buying but loses xp accordingly (and has to have spent feat slots on the item creation feats).

So far this system has worked out fairly well (no objections from my players).