Community

Feb 4, 2012 -- 7:46PM, Salla wrote:

Feb 4, 2012 -- 7:45PM, EnglishLanguage wrote:

^pretty much my thinking :P. The sun rods though...I don't remmeber my reasoning for buying those since I have a magic sword that can act as a sun rod.

Probably for chucking into a room or down a hall ahead of you.  You probably don't want to do that with your main weapon.

Now that I think about it, I think thta was the exact reason....but then again, magic weapons come back to you.....

Good point. Now I don't feel bad about buying...what, 12 sunrods? More? I'll check in a minute.

Part of the problem with the dagger quote is we don't really know what the context was. If the player's character had a main weapon for combat already, like a sword, and his pregenerated character didn't have some key ability that required him to use a dagger like sneak attack, etc, then there's no reason to assume his character would have a dagger unless the player thought to buy one.

However if, as might be the case, the player's pregenerated character had no weapon the dagger was the obvious choice for the character's weapon then the character should have automatically started the game with a dagger. 

Basically every character should automatically start with the basic equipment needed for them in combat, ie armor and a weapon or implement as appropriate. Making sure player characters have at least the most basic gear they need for combat is, I think, the responsibility of the game and DM, not the player. Equipment beyond that bare minimum would be the player's responibility to buy.



On a related tangent I definitely prefer simplifying bookeeping for mundane gear. For instance as a house rule I usually tell players that while they're in town they can simply add any reasonable piece of mundane equipment they want like a piece of rope, flask of oil, lantern, etc, or a mundane weapon or piece of armor within a reasonable amount of gold. Likewise I don't make them do bookeeping for room and board at local inns, putting their horses in stables, replacing mundane ammo and so on. On the flip side I assume that as they adventure they automatically pick up pieces of mundane equipment like non-magical weapons and armor and selling those items is how they fund buying the mundane stuff above. That way the players and I only need to haggle and keep track of money for the more expensive and important things like magical gear, potions and so on.  To me players shopping and haggling for every little piton and sling bullet and piece of chalk is just a distraction; better to handwave all that shopping, assume player characters are wealthy enough to afford and let them write down whatever gear they want within reason (DM's perogative to veto, like if a player wants to buy 500 daggers).


So if 5e allows me to easily continue hand waving ordinary items I'll be happy. If I have to spend tons of time counting characters' copper while they buy lutes or fuzzy dice or pieces of jerky that will quickly become annoying.