E is for "Equipping Characters"

One of the most time consuming activities that happens at my game table, is players choosing and upgrading their equipment. As part of the “plot” of the campaign, player characters get thrown into a prison camp without any gear, they only have the clothes on their backs. This worked well for a few sessions, as the first forays into the dungeon meant gradual gear upgrades.

The problem turned out to be, that new players joined the campaign and the party, after a large amount of funds and gear had been accumulated. So, after introducing the characters, we spent a good amount of time, gearing them, in the session. There are two factors that exacerbate the issue.

1. A good amount of my players are either entirely new to TTRPGs or at least new to the system we play, so they are unfamiliar with both the gear itself, and with the process of outfitting a character.

2. The list of weapons, armour and adventuring gear is quite long, and it is, al least in the 2e PHB, organised like crap.  You need to look at 2 separate pages for armour type and for AC, the weapons list is so extensive that could be called bloated, and the gear list is both missing essential items and too long at the same time.

I still feel justified, in keeping new characters “gearless,” mostly because a) fits the mood of the campaign and b) if I revert my decision now, I retroactively shaft all the characters that started with no gear before. As long as the party remains in the prison camp, they will start gearless. As soon as they escape and find a new home base/adventuring location, they can their new characters start with gear.

In the meantime, I will try to patchwork 2 solutions. One I have already implemented: I trimmed the gear list and created a neat armour and weapons table. I also cut down on the dumber of polearms and adjusted the list of weapons to better fit my setting. See the screenshots below.

This is my adventuring gear page (to be fair this is not really that trim, I could set the most important items on bold for better visibility):

 

This is my melee weapons page (ranged weapons are unchanged, polearms severly trimmed):

 

This is my armour page; I have converted it to ascending AC and sorted it by bonus and weight:

 

Another thing that might be useful, is some sort of starting equipment pack. Personally, I have taken inspirations from the “Ye Olde Fast Pack” section from the Barrowmaze Referee’s screen. See the screenshot  down below:

 

Let’s hope my solutions prove useful at the table. Thanks for reading!

Next article: “F is for finishing maps”