Starting Equipment

[Marble Dice]

Originally Posted by rdanhenry

Classes should only be given equivalent gear as a "balance" measure if they are assumed to be otherwise equal at level 1. In practice, it will almost always be easier to use an imbalance in the quality of starting gear to balance out difference in the (perceived) strength of the classes at first level.

Ironic, then, that rangers have one of the best starting kits! The mages and rogues seem to get the short end of the stick. Warriors get expensive equipment and a !Berserk, paladins get decent equipment and a ?PFE, priests get some !CSW. Rangers get a good bow, but mages and rogues don't get anything unique. Maybe mages could start with a couple ?Phase and rogues a couple ?DTreasure or something?

Of course, if everyone started with the same kit, you wouldn't need to pawn your weapon to buy a lighter one.

Originally Posted by rdanhenry

I think a Ranger should start armed only with a broken sword.

lol, I can see it now.

argorrn221
posts: 1

how do i fix swod
i am level 22 and cnt' even find bree

[Atarlost]

I suspect the disparity in starting equipment is a lot of what makes some classes better right now. If half your mages get killed by BSVs in town you're not going to think highly of the class.

Consider if everyone started with the first book of each magic type, a quarterstaff, a sling, some pebbles, a shovel, and the universal food and torches. Everyone would sell one book to buy gear. The warrior would sell both, giving him an equipment advantage to make up for his lack of magic, which kind of hurts until detection rods start appearing. Anyone can take that kit into the dungeon and kill stuff.

Or you can just add to every class except ranger a ring of charisma inscribed {balance kludge} with an appropriate pval set at charachter creation.

[Donald Jonker]

Is balance necessarily something to be striven (is that the right past participle?) for? It's all well and good (give rangers a shortbow), but it's so ephemeral, I don't think we should lose any sleep over it. After all, difference unites us, yes?

Mages are an entire different issue. Trying to balance them by giving them good starting equipment is like (to borrow a phrase from the eloquent Gov. Palin) putting lipstick on a pig... unless said gear includes a Ring of Extra SP and a Hat of Decent Attack Spells.

The real goal should be giving players a set of equipment that they don't immediately cash in for something different, so you can head immediately for the stairs. Nothing I hate more than starting off a game with a long bout of shopping.

There was an occasionally insightful thread on this on rgra awhile back in case anyone missed it.

[Monkey Face]

I think the reason people see a disparity in starting equipment is that they compare to older versions when everyone got different equipment. I went from 3.0.6 to 3.1.0, so I'm not sure when it changed, but if you compare the two, mages get exactly what they used to except 100 more gp (and mages have always been the hardest to play at a low level, so they just got comparetively harder). Everyone else now gets an extra WoR, so that's a plus for people not playing ironman. Priests got the biggest benefit by swapping a healing potion for 2 CCW. Since (at least for me) the healing tended to be used before Orb of Draining was obtained and was used while fighting a novice priest or one of Maggot's dogs, a CCW was just as good, so a second one was even better.