Equipping the Character
Equipping the Character (p.35) 
| The PHB’s approach to starting equipment — roll gold pieces, consult the equipment lists, spend up to the limit — reflects a model in which characters arrive at the table as fresh creations with no history. Oath-Bound characters are not fresh creations. They have a history, a background, and a life already lived before play begins. Session Zero establishes what that life looked like, and equipment follows from it. |
The Session Zero discussion addresses the character’s starting equipment as part of the broader collaborative process. What the character owns, carries, and has access to will be decided by agreement between the player and the GM, informed by the character’s background, station, and the nature of the campaign. A character whose background establishes them as a working soldier arrives with soldier’s equipment. A character with a mercantile background may have more coin and fewer weapons. The fiction drives the inventory, not a starting gold roll.
Starting wealth is determined the same way — an appropriate level of liquid assets to sustain the character in the early stages of play, established collaboratively rather than randomly. The GM sets the baseline for what is appropriate to the campaign, and the player’s background informs the specific amount within that range.
Once play begins, equipment is purchased and sustained through normal in-game interaction with traders, markets, and the economies of the places the character moves through. There is no separate equipment refresh mechanism. What the character can buy, find, or commission is a function of where they are and what they can afford.
The equipment lists in the PHB apply as written as a reference for availability and approximate cost. Pricing is in the local currency of the campaign rather than the PHB’s generic gold piece standard, where the GM has established a specific monetary system.