Oh man, I gotta put these away. No joke, it’s 11:46pm as I write this and not only am I drinking a Pepsi, I’m eating chocolate chips – yea, just plain old chocolate chips. They thought they would be baked into a cookie or something but no, they went right into a cup to be devoured in front of this text. So yea, anyway I’m pretty much twitching at this point… I hope this article makes sense tomorrow…

I miss standard equipment.

While realizing this one day (and glaring accusingly at the Adventurer’s Kit) I thought, “so what’s the problem?” After all, it’s not like the items within the Adventurer’s Kit aren’t listed out, right?

Buying equipment was one of my favorite aspects of character creation back in the day (pre-3.x)… do I have a mirror? check. Rope? check. Sewing thread and needle? Wait, who in the hell needs needles… ehh, who am I kidding… check (what?! you never know who might need stitches!). Again, you can purchase items in 4e the same way as before if you want, one item at a time, taking what you like and skipping what you don’t.

The difference (at least for me) is that these little individual items are no longer important to the game, particularly when the focus of the game is combat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, after all

Our character sheets used to have many lines for equipment, and often times it was right up front with the important aspects of your sheet. I would stare at every single item sometimes, trying to imagine how any one of them might help us out of our current predicament.

“This dragon really has us cornered… how can this needle and thread help me right now??”.

It sounds funny, but so often we would try the craziest things and you know, it worked from time to time!

In 4th Edition, we’re essentially told, “hey, those are there, but just pay 1 price and you get all of the stuff listed”. So we do, but when the going gets tough, we have our powers and our hit points/defenses. Those get the cards, those are in our faces. Items? What items? You wanna do what with it? What would the difficulty be, and if you succeeded, how does that success translate into these numbers everyone else is content to work with? Damnit Weem, why are you making things difficult…

…

What this leads to is ignoring standard equipment almost entirely while in combat, and hand-waving it outside of combat…

DM: “Do you have a grappling hook?”

Player: “Uhhh… I have an adventurers kit I think”

DM: “Yea, ok, sure – roll”

Aside from the fact that the Adventurer’s Kit doesn’t have a grappling hook, we are essentially just blowing off the details with that one phrase. As a DM I’m guilty for sure. If I ask a player if he has an Adventurer’s Kit and he says no… well… whatever, you have one now, why would you not.

“But Weem”, you are thinking, “who cares? My players and I don’t care about those details anymore, they aren’t important.”

That’s cool, and completely legit. You know what, I’m right there with you for the most part – at least when it comes to 4e.

So what is it I am trying to say?

I think we can make standard equipment sexy again (okay, that might be a stretch… let’s shoot for a “great personality”)

Some Ideas

I think it’s not only important to make standard equipment more useful to players in encounters (combat AND skill-related), but to also help the DM make those encounters more dynamic and interesting. Here are some ideas I’ve had…

Equipment-Friendly Environments: As you develop an encounter, take a glance at the equipment list. Consider how certain items might be used in interesting ways. For the encounter, you might write a few quick ideas with an associated difficulty for success, or for thinking of it. For example…

Flask: Could be hung on the wall lever to keep the North door open (Insight DC: 25)

During the encounter, you could call for the Insight check. Whoever succeeds (or perhaps whoever rolled highest in the event of multiple successes) thinks of the idea. And if they don’t have a flask? Well, that’s a bummer for them… next time they are in town they might just buy one! They may even think, “Damn, no flask, but I have 50 feet of rope I could hang on the lever” – either way, you have them thinking about tools that are not weapons. I think of this almost like traps, except where traps are environmental elements trying to KILL the players, these equipment elements can be used to AID them in solving puzzles or defeating an enemy.

By writing these down ahead of time you assure they can be applied to the encounter without delay. Essentially, you are taking a few items and giving them a face in this world of numbers we now require.

Hazardous Equipment: Equipment can aid, but it can also be a hassle. The thing you don’t want to do is make equipment so much of a hassle that the players are over thinking how it is carried, or where, or even if at all.

Today, @Wizards_DnD posted a #dndenc buff that read…

“Another gust of icy wind blasts through the room. PCs’ speed is reduced by 1, but they gain resist 5 cold.”

I really liked this because, while there was a negative, there was also a positive in there. It had me thinking, you could (upon slicing a PC with an enemy’s sword for example) have the following exchange…

DM: “What’s in your bag?”

PC: “The usual stuff… I have an adventurer’s kit”

DM: “Okay. Well, as you are hit, your bag is cut and all of the contents spill out in your square and in a burst 1, so all around you. These squares are now difficult terrain. However, the light from your sunrods, now on the ground, distract all enemies within 2 squares of you until the end of your next turn. Their AC is reduced by 2.”

NPC Bartering: Not everyone wants money. Bartering was once very common, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to have an NPC (who sees the PC’s squirm at his prices for example) ask instead for some of their possessions…

“Tell ya what… you gimme that rope you got there… and the grapplin’ hook the Elf has, and we’ll call it even… sound fair?”

Again, you are highlighting equipment. You indicate that it’s important and develop immersion at the same time. The player might not think about his/her equipment, but that doesn’t mean the world should ignore it.

And so…

I love and miss standard equipment, or at least the prominence it once had in games I played in. If you feel the same, perhaps I may have sparked some ideas you can use. Otherwise, I hope you could get something out of it of some kind.

Thanks for stopping in and reading. Feel free to follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already!

I’ll just leave you with a few quick things if you have the time and are interested…

Some Items NOT in the Adventurer’s Kit

These are a few things players might think their Adventurer’s Kit has, but it doesn’t…

Candle

Chain

Flask

Tent

Thieves Tools

Some Items 4e Doesn’t Have

Here are a few (just a few!) things that some older versions of D&D had that 4e does not have (or I should say, 4e does not list)…

Belt Pouch!

Caltrops!

Canvas

Chalk!

Clothes

Fishhook

Hats

Holy Water

Ink

Iron Spikes

Lock

Manacles

Mirror

Oil

Pot

Sacks

Sealing Wax

Steaks and Mallet

Spyglass!

Vial

Whistle

Related…