Dungeon Master Assistance

What equipment do I start with?

Many that are new to this game find equipping their character to be difficult. Even using an on-line tool such as “D&D Beyond” can be confusing.

It’s really fairly simple. First you must choose a class and a background for your character. Here is an example using the 5E version of the Player’s Hand Book to equip a Cleric with an Acolyte background:

-EITHER-
If you want to simply use the standard equipment do this:
1) Go to the “Class Features” section for your chosen class (“Cleric” in this example is on page 57). Look under “Equipment” in this section to find your list of starting equipment.
2) Then go to the section for the background that you have chosen (“Acolyte” in this example is on page 127). Look under “Equipment” in this section to find a list of the rest of your equipment and starting gold pieces.

-OR-
If you would rather select all of your own equipment you can do this:
1) Go to the “STARTING WEALTH BY CLASS” table (on page 143) to determine your starting gold. For a cleric it reads 5d4 x 10gp. You simply roll five 4 sided dice, add the result together and multiply by 10.
2) Go shopping! Using the tables for “Armor”(p. 145), “Weapons”(p. 149), “Adventuring Gear”(p. 150) and “Tools”(p. 154). You can equip your character using your starting gold to purchase what you like. You will not likely want to buy a mount or other animal, tack, harness, drawn vehicle, or any trade goods – but if you do there are tables with prices listed for those as well.

-OR-
If if you want me to do it for you:
1) Go to my post HERE
2) Download a Ready-To-Play first level character sheet for whichever race and class you want to play. If you don’t want to use my sheet, you can just reference the equipment on page 2 to use on your preferred character sheet.

Now your character is equipped to start his first adventure!