From meals to torches, adventuring gear is essential to your party’s success. You’re assumed to start with basic clothing, and before your first adventure, you should equip yourself with weapons, armor, and other gear.
Standard Adventurer’s Kit: This kit includes all the items grouped beneath its entry on the table: a backpack, a bedroll, flint and steel, a belt pouch, two sunrods, ten days’ worth of trail rations, 50 feet of hempen rope, and a waterskin.
Ammunition: Arrows come in a quiver that holds thirty, crossbow bolts come in a case that holds twenty, and sling bullets come in a pouch that holds twenty. Ammunition is used up when you fire it from a projectile weapon.
Arcane Implement: Black and white mages use orbs, staffs, or wands as focus items for their spells. Using a non-magical implement confers no benefit. You can purchase a magic implement
to gain an enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls with your arcane powers. A staff implement can also function as a quarterstaff.
Climber’s Kit: This kit includes all the items grouped beneath its entry: a grappling hook, a small hammer, and ten pitons. When you use a climber’s kit, you gain a +2 bonus to Athletics checks for climbing.
Everburning Torch: This torch never stops burning. It sheds magical light but no heat, so you can stow it in a bag or a pouch. You can’t set fire to anything with it.
Journeybread: This magic bread fills the stomach and provides all necessary nutrients with only a few small bites, so you can carry food for a long journey without weighing yourself down.
Ritual Book: Ritual casters use a ritual book to store the rituals they have mastered.
Ritual Components: These items are needed by ritual casters. You purchase as many gil worth of components as you need or can afford.
Spellbook: Black and white mages keep the daily spells, the utility spells, and the rituals they’ve learned in a spellbook.
Sunrod: This minor magic item sheds bright light to a radius of 20 squares for 4 hours before burning out.
Thieves’ Tools: To use the Thievery skill properly, you need the right picks and pries, skeleton keys, clamps, and so on. Thieves’ tools grant a +2 bonus to Thievery checks to open a lock or to disarm a trap.
Carrying, Lifting, and Dragging
Adventurers carry a lot of gear. When that quantity becomes extreme, it might be enough to slow you down and otherwise hamper your capabilities. The amount you carry should rarely be an issue, and you don’t need to calculate the weight your character is hauling around unless it’s likely to matter. More often, you’ll need to know how much weight you can push or drag along the ground—are you strong enough to slide the statue covering the trapdoor? This information is contained in your Strength score. Multiply your Strength score by 10. That’s the weight, in pounds, that you can carry around without penalty. This amount of weight is considered a normal load. Double that number (Strength × 20). That’s the maximum weight you can lift off the ground. If you try to carry that weight, though, you’re slowed. Carrying such a load requires both hands, so you’re not particularly effective while you’re doing so. This amount of weight is considered a heavy load.
Five times your normal load (Strength × 50) is the most weight you can push or drag along the ground. You’re slowed if you try to push or drag more weight than you can carry without penalty, and you can’t push or drag such a heavy load over difficult terrain. This amount of weight is referred to as your maximum drag load. Your DM might rule that you can’t carry certain objects at full speed no matter what your Strength score is, just because they’re so bulky or unwieldy. Your DM can also ask you to make a Strength check to push or to lift something heavy in a stressful situation, such as in the middle of combat.