New characters, what about gear?

[andr3w1sh]

So here's what's happening: my party of 3 players is well into a campaign and none of them are super happy with their characters (that's a whole other topic so I'm skipping past that) so I have decided to allow everyone refit their characters. They have to keep things like their alignments/deities/race and so forth, all of the RP-flavor kind of stuff, but they can respec their abilities, pick new classes and new feats, and re-allocate skill points.

What is in question, and what I'm reaching out to you guys for help with, is the equipment. The way the campaign has run thus far is that they started as slaves with nothing and have had to find/steal/trade for all of the equipment they have, plus loot drops of course. I don't want to just reset all that and give them the level appropriate starting gold, because honestly it would be way too high for where they are in the campaign. I also want them to keep the cool magic items they've received as gifts and loot. So I'm not sure what to do here. Whether it's take an average gold value of each character and then just give them that to spend on new equipment, or have them all keep their current gear and allow them to trade any items they don't want at full cost for different items. Obviously some classes have no use for things where other classes depend on things. I'm leaning toward the full price exchange idea myself.

Please help, thanks!

[jjcrpntr]

I'd say if you aren't making them reroll new characters, just move stats around redo skills/feats/classes then just have them keep the gear they have.

Or have them be a different group of freed slaves and come up with some nifty magic items that, that group found during their escape.

[Fax Celestis]

Instead of giving them WBL, why not give them GP equal to the market value of the items they currently have?

[Crake]

It sounds like you might want to look at the rebuilding rules from players handbook 2, they cover exactly what you're trying to do with the whole repicking classes, skills, feats and abilities thing, and involves going on a quest (quite short and easy, although travel time may be involved. This can be solved by having some fluff mechanic allow the players to reach the location. A personal favourite of mine has been to run it as part of a dreamscape, but since they're delving quite deep into their psyche, death in the dreamscape means true death, to avoid it being too easy).

As for distributing new loot, the players always have the option to sell their gear and buy new gear, or to trade gear between the party so everyone has what they need, and then sell the rest and go shopping. I wouldn't give the players a completely new set of gear out of the blue, because while character rebuilds can be fluffed quite nicely, having all your gear suddenly re-enchanted with other abilities cuts too deep into the magic item crafting territory. If they really want their own tailored magic items, then suggest to them to pick up some of the crafting feats.

[andr3w1sh]

thx guys, this all helped with my decision. I ended up having them keep their gear and do a swap-meet type exchange at full value instead of the regular half value. Everyone came out with gear they could use or wanted and no one is broken.

[atemu1234]

It's quite simple, really- don't magic mart them. Give them GP, tell them they'll have to buy them at price given in the books, no shenanigandering.