Items

If you gave a creature gear equivalent to a PC, your PCs would gain a huge amount of treasure by defeating a large group of them. Using Table 2–4: Safe Items can help you avoid that. A creature can have a single permanent item of the listed level without issue. For example, if a 6th-level creature has a +1 weapon, that item’s not worth so much that the PCs would be massively rich if they encountered many creatures of that type and sold everything they found. You can give a creature several lower-level items too. Just pay attention to your overall treasure as measured against the guidelines on pages 508–510 of the Core Rulebook. At the lowest levels, a creature can certainly have multiple level 0 items, even though normally a creature should have only one item of the level listed in the Safe Item Level column.

IMPROVISING A CREATURE

As you get more experienced, you might find that you don’t need to build some creatures in advance. In many cases, especially for simple creatures, you can just select values from the relevant tables on the fly and track its HP. When you do, track which value you used as it came up. For instance, let’s say you’re improvising a 2nd-level kobold soldier. When it’s time for initiative, you decide it has moderate Perception and jot down “Per +8.” Your group’s fighter beats it at initiative and attacks. You decide the soldier has high AC—looking at Table 2–5, you see that’s 18—and add this information to your note. The fighter’s Strike hits, and you select the low end of high HP: 36. Well, now it’s 25. Your note says “Per +8, AC 18, HP 25.” If it gets to take a turn, you can give it a Strike then.

Specific creatures or NPCs have more leeway to break these guidelines because you can plan the rest of your adventure’s loot around them. Also, giving a boss villain a powerful magic item makes the fight and its aftermath more interesting.

Safe Item Level

3 or lower	0
4–5	1
6	2 (+1 weapon)
7	3
8	4 (+1 striking weapon)
9	5 (+1 armor)
10	6
11	7
12	8 (+1 resilient armor)
13	9
14	10 (+2 striking weapon)
15	11 (+2 resilient armor)
16	12 (+2 greater striking weapon)
17	13
18	14 (+2 greater resilient armor)
19	15
20	16 (+3 greater striking weapon)
21	17
22	18 (+3 greater resilient armor)
23	19 (+3 major striking weapon)
24	20 (+3 major resilient armor)