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GM Core / Chapter 2: Building Games / Building Creatures

Items

Source GM Core pg. 116 2.0
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 the Safe Items table 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 enough 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 Safe Item table below. 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.

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 a powerful magic item makes the fight and its aftermath more interesting.

Table 2–4: Safe Items

Creature LevelSafe Item Level
3 or lower0
4–51
62 (+1 weapon)
73
84 (+1 striking weapon)
95 (+1 armor)
106
117
128 (+1 resilient armor)
139
1410 (+2 striking weapon)
1511 (+2 resilient armor)
1612 (+2 greater striking weapon)
1713
1814 (+2 greater resilient armor)
1915
2016 (+3 greater striking weapon)
2117
2218 (+3 greater resilient armor)
2319 (+3 major striking weapon)
2420 (+3 major resilient armor)