Interlude: Advancement and Charachterization

From fighting the gladiators, and for role-playing such an interesting session, you have all been awarded 700 XP (now reflected in the session post).

You have of course all been awarded 17,000 gp. There are a number of things you may wish to spend this on. Some things you will want to keep in mind:

• Weapons: If you want to purchase a new mundane (i.e., non-magic) weapon (the kinds found on p. 218 of the Player's Handbook), you will have to actually purchase it this time, unlike when we were first creating charachters and weapons were free.
• Armor: Mundane masterwork armor (the armors listed on p. 214 that are price "special") are not available; the party will need to be much closer to level 16 before these can become available (see p. 212)
• Availability: The items in the Player's Handbook are a list of items that exist, but there is no guarantee the stores in the towns you are in have them in stock, or even know how to get them. As it turns out, the shops in the town you are in don't carry any magic items greater than level 10.
• Usability: Weight still matters. Don't buy more equipment than you can carry. Also, a lot of magic items fit into certain body 'slots.' If you have your feet slot filled, you might not want to buy another item fiting the feet, or else you will have to spend time taking things on and off to use one item or the other.
  
• Thinking Ahead: You might not want to spend all of your money now. There may be other expenses that are going to pop up as time goes on, and who knows how much gp you'll get from the monsters you defeat in the next couple of sessions. Just like in real life, be prepared for a rainy day.
  

I know some of you have already gotten a pretty good handle on what you want to get. If you don't have time to look over this stuff before the session, then that's my fault, and we'll go over it when we get together Thursday night.

Moving out of the nity-grity, I'd like to encourage you to think about your character's backstory; what motivates him/her? You don't have to share it with the group, but I'd like you to share it with me, because I think it will help make the campaign better suited to the type of game you all would like to play. I'm not asking for pages of material either, just a paragraph or two describing who this charachter, what they're after, and interesting tidbits from their past that could be part of future story-lines.

Looking forward to tomorrow!