Starting at a Higher Level while using Automatic Bonus Progression variant rule

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I am going to be creating a new character for our campaign, in which we are using variant rule Automatic Bonus Progression, and will come in at a higher level (likely 8).

When starting at a higher level there is a table for determining the suggested Character Wealth available at https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=940.

However, I am unsure if this is an appropriate amount of magical starting gear if using the variant rule at https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1357.

This page has a table for the Party Treasure by Level, but nothing for a starting character. There is a possibility of selecting starting wealth in gold, but that may also have to be adjusted to compensate.

Is there anything RAW that I have missed?

Edit: will add that I am creating the only new character, as the others will continue with their existing characters.

Best Answer

As Much Wealth As Your GM Wants*

The Adjusting Items and Treasure section of the Automatic Bonus Progression (ABP) rules say:

With this variant, you can ignore as much of Table 10–9: Party Treasure by Level from the Core Rulebook as you want, though you’ll usually want to provide consistent currency.

That suggests to minimally use the party currency amounts from Table 10-9 (also at that link).

However, it does mention that, at certain levels, absolutely no magic items (e.g. runes) can put the party behind:

If you choose to eliminate runes entirely, this can reduce the PCs’ damage since they won’t have runes like flaming or holy. If you’ve removed nearly all treasure, challenges might become more difficult, even with automatic bonuses.

If your world contains magical gear (for example, if you are playing on Golarion), there are two ways I would approach this as GM:

  1. Hand out loot to the whole party per Table 10-9, ignoring the permanent items column entirely. Any players who want permanent magic items would have to buy them using their starting wealth. For example, a level 4 party of 4 would have 230 gp of wealth (57.5 per PC), 2 4th level consumables, 4 3rd level consumables, 6 2nd level consumables, and 5 1st level consumables.

  2. My preferred approach (since each player can build individually) would actually be to use the Treasure for New Characters table and simply remove 1 permanent item of each level. So a level 4 PC would start with a second level permanent magic item and 30 gold (I would not allow using the lump sum here).

Both of these should be roughly equivalent in power to a normal, non-ABP party - the first method favors consumable magic items, while the second favors permanent magic items. I like the second because it still allows players to start with runes - not a big deal at lower levels, but at 10th level martials would be able to start with some important runes, and casters with a staff.

TL;DR:

You get as many magic items and gold as your GM lets you have. But ABP is worth roughly one permanent magic item per level, so if your GM is looking for balanced suggestions for a world that still has magical items, using the existing treasure tables and removing one permanent magic item of each level per PC should be roughly equivalent.

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