Screw magic items! Lets have a thread about mundane items! What's your favorite simple gear, or the stuff you always...

Screw magic items! Lets have a thread about mundane items! What's your favorite simple gear, or the stuff you always, without fail, remember to pack on your characters? Whats your preferred artisan proficiency? Do you prefer over-packing with every little thing possible, or just the essentials? Do you bother with food, cooking tools, rations, and the like?

Lockpicks. Never leave the den without a kit in my backpack and one up my ass

What use is the pouch of sand in the scholar's pack?

Old style inks weren't quick drying, so they used fine sand to absorb any excess and prevent smearing.

Oh, thats real neat, I love the little details that come with some of the item descriptions. Like the mess kit having everything it needs to cook in one little pack

He's a scholar, not a fighter. Pocket sand is the perfect smoke screen.

What mundane items would be necessary for an upstart merchant character?

Flint and steel/lighter.

Every character. Always. Gotten me out of more scrapes than i will ever care to count

But what if he is a scholar AND a fighter?
>A popular gladiator known for his brutality and strength in battle, but when not in the arena he spends his time studying scholarly works and writing papers on small things he studies, someday hoping to earn enough money to attain admittance into a local college so he can learn greater things

Overpack like hell and always look for some reason to give my character a wagon, an ox or two, and a good assortment of trade goods. I like to play a semi-capable merchant that gets dragged into some adventure or other.

Sometimes, having pounds of salt, herbs, spices, and dried goods goes farther than i thought it would.

I agree with this. I would fill my backpack with more mundane gear than combat gear, and probably go for a mule or a wagon first opportunity I could. I dunno if I would rather play as a merchant or a tradesman though, I might make more money off of roofing and repairing furniture than trying to haggle for trade goods. I once wanted to play a scavenger character who would load his wagon or cart up with any usable garbage he's collected on the road (like dismantling derelict wagons for nails and wood and such) and reselling it.

Though I think it would be fun to play as a merchant who acts as the party's quartermaster.

I always pack soap and caltrops. Ever since I came up with the idea of coating a caltrop field in soap, it's been a recurring strategy. I know another person who tried salt + caltrops but that was more out of spite than my rather silly thinking. I also like carpentry because it allows you to build planks, ladders, barrels, etc. Big gap across a cliff? Build a bridge across it! Wood's cheap enough that even a shitty crafting system can let you put together a bridge if you spec enough. I also tend to pack light if only because if I pack too much it's painting a big target on the sack. Lastly, yes, I do like trying to cook/eat real meals instead of rations forever.

Cookware is vital. Teapots for boiling potentially hazardous water and processing other liquids, frying pans for cooking meat quicker instead of slow roasting it over a fire like an idiot, cups and small utensils and pots are all useful for their own reasons too.

>Big gap across a cliff? Build a bridge across it!
Super idea

In urban settings I've always found it helpful to carry a few wooden wedges, they're great way to instantly block a door. Just drop a wedge, kick it under the door to stop pursuit, block off reinforcements, or slow down an enemy attempting to block your escape.

You can do the same with a handful of forks. When I worked at a restaurant, they always lost the rubber door stops, so they would just stick a fork under the door at the bar and it would hold the door open.

mundane items are shite

give me magic items, 1 per session or I will walk away and never come back

The door is right over there, but it's locked, if you had bought a lockpick or a key you might be able to leave, but you didn't. Mundane items win again.

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Assortments of bottles with various simple contents inside a small compartment is a fetish of mine

user, i dream of the day i could have a use for one of those amazing apothecary's cabinets as well.

Any of the little kits and packs give me boners, I don't know what it is about it, maybe the collection of tools and mundane items all packed comfily into a little box.

I don't know why, but I agree. Is a convenience boner a thing?

Something like that. It just feels really comfy, and like having a complete set of something.

The other day someone was extolling the virtues of a big sack of oatmeal for adventuring, I'll see if I can find it.

Knives are always useful too

A sack and a Rock

Guess what you can't do with a sack and a rock?

>Implying the gladiator isn't already in college and studying for their engineering degree while paying for their college fund on a sports scholarship
>Implying the gladiator won't eventually find himself joining the Harlem Gladiatrotters as his showmanship in the arena reaches impressive levels
>Implying he will not one day laugh derisively at your party

I always bring rope, and yet somehow I never have enough to tie up everyone. The people I play with have a boner for capturing and interrogating people instead of just killing them when we get into scrapes, even when they're clearly LE Kobolds or w/e.

I've taken to carrying a shitload of manacles for the next session, hopefully that'll be enough.

Fishing tackle.

I have a habit of attaching a hook and some line to each of my boots. Good for food and anything you need a pointy thing or a bunch of line for.

>Play Halfling Bard
>DM asks if there's anything I want to bring with me.

A big sack of green glitter.

>WTF? Whatever fine.
>Put points in thrown weapon.
>Assholes approach me in a bar.
>Facefull of glitter, escape.
>Snake crosses my path in the highlands.
>Facefull of glitter, escape.
>Orc Raider comes across our party.
>Facefull of glitter, cleric gets free attack of opportunity as I escape.
>Enemy goes invisible.
>Facefull of glitter, beat his ass.
>Country yokels have stuff for trade but don't understand the concept of money
>Handfull of glitter, they like shiny things.
>Put on a show at the local tavern
>Decorate self in glitter, start a little glam rock.

Is there anything a big bag of glitter can't accomplish?

Ladder.

>two 10 foot poles and enough clubs to arm everyone twice over
never leave home without one!

Rope, Samwise Gamgee style. Rope is game changer in many situations on my table, those fuckers (them players, i mean) are using it in ways i wouldn't ever imagine to be possible.

>soap and caltrops
i assume so people slip and impale themselves even more, right?

Soap stings when it gets in cuts

How would a character that dispels any magic upon contact heal? Aren't potions magical? Is there a mundane way of healing or a science-based way of healing in Pathfinder or D&D?

All of my characters carry several pots filled with Szechuan Sauce.

I usually carry a few flasks of whiskey in any fantasy setting.
Amazing cross cultural bribe.

Hmm. My group tends to switch between systems a lot so it's difficult for me to form a standard inventory-kind of setup

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I meant more along the lines of those old world colleges where a bunch of smart fucks sat around talking about shit rather than modern colleges.

>Is there anything a big bag of glitter can't accomplish?
Not sticking to every god damn thing in a 10 foot radius.

The only way I know of healing in D&D that isn't magic based is healing kits, but that only stabilizes creatures rather than recovers hit points. Possibly get with your DM and discuss it? Cause thats kind of the benefit of magic, to instantly recover damage rather than healing over time

Depending on edition, there's some old mundane healing stuff in 3.5 Shax's Indespensible Haversack or whatever has a breakdown of it somewhere.

I didn't know he made adventuring gear.

Crowbar
Good for getting you into places, and if things go tits up and you get disarmed, you have yourself something to smack with

portable titty simulator

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wtf i love oatmeal now

One of my players always has to get a bag of ball bearings for his pack when we start off. Comes in handy more often than you'd think

I once played an aasimar rogue, and while ball bearings are useful, being able to put a light spell on them at will made them ultra-useful.

Pathfinder has a couple feats that allow for non-magical healing. Skill unlock(heal) allows for rapid healing, albeit only once per day. There are also some alchemical items, I think.

Keeping a low profile on exactly where you've had an encounter of some sort.

I had a character once who got his hands on a marble-sized sphere of hyper-dense, basically neutronium, and his first order of business was to cover it in a layer of the bounciest rubber he could find. I had so much fun with that thing.

Outnumbered and outgunned? Throw super-bouncy ball and watch the chaos unfold.

Walking into an ambush? Throw super-bouncy ball right into it and gank them while they're trying to avoid getting brained by it!

I remember one game of 2e where I actually had to assemble my own kit of complete thieves tools rather thanjust starting with one, since it's not the sort of thing they sell prepacked at the general store.

Just knowing everything that was in it made for a grand time

All characters have a crowbar.

I'm also a fan of alchemical goods.