Equipment Groups As long as people have been making weapons, different cultures have produced different types of armaments. One wouldn’t expect to find an English longbow in ancient Greece, or a samurai’s katana in medieval Venice. Of course, many AD&D campaigns aren’t very “realistic,” but even in the most cosmopolitan settings there will be local standards of technology and preferred weapons and equipment.

It’s always possible for rare or unusual weapons to trickle into an area from outside. For example, if a tribe of jungle savages has been trading with a more advanced culture, it’s quite likely that they may have learned metalworking or at least be armed with steel spearheads and arrowheads they traded for. Despite this, players should try to equip their characters in a reasonable and consistent fashion. A Viking-like barbarian from the far north has no business beginning a campaign equipped with a blowgun, katana, or scimitar. It’s far more reasonable for the character to wear chain mail and carry a throwing axe and long sword. The DM is the final judge of what a character can reasonably expect to be able to find in any particular area.

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