Standard Kit

Okay, so you're an adventurer. One would presume that you have equipment and so forth that you would consider pretty much "standard" for that occupation. The proverbial-to-literal D&D standard 10 foot pole. A light source. Some rope. Other things. You could spend a lot of time on this sort of thing when prepping for a session, especially if it's just one part of character generation.

I came up with one way to accomplish this when playing Dark Heresy. I simply gave the players a shit with "standard" gear and a list of other items from which they could choose a limited number. It looked about like this:

Starting Equipment for  Inquisitorial Acolytes

Item	Weight
Backpack (50 kg capacity)	0.5kg
Chrono	-
Rain Cloak	0.5 kg
Micro-bead	-
Lamp	0.5 kg
Manacles	1 kg
Grapnel	2 kg
Basic Weapon/Pistol of choice (Las, SP, Flame, Melee, Shock)	Variable
Belts, scabbards, straps, holsters, bandoliers, maintenance kits, or whatever seems "basic" to the weapons owned by the character.	Variable
Ammo (if appl.): 10 SP clips, 5 Las power packs, or 24 shotgun shells or 5 Frag/Krak grenades	Variable
Armor: May select up to 100 GT worth of armor pieces.
Momento from Homeworld (Roll)
Career Momento (Roll)
5 Ration Packs
5 "Common" or "Abundant" Drugs/Consumables
&Two of the following	*****
-Weapon Upgrade  (melee or ballistic)*
- Auspex/Scanner	0.5 kg
-Auto Quill
- Combitool	1 kg
-Dataslate
-Grapnel	4 kg
-Pict Recorder	0.5 kg
-Psy Focus	-
-Infrared Goggles	0.5 kg
- Multikey	-
-Magnoculars	0.5 kg
-Recoil Glove	0.5 kg
-Vox Caster	4 kg

*May use this to add features, like sights, monomolecular edges, etc., as well as to buy higher (i.e., "good" or "best") quality weapons. If "best" quality weapons selected, or if two weapon upgrades are selected, then they count as both of your "Two of the following."

Looking at that makes me feel like maybe I'd want to do it differently next time. I might, for example, make items worth a certain number of points. Then, depending on the party I'm putting together (0-level, low-, mid- or high-level), I could give them a more extensive list, more or fewer points with which to pick, and so forth. But spending points is like spending money, and could result in a drag on the process of getting ready to kick some ass.

Here's what I think might work. 

Expendables (ammo, rations, etc.).

A character automatically gets 20 units of ammo, 1 week's rations, and 3 torches. 

By expending a General Equipment slot, a character can get another unit of these.

Weapons

Assume that a starting character gets a basic weapon at start, and only one.

Above 1st level, you could add additional weapons, maybe let them choose 1 additional weapon every 2 levels. 

This doesn't mean that the character couldn't buy such a weapon him or her ownself. It's that you're trying to get ready to game, and don't want to fuck around. It's time to rock.

So, make it easy: 1st Level Characters choose 1 weapon. 3rd level can choose 1 more. 5th can choose 1 more.

Clothing/Armor

This is even easier. 

At 1st level you can choose either leather armor or no armor. If you chose no armor, you get to choose 1 additional piece of equipment from any other category. 

At level 3, you can choose chain mail. If you choose a lesser armor or no armor, you get to choose 1 additional piece of equipment from any other category.

At level 5 can choose any armor up to full plate. If you choose to go with chain mail, you get to choose 1 additional piece of equipment from any other category. If you got with leather or lower, you get 2 additional pieces of equipment from any other category.

General Equipment

This category includes everything from  rope to 10 foot poles. As a rule of thumb, this is anything costing 10 sp or less (10 gp if using gold standard)

This category does not include things like thieves' tools, lanterns, apothecary kits, healing supplies, and things we might associate with a class (thieves, clerics, mages) or specialized profession (jewelers, carpenters, etc.).

The 1st level character can choose 3 items from this category, plus 1 item for each level above 1st.

Specialization Item

If a character wants something something special, he or she can get it by sacrificing 2General Equipment slots.

These might include thieves' tools, holy water, a holy symbol, tack and harness for riding an animal.

Optional

Anything that GM thinks makes sense. This could include, for example, a riding animal or beast of burden, some other form of conveyance, etc. Just remember that there are others who (if they  feel they are able) will try to take such things from weaker characters.



So, I'd be interested in what others might make of this. Also, I'm sure this has been done before, elsewhere, so feel free to offer any links to comparable systems.