Starter Equipment

In many RPGs The Hero's quest is a long one fraught with danger. So naturally whatever you're doing, you'll want the best equipment available at any given moment, and so most games will deliver. Your average RPG hero (and their party) will come to wield axes of stone, swing Flaming Swords, carry staffs that allow them to summon the very gods, draw bows crafted by reclusive masters in their field and deck themselves in the hides of legendary beasts and metals dug from far beneath the earth or beyond the stars.

...but you still need to start somewhere. Enter this trope; the default equipment from the start of the game.

Generally speaking there's a few things you can expect from this default equipment;

• It will either be the most basic item you can buy in the first shop you find, or completely unique (but still useless when you find something else).
  • In the later case it might be more useful, or at least hanging on to will get you the Infinity+1 Sword.
• If the game feels really generous you might even get a few basic Standard RPG Items in your inventory.
• Weapons will be the default type for the character's class.
• If there is more than one type of armour slot (outside of just "armour" for example for helms, gloves, accessories) then expect the more advanced ones to simply be empty. If you start off without a weapon, this may well be the only point in the game where you don't have one equipped.
• Sometimes the character will start off completely unarmed. In this case the plot (or a handy chest) will provide the Starter Equipment. Probably during a tutorial.

Characters that join later in the game don't count since they always have generic equipment for that level (or even better equipment if you're lucky). Sometimes, at the beginning of the game, you'll be given something better to use before this trope catches up with you. Keep in mind that items that aren't upgraded or replaced as the game goes on and just serve to introduce game mechanics are not this trope, since they only act as an in universe explanation for that ability (so healing items which you'll be able to buy better versions of count, as do equipable items, but a PDA you're given that serves as your pause menu or a pair of gloves that enable Video Game Stealing but are never replaced or upgraded does not).

Compare Emergency Weapon for an early piece of equipment that has some slight advantage (typically being unbreakable or never running out of ammo) to make it a backup rather than just a springboard to later weapons and the equally useless Vendor Trash. If the hero starts out on an important quest but still gets no help with getting better equipment then this is With This Herring. Using it may be the aim of a Self-Imposed Challenge. This can overlap with Weapon, Jr..

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Examples of Starter Equipment include:

Driving Game

• Oddly subverted in Need for Speed Pro Street where your starter car is superior to approximately 1/3 of the cars on offer. Would you want to trade in your Nissan 240SX for an old model Honda Civic that's not even a Type R? Exactly. Most of the cars you can afford during the first half are actually a downgrade.

MMORPG

• In Ragnarok Online you start off with a shirt as your armor and a basic knife. It's better than nothing but you can pretty much buy or find something better within your first five seconds of the game.
• In World of Warcraft all classes, with the exception of Death Knights (since they start the game at a higher level), start with some basic low quality items and in many cases a cosmetic shirt. Said shirts used to only be available through character creation (or by buying or trading from another player) until a vendor selling them was added in the game in the first expansion. Death Knight gear is high quality and unique, although there is some higher level gear with the same models.
• EVE Online has the starter Frigates you get at the beginning of the game. They're not the worst ships in the game (that would be the Shuttles), but they are a lot worse than the most basic of the "real" Frigates.
• The City of Heroes tutorials give characters two level 1 damage enhancements (basically worthless, intended to teach about slotting and combining enhancements) and two inspirations (actually from the top tier of inspirations that won't start dropping until much later). All are completely unnecessary to pass through the tutorial and some players hold on to them to sell afterward to get started buying decent equipment.

RPG

• The Final Fantasy series;
  • Final Fantasy IV Cecil's dark knight gear that he has when you start the game is the weakest you can get as well as not being bought or found anywhere. It actually becomes 100% useless in the game after he class changes and gets completely different set of starting equipment. (If you don't remove your previous equipment before the class change your old stuff is gone forever but it's just Vendor Trash anyway.)
  • Final Fantasy VII gives each character their signature weapon as their starting equipment. They're all the weakest equipment in the game, but in the case of Cloud and Barret, they can't be sold since they're the iconic weapon for that character (and thus appear in cutscenes).
  • Final Fantasy X Tidus is given a long sword before his first battle. This weapon has 0 customization slots and no bonuses, meaning that every subsequent weapon for him is better. While you can make a long sword via drops and customization it will always have 1 slot rather than 0.
  • In Final Fantasy XII Vaan and Basch's default swords cannot be bought or found. Vaan's can be dropped by Omega Mark XII.
• The Elder Scrolls series you usually go through the "pick up starting equipment through the tutorial" version. However in Oblivion you start off equipped with the unique "wrist irons" item (which are useful since they're weightless and can be enchanted later), and the "rusted iron" and "rough leather" (essentially and even worse version of the basic Iron and Leather items) equipment from the tutorial dungeon can't be found anywhere else.
• In Fallout 3 you get a BB gun in the tutorial. When the game starts proper you're also given a basic pistol and can pick up the aformentioned BB Gun and a baseball bat (if you prefer melee weapons) from your room before you leave.
• Doesn't really fit the "useless when you find something else" part, but the starter Pokémon count in that you can't find them anywhere else and they're all pretty basic for their types. All the games also start you off with some of the most basic type of Pokeball (although you'll be buying them for a while at least anyway) and a potion.
  • The starter Pokemon for Pokémon Colosseum do become useless when you find something better, though, since they're not standard starter Pokemon types, and because they're intended as a tank/offense combo in a 2-on-2 gameplay system.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2, every class starts with nothing but basic unenchanted armor of the heaviest type a character of this class can equip of level 1. The Favored Soul class, added in Mask of the Betrayer but available for the vanilla campaign too, starts with a unique, fancy-looking suit of armor named "Favored Soul's Outfit"... which has exactly the same stats as regular chainmail, and thus quickly gets obsolete.
• Subverted in Baldur's Gate. You start with a quarterstaff and no armour... standing outside a shop with enough money to buy gear on par with most NPCs' starting gear.
• Each of Dark Souls ten classes has their own unique starter set, with some of them having otherwise unobtainable items.
• Poor Diablo II characters, they don't get any armor, just a class-appropriate weapon: the Barbarian, a hand axe; the Paladin, a short sword, the Amazon, a stack of javelins, the Sorceress, a staff of +1 Fire Bolt, the Necromancer, a wand of +1 Summon Skeleton, the Assassin, a katar, and the Druid, a club. Some of them also get a buckler. It should be noted, however, that these items are flagged as being Starter items, which means they always cost exactly 1 gold to repair. Not that it helps.
• Persona games start a character off with their school uniform or other everyday clothes, and generally a weak weapon scrounged up somewhere - stolen from a school club, provided by your mysterious benefactors, whatever. Persona 4 starts you out with a cheap golf club Yosuke picked up after the replica katana he first offered got confiscated by the cops.
• Planescape: Torment starts you off with a scalpel stolen from a nearby table and nothing else, while your first party member is a floating skull who only has the teeth he originally died with. Fortunately you can replace those very soon with a little scrounging and some side quests (yes, even the teeth).
• Wizardry has it in several ways through the series. Wizardry 6 gives characters basic equipment appropriate to their class, including an occasional item hard to get in other ways anytime soon (Lute, Ninja clothes) and a rare item the class to whom it's given cannot use, but others can (Shadow Cloak for Psionic characters). Wizardry 7 has the same plus Gossamer Gown robes for Faerie characters that are impossible to get in any other way. Wizardry 8 also gives unique items (Gadgeteer's Omnigun).

Strategy

• Mount & Blade has starting equipment determined via background, but all of it is of poor quality except for the Spirited Corsair, the 2nd fastest horse obtainable (with the first being insanely expensive) being useful depending on your build.
• Newly created characters in the Disgaea series always have the weakest weapon of the type their class uses (or one of them) and no armour. Some games in the series don't even give you that, although story characters always have decent items equipped.
• In RHDE, each player starts with one bed and one missile silo. Players can buy additionals of both.