Upgrades

As I've mentioned once or twice before, one of the things that really bugs me about 5e is the armour list. Basically, it has a very clear 'best' choice for almost all characters, and everyone starts one step below that 'best' armour (with one exception - heavy armour users start two steps below).

I'm also somewhat bugged, although less so, by the weapons list - this time there is no one 'best' option (there are at least several choices), but here everyone starts with top equipment based on their proficiencies.

The upshot of this, coupled with the inability to purchase magic items (by default) is that there isn't really anything much to spend gold on. Sure, it's easy enough to find plenty of ways to creatively squander it, but there's not much worthwhile to buy. Which is a real shame.

What I'd ideally like to see is more of an upgrade path built into the rules here. For armours, there should be two upgrades for each armour type (one available roughly at 3rd level, the other at 5th). In particular, the light and medium armours actually have two upgrade paths available to them, so it's rather ironic that these lack options. For weapons, I'm inclined not to bother with upgrades for Simple weapons, but for Martial ones I'm inclined to again suggest that there should be two steps of upgrade available (again, at roughly 3rd and 5th level).

(I should probably note: the two sets of upgrades should probably be priced such that most PCs can pick up one at 3rd level, but must wait for 4th to get both; and likewise at 5th and 6th level. So each PC has to choose which is more important - improved offense or improved defense?)

Beyond 5th level, there would of course still be upgrades available, but by this stage we're looking at moving beyond the mundane versions - items crafted by legendary smiths, items made of special materials (mithril, adamantine, meteorite iron, jade, obsidian, or crystal), and of course magic items. In all cases, these wouldn't be items that can be bought by default - they must either be found in the course of an adventure or the materials must be acquired and then the item commissioned.

Fortunately, much of what I need was put together way back when I was working on Nutshell, so I should be able to get it together fairly quickly...