I would have to concur here.  Mabey a seperate point total for equiptment would be a good start. It still wouldn't allow for stats when you have no weapon or armor. But it would help with frustration of having no attack or defence. 

On further reflection if you still want to tie beggining equiptment into the overall points. You could put 3 levels of equiptment package on the talents screen

Poor: 0 points, You get 5 points worth of Equiptment.

Average: 5 points, You start with 15 points of Equiptment

Rich: 10 points, You start with 30 points of Equiptment.

This way everyone can start with a minimum of a sword at poor or mabey a staff and a cloak. and those that really want to come decked to the nines can do so at the expense of their other starting stats. Granted it would also require tweaking equiptment costs ont he startign screen but that should be easy enough.

The answer? Lots of Art assets

basically, have 4 art assets for every "high end" choice.

Also, have various robes and normal clothing that increase magical effectiveness.

For every Refolded Iron piece of equipment there is a Wizard's Exquisite Robe that reduces mana cost by 10% and increases spell attack by 10%.

Refolded Iron helmet(plate), Cuirass(plate), Greaves(plate-mail), Gloves (plate-mail)  total of 40-60 or more defense

Wizard's Exquisite: Hood (silk cloth), Robe (silk cloth), Slippers (silk cloth), Gloves (silk cloth) total of 40% less mana cost, and 40% more spell attack/damage

There will probably also be enchanted rings, necklaces,, and Ear-rings that increase Magical Defense, Magical Attack, or Physical Defense, or any other stat.

Someone might want a suit of Refolded Armor, and 4 enchanted rings of Magical Defense.

Alternatively someone could want a Cloth outfit of 40% less mana cost and 40% more spell power, and buy 4 enchanted rings of physical defense.

Further still, someone could buy the Wizard's max outfit, and buy 5 rings of magical attack and 5 rings of magical defense. Making for the most uber and extreme Mage-Sovereign ever. ( I don't think it should be possible to go lower than 60% mana cost ... meaning you can't gain more than 40% mana discount) ... other than using Wisdom score of course.

Wisdom would probably use 1% per point, so 20 wisdom would have 10% lower mana cost, and 0 wisdom would have 10% increased mana cost. Intelligence would probably use 2% per point, so 20 intelligence would allow Spells to be bought for 20% less spell points, and 0 Intelligence would have Spells be bought at 20% more spell points.

Constitution could be 1 HP per point. So a 0 Con Sovereign could have 30 HP, a 10 Con Sov could have 40 HP, and a 20 Con Sov could have 50 HP. A Hardy 20 Con Sov could have 60 HP, while a Hardy 10 Con Sov would have 50 HP.

I don't mind Strength and Dexterity to give % bonuses to your equipment score. I think I rather like it. Each point giving 10% with 10 strength or Dex being 100% of the Equipment's stats. I would, however, advise for a weaponless Sovereign to have a base "fist" attack of 2, and a base "reflex" defense of 2. Having the Hardy trait would double these base values, and gaining the Monk trait through quest (taught the ways of the monk) would quadruple these values, as well as add +5 to Attack, Defense, and Wisdom.

Hardy and Monk do not stack. Monk also increases HP by 10. In addition, if you gain the Monk trait, your Wisdom score (if higher than your Strength or Dexterity score) can replace your Strength or Dexterity in terms of affecting Attack and Defense with either no Weapons + Armor or only equipped with Staff + robes/cloth.

So if you have 40 HP, 5 strength, 20 wisdom, and 5 dexterity. And you have no weapons and no armor ... you would normally have 1 attack and 1 defense. However, once you gain the Monk trait through questing, you would have 50 HP, 10 strength, 25 wisdom, 10 dexterity, and no weapons or armor. You would also have 20 attack and 20 defense.

I think it would be nice to be able to create new items you could give your soverign later in the game.  There could be some sort of specialised building that you could only build in your capital city that would, at fairly high resource and gold cost, allow you to construct items, weapons, armor, rings and whatnot for you soverign, their spawn, and your champions.  This way you wouldn't have to worry quite as much about what they start with and hoping they stumble across a nice sword somewhere on the map.

I /really/ like the idea of using starting gold to buy equipment...

I also /really/ like the idea of being able to equip your sovereign in-play. I always thought the game was made to be flexible so you could create your own content, and If my Kingdom uses some funky kinds of armor I'd like my sovereign to be able to use that too.

Equipping your sovereign at start with character points just makes no sense...though I understand it's beta, just making my opinions known so people will know to focus on changing it.

I kind of like having Starting Equipment being based upon points.

The only thing I know I DONT WANT is for equipment to be purely aesthetic. I want "what you wear" to matter, so that we can have equipment and the like. I would however want greater customization on Sovereign appearance. Having a good starting Sovereign shouldn't mean it has to look like a clone of all the other good sovereigns ... but spending points/ investing in a "Super Sovereign" should be Worthwhile. (and hopefully have several aesthetic variants of "expensive gear")

equipment needs to have values. I think the real debate here should be stats.

Whether stats should have static values (20 dexterity is +10 defense ALWAYS, while 0 Dex is +0 defense)

OR if stats should be % modifiers of equipment (20 dexterity gives 200% defense value of any equipped armor)

(alternatively, with the static option, you could have 0 dex give -5 defense, 10 give 0, and 20 give +5)

The amount of Armor/Weaponry you still have post-Cataclysm is part of your background. There must be some significant reason for you to actually still have equipment like that.

From a gameplay perspective, if you spend the points for equipment, you are Saving 100 or 200 turns in "badassery" and your Sovereign would be able to kill ALOT of things, including partaking in bumrushing an unfortunate neighbor that didn't so equip himself.

Now, a Sovereign that does not get these equipment either plans on not using his sovereign in a martial sense, OR he believes that his gains in skills/magic outweigh the penalties of not having good armor.

At least with the point system, there is a direct contrast between early game dominance and later game dominance. Indeed, even the early expansion gained by early game dominance *could* potentially continue a more economical advantage into the late game.

IF however, starting gold was used to buy equipment, either EVERYONE would buy equipment, or something would get nerfed and NOONE would buy equipment.

! I do have one suggestion that might allow for "buyable" equipment. In this case, super-items, artifacts, and equipment would be purchable by starting gold ... some increase melee prowess, others increase Magical prowess, others give special skills n abilities, ect. In this case, you could use this gold to custom make your Sovereign even further. Bonus Points if you can point out how this system is much like the current one (at least in terms of possibility).

In any case, I think decisions on whether your Sovereign is more of a Tank/Adventurer, or a Governor/leader ... or a Specialized Magician, would be interesting ones ... and I don't think it poorly effects gameplay to balance combat effectiveness with organizational skills.