The CRB has recommendations for number and level of permanent items by level, but how do you actually select what these are?
It recommends that in place of 1st-level items, giving out mundane stuff including weapons & armour, so would that be things like giving a shortbow user a composite shortbow? Other than composite bows (and full plate, which is outside the 10–20 gp price range it lists anyway), won't characters usually have started with all the mundane equipment they want?
What other options make sense to give low-level characters?
And as you level up to higher levels, are the bread-and-butter permanent items going to be runes for them to place on their weapons & armour? How do you decide what to give and how to balance the "necessary for balance" with "fun flavourful stuff"?
I use ABP so that we can skip the less interesting +X stuff.
One of my players is very into crafting, and they work as a group to be able to afford things, so one of the best treasures I can give are uncommon or rare items, or even just the formulas.
I tend to focus more on fun than utility items, though this varies. And I like to give out thematic stuff. Recently they fought a Skuln, which is described as having adamant claws and teeth. But it has no listed treasure, so I gave them adamantium chunks as treasure from scavenging the body.
Yeah ABP kind of appeals to me. I'm not using it for two main reasons. First and foremost, I really wanted to see how Pathfinder plays with all the default rules. For now, I'm even tracking XP and encumbrance, which I wouldn't normally do. (Though I'm already thinking about ditching XP, at least for the low levels. In D&D I usually wanted to get through levels 1 and 2 and get up to 3 after 3–5 sessions at most, before slowing down after that.) I wanted to see how things go in vanilla and adapt when I see what is and is not working.
The second is Pathbuilder. It's an incredible tool and I've already bought it, as has at least one of my players. And at least one more player is seriously considering it. But the free version doesn't support ABP and I didn't want to force the players to purchase it to play.