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Sunday, January 22, 2017

Resources For Every GM: Rules & Supplements Part 7

Greetings everyone! Today we get back to some core resources for your bookshelf. While these resources will be much more directed towards the Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons GM, they are pretty great book in general. The topic of this trio is equipment, especially weapons, because who doesn't need more diverse (or insane!) equipment??


Arms & Equipment Guide (3rd Edition D&D): I love this book. It wasn't gigantic, and it wasn't in color, but it was full of great stuff. The great thing about books like this is that gold value is relatively maintained throughout the editions, so that you don't need to go into much editing or double-checking there. This one, in particular, makes great use of that with all the various mundane items that can be found in Chapter 2. Clothing, food, drink, and trade goods are just a few of the items you can find here. Trade goods could be especially useful in filling out a dragon's hoard. I know what you're thinking too, but this stuff is in the main manual I use. Yes you are right, but this gives a large variety of examples to flesh out your world and make different locations unique from one-another. Vehicle, hirelings, creatures, and mercenaries are also helpful from this book even if you only use price points. The mechanics of it may not be the most helpful to everyone's game, but if you need a compact list of resources and items then this should be added to your library.


Weapons of Legacy (3.5 D&D): This book almost didn't make it on here. It is very mechanic heavy and entrenched in the 3rd Edition feat rules. However, it provides an example of something that few other books did: provide scaling magical items. I have always loved this idea. If I player find or even creates an item and grant it a name (magical or otherwise) it deserves to have a legacy. Granting magical effects and increasing its power over time with that of the character makes it more meaningful. There are also some good examples of this happening recently. In Critical Role, the vestiges gain power as they are used and their potential unlocked. In World of Warcraft, there are now legendary weapons that scale with your level and can be imbued with more and more power. In Destiny items can be consumed to increase the light level of the one you wield. Personally, this book is a great how-to guide, an example of how you can go about doing the same in your game. The fact that there is a whole chapter of optional rules provides just that much more insight into the process and the things associated with using scalable items. If you want a whole book of prime examples, this is the best one I have seen.


Adventurer's Armory (Pathfinder): This is the Pathfinder version of the Arms & Equipment guide. While it doesn't have things like the gelatinous cube mount, it does have a ton of fantastic stuff (and full color artwork!). Included are a number of unique weapons, like the boomerang, with rules how to use those and some unique weapon properties (like the ability to choke someone). In addition there are more great ideas for mundane items and their price points. Also included are examples (in the form of feats and the like) of equipment tricks you can learn and how to use certain items as spell foci. Other awesome sections include alchemist's ingredients and how they might effect a concoction, as well as a brief example of how to utilize items within a social encounter. For those who continue to love variety for their games, this is another book for you!

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