By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack
Sizing Up the Target
The Arms and Equipment Guide is a hardcover release for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game from Wizards of the Coast. Written by Eric Cagle, Jesse Decker, Jeff Quick, Rich Redman, and James Wyatt, it weighs in at 160 pages and retails for $26.95. The cover is done in the style of Core Rulebook I (with a picture of a smith hard at work from Eric Peterson) and interior artwork by Dennis Cramer, David Day, David Martin, Scott Roller, and Sam Wood.
First Blood
When I do a review, I always start with a quick skim through the work in order to get a feel for it. The Arms and Equipment Guide left me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, there is some good stuff in here. On the other, there is some old stuff and some things that make you go, “What the…?” Before I go on, you need to understand that I’ve been playing D&D a long time (I can tell you how many figures were on the cover of the first Basic D&D boxed set). As such, I’ve got a wealth of material and memory to draw on from previous efforts.
The book starts off, appropriately enough, with the most oft-used equipment (and arguably the most important); arms and armor. There are a few paragraphs on weapons of varying size, which contains some important information. It’s all well and good to say that a longsword scaled for a pixie does X damage, but how much does it cost? Well, you’ll find that here too, along with range and reach variations, and how to figure weight for these variants.
Then we jump right into the meat, updating the monk weapon list to allow some of the new death-dealing goodies herein, before going into weapon descriptions, tables, and illustrations. Just like in Core Rulebook I, each weapon is illustrated in beautiful black-and-white, and the weapons are grouped into tables which provide all of the relevant data at a glance. Though there is some new material here, some of it has been lifted from Sword and Fist, good news for those who don’t otherwise care for the splatbooks.
Then the book goes one step further, in the manner of 2nd edition’s Combat & Tactics, and divides weaponry among four real-world historical eras: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Dark Ages, and the Crusades. Real-world weapons are examined and listed with notations as to whether they were common, uncommon, or non-existent in the period, and names used by other cultures are also thoughtfully provided.
The vast majority of the new weapons introduced here are exotic, and that may not sit well with some, but the explanation provided by the Arms and Equipment Guide explains it nicely. The simple and martial weapons in Core Rulebook I already cover the necessary bases. Just how different is a claymore from a zweihander from a no-dachi from a greatsword? In terms of mechanics, not much at all. So why waste space rewriting the same statistics over and over for a host of weapons with different names, but the same qualities? It makes sense when you think about it.
This chapter also addresses weapons made of differing materials. Logically, a weapon of bone should be of less quality than a weapon of steel. Well, the designers agree, and have accounted for that here. While Core Rulebook II touches on this topic, the Arms and Equipment Guide expands on it, providing hit points and hardness ratings for these weapons. And of course, there are some new materials unlike any seen on Earth.
The selection of new armors is impressive, but not overwhelming. The new material here is, like the weapons, designed to expand and compliment existing armors, not replace them. Among the most intriguing are the bondleaf armor (which is a parasitic armor that bonds with its host), the moon-ivy armor (it grows every night and dies at the end of every day), and the dwarven stone armor. Like the weapons, real-world armor is also divided among historical eras for your convenience.
In addition, there is a table that lists a few new armor materials. Imagine a breastplate of insect chitin, or a jerkin woven of forest leaves (elven leafweave). Each of these materials imparts unique characteristics to the armor made from them, offering DMs the opportunity to create some truly memorable and unique encounters. I’m already envisioning my players coming up against a kobold tribe that carries chitin shields.
Moving on, we come to adventuring gear and this is where we begin to see more duplication and even a few oddball items. Some of the things here are drawn from 3rd edition resources like Defenders of the Faith and Song and Silence, others are upgrades of items found in Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalogue of 2nd edition fame. Still others are items that, for whatever reason, were just overlooked when Core Rulebook I was put together. There’s plenty of new clothing (for those who like getting down to the nitty-gritty and knowing exactly what material the pants their character wears are made of), a selection of new edible items and spices, and yes, some new alchemical goodies. No adventurer should be caught without instant rope.
Like poison (or have a character that does)? There’s a veritable plethora of them in this book. There are a few real-world concoctions, like Arsenic, but most are fantasy-oriented. Effects run the gamut of possibilities, from paralysis to death, so DMs will be able to find just about any poison they need for their traps. The table includes a trap CR modifier, making it easier to determine how deadly a trap treated with this particular poison is.
One issue that I’ve not yet seen touched on in D&D is large-scale trade. While Core Rulebook II touches on this subject briefly, DMs have largely been left to their own devices in dealing with this topic. In the Arms and Equipment Guide, this is expanded upon, comparing merchant wealth levels and caravan compositions for communities of differing sizes. A list of typical commodities and the cost per unit is also provided.
Many people have been clamoring for vehicles rules for D&D and with this release, they become widely available. However, you should take them with a grain of salt. As noted at the beginning of the chapter, these are game mechanics, not a physics text. There are quite a few new vehicles introduced here (some might say too many), from carts and carriages to zeppelins and hang gliders. There are also some special vehicles found here, like the dwarven tunneler, the elven forest crawler, and the Nautilus (a unique submersible).
Though technically not arms or equipment, no book on such would be complete without addressing the topic of hirelings. Whether you need someone to patch the hole in your castle wall, guard those doing so, or just an exotic pet to keep the spouse company while you’re off raiding monster lairs, you’ll find it here. A new feat, Creature Trainer, some new tricks to teach your animals, and some new magical items are detailed here as well, along with some new creatures to serve as pets and mounts.
And speaking of magical items, wasn’t it inevitable that they’d include some? Well, rejoice, for there are 58 pages of them in the Arms and Equipment Guide, from new weapon properties to artifacts. Some are repeats from other sources (such as the splatbooks), others are brand new, and still others are old favorites revisited. While a few (like the bow of radiance) made me wince (images of a cartoonish Willie Aames carrying a glowing bow filled my head), I was pleased to see the return of such well-remembered favorites as the regalia of good and the rod of seven parts.
As a whole, the book certainly meets the qualifications for an Arms and Equipment Guide and I was pleased to see that they included not only new items, but also those found in other resources and earlier editions. The ratio of new to repeated is probably about 75/25, so even if you have all of the splatbooks and every issue of Dragon magazine, it’s still worth your while to pick this up. Many of the items are accompanied by beautiful black & white illustrations and this really helps when trying to visualize just what a raking blade looks like.
Critical Hits
I was glad to see that they repeated several items from Sword & Fist and the like. Some may complain that it takes up space that could have been used for new material, but I think it’s nice to have all of that stuff in one place, so that I don’t have to search through eight different books to find it. It was a nuisance trying to create an NPC or a character and trying to remember if the cool sword that I wanted was described in an issue of Dragon from six months ago, Sword & Fist, or Masters of the Wild. Now if they would only release a book that does the same for feats and prestige classes.
The historical weapons and armor tables were a welcome touch. That was one of the things I liked most about the Player’s Option books of 2nd edition and I’m glad to see it updated and restored. My own campaign world is based around historical cultures, so this information was very valuable to me, as I’m sure it will be for other DMs. I also liked the unique (obviously fantasy) armors and weapons that were offered. It just makes sense that elves would wear armor woven of leaves.
Critical Misses
Some of the items offered herein are simply over-the-top, even in a heroic fantasy milieu. Maybe it’s just me but, insect netting? A sprayer? Swim fins, mask, and snorkel? Where does the line get drawn? While certainly these things have the potential to exist, especially in a fantasy setting, the question remains; should they? When my D&D adventurers begin to look more like modern-day, real-world rescue heroes, I think that we’ve overstepped the fine boundary of suspension of disbelief.
Coup de Grace
You know the drill by now, no Open Game Content in a Wizards of the Coast product. Everything herein is d20 compliant and both DMs and players will find it of equal use when it comes to playability. I gave only an average score for originality, because while there is a lot of new stuff here, there’s also a lot of repeated material, which some may find wasteful. It’s a good value, especially if you don’t own a lot of the non-Core rulebooks. Players will probably benefit more from it than DMs will in the long run, but a tribe of goblins armed with acid or flame bullets for their slings could put a kink in the players’ plans.
To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.
