Sledge
First Post
Fair warning here I was given this pdf as a complimentary product. Not with the intent of reviewing, but I decided to do so anyways.
For anyone that has ever read a pdf by TheLe games you will know that he strives to be different. For someone that never played in 2nd edition he has a definite feel for the fluff and flavour that made 2nd edition playable despite its occassionally horrendous rules. Part of the unorthodox setup provided by The Le is three* versions of the document. One for viewing, one for printing, and one RTF file for editing easily. This is a setup which should be more common than it is. 17 magic weapons is a collection of 19 (yes 19) weapon enhancements. It starts off with a brief overview of the functionality of these enhancements as well as how to introduce them to a game. This is mostly accomplished with a few good examples of situations in which it might be appropriate to introduce these enhancements into your game. A random table is also included, which is essentially just a list of the enhancements with 20 being GM's choice.
The real meat of this pdf is obviously the enhancements. By and large these are interesting ideas, despite the rare problem. Any balance problems seem to be in the direction of underpowered and not overpowered. A GM need not feat adding these items to their game.
Several of the items are themed to a class. Sometimes directly and other times obscurely. All in all I counted only 5 or so I wouldn't use and those are mostly because of flavour preferences. The book finishes with an appendix that includes rules from the srd that relate to the enhancements so you don't have to have 5 documents open at a time.
Some of my favourites are the Arcane Wizardry, Dragon Perception, Duidic Vision, Monk's Silence, and Rogue Perception, all of which I could see a character I either play or dm for pursuing immediately if offered simply because it fits the character concept so well. These specific enhancements (and many of the others) fill voids that have never been filled before. Arcane Wizardry allows the bearer to reroll a failed save once per day. If the bearer is a wizard then it can instead force an opponent to reroll a succesful save. The pricing of the ability seems very accurate to it value. All of the enhancements are set up to insure that they are never underpriced. These enhancement are great flavour mines and would be especially good to help define a character and prompt away from generic weaponry.
It is apparent that mechanics in this book are secondary to the flavour and this has let a couple problems in. The paradoxical rage ability in the Barbarian Rage enhancement should probably heal 1d6 instead of 1d4 but is otherwise fine. A greater problem is the
refraction enhancement, which is actually very negative in that it reflects spells onto your allies. This seems more of a curse than anything else.
Finally as a nit pick the Sorceror's Philosophy enhancement refers to it being an enhancement for Slingshot ammo. Having never seen a slingshot in my games I assume sling is meant.
Still overall I am eager to start using these enhancement where it is appropriate. I give this pdf 3/5 if you are all about the rules, and 4/5 if you can really dig in to the flavour. Since I wanted it for the flavour that means 4 for me.
*There is actually a fourth file that has some demonstration counter/standups from PIG.
For anyone that has ever read a pdf by TheLe games you will know that he strives to be different. For someone that never played in 2nd edition he has a definite feel for the fluff and flavour that made 2nd edition playable despite its occassionally horrendous rules. Part of the unorthodox setup provided by The Le is three* versions of the document. One for viewing, one for printing, and one RTF file for editing easily. This is a setup which should be more common than it is. 17 magic weapons is a collection of 19 (yes 19) weapon enhancements. It starts off with a brief overview of the functionality of these enhancements as well as how to introduce them to a game. This is mostly accomplished with a few good examples of situations in which it might be appropriate to introduce these enhancements into your game. A random table is also included, which is essentially just a list of the enhancements with 20 being GM's choice.
The real meat of this pdf is obviously the enhancements. By and large these are interesting ideas, despite the rare problem. Any balance problems seem to be in the direction of underpowered and not overpowered. A GM need not feat adding these items to their game.
Several of the items are themed to a class. Sometimes directly and other times obscurely. All in all I counted only 5 or so I wouldn't use and those are mostly because of flavour preferences. The book finishes with an appendix that includes rules from the srd that relate to the enhancements so you don't have to have 5 documents open at a time.
Some of my favourites are the Arcane Wizardry, Dragon Perception, Duidic Vision, Monk's Silence, and Rogue Perception, all of which I could see a character I either play or dm for pursuing immediately if offered simply because it fits the character concept so well. These specific enhancements (and many of the others) fill voids that have never been filled before. Arcane Wizardry allows the bearer to reroll a failed save once per day. If the bearer is a wizard then it can instead force an opponent to reroll a succesful save. The pricing of the ability seems very accurate to it value. All of the enhancements are set up to insure that they are never underpriced. These enhancement are great flavour mines and would be especially good to help define a character and prompt away from generic weaponry.
It is apparent that mechanics in this book are secondary to the flavour and this has let a couple problems in. The paradoxical rage ability in the Barbarian Rage enhancement should probably heal 1d6 instead of 1d4 but is otherwise fine. A greater problem is the
refraction enhancement, which is actually very negative in that it reflects spells onto your allies. This seems more of a curse than anything else.
Finally as a nit pick the Sorceror's Philosophy enhancement refers to it being an enhancement for Slingshot ammo. Having never seen a slingshot in my games I assume sling is meant.
Still overall I am eager to start using these enhancement where it is appropriate. I give this pdf 3/5 if you are all about the rules, and 4/5 if you can really dig in to the flavour. Since I wanted it for the flavour that means 4 for me.
*There is actually a fourth file that has some demonstration counter/standups from PIG.
Last edited:
