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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009548" data-attributes="member: 1129">101 Mundane TreasuresWritten by Philip ReedPublished by philipjreed.com21 color pages$3.00Philip Reed once again manages to hit a part of the D20 fantasy market that hasn’t been trounced to death yet.  In 101 Mundane Treasures, the author does a lot of the legwork of putting together descriptions for standard treasures and provides the GM items that can add depth to his personal campaign.The cover is a striking piece with a dragon wearing a ring centered by dark borders.  The first page is the general introduction, providing players and GMs the purpose behind the product and how to use it.  One of the good things is that all text is 100% OGC. The material gets started on page three, with the first section, Armor.  Each entry starts with name, appearance, appraise information, value, and special rules.  The appraise information lists the DC necessary to know about the item, the value breaks down the individual components of said item, and the special rules provide details for new materials, poisons, and rules.There are several sections in the book starting with Armor, Clothing, Jewelry, Miscellaneous, Musical Instruments, and Weapons.  Each section has some new and unique attributes to it.  For Armor, for example, there is a suit of leather made out of basilisk hide.  Not good enough?  How about some mithril dwarven half plate?  Need some special clothing?  Try the Hydraskin Open Coat, so warm that it provides a bonus to Fortitude Saves vs. cold damage.  Need a little more protection from the cold?  Use a Yeti Cloak.To me, one of the most useful sections for filling out the background of a world is the miscellaneous items.  You can see how much ornamental goblets run, as well as playing cards, mirrors, cages, dolls, crystal skulls, and other unusual goods that have little adventuring use are worth.  A few items thought will fine some use in a standard game like the Masterwork Climber’s Kit whose components are crafted from adamant or the Finely Braided Rope.Of course, many people will flip right to the weapons section.  Here you’ll see a lot of masterwork weapons but also some made out of different metals.  Take the Demon’s Sword.  This gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls for being masterwork and another +1 for being made of a special metal.  How about a mithril dueling blade?  Same deal, bonus from masterwork and material.  One of the interesting things though, is not every weapon has a bonus.  One of them, the Two-Bladed Sword of Ceremony, looks attractive but is worthless as a weapon and will shatter if used in such a fashion.Outside of the items, there are new poisons used with the items.  The Spider Arrows use hellstrike, a bright crimson paste while the vial of poison has cleric’s curse, a thick clear liquid that causes cleric’s healing spells to inflict damage.Art is clip art from the Larry Elmore collection and ww.arttoday.com.  Some of the Elmore pieces have been touched up with a little color.  The borders are huge marble blue frames with the page number set on the center of the bottom like gemstones.  Layout is standard two-column text with art generally wrapped around the text to follow the outline.There are some problems with the book though.  101 Spellbooks costs the same price and even without the spells (which are OGC from other contents), is longer.  Throw in the cover, license and wide margins, and you’ve got very little product.  I know, the margins are the same here as they were in 101 Spellbooks, but because they’re a different color then the background, they’re much more noticeable here.  Which is problem number two.  As Bastion press and other publishers have discovered, on PDF’s, people want a minimum amount of color used in their products.  Do we need two-inch borders on the top and bottom that suck out printers dry?  Nope.Is there anything I’d like to see the author do outside of putting more items into the book?  Not as far as items themselves but sections on unusual metals, their bonuses, hardness, hit points, etc…  Some of the goods used in the weapons and armor section for example, would make prime candidates for such inclusion.  Does basilisk armor made into studded leather grant a better bonus?  How about volcanic class with special properties? 101 Mundane Treasures helps fill a niche in the GMs world and hopefully we’ll see a version without the borders and that fills up 24 pages without counting the cover.</blockquote>

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