Crothian
First Post
Adventurer’s Vault
4e brought a lot of changes to the Dungeons and Dragons game but one thing that has never changed is people’s liking of magical items. It does not surprise me in the least that this was the first hardbound book published after the core three. But Adventurer’s Vault is more then just magical items although that is the main focus. The book offers new choices with equipment and brings in alchemy rules. It also has a comprehensive collection of tables listing the magical items by level. In the book they are arranged by item type. The nicest thing about the tables in the back is that they are perfectly set up for a DM to turn into random item tables by level type. The game might not give the random treasure some people like but with a little work and creativity the game does make it a little easier then it has to for a DM to still have them.
Adventurer’s Vault is a hardbound book of Arms and Equipments for All Character Classes. It is a little over two hundred pages long and full color. The art is mostly up to Wizards of the Coast high standards though it would have been a lot better if they would have labeled all the pictures. Most of the art is of magical items and it would be nice to know is being shown. Some of the pictures do have labels and it seems most of the action picks do not. With art being such a useful part of the game it is just a simple thing that I think would have greatly added to the value of the art in the book. The layout of the book is very well done and extremely east to read.
The book only has two chapters and two appendixes. The first chapter is equipment and it covers new types of armor and weapons, mounts, vehicles, and alchemy. The armor is many different types that have to be magical. I am a little surprised by this. I understand not wanting to make the normal armor in the PHB absolute by adding in new types of armor that is better but I think new types of armor that can be used at lower levels is also good. There are also new weapons and these are designed so first level characters could get use out of them. I like the addition of the spiked gauntlet as I was disappointed to learn my first character idea of an unarmed combatant was really not a good option in this edition. It is interesting to see they brought back double weapons as those were not always the most popular items in previous editions. I like them as it is easier to exclude them to create them for those that like them. I just hope that the staff gets to be a double weapon at some point. Not everything is perfect as I think a kukri does not seem like it should be a light blade since they are heavy and oddly balanced. But there was nothing here that was completely ban worthy. There is a nice selection of superior weapons and they are worth the extra feat to be able to use them.
One of the nice surprises is the including of mounts. There are new animals in here with stats as well as some monsters listed from the monster manual that can be used as mounts. They range in price from the camel at seventy five gold pieces to the rime fire griffon at more then a half million gold pieces. It is the only one in here though of more then fifty thousand. There are also vehicles like wagons and chariots to greatships and even the often forgotten about ornithopter. The crashing and ramming rules though seem a little harsh doing 1d10 damage to the object or creature hit per square moved that round as well as half damage to anyone in the vehicle. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter what the vehicle is or what the creature hit is. The crew of a greatship by my reading takes damage if they run over a flounder. I really like seeing the Apparatus of Kwalish as one of the nine vehicles.
The last part of the first chapter covers Alchemy. To be able to make alchemical items one needs the Alchemist feat. If a character gets the Ritual Caster feat as a class feature he can instead take this feat. Comparing the two Ritual Casting seems like the better deal and I have to imagine there will be a lot more support for Ritual Spells in other books then Alchemical Formulas. But it would be very awesome to see more alchemy as I really like the idea of alchemy that works in the game.
The second chapter is the last chapter and it covers magical items. This is the focus of the book and covers one hundred and sixty two pages. The items are divided into sections on the different types. I’m not sure why the listed them in the order they have as they are not listed alphabetically with the first four being armor, weapons, implements, and arm slot items. It is good to see a few items have been included for mounts and Ranger’s companions. Of all the different kinds of items so get pluses and others do not. I would have liked to have seen some examples of items that normally have pluses not have them. I do not think that everything always needs to have a plus associated with it. That is however a small complaint and more of just personal preference. As it is the first supplement for the game I was not expecting it to go much beyond what was already set up.
There are hundreds and hundreds of items in here. It is nearly impossible to go over them all and compare everything side by side to determine how well balanced everything is. Also, balance is in the eye of the beholder. What some people will see as troublesome others will not. I tend to not see items as problematic as I do not worry or focus on the mechanics of the game. I will say that for any large listing of items like this the vast majority of them seem fine. Some might be a little weak others too strong. Nothing in here that I noticed caused me alarm. There is a wide range of items here and I am impressed with the creativity the writers and developers at Wizards of the Coast show with this book. There is also a good range of items for all levels. There are seven items for first level and plenty of the other levels.
The appendixes are short but useful. I would have really enjoyed more of the first one. It covers a lot of little details that can make magical items seem cooler. There is a bit on unique items and their history personalities, and alignments. Any item that would at first seem common can be enriched with a little extra detail. It would have very neat to have seen some simple examples of this in use. There is also a section on what the item levels means and a simple way to have lower level characters have more powerful items but with a role playing penalty. This is not a hard fast rule just one of the suggestions for dealing with this type of thing. I know many people do not like it but I never blamed the rules that do this. I blame the DM’s for the rules not working because most of the time the failure came from a DM’s lack of enforcing the penalty. But one can easily just not have those higher plus weapons work in the hands of lower level characters. That is one of the other suggestions. There is a bit on enchanting weapons and a nice new Ritual Transfer Enchantment. It does exactly what it says it does.
Adventurer’s Vault is going to be a nice addition to most people’s 4e D&D games. There is a lot of items in here and a DM should of course look through it and read carefully anything new he wants to add to his game.
4e brought a lot of changes to the Dungeons and Dragons game but one thing that has never changed is people’s liking of magical items. It does not surprise me in the least that this was the first hardbound book published after the core three. But Adventurer’s Vault is more then just magical items although that is the main focus. The book offers new choices with equipment and brings in alchemy rules. It also has a comprehensive collection of tables listing the magical items by level. In the book they are arranged by item type. The nicest thing about the tables in the back is that they are perfectly set up for a DM to turn into random item tables by level type. The game might not give the random treasure some people like but with a little work and creativity the game does make it a little easier then it has to for a DM to still have them.
Adventurer’s Vault is a hardbound book of Arms and Equipments for All Character Classes. It is a little over two hundred pages long and full color. The art is mostly up to Wizards of the Coast high standards though it would have been a lot better if they would have labeled all the pictures. Most of the art is of magical items and it would be nice to know is being shown. Some of the pictures do have labels and it seems most of the action picks do not. With art being such a useful part of the game it is just a simple thing that I think would have greatly added to the value of the art in the book. The layout of the book is very well done and extremely east to read.
The book only has two chapters and two appendixes. The first chapter is equipment and it covers new types of armor and weapons, mounts, vehicles, and alchemy. The armor is many different types that have to be magical. I am a little surprised by this. I understand not wanting to make the normal armor in the PHB absolute by adding in new types of armor that is better but I think new types of armor that can be used at lower levels is also good. There are also new weapons and these are designed so first level characters could get use out of them. I like the addition of the spiked gauntlet as I was disappointed to learn my first character idea of an unarmed combatant was really not a good option in this edition. It is interesting to see they brought back double weapons as those were not always the most popular items in previous editions. I like them as it is easier to exclude them to create them for those that like them. I just hope that the staff gets to be a double weapon at some point. Not everything is perfect as I think a kukri does not seem like it should be a light blade since they are heavy and oddly balanced. But there was nothing here that was completely ban worthy. There is a nice selection of superior weapons and they are worth the extra feat to be able to use them.
One of the nice surprises is the including of mounts. There are new animals in here with stats as well as some monsters listed from the monster manual that can be used as mounts. They range in price from the camel at seventy five gold pieces to the rime fire griffon at more then a half million gold pieces. It is the only one in here though of more then fifty thousand. There are also vehicles like wagons and chariots to greatships and even the often forgotten about ornithopter. The crashing and ramming rules though seem a little harsh doing 1d10 damage to the object or creature hit per square moved that round as well as half damage to anyone in the vehicle. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter what the vehicle is or what the creature hit is. The crew of a greatship by my reading takes damage if they run over a flounder. I really like seeing the Apparatus of Kwalish as one of the nine vehicles.
The last part of the first chapter covers Alchemy. To be able to make alchemical items one needs the Alchemist feat. If a character gets the Ritual Caster feat as a class feature he can instead take this feat. Comparing the two Ritual Casting seems like the better deal and I have to imagine there will be a lot more support for Ritual Spells in other books then Alchemical Formulas. But it would be very awesome to see more alchemy as I really like the idea of alchemy that works in the game.
The second chapter is the last chapter and it covers magical items. This is the focus of the book and covers one hundred and sixty two pages. The items are divided into sections on the different types. I’m not sure why the listed them in the order they have as they are not listed alphabetically with the first four being armor, weapons, implements, and arm slot items. It is good to see a few items have been included for mounts and Ranger’s companions. Of all the different kinds of items so get pluses and others do not. I would have liked to have seen some examples of items that normally have pluses not have them. I do not think that everything always needs to have a plus associated with it. That is however a small complaint and more of just personal preference. As it is the first supplement for the game I was not expecting it to go much beyond what was already set up.
There are hundreds and hundreds of items in here. It is nearly impossible to go over them all and compare everything side by side to determine how well balanced everything is. Also, balance is in the eye of the beholder. What some people will see as troublesome others will not. I tend to not see items as problematic as I do not worry or focus on the mechanics of the game. I will say that for any large listing of items like this the vast majority of them seem fine. Some might be a little weak others too strong. Nothing in here that I noticed caused me alarm. There is a wide range of items here and I am impressed with the creativity the writers and developers at Wizards of the Coast show with this book. There is also a good range of items for all levels. There are seven items for first level and plenty of the other levels.
The appendixes are short but useful. I would have really enjoyed more of the first one. It covers a lot of little details that can make magical items seem cooler. There is a bit on unique items and their history personalities, and alignments. Any item that would at first seem common can be enriched with a little extra detail. It would have very neat to have seen some simple examples of this in use. There is also a section on what the item levels means and a simple way to have lower level characters have more powerful items but with a role playing penalty. This is not a hard fast rule just one of the suggestions for dealing with this type of thing. I know many people do not like it but I never blamed the rules that do this. I blame the DM’s for the rules not working because most of the time the failure came from a DM’s lack of enforcing the penalty. But one can easily just not have those higher plus weapons work in the hands of lower level characters. That is one of the other suggestions. There is a bit on enchanting weapons and a nice new Ritual Transfer Enchantment. It does exactly what it says it does.
Adventurer’s Vault is going to be a nice addition to most people’s 4e D&D games. There is a lot of items in here and a DM should of course look through it and read carefully anything new he wants to add to his game.
