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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011701" data-attributes="member: 18387">Arms and Armor    Weapons and armor are the backbone of most characters.  The way the d20 game is set up these items are very important to everyone.  There is always a need for more different types of them as well as magical enchantments to be placed on them.  This variety helps define characters and emphasis personality of villains.  A bad guy with spiked armor and a green glowing sword that melts enemies as is strikes and explodes volumes of acid is someone that will be remembered by the players.  Arms and Armor provides these options and more.  It is a collection of items but it does not stop there.    Arms and Armor is a reprint of an earlier book.  The original was Bastion’s second book and very popular.  The new one is twice the size of the old one, hard back, and yet is only five dollars more.  It is a good update that goes well beyond the original.  The biggest change besides size and content is the lack of color.  The new one is black and white while the old one had color art and glossy pages that the early Bastion books were well known for.  The art in the book is good, though there are some new weapons and armor that are introduced that pictures would be helpful for.  The layout and table are easy to read, but things can be a little hard to find.  The book does have a table of contents and index but they do not list all the powers and items in the book.      The book is all about arms and armor but it provides a well rounded approach to them.  It is not just a bunch of new items and magical enchantments even though that is the bulk of the book.  It has the rules on weapons like the proficiency rules, what a reach weapon and other categories are, differences between one and two handed weapon, and good definitions for sizes and improvised weapons.  While these rules are basic it is useful to have them here.  There are two pages of regular weapons and it does include the ones from the Players Handbook.  Being able to see all these weapons side by side should really help compare and show people if there are any problem ones.  Not all weapons are equal to each other.  There are some that are obviously better then others.  It will be up the DM to decide if he wants to include all of these in a campaign.  I can mention some that might be problems like the two handed martial weapon Ogre Maul that does 2d8 damage and has a critical range of 19-20 / x3, though it does need a 20 strength for a medium size character to use it.  But most of the weapons shown here should be fine in any campaign, and of course there are games that the Ogre Maul is perfectly fine as well.      New weapon qualities might be one of the more popular chapters.  It is filled with many new powers some of them with a market price as high as +8.  That gives a nice variety of qualities and support for the higher level of play that many books do not do.  There are abilities like alterable (minor and major) that allow the weapon to change into other weapons.  There is a really cool one cascading that gives bonuses to hit and damage in the same round with successful hits.  There is class bane that works like normal bane weapons except work against a certain class instead of creature type.  One of the powerful qualities is Holy power that does +3d6 damage to evil creatures plus can give them negative levels.  The damage and negative levels increase on a critical, too.  Not all the weapon qualities are combat oriented either.  There is the muse power that increases Bardic Knowledge and craft checks.      There are many specific weapons listed as well.  Some are class specific like Black Thresher.  It is a heavy flail +2 that is a unholy heavy flail +4 in the hands of a Blackgaurd.  Some of them are designed for high level play like Chaosbringer that is a +6 great axe of anarchic power with ability to rage.  There are some useful items for clerics called Domain Rods.  There is one for each domain.  They function as a weapon and they help with turning and casting.  There area few really interesting artifacts as well like the Skill Blade.  It gains ranks in skills that the user can use for each creature it kills.  A little bit of paper work involved but a really creative idea.      As there is with weapons so there is with armor.  There are many new types presented here.  Like the weapons there are some here that people might not want in their game but I find the variety refreshing.  There are light armors that provide a maximum dexterity bonus of up to +12 though to be fair it provides no armor bonus and costs a hundred gold.  And for the other end of the spectrum there is a heavy armor that provides +12 armor bonus though it has a maximum dexterity bonus of zero, reduces the speed of someone with a base speed of 30 to 15 and costs 3,500 gold.  Defiantly the armor one would want their Dwarven Defender to have.  There are lots of interesting armors, shields, and extras.  While some of it when combined with the right magics might be a bit much, I think the selection of different armors will aid anyone running or playing in a low magic game.  One great thing they do have is rules for using armor as DR.  They give the DR for each armor type and have the rules nicely explained making them simple to use.  They also present an optional rule for using a shield parry.      Armor Qualities like the weapons quality should be a heavily used section.  There are many new qualities presented here with them going all the way to a +10 market price.  Just to mention that one right off it is Great Reflection with automatically reflects any spell that targets the user.  There is the floating enchantment which basically allows the shield to function like a floating disk.  Reduction is another one that reduces the user to the next size category lower.  There also is Weightless that improves the spell failure, the armor check penalty, and also increases the maximum dexterity bonus.  There is one thing I did not like though.  They have various qualities that protect against the different energy types (fire, cold, sonic, etc).  Each has four different ones increases in the resistance given.  For all of them the first three provide just a gold piece amount to market price but the last ones give a +6 market price.  I would have like to see a consistency in the pricing of these either having them all with a base gold piece increase or +X market price.      There are of course a wide variety of specific items as well.  In here they also include items like the Amulet of Epic Natural Armor and Boots of Striding and Springing.  One of my favorites is the Beaded Armor of Odor.  It has small glass vials filled with a viscous and foul smelling substance.  When the person is hit there is a chance one of these breaks forcing all to make a fort save to not start retching.  It might not be the most practical piece of armor as it is a favored choice of undead, but it is defiantly different.  There is a the Mail of Faith which acts as better armor the higher level of divine spells one can cast.  There area collection of Masks.  They have them for a few races as well as like the hunter.  There is a small sidebar explaining the use of masks by gladiators in an arena combat.  I like the addition of these and the little explanation of a common use of them.  There are also a few artifacts listed like the Robe of Transcendent that stops ageing and actually gives back the youthful visage of the person.  The Robe provides a nice armor bonus, gives fast healing, and allows the wearing to see as if under a True Seeing spell.      There is a small area of the game in terms of arms and armor that I have really not seen taken full advantage of.  That is the area of special material.  Special materials in my mind are a great way to enhance items and to make them feel unique.  They offer difficult materials to get and work well in a low magic setting or one that wants a wide variety of options.  Arms and Armor provides two dozen special materials that can be used in the crafting of weapons and armor.  There are materials like Bergasalt that is deadly towards undead.  Chromium which is a simple material that just allows steel to resist rust.  There are also rules for increasing the durability of normal items and what increase to hardness and hit points it can provide.      While there have been artifacts listed in other sections, they have a full chapter devoted to Artifacts.  It starts with a great discussion of what artifacts are.  They can be items of great power created by the gods or just a magical item that can no longer being created.  There are few examples listed but there are a good amount of ideas.  The chapter goes on to discuss legendary weapons and then goes on to the great idea of the Scion classes.  These classes give few abilities but allow for a weapon of power to increase in power as the levels are taken.  These prestige classes are open to anyone as there is one for the four basic character types.  Obviously, not all characters will fit into one of the four.  They have the Battle Scion for the fighter types, Faith Scion for clerics and druids, Spell Scion for Wizards and Sorcerers, and Swift Scion for the rogue types.  Each class also has a sample artifact complete with the powers it gains as the character gains level in the class.  These area great way to introduce an artifact into the campaign and have it grow in power with the character and directing character growth through the artifact.  There is also good information concerning intelligent weapons and Outsider weapons.      There is a short chapter on cursed items as well as a nice list of simple curses items can have and a good amount of drawbacks.  This is the smallest section of the book as curses seem to be another area people really do not use.  I like that many of the ideas here are small and more of a nuisance then something overbearingly deadly.      The last Chapter deals with Martial Constructs.  There are a wide variety of Golems here like the Killer Amulet Servitors.  What I like about this is it actually attacks one opponent to kill even finishing it off with a coup-de-grace attack.  Few creatures are listed with that specific attack mode as a common tactic.  There are more then a few interesting and creative golems here.      As one can see there is a lot of information packed into this book.  I covered all of it but obviously could only pick out a few items to really point out.  I think this book has a lot to offer most people as it has a items that will enhance a high and low magic setting.  It can easily enhance most fantasy games with new and different weapons and armor that will confuse and confound the players.  Players will enjoy it for the wide variety of ideas that are in here and a catalog of magical items is always fun to look through and plan on somehow acquiring.  There are items in here that have the potential to be abused and to unbalance a campaign.  But it is for the DM and his players to really figure out what works for their game.  I noted some items that have that potential but I know of games that they would fit into perfectly as well as games that they would be problems for.  One of the strength of the d20 game is the variety of games that can be played using it and this book really does a nice of enhancing them all.</blockquote>

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