Q: Arms & Equipment Guide

[haiiro]

Arms & Equipment takes the stance that you don't really need more mundane weapons -- the standard D&D range covers most options, and anything else can be plugged in with a name change. To this end, it provides only a few new weapons, a smattering of equipment, and lots of magical weapons. There's also a good section on mounts.

I like it well enough, although I wish the art were better -- but I'm also a sucker for collections of magic items. As a weapons resource, it's not so hot.

 

[Olive]

Arms & Equipment takes the stance that you don't really need more mundane weapons -- the standard D&D range covers most options, and anything else can be plugged in with a name change.

I'd go further. It's not just hat you don't need them, it's that the DnD rules don't allow for enough range to design them.

 

[clark411]

My group seems to like it.. then again, my group is very much into building up secondary sources of income and potentially hiring mercenaries to pursue their own aims... so the Arms and Equipment guide is excellent as a companion piece to the Stronghold Builder's Guide.

Personally I like it so I can maintain some degree of veris...imil... imilitude (too lazy to dictionary.com). It's nice to be able to chart the resources of a King with taxes and stuff, figure out his home/s, and exactly how many guards is slightly more than realistic for him to support. If you've had players get kersnippity or heckling at the likelihood that a Duke can support an army of 25,000 on his 3000 sq mile estate- you'll find it handy.

 

[haiiro]

I'd go further. It's not just hat you don't need them, it's that the DnD rules don't allow for enough range to design them.

True enough. At the same time, I think that D&D makes the right choice in the tradeoff between allowing for more variation and having too many weapon stats/variant rules/combat clutter. I think it would be hard to keep combat as fast-paced as the rest of the rules if D&D weapons featured more design elements. For example, I don't miss weapon speed at all.

 

[dagger]

The hireling section is nice............

 

[Murrdox]

I like the A&EG for several reasons. The large list of specific magical weapons is very nice. It includes several good magical examples of every type of weapon in the PHB, even nets.

The expanded mounts and animal training areas are nice. We've used those rules several times.

It's nice having all the weapons from the splatbooks in one place. No more wondering whether or not a weapon is in Sword and Fist or Masters of the Wild or anything.

Expanded vehicles area is also nice. We've used the stats for them several times.

The hirling section is also useful if your party is ever going to be hiring help from anyone for any reason... it gives good guidlines of prices and skill levels of your hirelings.

Personally... I like it and think it was a good buy. I haven't seen the other books mentioned here by other posters though, so I can't say how it compares.