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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2534023" data-attributes="member: 232">Book of Unusual Treasures[imager]http://www.badaxegames.com/mm/images/products/book_of_unusual_treasures/photo_unusual_treasures.jpg[/imager]    Here’s something pretty amazing.  D20 has been out for years and people always claim that everything has been done to death and there are no new areas to cover.  Yet I have a book that’s been out for a few years and it seems to me to be the only book to cover the subjects inside.  There are areas that still haven’t been covered in d20 but the obvious ones have for the most part.  D20 is not as going as strong but with luck a few choice companies will start to cover some of the creative aspects that have been mostly ignored.  Of course I hear that creativity is rarely awarded and that is a true shame.  Creativity should be one of the biggest driving factors in gaming, a hobby that in theory bleeds creativity.      The Book of Unusual Treasure Is a collection of some PDFs Phil Reed has written.  Phil Reed is the awesome writer behind Ronin Arts the most prolific maker of d20 related PDFs.  The book is brought to print through Bad Axe Games the great guys behind such hits as Grim Tales and the Heroes of High Favor line of books.  The book is soft bound and not that long with only ninety pages.  The layout though is cool with nice art and good use of background images and tables.      The book is really five much smaller books in one.  It is also one of the few books whose title tells everything one needs to know about it.  The book is full of unusual treasures.  These are the neat little things that can really spark interest from the right player.  The book covers a wide range of objects starting with books then moving on to spell components and then on to weapons and armor to clothing and jewelry to a last section of miscellaneous treasures. Many of the items are non magical and have a interesting short history to them that can easy be used as a plot device or just a neat little trinket to add to the uniqueness of the campaign.      The books start out with some usually mundane books.  There are not a lot of them but the ones that are here are pretty cool.  Some are clever little things like the book of Unlimited Power and the Book of Drinks.  Then there are special books.  These are non magical but can be used to give a bonus when used.  There is an atlas that can give a bonus to knowledge geography checks.  Then there are the spell books.  These are spell books complete with what spells are in them, special features, and the appearance of them.  All in all the book section is one of the stronger sections of the book.      The next section has the possibility of some problems with balance.  It covers arcane spell components.  Some of the components can have pretty powerful effects.  The Naga’s Jaw for instant can increase the damage of a spell by 2d6 per spell level with a successful spellcraft check.  Not all of them are that bad some are really cool like using the eclipse which increases the casting time of the spell by many rounds but increases the caster level and doubles some of the spells effects.  So it will up to the DM to make sure the right components are used in their games.    The armor and weapons section is an interest array of non magical items.  There are some really cool and well described items here and it should frustrate the players nicely that these well described items are not magical.  They are useful or worth quite a bit as some of them are more decorative then anything.  There are dueling blade, elven war hammers, shurkens, lances, and many different types of items in here.    Clothing and jewelry is a lot like the weapons and armor section.  Great descriptions really are the highlight her e to include as gifts or treasures, or just something cool for the rogue to steal.  There are items like an elegant silver gown or a leather jerkin.  Bits like the Black Scepter and the Crown of Medusa.  The details and creativity of the product are really good and will serve a DM well.  All in all this is a very useful product that just has a lot of little things that can add a nice level of detail into a campaign.  The items make a great addition to a low level or low magic campaign but even in something more epic in magical ability The items in here will find a lot of uses in the hands of the creative players and DMs out there.</blockquote>

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