Bastion Press give us books with alien, weird and very bright artwork that looks pretty good. This one, as the title implies, is a big collection of weapons and armor, magical and not.
Out of the nearly a hundred new weapons, a few are more powerful than those
found in the PHB. Some are reduced versions of habitual weapons, such as the
small longsword (same stats as a shortsword but slashing instead of piercing)
and the small club. We find many double weapons, and many kung-fu weapons.
Some innocuous objects turn out to be weapons, such as the iron smoking pipe,
the flutegun, decorative chains on ladies' hands and sharp scholar's quills.
About a quarter of the weapons are illustrated.
The new special qualities are very interesting. A few examples include the
Balance and Neutral qualities. The first deals extra damage to lawful and
chaotic characters, the second to good and evil characters. The Ki Channel
quality lets a monk use his stun attack with the weapon as well as his Ki
strike bonus. There are more than seventy new qualities. Some specific new
weapons are described, such as the arrow of seeing (lets the owner see from
the tip of the arrow when it is shot). Class oriented weapons are given, such
as domain rods for clerics (one for each domain), School Staves for wizards
and sorcerers (one for each arcane school) and weapons for each of the core
classes. A weapon I thought was particularly creative is a sword shaped like
a tuning fork that stuns enemies with its vibrations. A section proposes a
system that lets intelligent weapons gain XPs and get supplementary powers
as they go up in levels. Unfortunately, the authors made the mistake of creating
a weapon with an enhancement bonus higher than +5 (all the way up to +9).
Many new types of armor are described in this book, such as the armored robe
of arcane spell casters (no chance of arcane failure), a lot of druid "ecologically
friendly" armor (plant fiber plate, oaken tree bark armor) and the double
plate mail. Instructions on how to use pieces of armor instead of the whole
thing are given, examples include using only the tonlet or spaulders. The
book provides a lot of new special qualities for armor. The phoenix quality
resurrects its wearer when she dies but bursts into flame, its power gone.
Living armor repairs itself. Magnetic armor or shields trap metallic weapons
that strike them. The golem armor serves its owner and can be worn.
The book also offers a few new creatures and some new materials from which to construct weapons and armor.
This book adds a lot of dimension to the important place in the game that
is taken by weapons and armor, specially magical ones.
Weaknesses: There are a few little mistakes, minor editorial glitches. I spotted one item's price that has been miscalculated, the Sash of the Master (10% increase in cost for two powers on the same limited space item). I admit it's the only one I checked.
