Mundane / Non-Magical equipment


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I'm looking for good resources for a low magic world where the armors and weapons (specifically) are unique enough, and offer different bonuses, to be used as treasure / rewards. I've seen some third party products (but can't find them currently) and there is some pretty cool items in Ultimate Equipment.

Can anyone think of and products specifically targeting this type of equipment / treasure?


Check the 3rd party Ultimate equipment guides 1 and 2 and "More". Its what i norm use. I dled the pdfs about 4 years ago from a friendly DM.


Thanks for the tip. Any other recommendations?

Dark Archive

The problem you are going to quickly run into is that Pathfinder already supports an extremely robust and powerful system to reward players with treasure that is carefully gauged for their level... they are called magical items. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm just pointing out that the base system already exists so you're going to have a hard time finding something that reinvents the wheel. You could always try to re-skin magical items so they are more mundane in nature, this is the solution that Pure Steam took. The more fundamental issue is that Pathfinder doesn't really support low magic well; your best bet for minimal headache is to use a system that is designed around low magic like Iron Heroes.


I liked you idea of reskinning magical items and in fact have done some similar things already, but i distinctly remember there were some 3rd party books out there with the same idea...damned if i can remember them however. As for the challenges associated with retooling PF to low magic, I'm pretty intimately familiar with it as I've been working on this on and off for over a year. Unfortunately I don't care for Iron Heros as it feels like an all or nothing approach to magic, which still is not what I was after. My campaign is "low magic" not "devoid of magic".


1 person marked this as a favorite.

A lot of stuff is ultimately flavor in the end. XD For example, straight number bonuses on armor could be called "better quality", like the difference between clothes at a neighborhood store and combat gear designed for special ops teams. Various other effects could be called properties of the material, or of special treatments. ("It's resistant to acid because there's this stuff they soak the fibers in... but the fibers can only hold so much, and that's why you can't soak it in everything...")

A little imagination goes a long ways. XD Outright magical effects could be limited to the things that can ONLY be done via magic.


Ultimately I've decided to go this way with the campaign but have blurred the line between what is magical vs simply high quality. In this way I can leverage the excellent work which has been done with the existing RAW magic items without them "feeling" like magic and just feeling like really high quality gear. Still working out the details, but it is coming along nicely.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Mundane / Non-Magical equipment All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion