Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Equipment (OGL)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Equipment (OGL)
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Choose your weapon and stride boldly into battle with Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Equipment! Within this handy, all-in-one reference, you'll find 400 jam-packed pages of magic items and adventuring gear, from simple camping equipment and weapons up to the most earth-shaking artifacts. Included as well are handy rules references, convenient price lists, and extensive random treasure generation tables, all organized to help you find what you need, when you need it. With this vast catalog of tools and treasures, the days of boring dragon hoards are over, and your hero will never be caught unprepared again.

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Equipment is a must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds on more than 10 years of system development and open playtests featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.

Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Equipment includes:

  • Thousands of items both magical and mundane, including the best weapons, armors, magic items, and gear from the Pathfinder RPG hardcover line and select other Pathfinder sources, as well as hundreds of never-before-seen items.
  • Tons of special materials and magical abilities to help you create exactly the magic item you've been looking for.
  • A wealth of specific magic items, organized by type to ensure your character is always wearing as much magic as possible.
  • An innovative new treasure generation system, designed to help GMs roll up exactly what they need, every time.
  • New alchemical weapons, tools, and poisons.
  • Kits to help your character get the most out of her skills or profession, plus new mounts, animal companions, and retainers.
  • Descriptions of every item, plus hundreds of full-color illustrations to aid in window-shopping.
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-449-8

Errata
Last Updated - 5/19/2016

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
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If It's Not Here, You Probably Don't Need It

5/5

Ultimate Equipment is a whopping, 400-page collection of stuff to kit out your Pathfinder character. With stats and prices included for everything, the book is a shopper’s dream. It compiles, occasionally revises, and significantly expands the gear options from previous Pathfinder hardcovers as well as various other Paizo products. The book doesn’t have *everything*, of course—new books continued to be published after it, containing new items—but it does have a wealth of gear for the vast majority of characters and builds. The lists of items and their descriptions is broken up with a lot of illustrations, and the book is in full-colour. Structurally, the book is sectioned into an introduction, six chapters, and three appendices (plus an index, crucial for a book like this).

The book’s introduction is just two pages long. It starts by going over where the items in the book are drawn from, noting that there are also several new ones (it’s great to see several contributions from the RPG Superstar contests). Each chapter then gets a paragraph or two of description, but the structure of the book is pretty self-explanatory.

Chapter 1 is Arms & Armor, surely the most visited part of the book. The 46 pages of material here cover all of the well-known weapons and armor in the game, but also includes a *lot* of fairly obscure ones. There are good descriptions of the equipment and helpful, clearly-written refresher on rules elements related to them (so you don’t have to switch to the Core Rulebook to remember what Armor Check Penalty affects, for example). There’s an extensive overview of the firearms rules, an organisation of the fighter weapon groups, a section on special materials (including some really interesting ones!), and a section for gear made of primitive material like bone or stone.

Chapter 2 is Gear and comes in at 56 pages. Everything from general adventuring gear (like rope) to mounts to clothing to lodging and services are covered here. Alchemical items receive several pages of coverage (a lot of the alchemical remedies are as good as spellcasting, and much cheaper), and there’s a couple of pages on poisons (with a good, clear explanation of how they work). I’ve always found particular value from the section on services—the book has costs for things like hiring a lawyer, a doctor, or a scribe. A lot of players (i.e., those not as interested in equipment) will appreciate the expanded list of class kits to get things done quickly.

Chapter 3 is Magic Arms and Armor and is 38 pages long. This chapter has weapon and armor special abilities as well as specific named weapons and armor. Some of the named weapons are really cool because they can do some things you just can’t do with the generic list of special abilities. Other items I noticed were things like folding plate (a brooch that instantly covers or removes a suit of full plate mail—like Iron Man in the movies!) and burrowing bullets (staggers living creatures as it burrows through their body).

Chapter 4 is Rings, Rods, and Staves (28 pages). I find most of the items in this chapter too expensive with effects easily duplicated more cheaply elsewhere. Most staffs, for example, just aren’t worth it apart from the few with one-of-a-kind abilities. On the other hand, the metamagic rods are surprisingly cheap for the instant versatility they give spellcasters, and probably should have been priced higher.

Chapter 5 is Wondrous Items and is the longest in the book at 122 pages! The chapter is broken down into body slots, so it’s easy to find something to fill an empty slot on your inventory sheet. There’s a ton of fun things that one hardly ever sees because folks are too busy with optimising every +1 they can out of the game. Neat things I noticed include the belt of the weasel, the shirt of immolation, the cloak of fiery vanishing, the bracelet of friends (in case you *do* split the party), and abjurant salt (could be a real life-saver!).

Chapter 6 is the shortest chapter (26 pages) and covers Artifacts and Other Items. The “Other” category referred to consists of cursed and intelligent items. I’m not a fan of intelligent items--they require the GM to role-play an omnipresent NPC and their ability to cast spells makes the action economy of the game too unbalanced. On the other hand, I am the evil type of GM who likes cursed items, and wishes we saw more of them--classics like the berserker sword and innovations like the dust of sneezing and choking really twist things around! Artifacts aren’t something I’ve ever had much opportunity to use.

The three appendices contain *extensive* random tables to generate various types of treasure, gems, and art objects. If you want a random level 1 potion or level 4 wand, this is the place to come.

Everything in Ultimate Equipment is setting-neutral, so you don’t have to worry about adventure spoilers (unlike those naughty players who just start googling stuff!). The items are also better vetted, and I wish more tables just limited available options to this book. If you can’t find what you want here, you probably don’t really need it!


By far my favorite PF book

5/5

I didnt realize how much I would be using this book when I picked it up. It is by far one of the most valuable PF books available. Get it to add all the right contexts to your partys equipment.


2/5

I'm rather disappointed with Ultimate Equipment overall. It reminds me an awful lot of the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, with insanely cheap items and an overabundance of swift actions.

I find UE nearly useless for treasure generation since "common" Core items end up being so rare, and 80% of what else it generates are broken (too powerful), over-exotically flavored, or too niche. The Treasure Tables themselves, while useful for certain situations, seem turn every NPC into a Christmas Tree of items, half of which I would have to look up to even know what they do.

There aren't quite so many over-powered/dirt-cheap items as the MIC, although the exceptions are pretty exceptional (e.g. the PFS-banned Quick Runner's Shirt and Bracers of the Falcon). At least it fixed the APG staff prices though, and yes, the layout is useful, though I find it encourages metagamy "fill every slot" mentality


excellent book

5/5

This is a great book for finding equipment when cashing out your loot in the game.


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Dark Archive

The Far Wanderer wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:

It repeats the core rulebook stuff, but a lot of it has been rearranged by magic item "slot." We agonized over this, but eventually sided with making this book a more useful reference by including pretty much everything.

I'm glad you did; in fact, I wouldn't mind if you had repeated most of the stuff (mundane and magical) from AA and APG as well. Sometimes it's a serious pain to equip mid/high level PCs and NPCs with three books open on the table...

I totally appreciate the convenience factor of bringing together already-seen material from other Paizo products. But speaking as someone who already has all the other Paizo products I can't understate how much I hope that 'tons and tons of new items' translates into at least 25% of the book.

Hey, I own those books as well; however, statting NPCs takes a lot of time, which is why (IMO) it'd be fantastically convenient to get *all* the items in one book (now it takes another hour or two to pour through the lists in CR, APG and AA). And, as The Bag (TM) said, there'd still be a lot of room for new items, especially considering how little space item descriptions take in PF RPG.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
uriel222 wrote:

But WHY? I mean, I get that the Alchemist has bombs, and elixirs and such, but one of the things I like about them is their mastery of the Craft: Alchemy skill. With the right preparation, they can effectively be Batman. Why does alchemy have to top out at about fifth level when magic items push them rudely out of the way?

Where's the love for the Greater Tanglefoot bag that effects whole rooms?

Because we have an upper limit as to what an alchemical item can do.

Alchemical items are created by Craft (alchemy), and as folks are so fond of pointing out, the Craft skill breaks down HARD once items start costing a lot.

A "greater tanglefoot bag" that affects whole rooms would indeed be akin to a web spell or a black tentacles spell, which means such an item would start costing several hundred or even thousands of gp, and at that point, the rules we have work MUCH BETTER if you're using an Item Creation feat to build those items rather than just a craft skill.

Grand Lodge

Brunius wrote:
Can't wait! Any idea how much of this will be legal for society play?

Once I have the book in hand, I can make a better decision about what will and won't be included.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Gorbacz wrote:
The Far Wanderer wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:

It repeats the core rulebook stuff, but a lot of it has been rearranged by magic item "slot." We agonized over this, but eventually sided with making this book a more useful reference by including pretty much everything.

I'm glad you did; in fact, I wouldn't mind if you had repeated most of the stuff (mundane and magical) from AA and APG as well. Sometimes it's a serious pain to equip mid/high level PCs and NPCs with three books open on the table...

I totally appreciate the convenience factor of bringing together already-seen material from other Paizo products. But speaking as someone who already has all the other Paizo products I can't understate how much I hope that 'tons and tons of new items' translates into at least 25% of the book.

Core+APG magic items = 130 pages, so even with all the Golarion-sey items I think we're looking at least 200 pages of new content or so.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I ended up writing around 30,000 words of new items. So there's that... :)

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Jason Nelson wrote:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I ended up writing around 30,000 words of new items. So there's that... :)

About half that for me :) There's a pile of new stuff.


Russ Taylor wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I ended up writing around 30,000 words of new items. So there's that... :)
About half that for me :) There's a pile of new stuff.

Now you guys are just bragging. :-P


Nah. They didn't say they were good words. :p

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

I'm sure a lot of them were "and" or "the," or maybe "bandersnatch." Hard to remember now... :)


Frumious?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Is there any other kind?

If there were, I'd shun them too.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Question:

Will Throwing Shield get the loving few words it needs to not confuse the heck out of folks?

Throwing Shield: This shield is designed for throwing and has specially designed straps allowing you to unclasp and throw it as a free action. Tower shields cannot be throwing shields. Neither a shield's enhancement bonus to AC nor its shield spikes apply on your attack or damage rolls.

There are people running around that think you can quickdraw and toss these frisbee's of doom infinitely (not me of course).

A strategic "as a part of your ranged attack" would do wonders for this equipment based problem.


10 people marked this as a favorite.

august is a sexy month for a book like this WOOT WOOT!!!

do yourselves and us a favor by standardizing terminologys in the book. have a formula for creating discriptions so they will not be misinterpreted or misused. if you guys would impliment a series of key words it would cut down on the need for errata.

The Exchange

Question 1: Will existing problematic items be updated with latest/new errata (i.e. scorpion whip, brass knuckles, etc.) or any updates at all?

Question 2: Will the random magic item generation tables be updated to include more than just the Core Rulebook items?

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
truesidekick wrote:
if you guys would implement a series of key words it would cut down on the need for errata.

I wanted to hit the Favorite link several more times specifically due to this particular quote but alas, could not.

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Jason Nelson wrote:

Is there any other kind?

If there were, I'd shun them too.

Of course. Frumious bandersnatches are one of the variants :)


Has anything been done in this book to streamline treasure generation and placement for GMs?

I know you said "no new mechanics" but I find it hard to believe you could create a better organization without some benefit to those mechanics...

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
truesidekick wrote:
have a formula for creating discriptions so they will not be misinterpreted or misused.

Your optimism is cute. Even if every core rulebook came with a mini-me sized Jason B. to explain the rules, people would still misinterpret or misuse the rules. Or perhaps that should be ESPECIALLY if...


Wouldn't a mini-me Jason still be about 5 feet tall?


James Jacobs wrote:
Sketchpad wrote:
Any chance this could be formatted like a Golarion Catalog of some kind? ;)

None whatsoever.

It's part of the rulebook line, and is thus world-neutral.

Ah well, it was worth asking :) I hope that we get a Golarion catalog akin to Auroras Whole Realms Catalog one of these days :)


Does anyone have a rough estimate of how many pages of items there are in the CRB, APG, and AA? Is Ultimate Combat's equipment going to be included?

Since this books is to be setting neutral, I'm guessing that none of the items from APs and modules are included; or will they just have the fluff stripped?

I haven't been able to afford a hardcopy of recent releases due to college and rent soaking up all my money, but this is one book that I will absolutely have to have at the table. Equipment is a big deal.


I love the cover! I hope that this will be better organized than the Magic Item Compendium though I did like how different sets of items did different things. Will that be possible here as well?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

There may be a few. Or there may not. You never know.

Spoiler:
Lest you think I'm just being a tease, *I* never know what makes it past the editor's knife!


d20pfsrd.com wrote:
truesidekick wrote:
if you guys would implement a series of key words it would cut down on the need for errata.
I wanted to hit the Favorite link several more times specifically due to this particular quote but alas, could not.

Quite. A rigid terminology system like the one used in Magic The Gathering would lend itself very well to Pathfinder.

People are always going to have questions about the rules, its true, but making things clearer is always good.

Kthulhu wrote:
Even if every core rulebook came with a mini-me sized Jason B. to explain the rules, people would still misinterpret or misuse the rules. Or perhaps that should be ESPECIALLY if...

Put me down for the JB & SKR two-pack.


I hope that some of the great items from the RPG Superstar competitions show up - suitably edited of course.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Dolarre wrote:
I hope that some of the great items from the RPG Superstar competitions show up - suitably edited of course.
December 5 Paizo Blog wrote:
As a special treat, we plan to include selected wondrous items from this year’s Top 32 in 2012’s Ultimate Equipment Pathfinder RPG hardcover, which will also include selected favorites from previous years.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
d20pfsrd.com wrote:

Question 1: Will existing problematic items be updated with latest/new errata (i.e. scorpion whip, brass knuckles, etc.) or any updates at all?

Question 2: Will the random magic item generation tables be updated to include more than just the Core Rulebook items?

Lantern Lodge

Will there any additional rules for Artifacts?

New artifacts?

Creation rules?


WhiteTiger wrote:


Will there any additional rules for Artifacts?

New artifacts?

Creation rules?

I'm pretty sure it's been said they're looking to add almost no new rules.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
WhiteTiger wrote:


Will there any additional rules for Artifacts?

New artifacts?

Creation rules?

No artifacts at all. Artifacts are, in my opinion, lessened by not having a specific game world setting to build off of; they're like deities in that regard. Further, one of our philosophies in "Ultimate Equipment" is "It's about stuff you can buy."

Artifacts, not having price tags, are not things you can buy.

Nor, as it turns out, are they they things we'll ignore for much longer... stay tuned!


James Jacobs wrote:
Nor, as it turns out, are they they things we'll ignore for much longer... stay tuned!

Oh I cant wait


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Artifacts of the Inner Sea? :D


This equipment book looks awesome. I like the cover, and I can't wait to get my hands on this book. Great Job Paizo I have been waiting for this book and Paizo Lords have answered!


I've been excited for this book since hearing about it last Gen Con. Will give me more toys for my Sorcerer to create!

Although I am a bit disappointed there isn't going to be a small section on mechanics for item creation rules, especially for magic items. It really needs a clean up and clarification on several points.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Perhaps this has been mentioned elsewhere, but one thing i would love to see is list on what equipment PCs and NPCS will need by class and level. I would love to see something similar to what you see from pages 215-219 in the 3.5 Player's handbook 2.

Liberty's Edge

Two question:

1) There will be some tinkering with the crafting rules? Especially for poisons they will benefit from some update.

2) Magic item crafting and the spell list of some class.
The classes with less than 9 level of spells receive several spells earlier than the wizard or cleric, the Summoner in particular receive several key spells 1 or more level earlier (haste at 2nd level, Dimension Door, Black tentacles and Greater invisibility, Stoneskin at 3rd, the mass [stat enhancing] spells at 4th and so on).
While that can be balanced for the class as it has a slower spell progression, it will allow the production of magic items that were not reckoned in the original draft of the magic items rules.
For example a potion of Dimension door or Greater invisibility, a wand of haste priced as a second level spell, a wand of Mass bull strength and so on.
There will be new rules to balance this out?


Diego Rossi wrote:

Two question:

1) There will be some tinkering with the crafting rules? Especially for poisons they will benefit from some update.

2) Magic item crafting and the spell list of some class.
The classes with less than 9 level of spells receive several spells earlier than the wizard or cleric, the Summoner in particular receive several key spells 1 or more level earlier (haste at 2nd level, Dimension Door, Black tentacles and Greater invisibility, Stoneskin at 3rd, the mass [stat enhancing] spells at 4th and so on).
While that can be balanced for the class as it has a slower spell progression, it will allow the production of magic items that were not reckoned in the original draft of the magic items rules.
For example a potion of Dimension door or Greater invisibility, a wand of haste priced as a second level spell, a wand of Mass bull strength and so on.
There will be new rules to balance this out?

Sorry Diego, but they have already posted two or three times that there will be no new or updated rules in this book, only items.

Liberty's Edge

Erik Mona wrote:

Not a lot (and maybe "no") new rules. It's more or less entirely item descriptions.

So there is still a small hope. The book is not jet finalized AFAIK.

Oops, re-checked SKR blog. No hope.

SKR blog wrote:


Edit: Just to clarify, this book is basically a "shopping catalogue" of items fantasy adventurers may want to own and have a reasonable chance of purchasing. It isn't introducing any new rule systems or subsystems (such as legacy weapons), rework character wealth by level or the problems with the "big six" magic items, or introduce new magic item slots, new classes or archetypes, clarifications or expansions of the crafting or magic item pricing rules, castles and furniture, shift existing items to different slots, include magical equivalents of technological items (cell phones, portable stoves), items that duplicate or invalidate class abilities or feats, or futuristic weapons. We are adding new magic items to every single magic item slot. In particular, we'd like to know if there are any mundane items, weapons, or armor that fill a niche which isn't already covered in the game.


I just wonder if this kind of book is a little premature. Shouldn't Paizo wait for at least a few more of the inevitable Ultimate books or other core products? When those are released we only save about 3 or 4 books of space on our table when perusing through all the products. This seems a more end of the line type of release, unless they decide to include all equipment from the official products: campaign, core, handbooks, companion, chronicles, and the like.


jonnylobster wrote:
I just wonder if this kind of book is a little premature. Shouldn't Paizo wait for at least a few more of the inevitable Ultimate books or other core products? When those are released we only save about 3 or 4 books of space on our table when perusing through all the products. This seems a more end of the line type of release, unless they decide to include all equipment from the official products: campaign, core, handbooks, companion, chronicles, and the like.
the book's blurb wrote:


Ultimate Equipment sorts all magical and mundane equipment released in the hardcover Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line to date with tons and tons of new items to create the most comprehensive treasure resource ever created for the Pathfinder RPG!

I think that meets the "unless they decide to include all equipment from the official products: campaign, core, handbooks, companion, chronicles, and the like" criteria.


Wasn't the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, Rule Compendium, and Spell Compendium within the last of the published WOC books? TOB and TOM, i think, might have been the only ones released later. Just saying, why not an Epic(Mythic?) or some other book first? Then give us the compilations.


The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:
jonnylobster wrote:
I just wonder if this kind of book is a little premature. Shouldn't Paizo wait for at least a few more of the inevitable Ultimate books or other core products? When those are released we only save about 3 or 4 books of space on our table when perusing through all the products. This seems a more end of the line type of release, unless they decide to include all equipment from the official products: campaign, core, handbooks, companion, chronicles, and the like.
the book's blurb wrote:


Ultimate Equipment sorts all magical and mundane equipment released in the hardcover Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line to date with tons and tons of new items to create the most comprehensive treasure resource ever created for the Pathfinder RPG!
I think that meets the "unless they decide to include all equipment from the official products: campaign, core, handbooks, companion, chronicles, and the like" criteria.

Well, it does only say the hardcover books, which is probably only the ones in the main line, or setting-neutral, and not include anything from the Inner Sea World Guide. From that quote it will also not include anything from any of the softcover Golarion-specific books, unless it is something has has already been reprinted in one of the hardcovers.

As for when something like this should be published, I say the sooner the better. I love equipment books and item catalogs. :)


^^^^stupid me, I quoted the bit but misssed the "hardcover" reference. SMDH.


well I wont be buying this, but i guess some of my friends will

already feed up with

GM: 'there is this monster with a cool ability'
Player: so what I have this 5sp to 20gp item that totally counters that

dull.


thenovalord wrote:

well I wont be buying this, but i guess some of my friends will

already feed up with

GM: 'there is this monster with a cool ability'
Player: so what I have this 5sp to 20gp item that totally counters that

dull.

Um ... what?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Will items have a reference to what book they originally appeared in?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

thenovalord wrote:

well I wont be buying this, but i guess some of my friends will

already feed up with

GM: 'there is this monster with a cool ability'
Player: so what I have this 5sp to 20gp item that totally counters that

dull.

I'll second the question of:

Um, what?


Jason Nelson wrote:
thenovalord wrote:

well I wont be buying this, but i guess some of my friends will

already feed up with

GM: 'there is this monster with a cool ability'
Player: so what I have this 5sp to 20gp item that totally counters that

dull.

I'll second the question of:

Um, what?

GM: 'there is this monster with a cool ability'

so damage reduction, swarm, grapple, plant trait, construct etc

Player: so what I have this butterfly net, silly suit, alchemical this, alchemical that; etc so there is no threat anymore that cant be countered pretty cheaply

Can you imagine just what enormous christmas trees PCS are gonna be like with a 400 page book of stuff??

hope that is clearer

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Actually, having written a large chunk of the book and seen most of the concepts and items written by others working on the same sections, I can imagine what PCs are gonna be like with the stuff in this 400-page book.

Based on that information, I imagine that your assumption is inaccurate.

Would you be able to provide any specific examples of an actual "cheap" item that, as you say, counters or negates an ability. I don't mean a general statement like the one above. I mean cite an actual item and describe how it actually counters or negates a monster ability. The only specific item I see is the butterfly net from the APG:

Butterfly Net: One end of this 6-foot-long pole supports a wide metal hoop covered by a thin mesh net. You can use this to sift objects out from material capable of passing through the net such as sand or water. You can also use a butterfly net to capture Fine or Diminutive creatures as if it were a net (weapon), though you don't need to re-fold the butterfly net if you miss, and you use the handle of the butterfly net like you would the rope of a net weapon.

Since you provided the example, can you describe how this item negates or counters swarms?

Acting as a net simply allows you to apply the entangled condition to your target, and to limit its movement to within the reach of the rope (or the pole, in the case of the butterfly net). It does not prevent the swarm from acting or attacking within that range. Since it's treated as a net weapon, that means it requires Exotic Weapon Proficiency (net) to avoid taking a -4 penalty to attack rolls; yes, it's a touch attack, but due to their small size and generally good DEX, swarms have pretty decent touch AC. With the attack roll penalty if you're not net-proficient, it's hardly an auto-hit. If you hit, some undefined portion of the swarm is entangled. That's it. No damage. No paralysis. No negation of its ability to attack or resist damage. Just the entangled condition: -2 attack rolls (irrelevant), -4 Dex, half speed, can't run or charge (mostly irrelevant), movement restricted to within the reach of the net.

BTW, the butterfly net says you can catch Fine or Diminutive creatures, like a mouse or a bat or a frog or, well, a butterfly! It doesn't say you can catch a swarm of the same kind of creatures that is larger than the net itself.

A swarm fills a 10-foot cube, with 1500 (crawling Diminutive) to 10,000 (flying Fine) creatures. If you want to argue RAW, it's a bigger stretch to interpret the item description as saying that a butterfly net allows you to entangle an entire swarm (when it doesn't say that you can) than to say that it doesn't (when it doesn't say that you can't) and that it is meant to be able to catch one or a few Diminutive/Fine creatures at a time.

As an aside, a swarm damages all creatures within its space, but while the specific rules text states creatures it's not entirely unreasonable given the behavior of swarms in the real world (locusts and harvester ants and the like) to stipulate that swarms can also damage objects if they like, at least wood/cloth/plant/animal-product objects. This is bending the RAW a bit, but if you did you could include the net itself as a target. Nets have 5 hp, meaning the swarm will chew its way out in a round, maybe two for a low-HD swarm. This is a bit of a corner case and completely unofficial; I'm just throwing it in for fun.


OK

I dont buy shedlaods of equipment as i said (hence part of the post)

Others do (so while GMing PFS etc I have had players use the adventurers armourey and stuff from any number of other books)

off the top of my head, because as i say i dont buy into the 'many spells can be duplicated by an item'

isnt there a suit that does stuff to swarms?
isnt there a suit that does stuff to grapple?
tanglefoot
thunderstone
bottles of an 'element'
you can get an oil etc that counters nearly all damage reduction
stupidty of the blunt arrow et al
ear plugs

actually. This Page:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services

next time i see my gamer chums who love equipment ill get them to write me a list....or just look at there character sheets!!!

and to turn it all on its head, shouldnt you be persuading me too buy, rather than me explaining why i wont buy!!!! ;-)


and a net occupies a 10 ft square as well!!!

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