Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Equipment (OGL)

Picked this up at Gen Con, and while I haven't had a lot of time to read through it, So far everything has been amazing. I'm actually looking forward to the car ride home so I can read through it more (Don't worry, I'm not driving.)

I've heard a lot of bad things about this product, folks. A lot of bad things. I don't agree with any of them, but you'll have to read on to find out way!

Artwork
Alright, I am going to start off easy. The artwork is absolutely beautiful. The two-page spread that mark between chapters are absolutely wonderful; you know that epic scene from Blood of Angels' cover? Its in the book, and its short story is awesome. Always nice to see new characters that aren't iconics in the Core Rulebook Line (its not something that happens very often, but its happened a lot more between this book and the Advanced Race Guide; I'm sure it'll be happening even more in the NPC Codex).

And despite what you may think about a book filled with weapons and equipment, there is a LOT of art detailing the items themselves too. Lots of original art from older Core Rulebook items returns in this one and it is just as lovely as it was originally. Not every item has art, but you're always thankful for the items that do!

Artwork Score: 5/5

Layout
That's right, I'm going to tease you and look at the book's layout first. The book is divided into roughly 7 chapters, each with its own "theme" of items. There's a chapter on everything from weapons and armor to wondrous items to artifacts. This makes finding whatever you're looking for incredibly easy, and if you know the name of the item you want, there is a massive index in the back of the book that lists where everything is located. I don't know who at Paizo made that index, but it is super useful and they deserve some sort of special reward for it. It is awesome. Perhaps the coolest thing they did in terms of layout, however, was to refrain from using those "half-page of art" pages that Wizards of the Cost, the Core Rulebook, and the Advanced Players Guide uses. Instead, the art is shrunken to about an inch by inch square and attached to each individual item. In addition to this, Ultimate Equipment has a noticeably new style in terms of its lettering and font, to the point where chapters are quite literally color coded for your convenience. And trust me, this too is quite brilliant once you have been using the book enough where you subconsciously remember the colors. And if you're a GM, this will happen.

Layout Score: 5/5

Content
Alright, I'll stop beating around the bush. Time to talk about the content. Its absolutely amazing. There, I said it. EVERY item from the Core Rulebook line returns in Ultimate Equipment. That's right, all of it, even the Eastern Weapons and the Firearms. The book does an awesome job of making sure everyone gets something new, which is especially refreshing when you see all of the awesome magic items targeted at the gunslinger and magus, two classes that did not have the luxury of having magic items printed in the books they debuted in. From what I have seen, not much has made it from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, so if you see something you've never seen before, its probably brand-new. To be honest, that was my only complaint about the content; there are magic items in many of the older Adventure Paths that I would have loved to see make into Ultimate Equipment, and for the life of me I have no idea while the Agile weapon property wasn't included. Makes a man wish that James Jacobs had more of a thumb in on the Core Rulebook line, I guess. Despite those two very minor complaints, the content is pure gold. There are endless streams of tables to help a GM determine what to give his party as treasure. There are innovative magic items for every class, and some of them even manage to level the playing field for them a little bit (as a sorcerer player, I am thrilled for the page of spell knowledge).

Content Score: 5/5

Total Score: (5 x 3)/3 = 5/5

Anyone with any experience of this kind of roleplaying game will tell you that magic items are literally half of your character's power. This book is awesome. It gives many excellent items with cool powers. I can see many of these items in my campaign already, and I see no reason that anyone; player or GM alike, should be disappointed of having purchased this book.

— Alexander "Alex" Augunas

I am truly enjoying this book. One night with the pdf had me pretty confident that this hardcover would quickly become one of my most heavily utilized books. Having since received my hardcopy, that opinion hasn't changed. I can't help but pick it up and thumb through every time it catches my eye. Each time I open it, I come across some great new item that has me wondering how I'm going to work it into my current campaign.

The updated layout and organization are incredibly well done and easy to read. Something very important for a catalog-style book. It could have been very easy to get lost in all of the items. All of the great new art certainly helps as well!

From mundane to wondrous to legendary, this book is truly the Ultimate statement on your Pathfinder item needs. As far as I'm concerned, it is already indispensable!

This is another great product from Paizo but unlike many other books this one is equally useful to players and gms alike. It has many items both mundane and magical, it is well orginized, easy to find what you are looking for and read it, a lot of treasure tables, usefull info what kinds of treasure a creature can have based on type and CR. There many items in here both new and old but all useful. Yes the book has it's flaws but what thing created by mortal hands doesn't.

Ultimate Equipment sets as...well, an "ultimate" source for every type of Pathfinder item imaginable. But it doesn't seem to fully live up to the name.

Positive: New formatting
Mixed: Artwork, Treasure Tables
Bad: Lack of new items

On the positive side, the organization and new formatting is pretty slick. It's easy to skim, items stand out and the most important information is learned at a glance. The colored tabs on the side are also a nice addition to help you quickly orient yourself within a chapter. For instance, the Arms and Armor chapter breaks itself down into Armor, Weapons, and Special Materials. They aren't usable to open up to a particular section with the book closed (like a true tab or thumb index would be, the color does not cover the edge of the paper and the pages aren't aligned well) but if you are thumbing through they do help. I expect to see subsequent books make use of the some of the formatting here (especially the tabs).

Most things however are somewhat a mixed bag. The artwork is good; previous books have put a whole bunch of different items in one picture, and if something caught your eye you had to dig to find the relevant text. In Ultimate Equipment however, pictures always appear right inside the item block, so if something catches your eye you need look no further. However, because of the new format, the pictures are sometimes scaled down so they fit (I guess the block format has some bad sides as well). Additionally a good deal of the artwork is repeats from previous books. One final note on the artwork: where is the picture for weapon enhancements? Not all of them are best captured in a picture, but I'd love to see a brilliant energy or corrosive weapon.

Another example is the new treasure generation tables. Some of them I know will help me personally offer my players a more diverse treasure palette. But others are really just fixes for what should have been included in the Core Rulebook years ago--I'm looking at you potion and scroll spell tables!

On the bad side (and this is a pretty big bad side) there isn't a wide array of new magic items. Nothing in the book really popped out as new. It seems most of the new items are stuffed in the alchemy section, as well as a few new animals (which still aren't really new, most just have been priced).

Others have dinged Ultimate Equipment for lack of completeness and for containing errors. I haven't investigated these claims, but I agree that errors should definitely have been fixed.

In the end, I don't see many reasons for GMs to get this book, and even less so for players. The treasure tables are nice but some of them should have been included in the Core Rulebook to begin with. For players, I see even less reason to pick up a copy, unless they are really focused on alchemy.

Looking into the future towards Ultimate Equipment 2, I think Paizo should focus on bringing in some of the things others thought was missing from UE1, presenting more new artwork, but perhaps most importantly adding more original items of all flavors.